Invisible man - Ralph Ellison [3]
Once I saw a prizefighter boxing a yokel. The fighter was swift and amazingly scientific. His body was one violent flow of rapid rhythmic action. He hit the yokel a hundred times while the yokel held up his arms in stunned surprise. But suddenly the yokel, rolling about in the gale of boxing gloves, struck one blow and knocked science, speed and footwork as cold as a well-digger's posterior. The smart money hit the canvas. The long shot got the nod. The yokel had simply stepped inside of his opponent's sense of time. So under the spell of the reefer I discovered a new analytical way of listening to music. The unheard sounds came through, and each melodic line existed of itself, stood out clearly from all the rest, said its piece, and waited patiently for the other voices to speak. That night I found myself hearing not only in time, but in space as well. I not only entered the music but descended, like Dante, into its depths. And beneath the swiftness of the hot tempo there was a slower tempo and a cave and I entered it and looked around and heard an old woman singing a spiritual as full of Weltschmerz as flamenco, and beneath that lay a still lower level on which I saw a beautiful girl the color of ivory pleading in a voice like my mother's as she stood before a group of slave owners who bid for her naked body, and below that I found a lower level and a more rapid tempo and I heard someone shout:
"Brothers and sisters, my text this morning is the 'Blackness of Blackness.' "
And a congregation of voices answered: "That blackness is most black, brother, most black . . ."
"In the beginning . . ."
"At the very start," they cried.
". . . there was blackness . . ."
"Preach it . . ."
". . . and the sun . . ."
"The sun, Lawd . . ."
". . . was bloody red . . ."
"Red . . ."
"Now black is . . ." the preacher shouted.
"Bloody . . ."
"I said black is . . ."
"Preach it, brother . . ."
". . . an' black ain't . . "
"Red, Lawd, red: He said it's red!"
"Amen, brother . . ."
"Black will git you . . ."
"Yes, it will . . ."
". . . an' black won't . . ."
"Naw, it won't!"
"It do . . ."
"It do, Lawd . . ."
". . . an' it don't."
"Halleluiah . . ."
". . . It'll put you, glory, glory, Oh my Lawd, in the WHALE'S BELLY ."
"Preach it, dear brother . . ."
". . . an' make you tempt . . ."
"Good God a-mighty!"
"Old Aunt Nelly!"
"Black will make you . . ."
"Black . . ."
". . . or black will un-make you."
"Ain't it the truth, Lawd?"
And at that point a voice of trombone timbre screamed at me, "Git out of, here, you fool! Is you ready to commit treason?"
And I tore myself away, hearing the old singer of spirituals moaning, "Go curse your God, boy, and die."
I stopped and questioned her, asked her what was wrong.
"I dearly loved my master, son," she said.
"You should have hated him," I said.
"He gave me several sons," she said, "and because I loved my sons I learned to love their father though I hated him too."
"I too have become acquainted with ambivalence," I said. "That's why I'm here."
"What's that?"
"Nothing, a word that doesn't explain it. Why do you moan?"
"I moan this way 'cause he's dead," she said.
"Then tell me, who is that laughing upstairs?"
"Them's my sons. They glad."
"Yes, I can understand that too," I said.
"I laughs too, but I moans too. He promised to set us free but he never could bring hisself to do it. Still I loved him . . ."
"Loved him? You mean . . ."
"Oh yes, but 1 loved something else even more."
"What more?"
"Freedom."
"Freedom," I said. "Maybe freedom lies