66
PARTISAN REVIEW
I guess, sometimes he ain't, it all depends on the individuaL–
That isn't what he means though. Well, what is he driving at?
We-ell, he thinks I'm dumb as hell, you can see it in his
face, you take a woman now, suppose now she comes around
to yuh house, see? She promises you dis, she promises you dat,
den she don't come across. You kin chase her or you kin whistle.
Wadya do?
I bite.
Nuttin. See, you don't do nuttin. She's a woman, see?
Yuh can't hit no woman. A womau for a woman, dat's all right.
But if yuhr a man, yuh can't hit no woman. See?
I ketchum.-Individual terrorism, thnk
I. .
This is where
if I were an organizer, I'd step in and tell him this, and no bones
about it. I'd argue it out with him, patiently, point by point,
I'd show him where he was all wrong in this, that one man can't
do a thing by himself, that in solidarity only is strength, I'd
end up by making him sign a Party application card. But
I'm
only a writer, I've got to do this my own goofy way, I look
at his flat pancake face, the eyes like diamonds dug deep in it,
I smell the crowd around us, I listen to the bitches shrilling at
the prow, I think of myself, I begin to see a story.
Man, says Diamond-eyes, I lay awake dreaming of getting
a man VISitor. I cry nights tinking how lucky I'd be.
You ain't gonq.a get no man, I kid him, you're gonna get an
old feeble woman with glasses. No kidding though, I like this
guy. He's got what it takes to get going. That's the trouble
with being a writer. You're inhibited, you don't think of beau·
tiful things like that to do, you piss away your life trying to
discover the exact adjective.
I wouldn't kill him, says Diamond-eyes, I don't tink I'd do
dat, dere wouldn't be no sense in it, but I wouldn't give him no
black eye, either. I'd really do a job on him, I'd break both
his arms and legs, I'd put him in the hospital fuhr at least six
months.
Yud get blacklisted, you know.
They just about got us that way now, says Diamond-eyes,
aincha been around here long enough to know dat?
Yud go to jail too, juh know the prisoner's song?
Sure, yuh wanta hear it ?-The way he figures it, he pops
this guy, he goes to jail. He goes to jail, people get to hear
about it. They get to hear about it, they know who's right.
Just like that, snap.
'
