"Oh, I wouldn't think of opening them, sir," I said.
"Very well, the young lady will have them for you when you return. What about your parents, have you informed them?"
"No, sir, it might make them feel too bad if I told them I was expelled, so I plan to write them after I get there and get a job..."
"I see. Perhaps that is best."
"Well, good-bye, sir," I said, extending my hand.
"Good-bye," he said. His hand was large and strangely limp.
He pressed a buzzer as I turned to leave. His secretary brushed past me as I went through the door.
The letters were waiting when I returned, seven of them, addressed to men with impressive names. I looked for Mr. Norton's but his was not among them. Placing them carefully in my inside pocket, I grabbed my bags and hurried for the bus.
Chapter 7
The station was empty, but the ticket window was open and a porter in a gray uniform was pushing a broom. I bought my ticket and climbed into the bus. There were only two passengers seated at the rear of the red and nickel interior, and I suddenly felt that I was dreaming. It was the vet, who gave me a smile of recognition; an attendant sat beside him.
"Welcome, young man," he called. "Imagine, Mr. Crenshaw," he said to the attendant, "we have a traveling companion!"
"Morning," I said reluctantly. I looked around for a seat away from them, but although the bus was almost empty, only the rear was reserved for us and there was nothing to do but move back with them. I didn't like it; the vet was too much a part of an experience which I was already trying to blot out of my consciousness. His way of talking to Mr. Norton had been a foreshadowing of my misfortune -- just as I had sensed that it would be. Now having accepted my punishment, I wanted to remember nothing connected with Trueblood or the Golden Day.
Crenshaw, a much smaller man than Supercargo, said nothing. He was not the type usually sent out to accompany violent cases and I was glad until I remembered that the only violent thing about the vet was his tongue. His mouth had already gotten me into trouble and now I hoped he wouldn't turn it upon the white driver -- that was apt to get us killed. What was he doing on the bus anyway? God, how had Dr. Bledsoe worked that fast? I stared at the fat man.
"How did your friend Mr. Norton make out?" he asked.
"He's okay," I said.
"No more fainting spells?"
"No."
"Did he bawl you out for what happened?"
"He didn't blame me," I said.
"Good. I think I shocked him more than anything else he saw at the Golden Day. I hoped I hadn't caused you trouble. School isn't out so soon, is it?"
"Not quite," I said lightly. "I'm leaving early in order to take a job."
"Wonderful! At home?"
"No, I thought I might make more money in New York."
"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!"
"I didn't mean that you had," the vet said. "I apologize. Forget it."