Three Days Before the Shooting ... (171 page)

“Okay, except that in his case his butt is bumping the sidewalks and curbstones. Hickman, there are many way of describing the human condition, but since most are inadequate, you stick to yours and I’ll stick to mine. Either way, that’s how it was. The boy’s up to his eyeballs in trouble, and no matter how much his flesh keeps festering, and no matter how much he’d like to be free of his burden, he’s in the race and thinks he’s forced to hold his position and keep pace with the bit-foaming pack.”

“Which means,” Hickman said, “that he’s being ridden in the race of races.”

“If you insist,” Love said. “And now his devil of a jockey has ridden him here, two thousand miles to the west, in search for the scenes and the acts of a time and place which faded with his coming into the world. Deep inside it’s made him wild, and when he’s calm he knows it, but still he keeps festering. Therefore he’d like to do something, anything, to stop the nagging, the strain, and the itching. Many times he’s tried to put it aside, tried to ignore it, but it keeps at him, winter and summer, midnight and noon. So now, far out on the cloudy edge of his mind, he’s decided that if he’s ever to learn the truth, it’s not only a matter of finding a simple answer but one of forming the proper question to ask those he keeps pestering. So as bad as things seem there’s still reason for hope.”

“That’s something I’ve been waiting to hear,” Hickman said, “but why is there hope?”

“Maybe it’s because he’s coming to realize that what’s eating on him isn’t a fully formed idea. That instead it’s a swarm of vague feelings that refuse to come into focus. A hit-or-miss mix of memory and feeling which refuse to be anything but fragments. Fragments that keep swirling in his head like a swarm of
no-see-ums…
.”

“… Of what?”

“Of gnats, of flying things from which he has not protection because they refuse to stay still and give him a target. Yes, but they won’t leave him alone, and when his mind is on something else, even something pleasant—like a beautiful girl, or a hunt for pheasant and quail—they strike him from ambush and take off like rockets. And just when he thinks they’re gone they swirl back and strike him like sharp grains of sand in a whirlwind. That’s how it is, they punish him morning, midnight, and noon. They pursue and harass him, they tease, taunt, and thorn him.

“So he thought he’d find relief out here, that if he returned to this place where he first saw the light his torment would end. That he’d find both his question and answer and know his next move. So he came with his torment to Janey, and when she couldn’t help him he turned to old Love. And Hickman, that’s my reason for giving him my time and attention. He remembered me, he came to the same old heathen who Janey tried to keep him from knowing when he lived here in this town. He came to one who lives outside the State folks’ corral, to one who has contempt for both the thing that rides him and those who make it important. Such is the weight of his burden. So he was here and we talked—or at least I talked while it was mostly his
ears
that listened.”

“Only his ears?”

“Yao! Because even as I talked I could see that his mind was already searching for others to question.”

“For instance?”

“That’s the question I put to myself, so I addressed myself to the Eagle. ‘Old
Father,’ I asked him, ‘where will he go after talking with me? Will it be to some lawyer, some doctor, some jackleg of a preacher who knows even less about what’s bothering him than either Janey or me? Will it be to some rich man, poor man, or pool-hall hustler? To some white downtown insurance agent who got so rich from milking nickels and dimes out of the death-fear of State Negroes that he thinks that he’s an authority on everything that goes on among them? Or will it be to Janey’s pet, that Cliofus? That strange one whose wires are so scrambled that he even gets what he had for this morning’s breakfast confused with some damn Easter eggs that Janey dyed for him twenty-five years in the past? Will it be to that cock-eyed, loose-tongued, word-drunk oracle, who mixes what really happens with tales he’s been told, books he’s read, and stories he makes up until he can’t tell the difference between life-and-death facts and Uneeda Biscuits?”

“And what was the answer?”

“The answer was, Yes, Black One, he’ll go to him too. He’ll give all of them a go at his question. So spoke the Eagle, and so it is and shall be.

“And then, Hickman, I guess he’ll try to put whatever they tell him together. He’ll be like the greedy monkey who got his paw so full of candy that he couldn’t get it out of the jar it was stored in. Then he’ll twist and tug, trying to get rid of the jar so he can arrange whatever he gets hold of. Then he’ll see that in order to get free he’ll have either to empty his hand or break the jar—which means that he’ll run the risk of spilling blood,
his
blood—Yao!”

“His own?”

“Yes, because if blood is spilled, some of it, one way or another, will be his own. That is the danger, but even though I warned him that seeking time’s faded shapes is a
waste
of time he refused to listen.

“So I told him again. I said, ‘The time you seek is
gone!
Gone like a long broken pitcher of the Navahoes, with pieces of it buried, some ground into dust so fine that it’s blown worlds away, while others passed through the guts of migrating birds and dropped in far distant lands. That is the way it is, but in spite of all such shifty processes of time you still come here hoping to pick up the broken pieces. Aye, and I understand your need. You’d like to brood over them, shift them around, and bring them together. And you think, you feel, that if you could only put them together again you’ll have some peace. That desire, that need, has taken you over like drugs and can prove just as destructive. For like I say it has set you in search for lost shapes of time and numbed you to the fact that time is to the doings of men as the air of a balloon to its rubber. The air gives it its shape and its ability to bounce, soar, and give pleasure to youngsters. Air is its soul, its ghost, its spirit, and when the air escapes through a leak or a puncture it dies. Then all that’s left of its bobbing and weaving are memories stirred by the sight of its deflated skin clinging to its pale bamboo stick. And even though you manage to patch the hole you can never inflate it again, not with the same air which was its soul.’ ”

“Amen!” Hickman said, “and amen again….”

“And the same with men. For when they run out of time they become like balloons without air, lifeless and hard to imagine as they were when they soared and gave pleasure. Memory helps, as do pictures….”

“Yes,” Hickman added, “and the words of those who knew them and remembered the clothes they wore and the houses they lived in, and the things they did do and didn’t….”

“Aye,” Love said, “but the sound and the feel, the smell and the sweat of their living is gone now forever….”

“Amen!”

“… For now like the air of the balloon, the mind has left the body, and the rest, Hickman …”

“Is memory?”

“No, it’s what you call
history
. For men live in time as they live in air, and run out of air they run out of time. But remember: Whether pure or polluted, air is always air and time always time. So while men come and go, time remains as the earth and the earth and the stars remain. And whether you speak of it as time-present, time-past, or time-future, Time goes on being Time—Yao! For that is the eternal joke of Time on the presumptions of man!”

“Now there, Mr. New,” Hickman said with a slap of his thigh, “your preaching is leaning in
my
direction!”

“Just listen to what I said to the boy,” Love said. “I told him—these are my words: ‘For men exist as
men
only in time, and while they leave traces of their acts and beliefs behind them the meaning of what they did and did not do—Yao!
That’s
the mystery that gets left out of what the State folks call history! You say that you’re looking for peace of mind, but what the hell do you mean by peace? Is it anything more than a quiet spell in the endless struggle of living? An endless war that’s carried on in this country according to a strategy of self-serving rules, stacked decks, and lawyers instead of bombs, cannon, and rifles?’

“I said …”

“… You told him …”

“‘… Hell, boy, today this country is supposed to be at peace, and yet you, a man who has a fair share of the best of it, you come to me, a dispossessed man of the dispossessed People, all agitated. You returned here that way. From the outside you look like a healthy, wealthy young white man. Yes, but behind that gentleman-of-distinction expression of yours your mind is as jittery as a wild captured badger. A handsome, fine-furred badger that tries to escape its cage by loping around the floor in endless circles. And when it gets frustrated and tired it does side flips and begins retracing its path by turning barrel rolls over the same futile circles. Then it foams at the mouth and turns to pacing back and forth like a young circus tiger—only with you there’s a difference, because while the badger and tiger know that their cage is outside their bodies, yours is in the mind that controls your body….’ ”

“… And that’s how the corn pone crumbles and the eggs get scrambled!”

“True, and although I didn’t like saying it, that’s how it is. But I told him, I said, ‘But it doesn’t have to be, not for you. Not for a man of your appearance. Not in this mirage of a country with its ever-shifting shapes and confusion of people. Because except for the whirling in your head, the noise of ghostly cicadas, you’re free to come and to go. You can fly here, fly there—and do it first class. You can walk where State Negroes like Janey are not allowed, say things which for them is too dangerous, buy in places in which neither their money nor mine has enough value. So as I say, you are free. But the real question is what is this freedom? What are its boundaries?”

“Now that’s a good question, what is the answer?”

“Hell, Hickman, it ain’t a thing in itself—as you damn well know—neither is it a simple, one-way process. Because freedom has a twin, and to make life more complex its twin is
Siamese…
.”

“And the name of this indivisible twin?”

“It’s Slavery! What the hell else could it be?”

“Talk to me!”

“And as I told the boy, ‘The privilege of freedom comes at a price even for a man who’s no longer shackled by all the color confusion that haunts this country. Because if you accept the fact that you’re neither black nor white, Gentile nor Jew, Rebel-bred nor Yankee-born, you have the freedom to be
truly
free. Which is something much different from mining for the fool’s gold that’s supposed to be waiting at the cloud-hung end of the State folks’ rainbow. For you there’s the true freedom of choosing goals that are more human than most of them have the good sense to seek—Yao! And yet they laughed at those of the People who once used funeral hearses as vehicles for pleasure. They sneered because they couldn’t see that the laugh, the joke, was on themselves. So unstrap your saddle and step back and take a good look around you. Then you’ll see that the question of freedom is all up to you. You have neither to ride nor be ridden in this race of races, but you must make a choice. Continue racing in the way of the crazy State people and you’ll remain like the badger, turning barrel rolls and pacing in a cage of your own choosing. Take the risks of identity that go with true freedom and you can be your own man. Then when your value, your manhood, is measured by the whiteness of your skin you can laugh as the State Negroes laugh whenever they decide to stand back and measure themselves and their ways against the myopic standards of others. And if someone happens to suspect that you’re what you are because you once shared the life of States Negroes like Janey—which many white States folks do, even if they’re too blind and stupid to admit it—you can be proud of being a pure, mammy-made, Janey-made American! Aye, and the son of a daughter of the People who was a beautiful woman of stature!’

“I said, ‘So now listen and hear me: You stand on the edge, you straddle the line which divides the States people and drives them loco. That is your time-shaped
advantage, and you should be proud and accept it. Yes, but with all that precious gift which human fumbling and time has left you, you go on letting your search for the answers to unanswerable questions act like a water-soaked thong that keeps shrinking your head in the heat of your searching, shrinking and causing your ability to deal with reality to run wild in your head….’ ”

Pausing, Love looked into the tree, then took a sip of beer.

“That was good advice and strong medicine,” Hickman said. “In fact, so strong that you could make it as a black Baptist preacher. So how’d the boy take it?”

“Without a word. He just sat there looking at me for a while, then he left without a word. But he’ll be back, and right now he’s probably somewhere downtown with me on his mind.”

“So after he left, what did you do?”

“I felt exhausted and sad—Hey! What the hell are you up to? Trying to be some kind of detective?”

“No, my friend, I’m only trying to do something for Janey.”

“As a black Sherlock Holmes and me as your Watson?”

“No, as a minister, or as you say, a man of medicine.”

“I know that, but what the hell else are you?”

“All right, so I was once a bluesman.”

“Hell, I already know that! So what else are you, and how come you’re so interested that you’ve been sitting here all this time listening to old Love run his mouth—Yao, and staying even when he takes potshots at your religion?”

Hickman laughed.

“And me thinking you were wearing out your vocal cords. So now I discover that you’re still full of devilment. So all right, since you’ve told me something about yourself, I’m a father—No! I’m a
foster
father who lost a beloved son.”

“That’s better,” Love said,
“much
better. And what else are you?”

Thinking,
He never lets up
, Hickman climbed out of the antlered chair and stood staring down into Love’s challenging eyes.