Three Days Before the Shooting . . .

by Ralph Ellison

  “You mean too damn sullen and sulky,” McGowan said. “Only your dream nigra has nothing to do with real live nigras because they never get introspective like you’re saying. By the way, what kind of nigra are you trying to describe?”

  “A rebel against authority out of frustration,” I said. “Violence will be eating at his nerves and at his muscles. And given his experience with danger and death, his need to do violence to someone of importance will be a physicalas well as psychological need.”

  “That kind of negra never existed,” McGowan said. “Why not attack a cop?”

  “That would be meaningless to him,” I said. “It would have to be someone of national stature. This fellow will be on edge to destroy some figure of stature, someone whose importance is commensurate with his own capacity for anger. He’ll select someone to attack through whom he can express his profound sense of humiliation….”

  “Just listen to the man,” McGowan said. “He’s heading straight for cloud ninety-nine. McIntyre, this is nonsense. Let me tell you something about nigras. There’s no such nigra as you’re trying to describe. When a nigra gets all filled up, he grabs himself a woman, or he gets drunk and sleeps it off, or he goes after another nigra with a razor, a rusty pistol, or a half a brick. Nigras are outrageous brick fighters, by the way, and not bad with an iron top on the end of a broomstick. But checks and balances, man. You have to remember the good old American system of balances because they work on the nigra too. And when they don’t, you have to step in and check him and balance him yourself.”

  “But what about the fellow who burned his Cadillac?” Wilson said. “He was going after Sunraider in a strange way, but he was going after him just the same.”

  McGowan laughed and shook his head. “I guess you got me there. That was a new kind of political nigra. That kind of nigra would steal a Barnum and Bailey elephant and ride it down through Mississippi just to prove he’s voting Republican back up North.”

  “Quit kidding, and let’s keep to McIntyre’s idea for a moment,” Wilson said. “Weren’t those fellows who took a shot at Harry Truman Negroes?”

  “No, sir, they were not,” McGowan said. “Those nigras weren’t real nigras.

  Those were Puerto Ricans—by which I mean nigras who don’t know they’re nigras.”

  “I recall that their leader was deranged, remember?” Larkin said.

  “Look,” I said, “I’m willing to bet. I’m not enough of a psychologist to describe him, but I’ll lay a bet that he’ll materialize.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “To the extent of fifty dollars: Is that serious enough?”

  “I’ll take that,” McGowan said. “Anybody else want to give away some money?”

  “What on earth is happening?” Wiggins said. “We started out talking about that crazy fellow who burned his car and the next thing I know we’re discussing an attempt made on the life of one of our most colorful Senators. That boy has spooked everybody. —Sam”—he beckoned—“bring us another round of drinks. Make them doubles; this is becoming a bloody congress of bloody sociologists!”

  “Never mind knocking sociology,” I said. “Make a bet and you can reduce it to mathematics, simple mathematics.”

  “Wiggins is right,” McGowan said. “The nigras have taken hold of sociology and politicalized the hell out of it, and you Yankees are out to ruin the best country in the world.”

  “You mean you prefer your own brand of sociology to McIntyre’s,” Larkin said.

  “Hell,” McGowan said, “I ain’t no sociologist, I just know nigras.”

  “McIntyre’s not going to start something like this and get away with it so easily,” Wilson said. “I’m betting fifty dollars. Sunraider needs shooting, but I’m betting no one will do it. Especially not a Negro. He’ll be around as long as Uncle Joe Cannon….”

  Suddenly, back in the jam of the crowded hall, I felt the pressure around me ease. The men near the entrance had begun to move, and word was passed swiftly along that we were at last being allowed to leave. There was a rush forward, and as I passed the entrance to the chamber I could see the gunman’s body still lying where he had crushed out his life, covered by a sheet now, but the guards would neither allow me to enter nor give any information as to his identity, and I joined a group of reporters who were rushing to the hospital, seeking news of the Senator and to verify McGowan’s news of old Hickman. I intended to interview Hickman, but at the hospital, despite the antiseptic change of scene, things continued to unfold outrageously.

  CHAPTER 6

  SENATOR SUNRAIDER WAS STILL in surgery, but we found old Hickman on the seventh floor. He sat in a dimly lit section of the corridor, grasping the arms of a white metal chair that had been placed to the left of the door leading to the room assigned to the Senator, his huge body showing in silhouetted profile against the brightness flooding from the turn in the corridor some fifty yards beyond. Two security men were facing him, bending slightly forward with folded arms, their bemused faces illuminated by a fixture located on the wall behind his head. They were listening to Hickman as we hurried along the corridor.

  “… No, like I tell you, they had nothing to do with it,” Hickman said. “They were just there looking on like the rest of the visitors, and they should be allowed to go free and unharmed.”

  He was not pleading but speaking matter-of-factly, looking up gravely at the security men as we came up and jockeyed for places before him.

  “So why’d they attack the guards?” one of the security men said.

  “They didn’t,” Hickman said. “Like I told you, they were trying to protect me….”

  “Protect you from what, from whom?”

  Hickman sighed. “You have to understand that we’re from down South, and in all that excitement, when they saw those pistols flashing around, they naturally thought they were meant for me. In their minds they were back down in Georgia, and so, figuring that the tallest tree usually draws the lightning, they were trying to save me.”

  The security men looked at one another and smiled.

  “That’s pretty much a military reaction for a group of church people, isn’t it?” one of them said.

  Hickman frowned. “Military? Well, there’s a lot of military action in the Bible, remember; but, like I say, they were simply trying to protect their minister.”

  “Well,” the security man said, “they might have gotten you shot—not to mention themselves. You were lucky. But at any rate, we have nothing to do with releasing anyone. And if it weren’t for Senator Sunraider, you’d be in jail with the rest. Frankly, though, I wouldn’t release you even if I could.”

  “I can understand that,” Hickman said. “Of course you wouldn’t. That’s why I’m asking you to please get me Deacon Wilhite. Just let me have a few words with him.”

  “Who is this Will Hiate?”

  “He’s my deacon,” Hickman said, “my second in command….”

  “There goes that military terminology again,” one of the security men said.

  “I hear it,” the other said.

  Hickman looked at him quizzically. “Mister,” he said, “what’s your religion?”

  “Catholic.”

  “Mine too,” the other said.

  “Then you ought to have heard church folks talk this way before, with Saint Ignatius and all those other soldiers of the Lord.”

  The security man frowned. “It’s not the same thing,” he said.

  “You’re right,” Hickman said. “We’re Protestants.”

  “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” the other security man said. “Revern, just what do you wish to speak to this Will Hiate about?”

  “About my people you’re holding,” Hickman said. “They’re old folks who have to be looked after. You can understand that. Most of them haven’t even been north before.”

  “And what do you want the deacon to do?”

  “Look,” Hickman said, “can’t you let me speak with him? You can listen
to every word I say.”

  “I’m afraid we can’t,” the security man said. “We have to follow orders.”

  Hickman slapped the arms of his chair. “Then get me J. Edgar Hoover—whosoever’s in charge. I want Deacon Wilhite to get a lawyer—not for me, tell him; I’m willing to be here. It’s my duty to be here. But I want a lawyer for those old folks. They have to have bail; maybe a doctor—”

  “What do you mean that it’s your ‘duty’ to be here?” one of the reporters broke in, thus setting off a bombardment of questions:

  “Why did you prevent the guard from performing his duty?”

  “Who was that gunman?”

  “Where did you people come from?”

  “From Georgia,” Hickman said.

  “What is the name of your county sheriff?”

  “Oh, DeCarter,” Hickman said, shaking his head, “Carter G. DeCarter. I was raised with him. If you don’t believe me, call him.”

  “Mr. Hickman,” another voice broke in, “what is your connection with Senator Sunraider?”

  He looked at his hands.

  “Would you care to explain why you were crying?” I said.

  Suddenly I heard McGowan’s Deep South accent, “Doctor, now you just rest back there comfortable in your chair and take your own good time, and tell us in your own words who—”

  I saw his huge head shift slightly at the voice, but McGowan’s insinuating “Doctor” earned him nothing more than a quizzical roll of old Hickman’s bloodshot eyes.

  “Can you tell us the gunman’s name?” someone said.

  He shook his head.

  “Can you identify the assassin in any way?”

  He shook his head.

  “Then perhaps you can tell us when it was you realized that the gunman was firing at the Senator.”

  “When he hit him the second time and nobody else seemed to be shot,” Hickman said.

  “Reverend,” a sharp-faced man from the Post said, “are you and your group members of a political-action group?”

  He was silent.

  “Communist, then?”

  “Civil-rights agitators?”

  “Where are you stopping in Washington?”

  “What on earth is going on here?” a feminine voice broke in.

  We swung around. It was a small, stiff-backed, gray-haired nurse, her eyes glittering. She said, “This is outrageous. Don’t you men realize that you’re in a hospital? It’s highly irregular, your being here, and if you don’t keep the corridor clear and keep your voices down, I shall see that you’re evicted! I don’t care who you are!”

  “We’re sorry, ma’am,” McGowan said. “We’ll keep it down.”

  “Well, see that you do,” she snapped, leaving with a snap-and-crackle of tinlike linen.

  For a moment Hickman watched remotely as we jostled one another around his chair, then he held up his enormous hands.

  “Gentlemen, that nurse is right; we’re making too much noise, and it isn’t getting anybody anywhere. Now, I’ve been long-trained both in keeping the peace and in holding my peace, so while I’m sorry, you will have to wait just like I’m having to wait.”

  “Now see here, Doctor,” McGowan began, “we have our duty—”

  “Yes,” Hickman said, “and I have mine, so there’s no point in asking me anything more because he’s the one to do the telling.”

  Suddenly, but for the scratching of a single pen, the corridor was hushed. I stared into his face, uncertain as to whether he was referring to Deacon Wilhite, to J. Edgar Hoover, or to some more transcendent “he”—even God.

  “Doctor,” McGowan said, “did I hear you say that he would have to tell us?”

  “That’s right,” Hickman said.

  “Then why didn’t you tell us that in the first place?”

  Suddenly I was swept along in a hushed stampede for the elevators. Then in the crush going down, it came to me that Hickman’s “he” was not Deacon Wilhite, but the Senator, and when the others rushed off to the Justice Department I phoned Scoggins, my editor, to say that I was sticking with Hickman.

  Scoggins was harassed, his voice intensely irritated. “Who is this?”

  “It’s me, McIntyre,” I said.

  “McIntyre! Where in hell are you?”

  “At the hospital.”

  “What goddamned hospital?”

  I named the hospital where they had taken Senator Sunraider.

  “Well, why are you still there?”

  “Why, what do you mean?”

  “Why, don’t you know that the Senator’s dead?”

  “Dead? No, he isn’t dead!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes!”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he’s still in surgery.”

  “Did you see him?”

  “No, but I know that he’s still alive. A nurse just passed through the hall.”

  “Alive, hell, we’ve had one report that he was DOA and another that he’s in a coma; now you tell me he’s still in surgery. What are the facts?”

  “I don’t know yet. He might be in a coma, but they’re still trying to save him. That’s the latest word around here.”

  “It had better be, McIntyre. And you stay there and get the latest facts. You stay there, you hear?”

  “I’m sticking here,” I said. I hurried back upstairs with a growing sense of alarm. Suppose the Senator was dead? Something sinister seemed to have taken over the District. In the elevator I was taken with a fit of nervous shaking.

  CHAPTER 7

  I FOUND HIM STILL there in the hushed, clinical atmosphere of the corridor, kneeling with his elbows resting on the seat of the chair, his face in semishadow I could see his lips moving above his clasped hands, and with the security men having taken position down at the turn of the corridor, he seemed utterly alone. I was puzzled, then drawing closer I saw that his eyes were closed, and upon reaching him I realized that he was praying what was possibly one of the most improbable prayers ever addressed to God, his voice a passionate but almost inaudible whisper which reached my ear in hoarse bursts and soaring flights of supplication.

  “Lord, have mercy,” he prayed, “have mercy, Lord, on this unhappy land….

  “Yea, Lord, this land that’s left its substance to burn bone-dry in Thy blameless sun, unstrung from Thy ever-redeeming voice …

  “This new, most heathenish land, Lord. This land that’s soiled itself before the ancient flight of doves, the screams of eagles, the fall and rise of wheat, corn, cotton, and red roses, Thy Son upon his cross …

  “Please, Mahster, I ask your help for this most woeful, mammy-made, and wilful of nations, this nation born in blood and redeemed by sacrifice and sorrow—yea!—but that’s left its God-earned path in doggish devotion to Caesar’s own green bile!

  “Yea, Lord—Amen!—its Bible forgot, its own laws bleeding from the raw self-laceration and desecration of its ancient dream …

  “Yes, Lord, I know it’s true. Its honor compromised and sullied, its sacred, sea-crossing, years-in-the-wilderness memory mocked in talking tubes, in bottles, in hypodermic needles, and in booze …

  “Oh, yes, Lord, but knowing all this, I, your poor, guilty, defaulting steward who failed his sacred charge must still ask Thy grace for him who lies beyond these hospital walls in pain.

  “Spare him, Lord, and keep him for later days of retribution.

  “Give him, Lord, a Jonah’s chance. Just one further opportunity to make the shore and do Thy holy bidding.

  “Oh, because both land and child are still your land, still your child, Lord. And Thine the mystery we suffer and behold.

  “So please, Mahster, visit not the father’s sins upon Thy errant children.

  “Oh, just one more smile, Lord, upon him and us whose life now lies twisting and turning in the palm of Thy most delicate and powerful, most wrathful and merciful, all-creature-creating holy hand….

  “Oh, do not close Thy hand,

 
“Lord!

  “Please,

  “do not clinch

  “Thy fist,

  “Lord!”

  It was utterly uncanny and unintelligible, and my mind was revolted by that which my ears and eyes recorded: Old Hickman really was praying for Sunraider! I simply couldn’t bear it. Suddenly I was crouching beside him, one knee on the floor, shaking my head as I tried to bring matters back to the plane of reason.

  “Mr. Hickman,” I said, “won’t you please answer a few questions?”

  He stiffened, seemed not to breathe, then, slowly lowering his hands, he turned his head, facing me with closed eyes, waiting.

  “I believe that you owe it to the public,” I went on. “Already this shooting has created a panic which will soon be tearing through the streets unless you cooperate.”

  His eyelids flickered, and I paused before the force of his moist old eyes.

  “Yes, and I suppose with a cloudburst of brickbats and switchblade knives,” he said hoarsely. “Young man, can’t you see the position I’m in?”

  “Yes, I do, but the news has gone out over the wire services and the world—”

  Suddenly I broke off, hearing his question echoing through my head.

  “No,” I said hurriedly, “I mean, yes—that’s why I’m asking you to cooperate.”

  His voice came sadly, almost pleading in rising inflection, “Young man,” he said, “I’m on my knees!”

  I felt perspiration break from my forehead, a flush of heat. “But listen, but, sir,” I said, “I won’t quote you, sir. I’ll keep it off the record. But why on earth would you weep for a man who is known, who is notorious for hating your people?” It’s masochism, I thought, masochism and anarchy.

  He spoke as to the seat of the chair, his voice echoing—spink-spink—against the corridor walls as from the depths of a well.

  “Hate? So that’s it. Why should I—Listen, you ask me why, but would you understand it if I told you? Son, who do you think I am?”

  “Who?” I said. “I don’t know, that’s why I’m seeking answers.”