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

'Hello, 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. 'Hello, 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.
'Hello, 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 nigger,' 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 attitude. '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, goddamnit, 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.
'Sure, I know,' I said.
His face got a swollen look and his eyes filled up. 'I'm not going to have you or any other coloured boy in this department who can't maintain a courteous and respectful manner toward the white men and women you have to work with,' he said. His voice shook with anger. He unhooked his hands and shook his fist at me. 'I'm not going to have it, goddamnit, that's all!'
'I'm not going to have nobody call me a nigger either," I said. I wasn't angry; I was just telling him.
He was through with it. 'You stay on through Saturday. Monday you start in as a mechanic.' He jerked his head toward the fellow sitting at the end of the desk. 'This is Dan Tebbel. Danny's going to work with you this week and beginfling Monday he takes your place.'
I'd known Mac was going to give me hell; but I didn't think he'd downgrade me and put a white boy in my place. I thought he'd be afraid of the coloured workers making trouble. It shocked me to find out he didn't give a goddamn about the coloured workers, one way or the other. I looked at Tebbel sort of vacantly. He was a thin, undernourished man with a beaked nose, pale blue eyes, and reddish hair.
But I didn't really begin to feel it until Mac said, 'You'll lose your job deferment too. You're a single boy and they'll put you in 1A.'
All of a sudden I got that crazy, scared feeling I'd waked up with that morning. It had happened in a second; my job was gone and I was facing the draft; like the Japanese getting pulled up by the roots. But I couldn't find a thing to say in my defence. I had to say something, so I said, 'What's Tebbel going to do? My gang's a Jim Crow gang. Maybe they won't work for Tebbel.'
Mac reddened. 'That's all, Bob,' he said, dismissing me.
'What about Ben for my job?' I kept on; I couldn't let it go like that. 'He's a college graduate--U.C.L.A. Just as smart as --'
The phone rang. Mac picked it up. He wasn't listening to me. I stood there for a moment, listening to him talk over the phone, not knowing what to do. When I should have challenged him was when he said, 'Monday you start in as a mechanic.' But I had let it pass. Now with the bastard not even listening it was too late to quit. I turned and walked off.
Outside, I stood for a time, feeling cheated, trapped. I couldn't decide whether I'd been a coward or a fool. I debated whether to go back and split him. I'd get a fine and some days, perhaps. Probably a sapping at police headquarters. I'd lose my car. I think that was what made me decide that my pride wasn't worth it. My car was proof of something to me, a symbol. But at the time I didn't analyse the feeling; I just knew I couldn't lose my car even if I lost my job.
The whistle blew for lunch but I couldn't eat. The taste of bile was in my mouth, tart, brackish, bitter as gall. I wanted something to do with my hands, action. I began looking for a crap game. Finally I found one over between the plate racks. A dozen or so white fellows and two coloured were ringed on the concrete. There was money in the centre and two big green white-eyed dice were rolling.
I took out six ones and a ten and two of the white fellows made room for me. A big, seamed-faced, bald-headed welder with gnarled hands was shooting eight bucks. I tossed in a ten to fade him and a thin, sallow-faced man gave me a cursing look.
'He done hit me twice,' he snarled in an Okie voice. 'Think I'm gonna let you have him now?'
I took down my ten. He took his time, counted out eight ones, tossed them in the pot. He kept grumbling under his breath. 'Comin' in here tryna bull de game.' He gave me another hard, hostile look. 'One of these slick guys, think you gonna grab the gravy. Goddamn smart--' He was working himself up to call me a nigger and I figured I'd better stop him.
'If you say another word I'll knock your eyes out,' I grated in a low voice.
He popped to his feet like a jumping jack, a stooped, undernourished, middle-aged man with the damnedest expression of baffled indignation on his face. I didn't even look up at him. He puffed and he blew. The shooter had come out on a five and he kept working at it until he made it--four, one.
'Shoot it all,' the welder said.
I looked up at my Okie friend. He had turned beet-red. 'He's all yours,' I said.
He muttered some words in his mouth, dribbling saliva. I began feeling better.
'Take down some,' somebody said to the shooter. 'You're holding up the game.'
'I got it,' I said, and tossed my sixteen bucks in the centre.
The shooter nursed the dice, blew on them, said, 'Now do your stuff, babies. Come out on seven.' He cocked his arm, turned them loose. They stopped trey. one.
'Liddle Joe from Kokomo,' one of the coloured fellows murmured, looking at me.
The big bald-headed welder picked them up and rubbed them on his leather pants leg. I looked at him.
'Come on,' a Texas drawl said impatiently. 'You're holding up the game.'
The shooter was getting ready to unlock 'em but now he rubbed them up some more. He gave the speaker a defiant look. Then he threw a beautiful seven.
'A lick too late,' I crowed. I picked up my thirty-two bucks, feeling good for the first time that day.
Then a little waspish, rat-mouthed cracker snatched the dice and tossed six bits in the centre. 'I shoot a nigger lick,' he said.
I didn't move. I squatted there with my eyes on the ground and couldn't look up. When I looked up it was toward one of the coloured fellows. He was looking down too, unmoving; and when he looked up it was toward me. A ripple went through the ring for just an instant; nobody moved. Then the third coloured fellow tossed six bits in the centre and the game went on. I caught several white fellows giving me furtive looks; but I kept looking at the shooter.
When the dice got to me I blew the air out of my lungs, got another lungful, and said, 'I'm gonna shoot my hand.' I tossed the bills in the centre.
'How much is it?' somebody asked.
The little rat-mouthed cracker started to count it. I leaned forward and pushed his hand away. 'It's thirty-two bucks,' I said.
He gave me a hard look and said, 'I got six bits of it.'