If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes Read Free Book Online Page A

voice.
    He popped to his feet like a jumping jack, a stooped, undernourished, middle-aged man with the damnedest expression of baffled indignation on his face. I didn’t even look up at him. He puffed and he blew. The shooter had come out on a five and he kept working at it until he made it—four, one.
    ‘Shoot it all,’ the welder said.
    I looked up at my Okie friend. He had turned beet-red. ‘He’s all yours,’ I said.
    He muttered some words in his mouth, dribbling saliva. I began feeling better.
    ‘Take down some,’ somebody said to the shooter. ‘You’re holding up the game.’
    ‘I got it,’ I said, and tossed my sixteen bucks in the centre.
    The shooter nursed the dice, blew on them, said, ‘Now do your stuff, babies. Come out on seven.’ He cocked his arm, turned them loose. They stopped trey. one.
    ‘Liddle Joe from Kokomo,’ one of the coloured fellows murmured, looking at me.
    The big bald-headed welder picked them up and rubbed them on his leather pants leg. I looked at him.
    ‘Come on,’ a Texas drawl said impatiently. ‘You’re holding up the game.’
    The shooter was getting ready to unlock ‘em but now he rubbed them up some more. He gave the speaker a defiant look. Then he threw a beautiful seven.
    ‘A lick too late,’ I crowed. I picked up my thirty-two bucks, feeling good for the first time that day.
    Then a little waspish, rat-mouthed cracker snatched the dice and tossed six bits in the centre. ‘I shoot a nigger lick,’ he said.
    I didn’t move. I squatted there with my eyes on the ground and couldn’t look up. When I looked up it was toward one of the coloured fellows. He was looking down too, unmoving; and when he looked up it was toward me. A ripple went through the ring for just an instant; nobody moved. Then the third coloured fellow tossed six bits in the centre and the game went on. I caught several white fellows giving me furtive looks; but I kept looking at the shooter.
    When the dice got to me I blew the air out of my lungs, got another lungful, and said, ‘I’m gonna shoot my hand.’ I tossed the bills in the centre.
    ‘How much is it?’ somebody asked.
    The little rat-mouthed cracker started to count it. I leaned forward and pushed his hand away. ‘It’s thirty-two bucks,’ I said.
    He gave me a hard look and said, ‘I got six bits of it.’
    I squatted back and waited. I knew they wanted to tell me to take some down and let the game go on. If I’d been white they’d have cursed me. But because I was coloured they didn’t say anything; they kept it bottled up and began getting mean.
    Finally one of the coloured fellows said, ‘Let’s gang him.’
    Every player in the game took a piece, each pulling his bet in front of him. I picked up the dice with my right hand, passed them to my left, rolled them softly on the concrete. One came to a stop six up; the other dropped in a deep crevice and cocked with the five facing me, the six facing away.
    ‘Throw in, good losers,’ I said. ‘I ain’t going no farther.’
    ‘Throw in what for?’ the rat-mouthed fellow challenged.
    ‘Cocked dice,’ somebody said.
    I began to choking up. ‘Listen, I ain’t giving away a goddamned thing. I made my goddamned eleven and now I’m gonna take my goddamned money.’
    ‘You’ll take hell, you nigger bastard,’ the rat-mouthed guy said, feeling covered by the other twelve white guys.
    Blood rushed to my head, stung me blind. I jack-knifed up and kicked at him with one motion. He rolled to one side and my boot heel went over his shoulder, throwing me off balance. I wheeled to my left, falling half forward, my right arm stuck out to catch my fall and my right foot flattened in a pigeon-toed stance.
    ‘I’ll cool the nigger!’ I heard a voice grate, and I raised my chin, looking for the guy.
    I just had time to see him: a tall young blond guy about my age and size. His mouth was twisted down in one corner so that the tips of his dogteeth showed like a gopher’s