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not write about black characters. In a way, I agree with that; but in the late
1950's there weren't any black writers writing science fiction. One of the
nice things about the last decade or so is that that is no longer true.
THE WORLD of Myrion Flowers, which was the world of the American Negro, was
something like an idealized England and something like the real Renaissance.
As it is in some versions of England, all the members of the upper class were
at least friends of friends. Any Harlem businessman knew automatically who was
the new top dog in the music department of Howard University a week after an
upheaval of the faculty. And -as it was in the Florence of Cellini, there was
room for versatile men. An
American Negro could be a doctor-builder-educator-realist-politician. Myrion
Flowers was. Boston-born in 1913 to a lawyer-realist-politician father and a
glamorous show-biz mother, he worked hard, drew the lucky number and was
permitted to enter the schools which led to an M.D. and a license to practice
hi the State of New York. Power vacuums occurred around him during the years
that followed, and willy-
nilly he filled them. A construction firm go-
ing to waste, needing a little capital and a little common sense-what could he
do? He did it, and accepted its stock. The school board coming to him as a
sound man to represent "Ah, your people"? He was a sound man. He served the
board well. A trifling examination to pass for a real-estate license-trifling
to him who had memorized a dozen textbooks in pathology, histology, anatomy
and materia medica-why not? And if they would deem it such a favor if he spoke
for the Fusion candidate, why should he not
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-%20Critical%20Mass.txt speak, and if they should later invite him to submit
names to fill one dozen minor patronage jobs, why should he not give him the
names of the needy persons he knew?
Flowers was a cold, controlled man. He never married. In lieu of children he
had proteges. These began as Negro kids from orphanages or hopelessly
destitute families; he backed them through college and postgraduate schools as
long as they worked to the limit of what he considered their abilities; at the
first sign of a let-down he axed them. The mortality rate over the years was
only about one nongraduate in four -Myrion Flowers was a better predictor of
success than any college admissions committee. His successes numbered
forty-two when one of them came to him with a brand-new Ph.D. in clinical
psychology and made a request.
The proteg6's name was Ensal Brubacker. He took his place after dinner in the
parlor of Dr. Flowers's
Brooklyn brownstone house along with many other suppliants. There was the old
woman who wanted an extension of her mortgage and would get it; there was the
overstocked appliance dealer who wanted to be bailed out and would not be;
there was the mother whose boy had a habit and the husband whose wife was
acting stranger and stranger every day; there was the landlord hounded by the
building department;
there was the cop who wanted a transfer; there was the candidate for the bar
who wanted a powerful name as a reference; there was a store-front archbishop
who wanted only to find out whether Dr. Flowers was right with God.
Brubacker was admitted to the doctor's study at 9:30. It was only the sixth
time he had seen the man who had picked him from an orphanage and laid out
some twenty thousand dollars for him since. He found him more withered, colder
and quicker than ever.
The doctor did not congratulate him. He 'said, "You've got your degree,
Brubacker. If you've come to me for advice, I'd suggest that you avoid the
academic life, especially in the Negro schools. I know what you should do. You
may get nowhere, but I would like to see you try one of the Four-A advertising
and public, relations firms, with a view to becoming a motivational research
man. It's time one Negro was working in the higher levels of Madison Avenue, I
believe."
Brubacker listened respectfully, and when it was time for him to reply he
said: "Dr. Flowers, I'm very grateful of course for everything you've done. I
sincerely wish I could- Dr. Flowers, I want to do research. I sent you my
dissertation, but that's only the beginning-"
Myrion Flowers turned to the right filing card in his mind and said icily,
"The Correlation of Toposcop-
ic Displays, Beta-Wave Amplitudes and Perception of Musical Chord Progressions
in 1,107 Unselected
Adolescents. Very well. You now have your sandwich board with 'P,' 'H' and 'D'
painted on it, fore and aft. I expect that you will now proceed to the job for
which you have been trained."
"Yes, sir. I'd like to show you a-"
"I do not," said Dr. Flowers, "want you to be a beloved old George Washington
Carver humbly bending over his reports and test tubes. Academic research is of
no immediate importance."
"No, sir. I-"
"The power centers of America," said Dr. Flowers, "are government, where our
friend Mr. Wilkins is ably operating, and the executive levels of the large
corporations, where I am attempting to achieve what is necessary. I want you
to be an executive in a large corporation, Brubacker. You have been trained
for that purpose. It is now perhaps barely possible for you to obtain a
foothold. It is inconceivable to me that you will not make the effort, neither
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for me or for your people."
Brubacker looked at him hi misery, and at last put his face into his hands.
His shoulders shook.
Dr. Flowers said scornfully: "I take it you are declining to make that effort.
Good-bye, Brubacker. I do
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-%20Critical%20Mass.txt not want to see you again."
The young man stumbled from the room, carrying a large pigskin valise which he
had not been permitted to open.
As he had expected to overwhelm his benefactor with what he had accomplished
he had made no plans for this situation. He could think only of returning to
the university he had just left where, perhaps, before his little money ran
out, he might obtain a grant. There was not really much hope of that. He had
filed no proposals and sought no advice.
It did not help his mood when the overnight coach to Chicago was filling up in
Grand Central. He was among the first and took a window seat. Thereafter the
empty place beside him was spotted gladly by luggage-burdened matrons,
Ivy-League-clad youngsters, harrumphing paper-box salesmen-gladly spotted- and
then uncomfortably skimmed past when they discovered that to occupy it they
would have to sit next to the
gorilla-rapist-illiterate-tapdancer-mugger-men-ace who happened to be Dr.
Ensal
Brubacker.
But he was spared loneliness at the very last. The fellow who did drop
delightedly into the seat beside him as the train began to move was One of His
Own Kind. That is, he was unwashed, unlettered, a quarter drunk on liquor that
had never known a tax stamp, and agonizingly high-spirited. He spoke such pure
Harlem jive that Brubacker could not understand one word in twenty.
But politeness and a terror of appearing superior forced Brubacker to accept,
at 125th Street, a choking swallow from the flat half-pint bottle his seamate
carried. And both of these things, plus an unsupportable sense of something [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]