Then one night when I had fallen asleep while making notes for a new series of lectures, the phone summoned me to an emergency meeting at headquarters, and I left the house with feelings of dread. This is it, I thought, either the charges or the woman. To be tripped up by a woman! What would I say to them, that she was irresistible and I human? What had that to do with responsibility, with building Brotherhood?
It was all I could do to make myself go, and I arrived late. The room was sweltering; three small fans stirred the heavy air, and the brothers sat in their shirtsleeves around a scarred table upon which a pitcher of iced water glistened with beads of moisture.
"Brothers, I'm sorry I'm late," I apologized. "There were some important last-minute details concerning tomorrow's lecture that kept me."
"Then you might have saved yourself the trouble and the committee this lost time," Brother Jack said.
"I don't understand you," I said, suddenly feverish.
"He means that you are no longer to concern yourself with the Woman Question. That's ended," Brother Tobitt said; and I braced myself for the attack, but before I could respond Brother Jack fired a startling question at me.
"What has become of Brother Tod Clifton?"
"Brother Clifton -- why, I haven't seen him in weeks. I've been too busy downtown here. What's happened?"
"He has disappeared," Brother Jack said, "disappeared! So don't waste time with superfluous questions. You weren't sent for for that."
"But how long has this been known?"
Brother Jack struck the table. "All we know is that he's gone. Let's get on with our business. You, Brother, are to return to Harlem immediately. We're facing a crisis there, since Brother Tod Clifton has not only disappeared but failed in his assignment. On the other hand, Ras the Exhorter and his gang of racist gangsters are taking advantage of this and are increasing their agitation. You are to get back there and take measures to regain our strength in the community. You'll be given the forces you need and you'll report to us for a strategy meeting about which you'll be notified tomorrow. And please," he emphasized with his gavel, "be on time!"
I was so relieved that none of my own problems were discussed that I didn't linger to ask if the police had been consulted about the disappearance. Something was wrong with the whole deal, for Clifton was too responsible and had too much to gain simply to have disappeared. Did it have any connection with Ras the Exhorter? But that seemed unlikely; Harlem was one of our strongest districts, and just a month ago when I was shifted Ras would have been laughed off the street had he tried to attack us. If only I hadn't been so careful not to offend the committee I would have kept in closer contact with Clifton and the whole Harlem membership. Now it was as though I had been suddenly awakened from a deep sleep.
Chapter 20
I had been away long enough for the streets to seem strange. The uptown rhythms were slower and yet were somehow faster; a different tension was in the hot night air. I made my way through the summer crowds, not to the district but to Barrelhouse's Jolly Dollar, a dark hole of a bar and grill on upper Eighth Avenue, where one of my best contacts, Brother Maceo, could usually be found about this time, having his evening's beer.
Looking through the window, I could see men in working clothes and a few rummy women leaning at the bar, and down the aisle between the bar and counter were a couple of men in black and blue checked sport shirts eating barbecue. A cluster of men and women hovered near the juke box at the rear. But when I went in Brother Maceo wasn't among them and I pushed to the bar, deciding to wait over a beer.
"Good evening, Brothers," I said, finding myself beside two men whom I had seen around before; only to have them look at me oddly, the eyebrows of the tall one raising at a drunken angle as he looked at the other.
"Shit," the tall man said.
"You said it, man; he a relative of yourn?"
"Shit, he goddam sho ain't no kin of mine!"
I turned and looked at them, the room suddenly cloudy.
"He must be drunk," the second man said. "Maybe he thinks he's kin to you."
"Then his whiskey's telling him a damn lie. I wouldn't be his kin even if I was -- Hey, Barrelhouse!"
I moved away, down the bar, looking at them out of a feeling of suspense. They didn't sound drunk and I had said nothing to offend, and I was certain that they knew who I was. What was it? The Brotherhood greeting was as familiar as "Give me some skin" or "Peace, it's wonderful."
I saw Barrelhouse rolling down from the other end of the bar, his white apron indented by the tension of its cord so that he looked like that kind of metal beer barrel which has a groove around its middle; and seeing me now, he began to smile.
"Well, I'll be damned if it ain't the good brother," he said, stretching out his hand. "Brother, where you been keeping yourself?"
"I've been working downtown," I said, feeling a surge of gratitude.
"Fine, fine!" Barrelhouse said.
"Business good?"
"I'd rather not discuss it, Brother. Business is bad. Very bad."
"I'm sorry to hear it. You'd better give me a beer," I said, "after you've served these gentlemen." I watched them in the mirror.
"Sure thing," Barrelhouse said, reaching for a glass and drawing a beer. "What you putting down, ole man?" he said to the tall man.
"Look here, Barrel, we wanted to ask you one question," the tall one said. "We just wanted to know if you could tell us just whose brother this here cat's supposed to be? He come in here just now calling everybody brother."
"He's my brother," Barrel said, holding the foaming glass between his long fingers. "Anything wrong with that?"
"Look, fellow," I said down the bar, "that's our way of speaking. I meant no harm in calling you brother. I'm sorry you misunderstood me."
"Brother, here's your beer," Barrelhouse said.
"So he's your brother, eh, Barrel?"
Barrel's eyes narrowed as he pressed his huge chest across the bar, looking suddenly sad. "You enjoying yourself, MacAdams?" he said gloomily. "You like your beer?"
"Sho," MacAdams said.
"It cold enough?"
"Sho, but Barrel --"
"You like the groovy music on the juke?" Barrelhouse said.
"Hell, yes, but --"
"And you like our good, clean, sociable atmosphere?"
"Sho, but that ain't what I'm talking about," the man said.
"Yeah, but that's what I'm talking about," Barrelhouse said mournfully. "And if you like it, like it, and don't start trying to bug my other customers. This here man's done more for the community than you'll ever do."
"What community?" MacAdams said, cutting his eyes around toward me. "I hear he got the white fever and left ..."
"You liable to hear anything," Barrelhouse said. "There's some paper back there in the gents' room. You ought to wipe out your ears."
"Never mind my ears."
"Aw come" on, Mac," his friend said. "Forgit it. Ain't the man done apologized?"
"I said never mind my ears," MacAdams said. "You just tell your brother he ought to be careful 'bout who he claims as kinfolks. Some of us don't think so much of his kind of politics."