Black Boy

  “Here, hava cigarette,” he said.

  Not knowing what to do, I took it. He lit his and held the match for me. This was a gesture of kindness, indicating that, even if they had beaten the black woman, they would not beat me if I knew enough to keep my mouth shut.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  After they had gone, I sat on the edge of a packing box and stared at the bloody floor until the cigarette went out.

  The store owned a bicycle which I used in delivering purchases. One day, while returning from the suburbs, my bicycle tire was punctured. I walked along the hot, dusty road, sweating and leading the bicycle by the handle bars.

  A car slowed at my side.

  “What’s the matter there, boy?” a white man called.

  I told him that my bicycle was broken and that I was walking back to town.

  “That’s too bad,” he said. “Hop on the running board.”

  He stopped the car. I clutched hard at my bicycle with one hand and clung to the side of the car with the other.

  “All set?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The car started. It was full of young white men. They were drinking. I watched the flask pass from mouth to mouth.

  “Wanna drink, boy?” one asked.

  The memory of my six-year-old drinking came back and filled me with caution. But I laughed, the wind whipping my face.

  “Oh, no!” I said.

  The words were barely out of my mouth before I felt some thing hard and cold smash me between the eyes. It was an empty whisky bottle. I saw stars, and fell backwards from the speeding car into the dust of the road, my feet becoming entangled in the steel spokes of the bicycle. The car stopped and the white men piled out and stood over me.

  “Nigger, ain’t you learned no better sense’n that yet?” asked the man who hit me. “Ain’t you learned to say sir to a white man yet?”

  Dazed, I pulled to my feet. My elbows and legs were bleeding. Fists doubled, the white man advanced, kicking the bicycle out of the way.

  “Aw, leave the bastard alone. He’s got enough,” said one.

  They stood looking at me. I rubbed my shins, trying to stop the flow of blood. No doubt they felt a sort of contemptuous pity, for one asked:

  “You wanna ride to town now, nigger? You reckon you know enough to ride now?”

  “I wanna walk,” I said simply.

  Maybe I sounded funny. They laughed.

  “Well, walk, you black sonofabitch!”

  Before they got back into their car, they comforted me with:

  “Nigger, you sure ought to be glad it was us you talked to that way. You’re a lucky bastard, ’cause if you’d said that to some other white man, you might’ve been a dead nigger now.”

  I was learning rapidly how to watch white people, to observe their every move, every fleeting expression, how to interpret what was said and what left unsaid.

  Late one Saturday night I made some deliveries in a white neighborhood. I was pedaling my bicycle back to the store as fast as I could when a police car, swerving toward me, jammed me into the curbing.

  “Get down, nigger, and put up your hands!” they ordered.

  I did. They climbed out of the car, guns drawn, faces set, and advanced slowly.

  “Keep still!” they ordered.

  I reached my hands higher. They searched my pockets and packages. They seemed dissatisfied when they could find nothing incriminating. Finally, one of them said:

  “Boy, tell your boss not to send you out in white neighborhoods at this time of night.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  I rode off, feeling that they might shoot at me, feeling that the pavement might disappear. It was like living in a dream, the reality of which might change at any moment.

  Each day in the store I watched the brutality with growing hate, yet trying to keep my feelings from registering in my face. When the boss looked at me I would avoid his eyes. Finally the boss’s son cornered me one morning.

  “Say, nigger, look here,” he began.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What’s on your mind?”

  “Nothing, sir,” I said, trying to look amazed, trying to fool him.

  “Why don’t you laugh and talk like the other niggers?” he asked.

  “Well, sir, there’s nothing much to say or smile about,” I said, smiling.

  His face was hard, baffled; I knew that I had not convinced him. He whirled from me and went to the front of the store; he came back a moment later, his face red. He tossed a few green bills at me.

  “I don’t like your looks, nigger. Now, get!” he snapped.

  I picked up the money and did not count it. I grabbed my hat and left.

  I held a series of petty jobs for short periods, quitting some to work elsewhere, being driven off others because of my attitude, my speech, the look in my eyes. I was no nearer than ever to my goal of saving enough money to leave. At times I doubted if I could ever do it.

  One jobless morning I went to my old classmate, Griggs, who worked for a Capitol Street jeweler. He was washing the windows of the store when I came upon him.

  “Do you know where I can find a job?” I asked.

  He looked at me with scorn.

  “Yes, I know where you can find a job,” he said, laughing.

  “Where?”

  “But I wonder if you can hold it,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “Where’s the job?”

  “Take your time,” he said. “You know, Dick, I know you. You’ve been trying to hold a job all summer, and you can’t. Why? Because you’re impatient. That’s your big fault.”

  I said nothing, because he was repeating what I had already heard him say. He lit a cigarette and blew out smoke leisurely.

  “Well,” I said, egging him on to speak.

  “I wish to hell I could talk to you,” he said.

  “I think I know what you want to tell me,” I said.

  He clapped me on the shoulder; his face was full of fear, hate, concern for me.

  “Do you want to get killed?” he asked me.

  “Hell, no!”

  “Then, for God’s sake, learn how to live in the South!”

  “What do you mean?” I demanded. “Let white people tell me that. Why should you?”

  “See?” he said triumphantly, pointing his finger at me. “There it is, now! It’s in your face. You won’t let people tell you things. You rush too much. I’m trying to help you and you won’t let me.” He paused and looked about; the streets were filled with white people. He spoke to me in a low, full tone. “Dick, look, you’re black, black, black, see? Can’t you understand that?”

  “Sure. I understand it,” I said.

  “You don’t act a damn bit like it,” he spat.

  He then reeled off an account of my actions on every job I had held that summer.

  “How did you know that?” I asked.

  “White people make it their business to watch niggers,” he explained. “And they pass the word around. Now, my boss is a Yankee and he tells me things. You’re marked already.”

  Could I believe him? Was it true? How could I ever learn this strange world of white people?

  “Then tell me how must I act?” I asked humbly. “I just want to make enough money to leave.”

  “Wait and I’ll tell you,” he said.

  At that moment a woman and two men stepped from the jewelry store; I moved to one side to let them pass, my mind intent upon Grigg’s words. Suddenly Griggs reached for my arm and jerked me violently, sending me stumbling three or four feet across the pavement. I whirled.

  “What’s the matter with you?” I asked.

  Griggs glared at me, then laughed.

  “I’m teaching you how to get out of white people’s way,” he said.

  I looked at the people who had come out of the store; yes, they were white, but I had not noticed it.

  “Do you see what I mean?” he asked. “White people want you out of
their way.” He pronounced the words slowly so that they would sink into my mind.

  “I know what you mean,” I breathed.

  “Dick, I’m treating you like a brother,” he said. “You act around white people as if you didn’t know that they were white. And they see it.”

  “Oh, Christ, I can’t be a slave,” I said hopelessly.

  “But you’ve got to eat,” he said.

  “Yes, I got to eat.”

  “Then start acting like it,” he hammered at me, pounding his fist in his palm. “When you’re in front of white people, think before you act, think before you speak. Your way of doing things is all right among our people, but not for white people. They won’t stand for it.”

  I stared bleakly into the morning sun. I was nearing my seventeenth birthday and I was wondering if I would ever be free of this plague. What Griggs was saying was true, but it was simply utterly impossible for me to calculate, to scheme, to act, to plot all the time. I would remember to dissemble for short periods, then I would forget and act straight and human again, not with the desire to harm anybody, but merely forgetting the artificial status of race and class. It was the same with whites as with blacks; it was my way with everybody. I sighed, looking at the glittering diamonds in the store window, the rings and the neat rows of golden watches.

  “I guess you’re right,” I said at last. “I’ve got to watch myself, break myself…”

  “No,” he said quickly, feeling guilty now. Someone—a white man—went into the store and we paused in our talk. “You know, Dick, you may think I’m an Uncle Tom, but I’m not. I hate these white people, hate ’em with all my heart. But I can’t show it; if I did, they’d kill me.” He paused and looked around to see if there were any white people within hearing distance. “Once I heard an old drunk nigger say:

  All these white folks dressed so fine

  Their ass-holes smell just like mine…”

  I laughed uneasily, looking at the white faces that passed me. But Griggs, when he laughed, covered his mouth with his hand and bent at the knees, a gesture which was unconsciously meant to conceal his excessive joy in the presence of whites.

  “That’s how I feel about ’em,” he said proudly after he had finished his spasm of glee. He grew sober. “There’s an optical company upstairs and the boss is a Yankee from Illinois. Now, he wants a boy to work all day in summer, mornings and evenings in winter. He wants to break a colored boy into the optical trade. You know algebra and you’re just cut out for the work. I’ll tell Mr. Crane about you and I’ll get in touch with you.”

  “Do you suppose I could see him now?” I asked.

  “For God’s sake, take your timer!” he thundered at me.

  “Maybe that’s what’s wrong with Negroes,” I said. “They take too much time.”

  I laughed, but he was disturbed. I thanked him and left. For a week I did not hear from him and I gave up hope. Then one afternoon Griggs came to my house.

  “It looks like you’ve got a job,” he said. “You’re going to have a chance to learn a trade. But remember to keep your head. Remember you’re black. You start tomorrow.”

  “What will I get?”

  “Five dollars a week to start with; they’ll raise you if they like you,” he explained.

  My hopes soared. Things were not quite so bad, after all. I would have a chance to learn a trade. And I need not give up school. I told him that I would take the job, that I would be humble.

  “You’ll be working for a Yankee and you ought to get along,” he said.

  The next morning I was outside the office of the optical company long before it opened. I was reminding myself that I must be polite, must think before I spoke, must think before I acted, must say “yes sir, no sir,” that I must so conduct myself that white people would not think that I thought I was as good as they. Suddenly a white man came up to me.

  “What do you want?” he asked me.

  “I’m reporting for a job, sir,” I said.

  “O.K. Come on.”

  I followed him up a flight of steps and he unlocked the door of the office. I was a little tense, but the young white man’s manner put me at ease and I sat and held my hat in my hand. A white girl came and began punching the typewriter. Soon another white man, thin and gray, entered and went into the rear room. Finally a tall, red-faced white man arrived, shot me a quick glance and sat at his desk. His brisk manner branded him a Yankee.

  “You’re the new boy, eh?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Let me get my mail out of the way and I’ll talk with you,” he said pleasantly.

  “Yes, sir.”

  I even pitched my voice to a low plane, trying to rob it of any suggestion or overtone of aggressiveness.

  Half an hour later Mr. Crane called me to his desk and questioned me closely about my schooling, about how much mathematics I had had. He seemed pleased when I told him that I had had two years of algebra.

  “How would you like to learn this trade?” he asked.

  “I’d like it fine, sir. I’d like nothing better,” I said.

  He told me that he wanted to train a Negro boy in the optical trade; he wanted to help him, guide him. I tried to answer in a way that would let him know that I would try to be worthy of what he was doing. He took me to the stenographer and said:

  “This is Richard. He’s going to be with us.”

  He then led me into the rear room of the office, which turned out to be a tiny factory filled with many strange machines smeared with red dust.

  “Reynolds,” he said to a young white man, “this is Richard.”

  “What you saying there, boy!” Reynolds grinned and boomed at me.

  Mr. Crane took me to the older man.

  “Pease, this is Richard, who’ll work with us.”

  Pease looked at me and nodded. Mr. Crane then held forth to the two white men about my duties; he told them to break me in gradually to the workings of the shop, to instruct me in the mechanics of grinding and polishing lenses. They nodded their assent.

  “Now, boy, let’s see how clean you can get this place,” Mr. Crane said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  I swept, mopped, dusted, and soon had the office and the shop clean. In the afternoons, when I had caught up with my work, I ran errands. In an idle moment I would stand and watch the two white men grinding lenses on the machines. They said nothing to me and I said nothing to them. The first day passed, the second, the third, a week passed and I received my five dollars. A month passed. But I was not learning anything and nobody had volunteered to help me. One afternoon I walked up to Reynolds and asked him to tell me about the work.

  “What are you trying to do, get smart, nigger?” he asked me.

  “No, sir,” I said.

  I was baffled. Perhaps he just did not want to help me. I went to Pease, reminding him that the boss had said that I was to be given a chance to learn the trade.

  “Nigger, you think you’re white, don’t you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You’re acting mighty like it,” he said.

  “I was only doing what the boss told me to do,” I said.

  Pease shook his fist in my face.

  “This is a white man’s work around here,” he said.

  From then on they changed toward me; they said good morning no more. When I was just a bit slow in performing some duty, I was called a lazy black sonofabitch. I kept silent, striving to offer no excuse for worsening of relations. But one day Reynolds called me to his machine.

  “Richard, how long is your thing?” he asked me.

  “What thing?” I asked.

  “You know what I mean,” he said. “The thing the bull uses on the cow.”

  I turned away from him; I had heard that whites regarded Negroes as animals in sex matters and his words made me angry.

  “I heard that a nigger can stick his prick in the ground and spin around on it like a top,” he said, chuckling. “I’d like to see you do that. I’d g
ive you a dime, if you did it.”

  I ignored him. Mr. Pease was watching me closely; then I saw them exchange glances. My job was not leading to what Mr. Crane had said it would. I had been humble, and now I was reaping the wages of humility.

  “Come here, boy,” Pease said.

  I walked to his bench.

  “You didn’t like what Reynolds just said, did you?” he asked.

  “Oh, it’s all right,” I said smiling.

  “You didn’t like it. I could see it on your face,” he said.

  I stared at him and backed away.

  “Did you ever get into any trouble?” he asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “What would you do if you got into trouble?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Well, watch yourself and don’t get into trouble,” he warned.

  I wanted to report these clashes to Mr. Crane, but the thought of what Pease or Reynolds would do to me if they learned that I had “snitched” stopped me. I worked through the days and tried to hide my resentment under a nervous, cryptic smile.

  The climax came at noon one summer day. Pease called me to his workbench; to get to him I had to go between two narrow benches and stand with my back against a wall.

  “Richard, I want to ask you something,” Pease began pleasantly, not looking up from his work.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Reynolds came over and stood blocking the narrow passage between the benches; he folded his arms and stared at me solemnly. I looked from one to the other, sensing trouble. Pease looked up and spoke slowly, so there would be no possibility of my not understanding.

  “Richard, Reynolds here tells me that you called me Pease,” he said.

  I stiffened. A void opened up in me. I knew that this was the showdown.

  He meant that I had failed to call him Mr. Pease. I looked at Reynolds; he was gripping a steel bar in his hand. I opened my mouth to speak, to protest, to assure Pease that I had never called him simply Pease, and that I had never had any intention of doing so, when Reynolds grabbed me by the collar, ramming my head against a wall.

  “Now, be careful, nigger,” snarled Reynolds, baring his teeth. “I heard you call ’im Pease. And if you say you didn’t, you’re calling me a liar, see?” He waved the steel bar threateningly.