Invisible man - Ralph Ellison [178]
But what kind of society will make him see me, I thought, hearing Tobitt answer, "Six-fifteen."
"Then we'd better leave immediately, we've got a long way to travel," he said, coming across the floor. He had his eye in place now and he was smiling. "How's that?" he asked me.
I nodded, I was very tired. I simply nodded.
"Good," he said. "I sincerely hope it never happens to you. Sincerely."
"If it should, maybe you'll recommend me to your oculist," I said, "then I may not-see myself as others see-me-not."
He looked at me oddly then laughed. "See, Brothers, he's joking. He feels brotherly again. But just the same, I hope you'll never need one of these. Meanwhile go and see Hambro. He'll outline the program and give you the instructions. As for today, just let things float. It is a development that is important only if we make it so. Otherwise it will be forgotten," he said, getting into his jacket. "And you'll see that it's best. The Brotherhood must act as a co-ordinated unit."
I looked at him. I was becoming aware of smells again and I needed a bath. The others were standing now and moving toward the door. I stood up, feeling the shirt sticking to my back.
"One last thing," Jack said, placing his hand on my shoulder and speaking quietly. "Watch that temper, that's discipline, too. Learn to demolish your brotherly opponents with ideas, with polemic skill. The other is for our enemies. Save it for them. And go get some rest."
I was beginning to tremble. His face seemed to advance and recede, recede and advance. He shook his head and smiled grimly.
"I know how you feel," he said. "And it's too bad all that effort was for nothing. But that in itself is a kind of discipline. I speak to you of what I have learned and I'm a great deal older than you. Good night."
I looked at his eye. So he knows how I feel. Which eye is really the blind one? "Good night," I said.
"Good night, Brother," they all except Tobitt said.
It'll be night, but it won't be good, I thought, calling a final "Good night."
They left and I took my jacket and went and sat at my desk. I heard them passing down the stairs and the closing of the door below. I felt as though I'd been watching a bad comedy. Only it was real and I was living it and it was the only historically meaningful life that I could live. If I left it, I'd be nowhere. As dead and as meaningless as Clifton. I felt for the doll in the shadow and dropped it on the desk. He was dead all right, and nothing would come of his death now. He was useless even for a scavenger action. He had waited too long, the directives had changed on him. He'd barely gotten by with a funeral. And that was all. It was only a matter of a few days, but he had missed and there was nothing I could do. But at least he was dead and out of it.
I sat there a while, growing wilder and fighting against it. I couldn't leave and I had to keep contact in order to fight. But I would never be the same. Never. After tonight I wouldn't ever look the same, or feel the same. Just what I'd be, I didn't know; I couldn't go back to what I was -- which wasn't much -- but I'd lost too much to be what I was. Some of me, too, had died with Tod Clifton. So I would see Hambro, for whatever it was worth. I got up and went out into the hall. The glass was still on the table and I swept it across the room, hearing it rumble and roll in the dark. Then I went downstairs.
Chapter 23
The bar downstairs was hot and crowded and there was a heated argument in progress over Clifton's shooting. I stood near the door and ordered a bourbon. Then someone noticed me, and they tried to draw me in.
"Please, not tonight," I said. "He was one of my best friends."
"Oh, sure," they said, and I had another bourbon and left.
When I reached 125th Street, I was approached by a group of civil-liberties workers circulating a petition demanding the dismissal of the guilty policeman, and a block further on even the familiar woman street preacher was shouting a sermon about the slaughter of the innocents. A much broader group was stirred up over the shooting than I had imagined. Good, I thought, perhaps it won't die down after all. Maybe I'd better see Hambro tonight.