Nigger Heaven/Book 2/Chapter 1
Byron read the letter he had just received from his father.
My dear boy, it began:
I do not want to appear unsympathetic, but the fact remains that you have been in New York more than two months without making any place for yourself. When you informed me that you wished to undertake a writer's career, I gave you what encouragement I could, at the same time laying before you the reasons why, as a coloured man, you would have difficulty in carrying out that project. I also told you that you would have to support yourself, as I feel I have done all I can afford to do for you in sending you through college.
We need not go into the reasons for your leaving Philadelphia. We both agreed, in the circumstances, that this would be a wise move. You, quite naturally, chose Harlem as the alternative. Harlem is a great Negro city, the greatest Negro city in the world, and it is surely as full of pitfalls for young men as all great cities are. Unavoidably you will encounter your share of temptations. You are to an unfortunate extent, as we know to our cost, a slave to your appetites. Furthermore you are inclined to be headstrong and obstinate, and sensitive to an abnormal degree. I am being very frank with you now, because you must be aware that no one more than I do appreciates your good qualities, the foremost of which in my opinion is your race pride.
I am mentioning these things because I hear from Aaron Sumner that you have not presented yourself to him since the day you first brought him my letter of introduction. I hear from others that you have not presented my letters at all. I know how your touchiness inclines to make you feel any demonstration of sympathy from others as patronizing. Naturally, therefore, I feel some anxiety on your account.
The late Booker T. Washington preached industry and thrift. He in his wisdom realized that the advancement of the Negro would come only through economic progress. I have always felt in this regard that it is no disgrace for us to accept what labour is given us to perform in the spirit in which it is offered. If you are a natural born writer you will eventually write, no matter what else you may be compelled to do in the meantime. Indeed, whatever struggles you may be obliged to undergo will only add to your desire to write, if you cherish a sincere desire. My advice to you, therefore, is to seek honest employment. If your colour prevents you from securing a clerkship, accept a job as a porter or an elevator boy. Your education has unfitted you for such humble pursuits, but your colour, temporarily, may bar your advancement in other directions. When you have proved that you have literary ability and can sell your stories, I shall be the first to recognize that fact and to encourage you to go farther. Bear in mind that Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote the poems which brought him recognition while he was an elevator boy.
In the meantime, I feel that it would be doing you a wrong if I continued to send you money. With the small amounts I can afford to give you you certainly would not be able to live a life of luxury, but you could live a life of idleness so that it would be a simple matter for you to fall into bad habits and evil ways. The cheque I am enclosing in this letter, therefore, is the last I shall send.
It has been very difficult for me to write this letter, but I know the weaknesses in your nature. It is for you to rise superior to these, and if you are a real man you will do so. Always, my dear boy, you have my love and that of your mother.
Raising his eyes from the last lines of this letter, Byron stared hopelessly out of his little window. Only a blank wall rewarded his vision, a wall erected so near the window that even on bright days he could only see to read by the aid of a gas-jet. His soul was full of resentment, the more so because he recognized the justice of his father's words, the calm of his epistolary tone: a maddening, judicial calm. It's bad enough to know all this without having it rubbed in, he muttered to himself. His mind reverted to the sordid episode at which his father had tactfully hinted. There had been an unfortunate affair with a servant-girl at college, but his father had never heard of that or of many other adventures of which he had been the sorry hero. The incident to which his father referred had occurred only last summer in Philadelphia. He had become involved in an affair with a married woman, an affair of which the woman's husband had become cognizant. It was only because the husband desired above all else to avoid a scandal that he, Byron, had been let off so easily. Even so, it was stipulated that he should leave Philadelphia. His friends had wondered why he had not returned for the great Howard-Lincoln football game at Thanksgiving, why he had not visited his family at Christmas. . . . He looked at the cheque again and laughed. Twenty-five dollars wouldn't last very long. . . . God! he moaned, I've tried hard enough to find work. His memory reviewed all the advertisements he had answered, the humiliations he had endured, the long series of refusals, couched in insulting terms, that he had encountered. He could scarcely tolerate the idea of making renewed efforts in this direction. Yet, he realized, he had so far only attempted to secure positions offered to college men, only open, the event proved, to white college men. He had not yet descended to asking for what his father so nobly termed honest employment. He felt that he would almost rather starve first. By God, if his education were worth nothing to him why had he taken the trouble to get a college degree? A Negro with a college degree is two steps ahead of his uneducated brothers, every one had assured him, and his attention was directed to the number of graduates who had risen to such heights in their race that they lived lives of comparative ease and comfort, respected even by white people. Yes, there was plenty of that sort of thing around him. Why was it so difficult for him to make a start?
His room was so small that it was almost possible for him to touch every article of furniture without moving from his chair at his writing-table. Often, when he was trying to write, he spread his books of reference open on his bed. He could reach for matches on the adjacent bureau. He turned to this bureau now and from one of the drawers extracted a pile of manuscript, written in pencil.
Was he a writer? he wondered. Was there any excuse for him to go ahead, for him to continue to fill up these sheets of paper with these foolish hieroglyphics? So many stories he had begun and so many he had found it impossible to round out. He glanced swiftly over some of the pages. The stories all started out well enough, he told himself. He possessed a gift—his instructors at Pennsylvania had assured him of that—for delineating character in action, for swift description, occasionally for dialogue, but apparently he had no sense of construction. Somewhere along towards the middle, his stories fell apart. They were spineless. The worst difficulty of all was to find a subject: there was so little to write about.
Try as he might, he could not get away from propaganda. The Negro problem seemed to hover over him and occasionally, like the great, black bird it was, claw at his heart. In his stories this influence invariably made itself felt, and it was, he was sometimes convinced, the very thing that kept him from doing better work. Wheels within wheels. A vicious circle.
Could he overcome this obstacle? Unwillingly he was obliged to acknowledge to himself that certain writers of his race had overcome it, particularly Charles Waddell Chesnutt, an author strangely unfamiliar to most of the new generation. Byron himself, indeed, had been introduced to his books by a white professor at college. He lifted The Wife of his Youth from its place on his table and opened its pages for the hundredth time. How much he admired the cool deliberation of its style, the sense of form, but more than all the civilized mind of this man who had surveyed the problems of his race from an Olympian height and had turned them into living and artistic drama. Nothing seemed to have escaped his attention, from the lowly life of the worker on the Southern plantation to the snobbery of the near whites of the North. Chesnutt had surveyed the entire field, calmly setting down what he saw, what he thought and felt about it.
Byron especially admired the story called A Matter of Principle which related the painful experience of the Clayton family, members of the Blue Vein Circle in a middle western city. At a dance in Washington, the daughter, Alice, met a number of attractive young men. Shortly after her return to her home she received a note from a coloured Congressman informing her that he would soon be paying a visit to her city and begging to be permitted to call. The letter was couched in terms that indicated beyond any manner of doubt that the Congressman was deeply interested in Alice. She, however, had danced with so many young men that she was unable to recall this particular one. As a Congressman he assuredly had some political importance. The paramount question with her family, belonging as it did to the Blue Veins, was whether he was sufficiently light in colour to be received by their group. Local inquiry elicited a favourable report. The Congressman, therefore, was invited to stop at Mr. Clayton's house and a reception was arranged in hishonour. At the appointed hour Mr. Clayton and his son repaired to the railway station to meet him. Somehow they missed him at the gate. Searching the waiting-rooms they came upon a bag which was plainly marked with their prospective guest's initials, but what was their chagrin to discover standing next to the bag an extremely black man. They receded to confer. Obviously their set would laugh if they went through with their plan to entertain this fellow. In their desperation they remembered that an epidemic of diphtheria was raging in the city. Hastily scribbling a note of apology—it described Alice as laid low with the disease—they dispatched it by a porter to the owner of the bag. Alice subsequently was required to take to her bed, the invitations to the reception were cancelled by telephone, and a friendly physician was bribed to add a quarantine sign to the decorations of the front porch. These precautionary measures attended to, the family breathed a sigh of relief which was transformed, the next morning, into a groan, when they read in the local newspaper a long interview with the Congressman, who was described as nearly white. Thereafter for the week he remained in town they read accounts of the entertainments given for him by the Blue Veins while Alice was compelled to remain in bed. The dark stranger in the station, it appeared, was a bishop who had been the Congressman's travelling companion.
Byron knew in his soul that this story explained why he had not taken advantage of Mr. Sumner's offer to help him secure a position, why he had not called on several other prominent men to whom his father had given him letters. It might be unfair—it probably was—but he felt that these people were snobs and he did not want to be beholden to them. In fact, something stronger than himself, a kind of perverse pride, refused to permit him to make any use of such acquaintanceships. These successful persons liked to be seen with whites or with the light coloured or more famous members of their own race. Well, until he was famous he refused to be patronized.
What a great man Chesnutt must have been to dare publish A Matter of Principle in 1900, before there were any "New Negroes!" Why now, all the young writers who were trying to set down on paper what they knew to be true were branded by the uncultured mob as faithless to their race, untrue to their trust. Their trust! Byron flamed as he thought how the uneducated Negroes delighted in keeping the upper level as low as possible, pulling them down, maliciously, even with glee, when they were able to do so.
His mind travelled irrationally to a consideration of Lasca Sartoris, a pleasanter subject which brought a smile and a cigarette simultaneously to his lips. She had beauty and wit and money. She was rich and successful and happy. She had won. Problems didn't bother her. She had found what she had wanted by wanting what she could get, and then always demanding more, more, until now the world poured its gifts into her bewitching lap. But Lasca Sartoris was a woman, and an exceptionally fascinating woman. Men gave her things, but who would give him anything? Lasca Sartoris! If he might only know her better! That would give him something! Never before had he met so vibrant a personality . . . and golden-brown, his colour.
Mary's behaviour at the dance had surprised him. Somehow he hadn't foreseen that she would be jealous. He had been attracted initially by the cool simplicity of her manner. She had been so different from most of the women he had known. . . . Arline, little spitfire! . . . Immediately he had met Mary, he was aware that he made subtle distinctions in her favour, had even acknowledged to himself that she had a certain power over him, and yet he had not exactly intended to become engaged to her. He loved Mary now that he had awakened an unsuspected fire in her, but he knew that this was a very different Mary from the Mary that had first attracted his attention at Adora's: a passionate, jealous Mary with an unpleasant sense of possession. He would, he was sure, constantly strive to escape from this. He was doomed to hurt her. She frightened him; her hurt frightened him. Why, he had to know women like Lasca! He could never resist women anyway—golden-brown women; Mary, too, was golden-brown—and a woman like Lasca drew him inevitably to her side. He hadn't, however, seen her again. He had telephoned her twice, only to be mysteriously informed that she was out of the city. He didn't actually want to leave Mary, he tried to tell himself—God knows Lasca, with everything she desired within reach, wouldn't take him very seriously—but he had to teach her that she didn't own him.
There was still another way in which Mary irked him, another direction in which she exercised her sense of possession. Like his father, she was for ever offering him advice, telling him what he must do to get on. These two didn't seem to realize what getting on meant. It had been comparatively easy for Mary, easy enough, no doubt, even for his father. They couldn't understand how hard it had been for him. They couldn't understand that he had tried. Had he tried? His mind began to wander. What was it all worth, anyway? Why couldn't he fall in line and just be a Nigger, like the rest of the "good" Niggers! . . . And Mary didn't like cabarets and would be disagreeable every time he went to one, and she would be annoyed if he attended prize-fights—he made a mental note that he would see Leanshanks Pescod's next combat . . . and girls, golden-brown girls. What would Mary . . . ?
His landlady rapped on the door. Welcome Fox was a middle-aged woman who had been born on a Tennessee plantation and had come North with her husband, at that time working as a coachman for a family which had moved to New York. He had, in time, drifted away from this connection to drive one of the Victorias that rolled in the old days up and down Fifth Avenue. Two years ago he had died, leaving his wife to care for their dead daughter's two children. Mrs. Fox had always been thrifty, however, and she was accustomed to hard work. In her earlier days she had added to her income by taking in washing and doing simple dressmaking. Now she paid the rent of her apartment by letting some of the rooms. Occasionally, too, she worked out by the day. When she was at home she practically lived in the kitchen, although she also reserved a small bedroom for herself and the children.
Come in! Byron cried.
As Mrs. Fox opened the door, whiffs of frying pork-chops and boiled cabbage floated into the room. One of the children clung with a sort of desperation to her ample skirts.
Dere's a gen'mun ter see you, chile, she announced.
Who is it, Mrs. Fox?
Ah doan perzackly recerlec' duh name. It's duh light-coloured gen'mun who comes here frequentlike.
Mr. Sill?
Dat's him. Her pleasant face brightened. Taxis, quit pullin' yo' mammy's skirts. Ah declare dat chil' ain' nebber gwine leab me alone.
Before Dick Sill had removed his overcoat, he blazed forth his news, almost in a tone of defiance.
I'm going white! he announced.
Byron did not speak at once. He didn't know what to say. Presently, he mustered up, Take off your coat, Dick.
Accepting this invitation, his friend seated himself on the bed and nervously lighted a cigarette.
They make us do it, Byron, he insisted, still in an aggressive tone which sounded apologetic. They make us. We don't want to. I don't want to, but they make us.
I know, said Byron. I couldn't do it, but I know.
Buda Green married a white man. That's what got me to thinking. He doesn't know she has coloured blood. I met her on the street one day. Why don't you pass, too, Dick? she asked me. There are ten thousand of us in New York alone. Why don't you come across the line? You're light enough.
Suppose somebody'd give me away, I countered. She laughed at me. They won't do that, she said. Shines love to fool ofays too much for that and when they see you fooling 'em they'll leave you alone. They won't blab on you. You're a boob if you don't come over. Why, I go everywhere with my husband and no one has ever suspected me. Why should they? The world is full of mixed blood, Chinese and English, Indians and American whites, Jews and Spaniards . . .
I read somewhere, said Byron, about a fellow who holds a theory that this . . . this . . . flair the white man has for our women will eventually solve the race problem. We'll all be absorbed in the white race!
Say, I've read a thing or two on the subject myself, cried Dick, still more excitedly. The other day I ran across a book by an English chap named Robert Graves. It's called My Head! My Head! I opened it to these words: There were only two women who loved Moses, and no men. The women were Jochebed, his mother, and the Ethiopian woman, his wife. . . . Say, that startled me and I went back and read from the beginning. I found the book to be a loving, skilful interpretation of the story of Moses, as related by Elisha to the Shunamite woman who was the namesake of Moses's mother. The book explains that it was through the aid of the Ethiopian woman, born near the springs of the Nile, that Moses was enabled to predict the plagues of Egypt, partly through her knowledge of voodoo, partly through advance information she secured from her tribe.
But that's fiction! It isn't in the Bible! Byron cried.
Isn't it just? Well, the first verse of the twelfth chapter of Numbers reads: And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he married; for he had married an Ethiopian woman. . . . And because Miriam and Aaron objected to her, Dick continued, the Bible tells us that God turned them into lepers. That'll be news for some of these Southern fundamentalists. Apparently there's nothing against miscegenation in Holy Writ. What's more, I looked the lady up in Josephus, and found her there, too, together with her name. Tharbis.
And so you think . . . ?
I think that anything Moses did in Egypt a great many of his followers did too. I think. . . .
Surely you're not passing because you've been reading the Bible!
Not at all! It just happened accidentally. You know I recently lost my job. Well, I was searching another. Want-ad-page in hand, I hustled from office to office. Always turned down when I told them I was a Negro. Finally, I went into an office where they were very pleasant to me and the job looked fine. After the man asked me several questions, he engaged me. Then he inquired, You're quite dark. Are you Spanish?
My mother was Spanish, I replied. Do you blame me?
No, I don't, Byron assured him. I couldn't. What kind of job is it?
I'm private secretary. The boss makes frequent trips to Europe. We're sailing, as a matter of fact, in April.
Byron buried his face in his hands and groaned. I don't blame you, Dick, he replied, but I just couldn't do it myself.
A little later, after his friend had departed, Byron drew out a fresh sheet of paper and took up his pencil. He looked out of the window at the blank wall and tried to collect his thoughts. What could he write about? What was there interesting to write about? He couldn't think of a thing.