Invisible man - Ralph Ellison [202]
"No," I said, "I've enough in it already." And now I remembered very clearly where I'd started out for but could not leave them.
"Maybe you right," Scofield said. "How I know, you might have it full of diamonds or something. A man oughtn't to be greedy. Though it's time something like this happened."
We moved along. Should I leave, get on to the district? Where were they, at the birthday celebration?
"How did all this get started?" I said.
Scofield seemed surprised. "Damn if I know, man. A cop shot a woman or something."
Another man moved close to us as somewhere a piece of heavy steel rang down.
"Hell, that wasn't what started it," he said. "It was that fellow, what's his name . . . ?"
"Who?" I said. "What's his name?"
"That young guy!"
"You know, everybody's mad about it . . ."
Clifton, I thought. It's for Clifton. A night for Clifton.
"Aw man, don't tell me," Scofield said. "Didn't I see it with my own eyes? About eight o'clock down on Lenox and 123rd this paddy slapped a kid for grabbing a Baby Ruth and the kid's mama took it up and then the paddy slapped her and that's when hell broke loose."
"You were there?" I said.
"Same's I'm here. Some fellow said the kid made the paddy mad by grabbing a candy named after a white woman."
"Damn if that's the way I heard it," another man said. "When I come up they said a white woman set it oft by trying to take a black gal's man."
"Damn who started it," Dupre said. "All I want is for it to last a while."
"It was a white gal, all right, but that wasn't the way it was. She was drunk --" another voice said.
But it couldn't have been Sybil, I thought; it had already started.
"You wahn know who started it?" a man holding a pair of binoculars called from the window of a pawnshop. "You wahn really to know?"
"Sure," I said.
"Well, you don't need to go no further. It was started by that great leader, Ras the Destroyer!"
"That monkey-chaser?" someone said.
"Listen, bahstard!"
"Don't nobody know how it started," Dupre said.
"Somebody has to know," I said.
Scofield held his whiskey toward me. I refused it.
"Hell, man, it just exploded. These is dog days," he said.
"Dog days?"
"Sho, this hot weather."
"I tell you they mad over what happen to that young fellow, what's-his-name . . ."
We were passing a building now and I heard a voice calling frantically, "Colored store! Colored store!"
"Then put up a sign, motherfouler," a voice said. "You probably rotten as the others."
"Listen at the bastard. For one time in his life he's glad to be colored," Scofield said.
"Colored store," the voice went on automatically.
"Hey! You sho you ain't got some white blood?"
"No, sir!" the voice said.
"Should I bust him, man?"
"For what? He ain't got a damn thing. Let the motherfouler alone."
A few doors away we came to a hardware store. "This is the first stop, men," Dupre said.
"What happens now?" I said.
"Who you?" he said, cocking his thrice-hatted head.
"Nobody, just one of the boys --" I began.
"You sho you ain't somebody I know?"
"I'm pretty sure," I said.
"He's all right, Du," said Scofield. "Them cops shot him."
Dupre looked at me and kicked something -- a pound of butter, sending it smearing across the hot street. "We fixing to do something what needs to be done," he said. "First we gets a flashlight for everybody . . . And let's have some organization, y'all. Don't everybody be running over everybody else. Come on!"
"Come on in, buddy," Scofield said.
I felt no need to lead or leave them; was glad to follow; was gripped by a need to see where and to what they would lead. And all the time the thought that I should go to the district was with me. We went inside the store, into the dark glinting with metal. They moved carefully, and I could hear them searching, sweeping objects to the floor. The cash register rang.
"Here some flashlights over here," someone called.
"How many?" Dupre said.
"Plenty, man."
"Okay, pass out one to everybody. They got batteries?"
"Naw, but there's plenty them too, 'bout a dozen boxes."
"Okay, give me one with batteries so I can find the buckets. Then every man get him a light."