Three Days Before the Shooting . . .

by Ralph Ellison

  “Then I told him, ‘Yes, it is true, and maybe it’ll remain true until the problem of the black and the white and the red man is considered in terms other than it is today. Maybe then the State folks will make peace with who they are, and what they are, and again become human. But today as in days gone by there is great trouble brewing among the State folks, and great inner division. And while they have some sense of what’s happening they ignore it. Otherwise, why all their endless arguing and fighting over what and who they are?

  “‘Now there,’ I told him, ‘is your true comic strip alive and kicking—your Moon Mullins, your Maggie and Jiggs, your Katzenjammer Kids! The State folks have confused human life with the comics and don’t even know it. They don’t know or recognize themselves, and when they think it’s to their advantage, some of the State white folks will even claim to be of the People! And even some of the black ones—not Natives like me, but State Negroes—will argue over who they are. But how could this be a problem? Are not they men with other men, their fathers, behind them? And are they not men born of mothers? Beings connected to the land? For being human, how can men not know who they are, or from whence they came? When you stop and think about it, it’s all very odd, very strange. As strange as calves with two heads and one body—which I have seen—or Siamese twins, which I have also seen, and which is a good name for the State folks. But I think you know that I speak the truth truly.’

  “And then the boy was pressing me again. He said, ‘Perhaps it’s true. But tell me, Mister Love, Mister New, where do you stand in all of this confusion?’

  “‘Hell,’ I said, ‘exactly where I’ve stood for many a long year: outside the lousy corral.’ And he said, ‘But I’ve known you for years, right here in town.’ And I said, ‘Yes, here in the flesh but outside in spirit—Yao! And a world apart from people who believe that a good life can be built on a lie, and that men can kill without taking responsibility for those they destroy. Because for all their differences all men are brothers, and to kill without compassion and pity is a crime against nature. It hangs in the mind like a snake gashing his own tail with his fangs. It bleeds in the night and rampages in dreams, where it slashes the dreamer like tomahawks and knives. And the children inherit it through the milk of their mothers, and when they grow up it sounds in their actions like fear in the boastings of cowards.’

  “Like I say, we were drinking whiskey, and by now the boy’s had run low, so I got up to refill his glass. And that’s when he looked up at me like a smart-assed Sooner district attorney questioning a criminal and says, ‘This is fine bourbon, but isn’t it illegal to sell whiskey to Indians?’

  “So I said, ‘Indians? Why yes, but laws like that don’t apply to me, Love New.’

  “And he said, ‘But you keep saying that you’re of the People, an Indian….’

  “And it’s true,’ I said, ‘but you’re overlooking one important detail….’

  “‘What’s that?’ he says.

  “‘Hell, boy,’ say I, looking him dead in the eye, ‘when I’m drinking my whiskey I’m colored!—a Negro.’

  “So then, laughing like you, he says, ‘I get it, you really do fall between definitions.’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and if I didn’t folks would crush me the way they crush the State Negroes.’

  [FLIGHTS]

  “THEN I WENT ON, I told him, ‘It’s a crime to kill without brotherly feeling, because when you do there’s nothing left inside to restrain you. All men are human, so when you fight with someone you recognize as being a man like yourself you might hate him but you’re bound to him by human feelings. So that being true, you don’t set out to kill the things which bind you. Neither do you call him an animal to justify killing him, because you’ll be killing part of yourself.’

  “Then I said, ‘In war, soldiers are bound by their common condition as men facing death. That’s why they try to fight according to rules that respect their enemies’ humanity. But when you fight somebody and tell yourself you have nothing in common with him or his brother, or his father, or his mother, wife, or children, you feel free to go on a rampage of killing—Yao!—but later on the killed and the killing will come back to haint you.’

  “‘And that kind of killing has been going on in this country for years. There’s been too much of it, and those responsible tell themselves that they have nothing to do with those they destroy. That’s the lie they tell themselves and tell others. Meanwhile, the land they’ve been trying to build a good life on has turned to bloody quicksand.’

  “And Hickman, you know what the boy said to that? He got real Northern and white and said I was talking abstract ideals and that historical necessity—that was his word, has little to do with truth! Oh, he was hot as a pistol, so I got quiet and let him have his say.

  “‘Look,’ he said, ‘you’re talking as though a great nation is no more than a single man, but it’s not. Because a great nation is a collectivity of diverse individuals that has to operate by rules above and beyond the rules that govern individuals. That’s why great nations do whatever they have to do in order to survive and fulfill their destinies.’

  “‘Is that right?’ I said.

  “‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and when a few hostile tribes try to impede a great nation’s progress and it wipes them out, in the broad scheme of history it’s no more important than if they were struck by an earthquake.’

  “He said, ‘You might not like it, but as things stand what you call quicksand seems fairly firm, because a great nation has been built on it. So whether you like it or not, it’s here.’

  “So I looked into those blue eyes of his and I asked him, I said, ‘But what will you do when you wake up one morning and find this proud nation of yours exploding and you’re lying under some wreckage? Hell, you talk to me about something called history which I think is phony. But now you listen while I tell it as it would be told by the People:

  “‘First, folks arrive in ships, and after shaking the hands of the People and accepting their succotash, fish, and tobacco, the white foreigners get settled. Then, after seeing what a wonderful land it was they turn on the People and begin killing off the tribes to the east. They beat them away from the sea and took over their homeland. Then they lied to themselves about what they’d done and tried to build a good life on the lie. By this time they were calling themselves Americans, and they came like a plague to the South and killed off more of the People and beat them away from the shores of the ocean. Then they lied to themselves again and built some more on the lie.

  “‘Next, after calling the Chickasaws, the Choctaws, Cherokees, Creeks, and the Seminoles the Five civilized nations they turned on them. Then that great democrat Andy Jackson forced them west on a trail that was so lone and bloody that it was known as the Trail of Tears—and all this after they had taken the solemn oaths to be bound by the treaties and smoked the peace pipes and exchanged peaceful words with the People. So with all of that turned into a mockery they then went on to build some more on the lie….’

  “And he said, ‘What lie?’

  “I said, ‘The biggest lie that men can tell themselves: that they were innocent. That they acted out of what you call necessity and did what they did in the name of their god.’

  “And he said, ‘I see.’

  “I said, ‘I hope so, because that’s what happened. And with all the lying and stealing and abuse of the land, why blame it on God? Hell, they had superior weapons and ships to supply them with food and machinery. They had livestock and horses—Yao! And by then they had the black man shackled and bound to the hoe and hitched to the plow. And with every incoming tide more ships were bringing in slaves! And on top of that they were breeding like rabbits and moving West at the rate of seventeen miles a year. Not only that, they were swarming like locusts and grabbing more land than they needed or had men to settle. But when Black Hawk … when poor old Black Hawk tried to hold on to his land so he could feed his people, the God-fearing Americans went to war against him! All that many aga
inst so few.

  “‘And let’s not go into what they did down in Mexico,’ I said. ‘Let us leave that alone. Let us just say that they were not satisfied with the peace they had forced or with all they had stolen. Let us accept what they say about it today, which is that they were innocent and couldn’t help themselves. That they were helpless in the grip of their manifest destiny, which was sending them speeding west to the Pacific—Yao! But the truth is that inside their lies and killing was boilding, and that they were forced to lie some more and kill some more to justify their killing. Some manifest, some destiny!

  “‘And it was becoming easier, because by now the People were divided and weakening. So then the State white folks turned to killing each other over the spoils. And with that even I’m forced to admit that for once in their bloody time in this land they were fair and evenhanded. Because when they turned against one another in that family feuding of theirs they really did them some killing!

  “‘Along with rifles and cannon they killed with food and machines, engineers and medicine. They killed in the name of freedom, and in the name of slavery. With one side insisting that freedom was the right to keep breeding slaves, and the other insisting that it was their right to be rid of slavery. So they killed and killed. They killed with iron ships, and they killed with locomotives and with factories. And one side killed using farmers to feed their fighters, and the other side killed using slaves in the fields to supply theirs with rations.

  “‘Then Rebs began to get the best of the Yanks and the Yanks moved South and started burning Reb cotton fields and gardens. And when the Rebs kept fighting, the Yanks cut loose from their bases and killed whole countrysides and cities. And before the two were through they’d shed so much blood that even the rivers ran red. And so it went, and it wasn’t until men were falling like corn before the blades of a reaper and the dead stacked up like logs did they finally become afraid that they’d gone too far. And that’s when they made the lying arrangement they called peace—Yao!’ ”

  “And is that the People’s view of the Civil War?” Hickman said.

  “Hell, yes! And they don’t give a damn whether you call it the Civil War, the War Between the States, or a fight between two different nations!”

  “Okay! Okay!”

  “I said, I told him, ‘But no sooner than peace was signed they broke it. Then they murdered their one great man, Old Abe. And then they lied to themselves again and set out once more to build a good life on that bloody pyramid of bodies. That’s some of the truth, if there’s a place for it in what you call “history”— Yao! But like they say when they go hunting and fail to hit a target that’s sitting: A miss is a mystery, while a hit is history.

  “‘Which means that a hit puts blood on the ground and meat on the table, while a miss becomes the subject for lies that are endless!

  “‘But change the words around, and what do you git? Hell, you’ll have the hit, the kill, as your mystery, and the miss as your history! So I stick to the facts and try to remember the mystery that’s made of what really happened by those who do all this talk about history. They can stretch and quibble all they want, but it’s still a fact that Ole Abe died just as much from all that had happened before his time as from that bullet in the back of his head. They knew it too, but they couldn’t face up to it. So after putting down their guns they started fighting with words and blaming all that happened on those who they’d now made outcast and homeless. They made what they called the white man’s burden their Balaam’s ass but wouldn’t listen to what he was telling them. And he was braying as loud as thunder! Hell, to let them tell it the half-shackled Freedmen were the cause of it all. And to prove it the white State folks claimed that those ex-slaves were more powerful than cyclones, drought, smallpox, and tuberculosis put together. Yes, and faster than greased lightning, and slicker than Houdini on a blacked-out stage. With X-ray eyes, fingers like feathers, and an urge for white women that drove them loco. That’s some of the mystery hidden in your manifest destiny, your made-up history. But with all that to hide behind they didn’t even have the decency to do something about those polecats who murdered Abe Lincoln!’

  “So the boy took a swig of whiskey and spoke up.

  “Said, ‘That’s not true, Booth and the others were caught and hanged!’

  “‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but something more was called for. Today there are some living where the ringleader came from who still brag about that killing and praise the one who pulled the trigger. They call him a brave big man, a patriot and a hero. Well, the people would have known what to do about his kind of bravery. For that they had strong medicine and would have dosed him until it ran from his eyes, ears, nose, and throat like spray from a geyser. And like I said, what they think is past is still present, and what I have told you is history as known by the People, a history that will come back to haint you.’

  “So to that the boy said, ‘You’re forgetting that I wasn’t even born.’

  “‘Even so,’ I said, ‘its mark is upon you. And just like it haints the spirits of those who did the murder and those who refused to do the right thing after it was done it haints their children and their children’s children….’ ”

  “Now you’re beginning to sound like a Christian prophet,” Hickman said.

  “Hebrew,” Love said, “but I’m not kosher. Anyway, no matter who gets a hand on it and lives to see it in action, wisdom is wisdom. Hell, everybody except you State folks know that when a powerful man is sacrificed he has to be worthy of it. And when he’s killed the land gets sick, and to cure the sickness proper things must be done to redeem his sacrifice and appease his spirit. In picking ole Abe they had the right man, but after he was killed, was sacrificed, the proper things were not done. Instead some of the State folks blamed him for being murdered—him, the war-proven chief and unyielding shepherd! Him, murder-sacrificed while he was having a little relaxation after doing all he could do to keep his crazy nation together! So not only did they fail to do the proper things to appease his spirit, they lied about it! And that’s what made for this deep sickness that’s in this land and in all the State people—Yao!

  “‘You call the People heathens, but even we know that when you plant a great man some great good should come from it. But for this to happen the right things, things great and solemn, have to be done. But like I say, they were not done, and since then there’s been a harvest of trouble. Great trouble, and easy alibis.’

  “Hickman, since I made peace with this town and came here to live I’ve sat through a thousand movies just waiting for simple justice to be shown, not done. Because I have no hope for that, but just shown in the moving shadows. Just unfolded in the dark places where no man has to look his neighbor in the eye. All these years I’ve been waiting for a little of the truth to be told. But no, even in the places of play, of make-believe, it’s all been lies, compromise, and equivocation.

  “And what do they say, how do they tell it? Hell, the red man was a thief and a savage without rights to his own country. The North was weak, hypocritical, and pompous, the gray boys, the Rebs, all heroes, and the black man childlike and a coward. And even we of the People are expected to accept this version of history and despise ourselves and our ancestors!

  “Even on the reservation the pictures are always the same. I have seen them, and I’m ashamed to say that they even excite some of the young of the People. But being old and one who falls, like the boy says, between most definitions, I’ve always seen such pictures from the outside. I am not like those who cannot see reality because they are inside the corral, or like those who accept the lie out of weakness before the harshness of truth. Or like those who have no stomach for the truth of their own acts. Or the cost of living inside the pox-ridden corral. Nor am I like those who hope to get in, those who can’t look truth in the face because if they did they’d no longer have hope.

  “But there are State folks of my complexion like that, people who swallow the lie whole because they know no o
ther way. Or who can only counter the State whites’ ‘Aye’ with a State blacks’ ‘Nay’; lie for lie, black blindness for white blindness. Nor am I like any of those who hate themselves and all men who are different, nor like those who believe in nothing.

  “And Hickman, that’s when my nose started to bleed again, and as I took out my handkerchef to wipe it away the boy said, ‘Okay, but where do you really stand in all of this?’ and I could feel the hairs stand erect on my neck.

  “‘Hell,’ I said, ‘I’m outside the enclosure. Off the reservation. In solitude. That’s where I am, and where I choose to be. I’m by myself, alone in the town. All that is me! Yao! And I believe in the Great Spirit by whatever name men choose to call him. And I even believe in enclosures, but not in this enclosure.’

  “And he said, ‘But since men are social beings there have to be enclosures.’ And I said, ‘Yao! But there are enclosures and enclosures. The question is what’s inside. What goes on inside them.’ And then, Hickman, I told him a tale from my life with the People.

  “‘Once,’ I said, ‘we were herding some ponies up from the south. We had ridden hard a long way and for many days and were now very tired. So for the night we hobbled the animals near some boulders and thought we were safe. Well, the next morning we found that the rocks contained the den of a cougar.’ So the boy gave me one of these oh-come-on grins and said, ‘I can see where you’re headed, but I’d think that the difficult thing would be to recognize what is or what isn’t a cougar.’

  “‘You’re right,’ I said, ‘it goes with the deal, and it’s always the same. Because all big enclosures must contain cougars and snakes and coyotes and buzzards. But in your enclosure they wear masks and costumes. Many are not what they pretend—By their acts ye shall know them, Yao! But a heap of times they hide their actions with words and disguise their stink with the powerful perfume of money. So a man has to have a strong stomach for truth in order to accept what his eyes and nose tell him is snake or cougar—unless you happen on one of the big fat cats with his britches down—Yao! Because then even a snot-clogged nose will tell you. It will identify him, and if you’ve ever come on one in the right position you’ll know what I’m saying.’