Part 61 (1/2)

Aunt Lucy remarked that she never did care much for Cleota and had told Willie so the day he married her. She reminded him of George Mana.s.san and asked him why he had never blamed Cleota.

But whenever Aunt Lucy would say anything bad about Cleota, Willie would tell her to be quiet. He wanted to think.

Alone in his room, he lay on the bed and wept. He understood why he had felt strange about those letters and why he had put the feeling aside. Cleota would never sleep with him again; she would never come back.

He fought the tears until his eyes hurt and then he slept.

The next morning he rose early, put on the clothes that had hung in the closet for almost a year and a half and took a bus to his work terminal.

The sight of the huge ornate building restored Willie's spirits. He forgot about Cleota. This was the other of the two important things in his life; he proposed to marry himself completely to his job now.

The foreman shook his head at Willie.

”Sorry, fella, but the Line's full up now. Union tightening up . . . letting off help . . . sorry.”

The foreman had to talk a long time to convince Willie that he had no job. The big man, with his black arm-sleeves and green head-s.h.i.+eld, was puzzled that anyone could have the nerve to ask for a job after an absense of a year and a half. That a murderer could expect to have his job back.

Willie walked out of the building slowly, trying to put things together in his head. He asked the Lord what had happened, but the answer was indistinct. He boarded the bus and got off before it started. He walked the three miles to Aunt Lucy's apartment.

The old woman was crying.

”Boy, I don't know 'zactly what could he'p you now. You got no job and you got no wife. But you got to live, 'cause that's what the Lord say you got to.”

And Willie knew she was right. He had to live.

He went home and put on his suit. It was wrinkled where it had draped across a wire hanger, but it still had cla.s.s. Willie had never worn it much, but he always felt good in it. He put on his flamingo tie and polished his shoes with an old s.h.i.+rt. He sat down to decide what to do.

He walked down Government Street and entered an S.P. ticket office. He asked for a job and was quickly refused.

He went to every ticket office, steams.h.i.+p, railroad and freight line in the city. He didn't pause to eat. At nightfall, when he returned home, there were smiling newspapermen waiting for him. He admitted them and talked politely.

”. . . you got to live, boy . . .”

The next day he went to garages, filling stations and miscellaneous stores. He went through the factories and warehouses, to the Civil Service building and to the employment agencies. He was not even asked to fill out forms.

”. . . there isn't a thing for you . . .”

'No use to fret, Willie Was.h.i.+ngton, you had it good most of your life. The Lord took good care of you. You just got to scrounge a little now. - .', was what Willie said to himself.

He went to large office buildings, printing shops, frame makers, construction companies, the city hall, grocery stores.

Some grimaced at him, most recognized him from the pictures in the paper. But no one gave Willie a job.

He went to Aunt Lucy and she just told him to keep looking.

He put an ad in the paper, he answered all the ads. He went to janitors and street cleaners, to airports and railroad stations.

He walked until his feet hurt and turned numb to pain. And when he looked at his money he started to become a little frightened. But he didn't stop walking and he didn't stop talking.

And then one day, when the newspapermen had had enough of Willie's story and he was left entirely alone, Willie sat in his room a whole day, thinking. He asked the Lord numerous questions andwaited for the answers that did not come. He looked in his pockets and saw that his money was nearly gone.

He remembered the looks of hate on people's faces when they saw him, how they whispered when he left. He had done nothing, and had proven it, but he began to see that there was no one who believed him. No one but Aunt Lucy.

Everyone thought that he had actually killed that little girl. Didn't they realize that he would have been hanged, that his neck would have been broken and that he would have died, if he'd been guilty?

Or did they care . . . ?

For the first time in his life, Willie Was.h.i.+ngton really hated. He hated the people who hated him; he hated everything around him. He had forgiven them and their wrong, but they would not forgive him his innocence! Hate surged and churned in his heart. It did not have time to mature. It was now and it was full-grown.

Aunt Lucy was afraid. She sensed in her old heart what had happened, so she got out of bed and went over to Willie's room.

She said, ”Boy, you got to get that look out of your eyes. It ain't good.”

And Willie said, ”But they won't give me work an' I'm runnin' out of money,”

They sat.

Then the old woman looked very deep inside Willie's heart and she left in fear. It had dried up in her but she recognized the budding shoot. She remembered it and how it had conquered her. But she had been a woman, and Willie a man, and that is why she was afraid.

Willie didn't say very much to anyone the next day. He'd ask for a job and he'd be refused and he'd walk out, looking so grim and confused people would stare.

The black flower began to press his throat and his breast, so that he shook when he asked the question, defeatedly, under his breath.

”Lord, it ain't right what you're doing to me. I been good and look at me! I got no money, no job, no wife . . . And it wouldn't none of it a happened if you hadn't put me in that jail. Why'd you let it happen, O Lord!”

Willie had a mind full of confusion, a mind full of angry hornets.

When he heard the white woman say ”There's the murdering n.i.g.g.e.r they couldn't hang,” hot vomitous acid rose in his throat and eyes and he went back home.

He spoke directly to the Lord.

”It ain't been right, you know it ain't been right! My money's all gone, Lord, an' I can't get any more! What am I gonna do? Tell me, Lord, 'cause Willie Was.h.i.+ngton, he's slippin'.”

He waited, hunched and silent, for an answer that did not come.

He waited for sleep, but that didn't come either.

He thought of the little murdered girl, who lay in the rain with a cruel cross carved in her stomach.

”What about the man what did that, Lord? Is you punis.h.i.+ng _him?_ Why do you gots to punish me--what did I do? Lord, tell me, tell me, WHY! If I knew that then it'd be all right, but I don't know! I don't know why!”

Willie raised his voice and called into Heaven.

”Why, Lord G.o.d?”

Then he tore at his s.h.i.+rt and rolled on the dirty bed, sobbing and moaning. The night went and the day came, but Willie did not sleep. He was hungry and tired.