Ralph Ellison - Invisible man

His chest was heaving and a note of pleading had come into the harsh voice. He was an exhorter, all right, and I was caught in the crude, insane eloquence of his plea. He stood there, awaiting an answer. And suddenly a big transport plane came low over the buildings and I looked up to see the firing of its engine, and we were all three silent, watching.

Suddenly the Exhorter shook his fist toward the plane and yelled, "Hell with him, some day we have them too! Hell with him!"

He stood there, shaking his fist as the plane rattled the buildings in its powerful flight. Then it was gone and I looked about the unreal street. They were fighting far up the block in the dark now and we were alone. I looked at the Exhorter. I didn't know if I was angry or amazed.

"Look," I said, shaking my head, "let's talk sense. From now on we'll be on the street corners every night and we'll be prepared for trouble. We don't want it, especially with you, but we won't run either ..."

"Goddam, mahn," he said, leaping forward, "this is Harlem. This is my territory, the black mahn's territory. You think we let white folks come in and spread their poison? Let 'em come in like they come and take over the numbers racket? Like they have all the stores? Talk sense, mahn, if you talking to Ras, talk sense!"

"This is sense," I said, "and you listen as we listened to you. We'll be out here every night, understand. We'll be out here and the next time you go after one of our brothers with a knife -- and I mean white or black -- well, we won't forget it."

He shook his head, "Nor will I forget you either, mahn."

"Don't. I don't want you to; because if you forget there'll be trouble. You're mistaken, don't you see you're outnumbered? You need allies to win ..."

"That there is sense. Black allies. Yellow and brown allies!"

"All men who want a brotherly world," I said.

"Don't be stupid, mahn. They white, they don't have to be allies with no black people. They get what they wahnt, they turn against you. Where's your black intelligence?"

"Thinking like that will get you lost in the backwash of history," I said. "Start thinking with your mind and not your emotions."

He shook his head vehemently, looking at Clifton.

"This black mahn talking to me about brains and thinking. I ask both of you, are you awake or sleeping? What is your pahst and where are you going? Never mind, take your corrupt ideology and eat out your own guts like a laughing hyena. You are nowhere, mahn. Nowhere! Ras is not ignorant, nor is Ras afraid. No! Ras, he be here black and fighting for the liberty of the black people when the white folks have got what they wahnt and done gone off laughing in your face and you stinking and choked up with white maggots."

He spat angrily into the dark street. It flew pink in the red glow.

"That'll be all right with me," I said. "Only remember what I said. Come on, Brother Clifton. This man's full of pus, black pus."

We started away, a piece of glass crunching under my foot.

"Maybe so," Ras said, "but I ahm no fool! I ahm no black educated fool who t'inks everything between black mahn and white mahn can be settled with some blahsted lies in some bloody books written by the white mahn in the first place. It's three hundred years of black blood to build this white mahn's civilization and wahn't be wiped out in a minute. Blood calls for blood! You remember that. And remember that I am not like you. Ras recognizes the true issues and he is not afraid to be black. Nor is he a traitor for white men. Remember that: I am no black traitor to the black people for the white people."

And before I could answer Clifton spun in the dark and there was a crack and I saw Ras go down and Clifton breathing hard and Ras lying there in the street, a thick, black man with red tears on his face that caught the reflection of the CHECKS CASHED HERE sign.

And again, as Clifton looked gravely down he seemed to ask a silent question.

"Let's go," I said. "Let's go!"

We started away as the screams of sirens sounded, Clifton cursing quietly to himself.

Then we were out of the dark onto a busy street and he turned to me. There were tears in his eyes.

"That poor, misguided son of a bitch," he said.

"He thinks a lot of you, too," I said. I was glad to be out of the dark and away from that exhorting voice.

"The man's crazy," Clifton said. "It'll run you crazy if you let it."

"Where'd he get that name?" I said.

"He gave it to himself. I guess he did. Ras is a title of respect in the East. It's a wonder he didn't say something about 'Ethiopia stretching forth her wings,' " he said, mimicking Ras. "He makes it sound like the hood of a cobra fluttering ... I don't know ... I don't know ..."

"We'll have to watch him now," I said.

"Yes, we'd better," he said. "He won't stop fighting ... And thanks for getting rid of his knife."

"You didn't have to worry," I said. "He wouldn't kill his king."

He turned and looked at me as though he thought I might mean it; then he smiled.

"For a while there I thought I was gone," he said.

As we headed for the district office I wondered what Brother Jack would say about the fight.

"We'll have to overpower him with organization," I said.

"We'll do that, all right. But it's on the inside that Ras is strong," Clifton said. "On the inside he's dangerous."

"He won't get on the inside," I said. "He'd consider himself a traitor."

"No," Clifton said, "he won't get on the inside. Did you hear how he was talking? Did you hear what he was saying?"

"I heard him, sure," I said.

"I don't know," he said. "I suppose sometimes a man has to plunge outside history ..."

"What?"

"Plunge outside, turn his back ... Otherwise he might kill somebody, go nuts."

I didn't answer. Maybe he's right, I thought, and was suddenly very glad I had found Brotherhood.

THE next morning it rained and I reached the district before the others arrived and stood looking through the window of my office, past the jutting wall of a building, and on beyond the monotonous pattern of its bricks and mortar I saw a row of trees rising tall and graceful in the rain. One tree grew close by and I could see the rain streaking its bark and its sticky buds. Trees were rowed the length of the long block beyond me, rising tall in dripping wetness above a series of cluttered backyards. And it occurred to me that cleared of its ramshackle fences and planted with flowers and grass, it might form a pleasant park. And just then a paper bag sailed from a window to my left and burst like a silent grenade, scattering garbage into the trees and pancaking to earth with a soggy, exhausted plop! I started with disgust, then thought, The sun will shine in those backyards some day. A community clean-up campaign might be worthwhile for a slack season, at that. Everything couldn't possibly be as exciting as last night.

Turning back to my desk I sat facing the map now as Brother Tarp appeared.

"Morning, son, I see you already on the job," he said.

"Good morning. I have so much to do that I thought I'd better get started early," I said.

"You'll do all right," he said. "But I didn't come in here to take up your time, I want to put something on the wall."

"Go right ahead. Can I give you a hand?"

"No, I can make it all right," he said, clambering with his lame leg upon a chair that sat beneath the map and hanging a frame from the ceiling molding, straightening it carefully, and getting down to come over beside my desk.

"Son, you know who that is?"

"Why, yes," I said, "it's Frederick Douglass."

"Yessir, that's just who it is. You know much about him?"

"Not much. My grandfather used to tell me about him though."