Finding Langston

The apartment building’s indoor plumbing is a novelty for Langston. Although he and his father must share a bathroom with numerous other tenants, Langston marvels at the running water, “one spout for hot, one for cold” (8), and at the flushing toilet. He wakes early to get to the bathroom ahead of others and then to school before his classmates. When the other students arrive, they taunt him with the name “country boy,” “the name everyone in class says when they point at [his] run-over shoes and laugh at the overalls [he] still [wears]” (8).

The school bully, Lymon, and his two sidekicks, Clem and Erroll, ambush Langston after school. They routinely harass Langston, even though he suspects their families are Southern country folk like his. Langston’s thoughts shift from the South to his mother’s funeral and his subsequent train ride North in the segregated “colored car” (10). While he’s remembering the handful of friends he left behind in Alabama, Lymon, Erroll, and Clem waylay him with pushes and shoves. Because his father advises forbearance, Langston passively endures the boys’ insults, and when they tire of tormenting him, he heads home.

At home, Langston finds a letter addressed to his father in big, loopy handwriting. He ponders the changes in his life as he waits for his dad to return from work. Back in Alabama, he fell asleep to the sounds of owls and his parents’ hushed laughing. Now he hears rats scratching in the apartment walls at night, along with the snoring of his father, who sleeps a few feet away and sometimes murmurs “Teena,” the name of Langston’s mother. She adored Langston, her only child, and as he thinks about her, “the tears start and won’t stop” (14). His father doesn’t tolerate tears, so when Henry returns, Langston quickly dries his eyes. After dinner—a second-rate meal prepared by Henry that makes Langston long for his mother’s cooking—Langston gives his father the letter. Henry puts it away, unopened, and dismisses Langston’s questions about it.

Langston helps his teacher carry boxes to her car after school and then scoots through a hole in the fence, eager to escape the schoolyard unnoticed by Lymon and company. He walks quickly down unfamiliar streets and finds himself in an unusually attractive neighborhood. On the corner is a big white building with words above its doors that read, GEORGE CLEVELAND HALL BRANCH, CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY. Langston’s mother once told him about libraries, adding, “[t]hey don’t let colored folks in libraries” (19), but Langston enters the building anyway, hoping someone can direct him home.

Langston is surprised to see “all kinds of colored people” inside (20), including those staffing the desk, but no White people. Dumbstruck with amazement, he follows a helpful librarian to a room where kids his age are reading. When he lived in Alabama, Langston read every book he could find. While his mother defended his reading habit, his father disliked it, believing Langston should be working outdoors on the farm. Langston surveys the library bookshelves and finds a volume bearing his own name. He loses himself in the poetry of Langston Hughes for the rest of the afternoon.

Henry asks why Langston is late getting home, and Langston lies, claiming he was playing with friends after school. Fearful of sparking his father’s anger, Langston doesn’t admit that he was reading, nor that the schoolboys bully him, nor that he’s lonely and misses his mother. After his mother died, Langston overheard his father tell his grandmother that, because “Ain’t nothing left for me here” (24), he would go to Chicago with Langston. It saddened Langston to leave his home and beloved grandmother, but he hid his feelings and followed his father to the train, “like his shadow trying to keep up behind” (25).

Following school the next day, Langston returns to the library.

The friendly librarian from the previous day greets Langston. As she leads him back to the same room, they pass a picture gallery featuring faces of African Americans who, according to the librarian, are writers from the library’s lecture series. She adds that “Chicago is home to many esteemed Negro writers” (28). When Langston wonders aloud if this is “a library for colored folks” (28), the librarian assures him the branch is for all Chicago residents, although it is named for the African American physician who was instrumental in its establishment.

The librarian introduces Langston to Miss Cook, the children’s librarian. After Langston helps himself to the volume of Langston Hughes poetry again, Miss Cook asks if he would like to take it home. Langston is excited to hear that if he obtains a library card, he can check out as many as five books.

To secure a library card, Langston gives Miss Cook his name and address. When she playfully asks if he’s named after the poet Langston Hughes, Langston shrugs off her question, saying it is just the name his parents chose for him. Langston takes the poetry book home and hides it before Henry returns from work. During dinner that evening, Langston asks about his name, and his father reveals that Langston’s mother selected it long before Langston was born. Langston stays up late reading the poetry book while his father snores.