Three Days Before the Shooting . . .

by Ralph Ellison

  For suddenly increasing their speed the cars were hurtling past so fast that the signs and symbols displayed on their sidings seemed to hang in the air: A shield striped with the red-white-and-blue of Old Glory, a buxom white woman with a white banner displaying the words noli me tangere streaming from her shoulders, a smiling young Indian named “Snookums” who held a large ripe orange in his hands, a green Gila monster, a bronco, a bull moose, a hump-shouldered bison, a white haloish circle in the center of which a black cross tilted at a precarious angle, a Christian cross blazing with flames, and a figure dressed in a white robe and a hood that had black holes for eyes—all flying so fast that they appeared to move without moving.

  And now, as the wheels of the cars began to screech and lose traction, the names and shapes of regions and states, and the initials and symbols of nationwide railroads hung before him like a multicolored map which the highballing engines were creating in a headlong plunge across a landscape which was being rapidly girdled with copper and steel.

  And just as he thought in despair, Not even a veteran hobo could find his way through all this confusion, the boxcars gained traction, and with a blues-like blast from its engines the train shot ahead in a jubilant crescendo of whistles and bells. And now as he whirled, wondering what would follow, he saw the red caboose flying toward him. And now, seeing a brown-skinned man wearing an engineer’s cap leaning out of a window he stared in wonder. For while the man sat in the hindmost car of the freight train his posture was that of a skilled engineer. Then, with the caboose flashing past, the man threw him a salute and roared with laughter—whereupon the scene became even weirder.

  For now the rails over which the train was advancing were no longer affixed to the roadbed but spurting backwards to land under its wheels as though being extruded by the frantic exertions of the engines which were now far in the distance and rounding a curve. Then, seeing the caboose skip up the tracks like the tip of a whip, he thought with a sigh, So now you can get on to wherever it was you were going….

  But just as he moved to cross over the roadbed the scene vanished, and with a start he found himself sitting once again in the old antlered chair … from which, now, Love was sadly intoning, “That’s how it was….”

  And to which, sitting up in surprise, he heard himself adding, “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be….”

  Then, in the silence that followed, Love’s account of the Chief and his son began echoing in his mind with implications so increasingly personal that he snatched off his glasses and leaned forward, listening with a sense of dread for Love to sound some amen of resolution that would confirm or deny the mounting confusion of dream, reality, and dread through which his memory was stumbling. But Love remained silent, and through moist eyes he watched the old Native gazing out into the tops of the trees behind them.

  Hickman, he told himself, not only is he tired but if you don’t get out of here you’ll embarrass yourself—and was interrupted by the clear call of a bird, sad, sweet, and lonesome, which was quickly lost in the clatter of a trolley car passing in the street beyond the courtyard. And at last he saw the owl-like turning of Love’s braided head.

  Then with the old eyes focusing upon him, he heard himself saying with strong emotion, “What a pitiful thing to happen to such a good man and loving father, it was terrible!”

  “Aye,” Love said, “but it’s the duty of men of our profession to take part in experiences that are not only sad but ridiculous. And by now we both know that if any story continues long enough even the happiest has to end in the sadness of death and dying.”

  “Amen,” Hickman said, “and that’s why it’s our duty to try and understand how such terrible things can happen. But even when we can’t we’re still bound to provide the sufferers whatever relief we can offer. Was that what you were doing for the young man?”

  “If you say so,” Love said. “Yes, I was trying to warn him obliquely, to divert his mind to other possibilities. To suggest different paths and remind him that no matter how long or short, happy or sad, pitiful or terrible it happens to be, all life finally ends in what State people call a death sentence. Therefore he should stop and think about his condition. That he should weigh it, and weigh it calmly. Because now he’s still trying to pressure his vague feeling into an idea, and that is a danger to himself and to others….”

  Leaning forward, Hickman grasped the arms of his chair.

  “Why do you say danger?”

  “Because now his are the ways of the white State folks, for whom ideas are things to be approached with fear and distrust. So when they’re called for they leap to turn their feelings into action. And violent actions at that. Now he is one of those who would rather act than think, so instead of thinking and arriving at a state of reasonable resignation before what’s hounding him he’ll keep searching for a target. And when he’s found one he’ll blacken or whiten or redden its face and press his attack. That is the danger, because when he thinks he’s found his target he’ll shoot from the hip. And even if it happens to be in a steel-plated room he’ll ignore the fact that bullets can ricochet and bring down the gunman.”

  “I hope not,” Hickman said. “Even if it’s only a figure of speech, I truly hope not.”

  “My words speak of the possible,” Love said, “so since he’s only prowling through the past of this town there’s room for hope. But remember that he is now of those who try to solve every problem with guns and machines. They turn to guns and machines as in the movies they use Gatling guns against the People who were armed only with knives, tomahawks, and rifles. And in peacetime they kill with telegraph wires, newsprint, and the radio—Yao!—and with cash registers! But as I say, for him hope remains possible.”

  “Well,” Hickman said as he replaced his glasses, “I hope you’re a good prophet, because I had no idea of what was going on out here. And now that I’ve talked with you I’m truly worried.”

  “Why now, more than before?”

  “Because when Janey wrote me I thought that she was just imagining things, and that the boy probably came back because he remembered his life with her and simply wanted to see her again. But after talking with her in person, and now with you, I see my mistake. Which leaves me lost in the woods without a compass and up the creek without any sign of a paddle.

  “So you tell me, Love: What’s bothering this young fellow? What’s got him so upset? I’m sure you understand how important it is for me to learn all I can. So even though you must be tired I’m still asking you to give me a few more minutes of your time, and then I promise to leave.”

  “Hickman,” Love said, “are you signifying that I’m too old to go on talking?”

  “Oh, no! But while I’ve been listening I realized that if I had to preach a sermon even half as long I’d have my associate minister, the presiding elder, the head deacon, and a bunch of stalwarts sitting on the mourners’ bench to fill in the pauses and help me. But while you’ve done the talking all I’ve been doing is listening and trying to understand what happened.”

  Gazing into the trees, Love grasped the chain of the swing in his ancient hands and set it gently in motion.

  “Okay, Hickman,” he said, “this boy is really upset because something which began bugging him back when he was living with Janey has returned to haunt him. It showed up first when he was still a yearling in the use of words, but it wouldn’t give him its name. But when he was taken to live in the East it went along with him. And there like the young of the cicada, the seventeen-year locust, it burrowed so deep in his young mind that he could ignore it. But that nameless thing didn’t die, it just lay in the underground of his mind like a larva, a maggot. And there it underwent a slow series of molts and gradually took on a new form which drew its strength from the confusion bred by his rebirth into a scrambled experience—why are you smiling?”

  “Because you speak of his being reborn and I hadn’t thought of rebirth in the context you give it….”

  “W
ell, think of it now. Men are born as old as the hills and the oceans from which they evolved, yet when they put it into words they say they arrived on earth as newborn babies. But have you ever taken a good long look at a newborn baby? Hell, man! Those little wrinkled things look old! Boy or girl, male or female, they look as old as the earth from which they sprang! Many look older than they’ll look when they die, but still we call them ‘babies’ and term their arrival ‘birth’—Yao!—when it’s clear from their looks that they’re only setting out again on a journey that they’ve taken before. And I mean a journey through which they’ll go from being old to being young to being old once again—if they’re lucky. And each leg of the journey marks a new beginning in which new sightings must be taken, and new strategies devised for coping. Each stage of the journey has its own revelation and surprises, its own rewards and its dangers. Therefore the initiations that men undergo are endless. So when a child is snatched from a way of life to which he’s been adjusted and set down in one that’s quite different it’s like he’s being born again.

  “That’s what happened to the boy. When he landed in the East he underwent a second childhood during his childhood. Because out here he lived in the brightness of Janey’s darkness, her blackness. But now he was living in the shadow that goes with his whiteness. And being forced to learn how to make his way with black-seeing eyes while undergoing the pressure of becoming a white child.

  “This took much time, so for years the unnamed thing left him in peace—yes, but soon he became a young buck of a man. And then some smell, or sound or sight, some taste of food, echo of memory, or shape of shadow roiled up the underground of his life with Janey and that which was sleeping awoke….”

  “… So it awoke,” Hickman said, “but what then?”

  “It awoke, that’s right, and like the cicada, the harvest fly, it surfaced….”

  “… Which means that it crawled to the surface and left its old shell clinging to the branch of a tree like the shell of a locust….”

  “Yao! It split the back of its shell straight down the middle and climbed out beside it. Then, stretching its wet limbs to dry in the sunlight, it began buzzing and humming….”

  “So in the East it took on new life?”

  “Yao!”

  “… And found its voice and began singing a bebopping song like a mockingbird?”

  “Aye! And because the boy was now vulnerable to the ghosts of the past he heard it….”

  “… He heard it!”

  “Yes, and he heard it loud, but by no means did he hear it clearly. So with that his white life took on some of the color-feeling that’s described in a song I’ve heard you State Negroes sing….”

  “Now wait, man,” Hickman said, “what song would that be?”

  “Just listen, Hickman,” Love said, “and since you’re turning this into some kind of a medicine man’s prayer meeting, why don’t you go on with your medicine and use your mind? What else would it be but the one about the blues jumping on the back of some rabbit-assed rascal and riding him ten thousand miles?”

  Slapping his thigh, Hickman laughed.

  “Now that one I deserve,” he said, “even though I was trying to give you a little old-time Baptist support. Even so, you have got to be kidding!”

  “Me, kidding? Haven’t you heard that us Native Americans have no sense of humor?”

  “Oh, yes, but those who have some of my down-home blood in their veins are different.”

  “Maybe so,” Love said, “but what you’re hearing is the jibing of words, the joke that comes mixed up in language. So listen to me: This thing out of the boy’s past has jumped him exactly the way the blues jumped the rabbit. And once in the boy’s white skin of a saddle it dug in its spurs and took off hell for leather….”

  “… Riding like a cowboy …”

  “Yao! And with a grip of steel on the reins and the bridle. And by now it’s been spurring his white skin of a saddle so hard that he’s almost decided that getting rid of his skin is more important than having the protection and comfort it brought him.”

  “I hate to admit it,” Hickman said, “but at the rate you’re going I can’t tell the horse from the saddle, the saddle from the rider, or the rider from the whip and the spurs. But if I’m anywhere close you’re saying that the boy’s in a bad, bad way. Which in my down-home idiom means that spiritually his head is knotty, his nose is snotty, and his butt is dragging the ground….”

  “Okay, except that in his case his butt is bumping the sidewalks and curbstones. Hickman, there are many way of describing the human condition, but since most are inadequate, you stick to yours and I’ll stick to mine. Either way, that’s how it was. The boy’s up to his eyeballs in trouble, and no matter how much his flesh keeps festering, and no matter how much he’d like to be free of his burden, he’s in the race and thinks he’s forced to hold his position and keep pace with the bit-foaming pack.”

  “Which means,” Hickman said, “that he’s being ridden in the race of races.”

  “If you insist,” Love said. “And now his devil of a jockey has ridden him here, two thousand miles to the west, in search for the scenes and the acts of a time and place which faded with his coming into the world. Deep inside it’s made him wild, and when he’s calm he knows it, but still he keeps festering. Therefore he’d like to do something, anything, to stop the nagging, the strain, and the itching. Many times he’s tried to put it aside, tried to ignore it, but it keeps at him, winter and summer, midnight and noon. So now, far out on the cloudy edge of his mind, he’s decided that if he’s ever to learn the truth, it’s not only a matter of finding a simple answer but one of forming the proper question to ask those he keeps pestering. So as bad as things seem there’s still reason for hope.”

  “That’s something I’ve been waiting to hear,” Hickman said, “but why is there hope?”

  “Maybe it’s because he’s coming to realize that what’s eating on him isn’t a fully formed idea. That instead it’s a swarm of vague feelings that refuse to come into focus. A hit-or-miss mix of memory and feeling which refuse to be anything but fragments. Fragments that keep swirling in his head like a swarm of no-see-ums….”

  “… Of what?”

  “Of gnats, of flying things from which he has not protection because they refuse to stay still and give him a target. Yes, but they won’t leave him alone, and when his mind is on something else, even something pleasant—like a beautiful girl, or a hunt for pheasant and quail—they strike him from ambush and take off like rockets. And just when he thinks they’re gone they swirl back and strike him like sharp grains of sand in a whirlwind. That’s how it is, they punish him morning, midnight, and noon. They pursue and harass him, they tease, taunt, and thorn him.

  “So he thought he’d find relief out here, that if he returned to this place where he first saw the light his torment would end. That he’d find both his question and answer and know his next move. So he came with his torment to Janey, and when she couldn’t help him he turned to old Love. And Hickman, that’s my reason for giving him my time and attention. He remembered me, he came to the same old heathen who Janey tried to keep him from knowing when he lived here in this town. He came to one who lives outside the State folks’ corral, to one who has contempt for both the thing that rides him and those who make it important. Such is the weight of his burden. So he was here and we talked—or at least I talked while it was mostly his ears that listened.”

  “Only his ears?”

  “Yao! Because even as I talked I could see that his mind was already searching for others to question.”

  “For instance?”

  “That’s the question I put to myself, so I addressed myself to the Eagle. ‘Old Father,’ I asked him, ‘where will he go after talking with me? Will it be to some lawyer, some doctor, some jackleg of a preacher who knows even less about what’s bothering him than either Janey or me? Will it be to some rich man, poor man, or pool-hall hustler? To some white downt
own insurance agent who got so rich from milking nickels and dimes out of the death-fear of State Negroes that he thinks that he’s an authority on everything that goes on among them? Or will it be to Janey’s pet, that Cliofus? That strange one whose wires are so scrambled that he even gets what he had for this morning’s breakfast confused with some damn Easter eggs that Janey dyed for him twenty-five years in the past? Will it be to that cock-eyed, loose-tongued, word-drunk oracle, who mixes what really happens with tales he’s been told, books he’s read, and stories he makes up until he can’t tell the difference between life-and-death facts and Uneeda Biscuits?”

  “And what was the answer?”

  “The answer was, Yes, Black One, he’ll go to him too. He’ll give all of them a go at his question. So spoke the Eagle, and so it is and shall be.

  “And then, Hickman, I guess he’ll try to put whatever they tell him together. He’ll be like the greedy monkey who got his paw so full of candy that he couldn’t get it out of the jar it was stored in. Then he’ll twist and tug, trying to get rid of the jar so he can arrange whatever he gets hold of. Then he’ll see that in order to get free he’ll have either to empty his hand or break the jar—which means that he’ll run the risk of spilling blood, his blood—Yao!”

  “His own?”

  “Yes, because if blood is spilled, some of it, one way or another, will be his own. That is the danger, but even though I warned him that seeking time’s faded shapes is a waste of time he refused to listen.

  “So I told him again. I said, ‘The time you seek is gone! Gone like a long broken pitcher of the Navahoes, with pieces of it buried, some ground into dust so fine that it’s blown worlds away, while others passed through the guts of migrating birds and dropped in far distant lands. That is the way it is, but in spite of all such shifty processes of time you still come here hoping to pick up the broken pieces. Aye, and I understand your need. You’d like to brood over them, shift them around, and bring them together. And you think, you feel, that if you could only put them together again you’ll have some peace. That desire, that need, has taken you over like drugs and can prove just as destructive. For like I say it has set you in search for lost shapes of time and numbed you to the fact that time is to the doings of men as the air of a balloon to its rubber. The air gives it its shape and its ability to bounce, soar, and give pleasure to youngsters. Air is its soul, its ghost, its spirit, and when the air escapes through a leak or a puncture it dies. Then all that’s left of its bobbing and weaving are memories stirred by the sight of its deflated skin clinging to its pale bamboo stick. And even though you manage to patch the hole you can never inflate it again, not with the same air which was its soul.’ ”