Invisible man - Ralph Ellison [152]
"No," Clifton said, "he won't get on the inside. Did you hear how he was talking? Did you hear what he was saying?"
"I heard him, sure," I said.
"I don't know," he said. "I suppose sometimes a man has to plunge outside history . . ."
"What?"
"Plunge outside, turn his back . . . Otherwise he might kill somebody, go nuts."
I didn't answer. Maybe he's right, I thought, and was suddenly very glad I had found Brotherhood.
THE next morning it rained and I reached the district before the others arrived and stood looking through the window of my office, past the jutting wall of a building, and on beyond the monotonous pattern of its bricks and mortar I saw a row of trees rising tall and graceful in the rain. One tree grew close by and I could see the rain streaking its bark and its sticky buds. Trees were rowed the length of the long block beyond me, rising tall in dripping wetness above a series of cluttered backyards. And it occurred to me that cleared of its ramshackle fences and planted with flowers and grass, it might form a pleasant park. And just then a paper bag sailed from a window to my left and burst like a silent grenade, scattering garbage into the trees and pancaking to earth with a soggy, exhausted plop! I started with disgust, then thought, The sun will shine in those backyards some day. A community clean-up campaign might be worthwhile for a slack season, at that. Everything couldn't possibly be as exciting as last night.
Turning back to my desk I sat facing the map now as Brother Tarp appeared.
"Morning, son, I see you already on the job," he said.
"Good morning. I have so much to do that I thought I'd better get started early," I said.
"You'll do all right," he said. "But I didn't come in here to take up your time, I want to put something on the wall."
"Go right ahead. Can I give you a hand?"
"No, I can make it all right," he said, clambering with his lame leg upon a chair that sat beneath the map and hanging a frame from the ceiling molding, straightening it carefully, and getting down to come over beside my desk.
"Son, you know who that is?"
"Why, yes," I said, "it's Frederick Douglass."
"Yessir, that's just who it is. You know much about him?"
"Not much. My grandfather used to tell me about him though."
"That's enough. He was a great man. You just take a look at him once in a while. You have everything you need -- paper and stuff like that?"
"Yes, I have, Brother Tarp. And thanks for the portrait of Douglass."
"Don't thank me, son," he said from the door. "He belongs to all of us."
I sat now facing the portrait of Frederick Douglass, feeling a sudden piety, remembering and refusing to hear the echoes of my grandfather's voice. Then I picked up the telephone and began calling the community leaders.
They fell in line like prisoners: preachers, politicians, various professionals, proving Clifton correct. The eviction fight was such a dramatic issue that most of the leaders feared that their followers would have rallied to us without them. I slighted no one, no matter how unimportant; bigshots, doctors, real-estate men and store-front preachers. And it went so fast and smoothly that it seemed not to happen to me but to someone who actually bore my new name. I almost laughed into the phone when I heard the director of Men's House address me with profound respect. My new name was getting around. It's very strange, I thought, but things are so unreal for them normally that they believe that to call a thing by name is to make it so. And yet I am what they think I am . . .
OUR work went so well that a few Sundays later we threw a parade that clinched our hold on the community. We worked feverishly. And now the clashing and conflict of my last days at Mary's seemed to have moved out into the struggles of the community, leaving me inwardly calm and controlled. Even the hustle and bustle of picketing and speechmaking seemed to stimulate me for the better; my wildest ideas paid off.
Upon hearing that one of the unemployed brothers was an ex-drill master