The Outsider by Richard Wright
The priest sat down, then nodded toward the white landscape. “We’ve had a lot of snow.”
“Yes.”
“Did you sleep well?” the priest asked.
“Yes,” Cross lied.
“I didn’t,” the priest said. “I can never sleep on trains. By the way, do you live in Harlem?”
“Yes.”
Why was he being so closely questioned? The priest stared thoughtfully out of the window and Cross wondered what he was thinking…He gripped his knife and fork hard. Goddamn…He had to keep his head above this dangerous water and not go under. As the waiter passed, the priest caught hold of his arm and asked: “May I keep this seat for my friend? He’ll be here in a moment.”
“Certainly, sir,” the waiter said and, when he was out of the range of the vision of the priest, he made a grimace with his lips to Cross.
Cross’s anxieties now condensed themselves into an attitude of sullenness toward the priest. He disliked most strongly all men of religion because he felt that they could take for granted an interpretation of the world that his sense of life made impossible. The priest was secure and walked the earth with a divine mandate, while Cross’s mere breathing was an act of audacity, a confounding wonder at the daily mystery of himself. He felt that the attitude of the priest was predicated upon a scheme of good and evil ordained by a God whom he was constrained out of love and fear to obey; and Cross therefore regarded him as a kind of dressed-up savage intimidated by totems and taboos that differed in kind but not in degree from those of the most primitive of peoples. Cross had to discover what was good or evil through his own actions which were more exacting than the edicts of any God because it was he alone who had to bear the brunt of their consequences with a sense of absoluteness made intolerable by knowing that this life of his was all he had and would ever have. For him there was no grace or mercy if he failed.
The waiter paused with a loaded tray at his table and said: “I’ll be serving your coffee, next.”
“Good,” Cross mumbled.
He saw the waiter bend with a dead-pan face to serve a white woman who sat across the aisle from him.
“I’m sorry I had to make you wait, Ma’m,” the waiter mumbled.
Cross watched the waiter place a tumbler of orange juice before the woman, then a platter of ham and poached eggs. The waiter was about to lift a silver pot of steaming coffee to fill her cup when the woman turned abruptly with her whole body, opening her mouth to speak. Cross saw the woman’s plump, naked elbow describe a tiny, swift arc and collide with the coffee pot as it left the tray. There was a ringing clatter of metal and a brown spout of boiling coffee, emitting a cloud of vapor, splashed over the woman’s bare arm and on to her bosom. The waiter’s movements froze and the woman leaped to her feet and screamed, her face distorted with fury and pain.
“Nigger, you’re burning me!” she yelled.
The waiter stood paralyzed, his mouth open. The woman’s frantic eyes swept the dining car, then rested upon the table. In one flowing movement, she seized the handle of a silver water pitcher and raised it above her head, her eyes bulging and her darkly rouged lips curled in pain.
Cross was on his feet before he knew it and had traversed the aisle and was standing between the woman and the waiter, fronting the woman, blocking her action with his uplifted right hand which still clutched his napkin. The woman sighed and lowered her hand.
“You’re not hitting me, nigger,” the woman said quietly.
“You’re not hitting anybody either,” Cross said.
The priest rushed to the side of the woman, put his arm about her, then looked from Cross to the waiter. The dining car was full of the rumble of the train speeding over steel rails. In the middle of the car a tall, hard-faced man stood up and glared.
“What’s the matter down there?” the man called.
“I’m sorry, lady,” the waiter crooned in humility.
The woman pawed at her arm which gleamed a brick red where the coffee had scalded it. Steam still rose from her dress. She began to weep.
“I got something for that burn, Ma’m,” the waiter found his tongue and ran toward the rear of the car. The tall, hard-faced man rushed to the side of the priest and now two men were holding the woman and looking at Cross. Cross’s hand fell to his side. He was surprised to find that he was smiling; he had acted before he had known it. Another white woman came forward and took hold of the injured woman.
“Darling, I’ve got something in my purse for burns,” the woman said and led her from sight, toward the women’s lavatory. The waiter came running with a tube of salve and stood staring helplessly at the backs of the two retreating women.
“It wasn’t my fault,” he said, looking at the silent, thoughtful faces in the car. “She turned round—like this.” He imitated the woman’s movement. “And she knocked the pot out of my hand.”
The train whistled a long, mournful blast and Cross could feel the centrifugal pull of its speed as it struck a stretch of curving track. He went to his seat and sat before his half-empty plate and stared out of the window. Low voices were murmuring in the car.
“It’s a shame—Was she burnt badly?”
“But I saw her; she knocked the pot out of his hand…”
“What happened? Did somebody hit the woman?”
“Oh, no; it was an accident. It wasn’t the waiter’s fault.”
Cross became aware that the priest had also sat and was staring at him; when their eyes met, the priest looked off toward the snow-filled fields. Cross realized that he had sprung without thinking to his feet to block the woman’s tossing the pitcher into the waiter’s face and he knew that the priest had leapt up to defend the woman. Both of them had acted before they had been fully conscious of what they had wanted to do. And now shame made them avoid each other’s eyes.
“It’s a strange world, isn’t it?” Cross asked the priest softly.
The priest ruefully smiled his answer and nibbled thoughtfully at a slice of buttered toast.
The injured woman came briskly down the aisle with lips pursed and eyes glazed. The other woman followed.
“I’m going to report you,” she told the waiter.
The waiter paused, stared, his lips hanging open in dismay. He shook his head and when he spoke his voice was so high-pitched that it was ludicrous.
“It wasn’t my fault, Ma’m.” It was a plea issuing from a soul that hated its shame and humility.
“You were careless and I’m going to sue,” the woman said.
She tossed her blonde hair and flounced out of the car and another silence reigned. The waiter’s face was a mask of distress and Cross chided himself upon ever having thought that he could have been spying on him.
“Oh, there you are!” a sonorous voice came from a hunched-back man who slid into the seat beside the priest.
“What kept you?” the priest asked.
“I went in the wrong direction looking for the diner,” the man said, laughing and letting his eyes settle upon Cross’s face.
Suddenly the priest beamed at Cross and spoke: “By the way, I’m Father Seldon and my friend here is District Attorney Ely Houston of New York City.”
“How do you do?” Cross asked, full of fear, nodding to the hunchback. A District Attorney? The Ely Houston of whom he had heard? The celebrated crime-buster…? At once his tensions began to deform the look of the world. Though the two white faces regarded him with friendliness, he projected out upon them an air of the sinister. Maybe the Chicago police had wired ahead and Houston had gotten on the train to apprehend him? How had they come to seat themselves exactly at his table? And he recalled that the priest had expressly asked the waiter to save the chair next to him for Houston…Was Houston armed? He imagined he could see a slight bulge under the man’s right armpit and he mentally pictured a gun nestling there…
“You live in New York?” Houston asked.
“Yes.”
Could this be a trap? He did not volunte
“Mr. Houston and I are very much interested in your people,” the priest said to Cross.
Cross knew exactly what the priest meant, but he allowed his eyebrows to lift in surprise. He did not want to be drawn into any discussion with them, yet he did not want to make them feel that he was afraid.
“My people? What do you mean?”
Father Seldon chewed industriously upon his mouthful of bacon and eggs and kept his eyes on his plate, answering: “I mean the colored people—”
“Oh,” Cross said, giving a play-acting laugh. “But they were born that color. Nobody colored them.”
Houston and the priest were startled for a moment, then both of them laughed. Houston continued to examine Cross in a friendly manner; finally he nodded his head affirmatively.
“That’s good. I must remember it,” Houston said.
“Well, Ely,” Father Seldon said, turning and smiling at Houston, “if you should ever run for the Senate, you’d know how not to make a mistake before an audience in Harlem.”
“I sure would,” Houston admitted.
Cross was through eating and he wanted to go back to his compartment. But he must not act too fast and arouse unnecessary suspicions. He lingered on, studying Houston closely. The man had a huge head of remarkably black, unruly hair; a long, strong, too-white face; clear, wide-apart brown eyes; and a well-shaped mouth that held always a hint of a smile at its corners. His shoulders were Herculean with long arms that terminated in huge hands with delicately strong fingers. The hump on the back was prominent but not in any way as noticeable as Cross would have thought it would be, so naturally did it blend in with the man’s general build. Cross had not particularly noticed this deformity when Houston had first sat down, but now he remembered that Houston had moved forward to the table with a motion that slightly resembled that of a creeping animal, holding his body still as he walked. He reminded Cross of a giant, patiently waiting white spider whose temper was never ruffled but whose mental processes ground both fast and exceedingly fine. He had the impression of a man possessing stealthy reserves of physical and emotional strength, and he felt intuitively that this was exactly the kind of man whom he had to fear not only because he was a defender of the law, but because Houston had an ability to delve into life. He was afraid of this man and yet his fear made him want to know him.
“Where’s your parish, Father?” Cross asked.
“In Harlem,” Father Seldon said, obviously glad to speak of it. “We also operate a school for delinquent boys in Upstate New York. Maybe you’ve heard of it? The Sanctuary, it’s called. We have about sixty Negro boys up there now.”
“I see,” Cross said.
Houston, whose deformity always made him seem hunched forward, now leaned even more over the table, dawdling his fork in his plate and speaking in a tone that made Cross know that he was expressing thoughts of deep interest to himself, thoughts touched and lighted by passion, almost.
“I’m profoundly interested in the psychological condition of the Negro in this country,” Houston said. “Only a few people see and understand the complexity of this problem. And don’t think that my interest is solely political. It’s not; it was there long before I ever thought of entering politics.” He smiled cryptically and let his eyes wander over the icy landscape flowing past the train’s window. “My personal situation in life has given me a vantage point from which I’ve gained some insight into the problems of other excluded people.”
Cross’s impulses were at war. Was Houston raising the question of the Negro to mislead him before he was told that he was under arrest? Why did he not come right out with what he wanted? He had a foolish desire to reach forward and grab Houston’s shoulder and say to him: All right; I know you’re after me…Let’s get it over with…His stomach muscles tightened as he checked himself. He knew that Houston, in identifying himself with Negroes, had been referring to his deformity. Houston was declaring himself to be an outsider like Cross and Cross was interested, but he kept his face passive to conceal it.
“The way Negroes were transported to this country and sold into slavery, then stripped of their tribal culture and held in bondage; and then allowed, so teasingly and over so long a period of time, to be sucked into our way of life is something which resembles the rise of all men from whatever it was we all came from,” Houston said, the smile on his lips playful and knowing.
“I follow you,” Cross said.
“Yes; I see you do,” Houston smiled with satisfaction. “We are not now keeping the Negro on such a short chain and they are slowly entering into our culture. But that is not the end of this problem. It is the beginning…”
“What do you mean, Ely?” Father Seldon asked.
“I mean this,” Houston hastened to explain. “Negroes, as they enter our culture, are going to inherit the problems we have, but with a difference. They are outsiders and they are going to know that they have these problems. They are going to be self-conscious; they are going to be gifted with a double vision, for, being Negroes, they are going to be both inside and outside of our culture at the same time. Every emotional and cultural convulsion that ever shook the heart and soul of Western man will shake them. Negroes will develop unique and specially defined psychological types. They will become psychological men, like the Jews…They will not only be Americans or Negroes; they will be centers of knowing, so to speak…The political, social, and psychological consequences of this will be enormous…”
“You are much too complicated, Ely,” Father Seldon said. “The problem’s bad enough without trying to make it into everything. All the colored people need is the right to jobs and living space.”
“True,” Houston said. “But their getting those elementary things is so long and drawn out that they must, while they wait, adjust themselves to living in a kind of No-Man’s Land…Now, imagine a man inclined to think, to probe, to ask questions. Why, he’d be in a wonderful position to do so, would he not, if he were black and lived in America? A dreadful objectivity would be forced upon him.”
“Oh, Ely, you’re always climbing some rocky, goat track of speculation,” Father Seldon protested. “Take the simple facts of life just as they are found—”
“That’s what I’m doing,” Houston said. “And when you look at them closely, those simple facts turn out to be not so simple.”
“I think Mr. Houston’s close to the truth,” Cross said, pretending a smile, relishing an irony that came from his referring both to his own feelings that maybe Houston was trying to track him down and to the aptness of the man’s remarks. “After many of the restraints have been lifted from the Negro’s movements, and after certain psychological inhibitions have been overcome on his part, then the problem of the Negro in America really starts, not only for whites who will have to become acquainted with Negroes, but mainly for Negroes themselves. Perhaps not many Negroes, even, are aware of this today. But time will make them increasingly conscious of it. Once the Negro has won his so-called rights, he is going to be confronted with a truly knotty problem…Will he be able to settle down and live the normal, vulgar, day-to-day life of the average white American? Or will he still cling to his sense of outsidedness? For those who can see, this will be a wonderfully strange drama…”
“Right,” Houston agreed by stabbing the air with his fork. “You’re on the beam. Say, where did you go to school? Not that you learn things like that in school…”
“Fisk,” Cross lied. He rose; this was getting too close. He had to go and hug his black secret. “I’m sorry, gentlemen,” Cross smiled at them. “But I must leave. It’s wonderful to talk like this.”
“Well, sit down and talk,” Houston said.
“No; really, I must go. I’ve a lot to do,” Cross lied vaguely. “Good morning.” He made his way nervously out of the dining car. Goddamn…He was frightened of that hunchback, that outsider who understo
The Pullman porter had made up his bed and he was alone; he sat and stared moodily out of the window. He who had a secret to hide loved talking! When one tried to conceal one’s self, did not one make one’s self conspicuous? And that seductive fear that always surged up in him, how was he to handle it? And why did he always yearn to embrace those delusive fantasies? What unearthly greed made him want to feed upon what he knew to be unreal? He could run away from Dot, Gladys, his mother, but he could not run away from this; it was he and he was it. A tapping came at the door and he rose in dread, his lips parting. Was it Houston? The tapping sounded again and he opened the door.
“Hey, guy,” it was the waiter, holding a scared smile on his lips.
“Hello,” Cross said, relieved.
“Can I speak to you a minute?”
“Sure; come on in.”
The waiter came hesitantly into the compartment.
“Man, that bitch is raising hell,” the waiter began. “She’s gonna sue the company for damages, and she’s saying it’s all my fault. If she wins, it’s my job.” The waiter’s eyes danced in his head.
“What’re you going to do?” Cross asked.
“I got to get some witnesses,” the waiter said. “You know, that priest won’t witness for me. Can you feature that? Man, what can we do with these white folks?” He spoke in a low, nervous tone of voice charged with bitterness. “I’m gonna take it up with the union; they’ll fight for me. But I got to have evidence, see?”
“Sure,” Cross said.
“My name’s Bob Hunter,” the waiter said.
Cross knew that Hunter was waiting for him to give his name.
“Mine’s Addison Jordan,” Cross said, feeling that he was speaking out of a dream.
“Would you be a witness if that bitch makes trouble?”
“Sure,” Cross said, beginning to hate the man.