Flying Home

by Ralph Ellison

  “That’s the rule, but after all … ”

  “That’s what I thought,” he said. “And the big prize goes to the man who knows how to win it?”

  The man nodded speechlessly.

  “Well then, go on over there and watch me win like I want to. I ain’t going to hurt nobody,” he said, “and I’ll show you how to win. I mean to show the whole world how it’s got to be done.”

  And because he understood, he smiled again to let the man know that he held nothing against him for being white and impatient. Then he refused to see the man any longer and stood pressing the button, the voices of the crowd reaching him like sounds in distant streets. Let them yell. All the Negroes down there were just ashamed because he was black like them. He smiled inwardly knowing how it was. Most of the time he was ashamed of what Negroes did himself. Well, let them be ashamed for something this time. Like him. He was like a long thin black wire that was being stretched and wound upon the bingo wheel; wound until he wanted to scream; wound, but this time himself controlling the winding and the sadness and the shame, and because he did, Laura would be all right. Suddenly the lights flickered. He staggered backward. Had something gone wrong? All this noise. Didn’t they know that although he controlled the wheel, it also controlled him, and unless he pressed the button forever and forever and ever it would stop, leaving him high and dry, dry and high on this hard high slippery hill and Laura dead? There was only one chance; he had to do whatever the wheel demanded. And gripping the button in despair, he discovered with surprise that it imparted a nervous energy. His spine tingled. He felt a certain power.

  Now he faced the raging crowd with defiance, its screams penetrating his eardrums like trumpets shrieking from a jukebox. The vague faces glowing in the bingo lights gave him a sense of himself that he had never known before. He was running the show, by God! They had to react to him, for he was their luck. This is me, he thought. Let the bastards yell. Then someone was laughing inside him, and he realized that somehow he had forgotten his own name. It was a sad, lost feeling to lose your name, and a crazy thing to do. That name had been given him by the white man who had owned his grandfather a long lost time ago down South. But maybe those wise guys knew his name.

  “Who am I?” he screamed.

  “Hurry up and bingo, you jerk!”

  They didn’t know either, he thought sadly. They didn’t even know their own names, they were all poor nameless bastards. Well, he didn’t need that old name; he was reborn. For as long as he pressed the button he was The-man-who-pressed-the-button-who-held-the-prize-who-was-the-King-of-Bingo. That was the way it was, and he’d have to press the button even if nobody understood, even though Laura did not understand.

  “Live!” he shouted.

  The audience quieted like the dying of a huge fan.

  “Live, Laura, baby. I got holt of it now, sugar. Live!”

  He screamed it, tears streaming down his face. “I got nobody but YOU!”

  The screams tore from his very guts. He felt as though the rush of blood to his head would burst out in baseball seams of small red droplets, like a head beaten by police clubs. Bending over he saw a trickle of blood splashing the toe of his shoe. With his free hand he searched his head. It was his nose. God, suppose something has gone wrong? He felt that the whole audience had somehow entered him and was stamping its feet in his stomach and he was unable to throw them out. They wanted the prize, that was it. They wanted the secret for themselves. But they’d never get it; he would keep the bingo wheel whirling forever, and Laura would be safe in the wheel. But would she? It had to be, because if she were not safe the wheel would cease to turn; it could not go on. He had to get away, vomit all, and his mind formed an image of himself running with Laura in his arms down the tracks of the subway just ahead of an A train, running desperately vomit with people screaming for him to come out but knowing no way of leaving the tracks because to stop would bring the train crushing down upon him and to attempt to leave across the other tracks would mean to run into a hot third rail as high as his waist which threw blue sparks that blinded his eyes until he could hardly see.

  He heard singing, and the audience was clapping its hands.

  “Shoot the liquor to him, Jim, boy!

  Clap-clap-clap

  Well a-calla the cop

  He’s blowing his top!

  Shoot the liquor to him, Jim, boy!”

  Bitter anger grew within him at the singing. They think I’m crazy. Well let ’em laugh. I’ll do what I got to do.

  He was standing in an attitude of intense listening when he saw that they were watching something on the stage behind him. He felt weak. But when he turned he saw no one. If only his thumb did not ache so. Now they were applauding. And for a moment he thought that the wheel had stopped. But that was impossible, his thumb still pressed the button. Then he saw them. Two men in uniform beckoned from the end of the stage. They were coming toward him, walking in step, slowly, like a tap-dance team returning for a third encore. But their shoulders shot forward, and he backed away, looking wildly about. There was nothing to fight them with. He had only the long black cord which led to a plug somewhere backstage, and he couldn’t use that because it operated the bingo wheel. He backed slowly, fixing the men with his eyes as his lips stretched over his teeth in a tight, fixed grin; moved toward the end of the stage and realizing that he couldn’t go much further, for suddenly the cord became taut and he couldn’t afford to break the cord. But he had to do something. The audience was howling. Suddenly he stopped dead, seeing the men halt, their legs lifted as in an interrupted step of a slowmotion dance. There was nothing to do but run in the other direction and he dashed forward, slipping and sliding. The men fell back, surprised. He struck out violently going past.

  “Grab him!”

  He ran, but all too quickly the cord tightened, resistingly, and he turned and ran back again. This time he slipped them, and discovered by running in a circle before the wheel he could keep the cord from tightening. But this way he had to flail his arms to keep the men away. Why couldn’t they leave a man alone? He ran, circling.

  “Ring down the curtain,” someone yelled. But they couldn’t do that. If they did, the wheel flashing from the projection room would be cut off. But they had him before he could tell them so, trying to pry open his fist, and he was wrestling and trying to bring his knees into the fight and holding on to the button, for it was his life. And now he was down, seeing a foot coming down, crushing his wrist cruelly, down, as he saw the wheel whirling serenely above.

  “I can’t give it up,” he screamed. Then quietly, in a confidential tone, “Boys, I really can’t give it up.”

  It landed hard against his head. And in the blank moment they had it away from him, completely now. He fought them trying to pull him up from the stage as he watched the wheel spin slowly to a stop. Without surprise he saw it rest at double zero.

  “You see.” He pointed bitterly.

  “Sure, boy, sure, its okay,” one of the men said, smiling.

  And seeing the man bow his head to someone he could not see, he felt very, very happy; he would receive what all the winners received.

  But as he warmed in the justice of the man’s tight smile he did not see the man’s slow wink, nor see the bowlegged man behind him step clear of the swiftly descending curtain and set himself for a blow. He only felt the dull pain exploding in his skull, and he knew even as it slipped out of him that his luck had run out on the stage.

  In a Strange Country

  From Tomorrow, July 1944

  In the pub his eye had begun to close. White spots danced before him, and he had to cover the eye with his hand in order to see Mr. Catti. Mr. Catti was drinking now, and as the bottom of the glass swung down and tapped the table, he looked into Mr. Catti’s pale, sharp-nosed face and smiled. Mr. Catti had been very kind, and he was trying hard to be pleasant.

  “You miss this on a ship,” he said, draining his glass.

  “Do you like o
ur Welsh ale?”

  “Very much.”

  “It’s not so good as before the war,” Mr. Catti said sadly.

  “It must have been very good,” he said.

  He looked guardedly at the pretty, blue-aproned barmaid, seeing her dark hair shift lazily forward as she drew beer from a pump such as he’d seen only in English pictures. With his eye covered he saw much better. Across the room, near the fireplace with its grate of glowing coals, two men were seeing who could knock over a set of skittlepins. One of them started singing “Treat Me Like an Irish Soldier” as Mr. Catti said:

  “Have you been long in Wales?”

  “About forty-five minutes,” he said.

  “Then you have much to see,” Mr. Catti said, getting up and carrying the glasses over to the bar to be refilled.

  No, he thought, looking at the GUINNESS IS GOOD FOR YOU signs, I’ve seen enough. Coming ashore from the ship he had felt the excited expectancy of entering a strange land. Moving along the road in the dark he had planned to stay ashore all night, and in the morning he would see the country with fresh eyes, like those with which the Pilgrims had seen the New World. That hadn’t seemed so silly then—not until the soldiers bunched at the curb had seemed to spring out of the darkness. Someone had cried, “Jesus H. Christ,” and he had thought, He’s from home, and grinned and apologized into the light they flashed in his eyes. He had felt the blow coming when they yelled, “It’s a goddamn nigger,” but it struck him anyway. He was having a time of it when some of Mr. Catti’s countrymen stepped in and Mr. Catti had guided him into the pub. Now, over several rounds of ale, they had introduced themselves, had discreetly avoided mentioning his eye, and, while he heard with forced attention something of Welsh national history, he had been adjusting himself to the men in cloth caps and narrow-brimmed hats who talked so quietly over their drinks.

  At first he had included them in his blind rage. But they had seemed so genuinely and uncondescendingly polite that he was disarmed. Now the anger and resentment had slowly ebbed, and he felt only a smoldering sense of self-hate and ineffectiveness. Why should he blame them when they had only helped him? He had been the one so glad to hear an American voice. You can’t take it out on them, they’re a different breed; even from the English. That’s what he’s been telling you, he thought, seeing Mr. Catti returning, his head held to one side to avoid the smoke from his cigarette, the foam-headed glasses caged in his fingers.

  “It’s a disgrace to our country, Mr. Parker!” Mr. Catti said heatedly. “How is your eye?”

  “It’s better, thanks,” he said, brightening. “And don’t worry, it’s a sort of family quarrel. Are there many like me in Wales?”

  “Oh yes! Yanks all over the place. Black Yanks and white.”

  “Black Yanks?” He wanted to smile.

  “Yes. And many a fine lad at that.”

  Mr. Catti was looking at his wristwatch.

  “My, my! I’m sorry, but it’s time for my concert. Perhaps you would like to come? The boys at my club are singing—no professionals, mind you, but some very fine voices.”

  “No … no, I’d better not,” he said. Yet all music was a passion with him, and his interest was aroused.

  “It’s a private club,” Mr. Catti said reassuringly. “Open only to members—and to our guests, of course. We’d be very glad to have you. Perhaps the boys will sing some of your spirituals.”

  “Oh! So you know our music, too?”

  “Very well,” Mr. Catti said. “And since your boys have been with us we’ve learned that, like ourselves, your people love music.”

  “I think I’d like very much to go,” he said, rising and getting into his seaman’s topcoat. “You might have to guide me along though.”

  “Righto. It isn’t far. Just a bit up Straight Street.”

  Outside, the pale beam of a flashlight revealed the stone walk. Somewhere in the damp darkness a group of adolescent girls were singing a nostalgic Tin Pan Alley tune. Here you go again, he thought. Better go back to the ship, no telling what’ll jump out of the darkness next; maybe the Second Avenue El. And suppose someone else brings a Yank? Why spoil the fun? Hell, so let him walk out…

  Mr. Catti was guiding him into a doorway toward a soft murmur of voices. Maybe, he thought, you’ll hear that old “spiritual” classic Massa’s in de—Massa’s in de Old Cold Masochism!

  When the light struck his injured eye, it was as though it were being peeled by an invisible hand. He did not know whether to cover it or to let it be so as not to attract attention. What was the use?

  Mr. Catti was greeting the men who made room for them at the bar. Looking across the room, where folding chairs were grouped neatly around rows of small tables, he heard a man in a blue suit running brilliant arpeggios upon an upright piano. It was a cheerful room.

  “Two whiskeys, Alf,” said Mr. Catti to the man behind the bar.

  “Right! And a good evening to you, Twm,” the man said.

  “This is Mr. Parker, Alf,” Mr. Catti said, introducing him. “Mr. Parker, Mr. Triffit, our club manager.”

  “How do you do?” he said, shaking Mr. Triffit’s hand.

  “Welcome to our club, sir,” Mr. Triffit said. “You are an American, I take it?”

  “Yes,” he said. And with sly amusement he added, “A black Yank.”

  “I thought Mr. Parker would like the concert, Alf. So I brought him along.”

  “We’re happy to have you, sir,” Mr. Triffit said. “I believe you will enjoy it, Mr. Parker. If I do say so myself, our boys are … are … yes, dammit, they’re smashing!”

  “I’m sure they are,” he said, thinking, He acts like he’d fight over it.

  “Here’s all the best,” said Mr. Catti.

  “Your health, sir,” said Mr. Triffit.

  “To Wales,” Mr. Parker said, “and to you both.”

  “And to America, God bless her,” Mr. Triffit said.

  “Yes,” said Mr. Parker, “and to America.”

  He could see Mr. Triffit about to mention his eye, and was glad Mr. Catti was moving away.

  “Come, Mr. Parker. We’d better select our seats.”

  They sat near the front, where the singers were grouping themselves to begin. The warmth of the liquor was spreading slowly through him now, and it was with a growing sense of remoteness that he heard the first number announced, a Welsh song to be rendered a cappella. The quiet tuning chord sounded far away. He saw the men set themselves and the conductor raising his hand, then, at the downbeat, the quick, audible intake of breath and the precise attack.

  The well-blended voices caught him unprepared. He heard the music’s warm richness with pleasurable surprise, and heard, beneath the strange Welsh words, echoes of plain song, like that of Russian folk songs sounding.

  “It’s wonderful,” he whispered, seeing Mr. Catti smile knowingly.

  He looked about him. He saw the faces of the listeners caught in a single spell of communication while they sipped their drinks or puffed their pipes or cigarettes. Slowly the hall was filling with friendly swirls of smoke. They were singing another of their songs now, and though he could not understand the words he felt himself drawn closer to its web of meaning. Then the familiar and hateful emotion of alienation gripped his throat.

  “It was a song about Wales?” he asked, soothing his eye.

  “Exactly!” exclaimed Mr. Catti. “And the other was about a battle in which we defeated the English. Nothing like music to reveal what’s in the heart. You don’t need lyrics, really.”

  A warm flush dyed Mr. Catti’s face. He’s pleased that I understood, he thought. And as the men sang in hushed tones he felt a growing poverty of spirit. He should have known more of the Welsh, of their history and art. If we only had some of what they have, he thought. They are a much smaller nation than ours would be, yet I can remember no song of ours that’s of love of the soil or of country. Nor any song of battle other than those of biblical times. And in his mind’s eye he saw a
Russian peasant kneeling to kiss the earth and rising wet-eyed to enter into battle with cries of fierce exultation. And he felt now, among these men, hearing their voices, a surge of deep longing to know the anguish and exultation of such love.

  “Do you see that fellow with the red face there?” asked Mr. Catti.

  “Yes.”

  “Our leading mine owner.”

  “And what are the others?”

  “Everything. The tenor on the end is a miner. Mr. Jones, in the center there, is a butcher. And the dark man next to him is a union official.”

  “You’d never think so from their harmony,” he said, smiling.

  “When we sing, we are Welshmen,” Mr. Catti said as the next number began.

  Parker smiled, aware suddenly of an expansiveness that he had known before only at mixed jam sessions. When we jam, sir, we’re Jamocrats! He liked these Welsh. Not even on the ship, where the common danger and a fighting union made for a degree of understanding, did he approach white men so closely.

  For that’s a unity of economics, he said to himself. And this a unity of music, a “gut language,” the “food of love.” Go on, fool. Behind that blacked-out eye you can get away with it. Knock yourself out. All right, I will: Dear Wales, I salute thee. I kiss the lips of thy proud spirit through the fair sounds of thy songs. How’s that? Fine. Slightly mixed in metaphor, but not bad. Give us some more, Othello. Othello? Indeed, and how odd. But. So: Oh my fair warrior nation, because of thee this little while my chaos is gone again—Again? Parker, keep to the facts. And remember what they did to Othello. No, he did it to himself. Couldn’t believe in his woman, nor in himself. I know, so that makes Iago a Fifth Columnist. But what do you believe in? Oh, shut—I believe in music! Well! And in what’s happening here tonight. I believe … I want to believe in this people. Something was getting out of control. He became on guard. At home he could drown his humanity in a sea of concealed cynicism, and white men would never recognize it. But these men might understand. Perhaps, he felt with vague terror, all evening he had been exposed, blinded by the brilliant light of their deeper humanity, and they had seen him for what he was and for what he should have been. He was sobered. Listening now, he thought, You live on the ship, remember. Down Straight Street, in the dark. And at home you live in Harlem. Quit letting their liquor throw you, or even their hospitality. Do the State some service, Parker. They won’t know it. And if these men should, it doesn’t matter. Put out that light, Othello—or do you enjoy being hit with one?