XXVI
The Doors of Life
During Sandy’s second year at high school Tempy was busy sewing for the local Red Cross and organizing Liberty Bond clubs among the colored population of Stanton. She earnestly believed that the world would really become safe for democracy, even in America, when the war ended, and that colored folks would no longer be snubbed in private and discriminated against in public.
“Colored boys are over there fighting,” she said. “Our men are buying hundreds of dollars’ worth of bonds, colored women are aiding the Red Cross, our clubs are sending boxes to the camps and to the front. White folks will see that the Negro can be trusted in war as well as peace. Times will be better after this for all of us.”
One day a letter came from Annjee, who had moved to Chicago. She said that Sandy’s father had not long remained in camp, but had been sent to France almost immediately after he enlisted, and she didn’t know what she was going to do, she was so worried and alone! There had been but one letter from Jimboy since he left. And now she needed Sandy with her, but she wasn’t able to send for him yet. She said she hoped and prayed that nothing would happen to his father at the front, but every day there were colored soldiers’ names on the casualty list.
‚ÄúGood thing he‚Äôs gone,‚Äù grunted Tempy when she read the letter as they were seated at the supper-table. Then, suddenly changing the subject, she asked Sandy: ‚ÄúDid you see Dr.¬ÝFrank Crane‚Äôs beautiful article this morning?‚Äù
“No, I didn’t,” said the boy.
“You certainly don’t read as much as you did last winter,” complained his aunt. “And you’re staying out entirely too late to suit me. I’m quite sure you’re not at the movies all that time, either. I want these late hours stopped, young man. Every night in the week out somewhere until ten and eleven o’clock!”
‚ÄúWell, boys do have to get around a little, Tempy,‚Äù Mr.¬ÝSiles objected. ‚ÄúIt‚Äôs not like when you and I were coming up.‚Äù
‚ÄúI‚Äôm raising this boy, Mr.¬ÝSiles,‚Äù Tempy snapped. ‚ÄúWhen do you study, James? That‚Äôs what I want to know.‚Äù
“When I come in,” said Sandy, which was true. His light was on until after twelve almost every night. And when he did not study late, his old habit of lying awake clung to him and he could not go to sleep early.
“You think too much,” Buster once said. “Stop being so smart; then you’ll sleep better.”
“Yep,” added Jimmy Lane. “Better be healthy and dumb than smart and sick like some o’ these college darkies I see with goggles on their eyes and breath smellin’ bad.”
‚ÄúO, I‚Äôm not sick,‚Äù objected Sandy, ‚Äúbut I just get to thinking about things at night‚ÅÝ‚Äîthe war, and white folks, and God, and girls, and‚ÅÝ‚ÄîO, I don‚Äôt know‚ÅÝ‚Äîeverything in general.‚Äù
‚ÄúSure, keep on thinking,‚Äù jeered Buster, ‚Äúand turn right ashy after while and be all stoop-shouldered like Father Hill.‚Äù (The Episcopalian rector was said to be the smartest colored man in town.) ‚ÄúBut I‚Äôm not gonna worry about being smart myself. A few more years, boy, and I‚Äôll be in some big town passing for white, making money, and getting along swell. And I won‚Äôt need to be smart, either‚ÅÝ‚ÄîI‚Äôll be ofay! So if you see me some time in St.¬ÝLouis or Chi with a little blond on my arm‚ÅÝ‚Äîdon‚Äôt recognize me, hear! I want my kids to be so yellow-headed they won‚Äôt have to think about a color line.‚Äù
And Sandy knew that Buster meant what he said, for his light-skinned friend was one of those people who always go directly towards the things they want, as though the road is straight before them and they can see clearly all the way. But to Sandy himself nothing ever seemed quite that clear. Why was his country going stupidly to war?‚ÅÝ‚Ää‚Å݂Ķ Why were white people and colored people so far apart?‚ÅÝ‚Ää‚Å݂Ķ Why was it wrong to desire the bodies of women?‚ÅÝ‚Ää‚Å݂Ķ With his mind a maelstrom of thoughts as he lay in bed night after night unable to go to sleep quickly, Sandy wondered many things and asked himself many questions.
Sometimes he would think about Pansetta Young, his classmate with the soft brown skin, and the pointed and delicate breasts of her doll-like body. He had never been alone with Pansetta, never even kissed her, yet she was ‚Äúhis girl‚Äù and he liked her a great deal. Maybe he loved her!‚ÅÝ‚Ää‚Å݂Ķ But what did it mean to love a girl? Were you supposed to marry her then and live with her forever?‚ÅÝ‚Ää‚Å݂Ķ His father had married his mother‚ÅÝ‚Äîgood-natured, guitar-playing Jimboy‚ÅÝ‚Äîbut they weren‚Äôt always together, and Sandy knew that Jimboy was enjoying the war now, just as he had always enjoyed everything else.
“Gee, he must of married early to be my father and still look so young!” he thought. “Suppose I marry Pansetta now!” But what did he really know about marriage other than the dirty fragments he had picked up from Jimmy and Buster and the fellows at the pool hall?
On his fifteenth birthday Tempy had given him a book written for young men on the subject of love and living, called The Doors of Life, addressed to all Christian youths in their teens‚ÅÝ‚Äîbut it had been written by a white New England minister of the Presbyterian faith who stood aghast before the flesh; so its advice consisted almost entirely in how to pray in the orthodox manner, and in how not to love.
‚ÄúAvoid evil companions lest they be your undoing (see Psalms 119:115‚ÅÝ‚Äì‚ÅÝ20); and beware of lewd women, for their footsteps lead down to hell (see Proverbs 7:25‚ÅÝ‚Äì‚ÅÝ7),‚Äù said the book, and that was the extent of its instructions on sex, except that it urged everyone to marry early and settle down to a healthy, moral, Christian life.‚ÅÝ‚Ää‚Å݂Ķ But how could you marry early when you had no money and no home to which to take a wife? Sandy wondered. And who were evil companions? Neither Aunt Hager nor Annjee had ever said anything to Sandy about love in its bodily sense; Jimboy had gone away too soon to talk with him; and Tempy and her husband were too proper to discuss such subjects; so the boy‚Äôs sex knowledge consisted only in the distorted ideas that youngsters whisper; the dirty stories heard in the hotel lobby where he had worked; and the fact that they sold in drugstores articles that weren‚Äôt mentioned in the company of nice people.
But who were nice people anyway? Sandy hated the word ‚Äúnice.‚Äù His Aunt Tempy was always using it. All of her friends were nice, she said, respectable and refined. They went around with their noses in the air and they didn‚Äôt speak to porters and washwomen‚ÅÝ‚Äîthough they weren‚Äôt nearly so much fun as the folks they tried to scorn. Sandy liked Cudge Windsor or Jap Logan better than he did Dr.¬ÝMitchell, who had been to college‚ÅÝ‚Äîand never forgotten it.
Sandy wondered if Booker T. Washington had been like Tempy‚Äôs friends? Or if Dr.¬ÝDu Bois was a snob just because he was a college man? He wondered if those two men had a good time being great. Booker T. was dead, but he had left a living school in the South. Maybe he could teach in the South, too, Sandy thought, if he ever learned enough. Did colored folks need to know the things he was studying in books now? Did French and Latin and Shakespeare make people wise and happy? Jap Logan never went beyond the seventh grade and he was happy. And Jimboy never attended school much either. Maybe school didn‚Äôt matter. Yet to get a good job you had to be smart‚ÅÝ‚Äîand white, too. That was the trouble, you had to be white!
‚ÄúBut I want to learn!‚Äù thought Sandy as he lay awake in the dark after he had gone to bed at night. ‚ÄúI want to go to college. I want to go to Europe and study.‚Äù ‚ÄúWork and make ready and maybe your chance will come,‚Äù it said under the picture of Lincoln on the calendar given away by the First National Bank, where Earl, his white friend, already had a job promised him when he came out of school.‚ÅÝ‚Ää‚Å݂Ķ It was not nearly so difficult for white boys. They could work at anything‚ÅÝ‚Äîin stores, on newspapers, in offices. They could become president of the United States if they were clever enough. But a colored boy.‚ÅÝ‚Ää‚Å݂Ķ No wonder Buster was going to pass for white when he left Stanton.
‚ÄúI don‚Äôt blame him,‚Äù thought Sandy. ‚ÄúSometimes I hate white people, too, like Aunt Harrie used to say she did. Still, some of them are pretty decent‚ÅÝ‚Äîmy English-teacher, and Mr.¬ÝPrentiss where I work. Yet even Mr.¬ÝPrentiss wouldn‚Äôt give me a job clerking in his shop. All I can do there is run errands and scrub the floor when everybody else is gone. There‚Äôs no advancement for colored fellows. If they start as porters, they stay porters forever and they can‚Äôt come up. Being colored is like being born in the basement of life, with the door to the light locked and barred‚ÅÝ‚Äîand the white folks live upstairs. They don‚Äôt want us up there with them, even when we‚Äôre respectable like Dr.¬ÝMitchell, or smart like Dr.¬ÝDu Bois.‚ÅÝ‚Ää‚Å݂Ķ And guys like Jap Logan‚ÅÝ‚Äîwell, Jap don‚Äôt care anyway! Maybe it‚Äôs best not to care, and stay poor and meek waiting for heaven like Aunt Hager did.‚ÅÝ‚Ää‚Å݂Ķ But I don‚Äôt want heaven! I want to live first!‚Äù Sandy thought. ‚ÄúI want to live!‚Äù
He understood then why many old Negroes said: ‚ÄúTake all this world and give me Jesus!‚Äù It was because they couldn‚Äôt get this world anyway‚ÅÝ‚Äîit belonged to the white folks. They alone had the power to give or withhold at their back doors. Always back doors‚ÅÝ‚Äîeven for Tempy and Dr.¬ÝMitchell if they chose to go into Wright‚Äôs Hotel or the New Albert Restaurant. And no door at all for Negroes if they wanted to attend the Rialto Theatre, or join the Stanton Y.M.C.A., or work behind the grilling at the National Bank.
The Doors of Life.‚ÅÝ‚Ää‚Å݂Ķ God damn that simple-minded book that Tempy had given him! What did an old white minister know about the doors of life for him and Pansetta and Jimmy Lane, for Willie-Mae and Buster and Jap Logan and all the black and brown and yellow youngsters standing on the threshold of the great beginning in a Western town called Stanton? What did an old white minister know about the doors of life anywhere? And, least of all, the doors to a Negro‚Äôs life?‚ÅÝ‚Ää‚Å݂Ķ Black youth.‚ÅÝ‚Ää‚Å݂Ķ Dark hands knocking, knocking! Pansetta‚Äôs little brown hands knocking on the doors of life! Baby-doll hands, tiny autumn-leaf girl-hands!‚ÅÝ‚Ää‚Å݂Ķ Gee, Pansetta!‚ÅÝ‚Ää‚Å݂Ķ The Doors of Life‚ÅÝ‚Ää‚Å݂Ķ the great big doors.‚ÅÝ‚Ää‚Å݂Ķ Sandy was asleep‚ÅÝ‚Ää‚Å݂Ķ of life.