74
PARTISAN REVIEW
Then Sam came on to the job. I already told you how big
a man Tex was. But shucks man, when Sam took off his shirt
that first morning we saw him, we knowed what really big was!
No, Sam wasn't so tall as Tex. Wasn't over five-foot-ten any–
way. But what that man lacked in height, he sure made up for
in width and thickness! He didn't have a neck at all; head just
sorta fitted down into his shoulders. His arms was as big as a
walking beam and he had hands like hams. His barrel chest
must have been three feet thick every which-a-way. And all that
was built atop a pair of pile driver legs. He ... well shoot ...
Sam was just plain BIG!
Sam hadn't been in San Anglo very long and he was the
first Negro to work on our gang. He was mighty good natured
and he sure could sing. He was black as the ace of spades, but
when he smiled, he had the whitest teeth you ever saw that
jumped up and said "Howdy!" to you. 'Ve liked him fine, and
Jimmy was quick to get him into the Union. Sam was a right
smart man and he could talk, so he got real active in our work.
Tex and me didn't quite like it when the bunch elected Sam
to the Executive Committee, but we never showed it. Seemed
that Jimmy was kinda pushing Sam to the front, and anything
Jimmy did was right with us.
It
wasn't that we had anything
against Sam himself, it just sorta rubbed something in us the
wrong way.
Well, I was already in the Party by this time and T ex was
reac4' to join. One afternoon, Jimmy gave me the address of
the Unit meeting and I saw it was to be held at Sam's house.
That meant Sam had joined the Party and I went looking for
Tex. After I found him, we talked it all over, meaning I talked
and Tex agreed, and then we went looking for Jimmy.
I'm not going into details about that confab either, because
I guess none of us felt any too good after it was over. You
see, both T ex and me was born in West Texas and growed up
there. We told Jimmy that we didn't have a thing personal
against Sam, and that we didn't object to his joining the Party.
Then Jimmy asked us what we were beefing about and I told
him Tex and me just figgered it might be better if we stayed
out of the Party. Jimmy got mad as blue blazes at first and
then he started to argue, but we just didn't jaw with him.
I gave him my Party book and I sure hated to do that.
I was mighty proud of that little brown book and those sayings
of that Russian feller, Lenin. After we left Jimmy, I kept
