The Last Thing You Surrender by Pitts. Jr Leonard

Author:Pitts., Jr, Leonard [Pitts., Jr, Leonard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Agate Publishing
Published: 2019-02-05T06:00:00+00:00

nineteen

SHE STOOD IN THE BOW OF THE BOAT, WATCHING THE ISLAND approach. It was a warm day in May, and the light spray of river water felt good on her brow. Thelma was sweating beneath the heavy protective gear she had to wear while pressure-spraying zinc chromate and gray paint onto the bulkheads. Glancing back, she saw the brand-new destroyer on which she had spent the morning growing smaller behind her. As always, a sense of accomplishment crowded out any fatigue.

Thelma wondered idly what was in store for “her” latest boat. Was it bound for the Pacific to shell some island held by the Japs? Would it protect a convoy ferrying troops to Great Britain or join the fight to push the Germans out of North Africa? As always, it fascinated Thelma to think something she had touched, some machine that carried her fingerprints and her labor, would go to such far-flung places.

She was the only Negro on this crew, and she stood apart from the other painters, carpenters, and electricians who had worked on the ship. They chattered idly with one another. She kept to herself and did not speak, knowing she would not be welcome. Thelma had never been close with any of them, but until recently, she might have nodded or laughed along with some of the pass-the-time-of-day talk, as the little boat trundled across the waves. But since Ollie’s beating, white and colored had hardly spoken to one another in this yard, had said nothing that was not required in the ordinary course of work.

Hand me that wrench.

Tell the electrician he can get in here now.

Go paint the bulkheads on the main deck.

Otherwise, each regarded the other with suspicious eyes and silence. Sometimes, she overheard white people talking about the colored workers in the yard. She never caught more than snatches of it, but it was more than enough to get the gist. She heard words like “uppity” and “out their places” and “white man’s work.”

It wasn’t just because of what happened to Ollie. The yard had grown tense over the demand that colored workers be allowed access to skilled work. It was a demand that had the muscle and authority of the federal government behind it, but the white men could not have been less impressed.

“No nigger will ever join steel in this yard and I don’t care what some Yankee sombitch in Washington says about it!” She had heard one of the white men bray this to the retreating back of an official from the Fair Employment Practices Committee as the government man left a meeting in the administration building. The FEPC official had affected not to hear the angry taunt. The man who yelled it had his back slapped by the men standing with him.

“That’s tellin’ him, Lou!” one of them had cried, laughing.

Then the one named Lou had turned and seen her looking. He had spat on the ground and fixed her with a hard stare. Thelma had hurried on. Though they

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