Song of Solomon

by Toni Morrison

  Milkman nodded. “Yeah. If I stay around you I will. I’ll stop smoking, fucking, drinking–everything. I’ll take up a secret life and hanging out with Empire State.”

  Guitar frowned. “Now who’s meddling?”

  Milkman sighed and looked straight at his friend. “I am. I want to know why you were running around with Empire State last Christmas.”

  “He was in trouble. I helped him.”

  “That’s all?”

  “What else?”

  “I don’t know what else. But I know there is something else. Now, if it’s something I can’t know, okay, say so. But something’s going on with you. And I’d like to know what it is.”

  Guitar didn’t answer.

  “We’ve been friends a long time, Guitar. There’s nothing you don’t know about me. I can tell you anything—whatever our differences, I know I can trust you. But for some time now it’s been a one-way street. You know what I mean? I talk to you, but you don’t talk to me. You don’t think I can be trusted?”

  “I don’t know if you can or not.”

  “Try me.”

  “I can’t. Other people are involved.”

  “Then don’t tell me about other people; tell me about you.”

  Guitar looked at him for a long time. Maybe, he thought. Maybe I can trust you. Maybe not, but I’ll risk it anyway because one day…

  “Okay,” he said aloud, “but you have to know that what I tell you can’t go any further. And if it does, you’ll be dropping a rope around my neck. Now do you still want to know it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Guitar poured some more hot water over his tea. He looked into his cup for a minute while the leaves settled slowly to the bottom. “I suppose you know that white people from time to time, and most folks shake their heads and say, ’Eh, eh, eh, ain’t that a shame?’”

  Milkman raised his eyebrows. He thought Guitar was going to let him in on some deal he had going. But he was slipping into his race bag. He was speaking slowly, as though each word had to count, and as though he were listening carefully to his own words. “I can’t suck my teeth or say ‘Eh, eh, eh.’ I had to do something. And the only thing left to do is balance it; keep things on an even keel. Any man, any woman, or any child is good for five to seven generations of heirs before they’re bred out. So every death is the death of five to seven generations. You can’t stop them from killing us, from trying to get rid of us. And each time they succeed, they get rid of five to seven generations. I help keep the numbers the same.

  “There is a society. It’s made up of a few men who are willing to take some risks. They don’t initiate anything; they don’t even choose. They are as indifferent as rain. But when a Negro child, Negro woman, or Negro man is killed by whites and nothing is done about it by their law and their courts, this society selects a similar victim at random, and they execute him or her in a similar manner if they can. If the Negro was hanged, they hang; if a Negro was burnt, they burn; raped and murdered, they rape and murder. If they can. If they can’t do it precisely in the same manner, they do it any way they can, but they do it. They call themselves the Seven Days. They are made up of seven men. Always seven and only seven. If one of them dies or leaves or is no longer effective, another is chosen. Not right away, because that kind of choosing takes time. But they don’t seem to be in a hurry. Their secret is time. To take the time, to last. Not to grow; that’s dangerous because you might become known. They don’t write their names in toilet stalls or brag to women. Time and silence. Those are their weapons, and they go on forever.

  “It got started in 1920, when that private from Georgia was killed after his balls were cut off and after that veteran was blinded when he came home from France in World War I. And it’s been operating ever since. I am one of them now.”

  Milkman had held himself very still all the time Guitar spoke. Now he felt tight, shriveled, and cold.

  “You? You’re going to kill people?”

  “Not people. White people.”

  “But why?”

  “I just told you. It’s necessary; it’s got to be done. To keep the ratio the same.”

  “And if it isn’t done? If it just goes on the way it has?”

  “Then the world is a zoo, and I can’t live in it.”

  “Why don’t you just hunt down the ones who did the killing? Why kill innocent people? Why not just those who did it?”

  “It doesn’t matter who did it. Each and every one of them could do it. So you just get any one of them. There are no innocent white people, because every one of them is a potential nigger-killer, if not an actual one. You think Hitler surprised them? You think just because they went to war they thought he was a freak? Hitler’s the most natural white man in the world. He killed Jews and Gypsies because he didn’t have us. Can you see those Klansmen shocked by him? No, you can’t.”

  “But people who lynch and slice off people’s balls—they’re crazy, Guitar, crazy.”

  “Every time somebody does a thing like that to one of us, they say the people who did it were crazy or ignorant. That’s like saying they were drunk. Or constipated. Why isn’t cutting a man’s eyes out, cutting his nuts off, the kind of thing you never get too drunk or ignorant to do? Too crazy to do? Too constipated to do? And more to the point, how come Negroes, the craziest, most ignorant people in America, don’t get that crazy and that ignorant? No. White people are unnatural. As a race they are unnatural. And it takes a strong effort of the will to overcome an unnatural enemy.”

  “What about the nice ones? Some whites made sacrifices for Negroes. Real sacrifices.”

  “That just means there are one or two natural ones. But they haven’t been able to stop the killing either. They are outraged, but that doesn’t stop it. They might even speak out, but that doesn’t stop it either. They might even inconvenience themselves, but the killing goes on and on. So will we.”

  “You’re missing the point. There’re not just one or two. There’re a lot.”

  “Are there? Milkman, if Kennedy got drunk and bored and was sitting around a potbellied stove in Mississippi, he might join a lynching party just for the hell of it. Under those circumstances his unnaturalness would surface. But I know I wouldn’t join one no matter how drunk I was or how bored, and I know you wouldn’t either, nor any black man I know or ever heard tell of. Ever. In any world, at any time, just get up and go find somebody white to slice up. But they can do it. And they don’t even do it for profit, which is why they do most things. They do it for fun. Unnatural.”

  “What about…” Milkman searched his memory for some white person who had shown himself unequivocally supportive of Negroes. “Schweitzer. Albert Schweitzer. Would he do it?”

  “In a minute. He didn’t care anything about those Africans. They could have been rats. He was in a laboratory testing himself—proving he could work on human dogs.”

  “What about Eleanor Roosevelt?”

  “I don’t know about the women. I can’t say what their women would do, but I do remember that picture of those white mothers holding up their babies so they could get a good look at some black men burning on a tree. So I have my suspicions about Eleanor Roosevelt. But none about Mr. Roosevelt. You could’ve taken him and his wheelchair and put him in a small dusty town in Alabama and given him some tobacco, a checkerboard, some whiskey, and a rope and he’d have done it too. What I’m saying is, under certain conditions they would all do it. And under the same circumstances we would not. So it doesn’t matter that some of them haven’t done it. I listen. I read. And now I know that they know it too. They know they are unnatural. Their writers and artists have been saying it for years. Telling them they are unnatural, telling them they are depraved. They call it tragedy. In the movies they call it adventure. It’s just depravity that they try to make glorious, natural. But it ain’t. The disease they have is in their blood, in the structure of their chromosomes.”

&
nbsp; “You can prove this, I guess. Scientifically?”

  “No.”

  “Shouldn’t you be able to prove it before you act on something like that?”

  “Did they prove anything scientifically about us before they killed us? No. They killed us first and then tried to get some scientific proof about why we should die.”

  “Wait a minute, Guitar. If they are as bad, as unnatural, as you say, why do you want to be like them? Don’t you want to be better than they are?”

  “I am better.”

  “But now you’re doing what the worst of them do.”

  “Yes, but I am reasonable.”

  “Reasonable? How?”

  “I am not, one, having fun; two, trying to gain power or public attention or money or land; three, angry at anybody.”

  “You’re not angry? You must be!”

  “Not at all. I hate doing it. I’m afraid to do it. It’s hard to do it when you aren’t angry or drunk or doped up or don’t have a personal grudge against the person.”

  “I can’t see how it helps. I can’t see how it helps anybody.”

  “I told you. Numbers. Balance. Ratio. And the earth, the land.”

  “I’m not understanding you.”

  “The earth is soggy with black people’s blood. And before us Indian blood. Nothing can cure them, and if it keeps on there won’t be any of us left and there won’t be any land for those who are left. So the numbers have to remain static.”

  “But there are more of them than us.”

  “Only in the West. But still the ratio can’t widen in their favor.”

  “But you should want everybody to know that the society exists. Then maybe that would help stop it. What’s the secrecy for?”

  “To keep from getting caught.”

  “Can’t you even let other Negroes know about it? I mean to give us hope?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Betrayal. The possibility of betrayal.”

  “Well, let them know. Let white people know. Like the Mafia or the Klan; frighten them into behaving.”

  “You’re talking foolishness. How can you let one group know and not the other? Besides, we are not like them. The Mafia is unnatural. So is the Klan. One kills for money, the other kills for fun. And they have huge profits and protection at their disposal. We don’t. But it’s not about other people knowing. We don’t even tell the victims. We just whisper to him, ‘Your Day has come.’ The beauty of what we do is its secrecy, its smallness. The fact that nobody needs the unnatural satisfaction of talking about it. Telling about it. We don’t discuss it among ourselves, the details. We just get an assignment. If the Negro was killed on a Wednesday, the Wednesday man takes it; if he was killed on Monday, the Monday man takes that one. And we just notify one another when it’s completed, not how or who. And if it ever gets to be too much, like it was for Robert Smith, we do that rather than crack and tell somebody. Like Porter. It was getting him down. They thought somebody would have to take over his day. He just needed a rest and he’s okay now.”

  Milkman stared at his friend and then let the spasm he had been holding back run through him. “I can’t buy it, Guitar.”

  “I know that.”

  “There’s too much wrong with it.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Well, for one thing, you’ll get caught eventually.”

  “Maybe. But if I’m caught I’ll just die earlier than I’m supposed to—not better than I’m supposed to. And how I die or when doesn’t interest me. What I die for does. It’s the same as what I live for. Besides, if I’m caught they’ll accuse me and kill me for one crime, maybe two, never for all. And there are still six other days in the week. We’ve been around for a long long time. And believe me, we’ll be around for a long long time to come.”

  “You can’t marry.”

  “No.”

  “Have children.”

  “No.”

  “What kind of life is that?”

  “Very satisfying.”

  “There’s no love in it.”

  “No love? No love? Didn’t you hear me? What I’m doing ain’t about hating white people. It’s about loving us. About loving you. My whole life is love.”

  “Man, you’re confused.”

  “Am I? When those concentration camp Jews hunt down Nazis, are they hating Nazis or loving dead Jews?”

  “It’s not the same thing.”

  “Only because they have money and publicity.”

  “No; because they turn them over to the courts. You kill and you don’t kill the killers. You kill innocent people.”

  “I told you there are no—”

  “And you don’t correct a thing by—”

  “We poor people, Milkman. I work at an auto plant. The rest of us barely eke out a living. Where’s the money, the state, the country to finance our justice? You say Jews try their catches in a court. Do we have a court? Is there one courthouse in one city in the country where a jury would convict them? There are places right now where a Negro still can’t testify against a white man. Where the judge, the jury, the court, are legally bound to ignore anything a Negro has to say. What that means is that a black man is a victim of a crime only when a white man says he is. Only then. If there was anything like or near justice or courts when a cracker kills a Negro, there wouldn’t have to be no Seven Days. But there ain’t; so we are. And we do it without money, without support, without costumes, without newspapers, without senators, without lobbyists, and without illusions!”

  “You sound like that red-headed Negro named X. Why don’t you join him and call yourself Guitar X?”

  “X, Bains—what difference does it make? I don’t give a damn about names.”

  “You miss his point. His point is to let white people know you don’t accept your slave name.”

  “I don’t give a shit what white people know or even think. Besides, I do accept it. It’s part of who I am. Guitar is my name. Bains is the slave master’s name. And I’m all of that. Slave names don’t bother me; but slave status does.”

  “And knocking off white folks changes your slave status?”

  “Believe it.”

  “Does it do anything for my slave status?”

  Guitar smiled. “Well, doesn’t it?”

  “Hell, no.” Milkman frowned. “Am I going to live any longer because you all read the newspaper and then ambush some poor old white man?”

  “It’s not about you living longer. It’s about how you live and why. It’s about whether your children can make other children. It’s about trying to make a world where one day white people will think before they lynch.”

  “Guitar, none of that shit is going to change how I live or how any other Negro lives. What you’re doing is crazy. And something else: it’s a habit. If you do it enough, you can do it to anybody. You know what I mean? A torpedo is a torpedo, I don’t care what his reasons. You can off anybody you don’t like. You can off me.”

  “We don’t off Negroes.”

  “You hear what you said? Negroes. Not Milkman. Not ‘No, I can’t touch you, Milkman,’ but ‘We don’t off Negroes.’ Shit, man, suppose you all change your parliamentary rules?”

  “The Days are the Days. It’s been that way a long time.”

  Milkman thought about that. “Any other young dudes in it? Are all the others older? You the only young one?”

  “Why?”

  “Cause young dudes are subject to change the rules.”

  “You worried about yourself, Milkman?” Guitar looked amused.

  “No. Not really.” Milkman put his cigarette out and reached for another one. “Tell me, what’s your day?”

  “Sunday. I’m the Sunday man.”

  Milkman rubbed the ankle of his short leg. “I’m scared for you, man.”

  “That’s funny. I’m scared for you too.”

  Chapter 7

  Truly landlocked people know they are. Know the occasional Bitter Creek or Powder Riv
er that runs through Wyoming; that the large tidy Salt Lake of Utah is all they have of the sea and that they must content themselves with bank, shore, and beach because they cannot claim a coast. And having none, seldom dream of flight. But the people living in the Great Lakes region are confused by their place on the country’s edge—an edge that is border but not coast. They seem to be able to live a long time believing, as coastal people do, that they are at the frontier where final exit and total escape are the only journeys left. But those five Great Lakes which the St. Lawrence feeds with memories of the sea are themselves landlocked, in spite of the wandering river that connects them to the Atlantic. Once the people of the lake region discover this, the longing to leave becomes acute, and a break from the area, therefore, is necessarily dream-bitten, but necessary nonetheless. It might be an appetite for other streets, other slants of light. Or a yearning to be surrounded by strangers. It may even be a wish to hear the solid click of a door closing behind their backs.

  For Milkman it was the door click. He wanted to feel the heavy white door on Not Doctor Street close behind him and know that he might be hearing the catch settle into its groove for the last time.

  “You’ll own it all. All of it. You’ll be free. Money is freedom, Macon. The only real freedom there is.”

  “I know, Daddy, I know. But I have to get away just the same. I’m not leaving the country; I just want to be on my own. Get a job on my own, live on my own. You did it at sixteen. Guitar at seventeen. Everybody. I’m still living at home, working for you—not because I sweated for the job, but because I’m your son. I’m over thirty years old.”

  “I need you here, Macon. If you were going to go, you should have gone five years ago. Now I’ve come to depend on you.” It was difficult for him to beg, but he came as close to it as he could.

  “Just a year. One year. Stake me for a year and let me go. When I come back, I’ll work a year for nothing and pay you back.”

  “It’s not the money. It’s you being here, taking care of this. Taking care of all I’m going to leave you. Getting to know it, know how to handle it.”