Invisible man

            I noticed a clip of blazing diamonds on her dress as I tried to stand aside for the others, but Brother Jack pushed me ahead.

            "Excuse me," I said, but she held her ground, and I was pressing tensely against her perfumed softness, seeing her smile as though there were only she and I. Then I was past, disturbed not so much by the close contact, as by the sense that I had somehow been through it all before. I couldn't decide if it were from watching some similar scene in the movies, from books I'd read, or from some recurrent but deeply buried dream. Whatsoever, it was like entering a scene which, because of some devious circumstance, I had hitherto watched only from a distance. How could they have such an expensive place, I wondered.

            "Put your things in the study," the woman said. "I'll go see about drinks."

            We entered a room lined with books and decorated with old musical instruments: An Irish harp, a hunter's horn, a clarinet and a wooden flute were suspended by the neck from the wall on pink and blue ribbons. There were a leather divan and a number of easy chairs.

            "Throw your coat on the divan," Brother Jack said.

            I slid out of my overcoat and looked around. The dial of the radio built into a section of the natural mahogany bookshelf was lighted, but I couldn't hear any sound; and there was an ample desk on which rested silver and crystal writing things, and, as one of the men came to stand gazing at the bookcase, I was struck by the contrast between the richness of the room and their rather poor clothing.

            "Now we'll go into the other room," Brother Jack said, taking me by the arm.

            We entered a large room in which one entire wall was hung with Italian-red draperies that fell in rich folds from the ceiling. A number of well-dressed men and women were gathered in groups, some beside a grand piano, the others lounging in the pale beige upholstery of the blond wood chairs. Here and there I saw several attractive young women but carefully avoided giving them more than a glance. I felt extremely uncomfortable, although after brief glances no one paid me any special attention. It was as though they hadn't seen me, as though I were here, and yet not here. The others were moving away to join the various groups now, and Brother Jack took my arm.

            "Come, let's get a drink," he said, guiding me toward the end of the room.

            The woman who'd let us in was mixing drinks behind a handsome free-form bar which was large enough to have graced a night club.

            "How about a drink for us, Emma?" Brother Jack said.

            "Well, now, I'll have to think about it," she said, tilting her severely drawn head and smiling.

            "Don't think, act," he said. "We're very thirsty men. This young man pushed history ahead twenty years today."

            "Oh," she said, her eyes becoming intent. "You must tell me about him."

            "Just read the morning papers, Emma. Things have begun to move. Yes, leap ahead." He laughed deeply.

            "What would you like, Brother?" she said, her eyes brushing slowly over my face.

            "Bourbon," I said, a little too loudly, as I remembered the best the South had to offer. My face was warm, but I returned her glance as steadily as I dared. It was not the harsh uninterested-in-you-as-a-human-being stare that I'd known in the South, the kind that swept over a black man as though he were a horse or an insect; it was something more, a direct, what-type-of-mere-man-have-we-here kind of look that seemed to go beneath my skin . . . Somewhere in my leg a muscle twitched violently.

            "Emma, the bourbon! Two bourbons," Brother Jack said.

            "You know," she said, picking up a decanter, "I'm intrigued."

            "Naturally. Always," he said. "Intrigued and intriguing. But we're dying of thirst."

            "Only of impatience," she said, pouring the drinks. "I mean you are. Tell me, where did you find this young hero of the people?"

            "I didn't," Brother Jack said. "He simply arose out of a crowd. The people always throw up their leaders, you know . . ."

            "Throw them up," she said. "Nonsense, they chew them up and spit them out. Their leaders are made, not born. Then they're destroyed. You've always said that. Here you are, Brother."

            He looked at her steadily. I took the heavy crystal glass and raised it to my lips, glad for an excuse to turn from her eyes. A haze of cigarette smoke drifted through the room. I heard a series of rich arpeggios sound on the piano behind me and turned to look, hearing the woman Emma say not quite softly enough, "But don't you think he should be a little blacker?"

            "Shhh, don't be a damn fool," Brother Jack said sharply. "We're not interested in his looks but in his voice. And I suggest, Emma, that you make it your interest too . . ."