Black Boy

“Don’t you drink?”

  “Sometimes.”

  There are men with whom one can drink and there are men with whom one cannot drink. Nealson was one of the men with whom I could not drink. He drank and put the bottle back; he shot me a quick, self-conscious glance. I was tense, but rigidly controlled.

  “Dick,” he began, “we’re short of forces. We’re facing a grave crisis.”

  “The party’s always facing a crisis,” I said.

  His smile left and he stared at me.

  “You’re not cynical, are you, Dick?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “But it’s the truth. Each week, each month there’s a crisis.”

  “You’re a funny guy,” he said, laughing, snorting again. “But we’ve got a job to do. We’re altering our work. Fascism’s the danger, the danger now to all people.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “You were in New York not long ago,” he said unexpectedly.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you talk with any of the party leaders?”

  “No.”

  “You said nothing to anyone about your work here?”

  I stared at him. Was he trying to find out whether I had taken up any of his accusations with the national leadership of the party? Was he trying to determine whether I had influential enough political connections to make trouble for him?

  “I told you that I have no political ambitions,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “They say that you didn’t want the clubs dissolved.”

  “No, I didn’t,” I said truthfully. “I felt that the ground was being cut from under the feet of the party’s best writers.”

  “We’ve got to defeat the Fascists,” he said, snorting from asthma, switching his line of thought. “We’ve discussed you and know your abilities. We want you to work with us. We’ve got to crash out of our narrow way of working and get our message to the church people, students, club people, professionals, middle class…”

  “I’ve been called names,” I said softly. “Is that crashing out of the narrow way?”

  “Forget that,” he said, laughing.

  He had not denied the name-calling. That meant that, if I did not obey him, the name-calling would begin again.

  “I don’t know if I fit into things,” I said openly.

  “We want to trust you with an important assignment,” he said.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “We want you to organize a committee against the high cost of living…”

  “The high cost of living?” I exclaimed. “What do I know about such things?”

  “It’s easy. You can learn,” he said.

  I was in the midst of writing a novel and he was calling me from it to tabulate the price of groceries. He doesn’t think much of what I’m trying to do, I thought.

  “Comrade Nealson,” I said, “a writer who hasn’t written anything worth-while is a most doubtful person. Now, I’m in that category. Yet I think I can write. I don’t want to ask for special favors, but I’m in the midst of a book which I hope to complete in six months or so. Let me convince myself that I’m wrong about my hankering to write and then I’ll be with you all the way.”

  “The party can’t wait,” he said. “You’ll find time to write.”

  “I work every day for a living,” I said, remembering that he was being paid by the party to talk to me.

  “Look, we want to make you a mass leader,” he said.

  “But suppose I’m not that kind of material?”

  He laughed. Not one word that I had said had been seriously considered by him. Our talk was a game; he was trying to outwit me. The feelings of others meant nothing to him.

  “Dick,” he said, turning in his chair and waving his hand as though to brush away an insect that was annoying him, “you’ve got to get to the masses of people…”

  “You’ve seen some of my work,” I said. “Isn’t it just barely good enough to warrant my being given a chance?”

  “The party can’t deal with your feelings,” he said.

  “Maybe I don’t belong in the party,” I stated it in full.

  “Oh, no! Don’t say that,” he said, snorting. He looked at me. “You’re blunt.”

  “I put things the way I feel them,” I said. “I want to start in right with you. I’ve had too damn much crazy trouble in the party.”

  He laughed and lit a cigarette.

  “Dick,” he said, shaking his head, “the trouble with you is that you’ve been around with those white artists on the North Side too much…You even talk like ’em. You’ve got to know your own people…”

  “I think I know them,” I said, realizing that I could never really talk with him. “I’ve been inside of three-fourths of the Negroes’ homes on the South Side…”

  “But you’ve got to work with ’em,” he said.

  “I was working with Ross until I was suspected of being a spy,” I said.

  There was silence. The doorbell rang and he admitted his wife, a dark, attractive, European white woman who carried a book under her arm. She came forward with a wide smile. Nealson introduced us.

  “What are you reading?” I asked.

  “A Dracula mystery story,” she said, eagerly exhibiting her book. “You know, Dick, you and I ought to build Negro culture on the South Side.”

  “I’m asking Nealson for that chance right now,” I said, wondering what connection there could be between a Dracula mystery and Negro culture.

  “I want him to organize against high prices,” Nealson told his wife. “But he’s writing a book…”

  “That oughtn’t interfere with his book,” she said, sliding easily into a verbal solution of my problem.

  “I work in the day,” I said.

  “Oh, you’ll find time,” she said lightly.

  She left the room and there was silence. The next word was due to come from the member of the Communist International.

  “Dick,” he spoke seriously now, “the party has decided that you are to accept this task.”

  I was silent. I knew the meaning of what he had said. A decision was the highest injunction that a Communist could receive from his party, and to break a decision was to break the effectiveness of the party’s ability to act. In principle I heartily agreed with this, for I knew that it was impossible for working people to forge instruments of political power until they had achieved unity of action. Oppressed for centuries, divided, hopeless, corrupted, misled, they were cynical—as I had once been—and the Communist method of unity had been found historically to be the only means of achieving discipline. In short, Nealson had asked me directly if I were a Communist or not. I wanted to be a Communist, but my kind of Communist. I wanted to shape people’s feelings, awaken their hearts. But I could not tell Nealson that; he would only have snorted.

  “I’ll organize the committee and turn it over to someone else,” I suggested.

  “You don’t want to do this, do you?” he asked.

  “No,” I said firmly.

  “You worked willingly enough to organize white writers,” he cut at me.

  “I was organizing people I understood,” I said.

  “What would you like to do on the South Side, then?”

  “I’d like to organize Negro artists,” I said.

  “But the party doesn’t need that now,” he said.

  I rose, knowing that he had no intention of letting me go after I had organized the committee. I wanted to tell him that I was through, but I was not ready to bring matters to a head. I went out, angry with myself, angry with him, angry with the party. Well, I had not broken the decision, but neither had I accepted it wholly. I had dodged, trying to save time for writing, time to think.

  Again I urged myself to quit, but I could not do it. I knew that Nealson was not a leader. His mind was too rigid, too limited. I had not discerned in him any understanding of life or politics. His approach had been to offer me a drink, and when that had failed he had threatened; he had tried
flattery, and when that had failed he had hinted at expulsion. If I had been wrong, he certainly had not convinced me. In the end I resolved to work a month, then confront him with my original compromise.

  My task consisted in attending meetings until the late hours of the night, taking part in discussions, or lending myself generally along with other Communists in leading the people of the South Side. We debated the housing situation, the best means of forcing the city to authorize open hearings on conditions among Negroes. I gritted my teeth as the daily value of pork chops was tabulated, longing to be at home with my writing. I felt that pork chops were a fundamental item in life, but I preferred that someone else chart their rise and fall in price.

  Nealson was cleverer than I and he confronted me before I had a chance to confront him. I was summoned one night to meet Nealson and a “friend.” When I arrived at a South Side hotel I was introduced to a short, yellow man who carried himself like Napoleon. He wore glasses, kept his full lips pursed as though he were engaged in perpetual thought. He swaggered when he walked. He spoke slowly, precisely, trying to charge each of his words with more meaning than the words were able to carry. He talked of trivial things in lofty tones. He said that his name was Smith, that he was from Washington, that he planned to launch a national organization among Negroes to federalize all existing Negro institutions so as to achieve a broad unity of action. The three of us sat at a table, facing one another. There were no smiles now. I knew that another and last offer was about to be made to me, and if I did not accept it, there would be open warfare.

  “Wright, how would you like to go to Switzerland?” Smith asked with dramatic suddenness.

  “I’d like it,” I said. “But I’m tied up with work now.”

  “You can drop that,” Nealson said. “This is important.”

  “What would I do in Switzerland?” I asked.

  “You’ll go as a youth delegate,” Smith said. “From there you can go to the Soviet Union.”

  “Much as I’d like to, I’m afraid I can’t make it,” I said honestly. “I simply cannot drop the writing I’m doing now.”

  We sat looking at one another, smoking silently.

  “Has Nealson told you how I feel?” I asked Smith.

  Smith did not answer. He stared at me a long time, then spat:

  “Wright, you’re a fool!”

  I rose. Smith turned away from me. A breath more of anger and I would have driven my fist into his face. Nealson laughed sheepishly, snorting.

  “Was that necessary?” I asked, trembling.

  I stood recalling how, in my boyhood, I would have fought until blood ran had anyone said anything like that to me. But I was a man now and master of my rage, able to control the surging emotions. I put on my hat and walked to the door. Keep cool, I said to myself. Don’t let this get out of hand…

  “This is good-bye,” I said.

  I walked home. My mind was made up. I would attend the next unit meeting and announce my withdrawal, telling the comrades that I still adhered to the ideological program of the party, but that I did not want to be bound any longer by the party’s decisions.

  I attended the next unit meeting and asked for a place on the agenda, which was readily granted. Nealson was there. Evans was there. Ed Green was there. When my time came to speak, I rose and said:

  “Comrades, for the past two years I’ve worked daily with most of you. Despite this, I have for some time found myself in a difficult position in the party. What has caused this difficulty is a long story which I do not care to recite now; it would serve no purpose. But I tell you honestly that I think I’ve found a solution of my difficulty. I am proposing here tonight that my membership be dropped from the party rolls. No ideological differences impel me to say this. I simply do not wish to be bound any longer by the party’s decisions. I would like to retain my membership in those organizations in which the party has influence, and I shall comply with the party’s program in those organizations. I hope that my words will be accepted in the spirit in which they are said. Perhaps sometime in the future I would like to meet and talk with the leaders of the party as to what tasks I can best perform.”

  I sat down amid a profound silence. The Negro secretary of the meeting looked frightened, glancing at Nealson, Evans, and Ed Green.

  “Is there any discussion on Comrade Wright’s statement?” the secretary asked finally.

  “I move that discussion on Wright’s statement be deferred,” Nealson said.

  A quick vote confirmed Nealson’s motion. I looked about the silent room, then reached for my hat and rose.

  “I would like to go now,” I said.

  No one said anything. I walked to the door and out into the night and a heavy burden seemed to lift from my shoulders. I was free. And I had done it in a decent and forthright manner. I had not been bitter. I had not raked up a single recrimination. I had attacked no one. I had disavowed nothing. I remembered, as I walked the night streets, how I had stolen money from the movie house in Jackson, Mississippi; how I had forced the window and had stolen the gun; how I had broken into the college storehouse and had stolen cans of fruit preserves; I remembered how I had lied to my boss man in Memphis when I had wanted to leave my job and come to Chicago; how I had lied to Mr. Hoffman; how I had forged notes to the library in Memphis when I had wanted books to read…But I had changed; I had none of that fear, none of those wild impulses now. I had merely confronted my comrades, stated what I felt, and had let it go at that.

  The Communist party could not say that I was an enemy, that I had attacked them. A Trotskyite or a man bent upon wrecking or disrupting the work of the Communist party would have remained within the organization so as better to quarrel, obstruct. But I had only asked to be free, had accused no one, and had denounced nothing. Perhaps, I told myself, when the Communist party has grown up, when it can work without tactics of terror, threat, invective, intimidation, suspicion, I would go back…

  Aw, God…How naïve I was! I was young and brimming with confidence. I felt that my strength was unlimited. I had neatly solved a problem that had been worrying me for a long time, and now I thought that I could turn my energies to writing and justify myself. I did not know that night how little I understood the political party to which I had belonged. But I soon learned, learned how simple were my motives, how trusting was my attitude, how wide and innocent were my eyes, as round and open and dew-wet as morning-glories…

  The next night two Negro Communists called at my home. They pretended to be ignorant of what had happened at the unit meeting. Patiently I explained what had occurred.

  “Your story does not agree with what Nealson says,” they said, revealing the motive of their visit.

  “And what does Nealson say?” I asked.

  “He says that you are in league with a Trotskyite group, and that you made an appeal for other party members to follow you in leaving the party…”

  “What?” I gasped. “That’s not true. I asked that my membership be dropped. I raised no political issues.” What did this mean? I sat pondering. “Look, maybe I ought to make my break with the party clean. If Nealson’s going to act this way, I’ll resign…”

  “You can’t resign,” they told me.

  “What do you mean?” I demanded.

  “No one can resign from the Communist party,” they said.

  I looked at them and laughed.

  “You’re talking crazy,” I said.

  “Nealson would expel you publicly, cut the ground from under your feet if you resigned,” they said. “People would think that something was wrong if someone like you quit here on the South Side.”

  I was angry. Was the party so weak and uncertain of itself that it could not accept what I had said at the unit meeting? Who thought up such tactics? Then, suddenly, I understood. These were the secret, underground tactics of the political movement of the Communists under the czars of Old Russia! The Communist party felt that it had to assassinate me morally merely because I did
not want to be bound by its decisions. I saw now that my comrades were acting out a fantasy that had no relation whatever to the reality of their environment.

  “Tell Nealson that if he fights me, then, by God, I’ll fight him,” I said. “If he leaves this damn thing where it is, then all right. If he thinks I won’t fight him publicly, he’s crazy!”

  I was not able to know if my statement reached Nealson, but there was no public outcry against me. But in the ranks of the party itself a storm broke loose and I was branded a traitor, an unstable personality, and one whose faith had failed.

  What a weird experience I had had! At no time had I felt at home in the Communist party. I had always felt that the possibility was there, but always I was not quite sure of the motives of the people with whom I worked and they never seemed quite sure of mine. My comrades had known me, my family, my friends; they, God knows, had known my aching poverty. But they had never been able to conquer their fear of the individual way in which I acted and lived, an individuality which life had seared into my blood and bones.

  I now avoided the comrades as much as possible, and, as I was losing touch with the party, many other young Negroes of the South Side were entering it for the first time. The expansion of the party’s activity under the People’s Front policy offered many opportunities to young Negroes who, because of race and status, had led cramped lives. The invitation to go to Switzerland as a youth delegate, which I had refused, was accepted by a young Negro who had fought the Communist party and all its ideas until he had seen a chance to take a trip to Europe.

  I was transferred by the relief authorities from the South Side Boys’ Club to the Federal Negro Theater to work as a publicity agent. There were days when I was acutely hungry for the incessant analyses that went on among the comrades, but whenever I heard news of the party’s inner life, it was of charges and countercharges, reprisals and counterreprisals. I was glad to be out of it. All its energies, it seemed, were absorbed in factional fights, hair-splitting political definitions.

  The Federal Negro Theater, for which I was doing publicity, had run a series of ordinary plays, all of which had been revamped to “Negro style,” with jungle scenes, spirituals, and all. For example, the skinny white woman who directed it, an elderly missionary type, would take a play whose characters were white, whose theme dealt with the Middle Ages, and recast it in terms of southern Negro life with overtones of African backgrounds. Contemporary plays dealing realistically with Negro life were spurned as being controversial. There were about forty Negro actors and actresses in the theater, lolling about, yearning, disgruntled, not knowing what to do with themselves.