"Himes, Chester - If He Hollers Let Him Go" - читать интересную книгу автора (Himes Chester)

I found the union steward, Herbie Frieberger, on the weather deck, enjoying his privileges. He was a tall, lean, stoop-shouldered guy in his early thirties, with frizzly gopher-coloured hair, a flapping loose-lipped mouth, and a big hooked nose. His face was narrow and his brownish eyes were set close together; he had a shiny tin hat tipped to the back of his head and a union button big as a saucer pinned to the front of his shirt. I didn't exactly hate the guy, but I despised him from the word 'go.' It was strictly personal.
There were five guys standing around him, four white and a coloured fellow who was something or other in the union, probably the proof that it wasn't discriminatory. Herbie was beating up his chops about Lend-Lease to Russia when I walked up.
'Comrades,' I greeted.
They all looked around. One of the white guys winked; the other three didn't speak.
'Comrade,' the coloured fellow saluted. A black Russian, I thought.
Herbie looked salty. "Lo, Bob,' he growled.
'May I have a word in private with you, Commissar?' I said. Herbie didn't like that either. 'Come on, can the corny jive,' he grated. 'Next thing you'll be asking me to get you out of a jam.'
I kept my face under control. 'Okay, you know the story,' I said. 'I want to talk to you about it.'
He got important again. 'Say look, Bob, can't you see me in about a half-hour? Maybe I can do something for you, old man.'
'Whatever you can do in a half-hour, you can do right now.
'Jesus Christ, all you guys do is gripe,' he complained. 'You don't want a union, you want a court of human relations. Write a letter to Mr. Anthony.'
If he knew what I thought about both him and the union he wouldn't be so cute, I thought. I kept my voice level. 'Come on, Jew boy, don't be so loud,' I said, dragging him in front of the white bays.
He jerked a look of solid malevolence at me, then gave the others a you-see-how-it-is look, spread his hands in a despairing gesture, and walked with me to the starboard rail.
'The thing for you to do is to write out a grievance and give it to me tomorrow,' he began blabbing before I'd said a word. 'I'll present it before the executive board when we meet next week.'
'You're jumping the gun, sonny boy,' I told him flatly. 'What I want you to do is straighten out this cracker dame. I'll handle the rest of it. I want you to tell her she has to work with Negroes here or lose her job.'
I knew that'd put him on the spot; he didn't want to butt heads with those crackers any more than I did.
'Jesus Christ, Bob, you know the union can't do that,' he began, tracking back. 'The union can't force anybody to quit --,
'You can if they don't pay their dues,' I said.
'But this is different,' he contended. 'This is dynamite. If we tried that, half the workers in the yard would walk out. I hate to even think what might happen.'
'Don't try,' I said. 'Think of what's already happened. If a third-grade tacker can get a leaderman bumped every cracker dame here is going to figure she can make a beef and get any Negro bumped--'
'Well, Christ, I'll talk to her,' he said. 'That's the best I can do. I've been intending to talk to her.' He wiped mock sweat from his brow. 'Damn, old man, take in some of your muscle, you'll get us all shot. Just take it easy and you'll live longer. Listen, if you take it easy for a month or two, I promise you--'
'If you can't talk to her now, and with me there to hear what you say, then to hell with you and this lousy Jim Crow union too!' I said.
'That's no way to talk about the union,' he began ducking and dodging again. 'You know we have always fought for the coloured people. Christ, learn something about your union, man. Most of the nationals have Negroes on their executive boards--'
'That don't mean anything to me,' I cut him off. 'When I came to this lousy city in '41 all I did was bump my head against Jim Crow shops that were organized by your union. They organize me _in_--that's fine--when I get _in_...'
'Hell, the union isn't an employment agency. If it hadn't been for the union you wouldn't be working here now--'
'That's a goddamned lie!' I said. 'The only reason this company started hiring Negroes is because they couldn't get enough white workers who wanted to work in this dirty yard. This lousy local never fought for Negroes to be hired--probably fought against it--'
'Okay, okay,' he cut in. 'This local is a stinker. Christ, don't you know I know it? But don't judge the whole movement by--'
'The whole movement ain't little Jesus Christ to me,' I said. 'Either you're all the way for me, or you're all the way against me. I don't play the middle.'
'That's the trouble with you coloured people,' he shouted, getting agitated. 'You forget we're in a war. This isn't any time for private gripes. We're fighting fascism--we're not fighting the 'companies and we're not fighting each other--we're all fighting fascism together and in order to beat fascism we got to have unity. We got to have unity in the union and unity on the job--'
'That's fine, Comrade Marx, that's wonderful,' I cut him off. 'Let's you and me unite and start right here fighting fascism. Let's go down and give this cracker dame some lessons in unity and if she doesn't want to unite let's tell her about the war--'
'Aw, goddamnit, you want to agitate!' he shouted. 'I'm no Communist and you know it. Mrs. Baker had an editorial in her paper about Negro people like you. She said--'
'Whatever she said, I don't want to hear it,' I said. 'Mrs. Baker's not my mama.' Mrs. Baker was a Negro woman who published a weekly paper in Los Angeles. 'And as for all that gibberish about unity! Get these crackers to unite with me. I'm willing. I'll work with 'em, fight with 'em, die with 'em, goddamnit. But I ain't gonna even try to do any uniting without anybody to unite with. Do you understand that?' I put my finger on his chest. 'What the hell do I care about unity, or the war either, for that matter, as long as I'm kicked around by every white person who comes along? Let the white people get some goddamned unity.'
He gave me a funny look, 'I'm white,' he said. 'I'm not kicking you around.'
That made me blind mad for him to put me on a spot like that. I blew up. 'Dammit to hell, don't look at me!' I said. 'I believe you. Tell it to some of these crackers around here who don't. They'd refuse to work with you as quick as they would me.'
Now he got a hurt enduring look. 'Jesus Christ,' he said. 'I never saw a guy so confused.'
'Okay, I'm confused,' I said. 'I knew that was coming.' I took a breath and pinned him down. 'All I want to know are you coming with me to talk to this dame?'
'Bob, you know damned well I can't do that. I'd start--'
'Well, go to hell!' I said, and walked off.
I rubbed my face with the flat of my hand, dug my finger tips into my scalp. That guy could really get on my nerves. He could give more phoney arguments in five minutes than the average chump could think up in a day. And the hell of it was he could make a weak-minded chump fall for 'em. All I'd wanted was for him to straighten out the dame, and he'd damn near shown me where she was right and I was wrong.
Now I didn't know what to do. I hadn't turned in the timecards because I didn't want any stuff out of Kelly. I stood there on the deck for a time, looking out across the harbour. A cruiser was silhouetted against the skyline. The white folks are still going strong, I thought; then I thought about the black sailors aboard waiting on the white. In the good old American tradition, I thought; the good old American way.
My face felt drawn in, thin, skin-tight on the bone. I wondered what would happen if all the Negroes in America would refuse to serve in the armed forces, refuse to work in war production until the Jim Crow pattern was abolished. The white folks would no doubt go right on fighting the war without us, I thought--and no doubt win it. They'd kill us maybe; but they couldn't kill us all. And if they did they'd have one hell of a job of burying us.
The thought pushed a laugh through my nose, loosened me slightly, then I remembered that Mac had said I'd lose my job deferment. I'd be in there soon myself, if I didn't get my job back, I thought, looking at the long lean cruiser. I gripped the rail until my knuckles showed white through the brown, clamped my teeth until my jaws ached. I wouldn't take it, I told myself; I just wouldn't take it, that was all.
Then I thought of Alice saying, 'But it's not just you now, Bob. It's you and I. . . . Don't you understand?' I began hurting inside, all down in my chest and stomach. I could see the planes of her face moving, the smooth mobile motion of her lips. 'In the things you do and the decisions you make you just can't think of yourself alone. You have to consider our future. . . .' The plea in her eyes. . . 'Is that too much to ask?' The finality of her voice. . . 'If you don't go to that girl and apologize and try in every way you know to get reinstated-- If you can't do that much, Bob, don't consider me as being with you any more....'
I felt something hammering on my brain, banging away with a ten-pound sledge. I gave a violent shake of my head, trying to get it off. Me and my goddamned two-cent pride, I thought; my cut-rate muscle and my blind dukes. Who in the hell did I think I was?
I took a deep breath and pushed away from the rail. I really liked that chick, I thought--she was strictly tops.
Then I started looking for Madge. But not to apologize. I was going to rack her back, I told myself. I was going to ask her what the hell she meant by saying she wouldn't work with a nigger, where did she get that stuff calling me a nigger, anyway? And if she didn't like it I was going to kick in her teeth. And if it meant losing Alice I was going to lose her. Goddamnit, I was a man like any other man; I wasn't asking any favours, and I wasn't taking no kicks.
I found her on the deck below, working with the same two mechanics, tacking a conduit to the deck plating. She was sitting on the deck with her feet drawn underneath her, bending forward over the arc. Her skin showed in a white line where her jacket and waist hiked up, and below her hips spread tight in her leather pants like an hour-glass. Don stood to one side, shading his eyes against the flash with his outstretched hand.
'What say, Don,' I greeted, coming up. 'How's things breaking?'
He looked around, didn't exactly give a start at sight of me, but his sharp brown eyes behind their rimless lenses got sparkbright. 'Oh, hello, Bob,' he said. 'I want to see you.'
The arc died for a moment and he took a quick squint at the job, looked away before a flash could catch him, and said to her, 'That's good.'