The Man Who Cried I Am (38 page)

Africa gave back a reflection. Africa was becoming free and her first black prime minister in modern times was coming to Washington. In triumph. From Takoradi to Kumasi the Ghana Highlife pummeled the ears and ran like a frightened mamba through the bush: “Sing: Free
-dom! Sing:
Free
-dom!
”

And Max saw and heard America's Negroes commence the antistrophe:

“What of us black men in the West, descendants of a thousand tribes from half a hundred countries? What of us whose presence here determines the treacherous American Deep over which no white immigrant had or has to sail, no matter how lowly his existence if he could say or can say:

Nigger?
”

Black Fever. Harlem streets revealing more and more Negroes in African dress—kentes, agbadas, shamas—these days without laughter. Minister Q filling Harlem Square, pounding home the lost lessons of black empires. Marcus Garvey recalled. Negro papers filled with statements from African leaders who had studied in America. Negroes everywhere straining to be let loose or straining to break loose. Every day one or two, three or four black faces on Pan American flights to Africa; every day two or three black people boarding the Farrell Lines gangplanks, going to Africa. In the midst of this fever in which everyone was wondering just where the next Little Rock would be, the official announcement of Nkrumah's coming was made public, together with the statement that Theodore Dallas had joined the staff of the Chief U.S. Protocol Officer. Presumably, Max thought, to help with the Nkrumah tour. That figured, too.

Dr. Nkrumah, Max knew, had studied with Jaja Enzkwu at Lincoln University. What had the Africans discussed among themselves then when they were rejected by the American Negro students? Now, here was Nkrumah, fresh from his visit with Ike, surrounded by Secret Service agents and New York City cops in white gloves.

All of them, Max thought, watching the mass of American Negroes in spring suits and print dresses, the odors of their perfumes and colognes one wild, heady denial of the white man's claim that they stank, all of them just a few years ago ashamed of Africa, rooting for Tarzan, cursing the natives from the seats of the Apollo. Now look. There he was, the man, in native dress, and the mass of print dresses and spring suits cheered and clapped and Dallas stood by, smiling. Some of the ministers were there and took part of the applause; all were resplendent in kentes of adinkira cloth. At one point, while Nkrumah was speaking his mission school English, liltingly, reminding Max of a West Indian (when really, it was the West Indian sounding like an African), the ministers looked strikingly familiar; they looked like what Hamlet must have seen to have spoken his line about the insolence of office. They were also like the familiar portraits of American and European Latin leaders newly come to power, like British East India merchants benign at the first gathering of the people.

Max slipped out of the hall and found a three-for-one joint across the street. One day, he told himself, he was going to find a four-for-one joint and drink himself to death. The bartender lined up his three drinks and Max sat facing the street where the long glistening cars, cops in white gloves and Negroes on no one's invitation list lingered. Let it run its course, Max thought. He was remembering what Harry had said about Africa and Africans. (Better—what Harry
hadn't
said.) But what had that to do with him? He hadn't been to Africa.

Nkrumah came out, surrounded by dark suits with white faces coming out of them. Then came his ministers and Dallas. Nkrumah waved, the print dresses and spring suits cheered, laughed and waved back. Cops ran about, clearing the streets. Motorcycle engines blasted through the uproar and snarled away beside the softly purring long cars.

The next evening the feverish preparations for the banquet in Nkrumah's honor at the Waldorf had been completed. The invitations had gone out and the responses, along with the money, had come in. Maida had been interviewing as many Africans as she could lay her hands on (or put body to, for that matter, for that was about the time she had started to go, Max watching with undistressed eyes) and had been offered positions in the various broadcasting houses of the countries that would be coming independent. Max watched her go. He was making progress. They had stopped looking for the thing in his face; it was no longer that psychic thing, but the material: contacts, shared acclaim. No, there didn't seem to be any more Boatwrights or Marys or Reginas. Now there were the Maidas and the Dallases. A fox wasn't a fox for nothing. Foxlike she came and foxlike she went, on the hustle, and one day would retire to the home one of her lovers, a seventy-year-old man, had bought her shortly before she sent him (he could imagine it) on a pelvis-twisting ride to the next world. You had to admire Maida. She played fair. She was faithful, absolutely faithful, until something better came along. He sure would miss that pussy. Sure would.

At the banquet Max watched them, the Africans, the Negroes, the whites in their dinner jackets, gowns, shamas, kentes and agbadas: the press corps eating and drinking and stuffing the prepared speeches into their pockets; the honored guests, a hundred or so, jammed on the dais; Nkrumah in purple (Like that, is it? Max thought), the forepart of his head shining. The speeches were endless and were given by an endless number of people. A film was shown. A group of American Negroes with an African-sounding name played drums and danced. And then, at last, it was over.

Max had been stalking a redhead all evening, but somehow she eluded him and when he last saw her, she was leaving with one of the ministers. He was high and didn't want to sleep alone. As the banquet hall was thinning out he was already thinking of women he might call and then:

“Are you Max Reddick?” He could not tell how old the woman was and he didn't really care. “
Are
you Max Reddick?” She smiled then, a little uncertainly. She was wearing an Ethiopian shama.

“Yes,” he said. Another live one. Thanks, Lord. Ah, well, once more into the breach.

Every time he thought of Africa, he thought of that night, the banquet and the fates that had brought to his bed a Chinese girl wearing an Ethiopian shama. That was the way to remember things.

It was 1958 and Max Reddick had been at
Pace
four years. Oscar Dempsey was well aware of the fact that within that time a number of editors had joined other magazines or newspapers or television networks. Others had taken lucrative public relations jobs. Reddick had had one promotion—to assistant editor, but he was forty-three years old. Thirty-nine hadn't sounded so bad when he first came; but forty-three had a definite ring to it, as if a man was walking hard along the neck of his future, close to success or failure. It was a source of embarrassment to Dempsey that he hadn't yet found the right niche for Reddick. At forty-three a
Pace
-man usually was a bureau chief or senior editor. Every damned bureau chief on the staff now had come to his post only within the past two years, replacing the men who had left the magazine. And you just didn't kick out senior editors whose places would have to be taken by people who had been on the staff longer than Reddick. Dempsey had made the usual compensations: raises and occasional junkets; plush, although brief assignments—that American Negro expatriate piece for example. That had sent Reddick back to Europe for a few weeks, and it had gotten good responses. And Dempsey had managed to get Reddick known to some Washington people after the second Stevenson campaign. That could pay off. A lot of those guys down there were looking over their shoulders at the Negro vote and some were turning to Negroes for advice and counsel and speechwriting help in the area of civil rights.

There was Africa, of course. Shea had been after him about it. It was true that Africa had been mentioned in the original deal to get Reddick to come to
Pace
. Things
were
going on there: Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, the Algerian War (must cable Paris about De Gaulle); the Sudan, Ghana, Guinea due to become independent in the fall. Next year, who knew? And the year after?
Pace
could depend on stringers and the wire services, but there was nothing like having your own people on the scene. Max Reddick bureau chief? Max Reddick a one-man bureau? Dempsey always sighed when he came to that idea. So many guys on the magazine deserved that job, including Reddick. His work had more than rounded out the liberal outlook of the magazine in contrast to the other books around. Dempsey had made no bones about it;
Pace
was in this civil rights thing until it was achieved. What to do? You couldn't leave a man with Reddick's talents sitting down in that cell at forty-three years of age. Someone might come along and offer him a good thing; you had to keep him satisfied at least. But, goddamnit! There were others, Devoe for example, who deserved something, too.

Mannie Devoe was now assured beyond any doubt that Reddick was not a threat to him, but he did wish the guys upstairs would make their move with him; obviously, they had to and soon. They'd find the right niche. They always did. It was 1958 and things were getting a bit sticky racially. Little Rock had done a great deal to draw the lines. That too had been the time at which Negroes could start depending upon the press, for the press corps with its beaten bodies and smashed cameras had perceived for the first time just how important civil rights was going to be to the nation. And Minister Q was becoming more vocal and
Pace
—Devoe could not determine who upstairs was responsible for all the Minister's coverage—at least cautiously, now seemed to prefer him to the Reverend Paul Durrell. Most of the New York City press corps preferred the Minister. Devoe could not understand that. Nonviolence was a goddamn valid philosophy. Devoe wondered if Reddick believed in it.

At the moment Max was not believing in anything. He was sitting in his cubicle writing down the names of the women he'd slept with from puberty on. He was tired; he never seemed to get enough rest these days, and he was irritable from the onset of rectal trouble once more. All this combined to make him disgusted with The Magazine. He knew his work had been good; no one had to tell him that. He had reached, it seemed, the plateau where a decision had to be made. It didn't look as if anyone was going to make it for him. When he saw Dempsey in the halls, Dempsey, with an empty smile on his face, was always in a hurry. There was more than one decision to be made. The first was whether to quit
Pace
or not, despite the fact that he had received none of the lucrative bids, political or otherwise, that were besieging the “right kind” of Negro. It would be, then, just a naked decision to quit.

Max listed another two names and smiled, the memories surrounding those two names being pleasant. If he quit then,
then
he would be able to add new names from the ranks of researchers and secretaries. Not before.

He had come to have more respect for the contemporary press than he had ever had before. The times were forcing it to be honest at last. But there were some points at which honesty went too far. The press did not always report the words of the Presidents. One day the press would be able to quote the President who said of his opponent, “
I had that sonofabitch so mixed up, he couldn't grab his ass with either hand.
” The cats in the office had fallen out for days when that one came in. A lot of people would love the man who said that, but the bluestockings wouldn't and there were a lot of bluestockings or people who wished they were. What the hell,
Pace
was no better and no worse than the rest of the books. And probably just a little bit better.

Max circled Lillian's name and stared at it. He crossed it out and continued on with his list.

But the first decision: Africa had been mentioned a long time ago. It had been dropped from all conversations.
Pace
didn't have a single man there. A lot of British stringers, a few French cats, AP and Reuters, nothing more. It was foolish to think that Dempsey would consider sending him to Paris or London or even to Washington. There were too many guys in line ahead of him. No, if Dempsey was thinking at all, he was thinking of Africa.

Max had recognized the Negro expatriate assignment for what it was—a consolation for
Pace
's inability to move him up, down or sideways. It had been nice going about, staying at the good hotels on
Pace
's money. Roger Wilkinson had met him at Orly—Harry had been knee-deep in maneuverings to secure the Nobel Prize for Literature that afternoon—and after a few days in Paris, off Max had gone, interviewing Negroes in seven countries. They were actors, singers, dancers, musicians, conductors, composers, painters, cartoonists, writers, sculptors—they had been everything and everywhere in Western Europe, as a Black Diaspora. Their color had forced them out of America and they were not looking to the day when it would force them back; they didn't think that day would ever come. At the end of the assignment, Max returned to Paris to see Harry and only then did he understand that he, too, was growing old. Harry was just about fifty, Charlotte, forty-seven. Little Max—
little?
—had pimples and a deepening voice. Both Michelle and Charlotte were carefully tending crowsfeet around the eyes and creaming their faces heavily. But both looked good. Paris had changed, the cafe had been painted. There were more cars, more noise, a certain hectic atmosphere shattered from time to time by the plastic bombs of the Algerians. Cops manned roadblocks with automatic rifles, firing first and asking questions afterward.

Max and Harry had spent a day in the country walking and talking, exchanging news of mutual acquaintances. Harry had questioned him about Minister Q and Paul Durrell. Harry had been exhausted and embittered with many things and he had worked in vain to corner the Nobel Prize.

Recalling that afternoon, Max became aware of the second decision he had to make: should he continue writing after he finished his present novel? What happened to a novelist who was Negro at age forty-three with six published novels that had sold fewer than six thousand hardcover copies all total? He was floating over the abyss he had described to Harry; it was an eerie feeling. Max knew what the editors said about him: he drank a lot (but he seldom lost his cool) and liked white women. Hell, one dealt with the materials at hand. A Phoenician used the glass formed by the heat of his pot on sand; a Bushman stored water in the ostrich eggs he found crossing the Kalahari. Why should he not go out with women he knew, even if they were white? But just any excuse would do for them.