Chester Himes - If he hollers let him go

'I suppose you know you got me demoted,' I said finally, realizing instantly it was the worst possible thing I could have said. It acknowledged her power over me, and that was wrong.

Now she could play it any way she wanted, magnanimous or condescending. Instead she played it true to form. 'You oughtn'ta called me no slut,' she slurred. 'You don't know me that well.'

I jerked around and looked at her. She wore a maddening, teasing smile and her eyes were laughing at me. I went so blind mad I was petrified. Not mad at her; at myself for being pushed around by a notion. If you could just get over the notion, women were the same, black or white.

I knew that getting mad was bad, it gave her the lead. So I dug myself out, got a smile to match her own, and said, 'You'll make a man slap you one of these days, do you know that?'

'Now you know, I don't hardly understand you,' she said, taking a bite of pork-chop sandwich and fluttering her mascaraed lashes. 'You talk so funny.' She giggled. 'Is this the first time you ever talked to a white lady?'

'Look, baby, let Texas rest. You know the score, probably better than me. Let's stop clowning and get together-' I broke off. 'Look, what you doing tonight? How 'bout running with me? I know some fine spots where it'll be okay.' I could see her drawing in a little and I rushed on. 'You won't be the only white girl there.' Then I said, 'Look, baby, you really get me.'

At that she turned and said, 'You talks so fast, first you wanna jump on me and now you wanna date me.' Then she killed me with her smile.

'Look-' I began again, broke off as the other woman came up with a piece of pie and two cups of coffee.

'I brung you some coffee, Madge. I declare, how you eat those dry poke-chop sandwiches is-' She was rattling off in a Southern dialect broader than Madge's when suddenly she caught sight of me. She had seen me without seeing me. She had thought I was just sitting there eating my lunch, as close to a white girl as I could get, and she'd been prepared to endure it since the joint wasn't Jim Crowed. But when she realized that I was among those present she stopped abruptly, her voice suspended in mid-air and her mouth hanging open. Her eyes went quickly to Madge's, seeking an explanation.

Madge took the coffee and placed it on the ground beside her. 'I'd rather choke than stand in that durn line,' she said casually, and then as if it was the most commonplace thing in the world, she introduced me. 'Elsie, this is Bob. He's a leaderman with the sheet-metal gang. Me and him had a fight but we done made up. Elsie is my sister-in-law,' she said to me.

'Hello, Elsie,' I said.

Elsie gave me a sharp quick glance, then looked away. She set her coffee carefully on the ground, then carefully sat herself down. Her actions were slightly dazed, as if she was trying to acquaint a slow mentality to the situation. Finally, when she got it all straightened out, she gave me a perfunctory smile.

'Howdedo,' she said, fanning herself with a piece of newspaper. 'Sho is hot.' She laid the paper down and opened her lunch. 'Lotta coloured boys working in 'dustry nowadays, right 'long with white people,' she observed, taking out a ham sandwich and nibbling at it daintily. 'You frum the South?'

I could feel Madge's gaze on me, and although I didn't look I knew she still wore that teasing smile. 'No, I'm from Ohio,' I said.

Elsie brushed it aside. 'I always says it ain't no more'n right. Coloured folks got much right to earn these good wages as white while we fighting this war. It's partly their country too, I always says. I was telling Lem-your uncle,' she said to Madge, 'just the other day that coloured folks got just as much right to earn these wages as we has. We believe in democracy over here and as I says to Lem, if we can just keep these Reds frum getting hold of the country we can keep our American way of living so everybody'll be happy.'

'Elsie is a democrat,' Madge put in. I couldn't tell whether to lessen the tension or prepare myself for the worst.

'So am I,' I said; I didn't want any argument either, but I couldn't help but add, 'Not a Southern one, however.'

'There's some mighty good coloured boys frum the South,' Elsie went on through a mouthful of food. She washed it down with coffee. 'I declare, the coffee they make…' She grimaced. 'Now me and Madge are from Texas-Breckenridge, Texas. We went to Houston when the war broke out, then we got an itching to come to California.'

'I hear there're shipyards in Houston,' I began, but she didn't give anybody a chance to talk.

'Course it's different in Texas. The coloured folks there like to be by themselves, so we just let 'em go ahead and don't bother with 'em. Don't have no trouble and everybody is happy. I used to tell my husband-that's Madge's brother, he was killed in an automobile accident in Amarillo-I used to tell Henry that if everybody understood coloured folks like we do in the South there wouldn't be all this trouble.' She gave them a bright, toothy smile. 'Now tell the truth, you'd rather be with your own folks any day, wouldn't you?'

I got salty. 'If you're trying to tell me in a nice way you don't want my company-'

She threw up her hands and cut me off. 'I declare, you coloured folks frum California is so sensitive. Coloured boys in Texas know better'n to sit beside a white woman. Not that I mind if Madge don't. It's just that most coloured folks like to stay to themselves. That's why we ain't never had no trouble in Texas. All these riots in Detroit and New York and Chicago-it come from all this mixing up. I always say it ain't because white people is all that much better'n coloured folks-there's some mighty good coloured folks and some white people ain't worth their salt. And it ain't because white people hate coloured folks neither. We love coloured folks in Texas, and I bet you a silver dollar coloured folks love us too. I even know coloured folks what's educated. There's a coloured doctor in Amarillo went to school and graduated. It's just that white people is white. We're different frum coloured people. The Lord God above made us white and made you folks coloured. If He'da wanted to, He coulda made you folks white and us people coloured. But he made us white 'cause he wanted us the same colour as Him. "I will make thee in My Image," He said, and that's what He done. And the sooner you coloured folks learn that, the sooner you understand that God made you coloured 'cause he wanted to, 'cause when He made us in His Image He had to make somebody else to fill up the world, so He made you. Not that I say coloured folks should have to serve white people, but you know yo'self God got dark angels in heaven what serve the white ones-that's in the Bible plain enough for anybody to see. And the sooner you coloured folks learn that, then the better off you'll be.'

'Don't pay no 'tention to Elsie,' Madge said to me as soon as she caught an opening. 'She just homesick, that's all.'

'Yes, I'm homesick, I'll tell anybody,' Elsie confessed. 'Too many Jews and Mexicans in this city for me, and if there's any folks I hate it's-'

'Your husband Elsie's brother?' I asked Madge, cutting Elsie off.

Madge gave me a startled, sidewise glance, then laughed. 'No, Elsie married my brother. My husband's in the service in-'

'Tell the truth!' Elsie broke in. 'You know well as you sitting there George is in Arkansas with another woman. He's too old for the service anyhow.'

Madge didn't like that. 'I heered he joined up. Lem told me-'

'Lem ain't told you no such thing,' Elsie snapped. 'I declare-'

I had to break it up again. 'You and Elsie live together?' I asked.

'No, Elsie lives with-' Madge began, but Elsie hunched her. 'Don't go telling your business to ev'ybody come along,' she said, then turned to me. 'I declare, boy, you ain't et a thing, and lunchtime is almost-' The whistled stopped her that time.