Invisible man

            "When the black mahn going to tire of this childish perfidity? He got you so you don't trust your black intelligence? You young, don't play you'self cheap, mahn. Don't deny you'self! It took a billion gallons of black blood to make you. Recognize you'self inside and you wan the kings among men! A mahn knows he's a mahn when he got not'ing, when he's naked -- nobody have to tell him that. You six foot tall, mahn. You young and intelligent. You black and beautiful -- don't let 'em tell you different! You wasn't them t'ings you be dead, mahn. Dead! I'd have killed you, mahn. Ras the Exhorter raised up his knife and tried to do it, but he could not do it. Why don't you do it? I ask myself. I will do it now, I say; but somet'ing tell me, 'No, no! You might be killing your black king!' And I say, yas, yas! So I accept your humiliating ahction. Ras recognized your black possibilities, mahn. Ras would not sahcrifice his black brother to the white enslaver. Instead he cry. Ras is a mahn -- no white mahn have to tell him that -- and Ras cry. So why don't you recognize your black duty, mahn, and come jine us?"

            His chest was heaving and a note of pleading had come into the harsh voice. He was an exhorter, all right, and I was caught in the crude, insane eloquence of his plea. He stood there, awaiting an answer. And suddenly a big transport plane came low over the buildings and I looked up to see the firing of its engine, and we were all three silent, watching.

            Suddenly the Exhorter shook his fist toward the plane and yelled, "Hell with him, some day we have them too! Hell with him!"

            He stood there, shaking his fist as the plane rattled the buildings in its powerful flight. Then it was gone and I looked about the unreal street. They were fighting far up the block in the dark now and we were alone. I looked at the Exhorter. I didn't know if I was angry or amazed.

            "Look," I said, shaking my head, "let's talk sense. From now on we'll be on the street corners every night and we'll be prepared for trouble. We don't want it, especially with you, but we won't run either . . ."

            "Goddam, mahn," he said, leaping forward, "this is Harlem. This is my territory, the black mahn's territory. You think we let white folks come in and spread their poison? Let 'em come in like they come and take over the numbers racket? Like they have all the stores? Talk sense, mahn, if you talking to Ras, talk sense!"

            "This is sense," I said, "and you listen as we listened to you. We'll be out here every night, understand. We'll be out here and the next time you go after one of our brothers with a knife -- and I mean white or black -- well, we won't forget it."

            He shook his head, "Nor will I forget you either, mahn."

            "Don't. I don't want you to; because if you forget there'll be trouble. You're mistaken, don't you see you're outnumbered? You need allies to win . . ."

            "That there is sense. Black allies. Yellow and brown allies!"

            "All men who want a brotherly world," I said.

            "Don't be stupid, mahn. They white, they don't have to be allies with no black people. They get what they wahnt, they turn against you. Where's your black intelligence?"

            "Thinking like that will get you lost in the backwash of history," I said. "Start thinking with your mind and not your emotions."

            He shook his head vehemently, looking at Clifton.

            "This black mahn talking to me about brains and thinking. I ask both of you, are you awake or sleeping? What is your pahst and where are you going? Never mind, take your corrupt ideology and eat out your own guts like a laughing hyena. You are nowhere, mahn. Nowhere! Ras is not ignorant, nor is Ras afraid. No! Ras, he be here black and fighting for the liberty of the black people when the white folks have got what they wahnt and done gone off laughing in your face and you stinking and choked up with white maggots."

            He spat angrily into the dark street. It flew pink in the red glow.

            "That'll be all right with me," I said. "Only remember what I said. Come on, Brother Clifton. This man's full of pus, black pus."

            We started away, a piece of glass crunching under my foot.

            "Maybe so," Ras said, "but I ahm no fool! I ahm no black educated fool who t'inks everything between black mahn and white mahn can be settled with some blahsted lies in some bloody books written by the white mahn in the first place. It's three hundred years of black blood to build this white mahn's civilization and wahn't be wiped out in a minute. Blood calls for blood! You remember that. And remember that I am not like you. Ras recognizes the true issues and he is not afraid to be black. Nor is he a traitor for white men. Remember that: I am no black traitor to the black people for the white people."

            And before I could answer Clifton spun in the dark and there was a crack and I saw Ras go down and Clifton breathing hard and Ras lying there in the street, a thick, black man with red tears on his face that caught the reflection of the checks cashed here sign.