Fairbairn, Ann

by Five Smooth Stones

  Get a good price for it, Mr. Agent, but sell it, sell it all. And if the folks who buy it hear small sounds in the night, tell them not to mind; that will be Gramp stirring round, seeing if a little boy is well tucked in. Sell it, Mr. Agent, sell it all.

  He heard Brad say gently: "It's rough, David. It's damned rough. I know. And it's going to be rougher. Then it will ease off. But things won't ever be quite the same again."

  David did not answer, and Brad went on, the blood of the dark people that flowed in his veins giving him the understanding, the wisdom about grief and the folly of burying it like a rotting bone, giving him the knowledge that it was clean and good when it was met face on.

  "Years from now you'll find yourself still thinking, 'Gramp'll get a kick out of hearing about that,' then realizing he's gone. My mother died ten years ago, but it still happens to me. The people we love never really leave us."

  When David spoke at last he said: "It's more than that, more than a personal thing, a personal loneliness. I felt it when the Prof died, too. He and my grandfather were the best men, the damnedest, goodest men I've ever known. Or ever will. There's a feeling of a vacuum in the world, a feeling of emptiness, when a man like Gramp leaves it."

  "Yes, I know," said Brad. He held out his glass and smiled. "It's going to take a couple more of these to untie those knots, chum. I don't want you to drink alone."

  As he took Brad's glass David said: "Come on, Brad. Let me show you the rest of the house. Gramp and his friends did it all except the bare framework."

  Later, after Brad had showered and was sitting on the divan again in a pair of David's pajamas and one of his old flannel robes, David said: "All right, Brad. I've been a hell of a host, just talking about myself. What? Why? Brad Willis in New Orleans?"

  "It gets bigger and better tomorrow. Brad Willis in Baton Rouge."

  "Lord, yes! I remember now. Your cousin—"

  "In the State Capitol. Attorney General's office. We had the same grandmother."

  "I wouldn't bring the matter up if I were you."

  "You mean I shouldn't rush into his office and say 'Hi, Cuz! How's it going? How about a drink?' I doubt that we meet."

  "It doesn't seem likely." David smiled, remembering Goodhue at Pengard. "Pity. A great pity."

  Brad looked into his drink for a moment, then spoke slowly, measuring his words like drops of acid from a medicine dropper.

  "I weathered Little Rock," he said. "Yes, I weathered Little Rock just dandy, sitting at my nice mahogany desk in my nice Boston law office. Believe me, I held up bravely." David had heard anger and scorn in Brad's voice, never such mocking bitterness. "But I didn't take it lying down. No, indeed." Brad got to his feed, padded back and forth across the narrow room. "I acted. Yes, sir, I acted. It mustn't be said that while a white mob was screaming 'Lynch the black bitch!' at a nice teen-age colored girl, Bradford Willis didn't act. I sent two fat checks, one to ALEC and one to the N-double-ACP." He whirled, pointed a finger at David, and still without raising his voice from that bitter monotone, said: "And I did more. I fired letters off to the papers, boom-boom, just like that. And the Globe sent someone out to interview me. I told 'em. By God, I told 'em what Bradford Willis thought of Governor Faubus and the whole stinking state of Arkansas.

  "And I did more than that. I told 'em what I thought of the Administration, too, from the President on down. Hell, there wasn't any feeling back of that show of force in Little Rock. Not a Goddamned word, not one lousy little word came out of Washington about it being an evil thing or even a not nice thing for children to walk through obscene mobs, risk their lives, to get to a school in the United States of America. All there was, all the hell there was, were high-sounding words about upholding the law of the land. You had the feeling that only great self-restraint prevented the word 'unfortunately' from being used. 'Unfortunately we must uphold the law.' Well, I told 'em about it; I told 'em all about it. Yes, indeed." He laughed abruptly. "That took courage, my boy. That took real courage. Even some of my Negro friends gave me hell for being so outspoken. You remember it, David—how up there in New England—cool, cool New England—the white people were more upset than the colored, at least as far as I could judge."

  David, watching the slow deliberate pacing, listening to the low, biting voice, thought how fortunate it was for those accused of crime that Bradford Willis had elected to act for the defense and not the prosecution. These were the words, this the tone, of a hanging prosecutor.

  "I felt virtuous as hell, David. Especially when I was criticized. I was, by God, in the forefront of the battle. I was, by God, hearing bullets whine. I went home and told Peg about it. She'd started on a whale of a bender, and all she'd say was, 'Come on, Buster. Have another drink.' She knows how brave I am; drunk or sober, God love her, Peg knows how brave I am."

  Brad went back to the divan and sat down, looking tired and spent. David wanted to say something, groped mentally for words, could find none. Brad continued: "It was weeks afterward that I picked up an old news magazine in the press room of the courthouse in Boston. I don't know what one it was—Life, Look, Newsweek, Time, one of them. There was a picture in it of a girl, not a little girl or a big girl, just a girl in a pretty summer dress, wearing glasses, carrying school-books. She was sitting on a bench, an ordinary wooden bench, the kind they put at bus stops. She was waiting for a bus. And ringed around her were beasts, slavering, filthy beasts, the kind you see in nightmares. She was all alone. All alone, David.

  "While Bradford Willis was being brave, sending off fat checks, making controversial remarks about a President whose voice was never heard, not even in a whisper, saying 'In the name of decency' but only saying 'In the name of the law'—this girl was sitting alone on a wooden bench listening to a mob of subhumans scream 'Lynch the black bitch!' Just a kid, David, just a damned sweet kid, all dressed up for her first day in high school."

  David spoke at last. "I was being brave, too, Brad. Nice and comfortable in that Boston law office—sounding off at ALEC meetings."

  "This isn't for you, David! For Christ's sake, no! You were stockpiling ammunition. You still are. Pengard, Harvard, practice, Oxford—you'll need them all."

  He stood, started the slow pacing again, hands deep in the pockets of the robe. "That's it, the 'why' of Bradford Willis in New Orleans. Or part of it. The picture never left me, never left my mind. Every time I saw a wooden bench—any kind, anywhere, in a park, at a street corner—I felt as Pilate might have felt when he saw a cross after the Crucifixion. That girl was always sitting on that bench, David, wherever it was."

  Were you there? Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Nehemiah was half screaming, half sobbing the words in the basement meeting room of the church in Laurel. Must Jesus bear the cross alone and all the world go free? His grandmother was singing the words in the church at the end of the road.

  Brad's voice silenced the voices in his mind. "O'Shea was down here last week on an estate case. He told me all hell was brewing underneath. This time, David, it's the primary grades. It's a little girl, a very small girl with chubby brown legs, all dressed in her Sunday best, and frightened. But at least, at least she's not alone. There's someone to hold her hand. A United States Marshal. Not her mother, not her father; they'd stone them to death, so help me. A United States Government official to take the hand of a big-eyed, frightened little girl and lead her up the steps of a schoolhouse in America, past human spittle and the obscene screams of human beings with sewers for minds. She doesn't know what it's all about the way my girl on the bench must have known; she's too little. She's just a little kid. Just a baby! Jesus! Jesus Christ, David! She's my kid! She's the child of every Negro in this country!"

  Suddenly the fire went out of Bradford Willis, and he sat on the edge of the divan, drank what was left of his drink thirstily. "That's why I'm here," he said. "I'm a helluva good lawyer and I'd be the last to say I'm not. I offered my services to ALEC for field work. Right now ALEC's shorter staffed
than the N-double-A. I can't leave everything up in the air in Boston, but gradually I'll be able to make myself more and more available. There's time, because it's not just here and it's not just now. It's tomorrow and next year, and the years to come until after they bury your grandchildren. Because I swear to you, David, all hell is going to break loose."

  Lawrence Travis had said that too, just a short time ago. David told Brad of his talk with Travis, and what Travis had said after a recent trip South: a bugler practicing to sound reveille—and then—Charge!

  "Yes," said Brad. "That's the way it is."

  "But, Brad—it's not that simple. Are you suffering from the illusion that all the Negroes in the South are on our side of the fence?"

  "Hell, no! On the bus today I overheard a colored woman talking to a friend. It was all just a mess of trouble, she said. First thing anyone knew there wouldn't be no colored have no jobs anywhere. Bunch of foolishness, and nothing but trouble coming out of it. No, I'm not so naive I don't know there are status quo Negroes in the South as well as the 'Omi-god-isn't-it-a-shame-I'm-sure-glad-rm-here' Negroes in the North. But standing in front of them there's a solid phalanx of youth. It only took me a day, sitting quietly as an observer in the ALEC office, to realize that."

  The telephone had not rung for the better part of an hour, and now its sudden clamor startled them both. David glanced at his watch and said, "It might be important, calling this late." He answered it, then handed it to Brad. "Long distance. For Bradford Willis."

  "Here?"

  David saw the cringe of fear, knew Brad was thinking of Peg and some of her calls when she had been drinking, and tensed when the other man took the telephone and said, "Yes?" quietly.

  David tactfully retired to the kitchen to refill their empty glasses, but the house was too small to take him out of the range of a normal voice, and Brad's followed him. There seemed to be no strain in it, no patient gentleness. Instead he heard a bantering affection. Maybe, he thought, it's not Peg; maybe at last Brad has found someone to ease the tension— "apprehension" might be a better word—that living with Peg entailed. He heard Brad saying, "That's fine, hon.... Just getting back?... Fine.... Of course I'm all right.... Just take it easy, worry wart.... I'll call you tomorrow night.... You'll be all right, Babe.... Sure, wait...." Brad called, "David!"

  When David came into the room the expression on Brad's face warmed him. It was Peg, no doubt about that, and she must be sober. Brad's face was that of man who has been denied sex for a long time and then finds satisfaction. The deep vertical lines beside nose and mouth had smoothed out miraculously, and the eyes were clear with the clarity of inner release.

  David heard Peg say, "Hi, David!" Her voice was the same, deep and husky, but there was no drink in it, and he smiled into the telephone. "I'm so sorry," she was saying. "We're all sorry about Gramp. There's nothing we can do, I know, and I'm not going to be a stupe and offer. But I'm thinking of you."

  "Thanks, Peg."

  "David."

  "Yes?"

  "That's quite a guy I've got, isn't it? Quite a guy."

  "You mean that shyster ambulance chaser sitting here drinking my good liquor?"

  "That's the lad. That's my boy. Imagine still being in love with a dope like that after thirteen years. Keep your eye on him, David. He's a good kid and he's in strange territory."

  "Haven't you heard? They've repealed Louisiana's Black Code statutes for the duration of his visit. I heard there was talk of freeing the slaves. He's lunching at Chez Francois in Baton Rouge tomorrow with his cousin."

  "That'll be the day. Let me speak to the dope again, David. And, remember—even though we chasten you now and then, we still love you."

  "Thanks again, Peg. Here's the dope."

  When he brought the drinks in from the kitchen, Brad was leaning back on the couch, his head on one of Tant'Irene's antimacassars. "God," he said, "that's a relief."

  "She sounded fine. I didn't want to ask before—"

  "I know. People don't. She was drinking when I left day before yesterday. For once I left anyhow. There wasn't anything I could do, and my being there seems to make it worse sometimes. Know where she's been tonight? An AA meeting. God knows, she's been before—plenty of times. But there's always the hope that this time it will work. Or that something will." He sighed deeply. "Let's drink our drinks and go to bed. We're both bushed."

  CHAPTER 59

  Just before the funeral services David was able to have a brief talk with Chuck Martin, who said only, "He ran a good race, David; don't wish him back."

  "Just for that trip," said David. "That's all. I wish he could have had that."

  It was obvious fifteen minutes before the scheduled time for the services that there would not be enough seats for all, that people would be standing in the back and out on the small roofed porch of the French Quarter church, the church where Geneva Champlin had sung in the choir and that Gramp had attended whenever his wife could exert enough influence to make him. Inside the building Emma Jefferson was playing the piano, runs and chords, no hymn in particular, not minor in key but to David inexpressibly sad. In Gramp's notes, under the forks in the buffet, had been the words: "Emma J.—piano" and the organ would remain silent.

  He sent Chuck inside, afraid no seat would be available, and when Hosea Jones approached him to take him to the family entrance he shook his head and went in with others to a seat reserved for him beside Pop Jefferson. He had always said he had no use for funerals, and wished there could have been a private funeral service for Gramp, yet now the sight of the packed church brought a certain comfort. How did he know, who in hell was he to say Gramp was not drawing comfort from it too? One damn sure thing, he thought, if Gramp does know, he's proud, but he wished it were over. He could not shake the feeling that Li'l Joe Champlin would not be at rest, not really at rest, until all the people had gone away, even his grandson, and he was in the quiet of the cemetery, with the dark understanding earth over him; that not until then would Joseph Champlin go free.

  Preacher Jackson looked a little like the pictures David had seen of Martin Luther King; he was of the generation just ahead of David's, with a round, open face that would have been no more than benign were it not for the eyes and the strength and fire behind them. Hosea Jones had been right: this was no old-time ranter, out to stir a congregation to a fever pitch of emotion and hysteria. He saw, when they met, why Gramp had liked him.

  The service opened with one of the hymns Gramp had wanted: "Take My Hand, Precious Lord," and from where he sat he could see the tracks of tears on Emma Jefferson's face, the light from a window catching the moisture on the brown skin. In spite of himself he found the hymn getting to him, undermining his control. Then Jackson began to speak, and David sighed with relief at the opening words.

  "Our beloved brother said he did not want a long talk at his funeral. That was like him. Joseph Champlin was a quiet man." The way he said "was a quiet man" made David's skin prickle. "But it would not be right to pay our last respects to a great and good man without a few words in parting." Keep it few, thought David; keep it few; don't cross Gramp and me up now, when we're helpless.

  Sara's red roses were there, a glowing, crimson blanket over the coffin. He fixed his eyes on them now, remembering that he and Sara had once talked about the barbarism of funerals, the senselessness of a lot of claptrap over stiff cold clay; then he smiled inwardly at her understanding. Whatever she might feel, she had instinctively done the right thing, knowing Gramp set considerable store by funerals. Her card was tucked away among the roses—"To Gramp with love from Sara"—and when Gramp's friends had stood at the side of the coffin in the mortuary the night before, and when they had filed past before the start of the services, he had seen curious fingers turn it for a better view, caught puzzled expressions on all the faces.

  He could hear the minister's voice in the background of his thoughts about Sara. Then, like a bugle, it was commanding his attention.

  "It is
not easy to bring comfort to those who are bereaved. But we can say to the young son—for he was more son than grandson—in the hour of his grief, 'You have been blessed by the Lord because in your infancy and youth you were in the care of a great and good man.' "

  The minister's eyes were full on him, soft, compassionate, but behind the softness and compassion there was the flash of something like a sword.

  " 'And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and behold, he keepeth the sheep.' "

  Preacher Jackson turned to the congregation. "That was David," he said, and then his voice dropped to a whisper, but the whisper could be heard in the far corners of the room: "That was David."

  There was no sound from the people in the crowded little church. Before there had been punctuating cries of "Yes, Lord!" and "Yes, Jesus!" and "Amen!" Now there was silence.

  "We know, brothers and sisters, what Jesse's son did. We know that when he stood before Saul and offered to slay the Philistine that the king armed him with a coat of mail and put upon his head a helmet of brass. And David put them off and said to the king, 'I cannot go with these; for I have not proved them.' And then the Bible tells us that 'he took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in a shepherd's bag which he had... and his sling was in his hand: and he drew near to the Philistine.'

  "And then the Bible says that when the Philistine saw the boy he laughed at him and mocked him and cursed him by his gods. And then said David to the Philistine "Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou has defied. This day will the Lord deliver thee unto my hand...' "