Galactic Dreams

Sam took a sip from his own bottle, but the other man kept drinking until he had drained half of his before he lowered it with a relaxed sigh. “That’s what I call foul beer,” he said.

“You seem to be enjoying it,” Sam told him, but his slight smile took the edge from his words.

“Just because it’s cold and wet — but I’d trade a case of it for a bottle of Bud or a Ballentine.”

“Then you’re from the North, I imagine?”

Sam had thought so from the way he talked, sharp and clipped. Now that his eyes were getting used to the dimness he could see that the other was a young man in his twenties with medium-dark skin, wearing a white shirt with rolled up sleeves. His face was taut and the frown wrinkles on his forehead seemed etched there.

“You are damned right, I’m from the North and I’m going back.:” He broke off suddenly and took another swig of beer. When he spoke again his voice was cautious. “Are you from these parts?”

“I was born not far from here, but right now I live in Carteret, just stopping off here between buses.”

“Carteret — that’s where the college is, isn’t it?”

“That is correct. I teach there.”

The younger man smiled for the first time. “That sort of puts us in the same boat. I go to NYU, majoring in economics.”

He put his hand out. “Charles Wright — everyone but my mother calls me Charlie.”

“Very pleased to meet you,” Sam said in his slow old fashioned way. “I am Sam Morrison, and it is Sam on my birth certificate too.”

“I’m interested in your college. I meant to stop in there but …”

Charles broke off suddenly at the sound of a car’s engine in the street outside and leaned forward so that he could see out the front door, remaining there until the car ground into gear and moved away. When Charles dropped back onto the seat Sam could see that there were fine beads of sweat in the lines of his forehead. He took a quick drink from his bottle.

“When you were at the bus station you didn’t happen to see a big cop with a big gut, red face all the time?”

“Yes, I met him, he talked to me when I got off the bus.”

“The bastard!”

“Don’t get worked up, Charles; he is just a policeman doing his job.”

“Just a…!”

The young man spat a short, filthy word. “That’s Brinkley, you must have heard of him, toughest man south of Bombingham. He’s going to be elected sheriff next fall and he’s already a Grand Knight of the Klan, a real pillar of the community.”

“Talking like that’s not going to do you any good,” Sam said mildly.

“That’s what Uncle Tom said — and as I remember he was still a slave when he died. Someone has got to speak up, you can’t remain quiet forever.”

“You talk like one of those Freedom Riders.” Sam tried to look stern, but he had never been very good at it.

“Well, I am one, if you want to know the truth of it, but the ride ends right here. I’m going home. I’m scared and I’m not afraid to admit it. You people live in a jungle down here; I never realize how bad it could be until I came down. I’ve been working on the voter’s committee and Brinkley got word of it and swore he was going to kill me or put me in jail for life. And you know what? I believe it. I’m leaving today, just waiting for the car to pick me up. I’m going back North where I belong.”

“I understand that you have your problems up there, too ….”

“Problems!” Charlie finished his beer and stood up. “I wouldn’t even call them problems after what I’ve seen down here. It’s no paradise in New York — but you stand a chance of living a bit longer. Where I grew up in South Jamaica we had it, rough, but we had our own house in a good neighborhood and — you take another beer?”

“No, one is enough for me, thank you.”

Charlie came back with a fresh beer and picked up where he had left off. “Maybe we’re second-class citizens in the North but at least we’re citizens of some kind and can get some measurement of happiness and fulfillment. Down here a man is a beast of burden and that’s all he is ever going to be-if he has the wrong color skin.”

“I wouldn’t say that, things get better all the time. My father was a field hand, a son of a slave — and I’m a college teacher. That’s progress of a sort.”

“What sort?”

Charlie pounded the table, yet kept his voice in an angry whisper. “So one-hundredth of one percent of the Negroes get a little education and pass it on at some backwater college. Look, I’m not running you down; I know you do your best. But for every man like you there must be a thousand who are born and live and die in filthy poverty, year after year, without hope. Millions of people. Is that progress? And even yourself-are you sure you wouldn’t be doing better if you were teaching in a decent university?”

“Not me,” Sam laughed. “I’m just an ordinary teacher and I have enough trouble getting geometry and algebra across to my students without trying to explain topology or Boolean algebra or anything like that.”

“What on earth is that Bool … thing? I never heard of it.”