Lonely Crusade (27 page)

At first he had been the star halfback for Sumner High School the year they played Wendell Phillips from Chicago. Then he had been the erect, distinguished, middle-aged man whom she would see from time to time alighting from a Rolls-Royce limousine in front of Poro College. For one brief interlude he had been the turbaned East Indian visiting down the street from them. The last of these was her sociology professor at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri.—Only in her dreams.

It had remained for Lee Gordon to bring reality. She had seen him then as a tall, proud Negro youth with hurt eyes and a tormented smile and a touch of Byron in his make-up. And when she discovered after she had married him that he was afraid of white people, that this fear from which he did not hope ever to escape had beaten his life into a weird infirmity, it was a disappointment, as it would have been to any Negro girl with dreams.

Even now after eight dreary years of marriage this romance in her heart was too un-dead, too filled with eternal yearning, too much like just lying down and crying like a baby.

And now this man whom she had married and who had disappointed her was saying: “I don’t know how I could think of you any more than I do, Ruth. But you don’t make it easy for me.”

“I don’t make it easy. How could I make it any easier? I am working like a slave every day. What more can I do?”

What she could not understand, Lee Gordon thought, was that he could not be the man she wanted him to be without first being honorable. If she wanted him to be more than the Negro he was, she would first have to think of him as more than the Negro he was made to be. She would have to believe that he wanted to do all the things for her she wanted him to do—support her in comfort, idolize her, cherish her, give her everything in the world. And she would have to understand that he could not do so without honor; that he had reached the point in life where if he could not have the respect of men he did not want the rest. And if this entailed her having to work for what he would not give her in dishonor, she should at least understand that there was nothing noble in her doing so; it was only the white man’s desire to deride the Negro man that had started all the lies and propaganda about the nobility and sacrifices of Negro women in the first place.

Perhaps once he could have said this to her, but not now. For the years in between them, shaped by his inadequacies, his helplessness, confusion, and fear, had brought a change in their relationship. That was progress, he thought with searing cynicism—the movement of materialism. Time will bring the change—dialectics. Johnson P. Time, the Great Leveler, who would make all people equal, black, white, brown, and yellow. If He could not do it with the flesh, He would do it with the dust. And in the dust Lee Gordon would find his honor, Lee Gordon thought with bitterness.

He took a deep breath and said aloud: “You can quit your job, Ruth. Will you do that? I’ll make you a promise that you’ll never regret it.”

No, not eventful, like the winning of a war, or dramatic, like the dying of a hero; but to Lee Gordon who found it hard to make any decision, it was the most important decision that he had ever made. For he had hit that height within himself. He had been trying for it, never really believing that he would make it; and then suddenly he had made it.

If she had said okay, he might have gotten everything he had ever needed—reassurance, courage, even honor. He might have taken that feeling and gone on and never looked back.

And if she had known that all she had to do to give him that feeling was say okay, and mean it, she would have said it over and over again. It would have been a pleasure for her to quit her job. But she did not know that he had hit that height. She had lost faith in him to the point where she no longer believed that he could hit it.

So she cried as if he had wounded her: “Is that it, Lee? Is that what you’re waiting for? Is that why you refused the job today—to have me at your mercy again? Is that it?”

So he lost it—The quality of human courage is a fleeting thing, God knows. To some it comes again and again. To some it never comes. To him it might never come again, Lee Gordon thought. And he knew that no degree of reason, no purity of logic, no amount of common sense—nothing!—would suffice for his having lost it.

“Ruth, I refused the job today simply because I did not want to take Foster’s goddamned handout.”

“Don’t you see!” she exclaimed. “I couldn’t quit with you feeling like you do. I couldn’t face the uncertainty again of not knowing whether you would have your job from one day to the next.”

“I didn’t think that you would quit, Ruth,” he said dully.

“Lee, please believe me. I do want to quit. But it would be foolish now after you’ve refused the job that Foster offered.”

“Ruth, if you think that it’d be foolish, there is nothing more that I can say.”

“But your own job will be over with as soon as Comstock is organized, won’t it?”

“Why keep on bothering, Ruth? Why not just let it go?”

“Answer me, Lee, won’t it?”

“It doesn’t make any difference. I don’t feel like talking about it.”

“Lee, I’ll quit,” she suddenly relented. “I’ll quit tomorrow, if it’s that important. All I’ve ever wanted was just to be your wife.”

But it was too late—J. P. Time had had His moment.

“No, Ruth, you keep your job.”

“But I’ll quit if you want me to.”

“I don’t want you to now.”

“Lee, what’s the matter, darling?”

She arose and crossing to him tried to put her arm about him, but he pulled away and went into the bedroom. A moment later he returned clad in his hat and outer coat.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“I’m going out,” he snapped.

“Lee, please, Lee—” She began crying.

“Ruth, there isn’t any goddamn need of crying,” he said bitterly. “You want to keep your job. And I want you to keep it too. That’s settled. Now you can be happy that I won’t have you at my mercy. And I’m going out and take a walk.”

“May I go with you?” she asked, dabbing at her eyes.

“I’m just going for a walk, and I don’t want you with me.”

And now she tried a smile. “I’ll make some waffles while you’re gone. Will you be back in time?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t want any waffles.”

“I’ll make some anyway.”

“That’s fine. You make them and eat them too,” he told her, and went out of the door into the darkness.

But she made no waffles. When she could no longer see his figure in the darkness down the street, she turned slowly and sat down, biting the back of her hand in an unconscious gesture. It was not that she suspected him of going to see a woman, she told herself, but her intuition troubled her because if he was going to see another woman in his state of mind, there would be nothing left for her.

Suddenly she began crying again, because she felt sorry for herself. And then slowly as the long night ran its course, her vague suspicions passed, and she was overwhelmed by such a sense of guilt that he could imagine him doing all manner of desperate things—murder, robbery, suicide. For in the end, it was not to another woman she ascribed his staying out all night, but to an unbearable frustration inspired by her refusal to quit her job—because she knew that she had failed him.

And yet in this hour of her complete self-condemnation, she could not see how she could have sensibly done otherwise, for what would become of both of them if she did quit her job?

Chapter 16

L
EE GORDON
walked west on Sunset now, his raincoat buttoned and belted and the collar turned up against the world. The twelve o’clock curfew had long since closed the bars, but still the people filled the streets—servicemen and working women—in their frantic search. But Lee Gordon did not notice them. His face was set in slanting lines and his eyes were luminous with brooding.

It was not so much that she had refused to quit, he thought, as that she had not wanted to. That made the difference. And yet, in this rare lucid moment, he could not really blame her for not wanting to give up the lot she had gained for the little he had to offer. She had no way of knowing what this particular job of hers did to him, that for each development of her own personality he paid a price in loss of self-esteem.

But what really made it hopeless, he thought, was the character of her intentions. He knew that concern for his own welfare was a part of everything she ever did. She was not only convinced of this herself—it was true. So it was doubly unfortunate that the effects she struggled so ardently to achieve never served her purpose. Instead of his being benefited by what she intended to be benefiting, he was injured. Words of encouragement became blows to his pride, actions aimed to inspire his courage nursed his fear, and logic offered to a point the goal for him so often confused his purpose. And this was due to the fact that these intentions, while good and noble, grew out of her ignorance of the essential character of his frustrations and became destructive condescensions instead of constructive assistance to the need they were to serve. She deserved credit for trying, he thought, even though her motives were not always unselfish. It was not her fault that in all the things she tried to do for him, she was the one to benefit. And this, he felt, was just. This was right. Yet that did not keep it from being ironic also.

Well—yes, Lee Gordon thought, looking up.

He was at Jackie’s. He had walked the seven miles without realizing where he was going. And for an instant he was touched by a sense of omnipresence.

Then of the
THEE IN ME
who works behind

The Veil, I lifted up my hands to find

A Lamp amid the Darkness; and I heard.

As from Without
—”
THE ME WITHIN THEE BLIND!
”

The involution of a mystic, yes, and the actions of a fool, Lee Gordon thought.

“Who is it?” Jackie asked when he knocked upon her door.

“Lee.”

She opened the door and stood aside to let him enter, her face showing neither pleasure nor surprise, only a composed complacence as if she had always known that he would come in the night like this.

“Is Kathy asleep?”

She closed the door and locked it. “She’s away.”

He turned and looked at her ethereal face with open-mouthed wonder and could not breathe at all. Emotions burned through him like flame, and all the things he had always wanted to say to her came clearly worded to his lips. But he said only: “You’re beautiful, Jackie,” because that said it all.

Now it was in her eyes again, that winning look. Without replying she turned quickly away from him and crossed to close the bedroom door. Watching the natural unaccented pulsing of her hips, he went sick with desire for her and began stripping off his rain coat, tearing at the buttons.

She turned and came back. “What happened, Lee?”

“I’m just tired, Jackie.”

“Would you like to go to bed?”

Their gazes hung: his questioning, hers level and unreadable.

“With you?”

She smiled for the first time, friendly, motherly. “Don’t be so old-fashioned, Lee. I’m a Communist. If you’re tired you may sleep with me. I’ve slept with many men—” and just before she opened the bedroom door she completed: “who didn’t have me.” Now matter-of-factly she asked: “Would you like some coffee or something to eat?”

“Well—no. No thanks.”

And then he began to undress, excitement beating at his heart and fear throttling him as with a garrote. His common sense tried to inform him that this was no uncommon thing, but his body jerked with a thousand alarms. Jackie had already returned to bed, and when he entered the room without night clothes, she simply turned over and put out the light.

For a moment he lay there away from her, not touching her, and then he said: “Jackie—” in a tone that made it clear.

When she did not immediately reply, he turned, groping, and her breast came alive in his hand. She waited a moment longer, then pushed him gently away.

“You can’t have me, Lee.”

It went tart, bitter, brackish, and went through him like bile. And suddenly it stilled to a quiet resolution and he said to himself: Yes, yes, I’ll do it. I’ll sleep naked with this young, beautiful, desirable white woman. And I will not touch her.

When finally he spoke aloud his voice was apologetic. “I might not be able to sleep, but I’ll try not to keep you awake.”

“You can get so tired you can’t go to sleep,” she murmured.

“Mine is more mental.”

“Would you like for me to play you something?”

“Play me something?”

“Music.”

“Oh!—Well—”

“Yes,” she finished with a little laugh, snapping on the light and slipping out of bed.

He had the sudden crazy feeling of being hurled through life by the emotions of others, by idiocies and insanities and false values in which he had no part.

And then the opening movement of some unfamiliar symphony sounded with arresting tone. His mind opened and deepened, absorbing the music. Strained and cleared and soared and trod the notes to fantasy in a darkness rocked by Jackie’s gentle breathing.

One moment, it was a morning in spring, taking his breath in a burst of newness. And another, taps for the dead, tearing out his heart. It was the merciless cruelty of people, bruising his soul. And then a pastoral scene beside a waterfall, anointing his wounds. It was the majestic march of mountains through his heart, the laughter of the ages in his throat, the roll of man-made thunder in his stomach, a softly played organ in an empty church, and a baby crying in the night.

And his thoughts were like tongueless words, like his black skin trying to speak, like the mute prayers of the dark scared night, like life itself trying to tell him of its mystery in a language never heard, only felt.

It helped more than he could ever say.

Suddenly he began to cry. He buried his face between her breasts and she stroked his kinky hair. He wanted to tell her how much it had helped, but the words still had no tongue.

After a time he stopped crying and turned over away from her looking up into the darkness. “It got me for a moment,” he whispered.