Finding Langston

Miss Fulton happens to open her door just as Langston leaves for school, and she invites herself to walk with him. Having recognized the book in Langston’s hand the evening before, along with his obvious embarrassment, Miss Fulton says, “There is no shame in being a reader. And being someone who loves poetry” (78-79). Langston denies feeling shame, claiming he just wants “something all to [himself]” (79), but he fears his father would frown on his clandestine library excursions.

Langston takes his seat as the bell rings, and his stomach drops when he sees Lymon—back from his long absence—smiling coldly at him. At lunchtime, Langston settles into a corner of the schoolyard and opens Langston Hughes’s The Weary Blues. He thumbs through the poems, pausing on one titled “Poem 4: To the Black Beloved.” The verses on the page match those he read in his mother’s letter to his father. Lymon’s shadow suddenly falls on Langston and, after levelling a few familiar insults, he snatches the book from Langston’s hands and starts ripping out pages. Enraged, Langston grabs Lymon’s arm, twisting it until the book falls to the ground. A teacher appears and orders them inside. Before turning to follow her, Langston retrieves his book but can’t find the torn pages.

Fully expecting his father to give him a “good whupping” that evening, Langston is surprised when Henry wants to talk instead. Henry first advises Langston against “fighting your way through life” (84), then questions him about the book at the center of the altercation. Langston, weary of hiding his secret pleasures, tells his father about the library, the books he loves, and Langston Hughes. After explaining that Hughes “writes poems about being colored and living up North but missing the South and feeling lonely” (80), Langston reads aloud some of his poetry. Henry sits quietly after Langston finishes, then talks about Langston’s mother. She, too, had a passion for reading, he discloses, but with all the work to be done on the farm, there “wasn’t no time for books” (88). Signaling the end of their conversation, Henry stands and tells Langston he must apologize to Lymon the next day.

No one shouts the name “country boy” when Langston arrives at school, and a few kids even smile at him for the first time. Langston approaches Lymon and apologizes, as his father instructed, but Lymon only nods while walking away. Because both boys are required to go to detention for an hour after school, Langston can’t visit the library that afternoon, which doesn’t much dismay him. He’s not eager to show Miss Cook the ripped book and worries she might revoke his library card.

Langston strolls home after detention, gazing into shop windows. The days are getting colder, and as he looks at a shoe store display, he wonders if his father will buy him some winter boots. It occurs to Langston that, despite himself, he has fallen in step with the rhythm of the city. He sees Miss Fulton “sashaying” ahead of him while men turn to watch her. She waits for him at the apartment stairs to say she has a book to give him. Inside his apartment, Langston opens Hughes’s The Weary Blues again, but his thoughts drift to his mother and the shoebox under the bed. Although Henry doesn’t know it, Teena included Hughes’s verse in her letters to him. Langston knows, however, and this awareness convinces him his mother admired Hughes and “wanted to name her baby boy after the poet” (93).

Langston dreads returning the damaged library book to Miss Cook. He walks slowly along the street with his head down and nearly collides with Clem, who is standing at the library door. Clem hands Langston the pages Lymon tore from the book. While Lymon and Langston scuffled, Clem collected the pages, trusting the book could be repaired. He volunteers to help Langston explain how Lymon vandalized the book, so they face Miss Cook together. She assures Langston that the pages can be restored—and that he won’t lose his library card—but reminds him he is ultimately responsible for the materials he checks out.

The boys leave the library together, and as they walk, their conversation turns to the topic of poetry. Clem asks why Langston likes reading poems, and he replies, “I like that it feels like… like someone is talking just to you. And that someone else knows what it feels like being… you” (98). Elaborating on his feelings, Langston admits he misses Alabama and his mother, and Clem reveals his father died in an explosion on a Navy ship. When they reach the corner, Clem heads in one direction and Langston another, but Langston continues thinking about Clem, his “first friend in Chicago” (99).

Miss Fulton is sitting with Langston’s father when Langston gets home. Although she says she’s there to deliver the book she promised, Langston believes there are other reasons, and his father’s expression while gazing at her only fuels his suspicions. After giving Langston a collection of poems titled Harlem Shadows, Miss Fulton departs. Langston braces for his father’s angry reaction to the book, but Henry only asks if it’s more poetry and then sets about making supper.

Henry wakes Langston early the next morning and says they “[g]otta make an extra stop today” (103) while running their Saturday errands. They follow their regular route until it’s time to visit the fish market, at which point Henry turns in the other direction. Surprised, but sensing that Henry does not want to explain himself, Langston walks silently alongside him, marveling at how much better he’s gotten to know his father since they moved to Chicago. A few minutes later, however, when Henry unexpectedly asks where the library is, Langston thinks, “I can’t help but realize that two blocks back I thought I knew my Daddy. Now I’m back to not knowing again” (104).

Bright October sunshine fills the lobby as they enter the library. Recalling his grandmother’s conviction that his mother would always watch over him, Langston now feels her presence. He is confident his mother guided him to the library and to Langston Hughes’s poetry, and that she “helped [him] along the way to finding home” (104).