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ets a . ~ 7 ne nndit vee tM a eecatpmeet re THE ATLANTIC MONT Negro told me. Ht yous going to march, you'd better fall in somewhere.” i: ae Toould) not quite believe what had happened, even though omy Re ete i Eel Ret ee | I thanked him and walked through the milling crowds. Suddenly I heard my name called. J turned. To my left was the Communist Party's South Side section, lined up and ready to march. “Come here!" an old party friend called to me. 1 walked over to him. “Aren't you marching today?” he asked me. “TI missed my union focal,” I told him. “What the hell,” he said. “March with us.” my hands were smarting and bleeding. I had suffered a public, physical assault by two white, Communists with black Communists looking on. Z could not move from the spot. I was empty of any’ ‘ $dea about what todo. But J did not feel belligerent, J had outgrown my childhood. Suddenly, the vast ranks of the Communist P began to move. Scarlet banners with the ham and sickle emblem of world revolution were lifted, “I don’t know,” I said, remembering my last visit to the headquarters of the party, and my status as an “enemy.” “This is May Day,” he said. ranks.” “You know the trouble I’ve had,” I said. “That's nothing,” he said. “Everybody's march- ing today. oP “I don't think I'd better,” I anid, shaking my “Get into the and they fluttered in the May breeze. Drums beat. Voices were chanting. The tramp of many feet shook the earth. A long line of set-faced men and women, white and black, flowed past me. I followed the procession to the Loop and went §nto Grant Park Plaza and sat upon a bench. I was not thinking; I could not think. But an objectivity ef vision was being born within me. A surging sweep ” of many odds and ends came together and formed an | “Are you scared ?” he asked. “This is Mey Day.” He caught my right arm and pulled me into line Beside him. I stood talking to him, asking him about bis work, about common friends. “Get out of our ranks!” a woice barked. ; ‘Ttured. A white Communist, a leader of the dis- trict of the Commaunist Party, Cy Perry, « gender, close-cropped fellow, stood elaring at me. “yj Jt's May Day-end nt to march. mid. “Get out!” he shouted. “I was invited here,” I said. I turned to the Negro Communist who had in- vited me into the ranks. J did not want public vio- Jence. J looked at my friend. He turned his eyes away. He was afraid. I did not know what to do- “You asked me to march here,” I eid to him. .. He did not answer. “Tell him that you did invite me,” anid, pulling attitude, a perspective. “They're blind,” I said to «myself. “Their enemies have blinded them with too ‘much oppression.” -Z lit a cigarette and T hoard & gong floating out over the sunlit air: -— “Arise you pris'ners of starvetion!” ‘I remembered the stories I had written, the sto- ries in which I had assigned a role of honor and glory } to the Communist Party, and Iy Was s glad that they am: FeTTo UUFE iz mth lie hi pusig knew in my heart that I should never 1 be ablet to write that way again, should never be able to feel with that simple sharpness about life, should never again } express such passionate hope, should never again make so total a commitment of faith. “A better world’s in birth . a The Procession still passed. Banners still i foe . his sleeve. “I’m asking you for the last time to get out of our ranks!” Cy Perry shouted. I did not move. J had intended to, but I was beset by 90 many impulses that I could not act. Another white Communist came to assist Perry. Perry ~ gaught hold of my collar and pulled at me. I re- sisted. They held me fast. J struggled to free myself. “Turn me loose!” I said. I beaded toward home alone, really alone now, telling myself that in ali the sprawling immensity | of our mighty continent the least-known factor of | living was the human heart, the least-sought goal of being was a way to live a human life. Perhaps, I thought, out of my tortured feelings I could fling a j spark into this darkness. I would try, not because | ¥ wanted to but because J felt that I had to if 1 were to live at all. Hands lifted me bodily from the sidewalk; 1 felt myself being pitched headlong through the air. I saved myself from landing on my head by clutching a curbstone with my hands. Slowly I rose and. - stood. Perry and his assistant were glaring at me. - “Tbe rows of white and black Communiste were look- ‘I would hur! words into this darkness ‘and wait | for an echo; and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, § to fight, to create a senec of the hunger for life that gnaws in us all, to keep alive.in our hearts a -wense of the inexpressibly human. a