Chester Himes - If he hollers let him go

I stood trembling in a strange bewilderment. The din of activity from without vaguely penetrating my consciousness-the shouts, the threats, the pleas-had no meaning in my mind. My reason was shattered; my senses outraged.

There were only the two of us in pressing chaos. Looking at each other; our eyes locked together as in a death embrace; black and white in both our minds; not hating each other; just feeling extreme outrage. I felt buck-naked and powerless, stripped of my manhood and black against the whole white world.

Then I came out of it. Sanity returned. I started toward the door to open it. 'Wait, I'll let you in,' I shouted above the din. 'Wait, this woman is crazy!'

I touched the latch; snatched my hand away. It was burning hot. 'Wait, goddamnit!' I shouted, looking around at Madge. She hadn't moved; she lay on the deck in a daze. Her mouth was half open and her eyes looked glazed. I thought for a moment she was dead.

Sparks showered into the room where the burner had cut through. I stepped over and shook her to see if she was alive, fighting against panic. Without moving she said in a low flat voice, 'I'm gonna get you lynched, you nigger bastard.'

Out of the corner of my eye I could see the door swinging inward; people were surging into the room from the companionway. I saw a hundred million white faces, distorted with rage.

For one fleeting moment I tried to talk. 'Goddamnit, listen,' I shouted.

A fist in my mouth cut it off. The sight of one hard hating face across my vision shook loose my reason again. Now I was moved by a rage, impelled by it, set into motion by it, lacerated by it. I started hitting, kicking, butting, biting, pushing. I carried the mob outside into the companionway, striking at faces, kicking at bodies. Somebody fell and I stepped on him. The soft roll of muscle over bone sent goose flesh through me. I looked up, saw a white guy wielding a sledge hammer, his face sculptured in unleashed fury. A flat cold wave of terror spread out underneath my skull, freezing the roots of my hair.

I wheeled into the tight mob of bodies, half squatted, put my arms about three pairs of legs, straightened up with the strength of insanity. I threw them back over my shoulder in the direction of the guy with the sledge, started a mad surging rush forward that got me through to the midship companionway; went into a flailing spin that freed me for an instant, started down the jack ladder toward the engine room.

A guy leaned over the hole and swung at my head with a ballpeen hammer. I was going down forward with my hands on the railings and saw the hammer coming. It didn't look like a hard blow; it looked as though it floated into me. I saw the guy's face, not particularly malevolent, just disfigured, a white man hitting at a nigger running by. But I couldn't do a thing; I couldn't let go the railing to get my hands up; couldn't even duck. I didn't feel the blow; just the explosion starting at a point underneath my skull and filling my head with a great flaming roar. And then what seemed like falling a million miles through space and hitting something hard to splatter into pieces.

I came to once as I lay crumpled on the deck at the bottom of the ladder. A lot of guys were kicking me. Then again when I was being lifted from the ambulance on a stretcher. I was in a sort of half and half state when the doctors began working on me. I remember swallowing some pills and getting a shot in the arm; and I felt it when they shaved my head and clamped the metal stitches in my skull. They were doing something to my mouth when I just drifted on away.

When I came to again I was in the room back of minor surgery, lying on a cot. My mouth felt dry, cottony; and my head throbbed with a steady ache.

Then I saw the guard sitting in a chair by the door, puffing slowly on a pipe. He was huge, tremendous, the biggest man I'd ever seen, with a squarish, knotty, weather-reddened face, and small colourless eyes, cold and inscrutable. When he saw I was looking at him he got on a look of joviality that didn't change the expression of his eyes at all.

'You're a lucky boy,' he said in a big intimidating voice, and got that phoney lipless smile that the coppers down at the old Thirty-seventh Street station in Cleveland were famous for when they beat a Negro half to death with a loaded hose. 'No bones broke. All in one piece. Just skinned up a little.'

I looked away from him without replying, threw back the covers, propped myself up on my elbows. The slight movement sent the pain through my body. I was nude. My knees, elbows, and one wrist were bandaged and taped and I was splotched all over with mercurochrome. I reached for my head, felt the thick turban of bandages. My face felt raw and my lips were swollen several times their natural size. I explored with my tongue and felt teeth out in front but I couldn't tell how many. I hurt in the groin as if I was ruptured.

I lay back and closed my eyes and tried to remember just what had happened. But my brain was fuzzy. It wouldn't come back clear. I remembered Madge screaming. Then I'd gone panicky. Then I remembered her lying there on the deck, saying, 'I'm gonna get you lynched.. ' Well, she got me lynched all right.

But something was missing. Something important. Then suddenly I knew what it was. I hadn't even tried to rape her; I'd been trying to get away from her. I'd gone up there to case the new job for the gang and had run into her accidentally. She'd kept me there, cornered me, hadn't let me go. I'd wanted to go, but she hadn't let me. She couldn't get away with that. This wasn't Georgia.

I opened my eyes, propped myself up on my elbows again, and said, 'I didn't bother that woman. She's crazy!' My voice was a lisp. My lips felt like two big balloon tyres beating together. I had to push the words half formed through the gap in my teeth.

'I don't have nothing to do with that, sonny,' the guard said jovially. 'You'll have to tell it to somebody who knows more about it than me.'

'I'll tell anybody,' I lisped belligerently.

'There ain't anybody to tell,' he said. 'Now ain't that hell?'

I'd see somebody first thing in the morning, I thought, swinging my feet over the edge of the bed and sitting up. I was dizzy and had to brace myself with my hands. Hell, I'd see the president of the company. I'd get it straightened out. I wouldn't make any charges against the fellows for beating me up; I'd let that go. But I'd make the company pay my hospital bill, pay for fixing my teeth. And I'd get that bitch fired if it was the last thing I did. She couldn't get away with that, even if she was a white woman. But I wasn't worried, wasn't in any particular hurry.

'You wanna get dressed now?' the guard asked, nodding toward a cabinet. 'Your clothes are in there.'

When I stood up to go after them my knees wobbled; I had to catch hold of the foot of the bed to keep from falling. I felt out of balance, uncoupled, like a little tin soldier out of whack. When I took down my things I noticed dried blood about the collar of my coveralls and the upper part of my underwear shirt. I must have bled like a hog, I thought. Leaning against the cabinet to steady myself, I got into my underwear and coveralls without tearing off the bandages. But when I bent over to draw on my socks I almost fell forward on my face. And my ankles were swollen so I couldn't lace up my boots.

The guard sat there watching me curiously. 'Just as good as new,' he remarked jovially. 'By God, I never saw a man what could take so much punishment.'

I didn't see my watch, billfold, key ring, leather jacket, tin hat, or identifications. 'Where are my other things?' I asked, lisping the words carefully.

He chuckled. 'That tap on the noggin ain't bothered your memory any,' he said, pulling my watch, keys, and billfold from his pocket. 'Here you are, sonny. You're lucky somebody was good enough to turn 'em in.'