The Last Thing You Surrender, page 36
But he could not be spiffy with Flora Lee gone. Since she took off on him …
(with that nigger!)
… he had found himself going about in clothes that were rumpled and soiled. Even his proud pompadour sat indifferently atop his head, unruly strings of hair flying out this way and that.
He missed her taking care of him. He also missed—and he hated admitting this most of all—just having her around, hearing her in the background yammering about whatever it was she yammered about while he was trying to talk to some other fella or just listen to the ball game. All of this had been taken from him by that black nigger cunt. And he had tried to reason with the bitch, hadn’t he? He had tried to get her to tell him where she had taken Flora Lee. He had even reminded her what it says in the Bible: what God puts together, no man is supposed to put asunder.
But she had ignored him, put her nose in the air and walked away from him like she was the white man and he was the filthy nigger bitch. Well, that was all right. Earl would make her pay for that. He would get her—and get her good—right when she least expected it. He would have to wait for his opportunity, but that was all right. Uh huh. Earl didn’t mind waiting. He was good at it.
What he didn’t realize as he stepped off the ferry and headed toward the janitor’s shed to begin his workday was that his wait was about to end.
Something felt wrong.
At first, Thelma could not say how she knew this, could not even give the wrongness a name, but she felt it just the same as she locked the old Oldsmobile and walked with Betty, Laverne, Helen, and Ollie toward the front gate. Apparently Ollie felt it, too. His features were wrinkled with faint concern. When he saw her looking, he shrugged and gave a smile that was meant, she supposed, to reassure her. But Thelma wasn’t reassured.
“Yard seem awful quiet today,” said Betty.
Helen nodded. “You know, now that you mention it, it do at that.”
And this, Thelma realized all at once, was what had set her nerves on edge: the absence of sound. As she approached the gate in the usual throng of people coming from the parking lot, she did not hear metal striking metal, welding torches crackling, foremen yelling to get the lead out. She heard nothing. As she passed under the archway into the shipyard, she realized it wasn’t just sound that was missing. It was also movement. No forklifts rushed across the yard. No bodies crawled across some incomplete ship like ants on a mound. The great cranes that lifted sections of hull and deck into place stood still as dawn, their loads suspended high above the shipyard.
And white men stood in bunches, talking with soft urgency, gesturing animatedly.
Now other people, colored and white, were noticing it, too. You saw their steps slowing, saw them looking to one another in confusion.
“What’s going on?” a white man asked no one in particular.
“Why’s everybody standing around?” a white woman asked the same audience.
Again, Thelma looked over at Ollie. He had come to a full stop, his eyes sharp with concern. “I don’t like this,” he said.
“Yeah,” said Thelma, “this is strange.”
“No, it ain’t just strange,” said Ollie, gazing at the still and silent yard ahead. “It’s troublesome.”
“What you talking about?” asked Thelma.
“Do you remember a few days ago?” he said. “Remember the shipyard give in, said they’d give some of us some of them good jobs?”
Thelma nodded. Of course she remembered. At lunch that day, they had laughed and celebrated and felt light as cream, buoyed by the realization that they had actually managed to make the boss men listen.
Now Ollie said, “Last night 12 colored men worked their first shift as full-fledged welders.”
“So soon?” said Thelma.
“Yeah. Shipyard ain’t announced it or nothin’. I think the bosses didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, get these white folks all riled up. I think they figured if they just showed it was already a done deal, folks wouldn’t have no choice but to accept it. But now I’m wonderin’ if maybe they figured wrong. And I’m wonderin’ where them men are. I hope they okay.”
There was something going on. Earl Ray had no idea what it was. But all over the yard, white men stood in tight clusters, talking heatedly. Some had metal pipes in their fists. Some had two-by-fours.
He was trying to make sense of it when he heard his name. “Hey,” a man named Jimmy Ross said, “there’s Earl Ray Hodges.” Jimmy waved him over. “Earl, what are you doin’? Goin’ to work? Hell, son, ain’t you heard what happened?”
“Ain’t heard nothin’. Just got here.” Earl Ray joined Jimmy and a group of eight men who stood across from the janitor’s shed, talking. “What’s goin’ on?”
A fat man Earl knew as Gus Puckett drew himself up. “I’ll tell you what’s goin’ on,” he said in a voice like stone on stone. “They let the niggers join iron last night. Caved in to the federal government and that goddamn NAACP and promoted 20 of them to full-fledged welders.”
“Twenty niggers? You are shittin’ me,” said Earl Ray.
“Ain’t, neither,” said Gus Puckett. “I got that straight from Irv Windom, and he works the graveyard shift. Said 20 or 25 niggers was joinin’ steel, big as day, laughin’ and talkin’ about how the federal government helped them push the white man around.”
“Goddamn uppity bastards,” breathed J.D. Magee. Earl Ray knew J.D. was a good man. He was one of the ones who had helped Earl Ray put the nigger Ollie Grimes in his place.
“Seems to me, the question is, what are we going to do about it?” asked Puckett.
“Is the bastards still here?” asked Magee.
Puckett shook his head. “Worked their shift and went home, the way I hear.”
“We can’t get ’em?” Magee sounded like a child who has just learned there will be no Christmas.
“’Fraid not,” said Puckett, sadly.
Earl Ray was disgusted. “Who gives a fuck?” he shouted. “They’s plenty niggers here, ain’t they? One nigger’s good as another, far as I’m concerned.”
And the men grinned and nodded as they realized he was right.
“Are we gon’ let them get away with this?” yelled the skinny, near-toothless white man from atop a packing crate near the administration building. He raised an axe handle above the crowd as they shouted back at him.
“No!” they cried.
“Hell no!” the man replied. “My daddy rode with Bedford Forrest in the War of Northern Aggression. Him and all them other good men must be turnin’ over in their graves at the thought of what has befell this great country—30 niggers taking white men’s jobs. So what’s next? Today they take our jobs, tomorrow they take our women? How about it, fellas? You want to see one of those big apes putting his paws on your precious daughter, kissing her mouth with those nigger lips? You want to see that?”
A thunder of angry indignation rose from the crowd at the thought of it.
“Hell no!”
“See ’em all in hell first!”
“You mark my words,” cried the skinny white man, waving the axe handle around, “that’s where we’re headed if you and me don’t make a stand. Fellas, we have a decision to make. Are we going to take it, or are we going to fight back?”
“Fight! Fight! Fight!” came the cry.
And it was in that moment that the skinny white man caught sight of them, a small group that had been standing about 50 yards back, transfixed. He hopped off the box, pushed his way through the crowd.
“What are you lookin’ at, coons?”
They snatched their eyes away, but it was too late. The skinny man came stalking toward them. Ollie stood out in front, Thelma, Laverne, Helen, and Betty just behind him. “Ain’t lookin’ at nothin’, boss,” he mumbled, staring at his own shoes.
“Fuck you ain’t!” the man cried. “You was starin’ at me. You was givin’ me the eye, wasn’t you, boy?”
“No, sir,” said Ollie. “Wasn’t givin’ you the eye, boss.”
“S’pose you think you’re good as a white man now, don’t you? They let 25 of you niggers join steel in this yard last night, so I expect you think ain’t no more difference twixt you an’ me, huh?”
Ollie shook his head emphatically. “No, sir, that ain’t what I think at all.”
“Well, let me tell you what I think,” said the white man. “I think it’s time we showed what happens to uppity coons around these parts. You can tell your federal government that I refuse to live under nigger domination!”
Ollie was still looking at his shoes, so he never saw the axe handle coming. It caught him on the upper arm. He cried out and reflexively shoved the skinny white man back. It was the wrong thing to do. The white man staggered a few steps, arms windmilling, tripped over someone’s foot, and landed on his seat in front of the mob. He sprang up like a jack-in-the-box, his eyes enraged, pointing a bony finger at Ollie. “You seen that? That nigger attacked me!”
“We all seen it,” one of them growled, a burly man with a two-day growth of beard. He was smacking his palm with a two-by-four. “You niggers just don’t know when to quit.”
“He hit me!” Ollie protested.
It was a useless cry. Thelma knew it. Probably, Ollie did, too. The big man ignored it. “You think you can take jobs from white men just ’cause there’s a war on, don’t you? You think you can push us around!”
Thelma’s stomach had gone to ice. She tried to make herself small. Some of the other colored men moved to stand next to Ollie, trying to shield the women. Ollie was showing his palms to the white men. “We don’t want no trouble,” he said.
The big man said, “Well, trouble’s what you got, boy.” He glanced over his shoulder at the mob building behind him. “Come on. Let’s teach ’em a lesson.”
The white men came forward, their steps deliberate and slow, their eyes burning with intent. The small knot of colored men and women edged back. Ollie’s hands were still up in a gesture of forbiddance. His voice climbed in desperation. “You all get back now! You all leave us alone!”
The big man in front gave a sudden rebel yell that shredded the morning, and the white men charged.
——
“Get back here, nigger, nigger, nigger!”
Earl Ray could not run because of his leg. He had always hated his birth defect, but he had never hated it more than he did in this minute, as some fleet-footed nigger was racing away from him through a metal shop while he tottered along behind as fast as he could—which wasn’t very fast at all—unable to catch up, scared he might even fall. The idea that this boy would so easily escape him scorched Earl Ray’s considerable pride. He could all but see the nigger laughing at him, telling all the other niggers how he had made a fool of Earl Ray. But nobody laughed at Earl Ray Hodges.
He seized a heavy chain that lay coiled on the floor, whipped it around three times over his head, and then let it fly. It caught the nigger in the back of the head, midstride as he ran for shelter toward one of the slips. The nigger buckled, arms flailing. He crashed hard into a rack of machinist’s tools and lay still.
J.D. Magee came puffing up after them just at that second. “Damn, Earl Ray, you got him after all. I thought he was gon’ get away from you.”
“Hell no,” said Earl Ray. “I may not have two good legs, but they ain’t made a nigger yet can outfox Earl Ray Hodges.”
He walked with unhurried steps to where the nigger lay, facedown. Kneeling, Earl Ray turned over the already unconscious man, grabbed him up by the collar, and punched him. Again, again, again. Then Earl Ray spat on him and stood. He kicked him once in the ribs for good measure. “That’s for makin’ me run, nigger,” he said.
Watching him, J.D. Magee grinned. “This is more fun than a barrel of monkeys, ain’t it?”
Earl Ray glanced down at the nigger lying unconscious among the spillage of tools. He laughed. “Hell,” he said, “it is a barrel of monkeys!”
J.D. laughed with him, poking Earl’s side with his elbow. “Guess you right about that,” he said. “And by God,” he said, pointing out into the yard, “look at them monkeys run!”
Indeed, everywhere you looked, there where white men bearing down with whoops and yells on niggers and niggers running for their lives. Some were running toward the pier to jump into the river. Niggers couldn’t swim—everybody knew that—and they flailed in the water and cried out, trying not to drown. Coast Guard boats were rushing in, throwing life preservers and picking them out of the water as fast as they could. Other niggers weren’t able to get away, and they simply curled up and held their fists to their heads as swarms of white men and women kicked and punched and spat.
It was pandemonium—an explosion of long-held fury at the eternal uppitiness of damn-fool niggers. And J.D. had been right: God, but this was fun. Indeed, it struck Earl Ray that he had not had a better time since before Flora Lee up and threw him over, running to that nigger bitch for help. The memory kindled a fresh burn in the pit of his stomach, like an acid chewing through him, and all at once he knew what he had to do.
J.D. rapped his chest lightly. “Come on, son,” he said. “Let’s not miss out on the fun.”
Earl Ray shook his head. Less than half an hour ago, he had gotten off the ferry, reminding himself that he didn’t mind waiting, that he would get that bitch as soon as the opportunity presented itself. But who would have thought the opportunity would present itself so soon?
“You go on,” he told J.D. “I got somethin’ to do.”
The heavy wrench landed with a crunch on Ollie’s left cheekbone and he fell, moaning. Thelma was standing right behind him. She saw the big white man draw back again, flung her hand up, and took the blow on her wrist.
She knew immediately that it was broken. She fell to her knees, crying and cradling it. Ollie was curled on the ground next to her, writhing in pain, the left side of his face streaked with blood.
She found herself crouched in a forest of moving legs, people shoving one another’s weight back and forth, wrestling for position, pushing, grunting, cursing, crying, running. And over and over again, she heard the heavy smack of metal and wood against human flesh, heard the terrible crunch of breaking bones, heard people cry out in pain. Through the shifting tangle of legs, she spotted Laverne, running full tilt toward the water. She had no idea where Helen and Betty were. The white people had lost their minds. There was no more elegant explanation for it than that. The simple fact that 12 colored men had been elevated to skilled positions had driven them insane.
Thelma was dizzy with pain. She had to escape, but she couldn’t leave Ollie, who was on his knees just a few feet away, his head in his hands, moaning. She touched his shoulder. “Come on,” she said. “We got to get out of here.”
His head whipped around and he glared down at her from a perch of hot, angry pain, and she knew that he didn’t quite see her.
“It’s me, Ollie,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “We got to get out of here.”
Then he knew her again. The glare softened and he nodded. Thelma gave him her good hand. Her broken wrist screamed with fresh pain, but she ignored it. Bracing one another, they climbed to their feet. Incredibly, the skinny white man was still there, drawing back his axe handle to hit some poor colored man who was cowering against a wall. With a maddened, wordless snarl, Ollie smashed the old man with a right cross that drove him into the wall. He hit headfirst and slid to the ground, unconscious.
Nearby white men noticed. “That nigger decked old Petey!” one of them cried.
“Come here, boy!” thundered another.
And all at once, a half dozen of them had hands on Ollie, were pulling and clawing at him, and for a terrible instant, he disappeared from view in the midst of them. That fragment of time froze Thelma. Should she run? Should she try to help? What should she do?
Then the question resolved itself. Ollie rose out of the middle of the mob, smashing and kicking and shrugging off white men like you’d shrug off a winter coat, his face burning with rage terrible to behold. Ollie Grimes had been seized by a fury bigger and stronger than he was.
It struck Thelma that even she knew this fury. It was the fury found at the end of a fatigue that felt older than rivers and dawns. You got tired of knuckling under to white people. You got tired of looking at your shoes when you spoke to them, tired of going through back doors and balconies, tired of asking permission. You got tired of taking it.
All your life, you swallowed that fury down, hid it in a smile that went no deeper than your lips. But sometimes, sometimes …
“Thelma! Run! Head to the water!”
She realized all at once that she had just been standing there, fascinated. Now, she ran. With a last roar of exertion, Ollie broke free of the white men and churned after her. Thelma had thought she was running as fast as she could, but he grabbed her wrist—thank God it was the unbroken one—and all at once, she was running even faster, pulled along helplessly through the melee.
They passed the administration building. Absurdly, she glanced back toward the morale posters on the exterior wall. The glass casing surrounding the one supposedly depicting George and Eric at Pearl Harbor had been smashed. She was not surprised.
We’re all together now?
It was bullshit, more of a lie than George had thought, maybe more than even Luther had believed.
And if that was the lie, well then, the truth was this terror she was racing through. It was white men, eyes shining with hatred, mouths wide to emit rebel yells. It was Negroes, outnumbered (always outnumbered!), running full-out, hoping for sanctuary. It was blood staining tools, pipes, wooden clubs, and white men’s fists, and those implements of violence lifted high in hopes of more.
That was truth.
The truth was, there was no “together.” There wasn’t even a “we.” There never had been. And she should have known this, should have learned it as Luther did the night their parents were burned to death while white people not unlike these stood in the glow of the flames and whooped and laughed, watching.
