Lonely Crusade (55 page)

Lee saw a deputy step into the path of Joe Ptak. He recognized the face of Walter. He saw Walter put out his white-gloved hand and push Joe in the chest. He saw Joe brush Walter aside with one uncompromising motion. He saw the moment hold again as if all time was tangible. A cold chill tingled down his spine. He felt his mouth getting big inside from the explosion of air, felt his muscles getting tight clear up from his feet.

He saw Walter swing at Joe with a blackjack. He saw Joe duck, still holding to the banner, and with his one free hand knock Walter down. He saw the workers behind Joe move up. He saw the other deputies close in from all directions. He saw the tide begin to break from the parking lot.

“He’s done it! He’s done it!”

He saw the deputies club a worker across the head, knock another down, and kick still another in the face. For as long as he could hold his breath, the scene was lost in motion. Then he saw the workers back up from the deputies’ assault, saw them break away, and saw the tide from the parking lot slow down and halt. He saw the deputies quickly draw their guns. He felt his hands getting wet with sweat.

Now he saw Joe Ptak alone and deserted in the street, fighting all of the deputies at once. He saw a deputy stand directly behind Joe and swing a long night stick down across Joe’s skull. His eyes followed Joe’s staggering recoil from the impact of the blow, and saw him catch his balance, shake his head, and bore back in.

He heard the workers scream curses and yell threats, and saw the tide surge down from the parking lot.

He saw the line of deputies quickly form again, saw the blue-steel gleam of many guns in the bright sunlight, and saw the tide of workers halt before what looked like certain death.

But alone in the street Joe Ptak fought on. Lee Gordon saw the sticks descend again and again across his skull until it did not seem that a man of flesh and bone could stand. But Joe kept fighting and taking his toll.

Lee Gordon felt so great an admiration for this one man’s gallant stand that it tore him up inside. “Fight ‘em, Joe, goddamnit, fight ‘em!” It filled him with an exaltation to be on this man’s side, and now he was with him in heart and body and soul. And when Joe went down to his knees from the weight of the blows, Lee Gordon went down too; and when Joe still fought back on his knees, Lee Gordon fought beside him and felt each separate blow.

The spectacle of this unconquerable man sealed the workers in awed silence. Nor could Lee Gordon find time to breathe.

He saw Joe get to his feet again and turn, and now he could see the streams of blood down Joe’s face as he fought on without thought of ever quitting. He saw the final blow and saw Joe fall as some mighty oak. And even as brutal a man as Walter could not find the villainy to kick Joe in the face, which was the expected thing.

Now Lee’s eyes went down the ragged line of workers to see who might come to Joe Ptak’s aid. No one moved. But they did not look defeated, only poised, held on that breath of indecision. It needed but a spurring-on, a calling-out, an incident to set it off.

Suddenly in that tense line of watching workers his gaze came upon the face of Ruth, and it claimed his whole attention. She was pressing forward desperately toward the front where the fighting had taken place. He saw Rosie head her off, saw them standing there, and saw their eyes search the crowd for him once more. He looked quickly away from the thoughts that showed in their actions.

Now he saw the deputies rolling the unconscious body of Joe Ptak over on his back.

“Take that man to the hospital!”

The metallic voice from overhead ran shock down through his skull. He felt his eyes jumping as next he saw the deputies cross Joe Ptak’s legs and stick the handle of the union banner in his crotch so that it stood erect. There was blood on the banner now—and blood on Joe’s hard, uncompromising face, looking up from the pavement of the street, down but undefeated.

He looked back at Ruth and saw the agitation in her face, the worry and concern. And he could not help thinking of what it would do to her—the degradation and dishonor, a woman scorned in the eyes of the world because her husband had been convicted of a murder—the grief inside of her, the protest and the fear, and the knowledge of his innocence she would have to carry—not for just a day, but for all of the days of her life.

“What you are doing to our organizer is brutal and inhuman!” the voice overhead cried out.

“The next son of a bitch that crosses this line gets killed on the spot!” a deputy shouted back.

The workers booed, cursed, yelled, taunted. But no one moved.

“Somebody ought to do something for Joe,” the operator said.

“I’ll go get him,” Smitty said. He climbed down from his seat and let himself through the back doors, quickly closing them behind him.

Lee watched him squeeze his way through the crowd. He saw the deputies halt him. He saw them argue and gesticulate. He looked toward the line of workers. They did not look quite beaten yet, but still held on that breath of indecision. He looked at Rosie. And now at last he looked at Ruth again. For a long moment he studied the flower of her face—and thought of how it might have been.

Now once again he turned his gaze on the long line of deputy sheriffs, cutting off the success of the rally, the future of the union, the movement of the working people of the world. He felt overcome with a helpless impotence. All he could bring these people was more hurt. All he had ever offered anyone was hurt—Ruth and the union alike, Rosie and all the other good guys who had befriended him, and all of these poor workers who would also suffer because of him—Thoughts flashing like sheet lightning through the turmoil of his brain—Joe Ptak, lying there unconscious in the sun, who had done the best he could for the thing in which he most believed—the disappointment in Rosie’s eyes—the hurt in the face of big, bluff Smitty, the only white gentile he had ever known to be his friend (was his faith in human nature to be lost?)—and Ruth!—“All I ever wanted was just to love you, Lee.”

A thin flame came alight in his mind, burning ever brighter. Words spun through his thoughts : “When the occasion calls for it—” Not tomorrow, or an hour hence. But now!
For the time was running out!

It was as if all of his life was coming to a head; the good and the evil, the high and the low, all of the things that had ever happened to him and all of the things he had ever done and the things he had not done, coming together into meaning. It was as if this was the moment he had lived for—not the choice of a conclusion, nor the facing of a fact, but this was the knowledge of the truth.

He straightened out his legs, flexed the muscles to ease the cramp.

“Tight quarters,” the operator said.

“It is that!” Lee Gordon said.

He moved to the back and opened both doors. As he jumped to the ground he saw the startled faces of the two policemen. He saw them move toward him but he was running.

“Halt! Halt or I’ll shoot!”

The words pushed him on to greater effort. He fought through the mass of workers, pushing them aside. When he reached the line of deputies he heard Rosie suddenly cry : “No, Lee I No!”

And Ruth screaming : “Lee!”

But he did not look around. He pushed with all of his might into the chest of the deputy in his path, saw him fall away. Ducking beneath the blackjack of another, he was through the line. Out of the corner of his vision he saw the gun of Walter come leveling down on him. And from the parking lot he heard a worker cry : “Don’t shoot that boy!”

He reached Joe Ptak, snatched up the union banner, and holding it high above his head, began marching down the street.

About the Author

Chester Himes is the author of numerous novels, short stories, essays, and two films. He is best known for his angry social criticism in books like
If He Hollers Let Him Go
and
Lonely Crusade
and for creating the adventures of Harlem detectives, Coffin Ed Smith and Gravedigger Jones, including the two films
Cotton Comes to Harlem
and
Come Back, Charleston Blue
. He began to write while serving a prison term for jewel theft in the early 1940’s, emigrated to France in 1953, and subsequently moved to Spain, where he lived until his death in 1984.