by JJ Partridge
Off it went.
“Ugh!” How the hell did they find out about Kingdom and Danby! Did Kingdom let it slip? Danby? Danby was now inevitably associated with Kingdom. Danby’s campus foes would draw their own conclusions. As for Sonny, McCarthy, and their allies, ...!
I tried Nadie’s cell phone number without luck. I called the Women’s Center, where I was told she was expected. I left her a voice message that I was going to be at the Security Office for the rally and would call her later as to where I would be. I put down the phone and sat back. Danby was back, where he should be, at the top of my list of stewardship issues. He and Carter should have been up there all along.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Indoor tennis, racquetball, or squash? Sure. Quarter-mile track? Absolutely. How about laps in one of two Olympic-sized pools? Climbing wall? Weight room? Of course, and while the same amenities are available at other college sports facilities, add indoor soccer, lacrosse, and intramural basketball courts all under one roof and you have the Smithson Sports Complex. The rally would be in the center concourse of the multi-domed building, an area which could easily hold a thousand standees. The notion of Carter students rocking and rolling with Kingdom’s W.A.R.—more accustomed to demonstration than discourse—after the tensions left over from Thursday’s confrontation, was chilling. No Event Plan could foresee all the possibilities.
Poor Tuttle!
The night sky was as black as onyx and the air was sharp as I walked to the Security Office with a wool lining zipped into my Burberry, the fedora squared on my head, and Totes for a walk to the Security Office and wherever else I would be this night. I barely noticed the cold because my brain was still trying to parse out the logic of Danby’s imprudent, bordering on reckless, decision. Why had he created this tinderbox? Had he decided to be the focal point of the Sunday news stories, now that his relationship with Kingdom was public? Danby was leading with his chin and trying to counterpunch. That didn’t work, in the ring or in academia.
But, nobody asked me.
At seven forty-five, I was in the waiting area of the Security Office. Its rows of molded, green plastic chairs were empty; officers flowed in and out and a speaker system caught static and fragments of radio voices. Sergeant Ewell, in starched uniform shirt and black tie, was at the control desk behind Plexiglas; behind him glowed a console of blinking red lights. “The Chief said you might be by,” he said soberly by way of greeting. “Nice hat,” he added. “And don’t you owe me something?” In fact, the key to Ramsden Hall was in my hand and I slid it through an opening in the Plexiglas. Ewell seemed vaguely disappointed that I had remembered; he moved slowly to pick it up, then swiveled in his chair to open a metal cabinet under the console.
“All set for tonight?” I said to his back.
He found the appropriate hook for the key. “The Chief is down there on Thayer Street with about everyone they could get to come in.” He turned to look up at me, scratching his balding head. “You know, I don’t quite get it. It’s goin’ to be a circus. ‘Specially after that trouble downtown. What are we supposed to do? We can check IDs at the door, but suppose Kingdom’s got all his folks there and they want in. Suppose there’s a ruckus outside or on their march or at The Green. Maybe The Stalker tries something while they’re rallyin’ and marchin’ and trashin’?” He touched a button on the desk, causing a buzzer to sound and the door at my right to unlock. “No firearms,” he continued, as we entered the corridor, “Okay, I understand that, not even nightsticks anymore. Everybody’s worried about Jesse Kingdom. They’re worried about The Stalker. They want to protect the women. But us—black, white, whatever—what about us? Who do we rely on, the cops? They belittle us!” He touched a peaked cap on a hatrack as we walked by. “Just what are we supposed to do?”
He asked the right questions. Carter’s inability to deal with the authority, needs, and morale of the Security Office was a continuing problem. University policy for the security force was: no firearms, no truncheons, travel in pairs, don’t use force, call for reinforcements, and, most importantly, take good notes. Semi-permanent commissions advise the Security Office on racial profiling, sensitivity training, stereotypes, attitude readjustment, and, believe it or not, note taking. Not too helpful when a mugger brandishes a weapon or is about to wreak havoc on a victim.
Ewell opened the first door on the right into what turned out to be Tuttle’s office, a graceless room smelling of secret smokes, with poor lighting, nothing on the wall but a plastic message board with arrows and Magic Marker jibberish. “You know,” he continued with increasing frustration, “they want us to respond to every problem in a ten block area, and there ain’t enough of us to do the job. Somethin’s gonna give!” He shook his head. “Make yourself at home,” he said wearily, and left.
I laid my coat on a plastic seated chair in front of Tuttle’s cluttered desk. Must be my week for photographs, I thought, as I saw his collection of framed snapshots and studio photographs of a plumpish, attractive wife, two daughters at various ages and locales, a young boy with his father’s freckles, and a more recent shot of the family, arms behind one another at a dress-up affair—a happy and glad to be with one another photograph that any parent would cherish.
A television was on top of a bookcase across from the desk; I touched Power, 6, and 5. WCAT-Channel 65, our campus interconnect station, is owned by and licensed to the University’s Telecommunications Department. Before my time at the University, its program schedule had been turned over to a Program Selection Committee consisting of students from the Department and appointees of the Student Council and advised by a lonely member of the administration, McAllister. Not surprisingly, the Program Selection Committee is comprised of people with tracts in need of pulpits; their meetings and selections are often polemical and controversial with constant First Amendment and media access issues, enough so that I keep a local law firm on retainer to deal with libel and slander and keep the station from losing its license. The committee’s constant wrangling and bizarre programming didn’t keep Channel 65 from being mostly uninteresting; yet, I had to credit its coverage of campus events like graduation, major guest lectures, and otherwise not televised Ivy League basketball, Eastern League hockey, and other league and intramural sports where it did an adequate job despite wobbly cameras and none-too-lively commentary.
I sat on the edge of Tuttle’s desk—after last night’s excursion into Reinman’s office, I was uncomfortable sitting behind anybody’s desk—as the screen sharpened to a dozen or so students, male and female, black, white, and Asian—Martine Danby among them—huddled around a podium bristling with microphones over a large brass Carter University seal. What must have been a handheld camera pulled back and slowly panned the crowd which might have numbered two to three hundred kids—predominantly white, with a goodly number of black kids and other minorities. Predictably for a Saturday night, their dress was casual: droopy jackets, sweatshirts and sweaters, baseball caps on frontwards, sideways, and backwards, jeans and baggy trousers. Both sexes had placards and banners which I couldn’t make out in the camera’s shaky moves. At a media stand near the podium, Channel 11’s reporter spoke directly to a camera; behind her, kids stood in the background in a raucous conviviality until they were admonished behind the camera, leaving them to grimace and squint in the harsh lights. And not a security officer’s peaked cap in sight!
I found the volume dial under the screen and turned it up. Two student commentators seemed to be losing the audio battle to earpiercing hip-hop, rap, and pop rock from boomboxes, drums, something akin to air horn blasts, and a pep rally chant of “Jess-ee, Jess-ee, Jess-ee!” The camera jerked back toward the crowd for no apparent reason and returned to the podium where a black student in a yellow dashiki and cap, arms outstretched and hands waving, was attempting to gain attention by shouting into the microphones. He was no match for an eruption of clapping, chants, whistles, and drums as the camera searched the crowd and found Jesse Kingdom, somberl
y dressed in a black suit and clerical collar, parting a sea of outstretched hands. He stepped up to the podium to stand solemnly, even as he took in the crowd’s adulation. Eventually, his silent presence stopped the persistent “Jess-ee” chant and allowed the kid at the microphone his chance.
The introduction was an excited condemnation of the Providence police, Sonny Russo, and old friends “Whitey” and “Uncle Tom” which produced groans, boos, angry shouts, and whistles at each mention, followed by an introduction of two black women and a Latino male who had been arrested at the Public Safety Building demonstration. Finally, after some impatient applause and whistles, he got to “the man you came here to hear” and the masonry walls of the Complex echoed with cries for “Jess-ee, Jess-ee, Jess-ee!”
Kingdom solemnly shook hands with the three heroes, moved to the podium, and stood there, his hands squarely on the lectern, his head lowered as though in meditation, until the crowd was mostly quiet. His magnetism took hold as the camera zoomed to the podium for a closeup and, on cue, he slowly raised his head—a move which gave his body an extra measure of height and stature—and thanked the crowd for its support in a rich voice that quickly found the right pitch and cadence. He brought his palms together, raised them above his head, slowly lowered them down to the lectern and began with a story about growing up in Philadelphia with another boy—whom he did not identify but whom the crowd clearly took to be Danby—and the night his mother’s younger brother was rousted at their home. Yes, his uncle had brushes with the law, what child of that ghetto didn’t. He didn’t resist his arrest, yet he was clubbed in front of his family by a “thug” policeman. Why? Because he was black and the cop thought he could do so. The image of that violent moment had been with him during his adolescence, his college and seminary years, his ministry in Philadelphia, and now, Providence. That man with a nightstick was the man who symbolized prejudice and injustice and it was that man, he said in a voice rising in fervor and indignation, who must be humbled.
The crowd roared its agreement in a “Jess-ee, Jess-ee, Jess-ee!” chant that echoed and re-echoed so that it seemed it would never stop.
Kingdom stilled the chant by raising his arms—it was amazing how the crowd responded to his rhythms of speech and silence. In a voice subdued and gentle, he got to the heart of his message. People of all colors had to deal with brutality and there were kinds and grades of brutalities. Some, the ones which created hunger, family breakdowns, economic stagnation, and lack of opportunity were the insidious brutalities. They were more universal than the vicious, aggressive brutality of violence like “... the brutality you face here—with The Stalker!”
I braced myself.
In a voice that hushed his audience and chilled me, he said, “The Stalker is the ultimate brutality. One of bestiality.” I held my breath. “You,” he said, his voice finding new depths of power, a single finger pointed straight into the silent crowd, “... it’s going to have to be you who will stop him. You know you can’t depend upon anyone or anything else, including …”—his voice dropped an octave—“… the nightstick. But you can stop him by doing what any small child can do: be smart and not alone. You can stop him! Not with weapons, but with the courage to love and protect each other, to do the sensible thing, and not let him rule you. He will be brought to bay ... like ... any ... other ... beast!”
A single male voice rang out “Jess-ee!” and the whole place exploded with yells that went on and on.
I was thrilled. What a great message! Cooperation! Responsibility! Couldn’t have been better!
But, when the roar finally died down, Jesse Kingdom threw red meat at the crowd. With his voice resonating, soaring in its power, Thursday’s “police riot” became his target. In language that would trigger a rabid response, he challenged the crowd to fill the streets in front of the federal court before and during the upcoming trial, not to protest only the “aimless brutality” represented by the defendants but also the “brutality of a system” that fosters exclusion instead of inclusion and imprisons one out of four black youths, finishing with a thundering call to stand with him for justice.
He was answered by screams of allegiance and shouted pledges to join him at the courthouse.
I reminded myself I should be satisfied with his cautionary words on The Stalker and checked my watch. Under ten minutes!
Kingdom stepped back from the podium and the kids swarmed forward; he escaped off to one side and plowed into the crowd followed by the lights from a dozen camcorders. The Channel 65 commentators gushed in admiration as the camera followed Kingdom’s slow progress towards the Complex’s rear doors. And suddenly, he was gone.
He had come alone!
Martine Danby’s voice brought the camera back to the podium, even as some of the camera lights were being shut off and a technician removed microphones in front of her. She held an unlit candle in her hand and urged her audience to pick up candles at the exits, light them, and march to The Green to show solidarity with Jesse Kingdom and the victims of The Stalker. She was cheered by those paying any kind of attention as she left the podium.
So far, Danby, I said to myself, had been right, but this might be the easy part. I reached over to turn off the television.
I drew back my hand. The WCAT commentators, now at the podium, were rudely brushed aside by a determined-looking young black male with a do-rag, wrap-around sunglasses, and a padded jacket who shouted into the microphone and blasted the Complex with an unintelligible roar of words. As he struggled to become understandable, the camera pulled back to show a phalanx of young black males standing below him, shoulder to shoulder, arms folded across their chests, dressed in similar bulky, loose-fitting clothes, a few in full “gangsta” mode with pants down by their crotches and black berets over Afros, shiny scalps and do-rags. W.A.R.? Carter students? And I realized with the ID checks at the door, they must be ours. Showing off or serious?
Their leader raised his arms and shouted that they were the Black Posse—as twenty or so right arms with black armbands shot skyward and his followers cheered for themselves—and that black sisters would now be protected by their black brothers in the Posse. We take care of our own from now on was the clear and menacing message which produced a few yells of support but mostly hung in the air, which led him to raise his fists for more threats—when the microphone went dead.
He didn’t realize what had happened at first, then he shook the mike, blew into it, then angrily batted it away; his rant went on, his mouth forming shrill words, maybe more than a few vulgarities, inaudible as the wide-open space of the Complex took his voice away. His fists continued to pump up and down and his face became distorted; on the screen, he looked ridiculous, like Mussolini on a balcony exhortating a crowd in Rome in a thirties newsreel, as pop rock blasted from the Complex’s speakers, completely drowning him out. In frustration, he jumped down to his gang. They huddled—and were gone.
Oh, Tuttle, you clever bastard!
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Ewell had watched the rally on a monitor on his desk. Tuttle, he said, had called in to report that Kingdom had arrived alone and had left the area immediately after his speech, the marchers were getting organized, and he was leaving for a Thayer Street command post to coordinate with the Traffic Division cops who would stop anything on wheels approaching the marchers. The Black Posse apparently did not follow the marchers as Tuttle had feared but he had no idea of its destination or purpose. Ewell made it clear what he thought of this new development. “A bunch of kids like that can get carried away, like Guardian Angels,” he said with a mixture of dismay and disgust, and I was left in apprehension as to how the tired and demoralized security officers and the Black Posse might interact.
The temperature had dropped a few more degrees, trees shivered in the wind, and the night remained moonless with only a few stars glittering coldly as I left the Security Office, crossed Brook Street, and headed toward The Green’s entrance on William Street. In the distance, the beat o
f a bass drum marked the progress of the marchers. Security Office red and white Fords were parked at most intersections; at Thayer Street, where police cruisers blocked traffic, I better understood Tuttle’s security nightmare: while no vehicles were getting through, anybody on the sidewalks could join or follow the marchers, enter the campus with them, or slip between the campus buildings where there was no fencing, and mix right in.
A group of ten or twelve kids preceded me through the South Gate where two security officers requesting IDs, as allowed by the Student Handbook, were being informed by several women with emotion-laden voices that ID checks were harassments. Inside the gate, maybe a hundred or so kids were gathered on the terrace in front of Prince House, with dozens of others standing or sitting on the steps of facing buildings where the snow had been cleared or had melted. Rap vibrated from two huge speakers on the terrace steps; a stand of microphones glinted in the rings of brightness from floodlights located on the building’s cornices. Television crews had arrived and were setting up in front of the terrace; one was videoing taping the banners that hung from the windows of Prince House and dangled from tree limbs: “Women United Against the Night,” “No More Rape,” a two-story “V”—which I didn’t need to guess at—“Jesse,” “Third World Action,” and more of the same.