The white workers didn't have a problem with that kind of treatment because they didn't come from a place where men were always called boys. The white worker would have just said, 'Sure, Benny, you called it right, but damn if I can see straight right now.' And Benny would have understood that. He would have laughed and realized how pushy he was being and offered to take Mr. Davenport, or whoever, out to drink a beer. But the Negro workers didn't drink with Benny. We didn't go to the same bars, we didn't wink at the same girls.
What I should have done, if I wanted my job, was to stay, like he asked, and then come back early the next day to recheck the work. If I had told Benny I couldn't see straight he would have told me to buy glasses.
So there I was at the mouth of the man-made cave of an airplane hangar. The sun wasn't really up but everything was light. The large cement floor was empty except for a couple of trucks and a large tarp over the wing assembly. It felt good and familiar to be back there. No jazzy photographs of white girls anywhere, no strange white men with dead blue eyes. I was in a place of family men and working men who went home to their own houses at night and read the newspaper and watched Milton Berle.
'Easy!'
Dupree's shout always sounded the same whether he was happy to see you or he was about to pull out his small-barreled pistol.
'Hey, Dupree!' I shouted.
'What you say to Coretta, man?' he asked as he came up to me.
'Nuthin', nuthin' at all. What you mean?'
'Well, either you said sumpin' or I got bad breath because she tore out yesterday mornin' an' I ain't seen'er since.'
'What?'
'Yeah! She fixed me some breakfast an' then said she had some business so she'd see me fo' dinner and that's the last I seen of'er.'
'She din't come home?'
'Nope. You know I come in an' burnt some pork chops to make up for the night before but she din't come in.'
Dupree had a couple of inches on me and he was built like Joppy when Joppy was still a boxer. He was hovering over me and I could feel the violence come off of him in waves.
'No, man, I didn't say a thing. We put you in the bed, then she gave me a drink and I went home. That's all.'
'Then where is she?' he demanded.
'How you expect me t'know? You know Coretta. She likes to keep her secrets. Maybe she's with her auntie out in Compton. She could be in Reno.'
Dupree relaxed a little and laughed. 'You prob'ly right, Easy. Coretta hear them slot machines goin' an' she leave her own momma.'
He slapped me on the back and laughed again.
I swore to myself that I'd never look at another man's woman. I've taken that pledge many times since then.
'Rawlins,' came a voice from the small office at the back of the hangar.
'There you go,' Dupree said.
I walked toward the man who had called me. The office he stood before was a prefabricated green shell, more like a tent than a room. Benny kept his desk in there and only went in himself to meet with the bosses or to fire one of the men. He called me in there four days before to tell me that Champion couldn't use men that didn't give 'a little extra.'
'Mr. Giacomo,' I said. We shook but there was no friendliness in it.
Benny was shorter than I but he had broad shoulders and big hands. His salt-and-pepper hair had once been jet black and his skin color was darker than many mulattos I'd known. But Benny was a white man and I was a Negro. He wanted me to work hard for him and he needed me to be grateful that he allowed me to work at all. His eyes were close-set so he looked intent. His shoulders were slightly hunched, which made him seem like an advancing boxer.
'Easy,' he said.
We went into the shell and he pointed at a chair. He took a seat behind the desk, kicked his foot up on it, and lit a cigarette.
'Dupree says that you want back on the job, Easy.'
I was thinking that Benny probably had a bottle of rye in the bottom drawer of his desk.
'Sure, Mr. Giacomo, you know I need this job to eat.' I concentrated on keeping my head erect. I wasn't going to bow down to him.
'Well, you know that when you fire somebody you have to stick to your guns. The men might get to thinkin' that I'm weak if I take you back.'
'So what am I doin' here?' I said to his face.
He leaned farther back in his chair and hunched his large shoulders. 'You tell me.'
'Dupree said that you would give me my job back.'
'I don't know who gave him the authority to say that. All I said was that I'd be glad to talk to you if you had something to say. Do you have something to say?'
