Invisible man - Ralph Ellison [99]
"Look at that," a slender man near me said. "We ought to beat the hell out of those paddies!"
I looked silently into his face, taut and ashy in the cold, his eyes trained upon the men going up the steps.
"Sho, we ought to stop 'em," another man said, "but ain't that much nerve in the whole bunch."
"There's plenty nerve," the slender man said. "All they need is someone to set it off. All they need is a leader. You mean you don't have the nerve."
"Who me?" the man said. "Who me?"
"Yes, you."
"Just look," the old woman said, "just look," her face still turned toward mine. I turned away, edging closer to the two men.
"Who are those men?" I said, edging closer.
"Marshals or something. I don't give a damn who they is."
"Marshals, hell," another man said. "Those guys doing all the toting ain't nothing but trusties. Soon as they get through they'll lock 'em up again."
"I don't care who they are, they got no business putting these old folks out on the sidewalk."
"You mean they're putting them out of their apartment?" I said. "They can do that up here?"
"Man, where you from?" he said, swinging toward me.
"What does it look like they puttin' them out of, a Pullman car? They being evicted!"
I was embarrassed; others were turning to stare. I had never seen an eviction. Someone snickered.
"Where did he come from?"
A flash of heat went over me and J turned. "Look, friends," I said, hearing a hot edge coming into my voice. "I asked a civil question. If you don't care to answer, don't, but don't try to make me look ridiculous."
"Ridiculous? Hell, all scobos is ridiculous. Who the hell is you?"
"Never mind, I am who I am. Just don't beat up your gums at me," I said, throwing him a newly acquired phrase.
Just then one of the men came down the steps with an armful of articles, and I saw the old woman reach up, yelling, "Take your hands off my Bible!" And the crowd surged forward.
The white man's hot eyes swept the crowd. "Where, lady?" he said. "I don't see any Bible."
And I saw her snatch the Book from his arms, clutching it fiercely and sending forth a shriek. "They can come in your home and do what they want to you," she said. "Just come stomping in and jerk your life up by the roots! But this here's the last straw. They ain't going to bother with my Bible!"
The white man eyed the crowd. "Look, lady," he said, more to the rest of us than to her, "I don't want to do this, I have to do it. They sent me up here to do it. If it was left to me, you could stay here till hell freezes over . . ."
"These white folks, Lord. These white folks," she moaned, her eyes turned toward the sky, as an old man pushed past me and went to her.
"Hon, Hon," he said, placing his hand on her shoulder. "It's the agent, not these gentlemen. He's the one; He says it's the bank, but you know he's the one. We've done business with him for over twenty years."
"Don't tell me," she said. "It's all the white folks, not just one. They all against us. Every stinking low-down one of them."
"She's right!" a hoarse voice said. "She's right! They all is!"
Something had been working fiercely inside me, and for a moment I had forgotten the rest of the crowd. Now I recognized a selfconsciousness about them, as though they, we, were ashamed to witness the eviction, as though we were all unwilling intruders upon some shameful event; and thus we were careful not to touch or stare too hard at the effects that lined the curb; for we were witnesses of what we did not wish to see, though curious, fascinated, despite our shame, and through it all the old female, mind-plunging crying.
I looked at the old people, feeling my eyes burn, my throat tighten. The old woman's sobbing was having a strange effect upon me-as when a child, seeing the tears of its parents, is moved by both fear and sympathy to cry. I turned away, feeling myself being drawn to the old couple by a warm, dark, rising whirpool of emotion which I feared. I was wary of what the sight of them crying there on the sidewalk was making me begin to feel. I wanted to leave, but was too ashamed to leave, was rapidly becoming too much a part of it to leave.