Invisible Man (30 page)

It was a carpeted hall and I moved down with pounding heart as a dog set up a terrific din within the top apartment. Then I moved quickly, my body like glass inside as I skipped downward off the edges of the stairs. Looking down the stairwell I saw pale light filtering through the door glass, far below. But what had happened to the girl, had she put the man on my trail? What was she doing there? I bounded down, no one challenging me, and I stopped in the vestibule, breathing deeply and listening for his hand upon the door above and brushing my clothing into order. Then I stepped into the street with a nonchalance copied from characters I had seen in the movies. No sound from above, not even the malicious note of the barking dog.

It was a long block and I had come down into a building that faced not the street but the avenue. A squad of mounted policemen lashed themselves around the corner and galloped past, the horseshoes thudding dully through the snow, the men rising high in their saddles, shouting. I picked up speed, careful not to run, heading away. This was awful. What on earth had I said to have brought on all this? How would it end? Someone might be killed. Heads would be pistol-whipped. I stopped at the corner, looking for the pursuing man, the detective, and for a bus. The long white stretch of street was empty, the aroused pigeons still circling overhead. I scanned the roofs, expecting to see him peering down. The sound of shouting continued to rise, then another green and white patrol car was whining around the corner and speeding past me, heading for the block. I cut through a block in which there were close to a dozen funeral parlors, each decked out with neon signs, all set up in old brownstone buildings. Elaborate funeral cars stood along the curb, one a dull black with windows shaped like Gothic arches, through which I saw funeral flowers piled upon a casket. I hurried on.

I could see the girl's face still, below the short flight of stairs. But who was the figure that had crossed the roof behind me? Chased me? Why had he been so silent, and why was there only one? Yes, and why hadn't they sent a patrol car to pick me up? I hurried out of the block of funeral parlors into the bright sun that swept the snow of the avenue, slowing to a leisurely walk now, trying to give the impression of a complete lack of haste. I longed to look stupid, utterly incapable of thought or speech, and tried to shuffle my feet over the walk, but quit with distaste after stealing a glance behind me. Just ahead I saw a car pull up and a man leap out with a physician's bag.

"Hurry, Doctor," a man called from the stoop, "she's already in labor!"

"Good," the doctor called. "That's what we've been waiting for, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but it didn't start when we expected it."

I watched them disappear inside the hall. What a hell of a time to be born, I thought. At the corner I joined several people waiting for the lights to change. I had just about convinced myself that I had escaped successfully when a quiet, penetrating voice beside me said, "That was a masterful bit of persuasion, brother."

Suddenly wound tight as a tensioned spring I turned almost lethargically. A short insignificant-looking bushy-eyebrowed man, with a quiet smile on his face stood beside me, looking not at all like a policeman.

"What do you mean?" I asked, my voice lazy, distant.

"Don't be alarmed," he said, "I'm a friend."

"I've got nothing to be alarmed about, and you're no friend of mine."

"Then say that I'm an admirer," he said pleasantly.

"Admirer of what?"

"Of your speech," he said. "I was listening."

"What speech? I made no speech," I said.

He smiled knowingly. "I can see that you have been well trained. Come, it isn't good for you to be seen with me in the street. Let's go somewhere for a cup of coffee." Something told me to refuse, but I was intrigued and, underneath it all, was probably flattered. Besides, if I refused to go, it would be taken as an admission of guilt. And he didn't look like a policeman or a detective. I went silently beside him to a cafeteria down near the end of the block, seeing him peer inside through the window before we entered.

"You get the table, brother. Over there near the wall where we can talk in peace. I'll get the coffee."

I watched him going across the floor with a bouncy, rolling step, then found a table and sat watching him. It was warm in the cafeteria. It was late afternoon now only a few customers were scattered at the tables. I watched the man going familiarly to the food counter and ordering. His movements, as he peered through the brightly lighted shelves of pastry, were those of a lively small animal, a fyce, interested in detecting only the target cut of cake. So he's heard my speech; well, I'll hear what he has to say, I thought, seeing him start toward me with his rapid, rolling, bouncy, heel-and-toey step. It was as though he had taught himself to walk that way and I had a feeling that somehow he was acting a part; that something about him wasn't exactly real --an idea which I dismissed immediately, since there was a quality of unreality over the whole afternoon. He came straight to the table without having to look about for me, as though he had expected me to take that particular table and no other --although many tables were vacant. He was balancing a plate of cake on top of each cup, setting them down deftly and shoving one toward me as he took his chair.

"I thought you might like a piece of cheese cake," he said.

"Cheese cake?" I said. "I've never heard of it."

"It's nice. Sugar?"

"Go ahead," I said.

"No, after you, brother."

I looked at him, then poured three spoonfuls and shoved the shaker toward him. I was tense again.

"Thanks," I said, repressing an impulse to call him down about the "brother" business. He smiled, cutting into his cheese cake with a fork and shoving far too large a piece into his mouth. His manners are extremely crude, I thought, trying to put him at a disadvantage in my own mind by pointedly taking a small piece of the cheesy stuff and placing it neatly into my mouth.

"You know," he said, taking a gulp of coffee, "I haven't heard such an effective piece of eloquence since the days when I was in --well, in a long time. You aroused them so quickly to action. I don't understand how you managed it. If only some of
our
speakers could have listened! With a few words you had them involved in action! Others would have still been wasting time with empty verbiage. I want to thank you for a most instructive experience!"

I drank my coffee silently. Not only did I distrust him, I didn't know how much I could safely say.

"The cheese cake here is good," he said before I could answer. "It's really very good. By the way, where did you learn to speak?"

"Nowhere," I said, much too quickly.

"Then you're very talented. You are a natural. It's hard to believe."

"I was simply angry," I said, deciding to admit this much in order to see what he would reveal.

"Then your anger was skillfully controlled. It had eloquence. Why was that?"

"Why? I suppose I felt sorry --I don't know. Maybe I just felt like making a speech. There was the crowd waiting, so I said a few words. You might not believe it, but I didn't know what I was going to say . . ."

"Please," he said, with a knowing smile.

"What do you mean?" I said.

"You try to sound cynical, but I see through you. I know, I listened very carefully to what you had to say. You were enormously moved. Your emotions were touched."

"I guess so," I said. "Maybe seeing them reminded me of something." He leaned forward, watching me intensely now, the smile still on his lips.

"Did it remind you of people you know?"

"I guess it did," I said.

"I think I understand. You were watching a death --"

I dropped my fork. "No one was killed," I said tensely. "What are you trying to do?"

"
A Death on the City Pavements
--that's the title of a detective story or something I read somewhere . . ." He laughed. "I only mean meta-phor-ically speaking. They're living, but dead. Dead-in-living . . . a unity of opposites."

"Oh," I said. What kind of double talk was this?

"The old ones, they're agrarian types, you know. Being ground up by industrial conditions. Thrown on the dump heaps and cast aside. You pointed it out very well. 'Eighty-seven years and nothing to show for it,' you said. You were absolutely correct."

"I suppose that seeing them like that made me feel pretty bad," I said.

"Yes, of course. And you made an effective speech. But you musn't waste your emotions on individuals, they don't count."

"Who
doesn't count?" I said.

"Those old ones," he said grimly. "It's sad, yes. But they're already dead, defunct. History has passed them by. Unfortunate, but there's nothing to do about them. They're like dead limbs that must be pruned away so that the tree may bear young fruit or the storms of history will blow them down anyway. Better the storm should hit them --"

"But look --"

"No, let me continue. These people are old. Men grow old and types of men grow old. And these are very old. All they have left is their religion. That's all they can think about. So they'll be cast aside. They're dead, you see, because they're incapable of rising to the necessity of the historical situation."

"But I
like
them," I said. "I like them, they reminded me of folks I know down South. It's taken me a long time to feel it, but they're folks just like me, except that I've been to school a few years." He wagged his round red head. "Oh, no, brother; you're mistaken and you're sentimental. You're not like them. Perhaps you were, but you're not any longer. Otherwise you'd never have made that speech. Perhaps you were, but that's all past, dead. You might not recognize it just now, but that part of you is dead! You have not completely shed that self, that old agrarian self, but it's dead and you will throw it off completely and emerge something new.
History
has been born in your brain."

"Look," I said, "I don't know what you're talking about. I've never lived on a farm and I didn't study agriculture, but I do know why I made that speech."

"Then why?"

"Because I was upset over seeing those old folks put out in the street, that's why. I don't care what
you
call it, I was angry."

He shrugged. "Let's not argue about it," he said. "I've a notion you could do it again. Perhaps you would be interested in working for us."

"For whom?" I asked, suddenly excited. What was he trying to do?

"With our organization. We need a good speaker for this district. Someone who can articulate the grievances of the people," he said.

"But nobody cares about their grievances," I said. "Suppose they were articulated, who would listen or care?"

"They exist," he said with his knowing smile. "They exist, and when the cry of protest is sounded, there are those who will hear it and act."

There was something mysterious and smug in the way he spoke, as though he had everything figured out --whatever he was talking about. Look at this very most certain white man, I thought. He didn't even realize that I was afraid and yet he speaks so confidently. I got to my feet, "I'm sorry," I said,

"I have a job and I'm not interested in anyone's grievances but my own . . ."

"But you were concerned with that old couple," he said with narrowed eyes. "Are they relatives of yours?"

"Sure, we're all black," I said, beginning to laugh.

He smiled, his eyes intense upon my face.

"Seriously, are they your relatives?"

"Sure, we were burned in the same oven," I said.

The effect was electric. "Why do you fellows always talk in terms of race!" he snapped, his eyes blazing.

"What other terms do you know?" I said, puzzled. "You think I would have been around there if they had been white?"

He threw up his hands and laughed. "Let's not argue that now," he said. "You were very effective in helping them. I can't believe that you're such an individualist as you pretend. You appeared to be a man who knew his duty toward the people and performed it well. Whatever you think about it personally, you were a spokesman for your people and you have a duty to work in their interest." He was too complicated for me. "Look, my friend, thanks for the coffee and cake. I have no more interest in those old folks than in your job. I wanted to make a speech. I
like
to make speeches. What happened afterwards is a mystery to me. You picked the wrong man. You should have stopped one of those fellows who started yelling at the policemen . . ." I stood up.

"Wait a second," he said, producing a piece of envelope and scribbling something. "You might change your mind. As for those others, I know them already."

I looked at the white paper in his extended hand.

"You are wise to distrust me," he said. "You don't know who I am and you don't trust me. That's as it should be. But I don't give up hope, because some day you will look me up on your own accord and it will be different, for then you'll be ready. Just call this number and ask for Brother Jack. You needn't give me your name, just mention our conversation. Should you decide tonight, give me a ring about eight."

"Okay," I said, taking the paper. "I doubt if I'll ever need it, but who knows?"

"Well, you think about it, brother. Times are grave and you seem very indignant."

"I only wanted to make a speech," I said again.

"But you were indignant. And sometimes the difference between individual and organized indignation is the difference between criminal and political action," he said. I laughed, "So what? I'm neither a criminal nor a politician, brother. So you picked the wrong man. But thanks again for the coffee and cheese cake --
brother."
I left him sitting with a quiet smile on his face. When I had crossed the avenue I looked through the glass, seeing him still there, and it occurred to me that he was the same man who had followed me over the roof. He hadn't been chasing me at all but only going in the same direction. I hadn't understood much of what he had said, only that he had spoken with great confidence. Anyway, I had been the better runner. Perhaps it was a trick of some kind. He gave the impression that he understood much and spoke out of a knowledge far deeper than appeared on the surface of his words. Perhaps it was only the knowledge that he had escaped by the same route as I. But what had
he
to fear? I had made the speech, not he. That girl in the apartment had said that the longer I remained unseen the longer I'd be effective, which didn't make much sense either. But perhaps that was why he had run. He wanted to remain unseen and effective. Effective at what? No doubt he was laughing at me. I must have looked silly hurtling across the roofs, and like a black-face comedian shrinking from a ghost when the white pigeons shot up around me. To hell with him. He needn't be so smug, I knew of some things he didn't know. Let him find someone else. He only wanted to use me for something. Everybody wanted to use you for some purpose. Why should he want
me
as a speaker? Let him make his own speeches. I headed for home, feeling a growing satisfaction that I had dismissed him so completely. It was turning dark now, and much colder. Colder than I had ever known. What on earth was it, I mused, bending my head to the wind, that made us leave the warm, mild weather of home for all this cold, and never to return, if not something worth hoping for, freezing for, even being evicted for? I felt sad. An old woman passed, bent down with two shopping bags, her eyes upon the slushy walk, and I thought of the old couple at the eviction. How had it ended and where were they now? What an awful emotion. What had he called it --a death on the city pavements? How often did such things occur? And what would he say of Mary? She was far from dead, or of being ground to bits by New York. Hell, she knew very well how to live here, much better than I with my college training --training!
Bledsoing,
that was the term. And I was the one being ground up, not Mary. Thinking of her made me feel better. I couldn't imagine Mary being as helpless as the old woman at the eviction, and by the time I reached the apartment I had begun to lose my depression.