Lonely Crusade

by Chester B Himes

  He sat on the edge of the davenport, bent forward, tense, eager. Etched in his thin drawn face were the ravages of guilt, but the contrition in his eyes petitioned her.

  She sat across from him, limp in the big armchair, with eyes like candles of compassion in her tired, haggard face. Her hands, extending from the loose sleeves of an old cotton robe, were brown wax in the yellow light, and he thought with sudden anxiety, God, she looks frail—almost like a ghost in that big chair.

  “You got on enough clothes?” he asked gruffly.

  “Oh yes.”

  “You warm enough?” Out of all the things that he had done to hurt her, he was now concerned about her comfort.

  “Yes, I’m plenty warm.”

  “It’s cool tonight.” Because even now, having come here for the purpose, he could not muster up the courage to face it.

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  But it was there, so huge, so real that it was unavoidable.

  “I’ve been with Smitty and Hannegan. At the union hall.”

  “Did they—Will they—What did they decide?”

  “There won’t be any trouble.”

  “You won’t have to stand trial?”

  “I don’t think so. Hannegan thinks we got it beat unless they get some concrete evidence.”

  “They are wonderful people, Lee. You should be grateful to them all the days of your life.”

  “Well—yes. But Smitty said if I didn’t get the Negro workers to vote for the union in the election, they’d take away their support.”

  “Oh, they’re letting you keep your job.”

  “Well—” He had never told her that he had quit. “If you want to call it that. But the election is just six days away. And I can’t get the Negro vote. Smitty knows it.”

  “Don’t say you can’t, Lee. I’ll help you.”

  He looked quickly up at her, the question in his eyes before he asked it. “What about your job?”

  “I’ve quit my job.”

  “Oh!” And then: “Ruth.”

  “Yes, Lee?”

  “I was never in love with Jackie.”

  All motion went out of her body and for a moment her breathing stopped. But she did not reply.

  “I was just sorry for her. I know it sounds foolish, but I think it’s the truth.”

  “Then why did you tell me you were, Lee?”

  “I think it was because I wanted to hurt you,” he said with painful honesty. “I resented your job and your independence. I thought it took something away from me, and at times I used to hate you for it.”

  “But couldn’t you have told me that? I would have quit then, Lee. The job was never of any importance.” Nor did she realize how much this contradicted all her actions of the past.

  “I thought it was. I believe it really was, Ruth. I don’t think you realize now just how important it really was to you.”

  “But you were crying, Lee. That was the first time I ever saw you cry.”

  “I wasn’t crying about that, honestly. I don’t know why I was crying. About you, I think now. About you and I. Honestly, Ruth, I didn’t love Jackie. I thought she needed me and you didn’t, and I got all mixed up. I suppose I thought I was acting noble, and then the rest of it just happened. I thought you were going to hurt her, and I was just trying to keep her from being hurt again.”

  “I wasn’t going to hurt her, Lee. I just wanted to look at her to see whether she loved you. I would have known then—a woman can tell such things.”

  “I thought you might cause a scene and the police would come,” he replied with the stupid candor possible only in a man confessing infidelity.

  Although now his every word tore at her heart, she had to hear each bitter detail, because she was a woman. “Did she tell you I would cause a scene?”

  “No, she wanted me to go back and make up with you.”

  “Really? She told you that?” As she looked steadily away, for now to look at him would be to see him naked in this white woman’s arms.

  “Honestly, Ruth, it never was anything—well—real. I don’t know what happened to me.”

  “Did she have anything to do with your trouble?”

  “No, I had left her when that happened. I’d gone to the hotel.”

  “Did she put you out?”

  “Well—we had argued.”

  “She was frightened, was she?”

  “I—well—I guess she thought you were going to cause trouble.”

  “Then she didn’t know what you were going to do?”

  “Oh, no. I didn’t know myself. I don’t even think Luther knew he was going to kill the man when we went there. It all happened on the spur of the moment. But I went to her afterward to get an alibi. That’s when she turned me in.”

  “Oh! What really happened, Lee?”

  For a long time after he had finished his story, they sat silently immersed in their private thoughts. Then finally he said: “I’m sorry it turned out this way, Ruth.”

  “I’m sorry too, Lee,” she replied.

  Whatever it had been they had expected, in the silence following both realized that it was not to come. The wounds were still too open and the memory too raw. Though now inactive, the hurt was in their blood like a filterable virus, dormant but uncured. He now hated Jackie’s immortal soul, but thoughts of her white body still stirred its pungent passion. And though Ruth’s love for him was deeply compassionate, inspiring the desire to comfort him, she could not touch his body—it was a very personal feeling.

  The reunion had been made in mind alone, and the togetherness was an abstract thing. It was too soon, too weary for physical rejoining. She would have felt Jackie’s presence in his every unfamiliar gesture, and imagined what he had taken to her in experiencing whatever new he now brought back. And if there would have been a forgetfulness of old harmonies, she would have hated him forever.

  And vaguely, this was hammered through his masculine stupidity. So now he had to make the offer, since now it was hers to accept or reject.

  “If you want a divorce—”

  “No, Lee. Let’s don’t think about that now.”

  “Well—if you do. I still love you, Ruth—very much. But I know now that I’m no good for you. I’m not even any good for myself.”

  “Don’t think about it now, Lee. The thing you must think of now is doing a good job for the union and getting out from the shadow of suspicion.”

  “I know. I’m going to try. I’m going to do the best I can. But in the meantime I’m going back to the hotel.”

  She didn’t try to stop him. “If you need any money—”

  “No, thanks. I don’t need any money.”

  “Is there anything you want?”

  “I’ll need a suit and some shirts and things.”

  “Can I help you?”

  “No, I can get them.”

  When he returned with the packed bag, she stood up. They had not touched each other, and did not touch each other now.

  “Please don’t worry about me, Ruth. I’ll be all right. I’ll be working hard.”

  “Call me, Lee, please.”

  “When?”

  “Anytime—I’ll be home.”

  “Well—good-by.”

  “Good night, Lee.”

  Emptiness assailed him as he went down the walk in the dark. He had never known how much he needed her until that moment. He was alone now, and afraid to be alone. Back in his drab, chilled, dimly lit hotel room, the night closed in on him, and loneliness was an unmerciful thing—And there was the blood! He kept seeing the blood all over everything—He sat on the side of the bed and buried his face in his hands—so afraid, he wanted to just sit there and never move again.

  Finally he forced himself to get up and undress. The simple task of taking off his clothes required a special effort. But when he lay down he could not sleep. His body ached and his mind felt bruised, battered, insensate, but unstilled. Events of the past weeks paraded through his thoughts, forcing an e
valuation that in his weariness he could not resist.

  Being a Negro was a cause—yes. No doubt if he tried hard enough he could trace all his troubles to this source—his resentment of Ruth, the decay of their marriage, his entanglement with Jackie, his failing the union, and his failing himself. By logical process he could prove that he had been persecuted and oppressed by white people to the point of criminal compulsion.

  But he was too tired of dodging and hiding and self-excusing, and too tired of that deteriorating form of acceptance which this inspired, to make the effort now.

  For through it all, ran the one rigid realization, inescapable and inexpungeable: some white people must have been his friends right down the line from slavery. All of them could not have been his hateful enemies.

  And now at last this brought him face to face with himself in the loneliness of the night. And he knew beyond all doubt that he could not excuse his predicament on grounds of race. This time he alone was to blame—Lee Gordon, a human being, one of the cheap, weak people of the world.

  Being a Negro was a cause—yes. Thus far Luther had been right. But it was never a justification—never!—which was what Luther had found out in the end. Because being a Negro was, first of all, a fact. A Negro is a Negro, as a pine tree is a pine tree and a bulldog is a bulldog—a Negro is a Negro as he is an American—because he was born a Negro. He had no cause for apology or shame.

  And if because of this fact his rights were abridged, his privileges denied, and his duties rescinded, he was the object of oppression and the victim of injustice. A crime had been committed against him by sundry white people. But this did not prove that all white hands were raised against him, because he still retained the right to protest and appeal, to defend his person and his citizenship courageously, and to unceasingly demand that justice be accorded him.

  A fact, first of all! But if this fact could justify vicious, immoral, criminal behavior, if it could offer absolution, provide a valid excuse, or even pose a condition for sympathetic judgment, then the Negro was subnormal and could never fit into a normal society.

  And now this brought the stark choice to his naked thoughts—he, Lee Gordon, a Negro, was either normal or subnormal. And if he was normal he would have to rise above the connotation America has given to his race. He would have to stand or fall as one other human being in the world.

  And there would be white people, Lee Gordon knew, who could not conceive of this as a bitter choice—but that was only because they had never had recourse to this blanketing excuse of race. When Lee Gordon made his choice, he could not go to sleep. He doubted if he would ever be able to sleep again; because as a human being he was not very much.

  By nine o’clock the following morning when he reported at Smitty’s office, weariness had settled in his flesh and blood, slowing down the functions of his body. His eyes were glazed and bloodshot and he could barely think.

  Chastened by a sense of guilt for speaking to Lee so harshly the day before, Smitty’s greeting now was warm with encouragement.

  “Buck up, fellow,” he said. “You look as if you didn’t have a friend in the world.”

  “I was told that I had one,” Lee said respectfully, standing at attention before Smitty’s desk.

  “In that case you are fortunate,” Smitty said. He had prepared a statement for the press which he now gave Lee to read. “See if you want to add anything.”

  Taking the seat across from him, Lee scanned the document. It began with the declaration that Comstock Aircraft Corporation had instituted a smear campaign directed at the union’s effort to organize its workers. Then it made the definite claim that Lee Gordon, the only Negro organizer with the union, had been made the victim of planned persecution in an effort to discredit his race and promote antiunion sentiment among the Negro workers.

  “After several fruitless attempts had been made to buy out Lee Gordon,” it concluded, “he was brutally assaulted by deputy sheriffs who revealed they were acting on orders from Louis Foster, vice-president of the company. Failing to bring Gordon into line by this method, he was falsely arrested and accused of murder.”

  “I have nothing to add,” Lee said, passing the typed sheets back. “But I don’t quite see what good this will do.”

  Smitty grinned at him. “We’re going to make a martyr out of you. Workers will always come to the support of an underdog.”

  “Well—let us hope,” Lee said.

  “Now get on out and report to Joe,” Smitty said. “I told him you were coming.”

  But Joe Ptak would have nothing to do with Lee. “You worked here before,” he said, his granite face unbending. “You know what to do. You’re not working for me, you’re working for Smitty. As far as I’m concerned, you’re just a dirty rat.”

  Lee went out of the shack and down toward the gates where occasionally a group of workers lounged. But now only the guards were in evidence. Picking up a discarded copy of the company paper, the Comstock Condor, Lee read the caption beneath a Negro’s picture: “NEW FACE IN THE PERSONNEL DEPARTMENT.”

  Following ran a eulogy to all the Negro workers:

  In view of the excellent record made by our Negro workers, most of whom at the time of their employment had had no previous industrial experience, a Negro, Charles E. Raines, has been added to the personnel department to facilitate their future hiring.

  Mr. Raines was formerly Director of a USO Center in the city.

  Another Negro was considered for the position, this reporter learned, but upon discovery of his participation in the union’s organizational campaign, his appointment was considered incompatible with the strict policy of self-determination which the company has maintained toward all union activity.

  In accordance with the democratic principles carried out in all matters of employment and allocation of workers, two Negro journeymen have been promoted to leadmen. Now Negroes are employed in all departments and in all capacities throughout the plant.

  We take off our hats to our darker brothers’ initiative, industry, and enthusiastic cooperation.

  Keep up the good work, pals.

  For a time Lee stood there, carefully folding and unfolding the paper, his mind envisioning the Negro workers’ reaction to these developments. It was not a brilliant stratagem, but he could see where it would be impressibly effective within the narrow limits of the time remaining before the election. For it would serve a twofold purpose—first, the alienation of the white workers who would humanly resent special commendation being given Negroes for what they all had done; second, the alignment of the Negroes with the company in opposition to the union, by giving them something to lose.

  Lee Gordon recognized it immediately as the old political game that had been played on Negroes since time immemorial—give them something to lose, not much, just a little thing, and they would be blinded to all they forfeited by its acceptance. Presidents had played it along with ward heelers, and so-called humanitarians along with ruthless industrialists.

  Give them a General in the army, Lee Gordon reflected, and you’d have them eating out of your hand while you Jim Crowed the other hundreds of thousands in uniform. Give them a powerless FEPC and they’d worship you as a great white lord, never once considering your negligence in enforcing the conditions of governmental contracts that would have made an FEPC unnecessary. Give them a few black faces in the administrative bureaus of a Jim Crow capital and let the South run rampant. The Negro, in his overwhelming gratitude for what he received, would forfeit all that was his due. Lee Gordon knew—he had seen them do it, he was seeing them do it now.

  To know this little sidelight on the character of Negroes and their leadership required no special acumen. Everyone knew that Negroes, in their enthusiasm to get ahead, would clutch at the first thing offered and pay with gratitude until death. But Lee had nothing but antipathy for all people who employed this cheap psychological trick—this taking advantage of the obvious weakness of a race—for it was an inhuman thing to do.
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br />   And maybe those who did it laughed about it in their secret souls, Lee Gordon thought as he stood there looking at the writing on the wall. Because it followed, as night follows day, that those who were the kind to employ this trick would be the kind to laugh about it too.

  And now Lee Gordon could hear Foster laughing. He became afraid again, because Foster was laughing in his face. In a short time—perhaps even now as he thought about it—Foster would present an array of Negro witnesses to frame him for the murder of Paul Dixon. It was the logical sequent for a man who thought like this. In his slowly rising fear, Lee Gordon could see nothing to save him—not the union even though it tried. Foster would match witness with witness and no jury could be found that would accept the alibis of white unionists over the testimony of other Negroes.

  Now Lee Gordon again felt impelled to run while he still had the chance. Returning to his hotel room, he packed his bags, but with his hand on the door knob, a wave of reason halted him. Once again he was held by the knowledge that he could run, but he could not escape; for what he wished to escape was not in the City of Los Angeles, or in the offices of Louis Foster, but within himself—not an actual thing, but a lack of something. He was a man in flesh and blood and bone, in brain and heart and senses, but in the indefinable essence of manhood there was something missing. Something in the hope that has kept man struggling throughout all history for a better world; in the faith of man on which were built all civilizations; in the charity by which man sought an understanding; in the love from which man has drawn man’s humanity to man; in the self-reliance, honesty, integrity, and honor that have always kept man above the beast; in the convictions that are the measure of a man; and—most of all—in the courage by which men die for these convictions.

  The vague realization of these deficiencies hammered on the shaping of his thoughts, but he did not analyze them thus. He simply knew that within himself there was a hole that needed filling, and that by staying to face his duty to the end he might in some way help to fill it.