Read Lonely Crusade Online

Authors: Chester B Himes

Lonely Crusade (2 page)

BOOK: Lonely Crusade
6.62Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

He closed his eyes in an effort to shut out the thoughts. Beside him his wife snored slightly in her sleep, drawing his attention. She lay half on her side facing away from him, her head resting on her outflung arm. Although her dark hair and brown skin were barely discernible, he could imagine the tight rows of curlers and the greasy face. He felt resentment that she should go through this each night, making herself distasteful to him so that she would be presentable on her job.

Where, before, her snoring had been but a distraction, now it became nerve-racking. She could sleep, he thought. What did she care about his new job? Since she had become a women’s counselor for the Jay Company with her little cute office and white secretary, she was not interested in anything else. Only in being more beautiful than her secretary, so that the white bosses who might drop into her office would notice that she, also, was feminine. In being refreshed to cope commendably with the messy problems of the black proletariat. In being cool and poised in order to appear the “great” Negro woman she was—in her little pool. So let her sleep, he thought. Who was he to burden her with his problem? She was concerned only with the problems of her company employees. Would he never realize it?

He had told her of his job upon her return from work that evening. How he had been given the tip by Andy Carter, an old schoolmate then practicing law, that the union council was looking for a Negro organizer. The frantic manner in which he had gone about digging up references, exerting what little pull he had left.

In answer to her question, what had he related as experience, he replied truthfully that the chief reason they had hired him was to represent his race. Although he had suspected her of needling since he had posed a similar implication when she had gotten her job.

He had named the union officials whom he had met to see if she remembered any from her brief period of union activity. And then had told her of their reaction—that they had seemed to like him.

But he had not told her about his fear. He had never told her how much he was afraid of going into the white world in quest of what he felt was rightfully his. Not always afraid of anything that he could name, define, put his finger on—seldom that. Afraid, for the most part, of his own fear, of this emotion that came unbidden to him and that he had no power to dispel. He had not told her this because that had been something else he had been afraid to do. But now suddenly he wished that he had.

“Ruth!” It was an involuntary exclamation, startling to himself.

For an imperceptible moment her snoring stopped, then it began again in slightly increased tempo. But now she was awake.

From outside came the soft, dismal sound of rain, underlining his fear with a loneliness that sapped at the core of his will. A sudden weakness enveloped him. He felt at bay, repressed, incapable, and infinitely alone.

“Ruth!” He called her name coaxingly.

Receiving no answer, he ran his hand over her breasts and stomach, sought caressingly the familiar tufted mound But there was no passion in his actions—only an effort to find passion.

During times such as this, when faced unavoidably with the consciousness of his fear, he felt a sense of depression that reduced him to sterility as if castrated by it. Paradoxically, it was these times, more than ever, he desired to have sex.

But she refused to move or give any sign that she had awakened. For she knew what was happening to him; she felt his lack of desire, his fear, and impotency that was even now trampling down his every endowment of manhood. She knew that he found relief only in brutality, and she hated him for it.

She had been absorbing Lee’s brutality for six long years. At first, she had been convinced of his essential need for it. Hers had been a confidence in his ability to eventually come through and in some way find the verification of manhood he seemed eternally to be seeking. For a time—so many long and wasted years it now seemed—she had kept faith in this confidence, and in her own therapeutic quality to relieve. She had not minded absorbing his brutality, allowing him to assert his manhood in this queer, perverted way, because all of the rest of the world denied it. But at so great a price, for it had given to her that beaten, whorish look of so many other Negro women who no doubt did the same. Even now, under the rigid discipline she applied to herself, she had not entirely lost it.

But now her faith in him was gone. Now she did not believe that anything would ever help Lee Gordon. And she herself was through with trying.

“Ruth!” It was a demand for a reply.

“What is it, Lee?” she answered wearily.

“I was just thinking.”

“About what?”

“Oh, about my job.”

“What about it, Lee?”

“I think I’m going to like it.”

She did not reply, and in the silence his loneliness returned. Eight years before, when they had married, he had thought that she would be the answer to his loneliness. She had been the promise of a new, happy life.

For a brief, hurting moment he recalled the funny, crazy times they used to have in bed on rainy nights like this, that first year of their marriage. They had lived in a tiny back bedroom, so cramped for space that only one could dress at a time; and when they had been in a hurry to go some place, the other had to dress in the bathroom.

For the most part he had been out of work, and many times the nights had been filled with hunger. But never with emptiness like this.

And often when they had had the money to buy food, they had chosen wine instead. For with the wine they could lie together in the warm, dark nights and imagine things. This was the best, the highest they could reach in that dark-toned pattern of existence. It had seemed like something burnished—almost silver, almost gold. Really, it had been tin foil. But when both had caught it at the same time, it had been beautiful in a way. All the pageantry and excitement of life in white America had been there—the Rainbow Room and the Metropolitan Opera on an opening night; Miami and Monte Carlo, deluxe liners and flights by night. And doing noble, heroic, beautiful things for her, and at her pleased smile, saying: “Only because I love you.”

At other times they had lain abed and read to each other. It had been a pleasure just to listen to her voice. She had taught him to enjoy literature, as she had taught him so many other deep pleasures of existence, and had introduced him to such men as Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Balzac.

Together they had felt the tragic thanatopsis of their little dog’s death. They had exulted together on warm spring days in the incomparable glory of just living. And they had seen burlesque shows on Main Street together.

Together they had laughed. It had seemed then as if nothing on earth could have pried them apart.

Gone now, in the pages of America…

Well—yes, Lee Gordon thought. When you were a Negro, so many things could happen to keep you from fulfilling the promise of yourself. No doubt he had been some sort of promise to her that he too had never fulfilled.

Yet now he was of a mind to blame her for all of it. He had acquired the habit of blaming her for most of the things that happened to him, knowing as he did that she was not to blame.

“Don’t you want to celebrate?” he forced himself to ask.

“I’m tired, Lee. I had a hard day at the office.”

“You’re always tired—especially when I want something. I’ll be glad when you quit.”

Again she withdrew in silence. He fought for dominance, struggling to force submission into her living flesh. But he could feel no desire, and she could show no response. He conjured up lust-provoking visions of other women he had seen and desired, women of the street, women of his imagination. It had no effect. He hated her because he could feel no desire. She hated him.

Yet he had her anyway, because she was his wife. And as his wife, the vessel of his impotency, into whom he must release his slow, numbing sense of panic.

Even in this, he failed. For it was as self-abuse, repulsive and never ending; and even ending was all the same as when it had begun, passionless, unrelieving, and as unemotional as spitting on the street. Nor did the fear abate.

Now it was through. He had awakened her and made her listen. And then had raped her without desire. Maybe some day he could tell her why he had done it, and she might forgive him, he thought. But now, bone tired with the first thin rottenness of remorse beginning to leak into his mind, the only thing he wished to do was go to sleep. She must be unutterably weary, also, he thought.

But he came back to it inescapably, dreading it as he did so, as a man will come back to a place where he has committed a brutality to view in horror his own degradation.

“Smitty said I’d get a raise if we’re successful at Cornstock,” he said. “Then you can quit your job and stay home. You won’t have to be tired all the time.”

“Oh, Lee, let’s don’t start quarreling.” The thin thread of exasperation in her voice was near the breaking point.

“I’m not quarreling. I’m just commenting on my job.”

“You used to hate the union when I was active in it,” she reminded him.

“I just didn’t want you running around with all those lousy Communists.”

“Is that what you intend to do?”

“Look, why is it you always try to belittle everything I do?”

“I am just reminding you of your attitude when I was interested in unionism.”

“At least Fin not going to get so involved that I bring it home to bed.”

“Then what are you doing now?”

“I simply remarked that you should be able to stay home and be a wife after I get my raise.”

He could not tell her how much it hurt him for her to have a better job than he had ever had. Nor what it had done to him inside for her to have supported him since he’d been out of work. Now if she could not understand herself, to hell with her, he thought.

“Oh, Lee, please let’s go to sleep!” she cried.

“Go to sleep then!” he shouted. “I’m not stopping you!”

She turned her back and drew the covers. Soon she was asleep.

He lay and listened to the rain. He was not only a coward, but a beast, he berated himself—lower than a dog. The bravest thing he had ever done was to rape his wife. What tortured him now was the cold, sober realization of the extents his fear could drive him—as if always he lived on the border line of his own restraint.

Maybe it came from knowing too much, he tried to rationalize. From having read too many newspapers, magazines, and books, and having studied his American history too well. Had he never known the long history of brutalities toward Negroes, he might not now be so afraid, he told himself. But as it was, every time he read of a white mob lynching a Negro in Mississippi, he felt as if they had lynched Lee Gordon too.

But all this fear now just because of one, small, insignificant job was senseless, he told himself. Just a case of stage fright, first-night jitters that anyone, white or black, might experience on the eve of a new, strange job.

He would think of something to refute this fear, then relax, and go to sleep, he decided. Tomorrow he would have forgotten it. But he could think of nothing that would make him unafraid.

Chapter 2

L
EE GORDON
came suddenly awake, blasted from his sleep. The darkness had not lifted, and for a moment he wondered what it was that had awakened him. It seemed as if he had just dozed off. As he turned sleepily to settle back again, a sense of urgency arrested him. He cocked his head to listen but heard only the faint traffic sounds that filtered from the night.

Lord, he had a headache, he thought, rubbing the flat of his hand hard across his forehead. The ticking of the clock called his attention. Turning, he switched on the night light to check the time. The face of the clock showed twenty-five minutes until seven.

He jumped from the bed in a crowding sense of panic and began dressing in frantic haste. How he had forgotten to set that alarm, he did not know. Smitty had said he’d call for him at six-thirty; he would be there any minute. It would never do to be late on the first day.

He was pulling on his undershirt, debating whether he would have time for a quick shave, when the horn sounded again. Now he realized that it had been the sound of the horn that had awakened him. Emotions rippled across his face and settled it in slanting lines; and the abrupt halt of haste glazed his eyes.

Well…he had done it, he thought. He had kept the record straight. A “nigger” was never on time. He hated this. It was as if he had begun with failure.

Drawing on a bathrobe, he crossed the living-room to the front door. A sense of inner disparagement weighted down the edges of his self-confidence. Now the day was harder to face.

Opening the door, he called: “Okay, Smitty, just a moment!”

The rain beat out a dismal melancholia, muffling his voice. Gray darkness veiled the coupe at the curb. He wondered if Smitty had heard him. As he waited for the answer, the wet coldness penetrated his thin bathrobe. He shuddered as if a foot had stepped on his grave. Then he closed the door and returned to the bedroom to finish dressing.

Ruth sat propped up in bed. “Was that Smitty?” she asked.

He glanced quickly at her, then glanced away. “Yes.”

Remorse assailed him, and for a fleeting instant he was inclined to apologize for his brutality of the night.

But her next words, “Didn’t you know that he was going to call for you?” brought annoyance, and the inclination passed.

“Yes, I thought I told you,” he replied in a monotone.

“Have you eaten breakfast?”

“No.”

“You should have set the alarm.”

“Which is now apparent,” he muttered, realizing now that he would have to go without a shave.

She started to arise. “I’ll make some coffee.”

“It’s too late now.” His voice was accusing.

“It won’t take but a minute,” she persisted.

He compressed his lips and jerked on his coat.

“You shouldn’t go without your breakfast,” she said disapprovingly.

“I wouldn’t have to if I had a wife.”

She sat back, withdrawing from him. Now as she looked at him with quick anger, she suddenly saw him and realized with deep shock how much older he looked than when she had last noticed him. It was as if he had aged ten years during the past nine months. The cut of his features, which had first attracted her, were angled thin now, and there was a bitterness in the droop of his mouth that marred his whole appearance. In the light of the low bed lamp his tall, thin frame looked gaunt. The realization that she had not actually seen him for all that time, although living with him in the same house and sleeping with him in the same bed, brought a sharp pang of guilt.

BOOK: Lonely Crusade
6.62Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Sacred by Dennis Lehane
SailtotheMoon by Lynne Connolly
Edge of Passion by Folsom, Tina
Dark Tremor (Mated by Magic #2) by Stella Marie Alden, Chantel Seabrook
There You'll Find Me by Jenny B. Jones
Night Game by Kirk Russell