KENNETH lay on the floor he knew not how long. At last he awakened
to the realization that his telephone was ringing furiously.
Subconsciously he was aware of the fact that it had been ringing for
some time. He lay there and let it ring.
Telephone—office—house—profession—life itself—all seemed vague and
nebulous phenomena remote from his existence far from him and as
uninteresting to him as life on Mars.
The raucous dissonance continued. "R-r-r-r-r," the bell seemed to
scream in its existence. It was like a mosquito in a darkened room
when one wanted to get to sleep. "Damn the telephone!" he cried
aloud. "Let the fool thing ring its head off!"…
He thought of Jane. He wondered if she would be content to remain in
Central City after the disasters to Mamie and Bob. If she didn't,
then they'd part. He was going to stay there if all hell froze over
until he found who had composed the mob that had killed Bob. Until
he had wreaked the utmost in vengeance upon them. … But Jane would
feel just as he did. She was no coward! Hadn't she been the one to
awaken him to the asininity of his own course in trying to keep away
from the race problem? No, she'd stick! She wasn't the quitting
kind! …
The telephone bell shrilled as though it were human—it sounded like
a vinegar-dispositioned virago berating her spouse. It paused only,
apparently, to catch enough breath to break forth again. Its
shrieking reverberations beat upon his eardrums in wave after wave
of sound until it seemed as though he would go mad. "Why doesn't the
fool get it through his head that there's nobody here to answer?" he
exclaimed in vexation that bordered on hysteria. He pressed the
heels of his palms against his ears as tightly as he could. That was
better! He could hear himself think now. …
Mamie and her mother couldn't stay in Central City, though. Too
terrible for them—especially for Mamie to stay here where she
couldn't help but see, every day, things that'd remind her of her
awful experience. And where fool people would come in with long
faces to sympathize with her and drive her mad. People were such
asses! Why didn't they have sense enough to show their sympathy by
staying away? Instead of coming in and sitting around, talking empty
nothings by the hour? Old Mrs. Amos would be that way. And
Mrs. Bradley. They were such nuisances. Wonder if he hadn't better
send Mamie and mamma to Philadelphia to his Uncle Will? Or would it
be best to send them to Virginia to his Uncle Jim? No, that wouldn't
do. Best for them to leave the South entirely. Where they could get
away from everything that'd remind them of Georgia. No, they'd go to
Philadelphia. Suppose Mrs. Tucker's about able to take some slight
nourishment now. Good Lord, had he performed the operation only
yesterday morning?
That couldn't be possible! Too much has come in between then and
now. Must have operated on her in a previous existence. And died
since. Reincarnation? Yes, that's the word. Never thought he'd
actually experience it himself. …
His arms and hands became tired from pressing on his ears. His ears
ached. He loosened the pressure on them a bit. The telephone was yet
ringing. Lord, he moaned, the thing will drive me crazy! Won't be
able to live long enough to get those damned scoundrels who murdered
Bob. He decided to answer it, curse the voice on the other end, and
hang up. He tried to get up from the floor. There was a terrible
pain in his legs. He was sore all over. He crawled over to the desk
in his office and painfully pulled himself to a seat in his office
chair. He stretched his arm out to pull the telephone to him. A
sharp twinge shot through his arm and he groaned. He caught the cord
in his hands and slowly pulled the instrument to him and placed the
receiver to his ear. At first he could not speak. He made several
ineffectual efforts. At last a faint, hoarse "Hello" was wafted into
the mouthpiece.
"Oh, Rachel, I'm so glad to hear your voice. This is
Mrs. Ewing—Mrs. Roy Ewing over on Georgia Avenue. I've been trying
to get you for half a hour. Has your son come home from Atlanta
yet?"
The voice went chattering on while Kenneth tried to moisten his
parched throat sufficiently to speak. It seemed to him that his
saliva-producing gland must have died along with his hope of a
peaceful existence in Central City. Finally, he was able to speak.
He answered Mrs. Ewing wearily:
"This isn't Mrs. Harper, Mrs. Ewing. This is Dr. Harper."
"Oh, my God! Why did you come back?" she exclaimed.
Puzzled at her tone, Kenneth abruptly answered: "Why shouldn't I
have come back?"
She laughed nervously
"Nothing—oh, nothing. But I'm awfully sorry about what's happened."
At a disbelieving grunt that came to her over the wire, she hastened
to add: "Really I am—I am from the very bottom of my heart!"
She went on philosophically before Kenneth could reply.
"But everything'll come out all right, don't you fear. Doctor, I'm
so glad for one reason you're back. Mary's had a set-back and she's
in an awful fix. Dr. Bennett can't do nothing for her. I know it's
awful hard to ask you, but can't you come over and see what you⸺"
"No, damn it, no!" shouted Kenneth into the mouthpiece. His voice
mounted higher and higher in the rage that possessed him. "No, I
hope she'll die—I hope she'll die! And every other white beast
that's living! No! No! No! No!" he shouted as though mad.
He started to slam the receiver down upon its hook. The voice of
Mrs. Ewing came to him in an agonized moan and made him pause.
"Oh, Doctor, don't take it out on my po' little Mary. I know just
how you feel, but don't blame it on her! Please, Doctor, please come
over and I'll never bother you again! If you don't come, I jus' know
she'll die!" she begged.
Kenneth's fit of passion had passed. In its stead there came a cold,
terrifying calmness that was but another form of the raging torment
and fury in his breast. He spoke with biting directness into the
telephone:
"Mrs. Ewing, if by raising one finger I could save the whole white
race from destruction, and by not raising it could send them all
straight down to hell, I'd die before I raised it! You've murdered
my brother, my sister's body, my mother's mind, and my very soul!
No, I know that," he said to her interjected remark, which he
repeated. "I know you didn't do it with your own hands! But you
belong to the race that did! And the race that's going to pay for
every murder it's committed!"
He paused for breath and then continued his vitriolic diatribe
against the white race. It was relieving his brain, he found, to be
able thus to vent his spleen on a white person. He went on in the
same voice of deadly calm and precision of statement:
"And where's that cowardly husband of yours?" he demanded in a voice
of rising fury. "Why didn't he come and ask me to save your
daughter? No, he's like the rest of the damned cowards—makes his
wife do it, thinking I'm fool enough not to know he's there at the
telephone telling you what to say. No, no, wait until I'm through! …
He's where? Atlanta? What's he doing there? Why did he leave his
daughter when he knew she might die any minute? Oh, no! You can't
feed me any bait like that! I'm through, I tell you—I'm through
listening to the lying flattery you white folks use to fool ignorant
and blind Negroes like me! What? Why—I don't see—don't understand!
Oh, well, I suppose I might as well, then. Yes, I'll be over within
ten minutes. Tell Dr. Bennett to wait there until I come. What? He's
gone! All right, I'll come! Good-bye!"
Slightly puzzled, he hung up the receiver and sat for a minute
gazing at the desk pad in front of him, but seeing nothing. Why
should Roy Ewing have gone to Atlanta to see him? Ewing knew he'd be
back on Friday. He had told him so before leaving. It was mighty
strange for him to act that way.
His mother entered the room, awakened by the sound of his shouting
over the telephone. She spoke to him apologetically for having left
him so long.
"Mamie was so restless," she explained, "and when I got her quiet at
last, I must have fallen asleep sitting there by her bed." On her
face there came a wistful smile. "You see, I haven't been to sleep
for three days now."
Kenneth went to her and put his arm around her.
"That's all right, mamma, that's all right. I'm glad you did get a
minute's rest. You needed it. What's that? Oh, yes, I feel much
better now. The storm has passed for a time, I reckon. I'm going to
run over to the Ewings' for a minute—Mary's in a bad way. Oh, that's
all right, you needn't worry," he hastily interjected at his
mother's cry of alarm. "The streets are empty now—everybody's in
bed. I'll go there and come straight back as soon as Mary's resting
easily again," he promised in order to quiet her fears. "There won't
be anybody for me to see on the streets, much less start any trouble
with. You go to bed and I'll come in and sit with you for a few
minutes when I come back."
With this promise Mrs. Harper had to be content. Her fears allayed,
Kenneth kissed her and helped her up the stairs to her room. Going
back to his office, he put the things in his bag he would be likely
to need, went out to the garage in the rear, cranked up the Ford,
and drove over to Georgia Avenue to treat a white patient less than
seventy-two hours after the double catastrophe which had descended
upon him and his family at the hands of those same white people.
As he drove out of the yard, he heard his mother call from her
window: "Hurry back, sonny." It had been more than fifteen years
since she had last called him that. … He drove through the darkened
streets of Central City-down Lee Street past the deserted business
houses, past the Confederate Monument, and on across that
intangible, yet vivid line that separated the élite of the whites of
Central City from the less favoured. …
His mind intent on his own tragedy, Kenneth drove on, guiding his
car without conscious volition, mechanically. His conscious mind was
too busy revolving the string of events and trying to find some
solid spot, it mattered not how small, on which he could set mental
foot. …