Just Above My Head Page 43
Silence, like a tempest, fell when the choir sat down, and Mrs. Reed stood up and came forward. She was too short to stand behind the pulpit—she stood beside it, leaning on it with one hand.
“There’s no need,” she said with a smile, “to say why we’re here tonight. We know why we’re here, and so do all those motorists outside. They never before been so quiet when they come down here to find out how we doing.”
She laughed, and the church laughed with her, a good-natured, growling sound.
“We got microphones placed outside the church—and, I guess, they got some microphones placed inside the church—and so, I just want to let them all know”—and she raised her voice—“that they are welcome. They are welcome to hear the truth. The truth can set even the governor free. The truth heals everybody. Might even cause you to get up off”—she paused, and shook her shoulders, a delicate, loaded pause—“your motorcycles, and walk!”
She laughed again, and again, the church responded with that deep, good-natured growl.
“But I’m not here to keep you long. As I say, we know why we’re here. We’re here raising money to get our children off the chain gang, and out of prison. We’re here to let everybody know that every human being was born to be free!”
The church roared, she subsided, raising one hand.
“I don’t want to get carried away here, tonight. I’m going to ask Reverend Williams to open the service for us, and then, we going to hear some witnesses.” She paused, and smiled. “For those of you who don’t know him, Reverend Williams is a freedom fighter from over yonder, in Tennessee.”
And she turned, extending her hand, and a young white man, with dark blue eyes, and rough, unruly black hair, and a face which appeared to have taken more than its share of punishment, stepped forward. I had not seen him. He had been sitting directly behind the pulpit, and the pulpit blocked my view. I was shocked, but the church wasn’t. They seemed to know him. He looked, to me, exactly like one of the cops outside.
But then, as he began to talk, I began to wonder if he was white. I remembered, suddenly, that thousands of black people cross the color line every year; become white Christians without even having to bob their noses, or change their names; they just change neighborhoods. No doubt, for this, they pay another price, a hidden price: but the price the country exacts from them for being white is exactly the price the country pays—for being white—and the price is incoherence.
Reverend Williams was not incoherent, which may be why I wondered if he was white. “I was born on a little farm in Tennessee,” he said, revealing that he still had nearly all of his teeth, “and all I remember of the beginning of my life is misery and drudgery. I know a lot of people in this country say that you can work yourself up by your bootstraps. That’s a little like Marie Antoinette telling the people to eat cake. That’s what she did, when there weren’t no bread in the palace. You can’t talk about bootstraps unless you got boots, and, Lord knows, we didn’t have no boots. I got bunions on the soles of my feet, but I ain’t got no corns on my toes. Me and boots were strangers—I still feel funny when I pull on my shoes.”
The church was silent, causing me to wonder if he were black or white. I realized that the question had never before occurred to me in quite this way.
“We’re here,” he said, “to get something so simple nobody believes it. To get respect for our labor, respect for each other’s lives, and a future for our children. That’s all. God bless us all. I’m going back to Tennessee, and see you all soon.”
He smiled, and waved, and went back to his seat.
I saw Mr. Reed lead Peanut to the side of the pulpit. Someone found a chair for him. Mr. Reed placed himself against the wall, with his arms folded. Something in his easy alertness made me realize that he, and the other casual men, had every exit and entrance to this church, and the pulpit, under surveillance. They were working.
I wondered about Reverend Williams. I was to wonder about him for many years: I do not mean this particular Reverend Williams, though it might turn out, through some hitherto unpublished FBI report, that I mean him, too.
In those years, one spoke to so many people, so many people spoke to you, one moved through crowds; and there was no way of knowing who you were talking to, who had stopped you, to shake your hand, or to ask your presence at yet another rally. And here, color did not matter at all. There were the people who could not live without causes, who appeared to live entirely by means of famines, floods, and earthquakes; these were mostly white, but by no means always. For me, they were the lame, the halt, the blind, the forbidden, the poor to whom nothing could be given because they had no way of receiving anything, creatures who didn’t even have a home in the rock. There were white chicks, like groupies, as we would now say, hitching Freedom Rides because they were mad at Daddy, or were jealous of Mama’s new lover, or had just had an abortion, or wanted a big, black dick shoved in them—and okay, why not? All motives are complex, but it’s dangerous not to know that. Or white boys with motives yet more impenetrable, trying to exorcise their terror of black men by, at once, instructing and imitating them, and, Lord, the ancient Marxists, whose historical parallels simply had no relevance, and the wealthy liberals who signed checks and appeared at rallies, but who ran for cover when the going got rough and became “bored” with the struggle when the struggle moved north, and, therefore, somewhat closer to their checkbooks.
But these people, on the whole, were part of the price, came with the territory, one understood them and couldn’t put them down, and they had, after all, a certain limited value. They were not wicked, or no more wicked than their weakness dictated, and some of them superbly, magnificently, transcended themselves and delivered on a promise they had scarcely been aware of making. They were not so very different, after all, when the chips were down, from myself—I, too, dreamed of safety: it was my luck, and not my desire, that cut the dream short. The really wicked, dangerous people were the informers, the FBI infiltrators, both black and white, who looked and sounded exactly like Reverend Williams. We didn’t know who these people were, and could not possibly have known, not until long, long after the damage had been done.
Well. After Reverend Williams, there came others, Mrs. Reed introducing them, as indefatigable as her husband, and far more visible. Nothing new was being said—in a sense; yet it was new for me, because the covered defiance is one force, and it is certainly better not to underestimate that force: but the open defiance is another force, and, while I had seen this force in some individuals, I had never witnessed it collectively. We were, after all, in a small town in the South, not far from John Brown’s body: and John Brown, because his views on slavery had been “immoderate,” had been hanged by the government of the United States. The “motorists” outside carried guns and clubs and had not been assigned to this place, this evening, for the purpose of protecting our lives. They were there to protect their stolen property, every inch of this land having been stolen: the government of the United States once passed laws protecting my “owners” against theft. Our lives had meant nothing then; our lives meant nothing now. The impulse and the assignment of the motorists was to find an opportunity to hang us—to hang John Brown. They couldn’t this evening, or they couldn’t yet: this intelligence had been conveyed to them by John Brown’s hangmen, the people for whom they worked. But the moment they could, they would; the moment they could, they did. I will tell you about that in a moment, for I watched it. John Brown’s body.
In the center of my mind, in a new way entirely, was the danger in which my brother stood—or, more precisely, at this moment, sat. It seemed incredible to me that the simple, smiling, nappy-headed mother could possibly follow John Brown. (Oh, John! Don’t you write no more!)
I watched Peanut being led to the piano. I had never before realized how tall and heavy he was—perhaps he had not, before, been so tall and heavy. I watched him shake hands with the church pianist. I had never before seen his courtesy, a real, a roote
d courtesy—style: this is me. Who are you?
But I realized that this meant that Arthur was about to come on, and Mrs. Reed stood up.
“We have with us tonight,” she said, “a singer from New York. We been trying to get him down here for the longest while, and”—she caught her breath, and smiled—“I won’t tell you exactly how we did it, but we finally got him down here. It seemed to us, to us who heard him, that he was—singing about us. He is us. He’s being accompanied by”—she looked at a piece of paper she held—“Mr. Alexander T. Brown. Ladies and gentlemen: Mr. Arthur Montana.”
She sat, and Arthur rose, stepping down from the pulpit to join Peanut at the piano. There was a brief pause, a small rustling in the church, a cough. Peanut and Arthur looked at each other, Arthur nodded, and Peanut hit the keys.
It was an old song: it sounded, at this moment, and in this place, older than the oldest trees.
Through shady, green pastures,
So rich and so sweet
There was an indescribable hum of approbation and delight: for, at this moment and in this place, the song was new, was being made new.
God leads His dear children along.
I watched my brother with a new wonder, feeling the power of the people at my back, and all around me. It seemed to us, to us who heard him, that he was singing about us. And so it did, as though a design long hidden was being revealed. He is—us.
Where the flow of cool water
Bathes the weary one’s feet
Without a sound, I heard the church sing with him, anticipating, one line, one beat, ahead of him.
God leads His dear children along.
He looked straight out at the people, raising his voice, so that the motorists and the governor could hear:
Some,
through the water
I watched Mrs. Reed’s witnessing face, and the faces of the men on the wall. The organ now joined in, and the drum began to bear slow and solemn witness.
Some,
through the flood
The church had still not made a sound: it was as though all their passion were coming through that one voice. And now, it was not only this time and this place. The enormity of the miles behind us began to be as real as the stones of the road on which we had presently set our feet.
Some,
through the fire,
but all
through His blood.
Mrs. Reed nodded her head and tapped one foot, looking down, looking far down.
Some,
through great sorrow!
And she raised her head, looking out. The church had still not made a sound, yet it was filled with thunder.
When God gave a song
If I had been among the motorists, or if I had been the governor, I think I would have been afraid. I might even have fallen on my knees. I was rocked, from the very center of my soul, I was rocked: and still, the people had not made a sound.
In the night season,
and all
the day long.
I felt a vast heaving, a collective exhaling, as though no one had been able to breathe until Arthur had reached the end of the beginning of the song. And now, indeed, I heard the voice of an old woman, saying, as out of the immense, the fiery cloud of the past, yes, child, sing it, and Arthur stepped forward, stretching out his arms, inviting the church to bear witness to his testimony:
Have you been through the water?
Have you been through the flood?
And the answer rolled back, not loud, low, coming from the deep, Yes, Lord!
Have you been through the fire?
The organ and the drum and the people responded, and the choir now joined Arthur:
Are you washed in His blood?
And that mighty silence fell again, as Arthur paused, threw back his head, throwing his voice out, out, beyond the motorists and the governor, and the blood-stained trees, trees blood-stained forever:
Have you been through
great sorrow?
The organ and the drum, the choir, and the people, Mrs. Reed’s face, the faces of the men on the wall, a tremendous exhaling as the song dropped to its close,
when God gave a song,
in the night season,
and all
the day long.
Church-raised people don’t applaud as a rule, were raised not to—spectators applaud, but there are no spectators in the church: they let you know by the sound of their voices, with Hallelujah! and Amen! and Bless the Lord! and by the light on their faces. Peanut and Arthur went into their next number,
I woke up this morning
with my mind
stayed
on freedom!
joined by the tambourines, the organ, and the drum, and I looked around me. But I hardly needed to look around me, as the song says, it was all over me, it was deep inside me, a tremendous, pulsing joy and strength.
Hallelu,
Hallelu,
Hallelujah!
And yet, the motorists were still outside, we would have to get past them to get home. One of us, or some of us, might not live through the night: some of us, certainly, would not live through the year. And this was not a matter of one’s inevitable mortality, of a man going round taking names: it is one thing to know that you are going to die and something else to know that you may be murdered. We knew that we could hope for neither help nor mercy from the people in whose hands we found ourselves, our co-citizens, some, literally, our blood-kin, flesh of our flesh. Yet the joy and power I felt in myself and all around me, was no less real than our danger, had brought us- through many hard trials: would be forced to bring us through many more, for many more were coming. And it was something like this I had felt, upon arriving at Mrs. Reed’s neat house, on her tree-lined street: I was glad, I was relieved, to be where I belonged. This sounds insane, of course, for I did not know the South, had never been here, did not know Mrs. Reed, or anything about her, had been frightened all the way here, for my brother, for myself, for Peanut—and yet, once I had arrived, I was glad. It was as though something had been waiting here for me, something that I needed. And it was this that Mrs. Reed had meant when she said that Arthur sounded as though he were “singing for us.” Arthur had been determined to get here, and, I don’t know, I was certain that now, just like me, without being able—or needing—to articulate it, he knew why.
Anyway, here we were, the meeting was breaking up, and we had to get through the motorists and go home. Peanut and Arthur were surrounded, people trying to get them to appear here, or there. Peanut had his notebook out, a green leather notebook, with a clasp; he was taking care of business, synchronizing watches. Arthur was being charming, but I knew he was exhausted, and I wanted to get him home, to Mrs. Reed’s. I thought of taking over Peanut’s role, but Peanut seemed to be doing all right. Anyway, it was not my role yet, and, let’s tell the truth, I was terrified of standing in that relation to Arthur, I was frightened of what he might see in me. And I had just been offered a better job—well, a job that paid more—in the advertising department of a black magazine, and I thought that I might take it. At least, it would get me away from Faulkner, who wasn’t going to give me any rest until I beat the living shit out of him. Well. I put all that at the back of my mind. At the moment, I had to get Arthur inside someplace, near a bed.
Most of the cars and motorists had gone when we stepped out of the church. Those who were left gave us a contemptuous once-over, and then elaborately ignored us.
Peanut and Arthur and Mr. Reed walked together, a little ahead of Mrs. Reed and me.
“I don’t,” Mrs. Reed whispered, “know which is worse—when you see them, or when you don’t.”
Across the street, one of the motorists, a youngster, leaned, with his arms folded, against his motorcycle. As we passed, he turned his face and spat on the ground at his feet.
I knew enough, already, not to look in his direction. We got in the car, and drove away.
But that put
s it too simply. We had all geared ourselves to leave the church and walk into the street. In the street, we did not dawdle. People said their last good-byes quickly, and dispersed. The air was palpable with humiliation, with frustration, with hatred, with fear. The nerves of the men on the motorcycles and those of the men in the cars had been stretched to the breaking point. After all, they had been put through an utterly grueling ordeal, standing outside while the niggers inside sang and speechified and plotted against them—openly—and, sometimes, taunted them. It was best to remove oneself from their sight as quickly as possible—they, literally, could not bear looking at you. Anything could be used as an excuse for violence, if not murder, or one of them might, simply, go mad, and release his pent-up orgasm—for their balls were aching. You could damn near smell it. One walked, therefore, neither slow nor fast, and kept one’s eyes focused on some invisible object beyond them. Then, one reached the car, unlocked it, opened it, piled in, locked the doors. No one looked back. One prayed that the motor would start with no trouble, and, when it had, maneuvered very carefully past them, and away. Only then did one let out one’s breath, and, even then, no one looked back. If we were being followed, we’d know it soon enough.
There was something in it so ironic, so wasteful. A beautiful night, a beautiful land: I had watched it as we drove here, watched it now, as we drove through it. All the years that we spent in and out of the South, I always wanted to say to those poor white people, so busy turning themselves and their children into monsters: Look. It’s not we who can’t forget. You can’t forget. We don’t spend all our waking and sleeping hours tormented by your presence. We have other things to do: don’t you have anything else to do? But maybe you don’t. Maybe you really don’t. Maybe the difference between us is that I never raped your mother, or your sister, or if and when I did, it was out of rage, it was not my way of life. Sometimes I even loved your mother, or your sister, and sometimes they loved me: but I can say that to you. You can’t say that to me, you don’t know how. You can’t remember it, and you can’t forget it. You can’t forget the black breasts that gave you milk: but you don’t dare remember, either. Maybe the difference between us is that it might have been my mother’s or my grandmother’s breasts you sucked at, and she never taught me to hate you: who can hate a baby? But you can: that’s why you call me Tar Baby. Maybe the difference between us is that I’ve never been afraid of the prick you, like all men, carry between their legs and I never arranged picnics so that I could cut it off of you before large, cheering crowds. By the way, what did you do with my prick once you’d cut the black thing off and held it in your hands? You couldn’t have bleached it—could you? You couldn’t have cut yours off and sewn mine on? Is it standing on your mantelpiece now, in a glass jar, or did you nail it to the wall? Or did you eat it? How did it taste? Was it nourishing? Ah. The cat seems to have your tongue, sir. Tell you one thing: that God you found is a very sick dude. I’d check him out again, if I was you. I think He’s laughing at you—I tell you like a friend. He’s made it so that you can’t see the grass or the trees or the sky or your woman or your brother or your child or me. Because you don’t see me. Your God has dropped me like a black cloud before your eyes. You make a mistake when you think I want to do anything to harm you. I don’t. I really don’t. But, even if I did, I don’t have to: you, and your God are doing a much better job of harming you than I could begin to dream of. And that means that everything you think you have, and are holding on to, does not belong to you. I always think of the patient Indian. His land was stolen from him, but that does not mean that it belongs to you: he knows that, and you know that. And the Indian has never escaped the land which belongs to him: you can’t escape anything that belongs to you—but your God has no sense of time. And I know that those who find their lives intolerable are impelled to attempt to destroy everything that lives. But, no matter how hard you try, you will not succeed in drying up the sea and destroying life on earth. Already, here in the North American wilderness, other gods have checked you; now other gods will stop you. Rub your eyes, my brother, and start again. Peace be with you.