In the early pages of Invisible Man, the narrator describes going to a horrifying fight club of sorts, in which young Black boys are forced to beat one another for money and for the amusement of the rich, white men of their town. The narrator thinks he is there to read his valedictorian speech, but he too must participate in this demeaning and cruel ritual. While he is there, they all watch a naked girl dance in the center of the room. It appears to be an opening ceremony. I’d like to write something from her perspective, in that same moment.
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In spite of the masses of sweaty, heated bodies pressed into the room, the air around me is cold. I’ve been given a space, a circular lack of men, in which to perform, same as always. The cold air reaches every part of my body, unclothed as I am, same as always. The boys, they look shocked, same as always. Same as always, the men are hungry. I turn, rotating in my circle, and I let them look at it all. The boys are too uncertain to react, beyond what is automatic for their bodies, but the men holler and cry out, ready and expectant. I start to dance.
There’s no music for my dance, not that I can hear. Instead, I use the men. Their jeers are my soaring notes, perfect for wide turns and outstretched arms. They jump around, and the thud of their heavy bodies is my baseline. Their cigar smoke is a smoothly flowing silk dress meant to flutter around me with practiced sensuality. They jostle one another, a violent and crude beat that I move against.
I wonder if they know how much I can see, while they think they’re seeing all of me. The ginger-colored boy and his wide-eyed stare, too young to know how to look away. The old man with the golden wedding ring, fighting against a younger, similar-looking man, clawing to get at me. I look away from him. The fat man, the one who usually comes to get me, who takes up more space than should be allowed, does not move with the crowd, but stands his ground and watches anything but my face. My face, that is permanently affixed to a blithe smile. The blithe smile wears me; I don’t wear it.
The men jump faster, jostle harder, so I move in reaction. They’re closing in, same as always. I have learned to tune out what they say, to ignore what I don’t want to see, but it’s harder to turn off your nerves. I can feel the sweaty prints their hands leave on my arms, my back, my ass. I can feel a rough grab long after it’s been shoved off and know that it’s a bruise tomorrow. Fingernails tear into me, breaking me open, and I can’t help but spill blood. They should know better. I jerk my arm away from that man, and spin to an opening in the crowd. Time to leave.
The young boys are intoxicated by the crowds, and they join the fray, not bothering to hide behind their boxing gloves now. Half of the crowd grabs and pulls at my skin, at my hair, at my breasts, at my indifference; to make me react or fight, I don’t care for either.
My feet leave the crowd, and I’m flung into the air. Up in the air, when I’m just floating and the men are far below and my nakedness seems unimportant and I am just a free-wheeling molecule not meant for one thing or this and that, it’s okay. Down here, I land in uncaring arms, my spine recoils in shock and I feel my head snap back, because it wasn’t important enough to catch. They toss me again, and I’d like to stay up here. But I come down. New hands grab me, and there’s a body on either side of me, carrying and dragging me to the doors, away. They slam the double doors behind us, and we’re in the surprisingly quiet hallway.
One man holds the doors shut. The other hands me an envelope and a robe. I slip into the robe, then take my money with me. I find my dressing room down the hall. Once inside, I put on my underwear, then a slip, then a pair of tights, then a pair of dress socks, my slacks, a button-down shirt buttoned all the way up, a jumper, a cardigan, a jacket, a scarf, gloves. I walk out of the back door into the balmy June night.
You offer some really potent phrases and images here–“The smile wears me; I don’t wear the smile; the image of the molecule suspended in space as you freeze that moment of time when the men lift her up; the brief connection she has with the narrator as she subtly notes his innocence alongside the jeering, leering men. I also like the concluding details–the sort of after-story–where the woman dresses, pointedly buttons all the way up, and emerges into the light of day. And in general you capture the sense of her placid, almost disembodied performance.
In the Invisible Man, this scene seems to draw lines of connection between the naked woman and the high-school boys: both are abused in their own way; both are made to perform a sick dance for the white, moneyed audience. And at one point, the shared glance with the protagonist offers a shared moment of connection, a shared oppression. You end up weaving the boys into the debauchery at the end, but I feel Ellison keeps them apart: they are horrified. The men clearly use these black students as a scapegoat for their own desires, or as a way to dilute their own brutality by routing their sexual desires, at least at first, through the spectacle of the black students being confronted with white female sexuality.
The scene is so layered and complex that I would have liked to hear your own reflections on the choices you made in the creative re-framing of this scene. You set it up well, but it would be most helpful to get a sense of why you made all those careful choices that you made.