Invisible man - Ralph Ellison [71]
This case represents, my dear Mr. Emerson, one of the rare, delicate instances in which one for whom we held great expectations has gone grievously astray, and who in his fall threatens to upset certain delicate relationships between certain interested individuals and the school. Thus, while the bearer is no longer a member of our scholastic family, it is highly important that his severance with the college be executed as painlessly as possible. I beg of you, sir, to help him continue in the direction of that promise which, like the horizon, recedes ever brightly and distantly beyond the hopeful traveler.
Respectfully, I am your humble servant,
A. Herbert Bledsoe
I raised my head. Twenty-five years seemed to have lapsed between his handing me the letter and my grasping its message. I could not believe it, tried to read it again. I could not believe it, yet I had a feeling that it all had happened before. I rubbed my eyes, and they felt sandy as though all the fluids had suddenly dried.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm terribly sorry."
"What did I do? I always tried to do the right thing
"That you must tell me," he said. "To what does he refer?"
"I don't know, I don't know . . ."
"But you must have done something."
"I took a man for a drive, showed him into the Golden Day to help him when he became ill ... I don't know
I told him falteringly of the visit to Trueblood's and the trip to the Golden Day and of my expulsion, watching his mobile face reflecting his reaction to each detail.
"It's little enough," he said when I had finished. "I don't understand the man. He is very complicated."
"I only wanted to return and help," I said.
"You'll never return. You can't return now," he said. "Don't you see? I'm terribly sorry and yet I'm glad that I gave in to the impulse to speak to you. Forget it; though that's advice which I've been unable to accept myself, it's still good advice. There is no point in blinding yourself to the truth. Don't blind yourself . . ."
I got up, dazed, and started toward the door. He came behind me into the reception room where the birds flamed in the cage, their squawks like screams in a nightmare.
He stammered guiltily, "Please, I must ask you never to mention this conversation to anyone."
"No," I said.
"I wouldn't mind, but my father would consider my revelation the most extreme treason . . . You're free of him now. I'm still his prisoner. You have been freed, don't you understand? I've still my battle." He seemed near tears.
"I won't," I said. "No one would believe me. I can't myself. There must be some mistake. There must be . . ."
I opened the door.
"Look, fellow," he said. "This evening I'm having a party at the Calamus. Would you like to join my guests? It might help you --"
"No, thank you, sir. I'll be all right."
"Perhaps you'd like to be my valet?"
I looked at him. "No, thank you, sir," I said.
"Please," he said. "I really want to help. Look, I happen to know of a possible job at Liberty Paints. My father has sent several fellows there . . . You should try --"
I shut the door.
The elevator dropped me like a shot and I went out and walked along the street. The sun was very bright now and the people along the walk seemed far away. I stopped before a gray wall where high above me the headstones of a church graveyard arose like the tops of buildings. Across the street in the shade of an awning a shoeshine boy was dancing for pennies. I went on to the corner and got on a bus and went automatically to the rear. In the seat in front of me a dark man in a panama hat kept whistling a tune between his teeth. My mind, flew in circles, to Bledsoe, Emerson and back again. There was no sense to be made of it. It was a joke. Hell, it couldn't be a joke. Yes, it is a joke . . . Suddenly the bus jerked to a stop and I heard myself humming the same tune that the man ahead was whistling, and the words came back:
O well they picked poor Robin clean
O well they picked poor Robin clean
Well they tied poor Robin to a stump
Lawd, they picked all the feathers round from Robin's rump
Well they picked poor Robin clean.