Read Online Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin - Free Book Online

you here.”
    There was the sound of a drink being poured. Then, “No. I didn’t have nothing—
really
—to keep me here. Just all the things I ever knew—all the things—
all
the things—I ever cared about.”
    “A man’s not supposed to sit around and mope,” said Eric’s father, wrathfully, “for things that are over and dead and finished, things that can’t
ever
begin again, that can’t ever be the same again. That’s what I mean when I say you’re a dreamer—and if you hadn’t kept on dreaming so long, you might not be alone now.”
    “Ah, well,” said Jamie, mildly, and with a curious rush of affection in his voice, ‘I know you’re the giant-killer, the hunter, the lover—the real old Adam, that’s you. I know you’re going to cover the earth. I know the world depends on men like you.”
    “And you’re damn right,” said Eric’s father, after an uneasy moment.
    Around Eric’s head there was a buzzing, a bee, perhaps, a blue-fly, or a wasp. He hoped that his mother would see it and brush it away, but she did not move her hand. And he looked out again, through the veil of his eyelashes, at the slope and the sky, and then saw that the sun had moved and that it would not be long now before she would be going.
    “—just like you already,” Jamie said.
    “You think my little one’s like me?” Eric knew that his father was smiling—he could almost feel his father’s hands.
    “Looks like you, walks like you, talks like you,” said Jamie.
    “
And
stubborn like you,” said Eric’s mother.
    “Ah, yes,” said Jamie, and sighed. “You married the stub-bornest, most determined—most selfish—man I know.”
    “I didn’t know you felt that way,” said Eric’s father. He was still smiling.
    “I’d have warned you about him,” Jamie added, laughing, “if there’d been time.”
    “Everyone who knows you feels that way,” said Eric’s mother, and Eric felt a sudden brief tightening of the muscle in her thigh.
    “Oh,
you
,” said Eric’s father, “I know
you
feel that way, women like to feel that way, it makes them feel important. But,” and he changed to the teasing tone he took so persistently with Jamie today, “I didn’t know my fine friend, Jamie, here—”
    It was odd how unwilling he was to open his eyes. Yet, he felt the sun on him and knew that he wanted to rise from where he was before the sun went down. He did not understand what they were talking about this afternoon, these grown-ups he had known all his life; by keeping his eyes closed he kept their conversation far from him. And his mother’s hand lay on his head like a blessing, like protection. And the buzzing had ceased, the bee, the blue-fly, or the wasp seemed to have flown away.
    “—if it’s a boy this time,” his father said, “we’ll name it after you.”
    “That’s touching,” said Jamie, “but that really won’t do me—or the kid—a hell of a lot of good.”
    “Jamie can get married and have kids of his own any time he decides to,” said Eric’s mother.
    “No,” said his father, after a long pause, “Jamie’s thought about it too long.”
    And, suddenly, he laughed and Eric sat up as his father slapped Jamie on the knee. At the touch, Jamie leaped up,shouting, spilling his drink and overturning his chair, and the dog beside Eric awoke and began to bark. For a moment, before Eric’s unbelieving eyes, there was nothing in the yard but noise and flame.
    His father rose slowly and stared at Jamie. “What’s the matter with you?”
    “What’s the matter with me!” mimicked Jamie, “what’s the matter with me? what the hell do you care what’s the matter with me! What the hell have you been riding me for all day like this? What do you want? what do you
want?
”
    “I want you to learn to hold your liquor for one thing,” said his father, coldly. The two men stared at each other. Jamie’s face was red and ugly and tears stood in his eyes. The dog, at his legs, kept up a