Something told me to refuse, but I was intrigued and, underneath it all, was probably flattered. Besides, if I refused to go, it would be taken as an admission of guilt. And he didn't look like a policeman or a detective. I went silently beside him to a cafeteria down near the end of the block, seeing him peer inside through the window before we entered.
"You get the table, brother. Over there near the wall where we can talk in peace. I'll get the coffee."
I watched him going across the floor with a bouncy, rolling step, then found a table and sat watching him. It was warm in the cafeteria. It was late afternoon now only a few customers were scattered at the tables. I watched the man going familiarly to the food counter and ordering. His movements, as he peered through the brightly lighted shelves of pastry, were those of a lively small animal, a fyce, interested in detecting only the target cut of cake. So he's heard my speech; well, I'll hear what he has to say, I thought, seeing him start toward me with his rapid, rolling, bouncy, heel-and-toey step. It was as though he had taught himself to walk that way and I had a feeling that somehow he was acting a part; that something about him wasn't exactly real -- an idea which I dismissed immediately, since there was a quality of unreality over the whole afternoon. He came straight to the table without having to look about for me, as though he had expected me to take that particular table and no other -- although many tables were vacant. He was balancing a plate of cake on top of each cup, setting them down deftly and shoving one toward me as he took his chair.
"I thought you might like a piece of cheese cake," he said.
"Cheese cake?" I said. "I've never heard of it."
"It's nice. Sugar?"
"Go ahead," I said.
"No, after you, brother."
I looked at him, then poured three spoonfuls and shoved the shaker toward him. I was tense again.
"Thanks," I said, repressing an impulse to call him down about the "brother" business.
He smiled, cutting into his cheese cake with a fork and shoving far too large a piece into his mouth. His manners are extremely crude, I thought, trying to put him at a disadvantage in my own mind by pointedly taking a small piece of the cheesy stuff and placing it neatly into my mouth.
"You know," he said, taking a gulp of coffee, "I haven't heard such an effective piece of eloquence since the days when I was in -- well, in a long time. You aroused them so quickly to action. I don't understand how you managed it. If only some of our speakers could have listened! With a few words you had them involved in action! Others would have still been wasting time with empty verbiage. I want to thank you for a most instructive experience!"
I drank my coffee silently. Not only did I distrust him, I didn't know how much I could safely say.
"The cheese cake here is good," he said before I could answer. "It's really very good. By the way, where did you learn to speak?"
"Nowhere," I said, much too quickly.
"Then you're very talented. You are a natural. It's hard to believe."
"I was simply angry," I said, deciding to admit this much in order to see what he would reveal.
"Then your anger was skillfully controlled. It had eloquence. Why was that?"
"Why? I suppose I felt sorry -- I don't know. Maybe I just felt like making a speech. There was the crowd waiting, so I said a few words. You might not believe it, but I didn't know what I was going to say ..."
"Please," he said, with a knowing smile.
"What do you mean?" I said.
"You try to sound cynical, but I see through you. I know, I listened very carefully to what you had to say. You were enormously moved. Your emotions were touched."
"I guess so," I said. "Maybe seeing them reminded me of something."
He leaned forward, watching me intensely now, the smile still on his lips.
"Did it remind you of people you know?"
"I guess it did," I said.
"I think I understand. You were watching a death --"
I dropped my fork. "No one was killed," I said tensely. "What are you trying to do?"
"A Death on the City Pavements -- that's the title of a detective story or something I read somewhere ..." He laughed. "I only mean meta-phor-ically speaking. They're living, but dead. Dead-in-living ... a unity of opposites."
"Oh," I said. What kind of double talk was this?
"The old ones, they're agrarian types, you know. Being ground up by industrial conditions. Thrown on the dump heaps and cast aside. You pointed it out very well. 'Eighty-seven years and nothing to show for it,' you said. You were absolutely correct."
"I suppose that seeing them like that made me feel pretty bad," I said.
"Yes, of course. And you made an effective speech. But you musn't waste your emotions on individuals, they don't count."
"Who doesn't count?" I said.
"Those old ones," he said grimly. "It's sad, yes. But they're already dead, defunct. History has passed them by. Unfortunate, but there's nothing to do about them. They're like dead limbs that must be pruned away so that the tree may bear young fruit or the storms of history will blow them down anyway. Better the storm should hit them --"
"But look --"
"No, let me continue. These people are old. Men grow old and types of men grow old. And these are very old. All they have left is their religion. That's all they can think about. So they'll be cast aside. They're dead, you see, because they're incapable of rising to the necessity of the historical situation."
"But I like them," I said. "I like them, they reminded me of folks I know down South. It's taken me a long time to feel it, but they're folks just like me, except that I've been to school a few years."
He wagged his round red head. "Oh, no, brother; you're mistaken and you're sentimental. You're not like them. Perhaps you were, but you're not any longer. Otherwise you'd never have made that speech. Perhaps you were, but that's all past, dead. You might not recognize it just now, but that part of you is dead! You have not completely shed that self, that old agrarian self, but it's dead and you will throw it off completely and emerge something new. History has been born in your brain."
"Look," I said, "I don't know what you're talking about. I've never lived on a farm and I didn't study agriculture, but I do know why I made that speech."
"Then why?"
"Because I was upset over seeing those old folks put out in the street, that's why. I don't care what you call it, I was angry."
He shrugged. "Let's not argue about it," he said. "I've a notion you could do it again. Perhaps you would be interested in working for us."
"For whom?" I asked, suddenly excited. What was he trying to do?
"With our organization. We need a good speaker for this district. Someone who can articulate the grievances of the people," he said.
"But nobody cares about their grievances," I said. "Suppose they were articulated, who would listen or care?"
"They exist," he said with his knowing smile. "They exist, and when the cry of protest is sounded, there are those who will hear it and act."
There was something mysterious and smug in the way he spoke, as though he had everything figured out -- whatever he was talking about. Look at this very most certain white man, I thought. He didn't even realize that I was afraid and yet he speaks so confidently. I got to my feet, "I'm sorry," I said, "I have a job and I'm not interested in anyone's grievances but my own ..."
"But you were concerned with that old couple," he said with narrowed eyes. "Are they relatives of yours?"
"Sure, we're all black," I said, beginning to laugh.