Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin Read Free Book Online

others had gone and the café was closing, Mr. Guillory told me he came often to the Y to play chess. He asked if I would join him in a game, but I had work to do.
    “Your name is somehow familiar, Mr. Griffin,” he said. “I’m an avid reader. I must have read something by you. What are the names of some of your books?”
    I named them. His face blanked with astonishment.
    “Why, I just started reading that. My lawyer friend lent it to me,” he said. He gazed at me and I had no doubt he thought I was either a tremendous liar for claiming authorship of a white man’s book or that I was confessing something to him.
    “I promise you I wrote it,” I said. “I can’t tell you more, but read the book, and the piece in last September’s
Reader’s Digest
, and you’ll know who I really am.”
    I returned to my room and wrote in my journal. My landlady lit the fire and brought a pitcher of drinking water for my night stand. As I looked up to thank her, I saw the image in the large mirror of the wardrobe. Light gleamed from the elderly Negro’s head as he looked up to talk to the Negro woman. The sense of shock returned; it was as though I were invisible in the room, observing a scene in which I had no part.
    I dozed and the phone awakened me. I listened to it ring again and again but then realized that it could not be for me. No one in the world knew where I was. Finally someone answered it.
    I heard noise and laughter. I got up in the darkness andwalked to the window that looked down into the windows of the Y gym. Two Negro teams were playing baseball and a crowd of spectators alternately booed and cheered their favorites. I sat at the window and watched them until hunger began to pester me.
    The kitchen clock read 7:30 when I passed through to go out to eat. I walked over to South Rampart in search of a café. As I turned the corner, I noticed two large white boys sprawled on the front steps of a house across the wide boulevard. One of them, a heavyset, muscular fellow in khaki pants and a white sweatshirt, whistled at me. I ignored him and continued walking. From the corner of my eye, I saw him get slowly to his feet and angle across under the streetlight to my side of the street.
    “Hey, Baldy,” he called softly.
    I walked faster and looked straight ahead.
    “Hey, Mr. No-Hair,” he called. I realized he was following about seventy-five feet behind me. He spoke casually, almost pleasantly, his voice clear in the deserted street.
    “I’m going to get you, Mr. No-Hair. I’m after you. There ain’t no place you go I won’t get you. If it takes all night, I’ll get you - so count on it.”
    A deep terror took me. I walked faster, controlling my desire to break into a run. He was young, strong. If I made it a chase, he would easily overtake me.
    His voice drifted to me again, from about the same distance, soft and merciless. “Ain’t no way you can get away from me, Mr. Shithead. You might as well stop right there.”
    I did not answer, did not turn. He stalked me like a cat.
    Cars passed occasionally. I prayed that a police car might choose this street. I noted that when my footsteps slowed, his slowed; when mine accelerated, his matched them. I looked for an open door, a light. The stores were closed. The sidewalk, with grass at each seam, stretched ahead from streetlamp to streetlamp.
    Then, to my immense relief, I saw an elderly couple waiting on the corner for a bus. I approached and they stiffened with caution. The quarter was not safe at night.
    I glanced back to see the boy halted at mid-block, leaning against the wall.
    “I’m in trouble,” I said to the couple.
    They ignored me.
    “Please,” I said. “Someone’s chasing me. I don’t know what he wants, but he says he’ll get me. Is there anyplace around here where I can call the police?”
    The man looked around. “Who’s chasing you, mister?” he asked irritably.
    “That boy back there …” I turned and pointed to the empty street.