7

“That’s the trouble with the black people in this country today,” somebody else says. This one here’s sitting on the same side me and Mama’s sitting, and he is kind of sitting in front of that preacher. He looks like a teacher or somebody that goes to college. He’s got on a suit, and he’s got a book that he’s been reading. “We don’t question is exactly our problem,” he says. “We should question and question and question—question everything.”

The preacher just looks at him a long time. He done put a toothpick or something in his mouth, and he just keeps on turning it and turning it. You can see he don’t like that boy with that book.

“Maybe you can explain what you mean,” he says.

“I said what I meant,” the boy says. “Question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. Everything.”

“It ’pears to me that this young lady and I was talking ’bout God, young man,” the preacher says.

“Question Him, too,” the boy says.

“Wait,” the preacher says. “Wait now.”

“You heard me right,” the boy says. “His existence as well as everything else. Everything.”

The preacher just looks across the room at the boy. You can see he’s getting madder and madder. But mad or no mad, the boy ain’t thinking ’bout him. He looks at that preacher just’s hard’s the preacher looks at him.

“Is this what they coming to?” the preacher says. “Is this what we educating them for?”

“You’re not educating me,” the boy says. “I wash dishes at night so that I can go to school in the day. So even the words you spoke need questioning.”

The preacher just looks at him and shakes his head.

“When I come in this room and seen you there with your book, I said to myself, ‘There’s an intelligent man.’ How wrong a person can be.”

“Show me one reason to believe in the existence of a God,” the boys says.

“My heart tells me,” the preacher says.

“ ‘My heart tells me,’ ” the boys says. “ ‘My heart tells me.’ Sure, ‘My heart tells me.’ And as long as you listen to what your heart tells you, you will have only what the white man gives you and nothing more. Me, I don’t listen to my heart. The purpose of the heart is to pump blood throughout the body, and nothing else.”

“Who’s your paw, boy?” the preacher says.

“Why?”

“Who is he?”

“He’s dead.”

“And your mon?”

“She’s in Charity Hospital with pneumonia. Half killed herself, working for nothing.”

“And ’cause he’s dead and she’s sick, you mad at the world?”

“I’m not mad at the world. I’m questioning the world. I’m questioning it with cold logic, sir. What do words like Freedom, Liberty, God, White, Colored mean? I want to know. That’s why you are sending us to school, to read and to ask questions. And because we ask these questions, you call us mad. No sir, it is not us who are mad.”

“You keep saying ‘us’?”

“ ‘Us.’ Yes–us. I’m not alone.”

The preacher just shakes his head. Then he looks at everybody in the room—everybody. Some of the people look down at the floor, keep from looking at him. I kind of look ’way myself, but soon ’s I know he done turn his head, I look that way again.

“I’m sorry for you,” he says to the boy.

“Why?” the boy says. “Why not be sorry for yourself? Why are you so much better off than I am? Why aren’t you sorry for these other people in here? Why not be sorry for the lady who had to drag her child into the dentist office? Why not be sorry for the lady sitting on that bench over there? Be sorry for them. Not for me. Some way or the other I’m going to make it.”

“No, I’m sorry for you,” the preacher says.

“Of course, of course,” the boy says, nodding his head. “You’re sorry for me because I rock that pillar you’re leaning on.”

“You can’t ever rock the pillar I’m leaning on, young man. It’s stronger than anything man can ever do.”

“You believe in God because a man told you to believe in God,” the boy says. “A white man told you to believe in God. And why? To keep you ignorant so he can keep his feet on your neck.”

“So now we the ignorant?” the preacher says.

“Yes,” the boy says. “Yes.” And he opens his book again.

The preacher just looks at him sitting there. The boy done forgot all about him. Everybody else make ’tend they done forgot the squabble, too.

Then I see that preacher getting up real slow. Preacher’s a great big old man and he got to brace himself to get up. He comes over where the boy is sitting. He just stands there a little while looking down at him, but the boy don’t raise his head.

“Get up, boy,” preacher says.

The boy looks up at him, then he shuts his book real slow and stands up. Preacher just hauls back and hit him in the face. The boy falls back ’gainst the wall, but he straightens himself up and looks right back at that preacher.

“You forgot the other cheek,” he says.

The preacher hauls back and hit him again on the other side. But this time the boy braces himself and don’t fall.

“That hasn’t changed a thing,” he says.

The preacher just looks at the boy. The preacher’s breathing real hard like he just run up a big hill. The boy sits down and opens his book again.

“I feel sorry for you,” the preacher says. “I never felt so sorry for a man before.”

The boy makes ’tend he don’t even hear that preacher. He keeps on reading his book. The preacher goes back and gets his hat off the chair.

“Excuse me,” he says to us. “I’ll come back some other time. Y’all, please excuse me.”

And he looks at the boy and goes out the room. The boy h’ist his hand up to his mouth one time to wipe ’way some blood. All the rest of the time he keeps on reading. And nobody else in there say a word.