Invisible Man (22 page)

“Good morning,” she said, betraying none of the antagonism I had expected.

“Good morning,” I said, advancing. How should I begin?

“Yes?”

“Is this Mr. Bates’ office?” I said.

“Why, yes, it is,” she said. “Have you an appointment?”

“No, ma’am,” I said, and quickly hated myself for saying “ma’am” to so young a white woman, and in the North too. I removed the letter from my brief case, but before I could explain, she said,

“May I see it, please?”

I hesitated. I did not wish to surrender the letter except to Mr. Bates, but there was a command in the extended hand, and I obeyed. I surrendered it, expecting her to open it, but instead, after looking at the envelope she rose and disappeared behind a paneled door without a word.

Back across the expanse of carpet to the door which I had entered I noticed several chairs but was undecided to go there. I stood, my hat in my hand, looking around me. One wall caught my eyes. It was hung with three portraits of dignified old gentlemen in winged collars who looked down from their frames with an assurance and arrogance that I had never seen in any except white men and a few bad, razor-scarred Negroes. Not even Dr. Bledsoe, who had but to look around him without speaking to set the teachers to trembling, had such assurance. So these were the kind of men who stood behind him. How did they fit in with the southern white folks, with the men who gave me my scholarship? I was still staring, caught in the spell of power and mystery, when the secretary returned.

She looked at me oddly and smiled. “I’m very sorry,” she said, “but Mr. Bates is just too busy to see you this morning and asks that you leave your name and address. You’ll hear from him by mail.”

I stood silent with disappointment. “Write it here,” she said, giving me a card.

“I’m sorry,” she said again as I scribbled my address and prepared to leave.

“I can be reached here at any time,” I said.

“Very good,” she said. “You should hear very soon.”

She seemed very kind and interested, and I left in good spirits. My fears were groundless, there was nothing to it. This was New York.

I succeeded in reaching several trustees’ secretaries during the days that followed, and all were friendly and encouraging. Some looked at me strangely, but I dismissed it since it didn’t appear to be antagonism. Perhaps they’re surprised to see someone like me with introductions to such important men, I thought. Well, there were unseen lines that ran from North to South, and Mr. Norton had called me his destiny … I swung my brief case with confidence.

With things going so well I distributed my letters in the mornings, and saw the city during the afternoons. Walking about the streets, sitting on subways beside whites, eating with them in the same cafeterias (although I avoided their tables) gave me the eerie, out-of-focus sensation of a dream. My clothes felt ill-fitting; and for all my letters to men of power, I was unsure of how I should act. For the first time, as I swung along the streets, I thought consciously of how I had conducted myself at home. I hadn’t worried too much about whites as people. Some were friendly and some were not, and you tried not to offend either. But here they all seemed impersonal; and yet when most impersonal they startled me by being polite, by begging my pardon after brushing against me in a crowd. Still I felt that even when they were polite they hardly saw me, that they would have begged the pardon of Jack the Bear, never glancing his way if the bear happened to be walking along minding his business. It was confusing. I did not know if it was desirable or undesirable …

But my main concern was seeing the trustees and after more than a week of seeing the city and being vaguely encouraged by secretaries, I became impatient. I had distributed all but the letter to a Mr. Emerson, who I knew from the papers was away from the city. Several times I started down to see what had happened but changed my mind. I did not wish to seem too impatient. But time was becoming short. Unless I found work soon I would never earn enough to enter school by fall. I had already written home that I was working for a member of the trustee board, and the only letter I had received so far was one telling me how wonderful they thought it was and warning me against the ways of the
wicked
city. Now I couldn’t write them for money without revealing that I had been lying about the job.

Finally I tried to reach the important men by telephone, only to receive polite refusals by their secretaries. But fortunately I still had the letter to Mr. Emerson. I decided to use it, but instead of handing it over to a secretary, I wrote a letter explaining that I had a message from Dr. Bledsoe and requesting an appointment. Maybe I’ve been wrong about the secretaries, I thought; maybe they destroyed the letters. I should have been more careful.

I thought of Mr. Norton. If only the last letter had been addressed to him. If only he lived in New York so that I could make a personal appeal! Somehow I felt closer to Mr. Norton, and felt that if he should see me, he would remember that it was I whom he connected so closely to his fate. Now it seemed ages ago and in a different season and a distant land. Actually, it was less than a month. I became energetic and wrote him a letter, expressing my belief that my future would be immeasurably different if only I could work for him; that he would be benefited as well as I. I was especially careful to allow some indication of my ability to come through the appeal. I spent several hours on the typing, destroying copy after copy until I had completed one that was immaculate, carefully phrased and most respectful. I hurried down and posted it before the final mail collection, suddenly seized with the dizzy conviction that it would bring results. I remained about the building for three days awaiting an answer. But the letter brought no reply. Nor, any more than a prayer unanswered by God, was it returned.

My doubts grew. Perhaps all was not well. I remained in my room all the next day. I grew conscious that I was afraid; more afraid here in my room than I had ever been in the South. And all the more, because here there was nothing concrete to lay it to. All the secretaries had been encouraging. In the evening I went out to a movie, a picture of frontier life with heroic Indian fighting and struggles against flood, storm and forest fire, with the out-numbered settlers winning each engagement; an epic of wagon trains rolling ever westward. I forgot myself (although there was no one like me taking part in the adventures) and left the dark room in a lighter mood. But that night I dreamed of my grandfather and awoke depressed. I walked out of the building with a queer feeling that I was playing a part in some scheme which I did not understand. Somehow I felt that Bledsoe and Norton were behind it, and all day I was inhibited in both speech and conduct, for fear that I might say or do something scandalous. But this was all fantastic, I told myself. I was being too impatient. I could wait for the trustees to make a move. Perhaps I was being subjected to a test of some kind. They hadn’t told me the rules, I knew, but the feeling persisted. Perhaps my exile would end suddenly and I would be given a scholarship to return to the campus. But when? How long?

Something had to happen soon. I would have to find a job to tide me over. My money was almost gone and anything might happen. I had been so confident that I had failed to put aside the price of train fare home. I was miserable and I dared not talk to anyone about my problems; not even the officials at Men’s House, for since they had learned that I was to be assigned to an important job, they treated me with a certain deference; therefore I was careful to hide my growing doubts. After all, I thought, I might have to ask for credit and I’ll have to appear a good risk. No, the thing to do was to keep faith. I’d start out once more in the morning. Something was certain to happen tomorrow. And it did. I received a letter from Mr. Emerson.

I
t was a clear, bright

day when I went out, and the sun burned warm upon my eyes. Only a few flecks of snowy cloud hung high in the morning-blue sky, and already a woman was hanging wash on a roof. I felt better walking along. A feeling of confidence grew. Far down the island the skyscrapers rose tall and mysterious in the thin, pastel haze. A milk truck went past. I thought of the school. What were they doing now on the campus? Had the moon sunk low and the sun climbed clear? Had the breakfast bugle blown? Did the bellow of the big seed bull awaken the girls in the dorms this morning as on most spring mornings when I was there—sounding clear and full above bells and bugles and early workaday sounds? I hurried along, encouraged by the memories, and suddenly I was seized with a certainty that today was the day. Something would happen. I patted my brief case, thinking of the letter inside. The last had been first—a good sign.

Close to the curb ahead I saw a man pushing a cart piled high with rolls of blue paper and heard him singing in a clear ringing voice. It was a blues, and I walked along behind him remembering the times that I had heard such singing at home. It seemed that here some memories slipped around my life at the campus and went far back to things I had long ago shut out of my mind. There was no escaping such reminders.

And as I drew alongside I was startled to hear him call to me:

“Looka-year, buddy …”

“Yes,” I said, pausing to look into his reddish eyes.

“Tell me just one thing this very fine morning—Hey! Wait a minute, daddy-o, I’m going your way!”

“What is it?” I said.

“What I want to know is,” he said, “is you got the
dog?
”

“Dog? What dog?”

“Sho,” he said, stopping his cart and resting it on its support. “That’s it.
Who—
” he halted to crouch with one foot on the curb like a country preacher about to pound his Bible—“
got … the … dog
,” his head snapping with each word like an angry rooster’s.

I laughed nervously and stepped back. He watched me out of shrewd eyes. “Oh goddog, daddy-o,” he said with a sudden bluster, “who got the damn dog? Now I know you from down home, how come you trying to act like you never heard that before! Hell, ain’t nobody out here this morning but us colored— Why you trying to deny me?”

Suddenly I was embarrassed and angry. “Deny you? What do you mean?”

“Just answer the question. Is you got him, or ain’t you?”

“A dog?
”

“Yeah,
the
dog.”

I was exasperated. “No, not this morning,” I said and saw a grin spread over his face.

“Wait a minute, daddy. Now don’t go get mad. Damn, man! I thought sho
you
had him,” he said, pretending to disbelieve me. I started away and he pushed the cart beside me. And suddenly I felt uncomfortable. Somehow he was like one of the vets from the Golden Day …

“Well, maybe it’s the other way round,” he said. “Maybe he got holt to you.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“If he is, you lucky it’s just a dog—’cause, man, I tell you I believe it’s a bear that’s got holt to me …”

“A bear?”

“Hell, yes!
The
bear. Caint you see these patches where he’s been clawing at my behind?”

Pulling the seat of his Charlie Chaplin pants to the side, he broke into deep laughter.

“Man, this Harlem ain’t nothing but a bear’s den. But I tell you one thing,” he said with swiftly sobering face, “it’s the best place in the world for you and me, and if times don’t get better soon I’m going to grab that bear and turn him every way but loose!”

“Don’t let him get you down,” I said.

“No, daddy-o, I’m going to start with one my own size!”

I tried to think of some saying about bears to reply, but remembered only Jack the Rabbit, Jack the Bear … who were both long forgotten and now brought a wave of homesickness. I wanted to leave him, and yet I found a certain comfort in walking along beside him, as though we’d walked this way before through other mornings, in other places …

“What is all that you have there?” I said, pointing to the rolls of blue paper stacked in the cart.

“Blueprints, man. Here I got ’bout a hundred pounds of blueprints and I couldn’t build nothing!”

“What are they blueprints for?” I said.

“Damn if I know—everything. Cities, towns, country clubs. Some just buildings and houses. I got damn near enough to build me a house if I could live in a paper house like they do in Japan. I guess somebody done changed their plans,” he added with a laugh. “I asked the man why they getting rid of all this stuff and he said they get in the way so every once in a while they have to throw ’em out to make place for the new plans. Plenty of these ain’t never been used, you know.”

“You have quite a lot,” I said.

“Yeah, this ain’t all neither. I got a coupla loads. There’s a day’s work right here in this stuff. Folks is always making plans and changing ’em.”

“Yes, that’s right,” I said, thinking of my letters, “but that’s a mistake. You have to stick to the plan.”

He looked at me, suddenly grave. “You kinda young, daddy-o,” he said.

I did not answer. We came to a corner at the top of a hill.

“Well, daddy-o, it’s been good talking with a youngster from the old country but I got to leave you now. This here’s one of them good ole downhill streets. I can coast a while and won’t be worn out at the end of the day. Damn if I’m-a let ’em run
me
into my grave. I be seeing you again sometime—And you know something?”

“What’s that?”

“I thought you was trying to deny me at first, but now I be pretty glad to see you …”

“I hope so,” I said. “And you take it easy.”

“Oh, I’ll do that. All it takes to get along in this here man’s town is a little shit, grit and mother-wit. And man, I was bawn with all three. In fact, I’maseventhsonofaseventhsonbawnwith­acauloverbotheyesandraisedonblackcatbones­highjohntheconquerorandgreasygreens—” he spieled with twinkling eyes, his lips working rapidly. “You dig me, daddy?”