If He Hollers Let Him Go Part 2

'How you know I ain't from California?' Conway said.

'Ain't n.o.body in here from California,' Arkansas said. 'What city in Arkansas you from?'

'He's from Pine Bluff,' Johnson said. 'Can't you tell a Pine Bluff nig--Pine Bluffian when you see him?'

'Hear the Moroccan,' Conway sneered. 'Johnson a Moroccan, he ain't no coloured man.'

'You got any folks in Fort Worth, Conway?' Arkansas asked.

'I ain't got many folks,' Conway said. 'We a small family.'

'You got a grandpa, ain't you?' Arkansas persisted.

'Had one,' Conway said.

'Then how you know?' Arkansas pointed out.

Peaches was grinning.

'You going back?' Homer asked.

Arkansas looked at him. 'Who you talking to? Me?'

'You'll do. You going back?'

'Back where?'

'Back to Arkansas?'

'Yeah, I'm going back--when the horses, they pick the cotton, and the mules, they cut the corn; when the white chickens lay black eggs and the white folks is Jim Crowed while the black folks is--'

He broke off as Smitty came in with a white leaderman named Donald. They didn't see me. He showed Donald where he had cut an opening in his duct for an intake vent, and Donald said he'd cut four inches off the X.

'That's where Bob told me to cut,' he said.

Donald shook his head noncommittally; he was a nice guy and he didn't want to say I was wrong. I'd often wondered if he was a COmmunist. He had a round moonface, pleasant but unsmiling, and that sharp speculative look behind rimless spectacles that some Communists have.

I stepped into the picture then. 'When did I tell you to cut out there?' I asked Smitty.

Donald turned red. 'h.e.l.lo, Bob,' he said. 'Smitty said you was off today.'

'Jesus Christ, can't you coloured boys do anything right?' Kelly said from behind me. He had slipped in unnoticed.

Air began lumping in my chest and my eyes started burning. I looked at Kelly. I ought to bust him right on the side of his scrawny red neck, I thought. I'd kill him as sure as h.e.l.l. Instead I ground out, 'Any mechanic might have made the same mistake. Any mechanic but a white mechanic,' I added.

He didn't get it. 'Yeah, but you boys make too many mistakes. You got to cut it out.'

Donald started moving off. 'I ain't made a single mistake this month, Mr. Kelly.' Conway grinned up at him from where he knelt on the floor, soldering a seam.

Pigmeat nudged me. 'See what I mean? Got 'em skunt back to his ears. He thinks the man a dentist.'

Kelly heard him but acted as if he didn't. He said to Conway, 'I wasn't talking about you. You're a good boy, a good worker. I was talking 'bout some of these other boys.'

In the silence that followed Peaches said, 'Oh, Conway gonna get a raise,' before she could catch herself, having thought we'd keep on talking and she wouldn't be heard. Somebody laughed.

I kept looking at Kelly without saying anything. He turned suddenly and started out. When he had gone Smitty said, 'How come he always got to pick on you? He don't never jump on none of these white leadermen. You know as much as they do.'

I unfolded my rule and tapped the duct he was working on. 'Cut your bottom line ten inches from the b.u.t.t joint,' I directed, trying to keep my voice steady. He was just a simple-minded, Uncle Tom-ish n.i.g.g.e.r, I told myself; he couldn't help it. 'You'll have a four-inch gap. Take this duct over to the shop and get a production welder to weld in an insert plate and grind the burrs down as smooth as possible.' I turned and started out, then stopped. 'And remember I'm your leaderman,' I added.

Ben was standing in the opening, grinning at me. He was a light-brown-skinned guy in his early thirties, good-looking with slightly Caucasian features and straight brown hair. He was a graduate of U.C.L.A. and didn't take anything from the white folks and didn't give them anything. If he had been on the job for more than nine months he'd probably have been the leaderman instead of me; he probably knew more than I did, anyway.

I grinned back at him.

He said, 'Tough, Bob, but you got to take it.'

CHAPTER IV.

I b.u.mped into Red Williams in the companionway and he said he'd been looking all over for me.

'Will you get me a tacker, Bob?' he said. 'I'm tired of fooling with these people. I've had enough.'

He was a tall, rawboned, merriney-looking Negro with kinky reddish hair and brown freckles.

Me too, I wanted to tell him, but the fellows in my gang looked up to me; whenever they had trouble with the white workers they looked to me to straighten it out. So all I said was I'd see Hank.

Hank was the tacker leaderman, a heavy-set, blond Georgia boy about my age and a graduate of Georgia Tech. White mechanics could go to him and get any tacker they wanted, but he made the coloured mechanics wait until he could find a coloured tacker that was free. Most of the white tackers didn't like to work for coloured mechanics, and Hank wouldn't a.s.sign them to. He wasn't offensive about it, he'd just make the coloured mechanics wait, and if they got mad about it he gave them a line of his soft Southern jive. I found him on the quarter-deck talking to a couple of white women tackers in their welders' suits.

'How 'bout a tacker for a half hour or so?' I said.

He hadn't seen me coming toward him and when I spoke he jumped. Then he put on his special smile for coloured. 'Why, if it isn't the shot,' he said. 'Whataya say, big shot, long time no see. What's cooking?'

'All I want's a tacker,' I said. I knew it wasn't the way to go about it but I wasn't in the mood for jive.

'Say, fellow, you're getting fat--a regular capitalist.' He kept on as if he thought he was going to thaw me out. Then he turned to the two women. 'Here's a boy who's come out to California and made good in a big way; he's a leaderman in the sheet-metal department--one of Kelly's boys.'

I saw I couldn't rush him so I decided to dish out some too. 'You're doing fine yourself,' I said. 'The folks back in Georgia wouldn't know you.'

He kept his smile, but he began getting dirty. 'You said it, bo.' Then to the women, 'This boy's really a killer, got all the little brown gals in a dither about him.' To me again, 'How _does_ you do it, bo?'

I got all set to curse him out; then right in the middle of it! realized that I was jumping the gun; he hadn't really said enough to start a rumpus about. I had to laugh. The three of them started to laugh with me. I said, 'Don't sell me _too_ hard, buddy, you just might find a buyer.'

Hank caught it first; the creases stayed in his face but his smile went. The two women dug it from the change in his expression; neither blushed; they just got that sudden brutal look.

'You don't want a tacker, sho 'nuff?' Hank said, trying to get back his advantage.

But he had lost it. 'Sho 'nuff,' I drawled. 'An' ri' now.'

We looked at each other, measuring. His eyes were hard blue, hostile but not quite angry. I don't know how mine looked but I tried to make them as hard as his.

He decided to play it straight, where he always had the advantage. 'To tell you the truth, Bob, all of my tackers are busy, will be busy all day.'

I tried to get it back again. 'How about one of these ladies?' I'd started to say 'Southern' ladies, but decided not to press him that far.

'They're busy too,' he said. Now he got some of his smile back.

I started to turn away, saw a couple of tackers lounging over at the port rail by the generators, gabbing; turned back. 'How about one of them?' I nodded in their direction.

He glanced over at them, looked back at me. Now he had all of his smile back. 'They're busy too,' he said. 'You're just out of luck, Bob. Why don't you try Tommy?' Tommy was another cracker b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

I couldn't call him a liar; that's where he had me. I couldn't go down to Kelly and say, 'Hank said he ain't got any tackers'--even if I would have, which I wouldn't. He'd look at me as if I was nuts and say, 'Why, G.o.dd.a.m.n, why tell me?' I turned away, thinking. The white folks win again, trying to laugh it off. But it stuck in my craw. If I couldn't get the work done I'd have to take Kelly's riding; and in order to get it done I had to eat everybody else's. I had my usual once-a-day urge to tell them to take their leaderman job and shove it.

But half-way down the ladder I thought, What the h.e.l.l, and turned around and went back to the tackers who were gabbing by the rail. I saw they were Southerners, but I asked anyway.

'Look, can I get one of you fellows to tack a couple of stays for me?'

They looked at each other. For a moment I thought neither one was going to answer, then one said, 'We's waitin' fuh Hank.'

'You're not working on a job, though, are you?'

'No, we's jes waitin'.'

I couldn't tell whether they were making fun of me or just talked like that. I decided to try again. 'If Hank says it's all right, can I get one of you then?'

They looked at each other again. The other one spoke this time. He said, 'Sho.'

All of a sudden I had to laugh. They knew that Hank wasn't going to a.s.sign them to me. 'Okay, boys,' I said. 'Get your rest.'

I walked off but I didn't know where I was going. I couldn't go down and tell Red that Hank wouldn't give me a tacker, either; they'd get down on me too. Then I thought of Don. I found him at the forward end supervising the installation of a cowl vent.

'Wanna do me a favour?' I said.

He turned that bright speculative stare on me. 'Shoot Kelly?' He didn't crack a smile, but I laughed once anyway to show him it was funny.

Then I said, 'Let me borrow one of your tackers for about a half-hour.'

He thought for a moment. 'There's a girl down aft--Madge. They're doing these things.' He kicked at the cowl. 'You can have her till dinner-time, anyway.'

'Fine,' I said, hurrying off. I noticed the white mechanics give him a dirty look, but I didn't think anything about it at the time.

She had her back to me and her hood up so it covered her hair, so I didn't recognize her right off. I was about twenty feet away, hurrying toward her, when one of the white mechanics looked up, and that caused her to turn. I saw that she was the big, peroxide blonde I'd run into on the third deck earlier; and I knew the instant I recognized her that she was going to perform then--we both would perform.

As soon as she saw me she went into her frightened act and began shrinking away. I started off giving her a sneer so she'd know I knew it was phoney. She knew it anyway; but she kept putting it on me. I didn't know how far she'd go and I got apprehensive. Before I got too close to her I began talking to her, like you do to a vicious dog to gentle it.

'Look, Madge, Don said you could work with me for a while.'

A wild excited look came into her eyes and her mouth went tight-lipped and brutal; she looked as if she was priming herself to scream. This b.i.t.c.h is crazy, I thought, but I walked on up to her and picked up her line as if nothing was happening. 'It's just a short job,' I said. 'I'll carry your line for you.'

She came out of her phoney act and jerked her line out of my hand, 'I ain't gonna work with no n.i.g.g.e.r!' she said in a harsh, flat voice.

I didn't even think about it. I just said it right out of my stomach. 'Screw you then, you cracker b.i.t.c.h!'

I stood there for a moment swapping looks with her. She didn't even bat her eyes; she just gave me a long hard brazen look and turned to the two mechanics squatting open-mouthed and said, 'You gonna let a n.i.g.g.e.r talk tuh me like that?'

One started up tentatively, a bar in his hand. 'Well now, by G.o.d--'

I gave them a glance. They were both elderly men, small, scrawny, nothing to worry about. I turned and walked away, went down to the head and told Red that I couldn't find him a tacker, he'd have to take the job over to the sheet-metal shop and get it welded.

'These white folks just refuse to work with us mggers this morning,' I laughed. I felt better now I'd cursed somebody out.

At eleven-thirty MacDougal, the department superintendent, sent for me. I walked across the yard to the sheet-metal shop where he had his office.

'h.e.l.lo, Bob, the boss'll see you in a minute,' Marguerite said, looking up from her desk by the door. She was a small, compact, black-haired woman with sharp brown eyes and skin that was constantly greasy. She wasn't pretty but she wore expensive clothes. She looked thirty and she was hard as nails.

'How's it going, Marguerite?' I said, but she had turned away to answer the phone and didn't hear me.

I stood there for a time then Marguerite noticed me again and said, 'Sit down, Bob. Mr. MacDougal's busy now, he'll see you in a minute.'

I went over and sat in one of the chairs along the wall and looked at Mac. His desk was out from the wall across the room. He was talking to one of the white shop leadermen and didn't look at me. The shop super and two other shop leadermen came in and he talked to them in turn. Then he made a phone call. Another fellow came in and took the chair at the end of the desk with his back to me and Mac talked to him for a time; then he looked up at me and beckoned.

I went over to his desk. 'h.e.l.lo, Mac,' I said.

He didn't like for the coloured fellows to call him Mac, but he wouldn't tell them outright; he'd tell Marguerite to tell them to address him as Mr. MacDougal. She had told me twice; she didn't tell me any more.

He was a fat man in shirt sleeves, weighing three hundred or more. He had a jolly red face and twinkling eyes and when he laughed he shook all over. Now he sat there overflowing in his huge desk chair, beaming at me.

'h.e.l.lo, Bob, I'm glad you dropped in,' he said.

'You sent for me,' I said.

He quit beaming and his face got vicious. 'You cursed a woman worker this morning,' he charged.

I was suddenly conscious that everyone in the office had stopped to listen. 'She called me a n.i.g.g.e.r,' I said.

He carefully crossed his hands over his fat belly and leaned back in his chair. Then he began beaming again. 'You expect all kind of things when you work with people,' he began in a careful voice. 'But one of the first things people in authority gotta learn is they can't lose their temper. I can't lose my temper. My superior can't lose his temper. You didn't have no right to lose your temper about it either. Things happen every day that make me mad enough to curse somebody--but I don't do it. I couldn't keep the respect of my workers. Some of them would get mad and curse me back. I'd lose my discipline over them, I'd lose their respect, I wouldn't be able to keep my job. You can understand that, Bob, you're an intelligent boy.'

I didn't say anything.

'You know as well as I do that part of your job was to help me keep down trouble between the white and coloured workers,' he went on. 'That was one of the reasons I put you on that job. I figured you'd have sense enough to get along with the people you had to work with instead of running around with a chip on your shoulder like most coloured boys.'

I let him talk.

'You know I put you on that job against Mr. Kelly's wishes. Kelly--Mr. Kelly said I wasn't doing nothing but borrowing trouble but I told him you were the most intelligent coloured boy I knew and you'd be able to help us.' He took an aggrieved att.i.tude. 'I'm surprised at you, Bob. I figured you were too intelligent to lose your head about something like that. I figured you had better manners, more respect for women than that. You know how Southern people talk, how they feel about working with you coloured boys. They have to get used to it, you gotta give them time. What makes me so mad with you is, G.o.dd.a.m.nit, you know this. I don't have to tell you what could have happened by your cursing a white woman, you know as well as I do.' He paused and jerked his head back. 'Don't you?' He pressed.