This was the second week in a row that the meeting was cut short. Ron Zeal and Mustafa Ali complained audibly while others simply looked confused.
“We not just a bunch’a black people on wood crates in the alley, William,” Socrates said. “We got a responsibility in here.”
“What kinda responsibility?”
“To see open and clear, to make a mark in the world that don’t have to be a black mark.”
Psalms frowned at his mentor but he did not argue. He just hunched his shoulders and said, “Okay, Brothah. You lead and I’ll follah. At least as long as I can.”
“I ain’t no leader,” Socrates complained.
“Oh is that so? Now you sound like a real convict.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I ain’t nevah been in prison,” Billy said, showing his dark smile, “but everybody I evah met in jail, on the way to trial, always said that they was innocent. It’s like the man whose wife come home an’ find him in bed with another woman, humpin’ away.”
“What he say?” Socrates asked.
“He look his bride right in the eye an’ say, ‘Baby, the lights was out an’ I thought it was you.’ ”
Socrates’ laugh started out mild but before Billy went out of the door his chuckling had turned into a roar.
“What you thinkin’ ’bout, Baby?” she asked, snagging one of his restless fingers.
“My people.”
“Black people?”
“Them . . . and the others too.”
“What others?”
“Luna?”
“Uh-huh?”
“Do you love me, Baby?”
“It hurt me how much I love you, Daddy,” she said. “I mean I feel it so deep that it’s way down in the ground under my feet. Like a, like a earthquake.”
“But I’m right here,” he said.
She tugged at his fingers until his hand was over her breast.
“That’s where you is,” she said.
“But what if you got mad at me again?”
“That ain’t nuthin’ an’ I done told you, I will never be deaf to you again.”
“But what if I said somethin’ to you that you didn’t like?” “Like what?”
“I don’t know . . . like you smelled bad or sumpin’.” “Do I smell bad?” she asked.
“No.”
“But if I did would you tell me?”
“I guess.”
“If you did then I’d feel bad for a minute and then I’d get in the bathtub an’ have you wash me where it smell.”
She sat up and kissed his lips.
“You wanna make sure our baby got a nice broad nose, Mr. Fortlow?”
He reached out and turned off the lamp.
“What you do that for?” she asked.
“So if my wife come in I could tell her it was dark.”
Almost every black member of the Thursday night Thinkers had come. Billy and Ron and Cassie Wheaton and Darryl, Black Robert and Leanne Northford and Mustafa Ali, the political activist Kelly Beardsley, and a dozen others. Black men and black women filled out the ranks of the Big Table that Friday night.
Socrates realized, looking out on the congregation, how many had come. They were there for him and here he didn’t even have one word planned.
Billy couldn’t cook because of the food line but he passed out sandwiches and placed bottles of wine along the middle of the table.
There were no First Words that evening; this wasn’t the regular Thinkers’ Meeting. Socrates just stood up at the given time and started speaking. It was as if he were continuing with a conversation that the group had been having for many long days and sleepless nights.
“Are we all agreed that we are black men and women sitting at this table?” Socrates asked.
“’Course we all black, Socco,” James Tippton, the social worker from the Bay Area said. “You said you only wanted black people.”
“That’s what I said, Jimmy, but that don’t mean we, all of us here, is black. Maybe some people passin’. Maybe there’s spies here among us.”
“I know you’re talking about me, Socrates,” Weldon Marshal said. He was sitting three-quarters of the way down the left side of the table. A very light skinned man, he had the sour, uncomfortable look of someone who was expecting an insult.
“No, Weedy,” Socrates replied, using Marshal’s nickname. “I ain’t speakin’ to no one person. I just wanna talk about bein’ black.”
“Why?” Mustafa asked. “We all black. We all know it. Why I wanna sit around and talk ’bout sumpin’ I’ve known since the day I was born?”
“So you think we all black men and women in this room?”
“Yeah.”
“Does everybody else here agree?” Socrates asked, his eyes moving from one person to the next.
“Not everybody got black skin can call himself a brother,” Ron Zeal said.
“What’s the difference between a brother and a black man?” Socrates asked.
“Him,” Ron Zeal said, gesturing his head toward Black Robert.
“Bob? What about him?”
“He’s a faggot,” Zeal said on a sneer. “And a punk ain’t no man. He might be a black woman if he want.”
An odd wave of unspoken response went through the room. Some turned away from looking at either Ron or Bob, some seemed as if they wanted to nod in agreement. Darryl turned to Socrates and Socrates glanced at Bob.
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Black Robert, whose real name was Carter Jones, said, “but as long as we’re talking here I don’t think that Mr. Zeal qualifies as being black.”
“You better watch yourself, punk,” Ron threatened.
“Don’t worry, Bob,” Socrates said. “Ronnie ain’t gonna do nuthin’. Tell us why you don’t think he’s a black man.”
“Because he preys on black men,” Robert said, fear reverberating from his chest. “He’s a gangbanger that made his living off of drugs and violence. He’s on trial right now for the deaths of those poor boys. He’s been in prison. A lion is not a lamb and if black women and men are victims of men like Zeal then how can he be one of us?”
“So am I a black man?” Socrates asked.
Robert looked at the head of the table but he didn’t speak.
“That’s right, faggot,” Ron said, his upper lip and right nostril flaring.
“Oh come on now, Ron,” Socrates said in an avuncular manner. “You an’ me been in the joint. We know what men be doin’ up in there. Either you somebody’s punk or they yours.”
“Why the hell we here, Socco?” Ron said in retaliation. “Why we here?”
“The first time you sat in that very seat,” Socrates answered, “you told me that you was mad that there was other than just black people here. Now you mad that they all black?”
“You just tryin’ to make us mad,” Ron said. “You playin’.”
“No, Brother Ron, I ain’t playin’ wit’ you. Not even a little bit. But I do have somethin’ to say. Last night Leanne ovah there started talkin’ ’bout colored people and how we should think and how we should be actin’. But you know there’s all kindsa colored people. There’s Wan Tai and Antonio Peron and even Chaim Zetel—”
“Chaim’s a white man,” Mustafa Ali said.
“I grant ya he look like one,” Socrates said. “But when they killed his people in Germany they killed ’em because they wasn’t white like all the rest.”
“What do we care what the Germans did?” Cassie Wheaton asked then.
“I’m just sayin’, Cassie,” Socrates said in a slow measured voice. “There’s all kindsa races and colors. Everybody in that room was a colored person so what Leanne was about to talk about was somethin’ that we don’t even understand . . . but we think we do.”
“So you even gonna call that white girl, Minna Pope, colored?” Luna asked in a rare show of interest in this world of the Table.
“She Irish,” Socrates answered.
“Irish is white as you could get,” Luna replied.
Billy Psalms was smiling then, his teeth showing.
“What you grinnin’ at gambler?” Leanne Northford said.
“Socco reminded me of sumpin’,” Psalms said.
“What’s that?”
“I used to go down to the races with a guy named Shorty, he was six foot five,” Billy said in such a way that brought smiles to many of the hardening faces of the group. “Shorty was a Swedish dude loved to bet the longshot. He liked boxing too. He told me one time that any race that boxed was not white.”
“That’s just some shit there,” Mustafa said. “One time all the boxers was white boys.”
“The Jews,” Billy said, nodding in agreement. “The Irish and Italians. They look white to us but they wasn’t treated like whites by everybody else. The real whites would spit on those Irish boys and the Jews.”
“But they white to us,” William George, a butcher for a Southern California supermarket chain, said.
“Georgie got it there,” Socrates said then. “Here we was about to start talkin’ ’bout colored people an’ we don’t even know what that mean. The only thing I figure we could talk about is bein’ black but you know it don’t seem to me that we even agree on what that is.”
“No we don’t,” a voice replied in an emotional wavering tone.
It was Samson Fell, a carpenter who worked for Antonio Peron on his various charitable works. Samson was five nine and well proportioned. His skin was black like charcoal and his features pronounced. His lips were thick and red where they met and his nose was like a shield across the middle of his face. His hair was nappy and his head had a sidewise oval shape to it.
Samson was staring at Socrates. There was anger, maybe even violence in that look.
“Yes, Brother Fell?” the ex-con asked in a serious tone, “are we missin’ somethin’?”
“I’m the only black man in
this
room,” Fell said. “The rest’a you is just mulattoes and half-breeds ashamed’a where you come from.”
“The fuck you say.” That was Ron Zeal.
“I ain’t no man’s mulatto,” Weldon Marshal said loudly. He stood up.
“Sit down, Weedy,” Socrates commanded. “This is just a talk, that’s all. Samson has a right to speak.”
“But he cain’t insult us like that,” Reena Thorn, a young woman from Compton, said.
“What color are you, girl?” Samson asked.
“I’m a woman,” she replied.
“What color woman?”
All eyes turned to Reena. She was a plain young woman, somewhere in her thirties. Her skin was nut brown, neither deep or light. Her eyes were large and her thick hair straightened.
“Brown I guess,” she said. “But that don’t make you more black then me.”
“But I am blacker. People all up these streets call me the darkskinned one. Any room I’m in they say that. If I straightened my hair like you, woman, I’d look like a fool. But you do it ’cause there’s a lotta white in you and your hair can be any which way. I’m only one way. I don’t have good hair, they call me liver lips and real niggah an’ most women, so-called black women, don’t even give me a second look.”
Reena averted her gaze then.
Samson stood up.
“You know what I am, Socrates?”
“No, brother. What?”
“I’m the bad dream that all the othah niggahs tryin’ to wake up from. I’m Africa. I’m slavery. I’m what they think is stupid and ugly and just plain wrong. I am the conscience of guilty men and women. They see me and they remember where they come from. They remember but they wanna forget.”
“I don’t feel like that, like you say,” Cassie Wheaton said.
“That’s not what this is about, Ms. Wheaton,” Billy Psalms said. “It’s what Samson Fell feel an’ he the only one among us live in that skin. Maybe he’s too sensitive but how many times you hear women talkin’ ’bout good hair and niggah lips? How many times do we say dark-skinned? And you got to admit this brothah heah look like Africa, deep Africa, a long time ago Africa that come ovah on the slave ships in chains.”
Billy’s little speech sat Samson back in his chair. The people in that room looked around at each other, wondering about the gambler’s words.
“And so I ask you again,” Socrates said. “Are we agreed that we are all black people here in this room?”
“That’s not the right question,” Deacon Saunders said, speaking softly but still making himself heard.
Saunders’ given name was Deacon but he was also a real deacon at Third Baptist of the Burning Bush on Avalon. Twice Saunders had questioned the structure of the Thursday night meetings. He thought that someone other than Socrates should lead the meetings and the direction of the Big Nickel in general.
“I mean no disrespect,” he’d said to the assembled Thinkers, “but Mr. Fortlow here has come from our lowest place in society. In order for us to rise up we must be led by the best educated and high-minded.”
The only thing that kept Deacon from being shouted down was Socrates, the only thing that kept Saunders from being excluded from the Table was Socrates backed up by Billy Psalms.
The good deacon tried once more to restructure the leadership but no one else could imagine the Nickel without its leader. They didn’t care about Socrates’ past or his crimes, his gruff ways or the fact that he was a target of the police.
Socrates himself appreciated Saunders and his attempts at a coup. Every time the deacon spoke up the people of the table expressed their acceptance and love of the ex-convict. Because of this Socrates had developed a fondness for his self-ordained opponent.
And so when Saunders spoke up Socrates smiled. He knew that this challenge would be against not only what Socrates was saying but who he was. This, he believed, was important for the spiritual health of the Big Nickel.
“What’s that you say, Brother Saunders?” Socrates asked. “I said, Brother Fortlow,” the deacon replied, “that you are asking the wrong question. Of course there are differences among African-Americans. Some are dark or light, gay or straight, some are even Republicans but that does not mean that we don’t recognize an African-American when we see one.
“It’s a good point you bring up about Hispanics and Jews and maybe even the Irish and Italians, but the Negro people are one people even if we have many differing kinds and colors.”
Saunders was in his fifties and had a degree from UCLA. His skin was a bright, highly polished and then oiled, brown. But for all of his qualifications it was clear that this particular congregation was not impressed by his fine words or grammar.
“I don’t know, Deacon,” Socrates responded. “I ain’t never been to Africa and because of my criminal past I doubt if the government will grant me a passport but I will say this—I don’t believe that our people back in Africa ever called themselves one race. I think they had families, tribes, and nations that defined them as men and women.
“And I’ll go you one further—if you get down to the nub in any man or woman in this room they don’t think about themselves as black people.”
“What?” the deacon said, looking around at the faces in the room as if this was the proof of Socrates’ inability to lead them.
“What do you see when you look in the mirror, Mr. Saunders?”
For a moment the deacon was without words, the question obviously seeming to him like it had come from nowhere.
“What I mean to say,” Socrates continued, “is do you see a black man in the reflection or is the first thing you think, ‘that’s me in the glass’? There ain’t no black men and women, no African-Americans in this room, there’s just people with names and ages and features. Samson might think he’s dark or Weedy might think he’s light but somebody else might see their mother’s features in theirs or maybe they look in their own eyes and remember somethin’ that they done thought or heard. Irish and Jewish people and the minister of your own church think the same thing.
“You use the word Hispanic but my friend Vasquez down at the corner store says that he’s a Mexican. He don’t want you to think he’s from Salvador or the Dominican Republic.
“Samson over there thinks that it’s other black people keep him out of the world. Weedy and Bob and even Ronnie there think the same thing from time to time. A lotta times you hear black women talk like the only problem they got is black men and you know there’s not a black man anywhere don’t think that about our women.
“We spend way too much time thinkin’ ’bout hair and color and what we look like to who. But you know and I know that the black man, the man they want us to be, is just a cage dreamed up by the white man. He the one made up the countries of Africa. He the one brought us here and called us ugly. He the one taught us in school that there was no history for us. He the one put us in chains and then threw us out in the street callin’ it freedom.”
“But, Socco,” Billy Psalms interjected. “If you say that even the Jews and the Irish and the Italians ain’t white people then who the ones did all this?”
“What I said was that it was a dream, Billy,” Socrates answered. “They dreamed up a cage for you an’ me an’ Vasquez on the corner and in doin’ that they dreamed up a cell for them too. We all locked up away from each other and from ourselves talkin’ ’bout I’m this an’ he’s that. But when we look in the mirror the cell come open. The lock break and all that bullshit go right out the door.”
“But,” William George said, his voice tentative, even a little frightened, “are you sayin’ that there’s no such a thing as a white man or a black man?”
“What I’m sayin’ is that if someone ax me who I am I tell ’em Socrates Fortlow from Indiana. I don’t say a black man from Indiana. George Bush don’t say that he’s a white man from Texas.”
“So you sayin’ the reason we here is ’cause of a dream somebody had?” Luna asked.
“Then why are we here together at the Big Nickel?” a woman named Harriet Williams asked.
“That’s the right question right there,” Socrates said. “And let me tell you people I don’t nearly have no answer. I know that deep down I’m just one man for good or for evil. I know that somebody dreamed up a prison for me and as long as I believe in his dream, and my nightmare, I ain’t nevah gonna be free. I might feel safe. I might feel like I know my four walls. But I will nevah be free until I wake up.”
“So you sayin’ that bein’ black or believin’ you black is like some kinda security blanket?” William George asked.
“Absolutely,” Socrates replied. “Bein’ black is what explains everything to us—why we get love or don’t, why we made it through a bad time or why we don’t make enough money, why our chirren is sick or our friends get killed. Good or bad we got a explanation. But you know it was all made up in a dream they havin’ right now. An’ it’s not just us, baby. It’s Jews and Arabs, Christians and Buddhists, gays and straights, tall men and short ones. Some of ’em get together and some run away. Black people, it seems like to me, do both. We love ourselves and hate each other, we fight to the death for the number one spot in the white man’s dream and then we congratulate the winner.”
“But, Socco,” Mustafa Ali said. “If there ain’t no black people really and they ain’t no white people then how come you still usin’ them words?”
“Because them words is still usin’ me, Brother Ali. They usin’ me like a mothahfuckah.”