“Therefore let the doubters doubt, let the faint of heart turn pale. We move toward the fulfillment of our nation’s demand for citizen-individualists possessing the courage to forge a multiplicity of creative selves and styles. We shall supply its need for individuals, men and women, who possess the highest quality of stamina, daring, and grace—
Ho, Build thee more stately mansions,
Oh, my soul—Yes!
“For we”—the Senator paused, his arms reaching out with palms turned upward in all-embracing gesture—“by the grace of Almighty God, are A-MERI-CANS!”
And it was now, listening to his voice becoming lost in an explosion of applause, accented here and there by enthusiastic rebel yells, that the Senator became aware of the rising man.
Up in the front row center of the Visitors’ Gallery the man was pointing out across the guardrail as though about to hurl down a vehement denunciation. For Christ sake, the Senator thought, why don’t you sit down or simply leave? Only spare us futile theatrical gestures. I always lose a few—the old; the short-of-attention-spanned; the mama’s boys answering Mother Nature’s call—but use your ears. Most I’m holding hard, so what can you hope to do? But just as he lowered his eyes to the faces of his colleagues applauding on the floor below, the Senator became aware of the abrupt rise and fall of the man’s still-pointing arm. Then a sound of ringing that was erupting above seemed to trigger a prismatic turbulence of the light through which, now, fragments of crystal, fine and fleeting as the first cool-touching flakes of a fall of snow, had begun to shower down upon him, striking sleet-sharp upon the still-upturned palms of his gesturing hands.
My God, the Senator thought, it’s the chandelier! Could it be I’ve shattered the chandelier? Whereupon something smashed into the lectern, driving it against him; and now, hearing a dry popping sound above, he felt a vicious stinging in his right shoulder, and as he stared through the chaotic refraction of the light toward the gallery he could see the sharp kick of the man’s gesturing arm and felt a second flare of pain, in his left thigh this time, and was thrown into a state of dreamlike lucidity.
Realizing quite clearly that the man was firing toward the podium, he tried desperately to move out of range, asking himself as he attempted to keep the lectern before him, Is it me? Am I his target? Then something struck his hip with the force of a well-aimed club and he felt the lectern toppling forward and he was spun forcefully around to face the gallery. Coughing and staggering backwards now, he felt himself striking against a chair and lurching forward as he marked the sinister pzap! pzap! pzap! of the weapon.
I’m going … I’m going … he told himself, knowing lucidly that it was most important to fall backwards if possible, out of the line of fire; but as he struggled to go down it was as though he were being held erect by an invisible cable attached somehow to the gallery, from where the man, raising and lowering his arm in measured calm, continued to fire.
The effort to fall brought a burst of moisture streaming from his pores but even now his legs refused to obey, would not collapse. And yet, through the muffled sound of the weapon and the strange ringing of bells, his eyes were recording details of the wildly tossing scene with the impassive and precise inclusiveness of a motion-picture camera that was toppling slowly from its tripod and falling through an unfolding action with the lazy motion of a feather loosed from a bird in soaring flight; panning from the image of the remote gunman in the gallery down to those moving dreamlike on the floor before him, then back to those shooting up behind the man above; all caught in attitudes of surprise, disbelief, horror; some turning slowly with puppet gestures, some still seated, some rising, some looking wildly at their neighbors, some losing control of their flailing arms, their erupting faces, some falling floorward—And up in the balcony now, an erupting of women’s frantic forms.
Things had accelerated but, oddly, even now, no one was moving toward the gunman—who seemed as detached from the swiftly accelerating action as a marksman popping clay birds on a remote shooting range.
Then it was as though someone had dragged a poker at white heat straight down the center of his scalp and followed it with a hammering blow; and at last he felt himself going over backwards, crashing against a chair now and hearing it skitter away, as, thinking mechanically, Down, down … he felt the jolt of his head and elbows striking the floor. Something seared through the sole of his right foot then, and sharply aware of losing control he struggled to contain himself even as his throat gave cry to words which he knew, whatever the cost of containment, should not be uttered in this place.
“Lord, LAWD,” he heard, “WHY HAST THOU …” smelling the hot presence of blood as the question took off with the hysterical timbre of a Negro preacher who in his disciplined fervor sounded somehow like an accomplished actor shouting his lines. “Forsaken … forsaken … forsaken …” The words went forth, becoming lost in the shattering of glass, the ringing of bells.
Writhing on the floor as he struggled to move out of range, the Senator was taken by a profound sense of self-betrayal, as though he had stripped himself naked in the Senate. And now with the full piercing force of a suddenly activated sprinkler, streams of moisture seemed to burst from his face and somehow he was no longer in that place, but kneeling on the earth by a familiar clearing within a grove of pines, trying desperately to enfold a huge white circus tent into a packet. Here the light was wan and eerie, and as he struggled, trying to force the cloth beneath chest and knee, a damp wind blew down from the tops of the trees, causing the canvas to toss and billow like a live thing beneath him. The wind blew strong and damp through the clearing, causing the tent to flap and billow, and now he felt himself being dragged on his belly steadily toward the edge of the clearing where the light filtered with an unnatural brilliance through the high-flung branches of the pines. And as he struggled to break the forward motion of the tent a cloud of birds took flight, spinning on the wind and into the trees, revealing the low shapes of a group of weed-grown burial mounds arranged beneath the pines. Clusters of tinted bottles had been hung from wooden stakes to mark the row of crude country graves, and as the tent dragged him steadily closer he could see the glint and sparkle of the glass as the bottles, tossing in the wind, began to ring like a series of crystal bells. He did not like this place and he knew, struggling to brake the tent’s forward motion by digging his toes into the earth, that somewhere beyond the graves and the wall of trees his voice was struggling to return to him.
But now through the amber and deep-blue ringing of the glass, it was another voice he feared, a voice which threatened to speak from beneath the tent and which it was most important to enfold, to muffle beneath the billowing canvas.…
Then he was back on the Senate floor again and the forbidden words, now hoarsely transformed, were floating calmly down to him from gallery and dome, then coming on with a rush.
“For Thou hast forsaken … me,” they came. But they were no longer his own words nor was it his own echoing voice. And now, hearing what sounded like a man’s voice hoarsely singing, he struggled to bring himself erect, thinking, No! No! Hickman? But how here? Not here! No time, no place for HICKMAN!
Then the very idea that Hickman was there somewhere above him raised him up, and he was clutching onto a chair, pulling himself into a sitting position, trying to get his head up so as to see clearly above as now there came a final shot which he heard but did not feel …
He lay on his back, looking up through the turbulent space to where the bullet-smashed chandelier, swinging gently under the impact of its shattering, created a watery distortion of crystal light, a light which seemed to descend and settle him within a ring of liquid fire. Then beyond the pulsing blaze where a roiling darkness grew he was once more aware of a burst of action.
Now he could hear someone shouting far off. Then a voice was shouting quite close to his ear, but he was unable to bring his mind to it. There were many faces and he was trying to ask them Why the hell’d he do it and who else wa
s it?
I can’t understand, can’t understand. My rule was graciousness, was politeness in all private contacts, but hell, anything goes in public. What? What?
Harry said if it gets too hot hop out of the pot. I say, If the tit’s tough no one asks for milk when the steaks are high.
Lord, Lord, but it’s hot. HOT! It hurts here and here and there and there, a hell of a clipping. How many rounds?
Lawd … Say Lord! Why? Ha! No time to go West but no time to stay East either, so blow the wind westerly, there’s grease for the East.
I said, Donelson, crank it, man! Who broke the rhythm of the crowd? Old fat, nasty Poujaque! Don’t accuse me; if I could pay them I could teach them! If they could catch me I could raise them up. That’s their God-given, historical, woodpile role! Where was Moses, I mean to say?… No, let the deal go down. And if the cock crows three, I’m me, ME!—in the dark.
Roll the mammy-scratching camera, Karp! On with the lights! Hump it now! Get them over to the right side. It hurts, it was worth something in the right body for the right hand.…
Then I said, Politics is an art of maneuvering, and to move them you must change home base. Now you tell ’em because Ah stutter, Donelson said. But minds like that will never learn.… Hell, I’ve out-galloped Gallup—New Mexico, wasn’t it? What happened to Body? Well, so long, old buddy, I missed touch, lost right hand but didn’t forget. How the hell explain stony-going over stony ground?
Karp, you high-minded S.O.B., will you please get some light over here? And keep the action going!…
Yes, yes, yes! I’m all cud, bud; all chewed up like a dog! Like a dog. It was like shooting fish in a barbell. Fall! Fall! Take a dive! Green persimmons …
She said “Mother” and screamed and I said “Mother” and it shot out of my throat and something ran like hell up the tent and I doubled back and when I lifted the flap—dark again!
Roll the cameras!
What? What?
Perhaps you’re right, but who would have thought what I knew on the back of my neck and ignored was ripening? A bird balled! That was the way it was. Oh, I rose up and she said “Mother,” and I doubled back and he looked down upon the babe and said, “Look, boy, you’re a son of God! Isn’t that enough for you?”
But still I said “Mother” and something ran up the tent like a flash and then they came on, grim-faced and glassy-eyed, like the wrath of God in the shape of a leaping, many-headed cat … a stewardess’s cap … What dreams … what dread …
Don’t ask me, please. Please don’t ask me. I simply can’t do it. There are lines and shadows we can’t stand to cross or recross. Like walking through the sharp edge of a mirror. All will be well, Daddy. Tell them what I said.
ROLL THE CAMERA!
What? What?
Who was? Who did that against me? Who untuned Daddy’s fork when he could have preached his bone in all positions and places? I might have been left out of all that—Ask Tricky Sam Nanton, there’s a preacher hidden in all the old troms—Bam! Same tune in juke or church, only Daddy’s had a different brand of anguish.
Lawd, Lawd, why?
What terrible luck! What a sad kind of duck! Daddy strutted with some barbecue and the hot sauce on the bread was red and good—good—good. Yes, but in Austin they chilled the beans.
“Mother,” she said.
“But weren’t the greens nice in Birmingham?” Sister Lacey said.
And she said “Mother” and I came up out of the box and he said “Let there be light”—but she didn’t really mean it. And she said “cud” and that should have been worth the revival. But he wouldn’t tell.
Oh, Maggie, Jiggs, and Aunt Jemima! Jadda-dadda-jing-jing! I miss those times sometimes.…
This game of politics is fraught with fraud, Ferd said—and a kiyi yippi and a happy nappy! So praise the Lord now, Pappy, and pass the biscuits! Oh, yes, the A.G. said, give ole Razorback Bill a guitar and the room to holler “nigger” and he’ll forget about trying to pass for an intellectual.… A slow train through East Razorback on Captain Billy’s Whizbang more pious than the Pharisees.… Hell, it was easy, easy. I was working as the old gentleman’s chauffeur and he caught me in bed with his madam. He was amazed but calm. Who the hell are you, anyway? he said. And I thought fast and said, I’m a nigger; so you can forget it, it don’t count. I’m outside the game. What? he said. Yes, I said, I am—or at least I was raised for one. So what are you going to do about it? And he said, Do? Hell, first I’m going to think about it. And then I’ll decide. Was she satisfied? I don’t know, I said, but I’ve had no complaints. Well, he said, taking that into consideration you might as well continue until she does. I’m a busy man and no old fool. Meanwhile I’ll think about making you a politician. That should teach you to obey the Commandment.… So because she was years younger than the old gentleman I made a classical entry into the house. Bull-rushed the bullyraggers.… Yes, but you just wait, he said. The Spades’ll learn to play the game and use their power and the old war will be ended.…
Oh, no! We’ll legislate the hell against them. Sure, they must learn to play the game but power is as power does. Let’s not forget what the hell this is all about. They’ll have to come in as I did—through the living gate and sometimes it’s bloody. But they ought to know from back in Seventy-four.
Mister Movie-Man … she said.
God is love, I said, but art’s the possibility of forms, and shadows are the source of identity. And Donelson said, You tell ’em, buddy, while I go take a physic.…
Hold the scene, don’t fade, don’t fade … Seven’s the number, Senator, I said. Fiscal problems come up seven, remember? Even for Joseph.… So she said, Mother, and I said me and she said cud was worth all that pain. But he still wouldn’t tell.
Back away from me! Cat … cat … What’s the rest?
I simply refused, that was all. Chicken in a casket was a no good-a union like-a da cloak. Too dark in there. Chick in this town, chick in that town and in the country. Always having to break out of that pink-lined shell.
No, not afraid after a while, but still against it. I was pretty little—little though not pretty, understand. Saw first snow in Kansas. The wind blows cold, but I can’t tuck it.
Look, I have to climb out of here immediately, or the wires will flash Cudworth moos for Ma—a hell of a note from now on. And on the other side there’s the dark. Daddy Hic, hic, what day?
To hell with it, I’ve stood up too long to lie down.
Lawd, Lawd, why?
Inevitable? Well, I suppose so. So focus in the scene. There, there. The Right Honorable Daddy—Where?
Karp! Karp, pan with the action—See! See! He’s riding right out from under his old Cordoba. But watch him, Stack wore a magic hat—Listen for a bulldog!
Beliss?
No! What do you know about that? I can’t hear him bark.…
Bliss be-eeee thee ti-ee that binds.…
CHAPTER 3
Forty-four in all, they were sitting in the Senate’s Visitors’ Gallery when Senator Sunraider arose to address the body. They sat in compact rows, their faces marked by that impassive expression which American Negroes often share with Orientals, watching the Senator with a remote concentration of their eyes. They barely moved while the Senator developed his argument, sitting like a row of dark statuary—until, during an aside, the Senator gave way to his obsession and made a quite gratuitous and mocking reference to their people.
It was then that a tall, elderly woman wearing steel-rimmed glasses arose from her chair and stood shaking with emotion, her eyes flashing. Twice she opened her mouth as though to hurl down some retort upon the head of the man holding forth below; but now the old preacher glimpsed her out of the corner of his eye, and, without turning from the scene below, gravely shook his head. For a second she ignored him, then feeling her still standing, he turned, giving her the full force of his gaze, and she reluctantly took her seat, the muscles ridged out about her dark prognathous jaws as she bent for
ward, resting her elbows upon her knees, her hands tightly clasped, listening. But although a few whites departed, some angrily shaking their heads over the Senator’s remarks, others extending them embarrassed smiles, the rest made no sign. They seemed bound by some secret discipline, their faces remaining composed, their eyes remote as though through some mistake they were listening to a funeral oration for a stranger.
Nevertheless, Reverend Hickman was following the speech with close attention, his gaze playing over the orderly scene below as he tried to identify the men with their importance to the government. So this is where he came to rest, he thought. After all his rambling, this was the goal. Who would have imagined? At first, although he was familiar with his features from the newspapers, he had not recognized the Senator. The remarks, however, were unmistakable. These days, much to the embarrassment of his party and the citizens of his New England state, only Senator Sunraider (certain Southern senators were taken for granted) made such remarks, and Hickman watched him with deep fascination. He’s driven to it, Hickman thought, it’s so much with him that he probably couldn’t stop if he wanted to. He rejected his dedication and his set-asideness, but it’s still on him, it’s with him night and day.
“Reveren’ …” Sister Neal had touched his arm and he leaned toward her, still watching the scene.
“Reveren’,” she said, “is that him?”
“Yes, that’s him all right,” he said.
“Well, he sho don’t look much like his pictures.”
“It’s the distance. Up close, though, you’d recognize him.”
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