Lonely Crusade

by Chester B Himes

  In silence they walked down First Street to Rowan and stopped to await the streetcar. And in silence, sitting and standing side by side, they rode the long journey across town and climbed the stairs to Mollie’s.

  Mollie let them in, laughing suddenly at sight of Lee. “My God, when have you eaten last?” she greeted him.

  “Shut up,” Luther said and closed the door. Then he ordered her: “Call the police and report your car stolen sometime this afternoon.”

  “What happened to it?” she asked, suddenly sober.

  “Nothing,” Luther replied, then told Lee: “Sit down, sit down, you safe now, man.”

  As he went into the kitchen and took down from the cupboard a bottle of brandy, drinking long and noisily from the bottle’s neck, Mollie followed him with her questioning gaze. Finally he came back into the room with the bottle in his hand and stood looking at her.

  “I killed the son of a bitch,” he said.

  At the sound of his words and the sight of Mollie’s red face growing bloodless white, Lee’s mind was freed and his panic returned, overwhelming him. The muscles of his face began to tremble, and then his hands and finally his entire body shook as with the ague.

  “Here, take a drink of this,” Luther said, crossing with the bottle in his hand.

  Lee reached for it, trembling, clutched the bottle, and tilted it, spilling brandy down his chin. As the fiery liquor struck his throat, he coughed and strangled. It was the sight of him that finally impressed Mollie with the enormity of Luther’s announcement and released her from the senseless shock. Now she began cursing as a woman gone insane.

  “You dirty, vicious, depraved maniac! Foul, filthy beast! And a fool! You’ve always been a fool! You and your stinking comrades! Unwashed, thieving, lying, cheating, murdering scum! A Communist! Yes, you’re a Communist! All you vicious bastards! I’m tired of you! And all your nigger Communist mess! Pulling me down with you! With the rest of you self-befouling swinish degenerates! Black, filthy nigger! Get out! Get out of my house! Both of you! You murdering nigger beasts! You—”

  It was not until her voice began rising on a hysterical note that Luther spoke. “Shut up!”

  “Don’t you dare tell me to shut up!” she screamed. “Ill—”

  “Do I have to cut your throat too, woman?”

  The cold, flat deadliness of his voice hushed her and gripped her in a sinister fascination that became sexual in quality as the hot blood flushed through her abrupt rigidity. She was ready again to lose herself in sensuality, because what the coarse animal brutality of this nigger did to her was more than any drug. It intensified the perceptions of her five senses to a sexual grotesqueness, where the merest touch of his hand upon her body produced a sensation either acutely exciting or nauseating—an aphrodisiac stimulant either way. And at such times the warm ‘velvety surfaces of his arms could feel as delicious as silk against her fingers, and the rough texture of his kinky hair could leave the sensation of a bruise. The whiteness of his teeth, the yellowness of his eyes, the redness of his tongue, and the blackness of his skin became writhing hues in her frenetical ecstasy, and the animal sounds of his chewing exploded against her eardrums like the beating of tom-toms—building up this constant laugh of sexual bliss until at times she thought her guts would retch completely out. Now it was with an effort that she suppressed the laugh within her and prepared to face the emergency, as from the first she had known she must, as she had always known that there would be emergencies she would have to face, living with this physically dangerous nigger.

  Carrying the telephone by its long extension cord, she went into the bedroom and closed the door.

  After emptying the money on the table, Luther got a pair of scissors and methodically sliced the wallet into tiny slivers that he took into the bathroom and flushed down the toilet.

  “Them’s the little things that hang you,” he remarked as he returned into the room.

  For a moment he stood looking at the money, deep in contemplation, then slowly began dividing it into separate stacks. “It was me who killed the son of a bitch,” he said, “so I’ll take three fourths and give you one fourth. That’s fair enough, ain’t it?”

  Now with the brandy and the sound of voices thought had returned to Lee, along with his consuming fear. He had seen a man murdered, and it had changed almost everything of his conception of life and death. In this fear it had made life itself just another bridge between two voids, but it had made the voids themselves so awful. But the horror of death made life no less dreadful, only more meaningless. And money was as nothing—to take or to refuse. Yet he did not want the money, because deep within him was still something that did not want inclusion in a murder.

  So finally he said: “I don’t want any.”

  With one quick, final gesture Luther bunched the stacks again. “You is a fool,” he said. “Not only is you a fool but you is a square and a lain and a do’. The peck is dead, man, he’s dead. And if we get caught they gonna kill you and me just as dead as he, and probably kill you first ‘cause you ain’t gonna have no money to fight it with.”

  “Maybe so,” Lee Gordon said. “But I just don’t want any of the money.”

  For a moment Luther studied him. “You’re not thinking ‘bout squealing, are you, man?” And again in his voice was that hint of deadliness.

  “I’m not going to squeal,” Lee told him fearfully. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

  “I ain’t worrying, man,” Luther said in that cold, flat voice. “I’m just tryna make up my mind whether I’d be better off killing you now. ‘Cause it don’t make me no difference whether you’re dead or ‘live, so long as you don’t try to kill me, too. That’s what I’m tryna figger. If your conscience tells you to go down and ‘fess, I may as well kill you as the state and try to keep on living myself.”

  Again in those muddy, menacing eyes, Lee saw his life tip over, but this time it did not frighten him. “You can kill me if you want to; I don’t give a goddamn,” he said. “I’m not going to squeal, no, I’m not going to do that. But you don’t scare me any more because I don’t give a goddamn whether you kill me or not. I’ve got nothing to live for anyway.”

  Luther continued to look at Lee with a sort of blind, frustrated fury, holding down the impulse to kick him in the mouth. “It’s just you I’m thinking about, you goddamned fool!” The words burst from his lips.

  He liked this kid. He had never liked anyone as he liked this kid, not even his own mama. And the simple son of a bitch didn’t even know that he was trying to help him. So damn him! To hell with him! Let him take his own damn bumps! Luther thought. And mine too! Let him front his way on up to San Quentin and suck up all that fine gas they kept up there for fools. And see what his university education and his white folks’ ethics did for him—

  But when his sudden wave of anger had subsided, he still liked the kid. He could not help it, because inside of himself Luther was the kind of black man who, accepting the fact that he himself was only a nigger, admired another black man whom he thought intelligent and smart, who could compete with white folks at their own game and outslick them at their own count. The way he figured it, such a Negro should be smarter than any white man who ever breathed, having gotten the white folks’ education and know-how from the white folks, their own damn selves, on top of all the nigger wisdom that had been kicked up his black ass. Even while trying to control Lee as Bart had directed, he had always been willing just to follow in his steps, be behind him, support him, or cut a son of a bitch’s throat for him. Even when the deputies had cornered them, if the kid had just kept quiet, he’d have dug an out. For the way he felt about this kid was that peculiar, almost virgin love that the Negro hustler and criminal sometimes feels for the young, ambitious, educated Negro with sense enough to know the score—a sort of inverted hero worship that led them on to back these youths in what they did, as if it would make themselves bigger, more important men.

  But Luther never thought
of his feelings for Lee in just this way. All he knew was that he’d always liked the kid. And even now he did not fully understand exactly why—only that Lee was a nigger, and he was a nigger, too.

  If Lee had been one shade lighter Luther would have framed him from the start. It had been his intention to do so when, sitting at the table in Paul’s kitchen, he had first conceived the murder in his mind. But Lee’s dark skin had saved him. He just could not frame a black boy for a white murder.

  And even now, with Lee rejecting his proffered loyalty, spurning the money for which he, Luther, had murdered a man, Lee’s color was still too black for Luther to take the next logical step, which would be to kill him too.

  “You want half?”

  “I told you I don’t want any,” Lee said, again refusing the offer.

  “The trouble with you is you don’t know yet you’re a nigger.” This was not so much in condemnation as with regret.

  “I might be a nigger but I’m not a murderer.”

  “Maybe not the way you sees it. But they ain’t gonna see it your way down in Civic Center.”

  “I don’t care how they see it.”

  “Look, man, lemme tell you! My white folks are gonna cover me. You know why? ‘Cause they know I’m a nigger and think in front that I’d do anything. And ‘cause that’s what they think they also think that if they le’e’ me take this bump, or any other bump, that I’d take everybody with me I could take, and tell all I know and a lot I don’t even know. Now what your white folks gonna do for you?”

  “I haven’t got any white folks and I haven’t done anything.”

  “Look, man, just what is your objection?” Luther asked. Even a strange nigger on the street would take money from a dead peckerwood’s pocket, he believed.

  “Well—I just wouldn’t kill a man for money,” Lee said, trying to explain. “And if I took this money it’d be just the same as if I had.”

  “This man was a white man,” Luther said as if that settled it. “He’d kill you for fun.”

  “But I wouldn’t kill him unless I just had to.”

  “Then you is a fool. I never knew before just how much a fool you is.”

  What Lee could not understand was that to Luther the killing of a white man was not a murder, but a deed. And after the man was dead the deed was done—gone from his conscience like the swatting of a fly. Afterward the only thing to be considered was the avoiding of detection.

  But to Lee, it was the same as any murder. So now he said: “Well—I’m a fool. But I’m not a murderer.”

  And now in self-defense Luther felt compelled to make an explanation that he had never thought he would even try. “Look, man, do you call it murder when you kill a man in this war?”

  “I don’t want to argue, Luther. I just don’t want any money, that’s all,” Lee Gordon said. “I just want to sit here for a while and then I’m going to go.”

  “Look, man, goddamn, for all your education, they’s a lot of things that you don’t seem to know. In this goddamn world they’s all kind of wars always going on and people is getting kilt in all of them. They’s the races fighting ‘gainst each other. And they’s the classes cutting each other’s throats. And they’s every mother’s son fighting for hisself, just to keep on living. And they’s the nigger at the bottom of it all, being fit by everybody and kilt by everybody. And they’s me down there at the bottom of the bottom. I gotta fight everybody—the white folks and the black folks, the capitalists and the Communists, too. And now I even gotta fight you. ‘Cause everybody’s looking out for theyself. Trying to get what they want. And cutting everybody else’s throat. So I cuts me some throat, too.

  “Look, you think I’s a Communist. Sure, I ‘longs to the party. But I is a nigger first. The party’s realistic ‘bout this business. They’s realistic ‘bout me. And I is realistic ‘bout them. They done learned me, but they ain’t won me. ‘Cause I is looking out for Luther first. And if I is got any more looking out left, I is looking out for some other nigger like me second.

  “Just like you always knew, I been taking Foster’s money right straight along. And taking money from the party. And from my ol’ lady too. And selling ‘em all out. ‘Cause why? ‘Cause they is white. ‘Cause to Foster I ain’t nothing but a nigger. Ain’t never gonna be nothing but a nigger. He gonna use me as a nigger to get what he wants. And the party gonna do the same. Only difference is I gets more from being a nigger for the party than being a nigger for Foster. But they both use me as a nigger in the same damn way. Work me today and sell me out tomorrow. Say I is a good boy and then double-cross me. What I wants don’t count to neither one of ‘em. And my ol’ lady is the same. So I gets what I wants the best way I can.

  “A few years back folks like Foster was selling out the nigger. Couldn’t even get a nigger’s job from the bastards. Today they’s patting me on the back. ‘Cause why? ‘Cause they can use a few niggers now. Now they’s the party. Yesterday wasn’t nothing too good for a nigger in the party. Goddamn, all you’d a-thought the party was for was just to bow down and worship at the niggers’ feets. Today they want something else. They done sold the nigger out. But if’n I can help it, don’t nobody sell Luther out. ‘Cause I sells ‘em out first. I been taking dough from Foster and being a nigger for him. Now I done killed his stooge and tooken all the money. And what’s he gonna do to me. Nothing! If you don’t watch out he’ll get your ass. But he ain’t gonna bother with me. He gonna know I done it but he ain’t gonna say one word. ‘Cause if he do I is gonna tell everybody I been taking his money to double-cross the union. And he don’t want that known. Then I is gonna turn ‘round and tell everybody what I been doing and that the party knew about it and let me do it. So they gonna try to cover up for me too. ‘Cause they don’t want that known, neither.

  “And I can do this ‘cause I is a nigger. And I know I is a nigger. And what I do don’t make no difference noway. It’s what I know the people does to me that worries ‘em.

  “Do you think I love the Party? Or even believe in it? What the hell does I know about Marx? Or give a damn ‘bout him? But I knows how to be a nigger and make it pay. If I can’t make it pay one way I makes it pay the other. ‘Cause if the white folks wants some niggers, let ‘em pay for us.

  “You and your idealism. A nigger with some idealism. Who is your ideal, George Washington? You gonna be like Washington, is you? You ain’t gonna tell no lie? And what’s it gonna get you? Look, I got the money. Not just a few lousy dollars what Foster thinks is all a nigger wants. But all of it. And I done gotten even, too. Even for that business back there on the road. All they done to you was sap you a little bit. But they ground me down. I couldn’t take the sapping ‘cause I ain’t never taken one and now ain’t no time to start. But I couldn’t take the grinding neither. So now I got the money. And I got even. And I got my good old Communist Party. And I got my white woman. Plenty money and a white woman, too.

  “Now what the hell you got? Nothing! Not even your idealism. If it don’t be for me you’d ‘a sold that too. And you ain’t got nothing else to sell. You done quit your job. And your white chick done quit you. And you even lost your wife. Which only a weak-minded nigger would do for any white woman. ‘Cause you ain’t got to. You ain’t expected to. They don’t even want you to. All they wanna do is borrow you. Use you like Foster and the party does. Not marry you, man. All they wanna do is get their kicks. So get yours, man, like they does theirs. But here you go and let a little white stuff go to your head and make a damn fool out yourself.

  “Join the party, man, and get all the white stuff you can handle. It ain’t nothing but another hole, man, goddamn! Ain’t nothing special ‘bout it. And they’s more of it than any other kind. They wanna give it to you, man. They solving the problem then. Your problem and they problem and everybody’s problem.

  “So do you thinks I gives a damn about the party. Look, man, as long as I is black and ugly white folks gonna hate my guts. They gonna look at me and see a nigger. Al
l of ‘em. Foster and the white folks in the party and the white women in the bed. But I is gonna always make it pay off, man, just as you could if you had any sense. ‘Cause as long as I is black and ugly, the party gonna need me. I is gonna be they proof. Whatever they might do to all the other niggers I is the proof that they don’t mean it. I is the proof that they always got the nigger to their heart. So that’s why they gonna see to it I keeps my white womens. If it ain’t this one it’ll be another one. And they gonna make out like to me as if they thinks I is equal. And they gonna think I ain’t. And I ain’t gonna give a damn what they thinks. ‘Cause I is gonna be they nigger, and they proof. And make ‘em pay for it.

  “Yes, I killed the bastard. And now I got more money than you ever had. Simple-minded sonsabitches like you will sell your stinking guts because you ain’t never admitted to yourself that you’re a nigger and never will be nothing else. But as long as I can help it, I ain’t gonna let you do it and run the price on niggers down. ‘Cause even if you is a nigger and don’t know it yet, you don’t have to be as cheap a nigger as Foster thinks you is.”

  “Well—yes,” Lee Gordon said, and arose and left the house.

  Maybe that was it, he thought—the one thing lacking about which all the misplaced emotions of his life would fit. Maybe it all came down to his being a nigger and never knowing it. But even if he was a nigger, what did they expect, for him to like it so? Was that what Ruth expected: for him to be her half-a-man and make her happy?; and Jackie: for him to be her black pimp and she his white whore? Maybe she had really wanted that, and he had been too much a fool to know it. But Foster? It was not reasonable that Foster should expect him to rat for a hundred dollars when he had refused the five-thousand-dollar-a-year job that had been offered him. Was that what a nigger was to Foster? At least he knew what Luther expected of him—to be a man without a soul. The white people had always said a nigger didn’t have a soul, and Luther proved them right. Yes, maybe Luther was the only right one after all. For he, Lee Gordon, felt more like the murderer for having seen it done than did Luther who had done it. Being a murderer to Luther was just being a nigger after all, since being a nigger was being anything.