Three Days Before the Shooting . . .

by Ralph Ellison

  Wrong, Hickman, he thought, it’s some joker from the old days who’s out to needle you. And recalling the surprise and delight he’d given a group of rope-skipping children by dancing double-dutch to their rhythmical whirling, he raised his fists waist-high and boogie-woogied left and then right, thinking to counter and discourage his weird-moving teaser—whereupon the man lunged and reached down, and he felt the shock of arms grasping his thighs—and coming erect with a weight-lifter’s thrust, the stranger was raising him high in the air. And as he threw out his arms and swayed, passersby were stopping to stare with startled expressions. And suddenly overcome by the absurdity of what was happening he laughed to assure them that what they were watching was only a game.

  I know, it’s ridiculous for someone as big as me to let a man his size have him up in the air, he thought, but if you knew my calling you’d realize that lifting me up is his way of putting me down, as in the jokes white folks tell about Negro preachers being notorious eaters of fried chicken and chitterlings.

  And amazed by the apparent ease with which his teaser was supporting his weight, he thought, Maybe he’s out to prove that he’s in a class with Samson, the blind temple wrecker. But if this keeps up he’ll soon have a hernia….

  “Okay, old buddy, okay,” he laughed. “I surrender.”

  But as he peered down at his captor’s partially hidden face, expecting the burst of laughter with which such kidding usually ended he was surprised. For he was met by a pair of bloodshot eyes that stared back with a wild, unaccountable emotion. And as he asked himself, What is it with this bird, he was surprised by a siren’s shrill screaming and looked up to see a police squad car speeding in his direction.

  Since they’re seldom around when you need them, he thought, why are they showing up for some foolishness like this?

  But now with a roar the squad car swept past, and above a blue-clad arm pointing from its window he saw a white blur of a face erupting with laughter—and with a squealing of rubber the car roared past and away with its roof lights flashing and its siren screaming.

  Good riddance, he thought, and enough of this foolishness. And reaching down to have a good look at the stranger’s face he again heard the voice shout from Janus’s old barbershop:

  “Dammit, Lee-roy! Stop that foolishness and git your butt back here so’s I can be done with your haircut!”

  And looking up the street he saw a barber who stood in the door with hands on hips while glaring disgustedly at the man who held him.

  “You should listen to him, old buddy,” he said with a tap on the stranger’s partially barbered head, “because considering how long you’ve had me up in the air we could both use some rest.”

  But with a grunt the stranger was hoisting him higher, and as he swayed in the air he caught sight of a white man who seemed vaguely familiar staring from a third-story window. And feeling a pause in his lifter’s exertion he sensed that his confusing ascension had come to an end. Yes! For now, straining and grunting, the stranger was gradually bringing him down.

  Lucky for me, he thought, that none of the members are watching this foolishness—when suddenly the stranger stumbled and sent the scene flying in a blur in which traffic and buildings were whirling in a pungent confusion of bay rum and talcum, and a truck’s bassy rumbling merging with the falsetto imitation of the squad car’s siren being screeched by a straw-hatted boy riding a tricycle with bare legs flying like those of a high-tailing cat being chased by a dog as—zip!— he rounded the corner. And as he squirmed in the air his captor’s head snapped back—and suddenly he was staring at a perspiring face, the skin of which appeared to have been been illuminated underneath by a powerful beam.

  But instead he was gazing at a drastic loss of pigment which had left the man’s face an incongruous battleground of conflicting colors. And as he blinked the taut face stared back with the fierce immutability of an African mask which bore grotesque scarification of mysterious design, and the white, red-ringed splotches of which appeared to dance above the blue-blackness of its surrounding flesh as though to challenge any quick assumptions as to its racial identity.

  Good Lord, Hickman, he thought, you’ve been grabbed by a red-white-and-blue black man and recoiled with a shudder. For as he wavered before the enigmatic force of his captor’s bloodshot gaze he was appalled that the wild exertions of a skin-sick stranger could have tricked him into violating a basic principle of his own racial pride.

  But you laughed, he thought as he hung in the air, you laughed! So if getting your goat was his intention he’s done much better than he could have expected. And even though his coming at you so sudden threw you off guard, it’s still disgraceful and shameful. So now a total stranger has you up in the air and you’ll have to redeem what you’ve done by hanging around to find out why. And if your reaction shows on your face I hope he’ll forgive you—if not, may the Lord make him saner than he’s acting, or you’ll probably end up having to fight him….

  And with eyes still probing the melancholy mystery of the stranger’s face he felt the shock of his feet striking the sidewalk. And in stumbling and regaining his balance he saw the stranger’s pink-splotched lips come apart with an explosion of breath, was sprayed with spittle, and had his ears blasted by an ecstatic shout of, “Good God, Chief, am I glad to see you!”

  “I’d like to believe you,” he said as he wiped his face with his handkerchief, “but after what you’ve just put me through I don’t know. Anyway, take it easy, man; take it easy, or you’ll drown me….”

  “Man, oh, Man!” the stranger sang as with hands on hips he rocked back and gave him a gap-toothed grin, “I thought they’d never let you go; but here, years after I’d given up all hopes of ever seeing you again, I happen to look out the window back there and here you come, a man in the flesh!”

  Puzzled, Hickman managed to smile while wondering if the man were someone he had known during the old days. Or had Ole Uncle Bud, the messenger, run around the corner and come back to test him under a different disguise?

  “Is that right,” he said. “Well, it does happen that way sometimes. You come back to town after a long time away and before you walk a block someone you least expect looks up and recognizes you….”

  “That’s right, Chief,” the stranger said, “and that’s what’s so wonderful about our reunion! Man, I’ve been thinking about you, dreaming about you, and wanting to talk with you—which I thought I never would—and then I look out that barbershop window and here you are in the flesh!”

  As he studied the stranger’s face, Hickman smiled.

  “And I bet I can guess why you wanted to see me,” he said. “You’re one of the fellows I left town owing a gambling debt—is that it?”

  “Gambling debt? What gambling debt? Hell, Chief, you know that with me gambling was always easy-come, easy-go! Besides, you were never that kind of gambler. What I’m talking about is how I turned my back on you. That’s the point, and I was wrong as hell! But I did it! Yes, sir! So I’m guilty and I been dying to ask for your forgiveness….”

  “Forgiveness,” Hickman said. “Forgive you for what?”

  “For what,” the stranger—Leroy—said. Then with an abrupt shifting of crippled legs his head shot forward. “Look, Chief,” he said, “I understand what you’re up to and I appreciate it, I really do. But if you make it easy on me I won’t be able to stand it! So don’t play me cheap, ‘cause, man, I need your forgiveness. I need it for letting them confuse me about you when I should have known better! But, naw, after they caught you and throwed you in jail and all—that’s when I began to give up on you. Me, a true dyed-in-the-wool believer! I can see you’re surprised, but that’s the truth! Instead of keeping the faith and sticking by you through thick and through thin, man, I gave up on you! So now you can see why I got to have your forgiveness!”

  “All right,” Hickman said, still puzzled but with a sense of relief, “if that’s all you want, everything’s copacetic. I forgive you. But to tell yo
u the truth, in those days I was in so many raids that I don’t even remember the trial you’re referring to.”

  “Sure,” Leroy said, “and that’s because you tried to teach us to always remember the past but look and live for the future. Besides, with me coming at you so sudden it’s no wonder you don’t dig me. But hell, Chief, seeing you so unexpected has me all stirred up! Look, it’s hot as hell out on this sidewalk, especially with me wearing this neck-cloth. How about stepping around the corner where we can talk in the shade? You don’t mind, do you, Chief?”

  “No,” Hickman said, “because as you’ve probably heard listening to problems has become a kind of duty—I mean a responsibility of mine….”

  “Then come on, man,” Leroy said, “come on!”

  And now, following Leroy’s rocking gait around the corner and into the shade cast by the building, his mind reeled with the names of cripples, both white and black, whom he’d known in the old days. Hickman, he thought, you’ve known gambling cripples, pimping cripples, even con-man cripples as well as cripples who were hardworking men with families. And some who were musicians and dancers—like Peg Leg Bates, Chick Webb, and Big-time Crip. Then there were all those assorted neighborhood cripples. Characters like No-toes, Crip Wilson … yes, and Tippy-Lee Morton, who transformed walking with his mismatched legs into an act of graceful elegance. And there was Sugar-foot, and Crippled Charleston, Stilts Benford, String-halted Harry, Dog-trot Johnson, and Jake-leg Mac, who had to wear leg braces after drinking poisoned Jamaica Ginger. Oh, yes, and don’t forget Funky-fingers Hagerson, that thin claw-handed pickpocket who worked small fairs, circuses, and tent-meetings; Hagerson, who robbed school cafeterias, stole books from libraries and silver sacramental vessels from churches, and swore that he couldn’t be caught because he paid some voodoo woman to piss seven times in those high-topped, bulldog-toed shoes which he stole for luck from a tough New Orleans Cajun policeman—talk about hedging voodoo mystery with civil authority! Seven times? Yes, seven times is what he insisted…. I’ll never forget Hagerson, whose conked hair was always in a state of rebellion, and a bully who took bribes from pimps, whores, and small-time gamblers and got away with it by insisting that he was both a root doctor and an undercover man for J. Edgar Hoover; Hagerson, whose hand was maimed when that gal Sloppy Sal splashed him with lye from a Charleston pistol after she violated her code by giving him a freebie and discovered that the clown couldn’t deliver—I’ve known enough such characters to make up a circus, but not a one who was named Leroy. And none of them had this fellow’s sick skin, mechanical movements, or manners so violent….

  “Now this is better,” Leroy said as he threw the neck-cloth over his shoulder like a cape and reached into the pocket of his black sports jacket to remove a blue silk handkerchief.

  “Much better,” he said, leaning back and propping himself against the guardrail that surrounded a wide empty area of triangular space which dropped two floors to the building’s basement. “Now we can talk.”

  “I’m with you,” Hickman said with a look at his watch, “but you’ll have to make it short, because I’m already late for an important appointment.”

  “Oh, sure,” Leroy said. “So like I was saying, I been stirred up about you for over a year. That’s the truth, a whole year! Ain’t been able to sleep for thinking about you. Because like I say, after that trial—man, I lost heart and put you down! But then, about a month ago, things started changing!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was this way, Chief: First I had this warning that came in the middle of the night on the dark of the moon. I was beat to my socks and sleeping real sound when I heard this noise which woke me up. That’s when I realized that something strange was in the room. But while I could feel it I couldn’t see it. So then I raised up, trying to see what it was but still couldn’t see nothing. Then, after a while, my eyes adjusted to the blackness, and over in the darkest part of the room I see something curled up in my old leather chair. At first I think it’s a dog or something, but the longer I look the better I could see, and that’s when I realized that it was a little ole man—that’s right! And I say to myself, Leroy, we’re getting the hell out of here!

  “So I reach over real quiet and get holt of my britches and start to easing them on—and you know what happens? Right away this little man raises up and reaches for his britches, and he’s matching me move for move! So at that I freeze with one foot in the air, and he does the same thing and stops like he’s waiting to see my next move. And Chief, I tell you, I don’t waste any time. But when I stick my foot in my pants leg and start pulling them on I know right away that I’m really in trouble!

  “Because when he starts to putting on his britches instead of doing it one leg at a time like an ordinary man he holds his out in front of him a bit and then goes into a deep kind of trance or something. And just when I’m beginning to wonder what’s going on, all of a sudden he gives a little hop into the air, and zip!—he has both his legs in ‘em! That’s right! And before I can bat my eye he’s already buckling up his belt! And I mean faster than a fireman when the whistle blows for a six-alarm fire! That’s when I panic and try to get my foot into the other leg of my britches and start scrambling around for my shoes to get the hell out of there. But when I do he looks down at some big ole gaiters with zippers on the sides which I see sitting on the floor in front of him. And before I know what’s happening he’s into those suckers with both feet and has zipped them! And then he’s looking straight at me like we were playing checkers and he’s daring me by saying ‘Move, sah! Move-move! Move!’ And Chief, what’s worse was the fact that when he zipped up those gaiters they were way too big for him, but then he started to grow! It was like he was being filled with an air hose, and the bigger he gets the more familiar he gets. And what more he’s still watching every move I’m making.

  “So with that I yells, ‘Hey, man, what’s going on in here!’ But all he does is frown, and the way he does it makes me know that I’m really in trouble. And that’s when it comes over me that from the way he put on his britches and gaiters and then rises up so big and starts looking at me so accusing he has got to be nobody but you!”

  “Me?” Hickman laughed. “Oh, come on! Do you mean that you dreamed that I was a ghost?”

  “Oh, no, Chief, not a ghost, but the special kind of man you’ve always been. And by the fact that anybody who could do what he was doing simply had to be you. Oh, yes, I knew it! You had made yourself small to get my attention, and now that you were big again I wanted to make sure. So I asked you, ‘Brother, who the hell are you?’

  “But remember, Chief, instead of identifying yourself you spoke up real stern and said, ‘That’s mistake number one. Don’t question what you see, use your senses!’

  “And that’s when I see you whip out a little black notebook and write something in it.

  “So then I start to ask you what you meant, but before I can open my mouth you say, ‘That’s mistake number two, so don’t repeat it—use your eyes!’

  “‘But be reasonable,’ I said. ‘It’s dark as hell in here!’

  “‘Mistake number three,’ you said. ‘Haven’t I taught you that dark men shall see through dark days?’

  “‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘But…’

  “‘… And that those who seek the truth in darkness shall find it?’

  “‘Right again,’ I said, ‘you did, but that was a long time ago….’

  “‘… And didn’t I teach you that there’s a brightness in blackness and whiteness in darkness?’

  “So I said, ‘Sure, you did, but in a situation like this I’d have to strike a match to see it….’

  “And that’s when you bowed your head and said, ‘Now you’re learning: Enlightenment requires unceasing effort and strong determination!’ And I could see you writing in that notebook again.

  “So then I said, ‘Learning what‘—and right away I knew I was wrong again.

  “‘Mistake numb
er four,’ you said, and you sounded mean as hell.

  “‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’m kinda ignorant, and besides it’s been a long time, so why don’t you give a man some instruction? Or is this some kind of examination?’

  “And you said, ‘Now you’re riffing, are you prepared to listen?’

  “‘Oh, yes,’ I said, ‘I’m tuned in sharp and have the volume turned up as high as it can go….’

  “So then you said, ‘Listen carefully and follow these rules: Think, reflect, and remember! Then advance by retracing your footsteps and casting down your bucket where you were. For then ye shall see that all things converge in thee as in me—all things! Yea! Go thee then to Constitution Avenue and peer into the many cracks that abound there, and watch out for the mirrors hidden within! Yea, and for the many images reflected therein. These will be many and of various shapes and sizes, but study them all, and with strict attention! For while some are true, many are false, as are those whom ye shall see revealed within them. Ye shall see strange shapes that are familiar and familiar shapes which are passing strange, therefore be not distracted by distractions—fish, fowl, or funky woman crying out lies against thee. And remember that when such as ye steps into a scene the action changes, for it has been structured to exclude thee. Therefore it cannot sustain thy black reality without drastic modification. This, then, is thy opportunity, for ye shall enter the cracks as a corrective. Thus be ye not sorrowful that ye lack a Cadillac—shanks’ mare will get thee there!’

  “‘Look, man,’ I said, ‘I hear you talking but I’m not digging much of anything. How come you hitting me with all these riddles? You been drinking?’

  “And that’s when you yelled, ‘Mistake number five! Wisdom questioned is opportunity lost! Life has taught us that it is the nature of pig meat to be soft but greasy; therefore take my instruction and approach it with eloquence, silence, and cunning—yea! but with the finest of talcum powder on your hands!’