Read Our Man in the Dark for Free Online Page B

answer.
    â€œGant isn’t being too hard on you, is he?” He was eager to change the subject.
    â€œI can handle Gant—I mean I can handle the work.”
    He smiled as he tapped off his cigarette into an ashtray. “You went to Morehouse, didn’t you, brother?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œGuess we have that in common.”
    â€œYes, indeed.”
    â€œDid you ever have political philosophy with old Elerby?”
    â€œI took the class, but I can’t say I stayed awake through much of it.”
    â€œI don’t blame you. Elerby really knew how to put ’em to sleep. Did you read much Marx?”
    â€œWould you hold it against me if I said I didn’t stay awake through most of it?”
    He let out a staccato laugh and smiled in a way that made his cheeks rounded, high and firm. It made the good reverend look quite impish. “No, brother. No. I will not hold it against you. Those shoes, yes. But Marx, no.”
    This was how men bonded: calling out each other’s weaknesses for the sake of humor. I knew that, but maybe I gave the impression that I didn’t, because Martin quickly became serious.
    â€œThere’s something about asking for money that really irritates me,” he said. “Always seeking the largest contributions. No sum is too large. Always searching for a new benefactor. . . . I don’t think I have the taste for it—money, that is. You understand what I mean?”
    I didn’t, so I remained silent.
    â€œWhy do people love money so? More than they love people. The royalties from my book—I’d give them away if I didn’t have a family. Doesn’t seem right to profit from a message that doesn’t belong to me alone but to all of humanity. I often worry if my house is too big. My wife thinks it’s too small. I don’t know . . . while I reject the godlessness of socialism, my present feelings are so . . .
anticapitalistic
. Maybe I am, to some degree, a Marxist.”
    Money did not tempt him. Greed was not a weakness we shared.
    The day following my meeting with the agents is a troubling one. I don’t know where to apply my efforts best. I’ve spent a great deal of time dreaming about revealing Gant for the fraud that he is. Though I never knew what that meant concretely, my hostility toward him is real and well deserved.
    It’s hard for me to admit it, but I am here because of him. I followed him to the SCLC. Gant is something of a star among Negro accountants, one of the few black CPAs in the country—forty-ninth, to be accurate, outof one hundred. I wanted to be on that list and join that exclusive club of the first hundred Negro CPAs, but you need three years of apprenticeship before you’re allow to seek certification—“darky rules,” as my father used to call them. Few white CPAs would grant a Negro an apprenticeship, and there are only a handful of Negro CPAs, effectively guaranteeing that fact in perpetuity.
    I took Gant’s classes at Morehouse. We seemed to hit it off. He appeared to admire my ambition . . . but that was then. Now I see that he was toying with me. I told him my dreams, what I wanted to do, and when he was asked to help Martin defend himself against erroneous accusations of tax fraud, he brought me along.
    When I arrived at the SCLC, Gant’s attitude toward me seemed to change. He would go out of his way to punish and make things difficult for me, as if he couldn’t stomach the idea of sharing the same profession with me. I know he saw me then, and sees me now, as a threat. It was then that I realized that I’d been setting my sights too low. I wanted to be a CPA like Gant; the power, respect, and exclusivity were enticing, but it was a fool’s errand. Their power is limited. I wanted to join a list of colored accountants, while Martin was on the most exclusive list of all. He was in a club with only one member: that’s the