The Children by Howard Fast Page B

don’t love him; and I love Marie, so why can’t I tell her about the garden? But I can’t. Maybe I am afraid that she would laugh at me. I know that I don’t want Marie to laugh at me, ever. And it doesn’t matter anyway, since there is no garden.
    Blackbelly saw them walking down the block. Well, that’s what a woman can do to a man. Blackbelly knew Ishky, and he knew that Ishky was not a person to be caught very often in the lower end of the block. Blackbelly waited; then, when they were close to him, he sauntered out into their path.
    He stood like a small blob of solid ink in their path. His eyes on the ground, Ishky saw Blackbelly’s shadow first, and then he looked up into Blackbelly’s round face. Then he felt Marie cringe against him. Then he tried to smile; but he didn’t know why. He knew, though, that with Marie next to him, he couldn’t run away. A hundred times before, he had been caught the same way; and each time there was a moment in which he whirled and fled away. That was life—sometimes you stood and sometimes you ran, but unless you were an utter fool, you never stood when the odds were this heavy against you.
    Now he was a fool. The moment when he had sprung across the airshaft leaped into his mind. Glory—and what was life when it came to glory? He might have said, “Oh, my wonderful Marie, you will see that no sacrifice is too great for you.”
    And Blackbelly—if he had stood that way on a jungle path a hundred years ago, he would have been more than splendid. He was just splendid now, because he was still too young to know that a nigger should cringe, and old enough to know that he hated all whites.
    â€œWhereya goin’, white boy?” he drawled.
    â€œYou don’ own duh ground,” Ishky said.
    â€œYuh dirdy nigger,” Marie said.
    â€œG’wan, yuh liddle whore.”
    Ishky said, “Shuddup!” Inside of him, Ishky felt funny little bubbles of heat. He began to tremble as the rage crept over his small body. This was doom, but doom and glory came together.
    â€œWhat’s dat?”
    Ishky said, “Yuh take dat back?”
    This struck Blackbelly as no end funny, and arms akimbo he began to laugh, rolling back and forth on the balls of his feet.
    â€œYuh take dat back?”
    â€œBoy-o-boy.”
    â€œYou lousy stinkin’ nigger!” Marie yelled. Then, as Blackbelly took a step toward her, she ran screaming toward the other end of the block. Ishky, everything else forgotten, turned around to look after her.
    Then Blackbelly leaped on him. Under the weight of Blackbelly’s hard, round body, Ishky went down. It seemed that the world was upon him, smothering him. Blackbelly’s fists were already pounding into him.
    He tried to fight back, but what was the use? A blow in the face took most of the fight out of him. He stopped struggling; he lay still, hurt, only wondering how long Blackbelly would continue to beat him. Tears welled slowly into his eyes, but he didn’t cry.
    Blackbelly stood up, staring down at the twisted,, small form of the other boy. It struck something strange inside of him; thus, all of a sudden, he wished to fight no longer.
    â€œGittup,” he said.
    Ishky lay there, his body trembling with dry sobs.
    â€œGittup, white boy.”
    â€œLemme alone.”
    â€œYuh yella basted.”
    â€œLemme alone.”
    â€œYuh’d better git up, or I’ll beat duh ass offana yuh. Yuh’d better git up.”
    Then, glancing up, Blackbelly saw Ollie coming; and that same deep strange thing inside of him told him that Ollie would fight, that this would be the fight of their lives. He could still run. This was his land Ollie was invading, and there was still time to run. He could call, if he wished to, and he could smother Ollie with dark, eager bodies.
    But he did nothing, only waited. This was a battle of kings, and he had no desire to avoid it. He kicked