Invisible man

            "New York!" he said. "That's not a place, it's a dream. When I was your age it was Chicago. Now all the little black boys run away to New York. Out of the fire into the melting pot. I can see you after you've lived in Harlem for three months. Your speech will change, you'll talk a lot about 'college,' you'll attend lectures at the Men's House . . . you might even meet a few white folks. And listen," he said, leaning close to whisper, "you might even dance with a white girl!"

            "I'm going to New York to work," I said, looking around me. "I won't have time for that."

            "You will though," he teased. "Deep down you're thinking about the freedom you've heard about up North, and you'll try it once, just to see if what you've heard is true."

            "There's other kinds of freedom beside some ole white trash women," Crenshaw said. "He might want to see him some shows and eat in some of them big restaurants."

            The vet grinned. "Why, of course, but remember, Crenshaw, he's only going to be there a few months. Most of the time he'll be working, and so much of his freedom will have to be symbolic. And what will be his or any man's most easily accessible symbol of freedom? Why, a woman, of course. In twenty minutes he can inflate that symbol with all the freedom which he'll be too busy working to enjoy the rest of the time. He'll see."

            I tried to change the subject. "Where are you going?" I asked.

            "To Washington, D. C.," he said.

            "Then you're cured?"

            "Cured? There is no cure --"

            "He's being transferred," said Crenshaw.

            "Yes, I'm headed for St. Elizabeth's," the vet said. "The ways of authority are indeed mysterious. For a year I've tried to get transferred, then this morning I'm suddenly told to pack. I can't but wonder if our little conversation with your friend Mr. Norton had something to do with it."

            "How could he have anything to do with it?" I said, remembering Dr. Bledsoe's threat.

            "How could he have anything to do with your being on this bus?" he said.

            He winked. His eyes twinkled. "All right, forget what I've said. But for God's sake, learn to look beneath the surface," he said. "Come out of the fog, young man. And remember you don't have to be a complete fool in order to succeed. Play the game, but don't believe in it -- that much you owe yourself. Even if it lands you in a strait jacket or a padded cell. Play the game, but play it your own way -- part of the time at least. Play the game, but raise the ante, my boy. Learn how it operates, learn how you operate -- I wish I had time to tell you only a fragment. We're an ass-backward people, though. You might even beat the game. It's really a very crude affair. Really Pre-Renaissance -- and that game has been analyzed, put down in books. But down here they've forgotten to take care of the books and that's your opportunity. You're hidden right out in the open -- that is, you would be if you only realized it. They wouldn't see you because they don't expect you to know anything, since they believe they've taken care of that . . ."

            "Man, who's this they you talking so much about?" said Crenshaw.

            The vet looked annoyed. "They?" he said. "They? Why, the same they we always mean, the white folks, authority, the gods, fate, circumstances -- the force that pulls your strings until you refuse to be pulled any more. The big man who's never there, where you think he is."

            Crenshaw grimaced. "You talk too damn much, man," he said. "You talk and you don't say nothing."

            "Oh, I have a lot to say, Crenshaw. I put into words things which most men feel, if only slightly. Sure, I'm a compulsive talker of a kind, but I'm really more clown than fool. But, Crenshaw," he said, rolling a wand of the newspaper which lay across his knees, "you don't realize what's happening. Our young friend is going North for the first time! It is for the first time, isn't it?"

            "You're right," I said.

            "Of course. Were you ever North before, Crenshaw?"

            "I been all over the country," Crenshaw said. "I know how they do it, wherever they do it. And I know how to act too. Besides, you ain't going North, not the real North. You going to Washington. It's just another southern town."

            "Yes, I know," the vet said, "but think of what this means for the young fellow. He's going free, in the broad daylight and alone. I can remember when young fellows like him had first to commit a crime, or be accused of one, before they tried such a thing. Instead of leaving in the light of morning, they went in the dark of night. And no bus was fast enough -- isn't that so, Crenshaw?"

            Crenshaw stopped unwrapping a candy bar and looked at him sharply, his eyes narrowed. "How the hell I know?" he said.

            "I'm sorry, Crenshaw," the vet said. "I thought that as a man of experience . . ."

            "Well, I ain't had that experience. I went North of my own free will."

            "But haven't you heard of such cases?"

            "Hearing ain't 'speriencing," Crenshaw said.

            "No, it isn't. But since there's always an element of crime in freedom --"

            "I ain't committed no crime!"