All the Right Stuff Read Online Free PDF Page B

away.
    â€œTony’s the local numbers man,” Elijah said. “Part of the shady side of Harlem. Meanwhile, are you giving them greens a bubble bath or are you just washing them?”
    I took the greens out of the water and took the knife that Elijah handed me and started chopping them. He took the knife from me and chopped some to show me how he wanted it done and then handed it back to me again. I started chopping, and he grunted, which I figured meant I was doing it right.
    â€œThings were better over in England after they restricted the king’s powers. Laws were made to enforce the social contract, but there were still some people down at the bottom of the ladder, struggling in the mud, trying to get out of the mess they were in. Some other people just didn’t like how the country was being run, and so they decided to leave and come over to where a new land had been discovered. That land they were calling America.”
    â€œThe Pilgrims,” I said.
    â€œSome of them were Pilgrims,” Elijah said. “Some were just people looking to start their lives over again. Some were convicts sent over here in place of being sent to jail or hanged. They started landing over here around 1600. Soon as they got over here, they started making their own social contract. They figured what was going to be the best thing for their society, and they created rules and laws that had to be followed.”
    â€œWhich was the right thing to do,” I said.
    â€œIn a way it was, and in a way it wasn’t,” Elijah said.
    â€œThat’s because you can’t let me get one point in that’s right,” I said.
    â€œNo, Mr. DuPree,” Elijah said. “Because life is never that simple. You see, when all those folks arrived here from England, there were already some people living here. You might have heard of them. The Erie, the Seminole, the Mohawk, and out west, the Navajo, the Hopi, the Comanche, and so forth.”
    â€œThe Indians?”
    â€œThe so-called Indians,” Elijah said. “Now the people living here had their own social contracts that suited them just fine. But the people coming from England decided that their social contract was the best one and the people already living here had to move aside. The people from England had the most guns, and their social contracts started to win out.”
    â€œWhoa, wait a minute.” I stopped chopping greens. “When you were running down the social contract the other day—that was the ham sandwich business—you were talking about people agreeing to stuff. Now you’re talking about this king over in England, and he was being forced to deal with the contract. Then you get over to America, and you’re talking about who’s got the most guns. That’s not a contract, brother, that’s intimidation.”
    â€œThat’s true, Mr. DuPree, that’s definitely true.”
    â€œYo, Elijah, you leading me through a whole lot of mess that you’re saying is about the social contract, but I’m thinking it’s about people doing what they want to do.”
    â€œBut is it history?” Elijah asked. “Did it really happen?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œThen it’s worth looking at, isn’t it?”
    â€œYou know, I don’t know if I should feel glad that you’re running this down to me,” I said, “or mad because of the way it went down!”
    â€œThat’s why we need people with intelligence and a good sense of justice to pay close attention to the social contract and the theories behind it,” Elijah said. “An Englishman named John Locke said that property was not just land but the labor used to develop that land as well. So if the Indians weren’t cultivating that land, it was all right for the Europeans on the scene to take it.”
    â€œGet out of here!”
    â€œYou think I’m not telling you the truth?”
    â€œSo the