Chapter 27 Part Two-15

He stood on the threshold of a small white room furnished only with an iron bed, a cabinet, and two chairs. On the bed lay the terrible Negro he had met on the stairs at Singers house. stiff pillows. The dark eyes were hot with hated but the heavy, bluish lips were composed. His face was motionless as a black mask except for the slow, wide flutters of his nostrils with each breath. Get out, the Negro said. Wait------ Jake said helplessly. Why do you say that?' This is my house.' Jake could not draw his eyes away from the Negros terrible face. But why?' You are a white man and a stranger.'

Jake did not leave. He walked with cumbersome caution to one of the straight white chairs and seated himself. The Negro moved his hands on the counterpane. His black eyes glittered with fever. Jake watched him. They waited. In the room there was a feeling tense as conspiracy or as the deadly quiet before an explosion. It was long past midnight. The warm, dark air of the spring morning swirled the blue layers of smoke in the room. On the floor were crumpled balls of paper and a half-empty bottle of gin. Scattered ashes were gray on the counterpane. Doctor Copeland pressed his head tensely into the pillow. He had removed his dressing-gown and the sleeves of his white cotton nightshirt were rolled to the elbow. Jake leaned forward in his chair. with sweat Through the hours there had grown between them a long, exhausting dialogue. And now a pause had come.

So the time is ready for------ Jake began. But Doctor Copeland interrupted him. Now it is perhaps necessary that we------ he murmured huskily. . I beg your pardon, Doctor Copeland said. Sorry, said Jake. Go on.' No, you continue.' Well------ Jake said. I wont say what I started to say. Instead well have one last word about the South. The strangled South. The wasted South, The slavish South.' And the Negro people.' To steady himself Jake swallowed a long, burning draft from the bottle on the floor beside him. Then delicately he walked to the cabinet and picked up a small, cheap globe of the world that served as a paperweight. Slowly he turned the sphere in his hands. All I can say is this: The world is full of meanness and evil. Huh! Three fourths of this globe is in a state of war or oppression. The liars and fiends are united and the men who know are isolated and without defense But! But if you were to ask me to point out the most uncivilized area on the face of this globe I would point here------'

Watch sharp, said Doctor Copeland. Youre out in the ocean.' Jake turned the globe again and pressed his blunt, grimy thumb on a carefully selected spot. Here. These thirteen states. I know what Im talking about. I read books and I go around. I been in every damn one of these thirteen states. Ive worked in every one. And the reason I think like I do is this: We live in the richest country in the world. Theres plenty and to spare for no man, woman, or child to be in want. And in addition to this our country was founded on what should have been a great, true principle—the freedom, equality, and rights of each individual. Huh! And what has come of that start? There are corporations worth billions of dollars—and hundreds of thousands of people who dont get to eat. And here in these thirteen states the exploitation of human beings is so that—that its a thing you got to take in with your own eyes. In my life I seen things that would make a man go cray.

At least one third of all Southerners live and die no better off than the lowest peasant in any European Fasciststate. The average wage of a worker on a tenant farm is only seventy-three dollars per year. And mind you, thats the average! wages of sharecroppers run from thirty-five to ninety dollars per person. And thirty-five dollars a year means just about ten cents for a full days work. Everywhere theres pellagra and hookworm and anaemia. nibbed his lips with the knuckles of his dirty fist. Sweat stood out on his forehead. But! he repeated. Those are only the evils you can see and touch. The other things are worse. Im talking about the way that the truth has been hidden from the people. The things they have been told so they cant see the truth. The poisonous lies. So they arent allowed to know.'

And the Negro, said Doctor Copeland. To understand what is happening to us you have to------' Jake interrupted him savagely. Who owns the South? Corporations in the North own three fourths of all the South. They say the old cow grazes all over—in the south, the west, the north, and the east. But shes milked in just one place. Her old teas swing over just one spot when shes full. She grazes everywhere and is milked in New York. Take our cotton mills, our pulp mills, our harness factories, our mattress factories. The North owns them. And what happens? Jakes mustache quivered angrily. Heres an example. Locale, a mill village according to the great paternal system of American industry.

Absentee ownership. In the village is one huge brick mill and maybe four or five hundred shanties. The houses arent fit for human beings to live in. Moreover, the houses were built to be nothing but slums in the first place. These shanties are nothing but two or maybe three rooms and a privy— built with far less forethought than barns to house cattle. Built with far less attention to needs than sties for pigs. For under this system pigs are valuable and men are not. You cant make pork chops and sausage out of skinny little mill kids. You cant sell but half the people these days. But a pig------'

Hold on! said Doctor Copeland. You are getting off on a tangent. And besides, you are giving no attention to the very separate question of the Negro. I cannot get aword in edgeways. We have been over all this before, bat it is Impossible to see the full situation without including us Negroes.' Back to our mill village, Jake said. A young linthead begins working at the fine wage of eight or ten dollars a week at such times as he can get himself employed. He marries. After the first child the woman must work in the mill also . Their combined wages come to say eighteen dollars a week when they both got work. Huh! They pay a fourth of this for the shack the mill provides them. They buy food and clothes at a company-owned or dominated store. The store overcharges on every item. With three or four younguns they are held down the same as if they had on chains. That is the whole principle of serfdom. Yet here in America we call ourselves free. the heads of sharecroppers and lintheads and all the rest so hard that they really believe it. But its taken a hell of a lot of lies to keep them from knowing.'

There is only one way out--- said Doctor Cbpeland. Two ways. And only two ways. Once there was a time when this country was expanding. Every man thought he had a chance. Huh! But that period has gone—and gone for good. Less than a hundred corporations have swallowed all but a few leaves. These industries have already sucked the blood and softened the bones of the people. The old days of expansion are gone. The whole system of capitalist democracy is—rotten and corrupt. There remains only two roads ahead. One: Fascism. Two: reform of the most revolutionary and permanent kind. ' And the Negro. Do not forget the Negro. So far as I and my people are concerned the South is Fascist now and always has been.'

Yeah.' "The Nazis rob the Jews of their legal, economic, and cultural life. Here the Negro has always been deprived of these. And if wholesale and dramatic robbery of money and goods has not taken place here as in Germany, it is simply because the Negro has never been allowed to accrue wealth in the first place.' That's the system, Jake said. The Jew and the Negro, said Doctor Copeland bitter-ry. The history of my people will be commensurate with the interminable history of the Jew—only bloodier and more violent. Like a certain species of sea gull. If you capture one of the birds and tie a red string of twine around his leg the rest of the flock will peck him to death.'

Doctor Copeland took off his spectacles and rebound a wire around a broken hinge. Then he polished the lenses on his nightshirt. His hand shook with agitation. Mr. Singer is a Jew.' No, youre wrong there.' But I am positive that he is. The name, Singer. I recognized his race the first time I saw him. From his eyes. Besides, he told me so.' Why, he couldn't have, Jake insisted. "Hes pure Anglo-Saxon if I ever saw it. Irish and Anglo-Saxon." ?But------' Im certain. Absolutely.' Very well, said Doctor Copeland. We will not quarrel.' Outside the dark air had cooled so that there was a chill in the room. It was almost dawn. The early morning sky was deep, silky blue and the moon had turned from silver to white. All was still. The only sound was the clear , lonely song of a spring bird in the darkness outside. Though a faint breeze blew in from the window the air in the room was sour and close. There was a feeling both of tenseness and exhaustion. Doctor Copeland leaned forward from the pillow. His eyes were bloodshot and his hands clutched the counterpane. The neck of his nightshirt had slipped down over his bony shoulder. Jakes heels were balanced on the rungs of his chair and his giant hands folded between his knees in a waiting and childlike attitude. Deep black circles were beneath his eyes, his hair was unkempt. They looked at each other and waited. As the silence grew longer the tenseness between them became more strained. At last Doctor Copeland cleared his throat and said: I am certain you did not come here for nothing. I am sure we have not discussed these subjects all through the night to no purpose. We have talked of everything now except the most vital subject of all—the way out. What must be done.' They still watched each other and waited. In the face of each there was expectation. Doctor Copeland sat bolt upright against the pillows. Jake rested his chin in his hand and leaned forward. time. Excuse me, Jake said. Go ahead.' No, you. You started first.' Go on.' Pshaw! said Doctor Copeland. Continue.' Jake stared at him with clouded, mystical eyes. Its this way. This is how I see it. The only solution is for the people to know. Once they know the truth they can be oppressed no longer. Once just half of them know the whole fight is won.' Yes, once they understand the workings of this society. But how do you propose to tell them?' Listen, Jake said. Think about chain letters. If one person sends a letter to ten people and then each of the ten people sends letters to ten more—you get it? same. I just go around telling. And if in one town I can show the truth to just ten of the dont-knows, then I feel like some good has been done. See?' Doctor Copeland looked at Jake in surprise. Then he snorted. Do not be childish! You cannot just go about talking. Chain letters indeed! Knows and dont-knows!' Jakes lips trembled and his brow lowered with quick anger. OK What have you got to offer?' I will say first that I used to feel somewhat as you do on this question. But I have learned what a mistake that attitude is. For half a century I thought it wise to be patient.' 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 opposition 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 dont know. Youre trying to stuff the hog by way of his ass.' Such vulgar expressions annoying me, Doctor Copeland said prudishly. For Christ sake! I dont care if they annoying 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 dont 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 Doctors agitation and his mild and husky question made Jakes 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. 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. Thats not the right angle at all. Im dead sure its not. In the first place, youd never get out of town. Theyd break it up by saying its a menace to public health—or some such trumped-up reason. They'd arrest you and nothing would come of it. But even if by some miracle you got to Washington it wouldn't do a bit of good. Why, the whole notion is crazy.' The sharp rattle of phlegm sounded in Doctor Cope-lands throat. His voice was harsh. As you are so quick to sneer and condemn, what do you have to offer instead?' I didnt sneer, Jake said. I only remarked that your plan is crazy. I come here tonight with an idea much better than that. I wanted your son, Willie, and the other two boys to let me push them around in a wagon. They were to tell what happened to them and afterwards I was to tell why. In other words, I was to give a talk on the dialectics of capitalism—and show up all of its lies. I would explain so that everyone would understand why those boys legs were cut off. And make everyone who saw them know.' Pshaw! Double pshaw! said Doctor Copeland furious-ly. do not believe you have good sense. If I were a man who felt it worth my while to laugh I would surely laugh at that. Never have I had the opportunity to hear of such nonsense first hand.' They stared at each other in bitter disappointment and anger. There was the rattle of a wagon in the street outside. Jake swallowed and bit his lips. Huh! he said finally. The only way to solve the Negro problem under capitalism is to geld every one of the fifteen million black men in these states.' So that is the kind of idea you harbor beneath your rating about justice.' I didnt say it should be done. I only said you couldnt see the forest for the trees. Jake spoke with slow and painful care. The work has to start at the bottom. The old traditions smashed and the new ones created. To forge a whole new pattern for the world. To make man a social creature for the first time, living in an orderly and controlled society where he is not forced to be unjust in order to survive. A social tradition in which------' Doctor Copeland clapped ironically. Very good, he said. But the cotton must be picked before the cloth is made. You and your crackpot do-nothing theories can------' Hush! Who cares whether you and your thousand Negroes straggle up to that stinking cesspool of a place called Washington? What difference does it make? What do a few people matter—a few thousand people, black, white, good or bad? The whole of our society is built on a foundation of black lies.' Everything! Doctor Copeland panted. Everything! Everything! Nothing!' "The soul of the meanest and most evil of us on this earth is worth more in the sight of justice than------' Oh, the Hell with it! Jake said. Balls!' Blasphemer! screamed Doctor Copeland. Foul blasthemer!' Jake shook the iron bars of the bed. The vein in his forehead swelled to the point of bursting and his face was dark with rage. Short-sighted bigot! White------ Doctor Copelands voice failed him. would come. At last he was able to bring forth a choked whisper: Fiend.' The bright yellow morning was at the window. Doctor Copelands head fell back on the pillow. His neck twisted at a broken angle, a fleck of bloody foam on his lips. Jake looked at him once before, sobbing with violence, his rushed headlong from the room. N<ow she could not stay in the inside room. She had to be around somebody all the time. Doing something every minute. And if she was by herself she counted or figured with numbers. She counted all the roses on the living-room wall-paper. She figured out the cubic area of ​​the whole house. She counted every blade of grass in the back yard and every leaf on a certain bush. Because if she did not have her mind on numbers this terrible fearness came in her. She would be walking home from school on these May afternoons and suddenly she would have to think of something quick. A good thing—very good. she would think about a phrase of hurrying jazz music. Or that a bowl of jello would be in the refrigerator when she got home. Or plan to smoke a cigarette behind the coal house. Maybe she would try to think a long way ahead to the time when she would go north and see snow, or even travel somewhere in a foreign land. But these thoughts about good things wouldn't last. The jello was gone in five minutes and the cigarette smoked. Then what was there after that? And the numbers mixed themselves up in her brain. And the snow and the foreign land were a long, long time away. Then what was there? Just Mister Singer. She wanted to follow him everywhere. In the morning she would watch him go down the front steps to work and then follow along a half a block behind him. Every afternoon as soon as school was over she hung around at the corner near the store where he worked. At four oclock he went out to drink a Coca-Cola. She watched him cross the street and go into the drugstore and finally come out again. She followed him home from work and sometimes even when he took walks. She always followed a long way behind him. And he did not know. She would go up to see him in his room. First she scrubbed her face and hands and put some vanilla on the front of her dress. She only went to visit him twice a week now, because she didnt want him to get tired of her . Most always he would be sitting over the queer, pretty chess game when she opened the door. And then she was with him. Mister Singer, have you ever lived in a place where it snowed in the winter-time?' He tilted his chair back against the wall and nodded. In some different country than this one—in a foreign place?' He nodded yes again and wrote on his pad with his silver pencil. Once he had traveled to Ontario, Canada—across the river from Detroit Canada was so far up north that the white snow drifted up to the roofs of the houses. That was where the Quints were and the St. Lawrence River. The people ran up and down the streets speaking French to each other. And far up in the north there were deep forests and white ice igloos. The arctic region with the beautiful northern lights. "When you was in Canada did you go out and get any fresh snow and eat it with cream and sugar? Once I read where it was mighty good to eat that way." He turned his head to one side because he didnt understand. She couldn't ask the question again because suddenly it sounded silly. She only looked at him and waited. A big, black shadow of his head was on the wall behind him. The electric fan cooled the thick, hot air. was like they waited to tell each other things that had never been told before. What she had to say was terrible and afraid. But what he would tell her was so true that it would make everything all right. Maybe it was a thing that could not be spoken with words or writing. Maybe he would have to let her understand this in a different way. That was the feeling she had with him. I was just asking you about Canada—but it didn't amount to anything, Mister Singer.' Downstairs in the home rooms there was plenty of trouble. Etta was still so sick that she couldnt sleepcrowded three in a bed. The shades were drawn and the dark room smelled bad with a sick smell. Ettas job was gone, and that meant eight dollars less a week besides the doctors bill. Then one day when Ralph was walking around in the kitchen he burned himself on the hot kitchen stove. The bandages made his hands itch and somebody had to watch him all the time else he would bust the blisters. On Georges birthday they had bought him a little red bike with a bell and a basket on the handlebars. Everybody had chipped in to give it to him. But when Etta lost her job they couldnt pay, and after two installments were past due the store sent a man out to take the wheel away. George just watched the man roll the bike off the porch, and when he passed George kicked the back fender and then went into the coal house and shut the door. It was money, money, money all the time. They owed to the grocery and they owed the last payment on some furniture. And now since they had lost the house they owed money there too. The six rooms in the house were always taken, but nobody ever paid the rent on time. For a while their Dad went over every day to hunt another job. He couldnt do carpenter work any more because it made him jittery to be more than ten feet off the ground. He applied for many jobs but nobody would hire him. Then at last he got this notion. Its advertising, Mick, he said. Tve come to the conclusion thats all in the world the matter with my watch-repairing business right now. I got to sell myself. I got to get out and let people know I can fix watches, and fix them good and cheap. You just mark my words. Fm going to build up this business so Ill be able to make a good living for this family the rest of my life. Just by advertising.' He brought home a dozen sheets of tin and some red paint. For the next week he was very busy. It seemed to him like this was a hell of a good idea. The signs were all over the floor of the front room. down on his hands and knees and took great care over the printing of each letter. As he worked he whistled and wagged his head. He hadnt been so cheerful and glad in months. Every now and then he would have to dress in his good suit and go around the corner for a glass of beer to calm himself. On the signs at first he had: Wilbur KellyWatch RepairingVery Cheap and Expert*Mick, I want them to hit you right bang in the eye. To stand out wherever you see them .' She helped him and he gave her three nickels. The signs were OK at first. Then he worked on them so much that they were ruined. He wanted to add more and more things —in the corners and at the top and bottom. Before he had finished the signs were plastered all over with Very Cheap and Come At Once and You Give Me Any Watch And I Make It Run.' You tried to write so much in the signs that nobody will read anything, she told him. He brought home some more tin and left the designing up to her. She painted them very plain, with great big block letters and a picture of a clock. Soon he had a whole stack of them. A fellow he knew rode him out in the country where he could nail them to trees and fenceposts. At both ends of the block he put up a sign with a black hand pointing toward the house. And over the front door there was another sign.