Invisible man - Ralph Ellison [149]
"Mahn," Ras blurted, "I ought to kill you. Godahm, I ought to kill you and the world be better off. But you black, mahn. Why you be black, mahn? I swear I ought to kill you. No mahn strike the Exhorter, godahmit, no mahn!"
I saw him raise the knife again and now as he lowered it unused he pushed Clifton into the street and stood over him, sobbing.
"Why you with these white folks? Why? I been watching you a long time. I say to myself, 'Soon he get smart and get tired. He get out of that t'ing.' Why a good boy like you still with them?"
Still moving forward, I saw his face gleam with red angry tears as he stood above Clifton with the still innocent knife and the tears red in the glow of the window sign.
"You my brother, mahn. Brothers are the same color; how the hell you call these white men brother? Shit, mahn. That's shit! Brothers the same color. We sons of Mama Africa, you done forgot? You black, BLACK! You -- Godahm, mahn!" he said, swinging the knife for emphasis. "You got bahd hair! You got thick lips! They say you stink! They hate you, mahn. You Afrian. AFRICAN! Why you with them? Leave that shit, mahn. They sell you out. That shit is old-fashioned. They enslave us -- you forget that? How can they mean a black mahn any good? How they going to be your brother?"
I had reached him now and brought the pipe down hard, seeing the knife fly off into the' dark as he grabbed his wrist, and I raised the pipe again, suddenly hot with fear and hate, as he looked at me out of his narrow little eyes, standing his ground.
"And you, mahn," the Exhorter said, "a reg'lar little black devil! A godahm sly mongoose! Where you think you from, going with the white folks? I know, godahm; don't I know it! You from down South! You from Trinidad! You from Barbados! Jamaica, South Africa, and the white mahn's foot in your ass all the way to the hip. What you trying to deny by betraying the black people? Why you fight against us? You young fellows. You young black men with plenty education; I been hearing your rabble rousing. Why you go over to the enslaver? What kind of education is that? What kind of black mahn is that who betray his own mama?"
"Shut up," Clifton said, leaping to his feet. "Shut up!"
"Hell, no," Ras cried, wiping his eyes with his fists. "I talk! Bust me with the pipe but, by God, you listen to the Exhorter! Come in with us, mahn. We build a glorious movement of black people. Black People! What they do, give you money? Who wahnt the dahm stuff? Their money bleed black blood, mahn. It's unclean! Taking their money is shit, mahn. Money without dignity -- That's bahd shit!"
Clifton lunged toward him. I held him, shaking my head. "Come on, the man's crazy," I said, pulling on his arm.
Ras struck his thighs with his fists. "Me crazy, mahn? You call me crazy? Look at you two and look at me -- is this sanity? Standing here in three shades of blackness! Three black men fighting in the street because of the white enslaver? Is that sanity? Is that consciousness, scientific understahnding? Is that the modern black mahn of the twentieth century? Hell, mahn! Is it self-respect -- black against black? What they give you to betray -- their women? You fall for that?"
"Let's go," I said, listening and remembering and suddenly alive in the dark with the horror of the battle royal, but Clifton looked at Ras with a tight, fascinated expression, pulling away from me.
"Let's go," I repeated. He stood there, looking.
"Sure, you go," Ras said, "but not him. You contahminated but he the real black mahn. In Africa this mahn be a chief, a black king! Here they say he rape them godahm women with no blood in their veins. I bet this mahn can't beat them off with baseball bat -- shit! What kind of foolishness is it? Kick him ass from cradle to grave then call him brother? Does it make mahthematics? Is it logic? Look at him, mahn; open your eyes," he said to me. "I look like that I rock the blahsted world! They know about me in Japan, India -- all the colored