David and Goliath

As we begin our journey through James Baldwin’s Going to Meet the Man, it’s interesting to see what kind of picture the first two stories paint. These first two stories, “The Rockpile” and “The Outing”, both follow the extremely religious Grimes family. One interesting aspect of the family that caught my eye was the relationship between each member. The father, Gabriel, seems to be this looming shadow over the family. In the first story, he is portrayed as a frightful figure that strikes fear in almost every family member. Then there’s the mother, who is just doing the best she can, watching over her numerous children. She is constantly berated by Gabriel for her oldest child, John, who is from a previous relationship. John is the oldest in the family and seems to be the calmest. From the first story, we can observe that John is a very passive character, as he enjoys just sitting atop the fire escape, reading and looking down upon those below. Then we have Roy, John’s younger brother, and apparently Gabriel’s “little man”. Roy is almost the exact opposite of John. He’s outgoing and adventurous, not afraid the break the rules in order to have a little fun.

One aspect of the Grimes family that really struck me is Gabriel’s constant use of John as a scapegoat. This causes John to feel like a kind of outsider, not only among other boys, but also in his family. In the first story, when Roy runs off to go play on the Rockpile (against his mother’s orders), John elects to stay up on the fire escape. Later, when Roy takes a tin can to the head and starts bleeding, John is blamed by his father for not looking after his younger brother. In the second story, John brings his friend David, who isn’t a part of their congregation, to the outing with him. When in the middle of a peaceful conversation with members of their church, Gabriel decides to butt in and tell the group how it was Roy who brought David to the church and how Roy has been reaching out to David, when it has actually been John the whole time. In Gabriel’s eyes, John is just the child of a previous lover, and therefore has no blood ties to him, so he basically means nothing to him. Ironically, before Gabriel leaves the group, he reminds John to not get into any trouble, even though it’s Roy who usually gets into trouble, as seen in the first story.

Even though John has endured constant badgering from his “father”, this comment, along with the one about David, pushes John off the edge, as he snaps back, saying “Don’t worry about me, Daddy. Roy’ll see to it that I behave” (35). Gabriel, furious that his despicable son has just embarrassed him in public, pulls John aside to remind him that he is still just a little boy and that he should watch himself. Gabriel then goes to tell his wife that John is becoming too confident and is therefore learning to be disrespectful towards others. He states that, “that boy’s pride is running away with him...that proud demon’s just eating him up” (40). Gabriel is basically proclaiming that he doesn’t have to deal with John because he isn’t related to him, so he brushes John and his so called “problems” aside for his wife to deal with. Now, we have no idea how the conversation between John and his mother will go, but I’m pretty sure that it will do nothing. His mother can see the pain Gabriel puts him through and so she is understandably unsure how to deal with this situations that probably constantly pop up.

Being constantly in this voiceless situation, John needs some kind of outlet. This is where Daniel comes in. Although we aren’t given information of how John’s and Daniel’s relationship is like before the outing, we can infer that they are very close and that Daniel is aware how poorly John is treated by his father. When they are along, Daniel states that the interaction between John and Gabriel was pretty rough, implying that if John wanted to talk about it, Daniel would be there to listen. John then proceeds to put his head on Daniel’s shoulder and state that he loves him. Now, he may not fully realize this, but Daniel is basically all John has. He is John’s outlet for all the troubles he has at home. A metaphor that can be made is that Gabriel is like Goliath and Daniel is, well, Daniel. Gabriel is this overbearing bully in John’s life and Daniel is there to protect him. Although Daniel may not understand the extent of John’s love for him, (for all we know, he may just assume their relationship is platonic), but at least he understands that he needs to be there for John because he’s all that John has. John is a loner. He has been excluded from all communities already, and being in love with someone of the same sex makes him completely incompatible with his social surroundings.

So, assumably, John feels hurt when Daniel starts to go after Sylvia. If Daniel and Sylvia start hanging out more, John may lose his only friend, the only person he can talk to. Now, I’m not saying that John should be able to control Daniel’s life, but it would be a shame if John were to lose him without finding a replacement. It could be possible that Daniel is only going after Sylvia to distract attention from him and John’s relationship. I mean, Daniel only seems to talk about Sylvia with other people are around. When him and John are alone, they share intimate, emotional moments together, only caring about each other. As long as John and Daniel remain in close contact, this kind of relationship puts a lighter spin on the whole situation. Maybe when he grows older, John will run away and live with Daniel. But, for now, I’m just glad John at least has someone. Even if Daniel doesn’t love him the same way John does, he is still there for him in his times of need, most of the time.