Just Above My Head by James Baldwin
Peanut and Arthur walked me around, through some of the streets they had walked, years before, sometimes laughing, sometimes abruptly silent, far away from me, and from each other. They showed me the hotel where they had stayed, and the barbecue joint next to it, and the pool hall on the corner—everything was there as before, seeming, they said, not to have changed at all. But the way they said this betrayed their astonished, and, even, somewhat frightened apprehension that they had changed; and perhaps this change, the change in themselves, was the only change of which they could ever be certain. We walked, three abreast, through streets livid with white people, past stores we would not have known how to enter, past restaurants not yet open for us, walked in the limbo of our countrymen.
We stopped in a bar near our lodgings, a friendly black bar, warm as a stove, a haven from the livid streets. We still had a little over an hour before we had to get dressed, and go to the church. Our hosts had invited a few people in, to have drinks with us before the rally, and, while this would be very pleasant, and, hopefully, informative, it would also demand of us something of a performance. So we decided to sneak a carefree drink or two before facing what was coming.
The place wasn’t very crowded. We sat at the bar. Peanut wandered off, to play the jukebox.
“How you feeling, brother?” Arthur asked. “You glad you came?”
“I’m not bored, I’ll tell you that. Yeah. I’m glad I came. What about you?”
He looked at the bartender, who was busy at the other end of the bar, looked at Peanut at the jukebox. “Yeah. It’s strenuous, and it’s even—mysterious—but I’m glad we came.” Then, “It’s been good for Peanut—a kind of—catharsis.” The bartender came over to us, and we ordered. “I’m glad we came, because—if I hadn’t come back here, I might never have realized—you know, deep down—how important that first trip was.” He was silent for a moment. The bartender served us, I paid him. “I thought I was coming for one reason, and that’s true, but—I had almost forgot that I had been here before. Now that I’m here again, I think I know why—why I thought I almost forgot.” He raised his glass. “Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
A chunky, dark kid, wearing a red woolen hat, had cornered Peanut at the jukebox. I couldn’t hear him, of course, but Peanut’s immobility and the carefully closed blankness of his face made me feel that he was dying to get away.
Presently, he escaped and came back to us, with a strange half-smile on his face. He sat down on a bar stool and picked up his drink, raised his glass briefly, and drank.
Then he said, “Don’t look now, but that guy who was talking to me at the jukebox, he was telling me that the Klan had a monster meeting just outside of town last night and has fired up all the people to do something about the niggers before it’s too late.”
“Ain’t nothing new about that,” Arthur said. “What he tell you that for?”
“Well. I did get the feeling that he maybe sees the Klan under his bed at night, but”—he laughed—“he said that they supposed to start getting it on tonight, in the streets of Atlanta.” He looked toward the street. “Might be turning the corner any minute now.”
“Who told him all this?” I asked.
‘Some niggers who heard them, and saw them, I guess Like he told me, niggers know everything that’s going on, man.”
“Well,” said Arthur, “if it’s true, they’ll probably meet us at the church.” We all laughed. “So we really ain’t got nothing to worry about.”
But it was suddenly chilling to think about how many Klan meetings there had been in this neighborhood, chilling to think of the willed results. I had never wondered about this before, but I wondered now: how had white people endured it? How did they endure it? For, whether or not there had actually been a Klan meeting on the edge of town last night, the Klan was meeting again all over the South, with the intention of striking terror into the hearts of the niggers, and murdering those who refused to be terrified. Not only the Klan: the White Citizens Councils, and the John Birch Society, and representatives of the people so powerful that they were untouchable, like Senator Eastland, for example. White people had embraced and endured this slaughter for generations, and appeared more than willing to perpetuate it for generations to come. It was, when you thought about it, as weird and dreadful as those pictures of penitentes howling through the streets, or the wilderness, beating themselves with whips, scouring themselves with thorns—how deeply, how relentlessly, they despised themselves!
Peanut’s new friend looked in our direction from time to time, but didn’t come over to us. It is true that Peanut offered him no encouragement, but perhaps he also felt that he had done his duty.
I remember that the jukebox was playing that afternoon, over and over, “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying,” and the voice of Ray Charles rang all along the street, from other jukeboxes, as we walked back to our lodgings. As we neared the house, we saw three white men, two on one side of the street, one on our side of the street, walking toward us. They were casually dressed, did not look official, were not old—men in their forties, perhaps. The one on our side of the street was a dirty blond, with heavy lips, and narrow blue eyes, he wore a brown leather jacket, and khaki pants and scuffed brown pumps. I did not register the other two as clearly, since I did not look directly at them. I had the strangest feeling that we had surprised them, had thwarted something, that they had not expected to see us at this hour. Our car was on the other side of the street, and the two men were walking away from this car. One was large and heavy, not fat but solid, like a bull, with black hair beginning to turn gray. He wore a pinstripe navy blue suit, a little too tight for him, had a wide mouth and thin lips and eyes like a rodent’s eyes. The man next to him was thinner, somewhat younger, with curly black hair and brown eyes, wearing a heavy gray sweater and black corduroy pants. He looked quickly up and down the street before he started toward us, a little behind the heavy man.
We had no choice but to continue walking toward them. I dared not look behind me, but Brown Eyes and I appeared to agree that the street, indeed, was empty.
“Shit,” Peanut muttered. “I reckon that kid was telling me the truth.”
I said nothing. Arthur said nothing.
The one on our side of the street stopped, and, when we reached him, he said, in a low, gravelly, musical voice, “You boys was visiting us a couple of nights ago, wasn’t you?”
I said nothing; we said nothing. I did not know quite what to do with the word boy. Neither did Arthur; neither did Peanut. It was ridiculous on my part, certainly, but I suddenly realized that I was the oldest. I was the oldest, and also, I had no function at the rally that night. Arthur and Peanut did, and so, it was more than ever crucial that nothing happen to them. God knows that I didn’t want anything to happen to me, either, but, as is the way at such moments, I really did not have an awful lot of room left in which to worry about myself.
So I said, “Yes. We were visiting friends here. Why?”
I had struck the wrong tone—not that there would have been any way to strike the right one. My New York accent had enraged him, and his friends were crossing the street.
“Look. Why don’t you northern niggers stay up North?”
“Yeah. Why don’t you?” This was the heavy-set man, who now stood next to me. His friend stood next to Peanut.
So, there we were. The street remained empty. Then a woman stepped out on her porch and screamed, You stop molesting them! You stop molesting them! Come here, peoples! Help! Help! and, at the same moment, I saw Peanut move, and saw the man next to Peanut go down. I ducked the fist of the man next to me, I realized that Arthur was on the ground, the man’s next blow caught me on the side of the head, causing everything to tilt and turn scarlet. I hit him in the gut, I might as well have hit a barrel, but then, because I had to get Arthur up off the ground! I jumped up, joining my fists into a hammer, and came down as hard as I could on the top of his skull. We went down together, he and I, but
“What you doing around here?” he asked, in a friendly, concerned voice. “Somebody send for you? Did you lose something around here?”
Rodent Eyes simply stared at him. With a shock, I realized that the man holding the gun was our host.
“Answer me,” he said.
Rodent Eyes still said nothing.
“Let them go,” said one of the men, “before this spreads all over the city.”
For the street was filling up, and the mood was ugly.
“Yeah,” said our host, and he tapped Rodent Eyes, not too lightly, on the forehead, with the butt of his gun. “If I see you around here again, you will lose something—your life. Go on, get out of here,” and he pushed all three of them. Rodent Eyes’s friend could not take his eyes from Peanut, Peanut stared at him. Then—and the only warning was the sudden flash of fear in the brown eyes, I will never forget that instant—Peanut, suddenly, uncontrollably, slammed the man across the face with his open palm, four, five, six times, before he was pulled away. The man staggered, but did not fall, and I watched his eyes as he slowly opened them, staring at all of us, and then, at Peanut. The sweat on my back slowly grew ice-cold. This was not a man staring at us, then at Peanut, neither was it an animal. No animal could have been so depthlessly humiliated, and I had never, never seen such hatred. He staggered off, between his friends, and we all watched as they crossed the street and got into an old blue Buick, and drove off. The crowd was silent, knowing that this was not the end.
“Let’s get inside,” said our host, “before the cops get here. They’ll be here in a minute, it’s a wonder they ain’t here yet.” He looked at me, at Arthur, at Peanut. “Come on,” and now, he sounded very weary, almost close to tears. We started for the house. “I reckon I really should have held them, and sworn out a complaint. But that would really have been more trouble than it’s worth.”
He was, at bottom, and this is hard to swallow, absolutely right; just the same, later on, we wished that we had, at least, taken their names. Even though, if one wishes to look the truth in the face, that would not have made any difference, either.
We got to the house, looking rather weird, just as the guests were arriving. Peanut was all right, except that his clothes were a mess—one sleeve had been almost ripped off his jacket, and his shirt was torn. I was all right, except that my clothes were also a mess. Arthur’s lip was bleeding, and would probably swell; he would not, I thought, be able to sing tonight. His pants were ripped down the back by his fall, and his jacket would have to be thrown away.
The house had two bathrooms. Peanut went to one, and I went with Arthur to the other.
He turned on the cold water, and put his head under the faucet and washed and washed his face. I had the feeling that he was also weeping, but I could not be certain, and I said nothing. Then, he dried his face and head, and I sat him down on the toilet seat, to examine his lip.
The blow had split his upper lip. It was not serious, but it was certainly painful.
“You won’t be able to sing tonight,” I said.
“I damn sure am going to sing tonight, brother. Now you can make up your mind to that.” He tried to grin; the lip was swelling fast. “Go and get me some ice. I’ll lie down for about half an hour and keep ice on it, it’ll be all right.”
“Arthur, you going to split that thing wide open—”
“Will you go and get me some ice? Please? right now?”
He went into the bedroom which we shared, and I went into the kitchen, where my hostess stood with some of her friends, looking helpless and angry.
“May I have some ice, please? For my brother’s lip? He claims he’s going to sing tonight.”
She looked at me as though she scarcely saw me, but moved, automatically, to the refrigerator. “I don’t know if he’s going to sing tonight. We might not leave this house tonight.”
She took out the ice, and shook her head, as though to bring everything back into focus. Then she looked at me. She tried to smile.
“Son, you got to forgive me, behaving like this. But we been going through some trying times, down here.” She put the ice in a bowl, and picked up a clean dish towel. “Let me have a look at your brother.”
I followed her down the hall, into the bedroom. Arthur lay across the bed, his hands over his eyes.
Our hostess—Mrs. Elkins—sat down on the bed.
“Here, young fellow,” she said. “Let me look at that.”
“It’s not serious,” Arthur said. “If I just lie still, and keep ice on it, it’ll be all right.”
Mrs. Elkins looked at the lip carefully, touched it lightly. “Well. Lie still, and keep ice on it, anyway, and we’ll see.” She packed a dish towel with ice, and wrapped it tight, and handed it to Arthur, who held it against his mouth.
Mrs. Elkins stood up. “It’s going to drip,” she said. “Let me get you a bath towel so you won’t have ice water running down your belly and your back,” and she left the room.
“I don’t think you’re going to be able to sing tonight,” I said. “Mrs. Elkins says she doesn’t think we can leave the house tonight.”
He looked at me, his eyes very big. “It’s as bad as that?”
“Well. I don’t know. But they live down here—they should know. And they don’t seem—like very excitable people.”
Mrs. Elkins came back, with an enormous towel which she wrapped around Arthur’s neck and shoulders. “Now. You just lie still. If you want anything, just call. We’ll hear you.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Elkins. Just let me know when it’s time, I’ll be all right.”
“You just be still.”
We joined the others in the living room.
“Pour yourself a drink,” said Mr. Elkins. “I know you need one.” He turned back to Peanut, who was leaning on the mantelpiece, still gray and shaken, his eyes very dark. “What did he ask you?”
Peanut looked at me. “I was just telling Mr. Elkins what that guy asked us—if we had been in Atlanta two nights ago.”
“And—had you been?” asked Mrs. Elkins.
“Well—yes,” said Peanut. “That was why the question seemed so strange.”
I said, “I thought they might just have happened to see us—you know, northern black people seem to be pretty visible down here, they look at you like they think you’re carrying a bomb—and the car has New York license plates, and all—”
“But we weren’t nowhere near here,” said Peanut, “and we didn’t walk around town, or visit, or anything, we came in late at night, and we left the next day.”
“Where were you staying?” Mr. Elkins asked.
We told him, and Mrs. Elkins shook her head, and she and her husband looked, briefly, at each other.
“No,” said Mr. Elkins. “That’s nowhere near here.”
“Well,” said one of the guests, a gray-haired man with a pipe, “them vigilantes, they get around.”
The room crackled with a kind of perfunctory laughter, intended mainly, I felt, to reassure Peanut and me. And this was a little frightening.
Mr. Elkins asked, “The people where you stayed—they were expecting you?”
“Well”—Peanut and I looked at each other??
“They called ahead, and gave their friends the license number of our car, and a description, and when—about when—they could expect us,” Peanut said, and silence fell in the room and, for a moment, Mr. and Mrs. Elkins did not look at each other. There were three women and two men in the room, and they all had the same look on their faces, a weary, exasperated fear and sorrow.
“Well,” said Mr. Elkins cheerfully, finally, “that’s probably it.”
Peanut and I waited. The others seemed to know what he was talking about.
“We can’t prove it,” said Mrs. Elkins carefully, “and I know it might sound like we’re all crazy—but a lot of our phones, down here, are tapped.”
“We’re on the FBI’s Most Wanted List,” said the man with the pipe. He said this with a proud, bitter smile.
“They’re such assholes,” said Mr. Elkins. “But I bet you that’s what happened.”
I asked, “What’s the point of tapping your phones?”