I walked off but I didn't know where I was going. I couldn't go down and tell Red that Hank wouldn't give me a tacker, either; they'd get down on me too. Then I thought of Don. I found him at the forward end supervising the installation of a cowl vent.
'Wanna do me a favour?' I said.
He turned that bright speculative stare on me. 'Shoot Kelly?' He didn't crack a smile, but I laughed once anyway to show him it was funny.
Then I said, 'Let me borrow one of your tackers for about a half-hour.'
He thought for a moment. 'There's a girl down aft-Madge. They're doing these things.' He kicked at the cowl. 'You can have her till dinner-time, anyway.'
'Fine,' I said, hurrying off. I noticed the white mechanics give him a dirty look, but I didn't think anything about it at the time.
She had her back to me and her hood up so it covered her hair, so I didn't recognize her right off. I was about twenty feet away, hurrying toward her, when one of the white mechanics looked up, and that caused her to turn. I saw that she was the big, peroxide blonde I'd run into on the third deck earlier; and I knew the instant I recognized her that she was going to perform then-we both would perform.
As soon as she saw me she went into her frightened act and began shrinking away. I started off giving her a sneer so she'd know I knew it was phoney. She knew it anyway; but she kept putting it on me. I didn't know how far she'd go and I got apprehensive. Before I got too close to her I began talking to her, like you do to a vicious dog to gentle it.
'Look, Madge, Don said you could work with me for a while.'
A wild excited look came into her eyes and her mouth went tight-lipped and brutal; she looked as if she was priming herself to scream. This bitch is crazy, I thought, but I walked on up to her and picked up her line as if nothing was happening. 'It's just a short job,' I said. 'I'll carry your line for you.'
She came out of her phoney act and jerked her line out of my hand, 'I ain't gonna work with no nigger!' she said in a harsh, flat voice.
I didn't even think about it. I just said it right out of my stomach. 'Screw you then, you cracker bitch!'
I stood there for a moment swapping looks with her. She didn't even bat her eyes; she just gave me a long hard brazen look and turned to the two mechanics squatting open-mouthed and said, 'You gonna let a nigger talk tuh me like that?'
One started up tentatively, a bar in his hand. 'Well now, by God-'
I gave them a glance. They were both elderly men, small, scrawny, nothing to worry about. I turned and walked away, went down to the head and told Red that I couldn't find him a tacker, he'd have to take the job over to the sheet-metal shop and get it welded.
'These white folks just refuse to work with us niggers this morning,' I laughed. I felt better now I'd cursed somebody out.
At eleven-thirty MacDougal, the department superintendent, sent for me. I walked across the yard to the sheet-metal shop where he had his office.
'Hello, Bob, the boss'll see you in a minute,' Marguerite said, looking up from her desk by the door. She was a small, compact, black-haired woman with sharp brown eyes and skin that was constantly greasy. She wasn't pretty but she wore expensive clothes. She looked thirty and she was hard as nails.
'How's it going, Marguerite?' I said, but she had turned away to answer the phone and didn't hear me.
I stood there for a time then Marguerite noticed me again and said, 'Sit down, Bob. Mr. MacDougal's busy now, he'll see you in a minute.'
I went over and sat in one of the chairs along the wall and looked at Mac. His desk was out from the wall across the room. He was talking to one of the white shop leadermen and didn't look at me. The shop super and two other shop leadermen came in and he talked to them in turn. Then he made a phone call. Another fellow came in and took the chair at the end of the desk with his back to me and Mac talked to him for a time; then he looked up at me and beckoned.
I went over to his desk. 'Hello, Mac,' I said.
He didn't like for the coloured fellows to call him Mac, but he wouldn't tell them outright; he'd tell Marguerite to tell them to address him as Mr. MacDougal. She had told me twice; she didn't tell me any more.
He was a fat man in shirt sleeves, weighing three hundred or more. He had a jolly red face and twinkling eyes and when he laughed he shook all over. Now he sat there overflowing in his huge desk chair, beaming at me.
'Hello, Bob, I'm glad you dropped in,' he said.
'You sent for me,' I said.
He quit beaming and his face got vicious. 'You cursed a woman worker this morning,' he charged.
I was suddenly conscious that everyone in the office had stopped to listen. 'She called me a nigger,' I said.
He carefully crossed his hands over his fat belly and leaned back in his chair. Then he began beaming again. 'You expect all kind of things when you work with people,' he began in a careful voice. 'But one of the first things people in authority gotta learn is they can't lose their temper. I can't lose my temper. My superior can't lose his temper. You didn't have no right to lose your temper about it either. Things happen every day that make me mad enough to curse somebody-but I don't do it. I couldn't keep the respect of my workers. Some of them would get mad and curse me back. I'd lose my discipline over them, I'd lose their respect, I wouldn't be able to keep my job. You can understand that, Bob, you're an intelligent boy.'
I didn't say anything.
'You know as well as I do that part of your job was to help me keep down trouble between the white and coloured workers,' he went on. 'That was one of the reasons I put you on that job. I figured you'd have sense enough to get along with the people you had to work with instead of running around with a chip on your shoulder like most coloured boys.'
I let him talk.
'You know I put you on that job against Mr. Kelly's wishes. Kelly-Mr. Kelly said I wasn't doing nothing but borrowing trouble but I told him you were the most intelligent coloured boy I knew and you'd be able to help us.' He took an aggrieved attitude. 'I'm surprised at you, Bob. I figured you were too intelligent to lose your head about something like that. I figured you had better manners, more respect for women than that. You know how Southern people talk, how they feel about working with you coloured boys. They have to get used to it, you gotta give them time. What makes me so mad with you is, goddamnit, you know this. I don't have to tell you what could have happened by your cursing a white woman, you know as well as I do.' He paused and jerked his head back. 'Don't you?' He pressed.
'Sure, I know,' I said.
His face got a swollen look and his eyes filled up. 'I'm not going to have you or any other coloured boy in this department who can't maintain a courteous and respectful manner toward the white men and women you have to work with,' he said. His voice shook with anger. He unhooked his hands and shook his fist at me. 'I'm not going to have it, goddamnit, that's all!'
'I'm not going to have nobody call me a nigger either,' I said. I wasn't angry; I was just telling him.
He was through with it. 'You stay on through Saturday. Monday you start in as a mechanic.' He jerked his head toward the fellow sitting at the end of the desk. 'This is Dan Tebbel. Danny's going to work with you this week and beginning Monday he takes your place.'
I'd known Mac was going to give me hell; but I didn't think he'd downgrade me and put a white boy in my place. I thought he'd be afraid of the coloured workers making trouble. It shocked me to find out he didn't give a goddamn about the coloured workers, one way or the other. I looked at Tebbel sort of vacantly. He was a thin, undernourished man with a beaked nose, pale blue eyes, and reddish hair.
But I didn't really begin to feel it until Mac said, 'You'll lose your job deferment too. You're a single boy and they'll put you in 1A.'
All of a sudden I got that crazy, scared feeling I'd waked up with that morning. It had happened in a second; my job was gone and I was facing the draft; like the Japanese getting pulled up by the roots. But I couldn't find a thing to say in my defence. I had to say something, so I said, 'What's Tebbel going to do? My gang's a Jim Crow gang. Maybe they won't work for Tebbel.'
Mac reddened. 'That's all, Bob,' he said, dismissing me.
