Invisible Man (67 page)

If only I could turn around and drop my arms and say, “Look, men, give me a break, we’re all black folks together … Nobody cares.” Though now I knew
we
cared, they at last cared enough to act—so I thought. If only I could say, “Look, they’ve played a trick on us, the same old trick with new variations—let’s stop running and respect and love one another …” If only—I thought, running into another crowd now and thinking I’d gotten away, only to catch a punch on my jaw as one closed in shouting, and feeling the leg chain bounce as I caught his head and spurted forward, turning out of the avenue only to be struck by a spray of water that seemed to descend from above. It was a main that had burst, throwing a fierce curtain of spray into the night. I was going for Mary’s but I was moving downtown through the dripping street rather than up, and, as I started through, a mounted policeman charged through the spray, the horse black and dripping, charging through and looming huge and unreal, neighing and clopping across the pavement upon me now as I slipped to my knees and saw the huge pulsing bulk floating down upon and over me, the sound of hooves and screams and a rush of water coming through distantly as though I sat remote in a padded room, then over, almost past, the hair of the tail a fiery lash across my eyes. I stumbled about in circles, blindly swinging the brief case, the image of a fiery comet’s tail burning my smarting lids; turning and swinging blindly with brief case and leg chain and hearing the gallop begin as I floundered helplessly; and now moving straight into the full, naked force of the water, feeling its power like a blow, wet and thudding and cold, then through it and able partly to see just as another horse dashed up and through, a hunter taking a barrier, the rider slanting backward, the horse rising, then hit and swallowed by the rising spray. I stumbled down the street, the comet tail in my eyes, seeing a little better now and looking back to see the water spraying like a mad geyser in the moonlight. To Mary, I thought, to Mary.

T
HERE
were rows of iron fences backed by low hedges before the houses and I stumbled behind one and lay panting to rest from the crushing force of the water. But hardly had I settled down, the dry, dog-day smell of the hedge in my nose, when they stopped before the house, leaning upon the fence. They were passing a bottle around and their voices sounded spent of strong emotion.

“This is some night,” one of them said. “Ain’t this some night?”

“It’s ’bout like the rest.”

“Why you say that?”

“ ’Cause it’s fulla fucking and fighting and drinking and lying—gimme that bottle.”

“Yeah, but tonight I seen some things I never seen before.”

“You think
you
seen something? Hell, you ought to been over on Lenox about two hours ago. You know that stud Ras the Destroyer? Well, man,
he
was spitting blood.”

“That crazy guy?”

“Hell, yes, man, he had him a big black hoss and a fur cap and some kind of old lion skin or something over his shoulders and he was raising hell. Goddam if he wasn’t a
sight
, riding up and down on this ole hoss, you know, one of the kind that pulls vegetable wagons, and he got him a cowboy saddle and some big spurs.”

“Aw naw, man!”

“Hell, yes! Riding up and down the block yelling, ‘Destroy ’em! Drive ’em out! Burn ’em out! I, Ras, commands you.’ You get that, man,” he said. “ ‘I,
Ras
, commands you—to destroy them to the last piece of rotten fish!’ And ’bout that time some joker with a big ole Georgia voice sticks his head out the window and yells, ‘Ride ’em, cowboy. Give ’em hell and bananas.’ And man, that crazy sonofabitch up there on that hoss looking like death eating a sandwich, he reaches down and comes up with a forty-five and starts blazing up at that window— And man, talk about cutting out! In a second wasn’t nobody left but ole Ras up there on that hoss with that lion skin stretched straight out behind him. Crazy, man. Everybody else trying to git some loot and him and his boys out for blood!”

I lay like a man rescued from drowning, listening, still not sure I was alive.

“I was over there,” another voice said. “You see him when the mounted police got after his ass?”

“Hell, naw … Here, take a li’l taste.”

“Well
that’s
when you shoulda seen him. When he seen them cops riding up he reached back of his saddle and come up with some kind of old shield.”

“A
shield?”

“Hell, yes! One with a spike in the middle of it. And that ain’t all; when he sees the cops he calls to one of his goddam henchmens to hand him up a spear, and a little short guy run out into the street and give him one. You know, one of the kind you see them African guys carrying in the moving pictures …”

“Where the hell was you, man?”

“Me? I’m over on the side where some stud done broke in a store and is selling cold beer out the window— Done gone into business, man,” the voice laughed. “I was drinking me some Budweiser and digging the doings—when here comes the cops up the street, riding like cowboys, man; and when ole Ras-the-what’s-his-name sees ’em he lets out a roar like a lion and rears way back and starts shooting spurs into that hoss’s ass fast as nickels falling in the subway at going-home time—and gaawd-dam! that’s when you ought to seen him! Say, gimme a taste there, fella.

“Thanks. Here he comes bookety-bookety with that spear stuck out in front of him and that shield on his arm, charging, man. And he’s yelling something in African or West Indian or something and he’s got his head down low like he knew about that shit too, man; riding like Earle Sande in the fifth at Jamaica. That ole black hoss let out a whinny and got
his
head down—I don’t know
where
he got
that
sonofabitch—but, gentlemens, I swear! When he felt that steel in his high behind he came on like Man o’ War going to get his ashes hauled! Before the cops knowed what hit ’em Ras is right in the middle of ’em and one cop grabbed for that spear, and ole Ras swung ’round and bust him across the head and the cop goes down and his hoss rears up, and ole Ras rears his and tries to spear him another cop, and the other hosses is plunging around and ole Ras tries to spear him still another cop, only he’s too close and the hoss is pooting and snorting and pissing and shitting, and they swings around and the cop is swinging his pistol and every time he swings ole Ras throws up his shield with one arm and chops at him with the spear with the other, and man, you could hear that gun striking that ole shield like somebody dropping tire irons out a twelve-story window. And you know what, when ole Ras saw he was too close to spear him a cop he wheeled that hoss around and rode off a bit and did him a quick round-about-face and charged ’em again—out for blood, man! Only this time the cops got tired of that bullshit and one of ’em started shooting. And
that
was the lick! Ole Ras didn’t have time to git his gun so he let fly with that spear and you could hear him grunt and say something ’bout that cop’s kin-folks and then him and that hoss shot up the street leaping like Heigho, the goddam Silver!”

“Man, where’d
you
come from?”

“It’s the truth, man, here’s my right hand.”

They were laughing outside the hedge and leaving and I lay in a cramp, wanting to laugh and yet knowing that Ras was not funny, or not only funny, but dangerous as well, wrong but justified, crazy and yet coldly sane … Why did they make it seem funny,
only
funny? I thought. And yet knowing that it was. It was funny and dangerous and sad. Jack had seen it, or had stumbled upon it and used it to prepare a sacrifice. And I had been used as a tool. My grandfather had been wrong about yessing them to death and destruction or else things had changed too much since his day.

There was only one way to destroy them. I got up from behind the hedge in the waning moon, wet and shaken in the hot air and started out looking for Jack, still turned around in my direction. I moved into the street, listening to the distant sounds of the riot and seeing in my mind the image of two eyes in the bottom of a shattered glass.

I kept to the darker side of streets and to the silent areas, thinking that if he wished really to hide his strategy he’d appear in the district, with a sound truck perhaps, playing the friendly adviser with Wrestrum and Tobitt beside him.

They were in civilian clothes, and I thought, Cops—until I saw the baseball bat and started to turn, hearing, “Hey, you!”

I hesitated.

“What’s in that brief case?” they said, and if they’d asked me anything else I might have stood still. But at the question a wave of shame and outrage shook me and I ran, still heading for Jack. But I was in strange territory now and someone, for some reason, had removed the manhole cover and I felt myself plunge down, down; a long drop that ended upon a load of coal that sent up a cloud of dust, and I lay in the black dark upon the black coal no longer running, hiding or concerned, hearing the shifting of the coal, as from somewhere above their voices came floating down.

“You see the way he went down, zoom! I was just fixing to slug the bastard.”

“You hit him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Say, Joe, you think the bastard’s dead?”

“Maybe. He sure is in the dark though. You can’t even see his eyes.”

“Nigger in the coal pile, eh, Joe?”

Someone hollered down the hole, “Hey, black boy. Come on out. We want to see what’s in that brief case.”

“Come down and get me,” I said.

“What’s in that brief case?”

“You,” I said, suddenly laughing. “What do you think of that?”

“
Me?
”

“All of you,” I said.

“You’re crazy,” he said.

“But I still have you in this brief case!”

“What’d you steal?”

“Can’t you see?” I said. “Light a match.”

“What the hell’s he talking about, Joe?”

“Strike a match, the boogy’s nuts.”

High above I saw the small flame sputter into light. They stood heads down, as in prayer, unable to see me back in the coal.

“Come on down,” I said. “Ha! Ha! I’ve had you in my brief case all the time and you didn’t know me then and can’t see me now.”

“You sonofabitch!” one of them called, outraged. Then the match went out and I heard something fall softly upon the coal nearby. They were talking above.

“You goddam black nigger sonofabitch,” someone called, “see how you like this,” and I heard the cover settle over the manhole with a dull clang. Fine bits of dirt showered down as they stamped upon the lid and for a moment I sent coal sliding in wild surprise, looking up, up through black space to where for a second the dim light of a match sank through a circle of holes in the steel. Then I thought, This is the way it’s always been, only now I know it—and rested back, calm now, placing the brief case beneath my head. I could open it in the morning, push off the lid. Now I was tired, too tired; my mind retreating, the image of the two glass eyes running together like blobs of melting lead. Here it was as though the riot was gone and I felt the tug of sleep, seemed to move out upon black water.

It’s a kind of death without hanging, I thought, a death alive. In the morning I’ll remove the lid … Mary, I should have gone to Mary’s. I would go now to Mary’s in the only way that I could … I moved off over the black water, floating, sighing … sleeping invisibly.

B
UT
I was never to reach Mary’s, and I was over-optimistic about removing the steel cap in the morning. Great invisible waves of time flowed over me, but that morning never came. There was no morning nor light of any kind to awaken me and I slept on and on until finally I was aroused by hunger. Then I was up in the dark and blundering around, feeling rough walls and the coal giving way beneath each step like treacherous sand. I tried to reach above me but found only space, unbroken and impenetrable. Then I tried to find the usual ladder that leads out of such holes, but there was none. I had to have a light, and now on hands and knees, holding tight to my brief case, I searched the coal until I found the folder of matches the men had dropped—how long ago had that been?—but there were only three and to save them I started searching for paper to make a torch, feeling about slowly over the coal pile. I needed just one piece of paper to light my way out of the hole, but there was nothing. Next I searched my pockets, finding not even a bill, or an advertising folder, or a Brotherhood leaflet. Why had I destroyed Rinehart’s throwaway? Well, there was only one thing to do if I was to make a torch. I’d have to open my brief case. In it were the only papers I had.

I started with my high-school diploma, applying one precious match with a feeling of remote irony, even smiling as I saw the swift but feeble light push back the gloom. I was in a deep basement, full of shapeless objects that extended farther than I could see, and I realized that to light my way out I would have to burn every paper in the brief case. I moved slowly off, toward the darker blackness, lighting my way by these feeble torches. The next to go was Clifton’s doll, but it burned so stubbornly that I reached inside the case for something else. Then by the light of the smoke-sputtering doll I opened a folded page. It was the anonymous letter, which burned so quickly that as it flamed I hurriedly unfolded another: It was that slip upon which Jack had written my Brotherhood name. I could still smell Emma’s perfume even in the dampness of the cellar. And now seeing the handwriting of the two in the consuming flames I burned my hand and slipped to my knees, staring. The handwriting was the same. I knelt there, stunned, watching the flames consume them. That he, or anyone at that late date, could have named me and set me running with one and the same stroke of the pen was too much. Suddenly I began to scream, getting up in the darkness and plunging wildly about, bumping against walls, scattering coal, and in my anger extinguishing my feeble light.

But still whirling on in the blackness, knocking against the rough walls of a narrow passage, banging my head and cursing, I stumbled down and plunged against some kind of partition and sailed headlong, coughing and sneezing, into another dimensionless room, where I continued to roll about the floor in my outrage. How long this kept up, I do not know. It might have been days, weeks; I lost all sense of time. And everytime I paused to rest, the outrage revived and I went off again. Then, finally, when I could barely move, something seemed to say, ‘That’s enough, don’t kill yourself. You’ve run enough, you’re through with them at last,” and I collapsed, face forward and lay there beyond the point of exhaustion, too tired to close my eyes. It was a state neither of dreaming nor of waking, but somewhere in between, in which I was caught like Trueblood’s jaybird that yellow jackets had paralyzed in every part but his eyes.