Summary: Chapter 17
While waiting in line at the relief station, Richard notes
the impoverished, hungry mass of people sharing their experiences
of privation and suffering. He remarks that they no longer appear
to be individuals, but rather a community that could organize to
throw off the oppressive forces ruling over them. Richard no longer
feels that he suffers alone, realizing that millions of others are
in the same lot of poverty and desperation.
Richard’s cynicism vanishes. He begins to muse about revolutions
and other acts of social change. He senses that the members of society
most dangerous to the ruling class are not those who try to defend
their rights, but rather those who have no interest in the prizes
their society offers. Richard believes that black Americans fit into
this inactive category of people. When whites react with violence
and terror whenever blacks try to make something of their lives,
they unknowingly encourage blacks to abandon any interest in social
progress. Richard considers that the oppressive whites could be
in great danger if blacks begin to form their own way of life as
a community, as he watches them do at the relief station.
Through a federal relief program, Richard obtains a job
as an orderly at a medical research institute in a wealthy hospital.
He immediately notices the segregation of labor: the health professionals
are all white, while the menial workers are mostly black. Richard
becomes interested in the research that takes place at the hospital,
but the white doctors rudely rebuff his questions.
Richard works in the hospital basement with three other
black men. One, Bill, is about Richard’s age, and a drunk. He terrifies Richard
with his brutal ideas, at one point advocating a solution to the
race problem that entails guns, bullets, and the phrase “Let us
all start over again.” The other two workers, Brand and Cooke, are older
and passionately hate each other. Richard muses that their ignorant,
narrow lives force them to invent a reason to hate each other so
that they can indulge in passionate emotions.
The lab uses dogs, among other animals, for research
purposes. To minimize noise in the hospital, the doctors cut the
dogs’ vocal cords, using a drug called Nembutal to sedate them.
Upon regaining consciousness, the dogs howl silently, and Richard
sees the dogs as symbols of silent suffering. He is intrigued by
Nembutal and one day decides to smell a vial of it. When he does
so, Brand panics, frantically yelling that Nembutal is poisonous
and that they must find Richard a doctor immediately. Brand soon
reveals that he is joking, but Richard is not amused.
Later, Richard’s boss sends a Jewish boy to time him while
he cleans, making him feel more like a slave than he ever has before. Richard
grows more irritated when he is cleaning the steps and not one white
employee shows him the courtesy of not stepping on the steps that
he is cleaning. Dirty water gets tracked everywhere, forcing Richard
to repeatedly start anew.
