The Nigger Factory. Gil Scott-HeronЧитать онлайн книгу.
He looked at his comrades closely; looking for signs of panic or fear; looking for things that he might feel if they were indicated anywhere in the room.
Baker started with the man he knew best. He had grown up in nearby Shelton Township, Virginia, with Fred Jones. Jonesy was a plodder, a man of few words who checked things out very carefully before getting involved. Since their elementary school days Baker had always been the outspoken, active leader and Jonesy the quiet, steady henchman who did his leg work and faithfully stuck by him. Everything about the smaller man signified concentration and determination. Baker knew that as long as he, Baker, kept his word there would be no problems.
Baker had met Speedy Cotton during their freshman year at Sutton. Speedy was a coal-black, West Virginia miner’s son who had been a second-string high school All-American at halfback. They had spent quite a few nights together going over football plays in Baker’s room when they started playing football together and had become even faster friends when they pledged for the fraternity. College was not really of primary interest to Cotton. He wanted to play football and perhaps go on to play professionally. Baker supposed that his political involvement was based solely on their friendship, but the wiry six-foot-two speedster wasn’t afraid of anything and Baker knew that he wouldn’t back down.
The MJUMBE spokesman shifted his attention to Ben King. When it came to courage there were few legends that he could recall that did Ben justice. During their junior year at halftime in the last game Ben had come limping off the field. Pain had been chiseled into the deep creases around the young giant’s mouth and eyes. Baker had watched King conscientiously avoid Coach Mallory and the trainer as he grimaced in the corner of the locker room during the intermission speech. Twice he asked King if someone shouldn’t be notified, but was put off with a frown. Only after the game did the huge tackle permit himself to collapse from the pain. X rays taken that night showed that King’s right ankle had been fractured, but somehow he had played on, had virtually held up the left side of the Sutton line, and insured the hard-fought victory.
The question in Baker’s mind was whether or not Ben could or would keep his mouth shut. The big tackle had a notoriously bad temper and had been expelled from the track team for tearing up the training room during a fit of rage. It had been all Baker could do to avoid a fight between King and Thomas when Thomas, speaking the day before the election, said that ‘certain bullies would not be able to threaten anyone into voting against their wishes.’
Baker knew that there was also a great deal of hatred and animosity between King and the university president. Calhoun had been the one to put King on the carpet after the training-room explosion. Baker nodded thoughtfully, thinking that he would have to watch King as closely as he watched Thomas.
In the dim light of the meeting room a flare ignited in the darkest corner where Abul Menka lit still another cigarette and attracted Baker’s attention. If ever there was a man who puzzled the MJUMBE leader, Abul was that man.
When Baker arrived at the first pledgee meeting of Omega Psi Phi during the spring of his freshman year, the only man present he did not know was introduced by the Dean of Pledgees as Jonathan Wise. Baker had seen Jonathan Wise (who later began calling himself Abul Menka) driving around campus in a new Thunderbird with women hanging all over him, and he could not have imagined the man as fraternity material because the style-conscious New Yorker from the Bronx already had everything. And the perplexing thing was that during the two-month pledge period Abul had done nothing to indicate why he was there. Even during ‘Hell Week,’ the last week of the indoctrination schedule, when their line, ‘The Jive Five Plus One’ was not allowed to sleep, Abul never complained, never reacted even in private to the paddlings they were receiving or confided in the others during their restless nights in the ‘Dog House’ when they waited nervously for Big Brothers to come in and deal with them.
Baker had asked Abul to join MJUMBE as a matter of course because of their common interest in the fraternity, but he had been a little surprised when he accepted. Baker had seen him frequently in the frat lounge with a Black history book or reading material relating to the Black struggle, but the man had never expressed an inkling of political consciousness in the way he spoke. But there was little question of Abul’s dedication to the organization. He was on time for every meeting and faithfully carried out every duty assigned to him.
‘He ain’ got a nerve in his body,’ Baker decided. ‘He’ll go with us all the way.’
The roundup had given Baker a little more confidence in his co-workers, but his personal confidence was slipping. The thought of working with Earl Thomas did not appeal to him. Even if everything looked good. He compared himself to Thomas critically. Earl was six-two, perhaps one hundred and eighty pounds. He had a broad chest and wide shouders like a boxer. Next to him Baker looked like a powerful Black barrel. Football had developed Baker’s arms, neck, and chest until he resembled a tree trunk. Baker’s eyes were deep set and his nose was African flat. Earl was a bushy-browed Indian-looking man with a wide mouth and two inches of kinky hair. The MJUMBE leader rubbed his bald head thoughtfully. When football ended he would grow it again.
Sitting in the half-light of the MJUMBE meeting room, the massive strategist was slowly turning new facts over in his mind. He had been so let down by Calhoun’s disappearance that some aspects of MJUMBE’s move had slipped by unseen. Now, with time to think, new evidence was focusing on his mental screen.
First of all, Earl Thomas was going to be his pawn. He felt very good about the position the SGA president was in. It didn’t matter if the students saw Earl puttering around in connection with MJUMBE demands. They knew who the real leader was. But second and best, Calhoun didn’t know who was in charge. He would identify Earl as the leader of the detested militant faction on campus because Earl would present the demands. Earl couldn’t do anything to stop MJUMBE. The students would construe any negative move as jealousy. The deposed SGA leader would be a Mjumbe for MJUMBE. Pleasure at his own play on words almost capsized the chair in which Baker sat, back-tilted.
Gone was the animosity he had felt the previous April when told that some skinny, ostrich-looking nigger from Georgia had defeated him for the SGA post. Gone was the bitter gall he tasted when told forty minutes before: ‘Mr and Mrs Calhoun returned from Norfolk, but they are attending the theater this evening. They are expected to return about ten o’clock.’ The small, wigged maid who delivered those lines had stood in the Calhoun door-way like a reject from a Steppin’ Fetchit movie wiping her greasy hands on a napkin and trying to sound like a fancy British bitch.
Baker laughed out loud. He could imagine Thomas sitting helplessly in front of him like a jackass with an Afro.
‘Did’joo, did’joo hear that bitch?’ Baker asked when he realized everyone was watching him. ‘Did’joo hear that funky-ass maid callin’ the Sutton moviehouse wit’ wall-to-wall rats a thee-ate-uh?’ He told them that because he knew what Jonesy would say if he told them why he was really laughing.
Evidently everyone had heard because a faint smile choked through their clamped mouths. They smiled because they needed to. No one really thought that it was very funny. The crooked grins bounced off the dimly pulsating light bulb and skipped nervously out through the window. The room then returned to its tomblike silence.
Baker felt grimy. Sweat had stuck his underwear to his crotch.
Jonesy was visibly worried.
Speedy Cotton and Ben King were tired and nervous. They sat directly beneath the bald, waxy wattage that illuminated itself and little else. They tried to convince themselves that the tightness in their groins came from too much beer, too much football, and too little sleep. Their eyes wandered about the room but they saw very little.
Abul Menka remained cool. It was impossible to conclude exactly what was on the man’s mind. Baker called him ‘Captain Cool.’ He sat in the corner, feet propped, smoking a cigarette. In truth, Abul Menka was very seriously thinking about cutting out. He would have been gone had he not known that his motives would be misinterpreted. The MJUMBE men would have thought he was leaving because he was afraid of Calhoun.
‘Fuck Calhoun,’ he thought