Black Boy

  “Please, won’t you come and see my mama? She won’t talk. We can’t wake her up. She’s terribly sick,” I told her.

  She followed me into our flat.

  “Mrs. Wright!” she called to my mother.

  My mother lay still, unseeing, silent. The woman felt my mother’s hands.

  “She ain’t dead,” she said. “But she’s sick, all right. I better get some more of the neighbors.”

  Five or six of the women came and my brother and I waited in the hallway while they undressed my mother and put her to bed. When we were allowed back in the room, a woman said:

  “Looks like a stroke to me.”

  “Just like paralysis,” said another.

  “And she’s so young,” someone else said.

  My brother and I stood against a wall while the bustling women worked frantically over my mother. A stroke? Paralysis? What were those things? Would she die? One of the women asked me if there was any money in the house; I did not know. They searched through the dresser and found a dollar or two and sent for a doctor. The doctor arrived. Yes, he told us, my mother had suffered a stroke of paralysis. She was in a serious condition. She needed someone with her day and night; she needed medicine. Where was her husband? I told him the story and he shook his head.

  “She’ll need all the help that she can get,” the doctor said. “Her entire left side is paralyzed. She cannot talk and she will have to be fed.”

  Later that day I rummaged through drawers and found Granny’s address; I wrote to her, pleading with her to come and help us. The neighbors nursed my mother day and night, fed us and washed our clothes. I went through the days with a stunned consciousness, unable to believe what had happened. Suppose Granny did not come? I tried not to think of it. She had to come. The utter loneliness was now terrifying. I had been suddenly thrown emotionally upon my own. Within an hour the half-friendly world that I had known had turned cold and hostile. I was too frightened to weep. I was glad that my mother was not dead, but there was the fact that she would be sick for a long, long time, perhaps for the balance of her life. I became morose. Though I was a child, I could no longer feel as a child, could no longer react as a child. The desire for play was gone and I brooded, wondering if Granny would come and help us. I tried not to think of a tomorrow that was neither real nor wanted, for all tomorrows held questions that I could not answer.

  When the neighbors offered me food, I refused, already ashamed that so often in my life I had to be fed by strangers. And after I had been prevailed upon to eat I would eat as little as possible, feeling that some of the shame of charity would be taken away. It pained me to think that other children were wondering if I were hungry, and whenever they asked me if I wanted food, I would say no, even though I was starving. I was tense during the days I waited for Granny, and when she came I gave up, letting her handle things, answering questions automatically, obeying, knowing that somehow I had to face things alone. I withdrew into myself.

  I wrote letters that Granny dictated to her eight children—there were nine of them, including my mother—in all parts of the country, asking for money with which “to take Ella and her two little children to our home.” Money came and again there were days of packing household effects. My mother was taken to the train in an ambulance and put on board upon a stretcher. We rode to Jackson in silence and my mother was put abed upstairs. Aunt Maggie came from Detroit to help nurse and clean. The big house was quiet. We spoke in lowered voices. We walked with soft tread. The odor of medicine hung in the air. Doctors came and went. Night and day I could hear my mother groaning. We thought that she would die at any moment.

  Aunt Cleo came from Chicago. Uncle Clark came from Greenwood, Mississippi. Uncle Edward came from Carters, Mississippi. Uncle Charles from Mobile, Alabama. Aunt Addie from a religious school in Huntsville, Alabama. Uncle Thomas from Hazelhurst, Mississippi. The house had an expectant air and I caught whispered talk of “what is to become of her children?” I felt dread, knowing that others—strangers even though they were relatives—were debating my destiny. I had never seen my mother’s brothers and sisters before and their presence made live again in me my old shyness. One day Uncle Edward called me to him and he felt my skinny arms and legs.

  “He needs more flesh on him,” he commented impersonally, addressing himself to his brothers and sisters.

  I was horribly embarrassed, feeling that my life had somehow been full of nameless wrong, an unatonable guilt.

  “Food will make him pick up in weight,” Granny said.

  Out of the family conferences it was decided that my brother and I would be separated, that it was too much of a burden for any one aunt or uncle to assume the support of both of us. Where was I to go? Who would take me? I became more anxious than ever. When an aunt or an uncle would come into my presence, I could not look at them. I was always reminding myself that I must not do anything that would make any of them feel they would not want me in their homes.

  At night my sleep was filled with wild dreams. Sometimes I would wake up screaming in terror. The grownups would come running and I would stare at them, as though they were figures out of my nightmare, then go back to sleep. One night I found myself standing in the back yard. The moon was shining bright as day. Silence surrounded me. Suddenly I felt that someone was holding my hand. I looked and saw an uncle. He was speaking to me in a low, gentle voice.

  “What’s the matter, son?”

  I stared at him, trying to understand what he was saying. I seemed to be wrapped in a kind of mist.

  “Richard, what are you doing?”

  I could not answer. It seemed that I could not wake up. He shook me. I came to myself and stared about at the moon-drenched yard.

  “Where are we going?” I asked him.

  “You were walking in your sleep,” he said.

  Granny gave me fuller meals and made me take naps in the afternoon and gradually my sleepwalking passed. The uneasy days and nights made me resolve to leave Granny’s home as soon as I was old enough to support myself. It was not that they were unkind, but I knew that they did not have money enough to feed me and my brother. I avoided going into my mother’s room now; merely to look at her was painful. She had grown very thin; she was still speechless, staring, quiet as stone.

  One evening my brother and I were called into the front room where a conference of aunts and uncles was being held.

  “Richard,” said an uncle, “you know how sick your mother is?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, Granny’s not strong enough to take care of you two boys,” he continued.

  “Yes, sir,” I said, waiting for his decision.

  “Well, Aunt Maggie’s going to take your brother to Detroit and send him to school.”

  I waited. Who was going to take me? I had wanted to be with Aunt Maggie, but I did not dare contest the decision.

  “Now, where would you like to go?” I was asked.

  The question caught me by surprise; I had been waiting for a flat, and now a choice lay before me. But I did not have the courage to presume that anyone wanted me.

  “Anywhere,” I said.

  “Any of us are willing to take you,” he said.

  Quickly I calculated which of them lived nearest to Jackson. Uncle Clark lived in Greenwood, which was but a few miles distant.

  “I’d like to live with Uncle Clark, since he’s close to the home here,” I said.

  “Is that what you really want?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Uncle Clark came to me and placed his hand upon my head.

  “All right. I’ll take you back with me and send you to school. Tomorrow we’ll go and buy clothes.”

  My tension eased somewhat, but stayed with me. My brother was happy. He was going north. I wanted to go, but I said nothing.

  A train ride and I was in yet another little southern town. Home in Greenwood was a four-room bungalow, comprising half of a double house that sat on a quiet shady road. Aunt Jody, a medi
um-sized, neat, silent, mulatto girl, had a hot supper waiting on the table. She baffled me with her serious, reserved manner; she seemed to be acting in conformity with a code unknown to me, and I assumed that she regarded me as a “wrong one,” a boy who for some reason did not have a home; I felt that in her mind she would push me to the outskirts of life and I was awkward and self-conscious in her presence. Both Uncle Clark and Aunt Jody talked to me as though I were a grownup and I wondered if I could do what was expected of me. I had always felt a certain warmth with my mother, even when we had lived in squalor; but I felt none here. Perhaps I was too apprehensive to feel any.

  During supper it was decided that I was to be placed in school the next day. Uncle Clark and Aunt Jody both had jobs and I was told that at noon I would find lunch on the stove.

  “Now, Richard, this is your new home,” Uncle Clark said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “After school, bring in wood and coal for the fireplaces.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Split kindling and lay a fire in the kitchen stove.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Bring in a bucket of water from the yard so that Jody can cook in the mornings.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “After your chores are done, you may spend the afternoon studying.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I had never been assigned definite tasks before and I went to bed a little frightened. I lay sleepless, wondering if I should have come, feeling the dark night holding strange people, strange houses, strange streets. What would happen to me here? How would I get along? What kind of woman was Aunt Jody? How ought I act around her? Would Uncle Clark let me make friends with other boys? I awakened the next morning to see the sun shining into my room; I felt more at ease.

  “Richard!” my uncle was calling me.

  I washed, dressed, and went into the kitchen and sat wordlessly at the table.

  “Good morning, Richard,” Aunt Jody said.

  “Oh, good morning,” I mumbled, wishing that I had thought to say it first.

  “Don’t people say good morning where you come from?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I thought they did,” she said pointedly.

  Aunt Jody and Uncle Clark began to question me about my life and I grew so self-conscious that my hunger left me. After breakfast, Uncle Clark took me to school, introduced me to the principal. The first half of the school day passed without incident. I sat looking at the strange reading book, following the lessons. The subjects seemed simple and I felt that I could keep up. My anxiety was still in me; I was wondering how I would get on with the boys. Each new school meant a new area of life to be conquered. Were the boys tough? How hard did they fight? I took it for granted that they fought.

  At noon recess I went into the school grounds and a group of boys sauntered up to me, looked at me from my head to my feet, whispering among themselves. I leaned against a wall, trying to conceal my uneasiness.

  “Where you from?” a boy asked abruptly.

  “Jackson,” I answered.

  “How come they make you people so ugly in Jackson?” he demanded.

  There was loud laughter.

  “You’re not any too good-looking yourself,” I countered instantly.

  “Oh!”

  “Aw!”

  “You hear what he told ’im?”

  “You think you’re smart, don’t you?” the boy asked, sneering.

  “Listen, I ain’t picking a fight,” I said. “But if you want to fight, I’ll fight.”

  “Hunh, hard guy, ain’t you?”

  “As hard as you.”

  “Do you know who you can tell that to?” he asked me.

  “And you know who you can tell it back to?” I asked.

  “Are you talking about my mama?” he asked, edging forward.

  “If you want it that way,” I said.

  This was my test. If I failed now, I would have failed at school, for the first trial came not in books, but in how one’s fellows took one, what value they placed upon one’s willingness to fight.

  “Take back what you said,” the boy challenged me.

  “Make me,” I said.

  The crowd howled, sensing a fight. The boy hesitated, weighing his chances of beating me.

  “You ain’t gonna take what that new boy said, is you?” someone taunted the boy.

  The boy came close. I stood my ground. Our faces were four inches apart.

  “You think I’m scared of you, don’t you?” he asked.

  “I told you what I think,” I said.

  Somebody, eager and afraid that we would not fight, pushed the boy and he bumped into me. I shoved him away violently.

  “Don’t push me!” the boy said.

  “Then keep off me!” I said.

  He was pushed again and I struck out with my right and caught him in the mouth. The crowd yelled, milled, surging so close that I could barely lift my arm to land a blow. When either of us tried to strike the other, we would be thrown off balance by the screaming boys. Every blow landed elicited shouts of delight. Knowing that if I did not win or make a good showing I would have to fight a new boy each day, I fought tigerishly, trying to leave a scar, seeking to draw blood as proof that I was not a coward, that I could take care of myself. The bell rang and the crowd pulled us apart. The fight seemed a draw.

  “I ain’t through with you!” the boy shouted.

  “Go to hell!” I answered.

  In the classroom the boys asked me questions about myself; I was someone worth knowing. When the bell rang for school to be dismissed, I was set to fight again; but the boy was not in sight.

  On my way home I found a cheap ring in the streets and at once I knew what I was going to do with it. The ring had a red stone held by tiny prongs which I loosened, took the stone out, leaving the sharp tiny prongs jutting up. I slid the ring on to my finger and shadow boxed. Now, by God, let a goddamn bully come and I would show him how to fight; I would leave a crimson streak on his face with every blow.

  But I never had to use the ring. After I had exhibited my new weapon at school, a description of it spread among the boys. I challenged my enemy to another fight, but he would not respond. Fighting was not now necessary. I had been accepted.

  No sooner had I won my right to the school grounds than a new dread arose. One evening, before bedtime, I was sitting in the front room, reading, studying. Uncle Clark, who was a contracting carpenter, was at his drawing table, drafting models of houses. Aunt Jody was darning. Suddenly the doorbell rang and Aunt Jody admitted the next-door neighbor, the owner of the house in which we lived and its former occupant. His name was Burden; he was a tall, brown, stooped man and when I was introduced to him I rose and shook his hand.

  “Well, son,” Mr. Burden told me, “it’s certainly a comfort to see another boy in this house.”

  “Is there another boy here?” I asked eagerly.

  “My son was here,” Mr. Burden said, shaking his head. “But he’s gone now.”

  “How old is he?” I asked.

  “He was about your age,” Mr. Burden mumbled sadly.

  “Where did he go?” I asked stupidly.

  “He’s dead,” Mr. Burden said.

  “Oh,” I said.

  I had not understood him. There was a long silence. Mr. Burden looked at me wistfully.

  “Do you sleep in there?” he asked, pointing to my room.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s where my boy slept,” he said.

  “In there?” I asked, just to make sure.

  “Yes, right in there.”

  “On that bed?” I asked.

  “Yes, that was his bed. When I heard that you were coming, I gave your uncle that bed for you,” he explained.

  I saw Uncle Clark shaking his head vigorously at Mr. Burden, but he was too late. At once my imagination began to weave ghosts. I did not actually believe in ghosts, but I had been taught that there was a God and I had giv
en a kind of uneasy assent to His existence, and if there was a God, then surely there must be ghosts. In a moment I built up an intense loathing for sleeping in the room where the boy had died. Rationally I knew that the dead boy could not bother me, but he had become alive for me in a way that I could not dismiss. After Mr. Burden had gone, I went timidly to Uncle Clark.

  “I’m scared to sleep in there,” I told him.

  “Why? Because a boy died in there?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But, son, that’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  “I know. But I am scared.”

  “We all must die someday. So why be afraid?”

  I had no answer for that.

  “When you die, do you want people to be afraid of you?”

  I could not answer that either.

  “This is nonsense,” Uncle Clark went on.

  “But I’m scared,” I told him.

  “You’ll get over it.”

  “Can’t I sleep somewhere else?”

  “There’s nowhere else for you to sleep.”

  “Can I sleep here on the sofa?” I asked.

  “May I sleep here on the sofa?” Aunt Jody corrected me in a mocking tone.

  “May I sleep here on the sofa?” I repeated after her.

  “No,” Aunt Jody said.

  I groped into the dark room and fumbled for the bed; I had the illusion that if I touched it I would encounter the dead boy. I trembled. Finally I jumped roughly into the bed and jerked the covers over my face. I did not sleep that night and my eyes were red and puffy the next morning.

  “Didn’t you sleep well?” Uncle Clark asked me.

  “I can’t sleep in that room,” I said.

  “You slept in it before you heard of that boy who died in there, didn’t you?” Aunt Jody asked me.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then why can’t you sleep in it now?”

  “I’m just scared.”

  “You stop being a baby,” she told me.

  The next night was the same; fear kept me from sleeping. After Uncle Clark and Aunt Jody had gone to bed, I rose and crept into the front room and slept in a tight ball on the sofa, without any cover. I awakened the next morning to find Uncle Clark shaking me.

  “Why are you doing this?” he asked.