Hanging Curve

by Troy Soos

  “You know for sure it was the Elcars?” I asked. “I got to believe it takes a better reason than losing a baseball game to kill a man.”

  Aubury held out the back of one hand; with the other, he pinched a fold of dark brown skin. “Here is all the reason they need.”

  I wished I could argue, but I knew that what he said was all too often true. I shot a look at Karl; he’d said almost nothing since we arrived, and I had the feeling that the direction the conversation was taking came as no surprise to him.

  Aubury’s next words confirmed my suspicion. “Karl and I have had some discussions,” he said. “We believe that you would be the ideal person to look into Crawford’s lynching.”

  “All I did was play in one ball game with the Elcars,” I said. “That doesn’t mean I know anything, or have any idea how to find out anything.”

  “Having played with Enoch’s club,” Aubury answered, “you have a legitimate reason for contacting the Elcars again. And they might assume you share their racial sympathies.” He waved off my protest that I didn’t. “I don’t mean to suggest that such an assumption would be accurate. But if they’re inclined to believe it is, they might be more forthcoming with information.” He looked to Karl. “Also, Karl tells me you’ve been involved in a couple of murder investigations in the past, and had some success with them. Equally important, he vouches for your sense of justice.”

  I knew it was intended as a compliment, but I didn’t feel like thanking Karl for trying to draw me into this. “Those were murders, not lynchings,” I said, recalling Karl’s explanation of the difference. “Even if I do learn whether it was ballplayers or Klansmen behind Crawford’s killing, it was a mob of them, not one person. Do you really think I can track down everybody who took part? Or that the police would arrest them all if I did? What’s the point of me putting my neck out if there’s no chance it’s gonna do any good?”

  Aubury considered my argument before replying, “This isn’t about bringing Crawford’s killers to justice. I know that’s not going to happen. But I do want to prevent any additional deaths—to people of either race.”

  Karl spoke up. “Our concern is that there’s going to be retaliation for Crawford’s death, and then whites will retaliate for that, and so on and so on, until the whole damn city’s at war.”

  “We do not want a repeat of 1917,” Aubury said. “Hostilities escalated for two months before culminating in the riot.”

  I hadn’t known that there was a buildup to the riot; I thought they usually erupted suddenly. “How did it start?” I asked.

  “With a city council meeting,” Aubury answered softly. He began another ritual cleaning of his eyeglasses. “The United States had entered the war, and industries were short of workers. Some of the companies in East St. Louis recruited Negroes from the South, and they moved up here in droves—factory jobs are far more lucrative than picking cotton in Mississippi. But a lot of their new neighbors didn’t like the idea of colored folk taking ‘white’ jobs.

  “So, at the end of May, a mob of whites showed up at a city council meeting demanding that all Negroes be driven out of town. They found a friend in one of the local politicians, Alexander Flannigan, who said he agreed that ‘East St. Louis must remain a white man’s town.’ Then he pointed out that the citizens could do the evicting themselves because ‘there’s no law against mob violence.’

  “They took his advice. The mob left City Hall and ran out to the streets, pulling colored people from streetcars and beating them. Then they went to Negro homes and set them on fire. For three days, whites went on a rampage, trying to drive the colored population out. Some of the Negroes did leave, crossing over to this side of the river.

  “Fortunately, no one was killed. But over the next weeks, white agitators spread rumors that the colored people who remained were arming themselves for a Fourth of July massacre of white people. Newspapers picked up the rumors and published them as if they came from credible sources. Soon all of East St. Louis was living in fear.

  “Shortly before the holiday, a group of white men decided to make a preemptive attack. They drove through a colored neighborhood spraying the houses with bullets. Some residents fired back ... a couple of whites were killed. And then—” Aubury looked from Karl to me. “Well, if you two have time, perhaps I can take you on a little tour.”

  Karl and I waited at the intersection of Broadway and Collinsville Avenue in East St. Louis, not far from City Hall. We huddled in our overcoats against the chilly, overcast day.

  “I never noticed about the streetcars before,” I said.

  “Some things are hard to see,” he replied thoughtfully. “When you’re dining in a restaurant, you don’t bother to think about whether the waiter has had a chance to eat.”

  It took a moment until I got Karl’s point. “Guess you’re right.”

  Franklin Aubury couldn’t travel with us because he’d had to wait for a “colored” streetcar. And since St. Louis didn’t have nearly as many trolleys for Negroes as it had for white passengers, he still hadn’t arrived.

  “Besides,” Karl said, “a lot of these Jim Crow laws are new. Ten years ago, we could have ridden together. But now it seems there are more kinds of segregation in the Midwest than there are in Dixie.”

  It was another ten minutes before Aubury stepped off an overcrowded streetcar. When he joined us, he made no mention of the delay. He simply straightened the knot of his necktie, adjusted the brim of his derby, and picked up the conversation as if we’d never been separated. “This was where the killing started, gentlemen,” he said. “Right at this intersection.”

  There were no visible signs that anything had happened there, no indications of burning or destruction. People of both races bustled about, doing their shopping and filing in and out of office buildings.

  “On the morning of July 2,” Aubury continued, “white workers gathered at the Labor Temple, a couple of blocks from here, for a protest meeting. What they were protesting was the fact that colored people had had the audacity to defend their homes and families the night before. What they decided was to drive the Negroes out once and for all.

  “They marched down here, and when a colored man stepped off a streetcar on his way to work they shot him. Once they got their first taste of blood, they wanted more—and they proved insatiable.”

  Aubury started walking east on Collinsville, Karl and I on either side of him. “For the next two hours, blood flowed all over this street. Trolleys were stopped and all Negroes—men, women, and children—were pulled out. The lucky ones got a quick bullet. The others were clubbed, or stoned, or kicked to death—and it often continued after they were dead, until they could no longer be recognized as human. The white mob grew as the killing went on; even women and children joined in, using hatpins and penknives on their victims. And spectators lined the sidewalks, cheering the massacre.”

  I couldn’t have said anything if I’d wanted to; my throat felt like I was trying to swallow a chunk of broken glass.

  When we reached Illinois Avenue, Aubury said, “It continued all the way to here. By then the mob was so large, it split up into smaller gangs, who started rampaging through the rest of the city.” He led us around the corner, and then turned on Fifth Street, back toward Broadway.

  I was finally able to croak out a question. “What about the police?”

  “Most remained in their station houses,” Aubury answered. “Of the officers who did venture onto the streets, few did so for law-enforcement purposes. Some of the police egged the mob on, thinking it was fine entertainment to watch Negroes die.” His tone was matter-of-fact, and I didn’t know how he could sound so calm. Then I saw how tightly clenched the muscles were in Aubury’s jaw. “With the police useless,” he went on, “the mayor belatedly called for the National Guard. The militia began to arrive by early afternoon, and I will give them due credit: Most of the Guardsmen tried to restore order and stop the killing.”

  “But not all of them,”
Karl put in.

  “No, not all. There was one incident in which a Guardsman came upon a gang of whites beating a colored man. When they saw the soldier, they stopped, and asked him if his rifle was loaded. He demonstrated that it was by shooting the Negro to death.”

  The tightness in my throat had spread to my stomach, and I was hoping the tour would conclude soon; I didn’t want to learn any more about how cruel humans could be to each other.

  We crossed Broadway, and continued to Brady Avenue, then turned toward the river. This was the area Margie and I had seen from the trolley on our way to Cubs Park. A few dozen wood shanties were scattered throughout the otherwise desolate section of town, and Negro children played in the street. Beyond the shanties was the railroad yard, with the Mississippi River past the tracks.

  “This is where most of the colored people lived,” Aubury said, “in homes like these. Then the mob came to eradicate them.” He pointed to the railroad tracks. “The whites who had guns took position over there, while the rest of the mob went to work with torches, setting fire to the homes. The Negroes who ran out of their burning homes were shot down as they fled for the river. For the whites, it was as easy as flushing quail.” Gesturing in the opposite direction, he said, “A contingent of Guardsmen formed a line over there, but not to protect the citizens whose homes were being destroyed. No, what they did was fix their bayonets and drive any escaping Negroes back into the hands of the mob. The colored folk who lived here had a choice: burn alive in their homes, be impaled on bayonets, or die in a hail of bullets. Most opted for trying to get past the gunmen. Not many of them succeeded.”

  I tilted down the brim of my straw boater and ducked my head so my eyes couldn’t be seen.

  Aubury went on. “The arson spread to other buildings as the mob tried to burn out every single Negro. White gangs ran wild throughout the city, looting and burning any colored homes they found. They even torched the Broadway Opera House when a group of colored people sought refuge there. Everyone inside died as it burned to the ground.”

  The lawyer started walking back toward Broadway. “The city’s firefighters were the only ones who did their jobs that day. The mob threatened to kill them if they put out the fires, but they took the risk and attempted to save whatever homes they could. When their water hoses were cut, the firemen tried to continue with a bucket brigade, but it was hopeless.”

  He drew to a stop at Broadway and Fourth. “By nightfall, the city was lit up from the flames—they could be seen for miles—and the gangs started to gather here, still screaming for blood. Somebody shouted, ‘Southern niggers deserve a Southern lynching’, and a rope was produced. They found a colored man who’d survived the fires, and strung him up on a telephone pole. The crowd—more than a thousand—started chanting, ‘Get a nigger! Get another!’ More ropes were found and more Negroes brought in to be lynched. If the ropes were long enough, they hanged them from telephone poles and left the bodies dangling. If the rope was too short to get over a pole, they tied it to a car bumper and dragged their victim to death in the street.” Aubury’s voice was hoarse and fading; it didn’t sound like he’d be able to say much more.

  As we started walking back to the trolley line, Karl took over the account. “Nobody knows the final death count. One hundred, two hundred ... we’ll never know for sure. A lot of the bodies were burned beyond recognition, and others had been so mutilated they couldn’t be identified. Some of them were dumped en masse in Potter’s Field, and many were thrown into Cahokia Creek. There’s a fairly accurate count on the property damage though: sixteen blocks and more than two hundred homes burned to the ground.”

  “What happened to the people responsible?” I asked.

  Karl answered, “The county prosecutor claimed that his investigators were unable to find any witnesses to the riot. He also claimed that since the riot reflected ‘public sentiment,’ it would be impossible to obtain grand jury indictments anyway. Later, the state stepped in, and did obtain indictments and some convictions. Altogether, nine whites were sent to jail—as well as twelve Negroes ‘to keep things balanced.’ ”

  Franklin Aubury found his voice again. “When the riot occurred, the colored population was not able to organize any resistance to the mob; it was all they could do to try to get their families away to safety, over the bridge to St. Louis. But as a result of the riot, we now know we cannot rely on law enforcement or the justice system to protect us. And we are prepared in the event that anything like that should start again.” Aubury concluded emphatically, “No one is going to be given free rein to kill colored people. There might be a war, but there will not be a massacre.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Franklin Aubury’s account of the 1917 East St. Louis riot had left my mind reeling, my stomach queasy, and provided the grist for more than one nightmare. If his intent was to illustrate what an escalation of hostilities could lead to, he’d succeeded. If he wanted to motivate me to look into the Crawford lynching in the hopes of heading off such an escalation, he’d succeeded there as well. But he’d also left me overwhelmed; I had no idea of what to do or where to begin.

  It took a couple of days until it hit me that that’s exactly what I should be looking for: the starting point. Whether it’s a batter charging the pitcher’s mound to trigger a bench-clearing brawl, or a politician telling an angry mob that street violence is the solution to their grievance, there’s always an individual who sets things in motion. I might never identify everyone who was involved in killing Slip Crawford, or learn who tied the noose or who put it around his neck, but maybe I could at least find out who instigated the lynching.

  The fact that Crawford had been hanged in the Cubs’ ballpark suggested to me that he was killed because of the game with the Elcars. It could have been the Klansmen who’d watched the game, infuriated that he had beaten a white team. Or Enoch’s ballplayers, frustrated that they could do so little against Crawford with their bats.

  I decided to try the Elcars first, specifically the one player besides me who might have felt most humiliated by the colored pitcher.

  My phone call to the Enoch Motor Car Company was answered by a squeaky-voiced female who relayed the message to Roy Enoch that I wanted to talk with him.

  “Can’t take more than a hundred off the price,” he greeted me. “And that’s pretty darned generous, if you ask me. After all, you only played for us once, and you were hardly an asset.” I hadn’t said a word yet, and Enoch already sounded irritated with me.

  “I wasn’t calling about the car, Mr. Enoch—but I am still thinking about it. And as far as the game, I know you were expecting a lot from me, and I’m sorry I let you down.”

  Sounding somewhat mollified, he replied, “Well, truth be told, we weren’t expecting all that much—Tater Greene told us you were no Babe Ruth.”

  I was tired of apologizing for my performance, and annoyed to learn that they hadn’t thought I’d be much of a help anyway. “Then why did he ask me to play for you?”

  “Our regular second baseman got his hand caught in a fan belt. Greene thought you’d be an adequate replacement. He also said you were unlikely to be recognized as a major leaguer, and we figured that on a utility player’s salary you could probably use the extra ten bucks.”

  And to think I’d felt flattered at being recruited. I quickly moved on to the purpose of my call. “I’m interested in one of your other players: J. D. Whalen.”

  “You won’t find him here,” Enoch snapped. “And he doesn’t play for me anymore.”

  “I know. Greene told me you fired him. Thing is, I heard from a fellow I used to play ball with before the war. He’s managing a minor-league team in Des Moines, and he’s looking for a third baseman. I thought of Whalen; he played a pretty good third base against the Cubs, and since he’s out of work now, I thought he might be interested. You know where I could get in touch with him?”

  “For one thing, he’s not out of work. And for another, I’m not looking to do that snake any
favors.”

  “Why? What did he do?”

  “He—” Enoch sighed sharply. “Never mind what he did. I’m just glad he’s out of here.” The line was silent for a moment. “Oh, what the hell. I’d just as soon have J. D. living in another state, so go ahead and tell him about the Des Moines job if you want.” He then transferred me back to his secretary, who gave me the name and address of Whalen’s new employer.

  J. D. Whalen desperately needed a tailor. The vest of his gray-flannel suit was stretched over his barrel chest, the jacket sleeves were too short for his arms, and the cuffs of his trousers were bunched atop his scuffed oxfords. He also needed a barber; his pasty round face was topped by a full mane of bristly brown hair.

  “What can I do for you?” Whalen asked brightly. The office of Waverly Motors was so tiny that I was almost on top of him, but he showed no sign of remembering me. Of course, all ballplayers look different out of uniform, and I probably wouldn’t have recognized him on the street either.

  “I thought I could do something for you,” I said.

  A look of caution veiled Whalen’s dull green eyes.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not a salesman,” I said. “Name’s Mickey Welch. Played with you against the Cubs a couple weeks back.”

  “Oh, sure, second base.” He stood up from behind his schoolboy-sized desk. “Why don’t we step outside? I can use some air.”

  The office was dense with the smell of oil and exhaust from the adjacent service area, so I readily agreed.

  As we walked outside onto the rutted dirt lot at the corner of Waverly Avenue and Thirty-seventh Street in East St. Louis, Whalen called to a burly mechanic, “Clint! I’m takin’ five. Get the phone if it rings.”

  Waverly Motors was a smaller, shabbier version of Enoch’s auto dealership. The lot had only a dozen used automobiles for sale, and a single gasoline pump. I had the impression that most of the business was done in the wood-frame garage that still bore signs of its carriage-house origins.