Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone by James Baldwin Read Free Book Online

seemed to be alternating between amusement and irritation. I asked him if he had a little boy.
    â€œYes,” he said, “and if you was
my
little boy, I’d paddle your behind so you couldn’t sit down for a week.”
    I asked him how old was his little boy and what was his name and if his little boy was at home?
    â€œHe
better
be at home!” He looked at me and laughed. “His name is Jonathan. He ain’t but five years old.” His gaze refocused, sharpened. “How old are you?”
    I told him that I was ten, going on eleven.
    â€œYou a pretty bad little fellow,” he said, then.
    I tried to look repentant, but I would not have dreamed of denying it.
    â€œNow, look here,” he said, “this here’s the uptown side—can you read or don’t you never go to school?” I assured him that I could read. “Now, to get where you going, you got to change trains.” He told me where. “Here, I’ll write it down for you.” He found some paper in his pockets, but no pencil. We heard the train coming. He looked about him in helpless annoyance, looked at his watch, looked at me. “It’s all right. I’ll tell the conductor.”
    But the conductor, standing between the two cars, had rather a mean pink face and my savior looked at him dubiously. “He
might
be all right. But we better not take no chances.” He pushed me ahead of him into the train. “You know you right lucky that
I
got a little boy? If I didn’t, I swear I’d just let you go on and
be
lost. You don’t know the kind of trouble you going to get me in at home. My wife ain’t
never
going to believe
this
story.”
    I told him to give me his name and address and that I would write a letter to his wife and to his little boy, too. This caused him to laugh harder than ever. “You only say that because you know I ain’t got no pencil. You are one
hell
of a shrewd little boy.”
    I told him that then maybe we should get off the trainand that I would go back home with him. This made him grave.
    â€œWhat does your father do?” This question made me uneasy. I stared at him for a long time before I answered. “He works in a”—I could not pronounce the word—“he has a job.”
    He nodded. “I see. Is he home now?”
    I really did not know and I said I did not know.
    â€œAnd what does your mother do?”
    â€œShe stays home. But she goes out to work—sometimes.”
    Again he nodded. “You got any brothers or sisters?”
    I told him No.
    â€œI see. What’s your name?”
    â€œLeo.”
    â€œLeo what?”
    â€œLeo Proudhammer.”
    He saw something in my face.
    â€œWhat do you want to be when you grow up, Leo?”
    â€œI want to be”—and I had never said this before—“I want to be a—a movie actor. I want to be a—actor.”
    â€œYou pretty skinny for that,” he said.
    But I certainly had, now, all of his attention.
    â€œThat’s all right,” I told him. “Caleb’s going to teach me to swim. That’s how you get big.”
    â€œWho’s Caleb?”
    I opened my mouth, I stared at him, I started to speak, I checked myself—as the train roared into a station. He glanced out of the window, but did not move. “He swims,” I said.
    â€œOh,” he said, after a very long pause, during which the doors slammed and the train began to move. “Is he a good swimmer?”
    I said that Caleb was the best swimmer in the world.
    â€œOkay,” my savior said, “okay,” and put his hand on my head again, and smiled at me. I asked him what his name was. “Charles,” he said, “Charles Williams. But you better call me
Uncle
Charles, you little devil, because you have certainly ruined my Saturday night.”
    I told him (for I knew it) that it was still early.
    â€œIt ain’t going to be