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Ninety Days Inside The Empire: A Novel by William Appleman Williams

Glimpses of An Election

Page 89

"Susan...."

"Yes?"

"You maybe not too young?"

"I'll try, Lette."

"You saw Warrener look at me?"

"Yes."

"You know she was mixing up my mistakes with the way she remembers what caused her troubles?"

"We talked about that with Rozanne that night. Yes."

"So I'm a Nigger whore to her and your name is worse than shit because you invite me into your home as your friend. You understand that?"

"I didn't, not really, but I do now. Yes. But it doesn't make...."

"That don't mean nothin', Susan. Oh, you know what I mean. Only two or three other white women have treated me like you do. But that's not the point. Warrener is the kind of person who will go out to get you or your man because you treat me as a friend. Can't you see that?!?"

"It's hard and it scares me now; but, yes, I see what you are saying."

"You feel it?"

Susan did feel it. She walked over to Lette and kissed her.

Lette began to weep. "You are pushing me, Susan, so you are going to get it all. You are scaring the shit out of me, Susan. See, that baby inside you means more than you can imagine to me. You lost one and you come back with that man. I can't have one and I've run around like a damn fool and now you make me see the way to do it. Griff and I can adopt one and it'll be ours. But you got to have that baby. Susan, you got to have that baby. I'm laying it on you and I can't help it. You got to have that baby else I'll go crazy. It's unfair and I know it, but you got to have that baby. You get the hell out of here. Mrs. Warrener is a witch."

Lette walked away to the bathroom. Susan went back into the living room to hear Maggie telling tales about the strange ways of rich white folks. "Not a way to copy, my friends." Lette came back in, all bouncy and fit to flirt: "Time to go, ladies. Susan here needs to nap for the baby."

Susan waved them goodbye from the front stoop and walked back through the apartment to the bedroom and wept herself to sleep. Once she dreamed that the baby was angry with her for agreeing to do the paper someplace else.

Cat was patient and comforting while she reviewed the experience over supper. Then he shooed her out of the kitchen, did the dishes, and sat down across the living room from the sofa where she was pretending or trying to read a novel.

"Susan, cut out all the static. That's your problem. Lette's still right, and so are the rest of them. This kind of fear and worry is no good for you or the baby. Hell, it doesn't do that much for me at fifteen thousand feet on my back. And we sure as hell don't want to get thrown out of here for disturbing the peace of Mrs. Warrener's racist mind."

"But I want to keep helping with the paper. It was my idea, damn it!"

"True, and that's just the point, Susan. The things that upset Warrener are Negroes and whites traipsing in and out of here, and the connection between all that and the noise of the mimeo machine for a couple of hours."

"So you're the best at the layout and also of anybody who's tried to cut the stencils. You can do that on your own time out at Caroline's and then we'll go together to help wherever they settle on for the machine."

Susan reluctantly accepted the logic - with an edge on her voice.

"You sure got this planned out quick, Cat...."