Now Lee felt foolish; all of the wind was taken from his sails. Depend on a Communist to come prepared with all the answers—and the questions too—Lee thought resentfully. He had no list, nor had he formulated any plans. But he did not wish to admit it.
“I don’t have my list with me,” he said. “Anyway, I’ve got to talk to Joe.”
“I done talked to Joe already. He said it was all right for you to work with me today.”
“They never miss a bet,” Lee thought, beginning to feel cornered. “When did you talk to Joe?”
“Last night.”
Now the anger grew in him. “And he said for us to work together?”
“That’s right. Call him if you don’t believe me.”
“So that’s the way it is,” Lee Gordon thought, feeling a sense of betrayal. “So Joe’s a Communist too.” He realized he should have recognized the Workers’ Alliance line in Joe’s gab about organizing the unorganized. For a moment he fought down the impulse to go back into the house and quit the job. His decision to go on and make the best of it came only from the desire to show Ruth he could do it.
“Okay, Commissar,” he said. “What seeds of revolution do we sow today?”
“Man, what’s eating you?” Luther asked angrily. “We both working for the same thing, ain’t we?”
“Are we?”
“Aw, man, you got a lot to learn,” Luther said, grinding the gears as he started off.
Lee learned. His lack of enthusiasm for the job, and because he was a Negro too, made the things he learned come hard. But meeting Negroes eye to eye, and talking to them lip to lip, he could not help but learn.
They went first to the house of Harold Green, a swing-shift worker in the warehouse. At Luther’s ring the door was opened by a lean, dark, slack-bodied man clad in a maroon robe, holding a blanketed baby in his arms.
“Now what in the hell do you want now?” he said with a scowl.
“I see you’re the walking boss,” said Luther, grinning and placing his foot on the doorsill without pretense of finesse.
“Get your foot outen my door,” Harold ordered.
“Sure, man, sure,” Luther said in a conciliatory voice as he pushed past Harold into the squalid living-room. “Come on in, Lee, come on in, man,” he called over his shoulder.
Lee followed without comment.
“You just gonna break into my house, eh?” Harold asked belligerently.
“Just paying you a li’l visit, man. Brought Lee Gordon by for you to meet. He’s the new organizer.”
Lee extended his hand. The day before, when Todd had refused his hand, hurt had embraced him. Now, when this black man did the same, all he could feel was rage. “To hell with him!” he thought, wheeling toward the door. He was no thick-skinned Communist to take these niggers’ insults. Then he cooled off and turned back, ashamed of the thought.
“What you say, fellow?” His voice was condescending.
“I ain’t got no money to be giving to no union so you may just as well go on,” Harold said.
From the kitchen came the smell of frying food. “Who that talkin’ ‘bout the union?” called a woman’s voice.
“He Luther, baby.”
“Oh, him! Is that white lady with him?”
“No, some other nigger he done brought along.”
“Hello, Margaret,” Luther called.
“Hello, Luther. How’s your white woman?”
“She’s fine. She asked ‘bout you.”
“I don’t see what for.”
Luther chuckled. “Your old lady’s a pistol.”
“She all right for me. I don’t want no white woman.”
Turning to Lee, Luther said: “Tell the man what it’s all about.”
“He just be wasting his breath,” Harold said with a grunt.
This was the moment Lee dreaded, but he did not shirk it.
Bracing himself, he asked the pedantic question: “Look, Harold, have you ever thought about the benefits of unionism?” He had been vaguely aware beforehand that it might sound a note of incongruity, but he was unprepared for the effect it produced.
One moment three Negroes were in the room, remote from the white world, bound together by the heritage of race, close to each other emotionally, unafraid of their thoughts, casually bantering to pass the time away; and the next moment the white man was there, changing the face of the day.
Slowly, both Harold and Luther turned to look at Lee. In Luther’s expression was the look of startled incredulity of one who has come suddenly upon something not only unexpected, but also unbelievable.
But Harold’s white-rimmed eyes shone with bitter animosity, and suspicion edged his whining voice. “I done told you niggers I don’t want no white woman, so go on and leave me be.”
“Aw, man, ain’t nobody asking you to marry the union,” Luther said, coming to Lee’s aid. “All we want you to do is pass ‘round a few leaflets to the guys in the warehouse. Now that ain’t gonna hurt you, is it?”
“It ain’t gonna hurt me ‘cause I ain’t gonna do it.”
“You have the wrong idea of the union altogether,” Lee said, trying again. “No one is urging you to socialize with the white workers. What the union offers is security, job equality—”
“Equality with who?”
“On the job, with the white people you have to work with.”
It was as if Lee’s words released some hidden dam in Harold’s mind, for now the words came rushing out in that grating, whining voice. “With them poor white trash out there at Comstock? What you talking ‘bout? I’m better’n all the poor white trash ever lived! And if you talking ‘bout the rich white quality folks—if it wasn’t for them you wouldn’t be living. They the only friends a nigger got. All these agitating Reds and union white folks just tryin’ a turn us ‘gainst our friends. And what they gonna do when they get us in trouble? They gonna run off and leave us, and then we ain’t gonna have no friends at all. And here you is, s’posed to be a smart man and educated and got brains and all. I done heard about you.
Went to school and all. And what you learn? Nothing! ‘Cause you ain’t even got sense enough to see that you is being used. You is a fool!”
Now Luther slipped in the statement that was designed to disconcert. “Man, even Roosevelt urges the workers to organize. And you know he’s our friend. You know yourself if it hadn’t been for Roosevelt—”
But it didn’t work on Harold. “Roosevelt! Roosevelt!” he cut in. “All he ever done for the nigger was to put him on relief. If my mister hadn’t just kept me and Margaret on, we’d have starved to death like you other niggers was doing. Roosevelt! You is Roosevelt-happy like the other niggers. Roosevelt! How he done it I do not know—starve you niggers and made you love ‘im. Everybody know the Republicans got the money. You admit that, don’t you?”
“But you can’t say that the Republicans are the only people who have money,” Lee said.
But Harold had been brought up in the best traditions of the freedman. “They got the money! You know they got the money! By now Roosevelt might have made hisself ten or twelve million dollars in graft but he the only Democrat got anything. You got to admit the Republicans got the money. Now if they get mad at us, what we gonna do? That’s what happen before. They got mad ‘cause we got to messing ‘round with Roosevelt. And what happened? They leave us have Roosevelt. And then what happened? Charity! Starvation! WZA—the ‘Z’ is for zigaboo. Now here you is tryin’ a get us mixed up with the Reds and the unions—”
“I’m going,” Lee announced. “It’s bad enough to be a nigger but this man is a fool.”
“Call me a fool if you want!” Harold shouted. “But I’m keeping outa the army. I’m making money. When this war is over and you niggers is running ‘round frantic, me and Margaret got a job.”
“In the white folks’ kitchen,” Lee added.
“Where you gonna be eating? With Joe Stalin? Or with the poor white trash? They gonna be starving, too.”
For a moment longer Lee stood there, loath to leave but caught without words. Then he followed Luther back into the street. For he could think of no argument stronger than the reality of the past. As Gertrude Stein might say, a nigger is a nigger is a nigger was a nigger and can see nothing in life to indicate that he will not always be a nigger. “To hell with Harold,” he thought. But nevertheless it affected him, for how could he escape such a reality with his dark, identifiable skin?
Next they visited a migrant Alabama worker named Riley Storey. Driving through the deserted ghost town of Little Tokyo, then showing the first signs of Negro migrant tenancy, they came to the back-alley tenement where Storey lived with his wife and four stairstep children in two filthy rooms. In bed but not asleep, he welcomed them with the unsuspicious friendliness of black men for men as black.
“Come in, boys, jes come right on in. Jes move some of them things there ‘n set down, son. What you boys want out de ol’ man dis mawnin’?” He was a black, bald, gnarled man, broken by hard labor.
“Just wanted to say hello, Pops,” Luther led off.
“Mighty nice of you boys—” He was interrupted by the sound of scuffling and boisterous laughter from the other room. Raising his voice, he shouted: “Pie, make dem children hush!”
Lee asked about his family and how he liked his job. It was not until they broached the subject of the union that his share-cropper’s beaten caution began to show itself.
“I been hearin’ ‘bout dis union,” he said. “You boys ‘long to it?”
“We’re helping to organize it,” Lee explained. “We have to get—”
“It’s like this, Pops,” Luther said, interrupting. “We got a bunch of colored mens who gonna pass out leaflets for us. But we ain’t got nobody yet down there in the boiler room.”
“How many you got—colored mens, I mean?”
“Oh, ‘bout fifty—ain’t it, Lee?”
Lee nodded. “Something like that.”
It was obvious that the old man didn’t believe them, but he didn’t challenge them. “Who gonna ‘long to dis here union if you boys ain’t?” he asked instead.
“All of the workers will belong to it,” Lee explained in stilted tones. “They will elect officials, and the officials will represent them in their dealings with management—negotiate contracts, get them better pay, better working conditions, help them keep their jobs.”
“White folks, too?” the old man wanted to know.
“Sure, white workers, too. Black, green, yellow—”
“Now what you say you tryin’ a do?”
Lee jerked a startled look at the old man then. But quickly Luther said: “Just tryna get you to pass out leaflets in the boiler room.”
“How much it gonna cost?”
“Cost for what?” Lee asked.
“To jine.”
“Oh!” Lee said. “Two dollars initiation fee and a dollar and a half monthly.”
“Whassum I gonna git outen it?”
With strained patience Lee explained about collective bargaining, grievances, seniority, and other union benefits, quoting from the booklets he had read the day before.
“Gonna git me a job atter the war?” This was the first Lee noticed of the native shrewdness underlying the profoundly idiotic performance the old man had been giving them.
“It will help you keep the job you have,” Lee replied. “And then in peacetime it will fix it so you won’t be discriminated against when you look for other employment.”
“Git me some place to live, too, eh?”
“It will help.”
“The union! One for all and all for one. Dat right?”
“That’s right, Pops,” Luther replied.
“It’s a good thing for us colored folks, ain’t it?”
“Sho is, Pops.”
“Son, I been hearin’ ‘bout this union ‘fore you wuz born—”
Lee again looked sharply at the old man, but again Luther was the first to reply: “Not this one, Pops, this is a new union—a better union—”
“I know ‘bout dissun, too.”
“Then you know it’s all right. You know it’s fair.”
“That ain’t the pint, son. I’ll jine it when you git it to goin’. But you know yo’self ain’t no black man got no business out dare in front of de white folks—”
“The white workers are joining,” Lee said.
“Well, when dey git all jined I’ll jine—ef’n dey ain’t got no objections.”
“Then how ‘bout passing ‘round some leaflets, Pops?” Luther asked.
“I tell you what I’ll do, boys. I’ll tell mah frien’s and us all ‘ill git ready to jine. But ef’n any trouble come I’ll deny it. Dat fair ‘nough, boys?”
“That’s fair enough, Pops,” Luther said, and Lee added: “There won’t be any trouble, Mister Storey.”
As they were riding along in the car once more, Luther remarked: “Man, we dug old Pops, didn’t we? He’d make a revolutionist.”
“The question,” Lee replied acidly, “is whether he’ll make a unionist.”
Luther gave him an exasperated look. “What’s the union but a revolutionary movement?” he asked.
Lee did not reply. But against his will he had to admire the Communists for the job they had done on Luther. They had taught him poise, restraint, the skill of adjustment, how to time a parry, the art of interviewing, and the value of retaining and restating and persisting in a contention, no matter how distasteful it might become to everyone, until it wore all opposition down. And they had taught him the subtle trick that was the trade-mark of the Communist—confusing the opposition with the disconcerting question, then holding forth the Marxist answer in all its pristine logic. All such insidious techniques of coercion were considered dangerous in the knowledge of the oppressed. The gall and the effrontery no doubt had been Luther’s own, Lee conjectured, but he could see the fine hand of the Communists in the manner in which Luther now employed them.
It was wormwood to admit, but Lee realized that within the short period of time he had known Luther, he had come to lean on him for emotional support. He found Luther’s company comforting even though it was annoying, and it was distinctly pleasant to ride in Luther’s car.
He was recalling with faint amusement the old saw that there was nothing too good for a Communist, as they rode in silence to the home of a woman who operated a punch press on wing assembly. She was a tall, fair woman whom Lee remembered vaguely as interested in sorority activities about the university, and he wondered how she had come to be on Luther’s list.
Clad in a housecoat with printed design, she invited them into a comfortable living-room and after one glance ignored Luther completely.
“So the aloof Mr. Gordon finally deigns to call,” she said with a little laugh.
And although Lee tried to head it off, the conversation went rapidly to the personal, and they found themselves listening to a recital of her misfortunes, unable to utter a statement in the union’s behalf. The army had taken her husband even though they had a child, which showed how perfectly unreasonable the whole system was, and she was simply bored to tears. And what was Lee Gordon, with his dreamy eyes and moody face, going to do about that?
There was a sexual overripeness that embarrassed Lee to witness in her every gesture, floating her personality in an unnatural repression. In desperation he broke into her nervous chattering with word about the union.
“Oh, I’m a member, darling,” she said, smiling coquettishly. “I was one of the first who joined.”
“Oh! Well in that case, maybe we could get you to pass out some union leaflets in your department,” Lee said.
“I’d just love to,” she answered so quickly that Lee was convinced she would do no such thing.
But they left a batch of leaflets and took their departure.
“Call me in a day or two,” she called from the doorway, “and see how I’m making out.”
“I’ll do that,”
Lee said.
“That’s for you, man,” Luther commented as they rode along again.
“Not for me, for you,” Lee replied. “Your politics permit it.”
“I likes ‘em transparent,” Luther said.
After a silence, Lee asked: “How did you get her on your list?”
“She a worker, ain’t she?”
“I know, but what made you think she would take an interest in the union?”
“She a member, ain’t she?”
“I know that too. What I’m trying to find out is how you drew your list; on what basis did you select the people you thought might work for the union?”
“Them ain’t the ones we want, man, them the ones we got; we gets the ones we ain’t got.”
“I see,” Lee said. “Politics!”
“So what about it, if we gets ‘em into the union first?”
“Nothing about it—only once Negroes become members of a democratic union they’ll never become Communists,” Lee answered, more to irritate Luther than from any high regard for his own perspicacity.
“That ain’t the way it works, man. We gets the union and the niggers, too. But we just getting ready now. We don’t wants either of ‘em ‘til we wins the war.”
“I’m afraid you don’t know the Negro, son,” Lee said condescendingly.
“That’s what we both got to learn then, man, ‘cause you don’t know me neither,” Luther replied cryptically.
And what Lee learned, as that day wore on and ran into another and still another, was disheartening, discouraging, and depressing. First of all, he learned that not only did he know very little concerning the Negroes of America, but that he knew very few of them. As he gained in knowledge concerning them he also gained in fear. For the knowledge of them was like looking into a mirror and seeing his own fear, suspicion, resentments, frustrations, inadequacies, and the insidious anguish of his days reflected on the faces of other Negroes. It frightened him all the more because he could not divide himself from the sum total of them all. What they were, he was; and what they had been, he also had been. Their traditions were his traditions; and their identities described him too. What life held for them, it also held for him—there was no escaping.
Lonely Crusade Page 7
