CHAPTER XXIKennethlay on the floor he knew not how long. At last he awakened to the realization that his telephone was ringing furiously.Subconsciously he was aware of the fact that it had been ringing for some time. He lay there and let it ring. Telephone—office—house—profession—life itself—all seemed vague and nebulous phenomena remote from his existence far from him and as uninteresting to him as life on Mars.The raucous dissonance continued. “R-r-r-r-r,” the bell seemed to scream in its existence. It was like a mosquito in a darkened room when one wanted to get to sleep. “Damn the telephone!” he cried aloud. “Let the fool thing ring its head off!”…He thought of Jane. He wondered if she would be content to remain in Central City after the disasters to Mamie and Bob. If she didn’t, then they’d part. He was going to stay there if all hell froze over until he found who had composed the mob that had killed Bob. Until he had wreaked the utmost in vengeance upon them. … But Jane would feel just as he did. She was no coward! Hadn’t she been the one to awaken him to the asininity of his own course in trying to keep away from the raceproblem? No, she’d stick! She wasn’t the quitting kind! …The telephone bell shrilled as though it were human—it sounded like a vinegar-dispositioned virago berating her spouse. It paused only, apparently, to catch enough breath to break forth again. Its shrieking reverberations beat upon his eardrums in wave after wave of sound until it seemed as though he would go mad. “Why doesn’t the fool get it through his head that there’s nobody here to answer?” he exclaimed in vexation that bordered on hysteria. He pressed the heels of his palms against his ears as tightly as he could. That was better! He could hear himself think now. …Mamie and her mother couldn’t stay in Central City, though. Too terrible for them—especially for Mamie to stay here where she couldn’t help but see, every day, things that’d remind her of her awful experience. And where fool people would come in with long faces to sympathize with her and drive her mad. People were such asses! Why didn’t they have sense enough to show their sympathy by staying away? Instead of coming in and sitting around, talking empty nothings by the hour? Old Mrs. Amos would be that way. And Mrs. Bradley. They were such nuisances. Wonder if he hadn’t better send Mamie and mamma to Philadelphia to his Uncle Will? Or would it be best to send them to Virginia to his Uncle Jim? No, that wouldn’t do. Best for them to leave the South entirely. Wherethey could get away from everything that’d remind them of Georgia. No, they’d go to Philadelphia. Suppose Mrs. Tucker’s about able to take some slight nourishment now. Good Lord, had he performed the operation only yesterday morning?That couldn’t be possible! Too much has come in between then and now. Must have operated on her in a previous existence. And died since. Reincarnation? Yes, that’s the word. Never thought he’d actually experience it himself. …His arms and hands became tired from pressing on his ears. His ears ached. He loosened the pressure on them a bit. The telephone was yet ringing. Lord, he moaned, the thing will drive me crazy! Won’t be able to live long enough to get those damned scoundrels who murdered Bob. He decided to answer it, curse the voice on the other end, and hang up. He tried to get up from the floor. There was a terrible pain in his legs. He was sore all over. He crawled over to the desk in his office and painfully pulled himself to a seat in his office chair. He stretched his arm out to pull the telephone to him. A sharp twinge shot through his arm and he groaned. He caught the cord in his hands and slowly pulled the instrument to him and placed the receiver to his ear. At first he could not speak. He made several ineffectual efforts. At last a faint, hoarse “Hello” was wafted into the mouthpiece.“Oh, Rachel, I’m so glad to hear your voice. This is Mrs. Ewing—Mrs. Roy Ewing over on GeorgiaAvenue. I’ve been trying to get you for half a hour. Has your son come home from Atlanta yet?”The voice went chattering on while Kenneth tried to moisten his parched throat sufficiently to speak. It seemed to him that his saliva-producing gland must have died along with his hope of a peaceful existence in Central City. Finally, he was able to speak. He answered Mrs. Ewing wearily:“This isn’t Mrs. Harper, Mrs. Ewing. This is Dr. Harper.”“Oh, my God! Why did you come back?” she exclaimed.Puzzled at her tone, Kenneth abruptly answered: “Why shouldn’t I have come back?”She laughed nervously“Nothing—oh, nothing. But I’m awfully sorry about what’s happened.” At a disbelieving grunt that came to her over the wire, she hastened to add: “Really I am—I am from the very bottom of my heart!”She went on philosophically before Kenneth could reply.“But everything’ll come out all right, don’t you fear. Doctor, I’m so glad for one reason you’re back. Mary’s had a set-back and she’s in an awful fix. Dr. Bennett can’t do nothing for her. I know it’s awful hard to ask you, but can’t you come over and see what you⸺”“No, damn it, no!” shouted Kenneth into the mouthpiece. His voice mounted higher and higher in the rage that possessed him. “No, I hope she’lldie—I hope she’ll die! And every other white beast that’s living! No! No! No! No!” he shouted as though mad.He started to slam the receiver down upon its hook. The voice of Mrs. Ewing came to him in an agonized moan and made him pause.“Oh, Doctor, don’t take it out on my po’ little Mary. I know just how you feel, but don’t blame it on her! Please, Doctor, please come over and I’ll never bother you again! If you don’t come, I jus’ know she’ll die!” she begged.Kenneth’s fit of passion had passed. In its stead there came a cold, terrifying calmness that was but another form of the raging torment and fury in his breast. He spoke with biting directness into the telephone:“Mrs. Ewing, if by raising one finger I could save the whole white race from destruction, and by not raising it could send them all straight down to hell, I’d die before I raised it! You’ve murdered my brother, my sister’s body, my mother’s mind, and my very soul! No, I know that,” he said to her interjected remark, which he repeated. “I know you didn’t do it with your own hands! But you belong to the race that did! And the race that’s going to pay for every murder it’s committed!”He paused for breath and then continued his vitriolic diatribe against the white race. It was relieving his brain, he found, to be able thus to vent his spleen on a white person. He went on in the same voice of deadly calm and precision of statement:“And where’s that cowardly husband of yours?” he demanded in a voice of rising fury. “Why didn’t he come and ask me to save your daughter? No, he’s like the rest of the damned cowards—makes his wife do it, thinking I’m fool enough not to know he’s there at the telephone telling you what to say. No, no, wait until I’m through! … He’s where? Atlanta? What’s he doing there? Why did he leave his daughter when he knew she might die any minute? Oh, no! You can’t feed me any bait like that! I’m through, I tell you—I’m through listening to the lying flattery you white folks use to fool ignorant and blind Negroes like me! What? Why—I don’t see—don’t understand! Oh, well, I suppose I might as well, then. Yes, I’ll be over within ten minutes. Tell Dr. Bennett to wait there until I come. What? He’s gone! All right, I’ll come! Good-bye!”Slightly puzzled, he hung up the receiver and sat for a minute gazing at the desk pad in front of him, but seeing nothing. Why should Roy Ewing have gone to Atlanta to see him? Ewing knew he’d be back on Friday. He had told him so before leaving. It was mighty strange for him to act that way.His mother entered the room, awakened by the sound of his shouting over the telephone. She spoke to him apologetically for having left him so long.“Mamie was so restless,” she explained, “and when I got her quiet at last, I must have fallen asleep sitting there by her bed.” On her face there came awistful smile. “You see, I haven’t been to sleep for three days now.”Kenneth went to her and put his arm around her.“That’s all right, mamma, that’s all right. I’m glad you did get a minute’s rest. You needed it. What’s that? Oh, yes, I feel much better now. The storm has passed for a time, I reckon. I’m going to run over to the Ewings’ for a minute—Mary’s in a bad way. Oh, that’s all right, you needn’t worry,” he hastily interjected at his mother’s cry of alarm. “The streets are empty now—everybody’s in bed. I’ll go there and come straight back as soon as Mary’s resting easily again,” he promised in order to quiet her fears. “There won’t be anybody for me to see on the streets, much less start any trouble with. You go to bed and I’ll come in and sit with you for a few minutes when I come back.”With this promise Mrs. Harper had to be content. Her fears allayed, Kenneth kissed her and helped her up the stairs to her room. Going back to his office, he put the things in his bag he would be likely to need, went out to the garage in the rear, cranked up the Ford, and drove over to Georgia Avenue to treat a white patient less than seventy-two hours after the double catastrophe which had descended upon him and his family at the hands of those same white people.As he drove out of the yard, he heard his mother call from her window: “Hurry back, sonny.” It had been more than fifteen years since she had lastcalled him that. … He drove through the darkened streets of Central City-down Lee Street past the deserted business houses, past the Confederate Monument, and on across that intangible, yet vivid line that separated the élite of the whites of Central City from the less favoured. …His mind intent on his own tragedy, Kenneth drove on, guiding his car without conscious volition, mechanically. His conscious mind was too busy revolving the string of events and trying to find some solid spot, it mattered not how small, on which he could set mental foot. …
Kennethlay on the floor he knew not how long. At last he awakened to the realization that his telephone was ringing furiously.
Subconsciously he was aware of the fact that it had been ringing for some time. He lay there and let it ring. Telephone—office—house—profession—life itself—all seemed vague and nebulous phenomena remote from his existence far from him and as uninteresting to him as life on Mars.
The raucous dissonance continued. “R-r-r-r-r,” the bell seemed to scream in its existence. It was like a mosquito in a darkened room when one wanted to get to sleep. “Damn the telephone!” he cried aloud. “Let the fool thing ring its head off!”…
He thought of Jane. He wondered if she would be content to remain in Central City after the disasters to Mamie and Bob. If she didn’t, then they’d part. He was going to stay there if all hell froze over until he found who had composed the mob that had killed Bob. Until he had wreaked the utmost in vengeance upon them. … But Jane would feel just as he did. She was no coward! Hadn’t she been the one to awaken him to the asininity of his own course in trying to keep away from the raceproblem? No, she’d stick! She wasn’t the quitting kind! …
The telephone bell shrilled as though it were human—it sounded like a vinegar-dispositioned virago berating her spouse. It paused only, apparently, to catch enough breath to break forth again. Its shrieking reverberations beat upon his eardrums in wave after wave of sound until it seemed as though he would go mad. “Why doesn’t the fool get it through his head that there’s nobody here to answer?” he exclaimed in vexation that bordered on hysteria. He pressed the heels of his palms against his ears as tightly as he could. That was better! He could hear himself think now. …
Mamie and her mother couldn’t stay in Central City, though. Too terrible for them—especially for Mamie to stay here where she couldn’t help but see, every day, things that’d remind her of her awful experience. And where fool people would come in with long faces to sympathize with her and drive her mad. People were such asses! Why didn’t they have sense enough to show their sympathy by staying away? Instead of coming in and sitting around, talking empty nothings by the hour? Old Mrs. Amos would be that way. And Mrs. Bradley. They were such nuisances. Wonder if he hadn’t better send Mamie and mamma to Philadelphia to his Uncle Will? Or would it be best to send them to Virginia to his Uncle Jim? No, that wouldn’t do. Best for them to leave the South entirely. Wherethey could get away from everything that’d remind them of Georgia. No, they’d go to Philadelphia. Suppose Mrs. Tucker’s about able to take some slight nourishment now. Good Lord, had he performed the operation only yesterday morning?
That couldn’t be possible! Too much has come in between then and now. Must have operated on her in a previous existence. And died since. Reincarnation? Yes, that’s the word. Never thought he’d actually experience it himself. …
His arms and hands became tired from pressing on his ears. His ears ached. He loosened the pressure on them a bit. The telephone was yet ringing. Lord, he moaned, the thing will drive me crazy! Won’t be able to live long enough to get those damned scoundrels who murdered Bob. He decided to answer it, curse the voice on the other end, and hang up. He tried to get up from the floor. There was a terrible pain in his legs. He was sore all over. He crawled over to the desk in his office and painfully pulled himself to a seat in his office chair. He stretched his arm out to pull the telephone to him. A sharp twinge shot through his arm and he groaned. He caught the cord in his hands and slowly pulled the instrument to him and placed the receiver to his ear. At first he could not speak. He made several ineffectual efforts. At last a faint, hoarse “Hello” was wafted into the mouthpiece.
“Oh, Rachel, I’m so glad to hear your voice. This is Mrs. Ewing—Mrs. Roy Ewing over on GeorgiaAvenue. I’ve been trying to get you for half a hour. Has your son come home from Atlanta yet?”
The voice went chattering on while Kenneth tried to moisten his parched throat sufficiently to speak. It seemed to him that his saliva-producing gland must have died along with his hope of a peaceful existence in Central City. Finally, he was able to speak. He answered Mrs. Ewing wearily:
“This isn’t Mrs. Harper, Mrs. Ewing. This is Dr. Harper.”
“Oh, my God! Why did you come back?” she exclaimed.
Puzzled at her tone, Kenneth abruptly answered: “Why shouldn’t I have come back?”
She laughed nervously
“Nothing—oh, nothing. But I’m awfully sorry about what’s happened.” At a disbelieving grunt that came to her over the wire, she hastened to add: “Really I am—I am from the very bottom of my heart!”
She went on philosophically before Kenneth could reply.
“But everything’ll come out all right, don’t you fear. Doctor, I’m so glad for one reason you’re back. Mary’s had a set-back and she’s in an awful fix. Dr. Bennett can’t do nothing for her. I know it’s awful hard to ask you, but can’t you come over and see what you⸺”
“No, damn it, no!” shouted Kenneth into the mouthpiece. His voice mounted higher and higher in the rage that possessed him. “No, I hope she’lldie—I hope she’ll die! And every other white beast that’s living! No! No! No! No!” he shouted as though mad.
He started to slam the receiver down upon its hook. The voice of Mrs. Ewing came to him in an agonized moan and made him pause.
“Oh, Doctor, don’t take it out on my po’ little Mary. I know just how you feel, but don’t blame it on her! Please, Doctor, please come over and I’ll never bother you again! If you don’t come, I jus’ know she’ll die!” she begged.
Kenneth’s fit of passion had passed. In its stead there came a cold, terrifying calmness that was but another form of the raging torment and fury in his breast. He spoke with biting directness into the telephone:
“Mrs. Ewing, if by raising one finger I could save the whole white race from destruction, and by not raising it could send them all straight down to hell, I’d die before I raised it! You’ve murdered my brother, my sister’s body, my mother’s mind, and my very soul! No, I know that,” he said to her interjected remark, which he repeated. “I know you didn’t do it with your own hands! But you belong to the race that did! And the race that’s going to pay for every murder it’s committed!”
He paused for breath and then continued his vitriolic diatribe against the white race. It was relieving his brain, he found, to be able thus to vent his spleen on a white person. He went on in the same voice of deadly calm and precision of statement:
“And where’s that cowardly husband of yours?” he demanded in a voice of rising fury. “Why didn’t he come and ask me to save your daughter? No, he’s like the rest of the damned cowards—makes his wife do it, thinking I’m fool enough not to know he’s there at the telephone telling you what to say. No, no, wait until I’m through! … He’s where? Atlanta? What’s he doing there? Why did he leave his daughter when he knew she might die any minute? Oh, no! You can’t feed me any bait like that! I’m through, I tell you—I’m through listening to the lying flattery you white folks use to fool ignorant and blind Negroes like me! What? Why—I don’t see—don’t understand! Oh, well, I suppose I might as well, then. Yes, I’ll be over within ten minutes. Tell Dr. Bennett to wait there until I come. What? He’s gone! All right, I’ll come! Good-bye!”
Slightly puzzled, he hung up the receiver and sat for a minute gazing at the desk pad in front of him, but seeing nothing. Why should Roy Ewing have gone to Atlanta to see him? Ewing knew he’d be back on Friday. He had told him so before leaving. It was mighty strange for him to act that way.
His mother entered the room, awakened by the sound of his shouting over the telephone. She spoke to him apologetically for having left him so long.
“Mamie was so restless,” she explained, “and when I got her quiet at last, I must have fallen asleep sitting there by her bed.” On her face there came awistful smile. “You see, I haven’t been to sleep for three days now.”
Kenneth went to her and put his arm around her.
“That’s all right, mamma, that’s all right. I’m glad you did get a minute’s rest. You needed it. What’s that? Oh, yes, I feel much better now. The storm has passed for a time, I reckon. I’m going to run over to the Ewings’ for a minute—Mary’s in a bad way. Oh, that’s all right, you needn’t worry,” he hastily interjected at his mother’s cry of alarm. “The streets are empty now—everybody’s in bed. I’ll go there and come straight back as soon as Mary’s resting easily again,” he promised in order to quiet her fears. “There won’t be anybody for me to see on the streets, much less start any trouble with. You go to bed and I’ll come in and sit with you for a few minutes when I come back.”
With this promise Mrs. Harper had to be content. Her fears allayed, Kenneth kissed her and helped her up the stairs to her room. Going back to his office, he put the things in his bag he would be likely to need, went out to the garage in the rear, cranked up the Ford, and drove over to Georgia Avenue to treat a white patient less than seventy-two hours after the double catastrophe which had descended upon him and his family at the hands of those same white people.
As he drove out of the yard, he heard his mother call from her window: “Hurry back, sonny.” It had been more than fifteen years since she had lastcalled him that. … He drove through the darkened streets of Central City-down Lee Street past the deserted business houses, past the Confederate Monument, and on across that intangible, yet vivid line that separated the élite of the whites of Central City from the less favoured. …
His mind intent on his own tragedy, Kenneth drove on, guiding his car without conscious volition, mechanically. His conscious mind was too busy revolving the string of events and trying to find some solid spot, it mattered not how small, on which he could set mental foot. …