Black Like Me Read Free Page B

this large, bald Negro. If I walked up to friends, I knew I would see no flicker of recognition in their eyes.
    I had tampered with the mystery of existence and I had lost the sense of my own being. This is what devastated me. The Griffin that was had become invisible.
    The worst of it was that I could feel no companionship with this new person. I did not like the way he looked. Perhaps, I thought, this was only the shock of a first reaction. But the thing was done and there was no possibility of turning back. For a few weeks I must be this aging, bald Negro; I must walk through a land hostile to my color, hostile to my skin.
    How did one start? The night lay out there waiting. A thousand questions presented themselves. The strangeness of my situation struck me anew - I was a man born old at midnight into a new life. How does such a man act? Where does he go to find food, water, a bed?
    The phone rang and I felt my nerves convulse. I answered and told the caller my host was out for the evening. Again the strangeness, the secret awareness that the person on the other end did not know he talked with a Negro. Downstairs, I heard the soft chiming of the old clock. I knew it was midnight though I did not count. It was time to go.
    With enormous self-consciousness I stepped from the house into the darkness. No one was in sight. I walked to the corner andstood under a streetlamp, waiting for the trolley.
    I heard footsteps. From the shadows, the figure of a white man emerged. He came and stood beside me. It was all new. Should I nod and say “Good evening,” or simply ignore him? He stared intently at me. I stood like a statue, wondering if he would speak, would question me.
    Though the night was cold, sweat dampened my body. This also was new. It was the first time this adult Negro had ever perspired. I thought it vaguely illuminating that the Negro Griffin’s sweat felt exactly the same to his body as the white Griffin’s. As I had suspected they would be, my discoveries were naïve ones, like those of a child.
    The streetcar, with pale light pouring from its windows, rumbled to a stop. I remembered to let the white man on first. He paid his fare and walked to an empty seat, ignoring me. I felt my first triumph. He had not questioned me. The ticket-taker on the streetcar nodded affably when I paid my fare. Though streetcars are not segregated in New Orleans, I took a seat near the back. Negroes there glanced at me without the slightest suspicion or interest. I began to feel more confident. I asked one of them where I could find a good hotel. He said the Butler on Rampart was as good as any, and told me what bus to take from downtown.
    I got off and began walking along Canal Street in the heart of town, carrying one small duffel bag in each hand. I passed the same taverns and amusement places where the hawkers had solicited me on previous evenings. They were busy, urging white men to come in and see the girls. The same smells of smoke and liquor and dampness poured out through half-open doors. Tonight they did not solicit me. Tonight they looked at me but did not see me.
    I went into a drugstore that I had patronized every day since my arrival. I walked to the cigarette counter, where the same girl I had talked with every day waited on me.
    “Package of Picayunes, please,” I said in response to her blank look.
    She handed them to me, took my bill and gave me change with no sign of recognition, none of the banter of previous days.
    Again my reaction was that of a child. I was aware that thestreet smells, and the drugstore odors of perfume and arnica, were exactly the same to the Negro as they had been to the white. Only this time I could not go to the soda fountain and order a limeade or ask for a glass of water.
    I caught the bus to South Rampart Street. Except for the taverns, the street was deserted when I arrived at the Butler Hotel. A man behind the counter was making a barbecue sandwich for a woman customer. He said