Free Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone by James Baldwin Page B

woman because she’s married to a colored
man,
and she’s got two colored
children.
Now, you know ain’t no white lady going to do a thing like that.” He watched me, smiling. “You understand that?” I nodded. “Well, you going to keep me here all night with your questions or can we go on in the house now?”
    I told him to knock, and he did, and our mother opened the door.
    â€œAbout time,” she said dryly—she was chewing on a porkchop bone, and had her hair piled in a knot on the top of her head. I liked her hair that way. “You must have sat through that movie four or five times. You’re going to ruin your eyes and that’ll just be too bad for you because you know we ain’t got no money to be buying you no glasses. Leo, you go on inside and get ready to take your bath.”
    â€œLet him come over here a minute,” said our father. He was sitting in the one easy chair, near the window. He was drunk, but not as drunk as I had seen him, and this was a good mood drunk. In this mood, he would not talk about his job, or the white workers on the job, or his foreman, or about white people, or about African kings. In this mood, he talked about the islands, his mother and father and kinfolk and friends, the feast days, the singing, the dancing, and the sea.
    I approached him, and he pulled me to him, smiling, and held me between his thighs. “How’s my big man?” he asked, smiling, and rubbing his hand gently, and with wonder, over my hair. “Did you have a good time tonight?”
    Caleb sat on a straight chair near him, leaning forward. “Let Leo tell you why we so late. Tell them what happened, Leo.”
    â€œWe were coming down the block,” I began—and I watched my father’s face. Suddenly, I did not want to tell him. Something in Caleb’s tone had alerted him, and he watched me with a stern and frightened apprehension. My mother came and stood beside him, one hand on hisshoulder. I looked at Caleb. “Maybe you could tell it better,” I said.
    â€œGo on, start. I’ll fill in.”
    â€œWe were coming down the block,” I said—and I told him which block—“coming from the movies”—I looked at Caleb.
    â€œIt’s not the way we usually come,” said Caleb.
    My father and I stared at each other. There was, suddenly, between us an overwhelming sorrow. It had come from nowhere. “We got stopped by the cops,” I said. Then I could not continue. I looked helplessly at Caleb and Caleb told the story. As Caleb spoke, I watched my father’s face. I don’t know how to describe what I saw. I felt the one arm he had around me tighten, tighten; his lips became bitter and his eyes grew dull. It was as though, after indescribable, nearly mortal effort, after grim years of fasting and prayer, after the loss of all he had, and after having been promised by the Almighty that he had paid the price and no more would be demanded of his soul, which was harbored now; it was as though in the midst of his joyful feasting and dancing, crowned and robed, a messenger arrived to tell him that a great error had been made, and that it was all to be done again. Before his eyes, then, the banquet and the banquet wines and the banquet guests departed, the robe and crown were lifted, and he was alone then, frozen out of his dream, with all that before him which he had thought was behind him. My father looked as stunned and still and as close to madness as that, and his encircling arm began to hurt me, but I did not complain. I put my hand on his face, and he turned to me, his face changed, he smiled—he was very beautiful then!—and he put his great hand on top of mine. He turned to Caleb.
    â€œThat’s all that happened? You didn’t say nothing?”
    â€œWhat could I say? It might have been different, had I been by myself. But I had Leo with me, and I was afraid of what they