The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers [128]
‘I didn’t say be patient.’
‘In the face of brutality I was prudent. Before injustice I held my peace. I sacrificed the things in hand for the good of the hypothetical whole. I believed in the tongue instead of the fist. As an armor against oppression I taught patience and faith in the human soul. I know now how wrong I was. I have been a traitor to myself and to my people. All that is rot. Now is the time to act and to act quickly. Fight cunning with cunning and might with might’
‘But how?’ Jake asked. ‘How? ’
‘Why, by getting out and doing things. By calling crowds of people together and getting them to demonstrate.’
‘Huh! That last phrase gives you away--"getting them to demonstrate." What good will it do if you get them to demonstrate against a thing if they don’t know. You’re trying to stuff the hog by way of his ass.’
‘Such vulgar expressions annoy me,’ Doctor Copeland said prudishly. ‘For Christ’ sake! I don’t care if they annoy you or not’ Doctor Copeland held up his hand. ‘Let us not get so overheated,’ he said. ‘Let us attempt to see eye to eye with each other.’
‘Suits me. I don’t want to fight with you.’ They were silent. Doctor Copeland moved his eyes from one corner of the ceiling to the other. Several times he wet his lips to speak and each time the word remained half-formed and silent in his mouth. Then at last he said: ‘My advice to you is this. Do not attempt to stand alone.’
‘But--’
‘But, nothing,’ said Doctor Copeland didactically. ‘The most fatal thing a man can do is try to stand alone.’
‘I see what you’re getting at.’ Doctor Copeland pulled the neck of his nightshirt up over his bony shoulder and held it gathered tight to his throat. ‘You believe in the struggle of my people for their human rights?’
The Doctor’s agitation and his mild and husky question made Jake’s eyes brim suddenly with tears. A quick, swollen rush of love caused him to grasp the black, bony hand on the counterpane and hold it fast. ‘Sure,’ he said.
‘The extremity of our need?’
‘Yes.’
‘The lack of justice? The bitter inequality?’
Doctor Copeland coughed and spat into one of the squares of paper which he kept beneath his pillow. ‘I have a program. It is a very simple, concentrated plan. I mean to focus on only one objective. In August of this year I plan to lead more than one thousand Negroes in this county on a march. A march to Washington. All of us together in one solid body. If you will look in the cabinet yonder you will see a stack of letters which I have written this week and will deliver personally.’ Doctor Copeland slid his nervous hands up and down the sides of the narrow bed.
‘You remember what I said to you a short while ago? You will recall that my only advice to you was: Do not attempt to stand alone.’
‘I get it,’ Jake said.
But once you enter this it must be all. First and foremost.
Your work now and forever. You must give of your whole self without stint, without hope of personal return, without rest or hope of rest.’
‘For the rights of the Negro in the South.’
‘In the South and here in this very county. And it must be either all or nothing. Either yes or no.’
Doctor Copeland leaned back on the pillow. Only his eyes seemed alive. They burned in his face like red coals. The fever made his cheekbones a ghastly purple. Jake scowled and pressed his knuckles to his soft, wide, trembling mouth. Color rushed to his face. Outside the first pale light of morning had come. The electric bulb suspended from the ceiling burned with ugly sharpness in the dawn.
Jake rose to his feet and stood stiffly at the foot of the bed. He said flatly: ‘No. That’s not the right angle at all. I’m dead sure it’s not. In the first place, you’d never get out of town. They