Invisible man - Ralph Ellison [102]
"That wise man," I said, "you read about him, who when that fugitive escaped from the mob and ran to his school for protection, that wise man who was strong enough to do the legal thing, the law-abiding thing, to turn him over to the forces of law and order . . ."
"Yeah," a voice rang out, "yeah, so they could lynch his ass."
Oh, God, this wasn't it at all. Poor technique and not at all what I intended.
"He was a wise leader," I yelled. "He was within the law. Now wasn't that the wise thing to do?"
"Yeah, he was wise all right," the man laughed angrily. "Now get out of the way so we can jump this paddie."
The crowd yelled and I laughed in response as though hypnotized.
"But wasn't that the human thing to do? After all, he had to protect himself because --"
"He was a handkerchief-headed rat!" a woman screamed, her voice boiling with contempt.
"Yes, you're right. He was wise and cowardly, but what about us? What are we to do?" I yelled, suddenly thrilled by the response. "Look at him," I cried.
"Yes, just look at him!" an old fellow in a derby called out as though answering a preacher in church.
"And look at that old couple . . ."
"Yeah, what about Sister and Brother Provo?" he said. "It's an ungodly shame!"
"And look at their possessions all strewn there on the sidewalk. Just look at their possessions in the snow. How old are you, sir?" I yelled.
"I'm eighty-seven," the old man said, his voice low and bewildered.
"How's that? Yell so our slow-to-anger brethren can hear you."
"I'm eighty-seven years old!"
"Did you hear him? He's eighty-seven. Eighty-seven and look at all he's accumulated in eighty-seven years, strewn in the snow like chicken guts, and we're a law-abiding, slow-to-anger bunch of folks turning the other cheek every day in the week. What are we going to do? What would you, what would I, what would he have done? What is to be done? I propose we do the wise thing, the law-abiding thing. Just look at this junk! Should two old folks live in such junk, cooped up in a filthy room? It's a great danger, a fire hazard! Old cracked dishes and broken-down chairs. Yes, yes, yes! Look at that old woman, somebody's mother, somebody's grandmother, maybe. We call them 'Big Mama' and they spoil us and -- you know, you remember . . . Look at her quilts and broken-down shoes. I know she's somebody's mother because I saw an old breast pump fall into the snow, and she's somebody's grandmother, because I saw a card that read 'Dear Grandma' . . . But we're law-abiding . . . I looked into a basket and I saw some bones, not neckbones, but rib bones, knocking bones . . . This old couple used to dance . . . I saw -- What kind of work do you do, Father?" I called.
"I'm a day laborer . . ."
". . . A day laborer, you heard him, but look at his stuff strewn like chitterlings in the snow . . . Where has all his labor gone? Is he lying?"
"Hell, no, he ain't lying."
"Naw, suh!"
"Then where did his labor go? Look at his old blues records and her pots of plants, they're down-home folks, and everything tossed out like junk whirled eighty-seven years in a cyclone. Eighty-seven years, and poof! like a snort in a windstorm. Look at them, they look like my mama and papa and my grandma and grandpa, and I look like you and you look like me. Look at them but remember that we're a wise, law-abiding group of people. And remember it when you look up there in the doorway at that law standing there with his forty-five. Look at him, standing with his blue steel pistol and his blue serge suit. Look at him! You don't see just one man dressed in one blue serge suit, or one forty-five, you see ten for every one of us, ten guns and ten warm suits and ten fat bellies and ten million laws. Laws, that's what we call them down South! Laws! And we're wise, and law-abiding. And look at this old woman with her dog-eared Bible. What's she trying to bring off here? She's let her religion go to her head, but we all know that religion is for the heart, not for the head. 'Blessed are the pure in heart,' it says. Nothing about the poor in head. What's she trying to do? What about the clear of head? And the clear of eye, the ice-water-visioned who see too clear to miss a lie? Look out there at her cabinet with its gaping drawers. Eighty-seven years to fill them, and full of brick and brack, a bric-a-brac, and she wants to break the law . . . What's happened to them? They're our people, your people and mine, your parents and mine. What's happened to 'em?"