Ralph Ellison - Invisible man

But how far could I trust them, and in what way were they different from the trustees? Whatever, I was committed; I'd learn in the process of working with them, I thought, remembering the money. The bills were crisp and fresh and I tried to imagine Mary's surprise when I paid her all my back rent and board. She'd think that I was kidding. But money could never repay her generosity. She would never understand my wanting to move so quickly after getting a job. And if I had any kind of success at all, it would seem the height of ingratitude. How would I face her? She had asked for nothing in return. Or hardly anything, except that I make something of myself that she called a "race leader." I shivered in the cold. Telling her that I was moving would be a hard proposition. I didn't like to think of it, but one couldn't be sentimental. As Brother Jack had said, History makes harsh demands of us all. But they were demands that had to be met if men were to be the masters and not the victims of their times. Did I believe that? Perhaps I had already begun to pay. Besides, I might as well admit right now, I thought, that there are many things about people like Mary that I dislike. For one thing, they seldom know where their personalities end and yours begins; they usually think in terms of "we" while I have always tended to think in terms of "me" -- and that has caused some friction, even with my own family. Brother Jack and the others talked in terms of "we," but it was a different, bigger "we."

Well, I had a new name and new problems. I had best leave the old behind. Perhaps it would be best not to see Mary at all, just place the money in an envelope and leave it on the kitchen table where she'd be sure to find it. It would be better that way, I thought drowsily; then there'd be no need to stand before her and stumble over emotions and words that were at best all snarled up and undifferentiated ... One thing about the people at the Chthonian, they all seemed able to say just what they felt and meant in hard, clear terms. That too, I'd have to learn ... I stretched out beneath the covers, hearing the springs groan beneath me. The room was cold. I listened to the night sounds of the house. The clock ticked with empty urgency, as though trying to catch up with the time. In the street a siren howled.

Then I was awake and not awake, sitting bolt upright in bed and trying to peer through the sick gray light as I sought the meaning of the brash, nerve-jangling sound. Pushing the blanket aside I clasped my hands to my ears. Someone was pounding the steam line, and I stared helplessly for what seemed minutes. My ears throbbed. My side began itching violently and I tore open my pajamas to scratch, and suddenly the pain seemed to leap from my ears to my side and I saw gray marks appearing where the old skin was flaking away beneath my digging nails. And as I watched I saw thin lines of blood well up in the scratches, bringing pain and joining time and place again, and I thought, The room has lost its heat on my last day at Mary's, and suddenly I was sick at heart.

The clock, its alarm lost in the larger sound, said seven-thirty, and I got out of bed. I'd have to hurry. There was shopping to do before I called Brother Jack for my instructions and I had to get the money to Mary -- Why didn't they stop that noise? I reached for my shoes, flinching as the knocking seemed to sound an inch above my head. Why don't they stop, I thought. And why do I feel so let down? The bourbon? My nerves going bad?

Suddenly I was across the room in a bound, pounding the pipe furiously with my shoe heel.

"Stop it, you ignorant fool!"

My head was splitting. Beside myself, I struck pieces of silver from the pipe, exposing the black and rusted iron. He was using a piece of metal now, his blows ringing with a ragged edge.

If only I knew who it was, I thought, looking for something heavy with which to strike back. If only I knew!

Then near the door I saw something which I'd never noticed there before: the cast-iron figure of a very black, red-lipped and wide-mouthed Negro, whose white eyes stared up at me from the floor, his face an enormous grin, his single large black hand held palm up before his chest. It was a bank, a piece of early Americana, the kind of bank which, if a coin is placed in the hand and a lever pressed upon the back, will raise its arm and flip the coin into the grinning mouth. For a second I stopped, feeling hate charging within me, then dashed over and grabbed it, suddenly as enraged by the tolerance or lack of discrimination, or whatever, that allowed Mary to keep such a self-mocking image around, as by the knocking.

In my hand its expression seemed more of a strangulation than a grin. It was choking, filled to the throat with coins.

How the hell did it get here, I wondered, dashing over and striking the pipe a blow with the kinky iron head. "Shut up!" I screamed, which seemed only to enrage the hidden knocker. The din was deafening. Tenants up and down the entire line of apartments joined in. I hammered back with the iron naps, seeing the silver fly, striking like driven sand against my face. The pipe fairly hummed with the blows. Windows were going up. Voices yelled obscenities down the airshaft.

Who started all this, I wondered, who's responsible?

"Why don't you act like responsible people living in the twentieth century?" I yelled, aiming a blow at the pipe. "Get rid of your cottonpatch ways! Act civilized!"

Then came a crash of sound and I felt the iron head crumble and fly apart in my hand. Coins flew over the room like crickets, ringing, rattling against the floor, rolling. I stopped dead.

"Just listen to 'em! Just listen to 'em!" Mary called from the hall. "Enough noise to wake the dead! They know when the heat don't come up that the super's drunk or done walked off the job looking for his woman, or something. Why don't folks act according to what they know?"

She was at my door now, knocking stroke for stroke with the blows landing on the pipe, calling, "Son! Ain't some of that knocking coming from in there?"

I turned from side to side in indecision, looking at the pieces of broken head, the small coins of all denominations that were scattered about.

"You hear me, boy?" she called.

"What is it?" I called, dropping to the floor and reaching frantically for the broken pieces, thinking, If she opens the door, I'm lost ...

"I said is any of that racket coming from in there?"

"Yes, it is, Mary," I called, "but I'm all right ... I'm already awake."

I saw the knob move and froze, hearing, "Sounded to me like a heap of it was coming from in there. You got your clothes on?"

"No," I cried. "I'm just dressing. I'll have them on in a minute."

"Come on out to the kitchen," she said. "It's warm out there. And there's some hot water on the stove to wash your face in ... and some coffee. Lawd, just listen at the racket!"

I stood as though frozen, until she moved away from the door. I'd have to hurry. I kneeled, picking up a piece of the bank, a part of the red-shirted chest, reading the legend, FEED MEin a curve of white iron letters, like the team name on an athlete's shirt. The figure had gone to pieces like a grenade, scattering jagged fragments of painted iron among the coins. I looked at my hand; a small trickle of blood showed. I wiped it away, thinking, I'll have to hide this mess! I can't take her this and the news that I'm moving at the same time. Taking a newspaper from the chair I folded it stiffly and swept the coins and broken metal into a pile. Where would I hide it, I wondered, looking with profound distaste at the iron kinks, the dull red of a piece of grinning lip. Why, I thought with anguish, would Mary have something like this around anyway? Just why? I looked under the bed. It was dustless there, no place to hide anything. She was too good a housekeeper. Besides, what of the coins? Hell! Maybe the thing was left by the former roomer. Anyway, whose ever it was, it had to be hidden. There was the closet, but she'd find it there too. After I was gone a few days she'd clean out my things and there it'd be. The knocking had gone beyond mere protest over heatlessness now, they had fallen into a ragged rumba rhythm: