The Intruder

by Charles Beaumont

  “I don’t care whose daughter! The whole thing is rotten, from beginning to end. In the first place, nobody told her to go downstairs. Nobody asked her to get those pads. And I saw the boxes, Mr. Paton—there were two on top, and they were full of bottles of ink. I couldn’t even move them, they were so heavy. But we’re supposed to believe that that child lifted two fifty-pound boxes, then carried a third one weighing even more down a ladder—No. It just doesn’t make sense.”

  The English teacher’s eyes were flashing angrily. “Moreover, even if she did do all that—which I’m positive she didn’t!—we both know that Joey Green is too smart to think of trying anything so stupid. He’s been the backbone of all the Negro children. . . .”

  The principal and Miss Angoff looked at one another in a mutual exchange of understanding, pure understanding which could not be voiced.

  “Yes,” Harley Paton said, “I know. Without him, they’ll stop coming. They’ll give up.” He slammed the ornament down on the desk and sat back in the chair. “Ella’s a good girl,” he said. “She’s not especially bright—just about average, I’d say. Like most of the others, I doubt if she’s even thought about this problem seriously. If she were going to jump one way or the other, it would certainly not be this way—not with her own father in the hospital. That’s what makes it so damned hard to understand!”

  “But you do know she’s lying, don’t you?”

  The principal said, “Yes. I know that. However confusing it is, I know that the Green boy is innocent of this charge. But it doesn’t really matter now. It’s her story, and she has enough evidence to convince any jury. The Humboldt boy says he saw Green sneak down after her . . . I’m afraid we’re beaten.”

  He was about to call Joey into the office, when he saw Miss Angoff’s face. She was staring out the window.

  “What is it?”

  The English teacher said nothing. Harley Paton rose from the chair and followed her gaze.

  Outside, a river had begun to flow across the smooth lawn—a fast-moving, bright river of people.

  “How could they have found out so soon?” Miss Angoff cried. “How could a crowd—”

  “I don’t know. But this proves it.” Harley Paton lifted his phone and dialed the city jail. “Give me the sheriff,” he said, “right away. Important.” He waited impatiently, and the voices of the people began to grow audible.

  When Parkhouse answered, he said, “This is Principal Paton. Get as many men together as you can and get over to the school right away. You hear? There’s been some trouble with one of the students, and—yes, yes!—one of the colored students, and we’ve got a mob outside. Hurry.”

  Paton went into the reception area and found both Crandall and Spivak staring out the window. Joey Green sat quietly in the chair, clenching and unclenching his hands.

  “Mr. Spivak, are the doors locked?”

  “What?”

  “The doors!”

  “These are. Not downstairs though, I don’t think.”

  Paton motioned to Joey. “Come into my office,” he said. “And don’t be frightened. I’ve called the sheriff; he’ll be here in a minute. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  Joey went into the small office and sat down. “I didn’t do it, Mr. Paton,” he said.

  “I know you didn’t,” the principal said.

  “I had to tell you.”

  “That’s all right. We’ll get it straightened out somehow.”

  “Paton!”

  “Give us the nigger, Paton!”

  The voices were loud now. Harley Paton pressed Joey’s shoulder and carefully locked the inner door. Then he closed the window, and sat down. He noticed that Miss Angoff had left.

  “How would you explain it?” he asked, struggling to remain calm.

  “That Cramer fellow,” Joey said. “I think he must have put her up to it, to get rid of me. This way he thinks he’ll get rid of the others.”

  “But why would she go along with such a thing?”

  “I couldn’t tell you that, Mr. Paton. I don’t know. She seemed to me to be a nice girl.”

  “She is a nice girl.”

  “Show your face, nigger-lover!”

  “Cigarette?”

  Joey’s hands trembled badly, but he accepted the cigarette. It tasted good, it helped.

  “It’s a bad situation,” Harley Paton said. “Even though she asked you to help, you should have had better sense.”

  “I know it. But I thought being Mr. McDaniel’s daughter, and Mr. McDaniel doing what he did for us—”

  The crowd was suddenly quiet.

  A single clear voice rang out: “Paton, you better show your face!”

  Harley Paton said, “Excuse me,” and walked to the window and raised it.

  He looked down on the crowd, and saw that Adam Cramer was at its head.

  “What do you want?”

  “You know what we want. We want the nigger that raped a white girl in your school.”

  “I would advise you people—”

  “We’re not interested in your advice, Paton! We’re only interested in one thing—justice! You have exactly five minutes. If that nigger isn’t out here by then, we’re coming in to get him!” Adam Cramer turned his head toward the crowd and shouted, “Is that right?”

  The answer came in an explosion of voices.

  “Five minutes, Paton!”

  The principal closed the window again and went to the reception area. Spivak and Crandall were gone. The door was unlocked. He locked it again and returned to his office.

  “The sheriff will stop them,” he said.

  Joey nodded. His white shirt was stained with perspiration. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  Paton glanced out the window again, but there were no police visible.

  “Of course,” he said, almost under his breath, “Cramer found himself in the spot all self-styled dictators find themselves in sooner or later. He started the thing, but it got away from him. He couldn’t hold it. And when it began to go wrong, he got panicky. Did you see the article on him?”

  “No, but I heard about it.”

  “Interesting stuff, Joey. We must talk about it sometime. Interesting. He surely knew that his past life would have to catch up with him someday. But knowing this, why would he start such a project?” Paton kept talking, quickly, but he also kept glancing at the window.

  Outside, the people stood quietly, like an army at rest.

  “Four minutes, Paton!”

  Joey looked at his hands; then he wiped them on his trousers and stood up, feeling the sick dizziness of fear but knowing that it couldn’t count now.

  “You’re on our side, aren’t you?” he said.

  Harley Paton said, “Yes, Joey, I am.”

  “I kind of figured that. Only you think we’re whipped now.”

  The principal looked at the window again. He tried to answer, but he was tired of lying and posing, and he could not be false in these moments.

  “I thought so at first, too,” Joey said. “Right from the beginning I didn’t believe it would work. But then I changed my mind. Because, you know why? I saw people like you and Finley Mead and Mr. McDaniel and Miss Angoff and the kids in the school here and all over town, and I saw all of you believing in us and in what was right, and willing to help—I wish I could say this. I wish I knew how.”

  “Three minutes.”

  “Maybe it’s this,” Joey said, moving toward the door. “I used to think they were the white people”—he gestured toward the window—“but, I found out that wasn’t true. How many are there outside now? Thirty? Forty? Forty people, in a town of sixteen thousand. You see what I mean? I was prejudiced, Mr. Paton, because I judged the whole white race by them—a sick little bunch of hateful people. I said, They’ll never change; and I was right about that, anyway. They won’t. We’ll always have them around. We always have—and not just here, but everywhere. There’s a couple on the Hill. All the time, they got to be against something or aga
inst somebody, or they aren’t happy. I don’t know why. But I know this: they’re not the people, Mr. Paton. The rest of the folks who don’t want us, with them it’s different. Just like me, they been thinking a certain way all their lives, and it isn’t easy for them to switch around; but they will. Just give them a little time. They will.”

  “Two minutes!”

  “Never mind the phone, Mr. Paton. I think the sheriff’s going to be a little late.”

  “Joey—” Harley Paton’s throat was dry. “Joey, I’m afraid you’ve embarrassed me. I’m the one who should have been telling you these things.”

  “It doesn’t matter, sir. We both know they’re true, and that’s what’s important.” Joey unlocked the door.

  The principal walked over hurriedly. “Come with me,” he said. “My car is in the back. I’ll drive you to Farragut, and we can at least give you protection until this—”

  “No,” Joey said. “That’s what that Adam Cramer hopes we’ll do. He’s in trouble and this whole thing has got to go right for him or he’s through in Caxton.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Spoil things for him a little.”

  “Don’t be foolish. If that stupid Parkhouse doesn’t come, I can get Harmer in Farragut. They wouldn’t dare to break into the school!”

  “Those people have got their blood up, Mr. Paton. They’d dare just about anything. If we gave them a chance. We can’t run now, and we can’t hide.”

  The principal grasped Joey’s arm. “I’m not going to let you go out there.”

  “It’ll be all right. If Cramer is still in control, I don’t think he’ll let them hurt me too bad. It wouldn’t be good for business.”

  “But is he in control?”

  Joey shrugged. “We’ll find out.” He pulled Harley Paton’s hand away and went out into the hall, which was still and empty. “I remember something a general once wrote down,” he said. “He wrote, ‘You can lose a lot of battles and still win the war.’ What happens now isn’t too important, Mr. Paton. We’re going to win.”

  Joey smiled at the thin man, turned, and walked quickly down the hall, toward the door.

  Adam Cramer looked at the fifty men and women behind him and at the hundreds of children pressed against the windows of the school, peering, then he glanced down at his watch and called, “One minute, Paton!”

  The Reverend Lorenzo Niesen nodded. His hands were on his hips, and his eyes were glittering under their narrow leather slits, blackly.

  Bart Carey stood with his feet planted wide apart on the lawn. He held his new glasses in one hand and wiped them rhythmically with the tail of his shirt.

  Abner West and Phil Dongen had stationed themselves directly behind Verne Shipman, who stood proud and full of proud fury, his face composed into an expression of quiet determination.

  Adam Cramer studied the eyes of these people around him and said, “Remember, there must be no violence. We gave the sheriff our promise to bring him to jail. We aren’t a mob. We’re a citizens’ committee. All we want to do is make sure this nigger doesn’t slip away. Understood?”

  No one answered.

  “Tell them, Carey,” he whispered.

  Bart Carey continued to wipe his glasses.

  “No violence. That is strictly out,” Adam Cramer said.

  The murmur of the crowd began to swell as the seconds passed.

  “Don’t worry,” Verne Shipman said. “They’ll see what they caused. And they’ll see how we take care of it. Don’t worry.”

  Niesen slapped his hands together suddenly. “Come on,” he yelled. “Let’s get the nigger!”

  The crowd broke; the people began to move toward the wide concrete steps.

  Then the main door opened, and Joey Green stepped out.

  He was alone.

  Lorenzo Niesen stopped, and the others stopped also, and stood frozen.

  Very slowly, Joey Green walked down the steps.

  “Did you people want to talk to me?” he said, looking at Adam Cramer.

  For a long while, there was no reply.

  Then Verne Shipman stepped forward and said, “Are you Joseph Green?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You admit that you tried to rape one of our white girls today?”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “I mean I didn’t try to rape anyone.” Joey looked up and scanned the windows carefully and saw the faces of Clarence Jones and Joseph Dupuy and Laura Lee Cook.

  “That’s a lie, nigger!” Lorenzo Niesen yelled.

  Shipman jerked his head around sternly. “You be still,” he commanded. “We’re going to listen to what this boy has to say for himself.”

  Niesen’s eyes snapped angrily, but he said no more.

  “Now,” Shipman said, turning again to face Joey. “You claim you’re innocent, is that it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Didn’t anyone ever teach you to address a white person as sir?”

  Joey shook his head.

  Shipman drew back his hand and brought it across Joey’s right cheek. The sound was sharp, and could be heard for a considerable distance.

  “Let that be the first lesson,” he said.

  Joey did not reply. A trail of blood ran glistening from his mouth. Shipman took a handkerchief from his rear pocket and held it out. “You’ve gotten blood on your mouth,” he said. “Wipe it off.” Joey wiped the blood away and crumpled the handkerchief in his fist.

  “What do you say?”

  “Thank you.”

  “Thank you what?”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Shipman nodded. “Boy,” he said, “I’m going to ask you again. But I want you to think before you answer this time. Think real hard. If you tell the truth, then you got nothing to be afraid of. But if you try to lie to us here, then, boy, you’re in more trouble than you ever dreamed of.”

  Shipman cleared his throat and swept a glance across the crowd. “You understand?” he said.

  Joey said, “Yes, sir.”

  “All right. Now, did you or did you not try to rape a white girl by the name of Ella McDaniel in the basement of the school today?”

  “Oh, hell,” Lorenzo Niesen began. “All this talk ain’t—”

  “Be quiet!” Adam Cramer said sharply. “Mr. Shipman and I are handling this.”

  “That’s right,” Shipman said. “Well, boy?”

  “No, sir,” Joey said.

  The large, soft-featured man raised his hand, as though to hold back the crowd.

  “Then you claim Ella McDaniel is lying?”

  Joey was silent.

  “Why would she want to do that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then you wasn’t in the basement at all, is that it?” Shipman leveled his finger at Joey. “You wasn’t anywhere around?”

  “I was in the basement.”

  “With a white girl?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  There was an ominous rumble from the crowd. Adam Cramer whispered to Shipman, “Verne, I think we’d better take him to the jail.”

  Shipman ignored the comment. He kept his finger straight. “You was alone with a white girl in the basement of this school but you didn’t try to do anything. Is that what you’re telling us? Is that what you expect us to believe, nigger? Speak up!” He leaned forward and slapped Joey, harder than before.

  “It couldn’t just be that you was taking a little advantage of the fact she was her daddy’s child, now, could it? And it couldn’t be you figured she wouldn’t say anything because of what Tom McDaniel done? I don’t guess that had anything to do with it!”

  Joey stood straight and tried not to flinch at the next blow, but Shipman’s hand was fat and the man was stronger than he looked.

  “Don’t you know we got proof, nigger? It isn’t just your word against hers: you was seen sneaking down tho
se stairs. And how you think she got her dress ripped? On a nail? Listen. We’re gonna give you one last chance to tell the truth. And you better tell it good and loud so everybody can hear plain.”

  Joey was prepared to be struck again, when suddenly the door opened a second time, and Harley Paton came outside. The frail, balding principal moved certainly and without hesitation down the stairs.

  “Here comes the nigger-lover!”

  Lorenzo Niesen spat a dark brown stream of tobacco onto the lawn. “There’s the Palestine Indian,” he said. “God!”

  “Get inside, schoolteacher; go on!”

  Harley Paton continued to walk. He walked to the end of the stairs; then, when he had reached the spot where Verne Shipman was standing, he said in a clear voice: “Only a coward would hit a defenseless boy.”

  Shipman’s fingers knotted. “Is that what you’re calling me, Paton?” he said.

  The principal’s face moved very close. “Yes,” he said. “Exactly. You’re a miserable, yellow coward, Shipman, just like every cheap bully in the world. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

  There was a pause.

  Shipman’s face was tense, and he stood there, frozen, his fists large and the tendons in his hands taut; then he laughed contemptuously and turned away.

  Harley Paton went to Joey and took his arm, and started back up the stairs.

  As though waking suddenly from sleep, Bart Carey leaped forward. “Where you think you’re going with that nigger?” he demanded.

  “He will remain in my office until the Farragut police arrive. If you want to avoid a jail sentence, I’d advise all of you to leave at once.”

  “Like hell!”

  Abner West grasped the principal’s shoulders and pushed him aside. “No, sir!” he said. “This coon ain’t gonna get away with what he done and lying about it!”

  Three men rushed up. Their faces were red and moist, their clothes glued darkly to their bodies. Two of them pinned Joey’s arms behind him.

  “You admit it?” Shipman said sternly.

  Joey shook his head.

  “That’s too bad. You give us no choice.”

  Harley Paton tried to move, but was restrained by the bulk of Abner West. “Where are you taking that boy?”