The Third Generation

by Chester B Himes

  Poker had a pint bottle of gin. They drank in the dark beside the car. Afterwards they cleaned up the vomit. Poker got behind the wheel. Charles sat silent, watching the night go by. It was almost as if some complete certainty had failed, like the night God erred when his brother was blinded.

  “Where we going?” Poker asked. They hadn’t thought of it until then. “Let’s go down to the university,” Charles said. He didn’t know why he thought of the university, but thinking about it, as they drove along, it seemed as if something were waiting for him there, something he had left, forgotten.

  They drove up to Mrs. Johnson’s boarding house. It was late and most of the students had gone to a Thanksgiving dance. He went in and spoke to Mrs. Johnson and she said she could put them up for the weekend. Two freshmen whom he didn’t know were on their way to the dance. Charles offered to take them. One of the freshmen gave him directions. He drove around the university campus and came into a colored shanty town beyond the railroad. He felt a strange sensation when he drove past the university. It was as if he were revisiting a city in which he had lived during a former life and there were something peculiar about it which had affected him. But at the moment it had slipped his mind and he couldn’t recall whether it was good or bad.

  The dance was being held in a big, dilapidated barn that had been converted into a dance hall. He parked and let the freshmen out and he and Poker lingered for a time about the entrance, watching the dancing couples inside. They didn’t have the price of admission. No one came out that he knew.

  “Come on,” he said. “I know a place I can get a drink on credit.”

  He drove across town to the house where Rose had lived. Rose was gone. “Left right after you did,” George said.

  George didn’t seem happy to see him, but he gave him a pint of gin on credit and loaned him five dollars. They drove back to Mrs. Johnson’s and she fixed two cots in the third-floor dormitory. They were asleep when the others returned from the dance.

  Next morning Charles asked for some of the students he’d known. Most of them had gone home for the weekend. Only those who couldn’t afford to go had remained. Charles knew several of them by sight, but none very well. They asked him what he had been doing, whether he was coming back. He felt so depressed he found it difficult to talk. Poker was nervous and ill at ease. Charles used whatever toilet articles he found about, brushed his teeth with someone else’s toothbrush, found a clean pair of socks. Poker had already dressed. They went down to breakfast and Mrs. Johnson sat and talked to him.

  “Aren’t you coming back, Charles?”

  “Oh, I suppose so.”

  “Don’t you want to?” She seemed as concerned as if he were her own son.

  If she asked him another question he felt he would scream. “I’m coming back next quarter,” he said. “I’ve been doing a lot of studying.”

  “I’m so glad,” she said.

  He was shocked by the sight of tears brimming in her eyes. I got to get out of here, he thought as the panic began building up again.

  They were interrupted by the sound of a crash out front. One of her daughters rushed in and said someone had run into Charles’s car. He and Poker ran outside. He was glad of the respite.

  A well-dressed, middle-aged white man had driven an expensive car into the rear end of theirs. The man was so drunk he could barely stand.

  “There’s no need to call the police, boys,” he said. “I’ll pay for everything.”

  Charles examined their car. The gas tank was punctured and the luggage compartment smashed in. Gasoline ran down the gutter.

  “Don’t nobody strike a match,” Poker said.

  The man was fumbling for his wallet. “We’ll fix this up between us, boys. Here’s my card.” Charles noted that he was an insurance company executive with offices downtown. “Here’s twenty dollars. Now—now, that’s not all,” he added quickly, seeing Charles about to protest. ‘That’s just for your trouble. Come down to my office tomorrow morning and I’ll give you a check for the garage bill.”

  Charles took command. “Okay.”

  “If the police come tell them everything’s been fixed up.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ve had a few drinks. You know how it is.”

  Several of the students who had gathered extricated the stranger’s car and pushed it down the street beyond the flow of gasoline. The front end had been smashed but the motor started.

  “I’ll see you boys tomorrow morning,” the man promised as he drove away.

  “We’ll call a tow truck and see how much it’s going to cost,” Charles said. He had already begun to feel he owned the car.

  Poker called him to one side. “Hell, man, we can’t take this car to no garage. It’s hot. We better get out of town and leave it where it is.”

  But something about collecting for damage to a stolen car appealed to Charles. It was a strange sensation, as might be experienced by standing on a ledge fourteen stories high and looking down. At the time he had no intention of jumping. But it gave him a wonderful feeling of power to know he had a choice. So far the only element of risk existed within his mind. It offered a completely absorbing diversion—to jump or not to jump.

  “I’ll do it myself,” he said.

  He went inside and telephoned until he found a garage that was open. They promised to send a tow truck. Poker was thoroughly frightened.

  “Hell, man, you’re crazy,” he kept saying. “I’m gonna get out of this.” He could break into a deserted store after dark. But handling a hot automobile in broad daylight was too much. “Gimme some money, man. I’m going over where we was last night and get a drink and let you handle this.”

  Charles derived a perverted pleasure from Poker’s fear. He gave him the five dollars he’d borrowed the night before. “I’ll meet you at two o’clock in front of the gates to the university.”

  “If you ain’t in jail,” Poker said, hurrying off.

  Charles laughed for the first time in days. While he was waiting for the tow truck a police car drove past and the policemen got out to investigate the wreck. Charles told them that it was his car.

  “I talked to the fellow who ran into me and we’ve gotten everything fixed up.”

  “Was anybody injured?”

  “No, no one was in my car and the driver was alone in the other car. He didn’t get a scratch.” He laughed; he was in a gay mood. “Only my feelings were hurt, and he paid for them.”

  The policemen grinned. They drove off without writing a report. Charles became lightheaded with exhilaration. He was standing up there on his ledge and way down on the street a crowd was forming. People were pointing at him now. It was as if he had drunk the wine of the Gods; he’d never been drunk like this.

  When the tow truck came he told the mechanic he’d drop by in the morning and get an estimate of the damages.

  “I’m not paying for them so make them high,” he said, winking at the man.

  “I’ll give her all she’ll take,” the mechanic promised.

  Poker was hiding behind an arch when Charles arrived at the university entrance. Charles bent double laughing. A couple of white students grinned in his direction. Finally he choked, “Come on out, Poker, the enemy’s gone.”

  “You crazy, man,” Poker muttered angrily. Fear had got down into his body, his spine had tightened; he stood with his shoulders hunched and his hands rammed down into his pockets.

  Charles took him to the Union cafeteria for Thanksgiving dinner. They sat at a table with several fellows he remembered and he was in high spirits throughout the meal. Poker was silent and uncommunicative. Someone passing in back of him inadvertently bumped his shoulder. He gave such a start his fork fell from his hand and clattered on the table. Everyone looked at him.

  “Don’t pay any attention to my friend,” Charles said, laughing impishly. “He’s just escaped from Alcatraz and he’s still a bit jumpy.”

  The fellows laughed. Poker gave Charles a look of s
uch fury they became silent again. Soon afterwards the fellows left.

  “Man, you sho’ nuff crazy,” Poker said. He believed it now.

  After dinner they went back to the Johnsons’. Poker was afraid to go but Charles insisted. Between the time they’d left Cleveland and then, Charles had become the master. It added to his exhilaration. He began contemplating ways to add to Poker’s fear. They found the boarding house deserted.

  “Let’s go back to that place where we were last night and hole up,” Poker suggested. “I couldn’t find it.”

  “Let’s steal another car,” Charles teased. “Why should we walk around on a day like this?”

  “Man, gimme some money,” Poker demanded. “I’m going home.”

  “I haven’t got any money,” Charles lied. “I had to pay Mrs. Johnson. You’ve got to wait until we collect tomorrow.”

  “I’m gonna go down and set in the station. I’m cuttin’ out, man. You crazy.”

  Charles watched him go, laughing to himself. He went down to The Block and hung about the pool halls, and from there over to George’s where he drank until bedtime. He was beginning to feel depressed, let down again. But sight of Poker asleep on the other cot when he returned to Mrs. Johnson’s perked him up again. It was as if everyone had finally gone home except Poker, who was still down there on the street, fourteen stories below, held in morbid fascination. He was laughing to himself when he went to sleep.

  Next morning they went to the garage to get the estimate of the damages to the car. Poker waited for him at the corner a block away. It was just as Charles had hoped. The exhilaration began building up again. The estimate was less than he’d expected.

  “Only eighty-five dollars?” he protested. “I thought it’d be at least a hundred and fifty dollars.”

  The mechanic grinned. “Eighty-five is tops. I wouldn’t charge you but fifty.”

  He pocketed the itemized statement and rejoined Poker. “See,” he said. “No cops.”

  From there they went to the office building to collect. “You don’t have to come up—unless, of course, you want to,” Charles said.

  “I’ll wait for you down here somewhere,” Poker muttered.

  The man had a hangover. He had discovered, after he’d gotten home, that he’d bitten his tongue in the accident. He was in a vicious mood.

  “Eighty-five dollars!” he fumed. “For that amount of damage! This bill is padded.”

  A feeling of unlimited power swept over Charles. He felt as if he held the man’s destiny in the palm of his hand. He laughed. “Maybe it is.”

  The man reddened with fury. “How do I know it’s even your car?” he raved. “You haven’t shown me any registration. It might be stolen for all I know.”

  Charles met the challenge head-on. “Why don’t you call the police and ask them?” he dared.

  For an instant their eyes locked. Charles felt stifled by the sensation of danger. He leaned forward, his breath catching, as the urge came up to press it to the limit. But the man unlocked his gaze and flung himself into his chair.

  “Who shall I make it out to?” he asked, opening a check book.

  The flat, sour feeling of letdown flooded over Charles. He felt his body sag. The man looked up, waiting.

  “Taylor Manning,” he said finally.

  He watched the man write the check. He felt depressed again.

  “Here, boy,” the man said. “You’d better be glad I gave you my word.”

  He took the check woodenly. “Thank you.”

  Poker noticed the change in him immediately. “Didn’t the man pay you?” he asked anxiously.

  “I got a check,” he said indifferently. “I’ll go to the bank and cash it.”

  He didn’t have any identification and expected difficulty, but the teller cashed it without comment. On sudden impulse he asked for a book of checks.

  “Do you have an account?” the teller asked.

  “Yes, I do.”

  The teller passed him the book of blank checks.

  “Thank you,” he said, struck momentarily with a sense of unreality. It seemed for the moment as if everything he’d done was lawful.

  Poker was waiting for him down the street. They stood on the sidewalk and divided the money.

  “I ast the man in the station last night and he said we could get a train at one o’clock,” Poker volunteered. Now that the danger was past he’d gotten over his fear.

  Charles was finished with him, through; Poker without fear was no good to him. “You go ahead,” he said. Tin going to stay.”

  “You gonna press yo’ luck too far, man,” Poker said, and hurried off alone.

  Charles looked the other way. The sensation of daring danger that had kept him in such high exhilaration was gone. He had taken every risk and nothing had happened. He felt depleted and at loose ends. People jostled him. He realized that he was standing at a busy intersection. The lunch hour crowd milled past. He began walking along aimlessly. A squirrel scampering up a tree attracted his attention. He noticed that the building in back of the park was the courthouse.

  Suddenly he remembered the summons. It was as if he had opened Pandora’s box. All his panic and despair surged back like a tidal wave. He thought of his mother waiting for the turkey he’d gone out to buy two days ago. It was all he could do to keep from breaking into a run.

  The next thing he noticed was the railroad station. The idea came to him to buy a ticket to some place where he could never be found. Then he realized he didn’t have enough money to carry him as far as he had to go. His thoughts, moving in a cycle of association, took him back to the bank where he had cashed the check. Next he recalled the book of checks in his pocket. He suddenly realized that with one of the green identification cards issued by the university, he could fill them out for small amounts and cash them almost anywhere. His mind became aflame with the possibilities.

  No one was in the dormitory when he returned. He searched through the various lockers until he found a green card someone had left over the weekend, and substituted the name Taylor Manning. Before leaving he filled out all the checks for twenty-five dollars each, payable to Taylor Manning, and signed them with the name of the man who’d given him the check earlier.

  Next he went down to the shopping center across from the campus and entered a haberdashery. He bought two pairs of woolen socks.

  “I wonder if you can cash this check for twenty-five dollars,” he asked the proprietor, presenting his green card.

  The proprietor looked at the check, turned it over and extended his fountain pen. “Endorse it.”

  Charles wrote, “Taylor Manning.”

  The proprietor compared the signature with that on the green card, then counted out the change in bills and currency.

  He went from one store to another, making small purchases. He encountered no difficulty anywhere. In a tobacco shop he ordered a carton of cigarettes. Another customer came in as he presented the check. He was a big ruddy man, hatless, and in his shirt-sleeves. He recognized Charles immediately.

  “Say, I just cashed a check for you at my bookstore.”

  Charles looked up, startled, and tightened into a knot. “What about it?” he challenged.

  The man reddened. “What about it!” He took the check from the tobacconist’s hand and glanced from it to Charles. “By God, you’re passing bogus checks,” he shouted.

  “Give me my check,” Charles demanded and tried to take it from the man’s hand.

  The man held it out of his reach. “Oh no you don’t.”

  Charles turned suddenly and started toward the door. It was more a reflex action than from a conscious desire to escape. His mind had gone completely blank.

  The man leapt after him and clutched his arm. “Call the police!” he shouted to the tobacconist. “I’ll hold him.”

  Charles’s first impulse was to break loose and run. But two students entered the shop at that moment.

  “Help me hold this fellow,” the man appeal
ed to them. “He’s been passing bogus checks.”

  The students looked from the man to Charles uncertainly. Charles caught a sudden picture of them chasing him down the street. Revulsion came up in him. To be chased had always impressed him as an intolerable indignity. It was an impression from his childhood, indelibly implanted in his mind when he first read of Achilles chasing Hector around the walls of Troy while all the city looked down, weeping in anguish at the sad spectacle of this once brave and mighty warrior fleeing for his life. Then all of a sudden he was consumed with rage. His body stiffened but he didn’t struggle.

  “Take your goddamned hands off me,” he said in a low intense voice.

  His voice had such a tone of deadliness the man drew back in alarm. Charles turned and looked at him. “I’m not going to run.”

  By the time the police arrived a small crowd had collected. They stood about looking at him with fear and embarrassment. He glared back at them defiantly. They thought he looked desperate; they expected him to make a break at any moment. He resented their staring at him; otherwise they didn’t matter. Deep down he felt triumphant. It was as if he’d broken out of prison, escaped.

  Over the weekend he was held in a strange, cold jail in a cell with other prisoners waiting for the Monday morning court. At mealtime he was taken with the others into a large barren mess hall where they sat at long wooden tables and ate their potatoes-and-cabbage soup. Across from them sat the city prisoners who were serving jail terms. The prisoners wore overalls and talked across the aisle, trying to frighten them.

  “See dat li’l nigger dere.” The speaker pointed at Charles.

  “Which ‘un?”

  “Dat li’l nigger dere in de gray suit. Ah’m gonna ast de man tuh gimme dat li’l nigger. Ah’m gonna wo’k his ass off scrubbin’ dem flo’s down in numbah one. W’en Ah git through wid dat li’l nigger he ain’ gonna look so hincty.” Raising his voice. “You heah dat, doncha, li’l nigger?”

  Charles didn’t look up. He dreaded the meals most of all. He was frightened by the viciousness and obscenity of his cellmates and outraged by the callousness of his jailers. But all of it together kept him preoccupied, enclosed in an impenetrable nightmare, shutting out all thoughts of his parents and his home. He drifted in the horror, letting it enfold him.