'You'll do. You going back?'

'Back where?'

'Back to Arkansas?'

'Yeah, I'm going back-when the horses, they pick the cotton, and the mules, they cut the corn; when the white chickens lay black eggs and the white folks is Jim Crowed while the black folks is-'

He broke off as Smitty came in with a white leaderman named Donald. They didn't see me. He showed Donald where he had cut an opening in his duct for an intake vent, and Donald said he'd cut four inches off the X.

'That's where Bob told me to cut,' he said.

Donald shook his head noncommittally; he was a nice guy and he didn't want to say I was wrong. I'd often wondered if he was a Communist. He had a round moonface, pleasant but unsmiling, and that sharp speculative look behind rimless spectacles that some Communists have.

I stepped into the picture then. 'When did I tell you to cut out there?' I asked Smitty.

Donald turned red. 'Hello, Bob,' he said. 'Smitty said you was off today.'

'Jesus Christ, can't you coloured boys do anything right?' Kelly said from behind me. He had slipped in unnoticed.

Air began lumping in my chest and my eyes started burning. I looked at Kelly. I ought to bust him right on the side of his scrawny red neck, I thought. I'd kill him as sure as hell. Instead I ground out, 'Any mechanic might have made the same mistake. Any mechanic but a white mechanic,' I added.

He didn't get it. 'Yeah, but you boys make too many mistakes. You got to cut it out.'

Donald started moving off. 'I ain't made a single mistake this month, Mr. Kelly.' Conway grinned up at him from where he knelt on the floor, soldering a seam.

Pigmeat nudged me. 'See what I mean? Got 'em skunt back to his ears. He thinks the man a dentist.'

Kelly heard him but acted as if he didn't. He said to Conway, 'I wasn't talking about you. You're a good boy, a good worker. I was talking 'bout some of these other boys.'