Lonely Crusade (33 page)

She started toward the bedroom, turned toward the kitchen, came back to stand hesitantly in the room again. “Would you like your dinner now?”

“No thanks, Ruth, I’m not hungry now,” he said in that same dead voice.

Her hand came up in a lost gesture and dropped to her side in defeat. As silence held the tableau imprisoned in a hopelessness, she fought against his closed mind with all her might and will. Gone now was her rigid resolution of the past that she was through with worrying about Lee Gordon, through with abasing herself for his ego, through with absorbing his hurts. For in this tearing urgency she would have sacrificed all that she held dear in life to alleviate his hurt.

“Would you like a drink?” she continued to try. “I bought a bottle of whisky today.”

He looked up, slightly frowning as if trying to interpret her meaning, and for the first time sight of her came into the focus of his vision. “Yes, I would like a drink, Ruth. Thank you.” There was the slow, groping falter in his voice now as if he found it difficult to enunciate the words.

“With soda?” she asked, her voice singing with a gratefulness that this much she could do.

Again he seemed to consider his reply. “Yes, I would like soda—fine.”

Turning quickly toward the kitchen, she halted with the thought. “Oh, do you think a drink would be good for you? I mean—”

“If you thought it wouldn’t be good for me,” he asked in his slow, faltering voice, “why did you mention it, Ruth?”

“Oh, I just mean—I thought—” She turned quickly away from his fixed, blank stare and hurried into the kitchen.

But as she mixed the drinks she began crying softly, feeling shut off from him by the days of apprehension, the row of frightened years. For a long time—ever since she had first learned a little of the fear inside of him—she had expected Lee to be hurt, dreading it and yet convinced that it would happen, because she did not see how Lee Gordon could live in the society of America and escape being hurt. And she had feared that when it happened, there would be nothing she could do; that he would be hurt and that he would be alone with it.

Yet, somehow she had still retained a faith in him even while disclaiming it; perhaps because she loved him, she thought with self-effacing bitterness. And the hope that he would find himself had never died. For paradoxically she saw within him a quality of belief in human nature that kept this hope alive; a slender thread of integrity between him and his God that she had seen conditions bend but had never thought would break.

But what she now saw in his eyes made her so terribly afraid that his belief was lost and his integrity broken, she hoped against hope not irremediably. And she knew that whatever there was to be salvaged it was hers to save. The occasion was here, hers to rise or fall to it.

She brought two drinks and sat quietly across from him, sipping hers, until the slight sound seemed to widen the distance between her heart and his hurt, and then she put it down.

“That son of a bitch!” he said as if the words tore loose from the bottom of his stomach.

She sat perfectly still, fearful that the slightest motion might profane him. After a time he asked for another drink, and when she brought it, he told her what had happened, covering the nakedness of his hurt with a hard, brutal indifference.

“Now you may as well say you don’t believe me either and make it a perfect day,” he concluded.

“I believe you, Lee,” she said from behind a look of faith.

“Then you’re the only one,” he muttered disbelievingly, without even seeing it.

“But Smitty believes you, doesn’t he?”

“No.”

“He’s not a Communist, is he, Lee?”

“I don’t know.”

“Doesn’t Joe Ptak believe you?”

“He didn’t say he did.”

“You’ve spoken rather well of Smitty in the past. You always said that he tried to be fair about most things.”

“That’s what I thought then.”

“Maybe he was just upset and didn’t know what he was saying. I feel almost certain, without even knowing him, that he must believe you.”

“You’re more certain than I am,” he said.

“Luther’s not important, is he?” she asked. “I thought you said that he was just flunkying around for you.”

“That’s where I was a fool. I was just flunkying around for him, it seems like now.”

“Unless all of them as dishonest, some of them must believe in you, Lee.”

“I don’t understand it, myself. They ought to know I wouldn’t tell a lie on the bastard. What the hell would I get out of lying on him?”

“It was just that they wanted time to think it over, Lee. They’re like that in all organizations—afraid to take any immediate action on one person’s accusation of another even though they are absolutely convinced of its truth.”

“But they didn’t even say anything to the son of a bitch.” And now she knew that this was what rankled him.

She arose to refill his glass and when she returned sat beside him, timidly resting her head on his chest. Absently he put his arm about her shoulders and she looked up at him, hoping he would kiss her. But his gaze was focused on the wall across the room and his thoughts were gone.

“You can beat me, darling, if that will make you feel any better,” she said half seriously, trying to make him smile.

But when his gaze came back to her it was laden with resentment. “At least you were sensible in keeping your job,” he said bitterly. “The way it looks now, I might be out of mine any day.”

“Lee, please try not to think about it,” she begged.

“What the hell do you expect me to think about?” he asked harshly.

She put her hand on his thigh and willed its gentle pressure into his consciousness. “Remember how we used to get drunk on wine,” she recalled, moving her hand to make him conscious of it. “You’d be angry at someone and then we’d quarrel, and afterwards we’d make love and you were always so passionately—”

But he cried: “Ruth, goddamnit, no!” out of other memories.

In his desire for revenge against white men who denied his honor and doubted his integrity, there was nothing Ruth Gordon could give him, no incentive or release. And now since she had sold her own honor and integrity to these same people, he thought condemningly, he did not even want her body since that also, she was sooner or later to learn, was included in the bargain with the rest. And even though he suspected that this was a lying thought, he did not care since she had nothing for him anyway.

She got slowly to her feet, giving him a chance to say he didn’t mean it, and when he did not do so, she went into the bedroom and to bed. But not to sleep. She heard him go back to get another drink, straining her ears to catch the sound of his slightest motion, holding her breath in suspended fear until he had returned and was seated again, tortured by the aching of her lungs. And when she could no longer hear the sound of any motion, she could hear the silence of his brooding and she wondered at his thoughts, so hurt by his loneliness that she could feel but could not help.

Lee Gordon reached a conclusion sitting there: that the one rigid rule in human behavior was to be for yourself and to hell with everyone else; that within all human beings, himself included, were propensities for every evil, each waiting its moment of fulfillment; that honor never was and never would be for the Negro, and integrity was only for a fool; that from then on he would believe in the almighty dollar, the cowardice of Negroes, and the hypocrisy of whites, and he would never go wrong.

And because all these fine conclusions were so dissatisfying, he arose and went to bed with Ruth. And she could have been any woman with two legs and a stomach.

After his rejection of her a few short minutes earlier, this was the most brutal thing that he had ever done to her. And the only reason she accepted it was because she loved him.

The following morning she remained home from work and prepared him a wonderful breakfast. And when he had finished she said: “Let’s go away, Lee—to another city and find some new people and do some new things.”

He looked up, startled. “But what would you do?”

“I would be your wife.”

She touched him then, because that was all that he had ever wanted. Rising, he went around the table and took her in his arms. “I love you, baby doll.”

She began to cry, the soft sobbing of her body filling his arms with despair. He kissed her lips and eyes, the warm salt taste of her tears like blood on his emotions, but his mind opened eagerly to the idea.

“We could go to San Francisco,” he thought aloud, and then smiling down at her he added: “You’d like it there. On clear days the city’s like a jewel in the sunshine, and the people are pleasant. You’d like it, Ruth.”

He felt her draw away from him as her sobbing stopped, but his enthusiasm had carried him away. “I know a house on Vallejo high up on the hill overlooking the bay. Look, baby doll, it’s got a great big attic room paneled in mahogany with three wide windows across the front, and you can sit there and see the ships come underneath the Golden Gate Bridge just like they were in your lap. When the sun’s shining—” He broke off as he caught sight of the fear that was in her face. “What’s the matter, baby doll?”

“We couldn’t go now, we’d have to wait—” she began, but he cut her off:

“Why? You mean I shouldn’t quit the union now?” He damned it with a gesture. “To hell with the union!”

“But what would you do, Lee? Neither one of us would have a job and—”

“Oh, there’re plenty jobs in San Francisco. I’d get a job.” And then he looked at her again. “We’ll make it, baby doll. We’ve always made it, and we always will.”

She saw the past strung out behind them like a line of tattered banners of things that never were—dreams that had been shattered and hopes now crumbled into dust, fear and apprehension, poverty and abuse. And now he wanted them to do it over again, to give up everything that they had gained and start from scratch. And it would be the same, she thought—Lee refusing to accept the jobs offered to him and taking out his hurts on her. And insecurity would always be their lot, even in this time when everyone else was making money. She could not go through with it again; she could not do it, that was all.

“Lee—”

His soaring thoughts were brought back by the quality in her voice. “What, Ruth?”

“You won’t be angry?”

“Angry at what?”

“Thinking it over, Lee, I don’t see how we can do it now.”

“We can if—” he broke off. “Then you didn’t mean it?” There was accusation in his voice.

“I did, Lee, I did mean it. Please believe me, Lee.”

“But what is it, Ruth? What’s the matter?”

“I wanted to say something to help you, Lee. Don’t you see? I thought if I—”

“But you didn’t think that I would do it?”

“I—You haven’t given it any thought, darling. You’re just going headstrong—”

As his mind closed to the sound of her voice, the wide scope of his conjecturing narrowed to the single thought, and in all the world there was only her smooth brown face, unbeautiful now, again doubting him.

“Well—yes,” Lee Gordon said, bitterness hardening about him like a shell. He should have known that whatever he had been to her just this past Sunday, he was even less today.

“Lee, listen, Lee—”

Without again looking at her, he turned and went into the living-room.

Chapter 21

A
T TEN-THIRTY
that morning Smitty and Hannegan called for Lee and drove him to the sheriff’s office.

After listening to Lee’s story with a fidgety impatience, the sheriff said: “It couldn’t have been any of my deputies, Hannegan. None of my deputies would do a thing like that.”

He was a large, loose-jointed man of Spanish extraction with a hatred for Negroes second only to his hatred for Mexicans. He was often mistaken for a Mexican by persons who did not know him.

“May we have Gordon see these four deputies whom he has named?” Hannegan requested.

“No, by God!” the sheriff refused. “I’ll not have my deputies subjected to any such tommyrot because of the wild story this boy tells.”

“But you have pictures of them in your files,” Hannegan said.

“I do, yes.”

“May we see the pictures?”

“No, by God, you may not!”

“Then we will have to file charges against the lot of them for assault and battery.”

“Then, by God, you are a bigger goddamned fool than I think you are! Because what this boy says is impossible. Paul Dixon was off yesterday. He’s on duty Sundays, and Wednesday is his regular day off. Ed Gillespie and Ray Young were working on a case in Whittier and were there all day with a dozen witnesses to prove it. By God, I can testify to it myself. I stopped there and talked to both of them. And Walter Thomas was here on jail duty. And I’ve got the records to prove it.”

“May we see your records?”

“No, you may not see my records. But I will show them to you quickly enough in court if you make a charge against my men.”

“You’re not co-operating, Sheriff,” Smitty said. “We’re not after any of your deputies. We want to get at the truth.”

“I’m telling you the truth, Smith. And I’ve given you more time now than this cock-and-bull story is worth.” But he took a little more time to appear thoughtful. “There is a possibility that there could have been four men impersonating deputy sheriffs—”

“No, that’s out,” Smitty interrupted. “There could be nothing they’d want from these boys to warrant such impersonation. No, if they were not deputy sheriffs, then there was no one.”

“There was no one,” the sheriff said. “I’m always glad to help you fellows with your unions when you have some reasonable request, but I wish you wouldn’t bother me with these colored boys’ nightmares. Every time something happens to a nigger he says a deputy sheriff did it.”

“You know, Sheriff, a large number of Negroes are migrating to Los Angeles,” Hannegan reminded him. “It is possible that within a few years the Negro vote will have much to do with the election of sheriffs.”

The sheriff’s face reddened as he came abruptly to his feet. “I don’t like threats, gentlemen.”

“Nor do we like to have our union organizers pushed around,” Smitty replied.