Johnny Get Your Gun

by John Ball

  Mike swallowed hard, looked at his wife, and gained encouragement from what he saw written on her face. He drew breath, hesitated, and then forced himself to use a simple word for the first time in his life. “I will, sir,” he said. “Thank you very much. I couldn’t pay the big fine; we ain’t got much.”

  “I understand. Where is your car parked, sir?”

  “Across the street, in the lot.”

  “Then perhaps it would be well if I had one of my men pick it up and drive it around to the back for you. We have a disturbance out front at the moment and until we’ve dealt with it, I think it would be better if you didn’t appear.”

  Virgil knew, before he looked, what to expect. He glanced out of the window and saw the picket line, the signs with his name on them, the leader, a tall black man in flamboyant African robes. This was not a mass demonstration, this was peaceful picketing, but it would be made up of hardcore militants.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Tibbs said.

  “It might be better not,” the captain counseled. “They’re after your hide. Larry Harnois is the man.”

  “Larry is damn good,” Tibbs countered, “but this one is mine. It’s a matter of complexion.”

  Lindholm did not tell him to be careful, or what to do. He watched as Tibbs walked out of his office, then he picked up the phone once more. He spoke to Larry Harnois and gave some specific directions.

  Now that the meeting in the captain’s office was over, Virgil found himself in a strangely calm frame of mind. The fact that fifty or sixty men were picketing the police headquarters, protesting his actions, did not disturb him in the least. Johnny McGuire had been safely restored to his parents, Dempsey was in custody, and the immediate crisis was over. The picketing was a nuisance, but he did not regard it as a dangerous one.

  In complete possession of himself he walked through the small lobby, pushed open the front door, and started down the fifty odd feet of sidewalk which led to the curb.

  The leader spotted him before he had gone five steps. He let out a yell and then spread his arms to indicate that his followers should fall in behind him.

  Without slowing his pace Tibbs walked up to within five feet of him and stopped. “You wanted to see me?” he said.

  The man planted the palms of his hands on his hips and surveyed him with hard hostility. “You’re the one who’s betrayed his people,” he accused loudly enough for all to hear.

  “What people?” Virgil asked.

  “Black people!”

  “Is that all you can say for yourself—that you’re black?” Tibbs retorted.

  He shook a powerful fist under Tibbs’s nose. “Don’t you get fresh with me!” he challenged. “You know what I can do.”

  Tibbs took in the black faces and realized that these were the hard types; nothing he could say or do would have any influence on them.

  “Where’s that goddamned white boy that shot my soul brother?”

  “The man who murdered him is in jail right there.” He pointed casually toward the fourth floor. “And get this in case it means anything to you—he isn’t white.”

  There was a protesting roar; the pickets pressed closer now and out of the wave of sound words like “fake” and “frame-up” emerged with ugly edges.

  The leader filled his powerful lungs. “I’m going to rip you to pieces. I’m going to make you crawl in the dust and beg for mercy from the black people you’ve betrayed. I’m going to make you hate the day you were born!”

  “No you’re not. You’ve had your say and that’s enough. Now I’m going to tell you what black power is.”

  The speaker seized the opportunity to ridicule him. “Be real quiet, boys, he’s goin’ to tell us what black power is. He’s goin’ to tell me the meaning of black power. He’s goin’ to turn the tide of Black America; he’s goin’ to stop us from taking over the country. This black boy with the brown nose!” He swept his arms wide so that the brilliant colors of his African robes dominated the scene.

  “You’re a phoney,” Tibbs said. “And you’re a poor excuse for a black man. All you can do is make a loud noise and then sit in courtrooms reading the thoughts of Mao Tse-tung while you’re waiting to be tried. And you look like a freak.”

  “Are you calling me a freak!”

  “You’re damn right I am,” Virgil shot back. He did not yell like his opponent, but his words carried an even greater power. “You aren’t a leader, you couldn’t shine Ralph Bunche’s shoes.”

  For a moment it seemed as if Tibbs might be losing control of himself. His face was contorted now and unconsciously he had doubled his hands into fists.

  “Get it through your head that I’m a black man. And I’ve been one a lot longer than you. That means that things were that much tougher when I grew up and got shoved off the sidewalk by young white punks who thought they owned the world.”

  The militant tried to wave him down, but Tibbs would not be stopped. “I know more about being a Negro than you ever will, because I fought for the right to live in the South before civil rights was in the dictionary.”

  With his right arm he elbowed the bigger man aside almost as though he were not there. When he continued a fire of urgency burned in his words, and total intensity had seized the features of his face.

  “I heard about Booker Washington and George W. Carver and then like a kid I dreamed that some day a great man would come, with a black skin, that the whole world would look up to and honor.”

  “And when we looked there was Martin Luther King. Nobody shoved him aside when he stood up to accept the Nobel Prize, but some bastard couldn’t stand it, so he shot him. And while things like you cried for black power and started riots that ripped apart the Negro sections in Newark and Detroit other men stood up to take his place.”

  He stopped suddenly, his teeth clamped hard together. Then he consciously regained control of himself; when he spoke again it was almost calmly. “I work here because nobody cares whether I’m black or white, just so long as I do my job. I clawed my way up against prejudice, I licked poverty, and I earned my job. And here. I’m not a black man, I’m Virgil Tibbs, a respected police officer, and nobody asks for anything more. I just caught a murderer who’s in a cell upstairs. Now who the hell are you!”

  He had nothing more to say after that. He knew that he could not change the jeering mob of professional militants, but he could show that he was not afraid. He knew that he had done that.

  He turned on his heel and outwardly as calm as he had been when he had come out, he walked back into the aging building which houses the headquarters of the Pasadena police.