Invisible man - Ralph Ellison [176]
"I'm not arguing against discipline. I'm trying to be useful. I'm trying to point out a part of reality which the committee seems to have missed. With just one demonstration we could --"
"The committee has decided against such demonstrations," Brother Jack said. "Such methods are no longer effective."
Something seemed to move out from under me, and out of the corner of my eye I was suddenly aware of objects on the dark side of the hall. "But didn't anyone see what happened today?" I said. "What was that, a dream? What was ineffective about that crowd?"
"Such crowds are only our raw materials, one of the raw materials to be shaped to our program."
I looked around the table and shook my head. "No wonder they insult me and accuse us of betraying them . . ."
There was a sudden movement.
"Repeat that," Brother Jack shouted, stepping forward.
"It's true, I'll repeat it. Until this afternoon they've been saying that the Brotherhood betrayed them. I'm telling you what's been said to me, and that it why Brother Clifton disappeared."
"That's an indefensible lie," Brother Jack said.
And I looked at him slowly now, thinking, If this is it, this is it . . . "Don't call me that," I said softly. "Don't ever call me that, none of you. I've told you what I've heard." My hand was in my pocket now, Brother Tarp's leg chain around my knuckles. I looked at each of them individually, trying to hold myself back and yet feeling it getting away from me. My head was whirling as though I were riding a supersonic merry-go-round. Jack looked at me, a new interest behind his eyes, leaned forward.
"So you've heard it," he said. "Very well, so now hear this: We do not shape our policies to the mistaken and infantile notions of the man in the street. Our job is not to ask them what they think but to tell them!"
"You've said that," I said, "and that's one thing you can tell them yourself. Who are you, anyway, the great white father?"
"Not their father, their leader. And .your leader. And don't forget it."
"My leader sure, but what's your exact relationship to them?"
His red head bristled. "The leader. As leader of the Brotherhood, I am their leader."
"But are you sure you aren't their great white father?" I said, watching him closely, aware of the hot silence and feeling tension race from my toes to my legs as I drew my feet quickly beneath me. "Wouldn't it be better if they called you Marse Jack?"
"Now see here," he began, leaping to his feet to lean across the table, and I spun my chair half around on its hind legs as he came between me and the light, gripping the edge of the table, spluttering and lapsing into a foreign language, choking and coughing and shaking his head as I balanced on my toes now, set to propel myself forward; seeing him above me and the others behind him as suddenly something seemed to erupt out of his face. You're seeing things, I thought, hearing it strike sharply against the table and roll as his arm shot out and snatched an object the size of a large marble and dropped it, plop! into his glass, and I could see the water shooting up in a ragged, light-breaking pattern to spring in swift droplets across the oiled table top. The room seemed to flatten. I shot to a high plateau above them and down, feeling the jolt on the end of my spine as the chair legs struck the floor. The merry-go-round had speeded up, I heard his voice but no longer listened. I stared at the glass, seeing how the light shone through, throwing a transparent, precisely fluted shadow against the dark grain of the table, and there on the bottom of the glass lay an eye. A glass eye. A buttermilk white eye distorted by the light rays. An eye staring fixedly at me as from the dark waters of a well. Then I was looking at him standing above me, outlined by the light against the darkened half of the hall.
". . . You must accept discipline. Either you accept decisions or you get out . . ."
I stared into his face, feeling a sense of outrage. His left eye had collapsed, a line of raw redness showing where the lid refused to close, and his gaze had lost its command. I looked from his face to the glass, thinking, he's disemboweled himself just in order to confound me . . . And the others had known it all along. They aren't even surprised. I stared at the eye, aware of Jack pacing up and down, shouting.