The End of a Primitive

by Chester Himes

  Kriss had served him a drink on the storage cabinet beside her three-legged chair and on resuming her seat on the sofa cut him off irritably, “Harold, will you please sit down so I can see the screen.”

  He was a big heavy-set man with strong bold features of a ruddy tan complexion, appearing rugged and forceful in brown tweed jacket and gabardine slacks, and when he gave Kriss a half hurt, half indulgent smile, and obeyed like a scolded child, Jesse felt another tremor of violent rage. “Thinks she’s God!” he thought, and then half-amused, remembering the current crop of jokes, “Not God, MacArthur!”

  Harold was sitting, leaning forward, talking around Kriss: “…pecks bowing and scraping—” when she cut him off again, “If you and Jesse want to talk, go outside. This is my only pleasure, only—” she laughed childishly at some antic on the television screen, and now Jesse was half-amused, thinking of those magazine cartoons of a man cast away on a tropical island with a beautiful woman and complaining that his radio wouldn’t work. “Bitch cast away with two men…Island not tropical…no palm trees—but shade of sky-scrapers—just as good…only pleasure television…”

  He stood shakily and said, “I’ma maka drink.”

  Kriss held up her glass and Harold hastened to empty his.

  “I smell somp’n on fire,” Jesse said, hugging the empty glasses to his stomach.

  Kriss giggled. “It’s Harold’s paraldehyde.”

  Jesse sniffed. “Paldahyde? Smells like formaldehyde.”

  “They give it to alcoholics at Bellevue,” Kriss said, forgetting the program in her enjoyment of Harold’s discomfiture.

  “Don’t laugh, my dear, you might be taking it yourself someday,” Harold said acidly.

  Jesse staggered kitchenwards, laughing to himself. “Poor sonabitch embalming himself ‘fore he’s dead.” When he stopped to place the glasses on the hall table to get a better grip he noticed for the first time the three keys atop a check. He poked the keys aside and studied the check, trying to concentrate. But all that made sense was the amount and he thought, as he continued on, “Son, if meat’s so high you gonna have to drink soup.”

  When he saw the potatoes on the stove he decided to start dinner. Taking a short drink straight, he pulled out the grill, placed it on the table, lit the oven, put the steak on the grill, and the next thing he knew he was sitting on the sofa beside Kriss, asking Harold, “…happened about that Chicago Letter you were going to write for the New Democrat? I bought it for a time but I never saw your pieces.”

  He felt reasonably sober and quite lucid.

  “Never heard from them…after that lunch at Cheerio’s…was going to review your book…”

  “…killed everybody ever liked it…rank poison those things—”

  “…‘sa book, Jesse ol’ man, ‘sa book…these white folks ‘mot gointa letcha—”

  Kriss turned on Jesse in a rage and cried, “If this book is like the last one I’ll never speak to you again!”

  “…‘ll never forgive you, ol’ man, ‘ll never forgive you. They’ll—” Harold was saying while Jesse glared at Kriss, “Did you read it? All you people—”

  “I hated it—‘n what’s more—”

  “—count all the white people—”

  “—all of ‘em, Hal, all of ‘em. No goddam except—”

  “—son of a bitch, if you ever write another book like—”

  He looked at her glazed eyes filled with senseless hatred and felt the sickness coming over him. “—wrote it for you…wrote it to please you—” he was saying without realizing what he said, and she was saying, “—ever mention it again in my house!—‘n Harold, I’m sick o’ your whining! Negroes!—‘d think—only people matter…”

  Harold was staggering toward the kitchen to get another drink and Jesse was muttering half to himself, “…took a beating…took a head-whipping…” and Kriss was laughing maliciously, and it was unbearably hot in the small apartment, and Jesse was talking to himself. “…only time you ever tried to be fair…fair to everybody…made all of ‘em much good as bad…hated nobody…thought they’d say, at last a nigger’s who’s fair…and they stoned you…they gut-butted you, son…knocked you down and kicked you in the nuts…it’s funny…take the hate but hate the compassion…hate the objectivity…hate the analysis…hate it!…makes sense though…only reasonable…guilt invites hate but hates reason…hates pity…hates forgiveness most…never forgive forgiveness…hate that sonabitch forever…great race though…right too…conquered the world…proves they’re right…never hate hate—first commandment…love hate…hates what makes conquest…love that sonabitch like mother…never loved mother either though…never loved anything but hate…love that sonabitch though…” And from this disjointed mental soliloquy he went into a stage of kaleidoscopic remembering: they’d cancelled all his radio appearances, all public contacts, removed his books from the stores, returned them to the publisher, because the blacks had hated it as much as had the whites…in the communist press it was likened to the biased ravings from the “rotted mouth of Bilboa!” and himself was compared to those depraved slaves who betrayed the slave revolts; while writers for the capitalist press labelled it sordid, bitter, the most poorly written book ever published, said hate ran through it like a yellow bile, likened it to the graffiti on walls and termed him psychotic…he was shoving his father Rockefeller Center on his father’s visit to New York for the publication and his father looked up at the tall buildings of the city that had hurt his son so cruelly and said, “Had they built the Terminal Tower in Cleveland before you left, Jesse?” trying to tell his son there were just as big dwarfs elsewhere as in New York City…he was hurrying from a downtown bookstore where his autographing hour had been cancelled and just missed the telephone call Becky took cancelling him off his first scheduled radio appearance, so he said nonchalantly, “Fine, I’ll take you and Dad to Luchow’s for lunch”…he was crossing the grounds of Skiddoo four o’clock of an April morning, thinking, “I’d just like to find some goddamned short one-storied street of simple folk whom I could understand’…And then the disjointed thoughts again: “…what makes these people—big important people—hate a simple sonabitch like you…tell you so many lies…simple sonabitch like you…can’t hurt anybody…yourself…can hurt yourself but nobody else…what are they afraid of…” And finally: “What you never knew, son, what you never knew—” His head seemed to burst with the effort of trying to catch that one simple thing he never knew which in extreme moments of extreme drunkenness was always so close…“What you never knew…Jesse Robinson…what you never knew…” and all the while the dirge going on in the back of his mind:

  deeee-do-deeee-do-deeee-do

  d

  e

  eeeeee-do-daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

  “…‘sabitch, Jesse, ‘sabitch…hated white folks so much had to be a whore for ‘em…”

  And Kriss saying: “…whore when you married her…”

  “…no more than you, my dear…you nigger men…she white men…all part of problem…”

  And Jesse saying: “…surrenderin’ myself…made private peace…screw ‘em now in peace…”

  And Harold saying: “…she couldn’t be my wife…not wife of a nigger…had to be white men’s whore…”

  And Kriss, remembering when she’d first tried to make him, thinking him so great and exciting and dangerous, and so superior to herself, forgiving him for his condescension and indifference, his caustic comments such as at the interracial dinner party when she was relating some joke about “Uncle Mose” who’d been her step-mother’s handyman in Mississippi, he’d turned to her and said, “Your mother’s brother, no doubt?” and even after she’d been sleeping with him and loved him dearly and went to sleep one night drunk with a cigarette and set her bed on fire and telephoned him to come and put it out to have him say crossly, “Just throw a bucket of water on it, my dear,” and how he’d married a Negro bitch, a one-time streetwalker who’d married a homose
xual racketeer and got up in the world, and then married Harold and got up farther, and had let her break him because he came and slept with her sometimes when she needed him, his wife going around sleeping with all his white friends, sometimes two and three at a time, and saying she wondered why Harold could never make her happy when Kriss liked it so well….

  The memories fired her with such blind rage, remembering in addition that she, herself, had never been able to break him, that she lurched to her feet and screamed at him hysterically: “Niggers! niggers! niggers! That’s all you niggers talk about… Niggers! niggers! niggers! You’re just as bad as she is! All niggers! I’m sick to death of niggers! Ever since I’ve known you you’ve talked of nothing but niggers!” her rage causing her to talk distinctly. “I’m tired of you niggers always whining around me. I am sick of all you niggers…”

  Jesse staggered to his feet and with a violent action threw her on the sofa. “One more nigger out of you—” he began, peering through a blinding blur of rage to find her face to hit it. But instead he saw Harold kneeling before her, embracing her hips, tears streaming down his sweaty tan cheeks, his big strong face piteously distorted, pleading hoarsely, “Don’t say that to me, Kriss. Don’t try to hurt me. We’ve been through too much together, my dear…just alike…you and me…no difference…white woman black man…broke us both…white woman black man always broken together…don’t try to hurt old Harold…don’t my dear…in the same river together…you married homosexual…I married whore…you can’t do without black men…no more’n I can do without white women…” And she stroked his hair and consoled him. “Don’t cry, baby…Kriss didn’ intend hurt you…” And feeling such perverted pleasure at having made him cry it turned to sexual desire for him more intense than she had ever felt in all the years of his critical arrogance. “Kriss ‘ll take care you baby…put you to bed…make you happy…” Feeling his hot wet tears on her dry palms with orgastic ecstasy.

  Jesse vaguely realized through his senseless rage and stupefying drunkenness that he was witnessing a sex ritual of laceration, the two of them slashing each other in sensual excitement, and he thought some deep frustrated love between them was frothing out in cruelty. And when she too began to cry, her tears streaming down a face gone ugly to fall on his head where he felt them through his hair, Harold also felt a sexual urge for her and buried his wet face in her lap.

  This was too much for Jesse; he’d come to screw the bitch himself. Savagely, he clutched Harold by the collar and jerked him to his feet. “Godammit make love t’her w’en I’m not ‘ere!”

  Harold spread his hands in a gesture of innocence as if to show he had no aces palmed, “…don’ be jealous of me, ol’ man…flame’s out…truth it was never lit…” Then with a deprecating laugh, “Kriss tried t’make great romance…”

  Kriss gave them both a venomous look through red-laced eyes…“Sonssabitches!” she muttered and got up dizzily and staggered into her bed-room and slammed the door.

  “Bitch is sick,” Jesse said from a sudden subconscious realization. “Really sick…negroes hurt her…really hurt her…”

  “‘sabitch, Jess, ‘sabitch, ol’ man. Once a white person works for the Sam cause never get over it.”

  “‘ow bout a drink?”

  “God bless whiskey. Man couldn’ live without it.”

  The next thing Jesse knew he and Harold were sitting at the table eating hot burnt rolls, warm raw steak, hot soapy potatoes swimming in butter, and cold sliced tomatoes with Hollandaise sauce. Harold was saying in a fairly sober voice: “…the popcorn got mixed up with the head juices and the bloodstream rushed it to the brain, you see, and the popcorn on the brain caused a burning fever, you see, and the heat popped the com with such force it came out through the skull into the hair, and that’s how you get dandruff, old man.”

  Jesse laughed boisterously, feeling quite sober. “Economical, too. Saves buying a popper. But I don’t like popcorn.”

  Harold chuckled. “That reminds me of a joke—”

  “Where’s Kriss?” Jesse asked.

  Harold looked at him questioningly. “She’s in her room unless she’s eviled on away as the boys used to say on—”

  “I ought to wake her up; she hasn’t eaten anything.” He looked about at the closed bedroom door. “Was she sick?”

  Harold chuckled maliciously. “You should know, old man. You went in and asked her if she wanted to eat.”

  Jesse felt embarrassed because he didn’t remember his doing so. “What did she say?”

  “You could hear better than I, ol’ man. You were right there beside her, but if I remember right I think she told you to go to hell and take your food with you.”

  Jesse laughed. “You know, that bitch is crazy.” Then seriously, “But she’s been hurt. I wonder what happened between her and Ted.”

  “He caught her sleeping with Joe and broke her jaw.”

  “No wonder! I thought it was Maud who—”

  “Maud quit her after that.” Harold licked his lips, relishing the vicious gossip.

  “I always wondered what the setup was.”

  “These dikers are a bitch, old man. Maud got Kriss to divorce Ronny and get engaged to Ted, and when she’d married Ted Maud intended to sleep with both of them. But Kriss took so long Maud couldn’t wait and began sleeping with Ted during the day and with Kriss after she came from work at night and Kriss got irritated, you see, and slept with Joe.”

  “I didn’t think Maud gave a damn who slept with Joe,” Jesse said. But he didn’t fully realize what he was saying for his mind had gone into a daze wherein his conscious mind was torn between incomprehension and subjectivism.

  “She didn’t,” Harold said. “She got mad because Kriss let Ted know. And when Ted quit her, Maud didn’t want just bare cunt, so she—” He broke off as the bedroom door opened.

  Kriss came into the hall, red-eyed from crying. Her face was tear-stained and the flesh indented by the wrinkles on the coverlet, but she felt a cold contained rage of such violence it had sobered her. “I heard what both of you said,” she announced. “Both of you get up from my table and leave my house.” But the ludicrousness of herself ordering two drunken Negroes to stop eating and leave her house in the early hours of morning tickled her so that she giggled.

  However, Harold chose to be offended. Clambering to his feet with a great show of dignity, chuckling with insouciance at her bad manners as if that was the correct thing to do when one was ordered from a house, said, “Certainly, my dear. Your company doesn’t interest me. I only came because you invited me to come—”

  “—inviting you to leave—”

  “—to see Jesse, with whom—”

  “—may take him home and sleep with him too, you—”

  “—wants to sleep with you, my dear, although whom you want to—”

  “—for you to leave at once, this—”

  “—on my way, my dear—”

  “—want you to go too, Jesse!”

  Scraping back his stool, Jesse heaved to his feet and began, “I’m not going any goddam where and if Harold wants to stay and drink my own liquor—”

  “—not me, old man, not me. As Bert Williams used to say:

  when the fellows

  get to fighting

  and the law is at the door…

  somebody stay

  and the law delay

  and make himself a great hero

  —but somebody else

  not me…

  —not me, old man. But I’ll have a drink for the road.”

  Jesse staggered with him into the kitchen and poured two half glasses of straight whiskey which they gulped down without strangling, barely tasting it, then they staggered to the door and shook hands and Harold said in parting, “She likes to be whipped, old man. Uncle Whitney brought a bullwhip from Mexico to whip her with. Used to tell me how she liked it.” Jesse closed the door on him, momentarily sobered by the last drink and tired of Harold’s malice. He foun
d Kriss mixing a drink and said, “You ought to eat something, baby,” but she turned on him furiously, “I’m never going to sleep with you again, Jesse!”

  “Don’t give a goddam!”

  “Go back to your wife, you son of—”

  “Why not to some other white bitch? Why always back to my wife?”

  “You hate me, you son of a bitch!” she blazed.

  “Don’t hate you. Just want some peace. A piece,” he corrected. “A piece in peace. You goddam white women always want to be raped. I don’t feel like raping you. Too old, too tired. Can leer at you though, if you like that. Best I can do. If that doesn’t satisfy—”

  “You hate white people!”

  “Don’t be too sure about that,” he said, thinking of some half-remembered joke about the white man who said to the black, “You don’t hate white people, do you, Mose?”

  She took her drink to the table and poked at the cold partly-eaten steak. “It’s raw,” she said, giggling.

  “What you expect from two cannibals? Cook it for you though, baby. White ladies like well-browned meat. Fact can’t get it too black…”

  “You son of a bitch! I’m never—”

  He felt a sudden violent impulse to beat her into silence. The next thing he knew he was down on his knees before the oven trying to place the steak on the grill that was located at the bottom of the firebox. The acrid scent of raw gas had brought him to his senses. “Dam oven’s on!” he exclaimed and leaping to his feet struck a match and threw it into the grill. The flame blasted out with a whooshing sound.

  “Hydrogen bomb!” he thought. “That’s the way to do it, son. Blow ‘em all up!” And after a moment, “Just be patient. They’ll do it they own damn selves.”

  And the next thing he knew he was sitting at the hall table with a cleared space before him scrawling the words at the bottom of a page of typewriter paper: “—and just don’t be so goddam challenging because I will kill you…“He had already written on the page: “Dear Kriss, you like feeling being hated because it offers you absolution for your sense of guilt. Also helps you bear defeat. You’ve always felt the need to pay for adulation—fact for everything—good will, good morning, good time—every Goddam thing—pay for it with your body. Pay pay pay. Somebody tell you you’re pretty. Pay. Tell you you’re smart. Pay. Take you to dinner. Pay. Way you used to be. Pay for it in ass. Pay with ass—get discount. Liked you then. Sell you this nigger. Pay for him in ass. Fair exchange. Everybody happy. Lot of fun. No frustration. No fighting. Just fucking and fun. Way it should be. They take the credit but you take the fool. American way. No more though. You’ve gone un-American. No more pay for nigger with ass. Now whip nigger with ass. Use it as cheap dirty weapon for fighting. Don’t blame you. Happens to most women. Just don’t like the women it happens to. Don’t try whipping me with it. Too much like the south. Been whipping nigger with white ass three hundred years. This nigger’s been whipped with enough other things to leave ass out. Don’t try whipping me with ass because you know baby I can hurt you more than anybody. Because I can kill you. Only person you ever knew who could kill you. So don’t press me. Be a good girl and pay ass—”