Lee Gordon reached a conclusion sitting there: that the one rigid rule in human behavior was to be for yourself and to hell with everyone else; that within all human beings, himself included, were propensities for every evil, each waiting its moment of fulfillment; that honor never was and never would be for the Negro, and integrity was only for a fool; that from then on he would believe in the almighty dollar, the cowardice of Negroes, and the hypocrisy of whites, and he would never go wrong.
And because all these fine conclusions were so dissatisfying, he arose and went to bed with Ruth. And she could have been any woman with two legs and a stomach.
After his rejection of her a few short minutes earlier, this was the most brutal thing that he had ever done to her. And the only reason she accepted it was because she loved him.
The following morning she remained home from work and prepared him a wonderful breakfast. And when he had finished she said: “Let’s go away, Lee—to another city and find some new people and do some new things.”
He looked up, startled. “But what would you do?”
“I would be your wife.”
She touched him then, because that was all that he had ever wanted. Rising, he went around the table and took her in his arms. “I love you, baby doll.”
She began to cry, the soft sobbing of her body filling his arms with despair. He kissed her lips and eyes, the warm salt taste of her tears like blood on his emotions, but his mind opened eagerly to the idea.
“We could go to San Francisco,” he thought aloud, and then smiling down at her he added: “You’d like it there. On clear days the city’s like a jewel in the sunshine, and the people are pleasant. You’d like it, Ruth.”
He felt her draw away from him as her sobbing stopped, but his enthusiasm had carried him away. “I know a house on Vallejo high up on the hill overlooking the bay. Look, baby doll, it’s got a great big attic room paneled in mahogany with three wide windows across the front, and you can sit there and see the ships come underneath the Golden Gate Bridge just like they were in your lap. When the sun’s shining—” He broke off as he caught sight of the fear that was in her face. “What’s the matter, baby doll?”
“We couldn’t go now, we’d have to wait—” she began, but he cut her off:
“Why? You mean I shouldn’t quit the union now?” He damned it with a gesture. “To hell with the union!”
“But what would you do, Lee? Neither one of us would have a job and—”
“Oh, there’re plenty jobs in San Francisco. I’d get a job.” And then he looked at her again. “We’ll make it, baby doll. We’ve always made it, and we always will.”
She saw the past strung out behind them like a line of tattered banners of things that never were—dreams that had been shattered and hopes now crumbled into dust, fear and apprehension, poverty and abuse. And now he wanted them to do it over again, to give up everything that they had gained and start from scratch. And it would be the same, she thought—Lee refusing to accept the jobs offered to him and taking out his hurts on her. And insecurity would always be their lot, even in this time when everyone else was making money. She could not go through with it again; she could not do it, that was all.
“Lee—”
His soaring thoughts were brought back by the quality in her voice. “What, Ruth?”
“You won’t be angry?”
“Angry at what?”
“Thinking it over, Lee, I don’t see how we can do it now.”
“We can if—” he broke off. “Then you didn’t mean it?” There was accusation in his voice.
“I did, Lee, I did mean it. Please believe me, Lee.”
“But what is it, Ruth? What’s the matter?”
“I wanted to say something to help you, Lee. Don’t you see? I thought if I—”
“But you didn’t think that I would do it?”
“I—You haven’t given it any thought, darling. You’re just going headstrong—”
As his mind closed to the sound of her voice, the wide scope of his conjecturing narrowed to the single thought, and in all the world there was only her smooth brown face, unbeautiful now, again doubting him.
“Well—yes,” Lee Gordon said, bitterness hardening about him like a shell. He should have known that whatever he had been to her just this past Sunday, he was even less today.
“Lee, listen, Lee—”
Without again looking at her, he turned and went into the living-room.
Chapter 21
AT TEN-THIRTY that morning Smitty and Hannegan called for Lee and drove him to the sheriff’s office.
After listening to Lee’s story with a fidgety impatience, the sheriff said: “It couldn’t have been any of my deputies, Hannegan. None of my deputies would do a thing like that.”
He was a large, loose-jointed man of Spanish extraction with a hatred for Negroes second only to his hatred for Mexicans. He was often mistaken for a Mexican by persons who did not know him.
“May we have Gordon see these four deputies whom he has named?” Hannegan requested.
“No, by God!” the sheriff refused. “I’ll not have my deputies subjected to any such tommyrot because of the wild story this boy tells.”
“But you have pictures of them in your files,” Hannegan said.
“I do, yes.”
“May we see the pictures?”
“No, by God, you may not!”
“Then we will have to file charges against the lot of them for assault and battery.”
“Then, by God, you are a bigger goddamned fool than I think you are! Because what this boy says is impossible. Paul Dixon was off yesterday. He’s on duty Sundays, and Wednesday is his regular day off. Ed Gillespie and Ray Young were working on a case in Whittier and were there all day with a dozen witnesses to prove it. By God, I can testify to it myself. I stopped there and talked to both of them. And Walter Thomas was here on jail duty. And I’ve got the records to prove it.”
“May we see your records?”
“No, you may not see my records. But I will show them to you quickly enough in court if you make a charge against my men.”
“You’re not co-operating, Sheriff,” Smitty said. “We’re not after any of your deputies. We want to get at the truth.”
“I’m telling you the truth, Smith. And I’ve given you more time now than this cock-and-bull story is worth.” But he took a little more time to appear thoughtful. “There is a possibility that there could have been four men impersonating deputy sheriffs—”
“No, that’s out,” Smitty interrupted. “There could be nothing they’d want from these boys to warrant such impersonation. No, if they were not deputy sheriffs, then there was no one.”
“There was no one,” the sheriff said. “I’m always glad to help you fellows with your unions when you have some reasonable request, but I wish you wouldn’t bother me with these colored boys’ nightmares. Every time something happens to a nigger he says a deputy sheriff did it.”
“You know, Sheriff, a large number of Negroes are migrating to Los Angeles,” Hannegan reminded him. “It is possible that within a few years the Negro vote will have much to do with the election of sheriffs.”
The sheriff’s face reddened as he came abruptly to his feet. “I don’t like threats, gentlemen.”
“Nor do we like to have our union organizers pushed around,” Smitty replied.
“Good day, gentlemen,” the sheriff said.
When they were again seated in Smitty’s coupe, Hannegan turned to Lee. “Well, Gordon, that’s it. You can file charges against the four deputies if you wish, but you will lay yourself open to be prosecuted for false arrest. I advise you against it.”
“Well—” Lee said. “If that’s it, that’s it.”
“Lee, I want you to know that we are with you,” Smitty said sincerely. “But let this business drop, won’t you? Luther won’t be around anymore, and we are going to check the Communists too.”
“Well—I won’t make any
more fuss about Luther and I won’t file any charges,” Lee promised. “But I won’t forget it.”
“That Luther!” Hannegan commented. “He’s some boy, it seems.”
“I don’t understand him,” Smitty confessed.
Instead of taking Lee home, they dropped him at the hospital to have his bandages changed. It was past two o’clock when he arrived home.
Abe Rosenberg was sitting in the living-room, reading the morning paper. Looking up with those bright, wise eyes, he said: “You shouldn’t try to fight four men at one time. A Jew would never have done that.”
Lee laughed for the first time in two days. “A Jew would have taken the money and said nothing about it, I suppose.”
“Why not? It’s not like as if they could buy me.”
“That’s probably what Luther thought.”
“That Luther! He shouldn’t have done a thing like that. An old Jew like me, I would take their money and deny it to their faces. But that Luther, he’s a crook.”
For a moment Lee looked at Rosie, grateful to be believed. Then he started toward the bedroom door.
“Your wife told me to tell you that she had to go to work,” Rosie said, stopping him.
“Oh!” He looked inquiringly at Rosie. “When did she leave?”
“Around noon.”
“And you have been here since?”
“I have no other place to go that’s any more important.”
“What’s important here, Rosie?” Lee asked from curiosity as he crossed to the davenport and sat down.
“You are, Lee,” Rosie stated. “You are important. And what’s happened to you is important. And how you feel about it is important. So for that reason I want for you to go with me to the headquarters of the Communist Party to see Bart.”
“Rosie, what good will that do? Bart knows what Luther did. They all know; they’ve known all along. I’m the only sucker of the lot.”
“Not the only one, Lee—I didn’t know.”
“No, I’m convinced you didn’t, but the others did.” For an instant his thoughts touched Jackie and he added bitterly: “All of them!”
“As a favor then, Lee—as a favor for an old Jew who wishes you well. Perhaps some day I may be able to do as much for you.”
“Well—okay,” Lee consented, rising to his feet. “You have a way of putting things that makes it hard to refuse.”
During the long streetcar ride downtown they avoided discussion of all union matters and Lee related to Rosie his experiences in old man Harding’s house. Once Rosie interrupted to say: “Lee, you have a wonderful wife.”
“That’s what everybody says,” Lee replied, and caught Rosie looking at him.
Entering a dilapidated office building on Spring Street, they rode a creaking elevator to the fifth floor and turned down a dimly lit, narrow corridor toward offices in the rear. They found Bart seated behind a battered, flat-topped desk, conversing with a one-armed, mannish-appearing Jewish woman who had been pointed out to Lee several years before as one of the Communist party executives.
“Well, Rosie and Gordon, this is a surprise,” Bart said in his high, precise voice. “What brings you comrades here today?”
“Business!” Rosie replied in his most Jewish voice. “Always it is business—party business. And how are you, Maud?”
“Hello, Rosie,” she greeted in a rasping voice, looking at the two of them with brazen curiosity.
“You know Lee Gordon, Maud?” Bart asked. “Maud Himmelstein,” he said to Lee.
“I’ve heard of Lee but I’ve never seen him,” she rasped. “Hello, Lee.”
Lee nodded briefly to them both. “Hello.”
“I have a report of a confidential nature to make,” Rosie said. “It is a matter of serious business and I wish to present a formal charge.”
Sudden suspicion flared in Maud’s hard face but Bart remained impassive.
“Well, what is it, Rosie?” he demanded.
“Yesterday Lee was beaten by four deputy sheriffs—”
“Yes, we know that,” Bart interrupted.
“And he was with Luther McGregor—”
“We know that too.”
“And he heard Luther confess to accepting a bribe from Foster, the manager of Comstock, for betraying the union—”
Maud’s look turned from suspicion to malevolence, but Bart raised his hand, silencing her.
“You don’t believe that, do you?” he asked Rosie, but underneath the question lay a subtle threat.
“I believe it,” Rosie said defiantly. “And I wish to state formally that I do not think Luther is fit to be a member of the Communist Party and should be expelled.”
“What kind of Communist are you?” Maud said, but again Bart silenced her.
“That is a serious charge to make against a fellow member,” he said to Rosie in his precise level voice. “You have only Gordon’s word—”
“And for me that is enough,” Rosie interrupted.
Without looking up, Bart continued in the same tone of voice, “—and you are putting it above the word of one of our most militant members, Luther McGregor, a tried and true Communist. No one can seriously believe that Comrade Luther, with all of his burning revolutionary zeal, would sell out the proletariat.”
“Lee heard him confess to it—”
“At the point of a gun, he claims. Yes, we’ve heard Gordon’s story and it’s doing incalculable harm to the union’s organizing campaign. But the true story, as Luther reports it, is that Gordon’s temper led him into the fight. As to his charge against Luther, we can see no purpose in it unless it is Gordon himself who is guilty of selling out the union and by this means is bringing confusion into the ranks.”
“That’s a goddam lie!” Lee shouted, no longer able to restrain himself. “And you know it’s a lie. You knew it was Luther all the time, even night before last when you were plotting to frame Lester McKinley to cover for him. And you were going to front me to do it for you, weren’t you?”
“Don’t you come down here and try to start trouble,” Bart warned, rising to his feet.
“You don’t scare me,” Lee said in a contained voice, starting around the desk to meet him, but Rosie clutched him from behind.
“Lee!—Bart!” he cried. “Are we Nazis that we can not talk like comrades?”
“And you do not frighten me,” Bart said to Lee, ignoring Rosie. “You have caused trouble enough.”
Lee ceased to struggle but his voice was harsh with rage. “Not nearly as much trouble as I’m going to cause all you dirty rotten Communists.”
“Lee! Lee! Don’t judge all Communists by Luther,” Rosie entreated. “I’m a Communist. Bart’s a Communist—”
“I told you it wouldn’t do any good, Rosie,” Lee said as he turned toward the door. “And I’ve had enough.”
“Wait, Lee, wait, let’s be men about this thing—”
“No, Rosie, I am through,” Lee said over his shoulder and went through the doorway and down the corridor. Disdaining the elevator, he went down the stairs. Rosie started to rush after him but was halted by Bart’s harsh voice, “Rosie, I am going to hold you responsible for this.”
“For what?” Rosie asked, turning back again.
“You have made a serious and unsupported charge against a comrade of high dependability, one of our most dynamic working-class leaders.”
“Then I wish to make it formal,” Rosie replied, undaunted. “I wish to present my charge before the executive committee and demand Luther McGregor’s expulsion from the Communist Party.”
“You dirty little Jew!” Maud rasped.
But Bart merely uttered: “As you wish, Rosie, as you wish!”
On the way home Lee stopped at a bar and had a couple of drinks to get the tightness from his mind, but the whisky fed his aversion to them all. But long after his thoughts had contemplated and condemned all others, they remained on Jackie inconclusively. His logic lumped her with the rest, but his heart held her apart
. Or was it vanity? he asked himself. Was he trying to acquit her of guilt or himself of folly? He felt more chagrined by the esteem he had given her than by the fool she had played him for, since the latter was the usual risk, but the former a tribute above the price demanded. What worried him now was the fear he had given it to her race instead of to herself. And after he had another couple of drinks it became urgent that he find out.
He called her from the booth beyond the bar. Kathy answered and he asked to speak to Jackie. He could hear her calling: “It’s for you, Jackie. I think it’s the colored fellow.”
And then Jackie’s voice: “Lee—darling.”
“May I come up?”
“Of course, I want you to.”
“Can you get rid of Kathy.”
“Oh, sure, she’s good as gone for the night.”
After hanging up, he stood for a moment pondering over the affection in her voice. Could it be that she was so happy to hear from him? Or had she received further instructions from Bart? It was with an impelling sense of urgency that he hastened to the bus. The late sunset was fading into darkness when he arrived.
Her bright-carmine smile was already fashioned when she opened the door for him, and there was a Hollywood abandon in her sensuous attire, from her loosely flowing hair and tight white sweater, to her pleated blue slacks. But shock showed sharply in her face when she looked into his eyes and saw the grinding hurt. It confused the attitude of three-fourths sex and one-fourth understanding she had so carefully rehearsed, and brought dismay.
“Oh, Lee!” she exclaimed with involuntary irritation. “What all did happen to you?”
“Well, I didn’t do it,” he snapped, coming in and closing the door behind him. “I took a sapping, what more do you want?”
Now in her eyes there was acute vexation. The bargain she had made on the telephone was for a hurt no greater than sex could cure, around which she could attitudinize until the flesh was hot. In showed in the delicate mold of her features, cramping them, and in the inflection of her voice, leveling it.
Lonely Crusade Page 27
