Ralph Ellison - Invisible man

"Oh?"

"You damn right they don't! They're just in it to use it for their own ends. Some call you Brother to your face and the minute you turn your back, you're a black son of a bitch! You got to watch 'em."

"I haven't encountered any of that, Brother," I said.

"You will. There's lots of poison around. Some don't want to shake your hand and some don't like the idea of seeing too much of you; but goddam it, in the Brotherhood they gotta!"

I looked at him. It had never occurred to me that the Brotherhood could force anyone to shake my hand, and that he found satisfaction that it could was both shocking and distasteful.

Suddenly he laughed. "Yes, dammit, they gotta! Me, I don't let 'em get away with nothing. If they going to be brothers let 'em be brothers! Oh, but I'm fair," he said, his face suddenly self-righteous. "I'm fair. I ask myself every day, 'What are you doing against Brotherhood?' and when I find it, I root it out, I burn it out like a man cauterizing a mad-dog bite. This business of being a brother is a full-time job. You have to be pure in heart, and you have to be disciplined in body and mind. Brother, you understand what I mean?"

"Yes, I think I do," I said. "Some folks feel that way about their religion."

"Religion?" He blinked his eyes. "Folks like me and you is full of distrust," he said. "We been corrupted 'til it's hard for some of us to believe in Brotherhood. And some even want revenge! That's what I'm talking about. We have to root it out! We have to learn to trust our other brothers. After all, didn't they start the Brotherhood? Didn't they come and stretch out their hand to us black men and say, 'We want y'all for our brothers?' Didn't they do it? Didn't they, now? Didn't they set out to organize us, and help fight our battle and all like that? Sho they did, and we have to remember it twenty-four hours a day. Brotherhood. That's the word we got to keep right in front of our eyes every second. Now this brings me to why I come to see you, Brother."

He sat back, his huge hands grasping his knees. "I got a plan I want to talk over with you."

"What is it, Brother?" I said.

"Well, it's like this. I think we ought to have some way of showing what we are. We ought to have some banners and things like that. Specially for us black brothers."

"I see," I said, becoming interested. "But why do you think this is important?"

" 'Cause it helps the Brotherhood, that's why. First, if you remember, when you watch our people when there's a parade or a funeral, or a dance or anything like that, they always have some kind of flags and banners even if they don't mean anything. It kind of makes the occasion seem more important like. It makes people stop look and listen. 'What's coming off here?' But you know and I know that they ain't none of 'em got no true flag -- except maybe Ras the Exhorter, and he claims he's Ethiopian or African. But none of us got no true flag 'cause that flag don't really belong to us. They want a true flag, one that's as much theirs as anybody else's. You know what I mean?"

"Yes, I think I do," I said, remembering that there was always that sense in me of being apart when the flag went by. It had been a reminder, until I'd found the Brotherhood, that my star was not yet there ...

"Sure, you know," Brother Wrestrum said. "Everybody wants a flag. We need a flag that stands for Brotherhood, and we need a sign we can wear."

"A sign?"

"You know, a pin or a button."

"You mean an emblem?"

"That's it! Something we can wear, a pin or something like that. So that when a Brother meets a Brother they can know it. That way that thing what happened to Brother Tod Clifton wouldn't have happened ..."

"What wouldn't have happened?"

He sat back. "Don't you know about it?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"It's something that's best forgot about," he said, leaning close, his big hands gripped and stretched before him. "But you see, there was a rally and some hoodlums tried to break up the meeting, and in the fighting Brother Tod Clifton got holt to one of the white brothers by mistake and was beating him, thought he was one of the hoodlums, he said. Things like that is bad, Brother, very bad. But with some of these emblems, things like that wouldn't happen."

"So that actually happened," I said.

"Sure did. That Brother Clifton goes wild when he gits mad ... But what do you think of my idea?"

"I think it should be brought to the attention of the committee," I said guardedly, as the phone rang. "Excuse me a moment, Brother," I said.

It was the editor of a new picture magazine requesting an interview of "one of our most successful young men."

"That's very flattering," I said, "but I'm afraid I'm too busy for an interview. I suggest, however, that you interview our youth leader, Brother Tod Clifton; you'll find him a much more interesting subject."

"No, no!" Wrestrum said, shaking his head violently as the editor said, "But we want you. You've --"

"And you know," I interrupted, "our work is considered very controversial, certainly by some."

"That's exactly why we want you. You've become identified with that controversy and it's our job to bring such subjects to the eyes of our readers."

"But so has Brother Clifton," I said.

"No, sir; you're the man and you owe it to our youth to allow us to tell them your story," he said, as I watched Brother Wrestrum leaning forward. "We feel that they should be encouraged to keep fighting toward success. After all, you're one of the latest to fight his way to the top. We need all the heroes we can get."

"But, please," I laughed over the phone, "I'm no hero and I'm far from the top; I'm a cog in a machine. We here in the Brotherhood work as a unit," I said, seeing Brother Wrestrum nod his head in agreement.

"But you can't get around the fact that you're the first of our people to attract attention to it, can you now?"

"Brother Clifton was active at least three years before me. Besides, it isn't that simple. Individuals don't count for much; it's what the group wants, what the group does. Everyone here submerges his personal ambitions for the common achievement."

"Good! That's very good. People want to hear that. Our people need to have someone say that to them. Why don't you let me send out an interviewer? I'll have her there in twenty minutes."

"You're very insistent, but I'm very busy," I said.

And if Brother Wrestrum hadn't been wig-wagging, trying to tell me what to say I would have refused. Instead, I consented. Perhaps, I thought, a little friendly publicity wouldn't hurt. Such a magazine would reach many timid souls living far from the sound of our voices. I had only to remember to say little about my past.

"I'm sorry for this interruption, Brother," I said, putting down the phone and looking into his curious eyes. "I'll bring your idea to the attention of the committee as quickly as possible."

I stood to discourage further talk and he got up, fairly bursting to continue.

"Well, I've got to see some other brothers myself," he said, "I'll be seeing you soon."

"Anytime," I said, avoiding his hand by picking up some papers.

Going out, he turned with his hand on the door frame, frowning. "And, Brother, don't forget what I said about that thing you got on your desk. Things like that don't do nothin' but cause confusion. They ought to be kept out of sight."

I was glad to see him go. The idea of his trying to tell me what to say in a conversation only part of which he could have heard! And it was obvious that he disliked Clifton. Well, I disliked him. And all that foolishness and fear over the leg chain. Tarp had worn it for nineteen years and could laugh, but this big --

Then I forgot Brother Wrestrum until about two weeks later at our downtown headquarters, where a meeting had been called to discuss strategy.