Plexus

  Often she kept me awake nights telling me about this new swarm of hangers-on. An odd lot, I must say. Always a millionaire or two among them, always a pugilist or wrestler, always a nut, usually of dubious sex. What these queer ones saw in her, or hoped to get out of her, I could never fathom. There were to be plenty of them, as time went on. Right now it was Claude. (Although, to be truthful, she never referred to Claude as an admirer.) Anyway, Claude. Claude what? Just Claude. When I inquired what this Claude did for a living she became almost hysterical. He was only a boy! Not a day over sixteen. Of course he looked much older. I must meet him some day. She was certain I would adore him.

  I tried to register indifference, but she paid no heed. Claude was unique, she insisted. He had roamed all over the world—on nothing. “You should hear him talk,” she babbled on. “You’ll open your eyes. He’s wiser than most men of forty. He’s almost a Christ.…”

  I couldn’t help it, I burst out laughing. I had to laugh in her face.

  “All right, laugh. But wait till you meet him, you’ll sing a different tune.”

  It was from Claude, I learned, that she had received the beautiful Navajo rings, bracelets and other adornments. Claude had spent a whole summer with Navajos. He had even learned to talk their language. Had he wished it, she said, he could have lived the rest of his life with the Navajos.

  I wanted to know where he came from originally, this Claude. She didn’t know for sure herself. From the Bronx, she thought. (Which only made him all the more unique.)

  “Then he’s Jewish?” I said.

  Again she wasn’t sure. One couldn’t tell a thing about him from his looks. He didn’t look anything. (A strange way to put it, I thought.) He might pass for an Indian—or for a pure Aryan. He was like the chameleon—depended when and where you met him, the mood he was in, the people surrounding him, and so on.

  “He was probably born in Russia,” I said, taking a wide swing.

  To my surprise she said: “He speaks Russian fluently, if that means anything. But then he speaks other languages too—Arabic, Turkish, Armenian, German, Portuguese, Hungarian.…”

  “Not Hungarian!” I cried. “Russian, O.K. Armenian, O.K. Turkish ditto, though that’s a bit hard to swallow. But when you say Hungarian, I balk. No, by crickey, I’ll have to hear him talk Hungarian before I believe that one.”

  “All right,” she said, “come down some night and see for yourself. Anyway, how could you tell—you don’t know Hungarian.”

  “Righto! But I know this much—anyone who can talk Hungarian is a wizard. It’s the toughest language in the world—except for the Hungarians, of course. Your Claude may be a bright boy, but don’t tell me he speaks Hungarian! No, you don’t ram that one down my throat.”

  My words hadn’t made a dent in her, obviously because the next thing out of her mouth was—“I forgot to tell you that he also knows Sanskrit, Hebrew, and.…”

  “Listen,” I exclaimed, “he’s not almost a Christ, he is the Christ. Nobody but Christ Almighty could master all those tongues at his age. It’s a wonder to me he hasn’t invented the universal tongue. I’ll be down there mighty soon, don’t fret. I want to see this phenomenon with my own eyes. I want him to talk six languages at once. Nothing less will impress me.”

  She looked at me as if to say—“You poor doubting Thomas!”

  The steadiness of her smile finally nettled me. I said: “Why do you smile like that?”

  She hesitated a full minute. “Because, Val … because I was wondering what you’d say if I were to tell you that he also had the power to heal.”

  For some queer reason this sounded more plausible and consonant with his character than anything she had told me about him. But I had to maintain my attitude of doubt and mockery.

  “How do you know this?” I said. “Have you seen him heal anyone?”

  She refused to answer the question squarely. She insisted, however, that she could vouch for the truth of her statement.

  To taunt her I said: “What did he cure—a sick headache?”

  Again she took her time in responding. Then, rather solemnly, almost too solemnly, she replied: “He’s cured cancer, if that means anything.”

  This made me furious. “For Christ’s sake,” I yelled, “don’t stand there and tell me a thing like that! Are you a gullible idiot? You might just as well tell me he’s raised the dead.”

  The flicker of a smile passed over her countenance. In a voice no longer solemn, but grave, she said: “Well, Val, believe it or not, he’s done that too. Among the Navajos. That’s why they love him so.…”

  “O.K. girlie, that’s enough for tonight. Let’s change the subject. If you tell me any more I’ll think you’ve got a screw loose.”

  Her next words took me completely by surprise. I nearly jumped out of my skin.

  “Claude says he has a rendezvous with you. He knows all about you… knows you inside out, in fact. And don’t go thinking I told him, because I didn’t! Do you want to hear more?” She went right on. “You have a tremendous career ahead of you: you’ll be a world figure one day. According to Claude, you’re playing blindman’s buff now. You’re spiritually blind, as well as dumb and deaf.…”

  “Claude said that?” I was thoroughly sober now. “All right, tell him I’ll keep the rendezvous. Tomorrow night, how’s that? But not at that damned joint of yours!”

  She was overjoyed by my complete surrender. “Leave it to me,” she said, “I’ll choose a quiet spot where the two of you can be alone.”

  Of course I couldn’t resist inquiring how much he had told her about me. “You’ll learn all that tomorrow,” she kept repeating. “I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you.”

  I fell asleep with difficulty. Claude kept reappearing, like a vision, each time in a different aspect. Though he always had the figure of a boy, his voice sounded like the voice of the ancient one. No matter what language he spoke I was able to follow him. I wasn’t the least amazed, curiously enough, to hear myself talking Hungarian. Nor was I amazed to find myself riding a horse, riding bareback with bare feet. Often we carried on our discussions in foreign lands, in remote places such as Judea, the Nubian desert, Turkestan, Sumatra, Patagonia. We made use of no vehicles; we were always there where our thoughts roamed, without effort, without the use of the will. Aside from certain sexual dreams I don’t believe I had ever had such a pleasant dream. It was more than pleasant—it was instructive in the highest sense. This Claude was more like an alter ego, even though at times he did strikingly resemble the Christ. He brought me great peace. He gave me direction. More than that—he gave me reason for being. I was at last something in my own right and no need to prove it to anyone. I was securely in the world yet not a victim. I was participating in a wholly new way, as only a man can who is free from conflict. Strangely, the world had grown much smaller than I thought it to be. More intimate, more understandable. It was no longer something against which I was pitted; it was like a ripe fruit which I was inside of, which nourished me, and which was inexhaustible. I was one with it, one with everything—that’s the only way I can put it.

  As luck would have it, I failed to meet Claude the next night. It so happened that I was in Newark or some such place when evening came on, talking to a prospect whom I found fascinating. He was a black man who was working his way through law school as a stevedore. He had been out of work for several weeks and was in a receptive mood to listen to me expound the advantages of the looseleaf encyclopaedia. Just as he was on the verge of signing his demi-quivers for a set his aged mother poked her head through the doorway and begged me to stay for dinner. She apologized for intruding on us, explaining that they were going to a meeting after dinner and that she had to remind her son to change his clothes. The latter dropped the pen which he had been holding and escaped to the bathroom.

  Waiting for him to reappear my eye fell upon an announcement. It was to the effect that the great Negro leader, W. E. Burghardt Dubois, was to speak in the town hall
that very evening. I could hardly wait for the lad to return. I paced up and down the room in a fever. Well I knew this Dubois. Years ago, when I was keen about attending lectures, I had heard Dubois speak on the great heritage of the black race. It was in some little hall on the lower East Side; the audience, oddly enough, was mostly Jewish. I had never forgotten the man. He was handsome, thoroughly Aryan in features, and of an imposing figure; he wore a goatee then, if I remember rightly. I learned later that he had been born in New England; his ancestors were of mixed blood, French, Dutch and other strains. What I remembered best about him was his impeccable diction and his vast erudition. He had a challenging, straightforward way of speaking which won me over to him immediately. He struck me at once as a superior being. And was it not he, I thought to myself, who had accepted and published the first article of mine ever to appear in print?

  At the dinner table I met the other members of the family. The sister, a young woman of about twenty-five, was strikingly beautiful. She had decided to go to the lecture too. That settled it for me—Claude could wait. When I made known to them that I had heard Dubois before and that I had an unbounded admiration for him, they insisted that I come along as their guest. The young man now suddenly recalled that he had not signed his name on the dotted line; he begged me to let him do so before he forgot a second time. I felt embarrassed, as though I had tricked him.

  “Think it over first,” I said. “If you really want the books you can mail me the slip later.”

  “No, no!” cried his mother and sister at once. “He’ll sign up right now, ‘cause if he don’t he never will. You know how we folks are.”

  Now the sister was becoming interested in the subject. I had to explain the whole business to her hurriedly.

  “Sounds wonderful,” she said. “Leave me some blanks, I think I can get you a few orders.”

  We hurried through the meal, then piled into their car. A good-looking car, it seemed to me. On the way to the hall they told me of Dubois’ activities since I had last heard of him. He had assumed an educational post in the South, a world not too congenial for one of his temperament and upbringing. He had grown somewhat bitter, they thought, and more caustic in his speech. Impulsively I told them that he reminded me, in some strange, undefinable way, of Rabindranath Tagore whom I also had heard years ago. What I was thinking of probably was that neither of these men minced words when it came to telling the truth.

  By the time we reached the hall I was in the midst of a long-drawn-out rhapsody about another Negro, my quondam idol, Hubert Harrison. I was telling them of all I had learned standing at the foot of his soapbox in Madison Square in the days when one could discuss anything freely and publicly. There was no one in those days, I told them candidly, who could hold a candle to Hubert Harrison. With a few well-directed words he had the ability to demolish any opponent. He did it neatly and smoothly too, “with kid gloves,” so to speak. I described the wonderful way he smiled, his easy assurance, the great sculptured head which he carried on his shoulders like a lion. I wondered aloud if he had not come of royal blood, if he had not been the descendant of some great African monarch. Yes, he was a man who electrified one by his mere presence. Beside him the other speakers, the white ones, looked like pygmies, not only physically but culturally, spiritually. Some of them, the ones who were paid to foment trouble, carried on like epileptics, always wrapped in the Stars and Stripes, to be sure. Hubert Harrison, on the other hand, no matter what the provocation, always retained his self-possession, his dignity. He had a way of placing the back of his hand on his hip, his trunk tilted forward, his ears cocked to catch every last word the questioner, or the heckler put to him. Well he knew how to bide his time! When the tumult had subsided there would come that broad smile of his, a broad, good-natured grin, and he would answer his man—always to the point, always fair and square, always full on, like a broadside. Soon everyone would be laughing, everyone but the poor imbecile who had dared to put the question.…

  I was rattling on in this vein as we entered the hall. The place was crowded; this time the audience was mainly Negro. As every white man who’s not prejudiced can testify, it’s a privilege to be with a crowd of Negroes. The atmosphere is always supercharged. At intervals there are hearty guffaws, weird ejaculations, genuine peals of laughter such as you never hear from the throats of white people. White people lack spontaneity. When they laugh it seldom comes from the guts. Usually it’s a mocking sort of laughter. The black man’s laugh comes to him as easily as breathing.

  It was quite a time before Dubois appeared on the platform. When he did it was with the air of a sovereign mounting his throne. The very majesty of the man silenced any would-be demonstration. There was nothing of the rabble rouser in this leonine figure—such tactics were beneath him. His words, however, were like cold dynamite. Had he wanted to, he could have set off an explosion that would rock the world. But it was obvious that he had no intention of rocking the world—not yet, at any rate. As I listened to his speech I pictured him addressing a body of scientists in much this same way. I could imagine him unleashing the most devastating truths, but in such a manner that one would be left stunned rather than moved to action.

  What a pity, I thought, that a man of his ability, his powers, should be obliged to narrow his range. Because of his blood he was doomed to segregate himself, to restrict his horizon, his activities. He could have remained in Europe, where he was freely accepted and honored; he could have made a bigger place for himself there. But he had elected to remain with his own kinsmen, to raise them up, and, if possible, to make a better world for them to live in. He must have known from the beginning that it was a hopeless task, that nothing of any importance could be accomplished for his brethren in the space of one short lifetime. He was too intelligent a man to have any illusions on the subject. I didn’t know whether to admire or deplore his vain, courageous, stubborn persistence. Involuntarily I was making comparisons in my mind between him and John Brown. One had intelligence, the other blind faith. John Brown, in his passionate hatred of injustice and intolerance, had not hesitated to set himself up against the holy government of these United States. Had there been just a few hundred souls like himself in this big broad land, I doubt not but that he would have overthrown the existent government of these United States. When John Brown was executed a commotion pervaded this country which has never truly subsided. It is possible that John Brown may have set back the cause of the Negro in America. The fiasco at Harper’s Ferry may have made it forever impossible for the Negro to obtain his just rights by direct action. The amazing deeds of the great Liberator may have made any form of insurrection unthinkable—in the minds of later generations. (Just as the memory of the French Revolution makes a Frenchman quake.) Since John Brown’s day it seems to be silently agreed that the only way to permit a Negro to take his place in our world is through a long and dolorous education. That this is only a pretext for delaying the true event no one wishes to face. Imagine Jesus the Christ advocating such a policy!

  The blessing of freedom! Are we to wait forever until we are fit for it before we receive it? Or is freedom something to be wrested from those who tyrannically withhold it? Is there anyone great enough, wise enough, to say how long a man should remain a slave?

  Dubois was no rabble rouser. No, but to a man like myself it was all too obvious that what his words implied were—“Assume the spirit of liberty and you will be free!” Education? As I saw and felt it, he was saying almost bluntly: “I am telling you that it is your own fear and ignorance which keep you in slavery. There is only one kind of education, that which leads you to assert and maintain your own freedom.” What other purpose could he have had, in citing all the marvelous examples of African culture, before the white man’s intrusion, than to indicate the Negroes’ own self-sufficiency? What need had the Negro of the white man? None. What difference was there between the two races, what real, fundamental, vital difference? None. The paramount fact, the only fact worth consider
ation, was that the white man, despite all his grand words, all his tortuous principles, was still holding the Negro in subjection.… I am not quoting his words. I am recording my reactions, my interpretation of his speech. “First get off our backs!” that’s what I could hear him screaming—though he scarcely raised his voice, though he made no dramatic gestures, though he never said anything of the kind. “I’m telling you tonight about the glories of the past, of your past, of our common past, as Negroes. What of the future? Are you going to wait until the white man has sucked your blood dry? Will you wait meekly until he has filled our veins with his own poisonous blood? Already you are nothing but half-baked imitations of the white man. You ridicule him and you mimic him, at the same time. With every day that passes you are losing your own precious heritage. You are forfeiting it to your keepers who have not the least intention of granting you equality. Educate yourselves, if you wish. Improve your lot, if you can. But remember this—until you stand free and equal with your white neighbors nothing will avail. Don’t delude yourselves that the white man is your superior in any way. He isn’t. His skin may be white, but his heart is black. He is guilty before God and before his fellowman. He is bringing the world down about his ears in his pride and arrogance. The day is coming when he will rule no more. He has sown hatred throughout the world. He has pitted brother against brother. He has denied his own God. No, this miserable specimen of humanity is not the superior of the black man. This breed of man is doomed. Awake, my brothers! Awake and sing! Shout the white man down! Shut him out of your sight! Seal his lips, bind his limbs, bury him where he belongs—on the dung heap!”

  I repeat, nothing of the sort passed Dubois’ lips. He would undoubtedly have held me in contempt had I voiced such an interpretation of his speech. But words mean little. What’s back of them—that’s what counts. I almost felt ashamed of Dubois for using other words than the ones I heard in my mind. Had his words created a bloody insurrection he would have been the most bewildered man in the whole Negro community. And yet I persisted in believing that in his heart the message I have just given was recorded in blood and tears. If he were truly a whit less ardent he would not, could not, be the noble figure he was. I blushed to think that a man of such gifts, such powers, such insight, should be obliged to muffle his voice, to throttle his own true feelings. I admired him for all he had done, for all that he was, and it was indeed much—but if only he possessed a spark of that passionate spirit of John Brown! If only he had a touch of the fanatic! To speak of injustice and to remain cool—only a sage can act thus. (It must be granted, however, that where the ordinary man sees injustice the sage perhaps detects another kind of justice.) The just man is hard, merciless, inhuman. The just man will set fire to the world, will destroy it with his own hands, if he can, rather than see injustice perpetuated. John Brown was that sort of man. History has forgotten him. Lesser men have come forward, have upset the world, thrown it into a panic—and for nothing even approaching that which we call justice.… Give him a little more time and the white man will destroy himself and the pernicious world he has created. He has no solutions for the ills he has foisted upon the world. None whatever. He is empty, disillusioned, without a grain of hope. He pines for his own miserable end.