Lonely Crusade

by Chester B Himes

  “I didn’t think that you would quit, Ruth,” he said dully.

  “Lee, please believe me. I do want to quit. But it would be foolish now after you’ve refused the job that Foster offered.”

  “Ruth, if you think that it’d be foolish, there is nothing more that I can say.”

  “But your own job will be over with as soon as Comstock is organized, won’t it?”

  “Why keep on bothering, Ruth? Why not just let it go?”

  “Answer me, Lee, won’t it?”

  “It doesn’t make any difference. I don’t feel like talking about it.”

  “Lee, I’ll quit,” she suddenly relented. “I’ll quit tomorrow, if it’s that important. All I’ve ever wanted was just to be your wife.”

  But it was too late—J. P. Time had had His moment.

  “No, Ruth, you keep your job.”

  “But I’ll quit if you want me to.”

  “I don’t want you to now.”

  “Lee, what’s the matter, darling?”

  She arose and crossing to him tried to put her arm about him, but he pulled away and went into the bedroom. A moment later he returned clad in his hat and outer coat.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “I’m going out,” he snapped.

  “Lee, please, Lee—” She began crying.

  “Ruth, there isn’t any goddamn need of crying,” he said bitterly. “You want to keep your job. And I want you to keep it too. That’s settled. Now you can be happy that I won’t have you at my mercy. And I’m going out and take a walk.”

  “May I go with you?” she asked, dabbing at her eyes.

  “I’m just going for a walk, and I don’t want you with me.”

  And now she tried a smile. “I’ll make some waffles while you’re gone. Will you be back in time?”

  “I don’t know. But I don’t want any waffles.”

  “I’ll make some anyway.”

  “That’s fine. You make them and eat them too,” he told her, and went out of the door into the darkness.

  But she made no waffles. When she could no longer see his figure in the darkness down the street, she turned slowly and sat down, biting the back of her hand in an unconscious gesture. It was not that she suspected him of going to see a woman, she told herself, but her intuition troubled her because if he was going to see another woman in his state of mind, there would be nothing left for her.

  Suddenly she began crying again, because she felt sorry for herself. And then slowly as the long night ran its course, her vague suspicions passed, and she was overwhelmed by such a sense of guilt that he could imagine him doing all manner of desperate things—murder, robbery, suicide. For in the end, it was not to another woman she ascribed his staying out all night, but to an unbearable frustration inspired by her refusal to quit her job—because she knew that she had failed him.

  And yet in this hour of her complete self-condemnation, she could not see how she could have sensibly done otherwise, for what would become of both of them if she did quit her job?

  Chapter 16

  LEE GORDON walked west on Sunset now, his raincoat buttoned and belted and the collar turned up against the world. The twelve o’clock curfew had long since closed the bars, but still the people filled the streets—servicemen and working women—in their frantic search. But Lee Gordon did not notice them. His face was set in slanting lines and his eyes were luminous with brooding.

  It was not so much that she had refused to quit, he thought, as that she had not wanted to. That made the difference. And yet, in this rare lucid moment, he could not really blame her for not wanting to give up the lot she had gained for the little he had to offer. She had no way of knowing what this particular job of hers did to him, that for each development of her own personality he paid a price in loss of self-esteem.

  But what really made it hopeless, he thought, was the character of her intentions. He knew that concern for his own welfare was a part of everything she ever did. She was not only convinced of this herself—it was true. So it was doubly unfortunate that the effects she struggled so ardently to achieve never served her purpose. Instead of his being benefited by what she intended to be benefiting, he was injured. Words of encouragement became blows to his pride, actions aimed to inspire his courage nursed his fear, and logic offered to a point the goal for him so often confused his purpose. And this was due to the fact that these intentions, while good and noble, grew out of her ignorance of the essential character of his frustrations and became destructive condescensions instead of constructive assistance to the need they were to serve. She deserved credit for trying, he thought, even though her motives were not always unselfish. It was not her fault that in all the things she tried to do for him, she was the one to benefit. And this, he felt, was just. This was right. Yet that did not keep it from being ironic also.

  Well—yes, Lee Gordon thought, looking up.

  He was at Jackie’s. He had walked the seven miles without realizing where he was going. And for an instant he was touched by a sense of omnipresence.

  Then of the THEE IN ME who works behind

  The Veil, I lifted up my hands to find

  A Lamp amid the Darkness; and I heard.

  As from Without—”THE ME WITHIN THEE BLIND!”

  The involution of a mystic, yes, and the actions of a fool, Lee Gordon thought.

  “Who is it?” Jackie asked when he knocked upon her door.

  “Lee.”

  She opened the door and stood aside to let him enter, her face showing neither pleasure nor surprise, only a composed complacence as if she had always known that he would come in the night like this.

  “Is Kathy asleep?”

  She closed the door and locked it. “She’s away.”

  He turned and looked at her ethereal face with open-mouthed wonder and could not breathe at all. Emotions burned through him like flame, and all the things he had always wanted to say to her came clearly worded to his lips. But he said only: “You’re beautiful, Jackie,” because that said it all.

  Now it was in her eyes again, that winning look. Without replying she turned quickly away from him and crossed to close the bedroom door. Watching the natural unaccented pulsing of her hips, he went sick with desire for her and began stripping off his rain coat, tearing at the buttons.

  She turned and came back. “What happened, Lee?”

  “I’m just tired, Jackie.”

  “Would you like to go to bed?”

  Their gazes hung: his questioning, hers level and unreadable.

  “With you?”

  She smiled for the first time, friendly, motherly. “Don’t be so old-fashioned, Lee. I’m a Communist. If you’re tired you may sleep with me. I’ve slept with many men—” and just before she opened the bedroom door she completed: “who didn’t have me.” Now matter-of-factly she asked: “Would you like some coffee or something to eat?”

  “Well—no. No thanks.”

  And then he began to undress, excitement beating at his heart and fear throttling him as with a garrote. His common sense tried to inform him that this was no uncommon thing, but his body jerked with a thousand alarms. Jackie had already returned to bed, and when he entered the room without night clothes, she simply turned over and put out the light.

  For a moment he lay there away from her, not touching her, and then he said: “Jackie—” in a tone that made it clear.

  When she did not immediately reply, he turned, groping, and her breast came alive in his hand. She waited a moment longer, then pushed him gently away.

  “You can’t have me, Lee.”

  It went tart, bitter, brackish, and went through him like bile. And suddenly it stilled to a quiet resolution and he said to himself: Yes, yes, I’ll do it. I’ll sleep naked with this young, beautiful, desirable white woman. And I will not touch her.

  When finally he spoke aloud his voice was apologetic. “I might not be able to sleep, but I’ll try not to keep you awake.”

 
“You can get so tired you can’t go to sleep,” she murmured.

  “Mine is more mental.”

  “Would you like for me to play you something?”

  “Play me something?”

  “Music.”

  “Oh!—Well—”

  “Yes,” she finished with a little laugh, snapping on the light and slipping out of bed.

  He had the sudden crazy feeling of being hurled through life by the emotions of others, by idiocies and insanities and false values in which he had no part.

  And then the opening movement of some unfamiliar symphony sounded with arresting tone. His mind opened and deepened, absorbing the music. Strained and cleared and soared and trod the notes to fantasy in a darkness rocked by Jackie’s gentle breathing.

  One moment, it was a morning in spring, taking his breath in a burst of newness. And another, taps for the dead, tearing out his heart. It was the merciless cruelty of people, bruising his soul. And then a pastoral scene beside a waterfall, anointing his wounds. It was the majestic march of mountains through his heart, the laughter of the ages in his throat, the roll of man-made thunder in his stomach, a softly played organ in an empty church, and a baby crying in the night.

  And his thoughts were like tongueless words, like his black skin trying to speak, like the mute prayers of the dark scared night, like life itself trying to tell him of its mystery in a language never heard, only felt.

  It helped more than he could ever say.

  Suddenly he began to cry. He buried his face between her breasts and she stroked his kinky hair. He wanted to tell her how much it had helped, but the words still had no tongue.

  After a time he stopped crying and turned over away from her looking up into the darkness. “It got me for a moment,” he whispered.

  She put her arms about him and drew him back to her.

  Never so violently responsive, so flagrantly wanton, so completely consuming, but it was not the same. In it was a defiance of the forbidden, shaping it in a way he could not tell.

  For a long time afterward they were silent, then she asked: “What’s the matter, darling?”

  “I’m just unhappy.”

  “I knew it when I first saw you. You’re just frustrated, darling.”

  “Perhaps I am.”

  “Frustration always begins with sex, the lack of gratification—”

  “But not with you.”

  And for a long time again they were silent.

  “What are you thinking about, darling?” she finally asked.

  “You.”

  “What are you thinking about me, darling?”

  “I was wondering how you would be as my wife.”

  “I would be a wonderful wife to you, darling.”

  “I bet you would.”

  “Would you like for me to get up and fix something to eat?” she offered.

  “No, kiss me—”

  “You’re sweet,” he said afterward. And a moment later mused: “I wonder why white women are so much more affectionate to Negro men than our own women are.”

  “It’s only in your mind,” she said.

  “How in my mind?”

  “In your mind we are the ultimate.”

  Lee Gordon vaguely wondered whether to be flattered or insulted, and to avoid deciding, smothered her in his arms.

  “And we can give you happiness,” she thought triumphantly, offering her body with warm, passionate surrender to another ecstasy.

  She could give him this illusion of manhood even while denying that he possessed it, for to her he was the recipient of her grace. But Ruth could give him nothing that to her he did not have. So with Jackie he had these moments that rightfully belonged to Ruth. It could have been wonderful with Ruth, for she had all that Jackie feigned. But he could never be for her what Jackie could make of him for her own designs.

  And yet in the morning when they parted, he had given Jackie infinitely more than she had given him. But he did not know it.

  Chapter 17

  UPON AWAKENING that Monday at noon, a sense of drifting seized Lee Gordon as if he were a bloated and forgotten corpse whirling aimlessly in a sea of dead remembrance.

  Nothing seemed real—the lateness of the hour, the familiar room with its dotted-Swiss criss-crossed curtains, the view of the neighbor’s yard etched in the vertical sunlight, the smiling face of Ruth from the photograph on the chiffonier, the night before, or the day preceding. And Lee did not seem as real as any of the rest.

  Nothing seemed real.

  But slowly the hard and pointed memories brought reality again, giving to the torpid emotions of a poignant yesterday a new and bitter life. And the fingers of all things personal began pulling at his mind.

  What did he, Lee Gordon, have that so many people wanted? he asked himself. And why did they all deny him the one small thing he needed? What was happening in this world that he did not seem to know?

  What was the union’s angle? Did they really need him to organize the plant? Or was his job just another form of Negro charity?

  And why would Foster go to the trouble of making a job for him? Surely Foster did not think that by so doing he could hurt the union. But what else could one lone, dark Negro boy, haunted by fears and weakened by uncertainties, mean to a man as Foster?

  Rosie? What did Rosie want of him?—giving him that long lecture on the psychology of the Jew. What did Rosie expect him to do about the Jew’s oppression?

  And Jackie? It tortured him to think of her, for only the night was made for believing. The sharp sunshine brought the rigid question: what did she, an attractive, single, white girl, want with him? Surely she could not consider him such an asset to the Communist party as to win him with her body. No, this was something more—a frightening thing, exciting, bewitching, and deadly. For it only offered him the fruit of one forbidden tree in a forbidden garden, and after he had tasted it, what then—an unforgettable aftertaste of bitterness, corroding in the society wherein he lived, or something else? For a moment he hoped wistfully that she really liked him more than just sexually—liked him as a person. No one but his wife had ever truly liked him, and she didn’t like him anymore.

  And so at last his thoughts came back to where they always ended and began—his wife. He could understand her devotion to security, for it was consistent with the times. But what more did she want of him? Was it merely happiness? But how could they have happiness without having all the rest? And if he had the choice to make, would he choose happiness?

  So now the question asked itself: what did he, Lee Gordon, want of Lee Gordon? Viewed in the light of one day hence, his bitter stand of yesterday for honor seemed an insensate thing. Who but a fool in 1943 would have refused the job that Foster offered for so inconsequential a thing as one’s integrity? But if he did not want honor or integrity, what then did he want? What was he looking for—purpose, motive, wealth, fame, or just a long easy ride to a painless death and oblivion? He did not know what he wanted, but it was none of these. It was more—something more.

  Now in the slow beginning of despondency, only the union held forth hope—not that it needed him, but that he needed it. For if he could not be important to anyone else in the world, perhaps through the union he could be important to himself. And when his wife referred to his job as a ‘little union job” he would not have to believe it so.

  He reached for the telephone and called a number. At the previous union meeting, Buster Boy had offered the use of his house for small midweekly gatherings. Aware that Buster Boy’s chief aim was to fill a gambling game, he had turned the offer down; but now he decided to accept it. He would use any means to gain his end, he resolved, and if the workers could not protect themselves, it was not his prerogative to protect them, their money, or their morals.

  “This is Lee Gordon the union organizer,” he said in answer to a woman’s voice. “May I speak to Buster Boy?”

  “He ain’t here,” the voice came loudly to his ear. “He say if you ring him to tell y
ou that he can’t do what he say.”

  Taken aback, he tried to make it clear. “He offered to let me hold meetings of the Negro workers in his house—”

  “He say for me to tell you that you can’t hold ‘em here.”

  Perplexed but unalarmed, he did not let it aggravate him. Perhaps the police were on to Buster Boy, he thought, and quickly put it from his mind. Next he tried to call McKinley but was informed that the line had been disconnected, so he stopped there on his way to the plant. But Lester was out, and his wife said he would not be home all evening.

  Arriving at the union shack, he found Joe Ptak also absent, so he gathered an armful of leaflets and went down to help Luther work the gates during the change of shift. But Luther was not there either, and a slow presentiment of trouble began forming in his mind. Were the Communists holding a secret meeting? But then Lester would not attend. Was it a meeting at the union council hall? No one had given him notice of it, he tried to reassure himself. But still he was beset by worry that something was happening of which he did not know.

  The first concrete indication came from the Negro workers’ manner when they surged from the gates. It was in their eyes when he hailed them, in the drab, repressed tones of their replies, in the way their faces blanked up at sight of him and they looked away.

  Certain now that trouble was afoot, he hastened to the little cafe where he and Luther had made a habit of meeting various workers to buy them beers and talk about the union. Finding only three present, two men and a woman, instead of the dozen or more who usually appeared, he asked sharply: “Say, what’s going on? Where is everybody?”

  They looked at him and looked away without replying.

  “Say, what’s the matter?” His voice was rough from alarm.

  “Matter with us?” the man called Play Safe countered with that defensive circumlocution at which some Negroes are perfect. “Look like anything the matter with us?”

  “Well, where are all the others? Where’s Scotty and Sugar and Mary Lou? Where’s Shortdrawers, he’s always here.”