If Beale Street Could Talk

by James Baldwin

Of course, I must say that I don’t think America is God’s gift to anybody—if it is, God’s days have got to be numbered.

He wasn’t anybody’s nigger. And that’s a crime, in this fucking free country.

I thought of Fonny’s touch, of Fonny, in my arms, his breath, his touch, his odor, his weight, that terrible and beautiful presence riding into me and his breath being snarled, as if by a golden thread, deeper and deeper in his throat as he rode—as he rode deeper and deeper not so much into me as into a kingdom which lay just behind his eyes. He worked on wood that way. He worked on stone that way. If I had never seen him work, I might never have known he loved me.

Beautiful

It’s a miracle to realize that somebody loves you.

But, these days, of course, everybody knows everything, that’s why so many people are so lost.

If you look helpless, people react to you in one way and if you look strong, or just come on strong, people react to you in another way, and, since you don’t see what they see, this can be very painful.

It is very much harder, and it takes much longer, for a man to grow up, and he could never do it at all without women.

“I love you. I miss you. I miss everything about you, I miss everything we had together, everything we did together, walking and talking and making love—oh,