Ragtime: A Novel

by E. L. Doctorow

  Eventually he found the offices of the Mother Earth magazine published by Emma Goldman. They were on 13th Street in a brownstone that served now as the anarchist’s residence when she was in New York. He stood in the street under the lamppost and stared at the windows. He did this for several nights. Finally a man came out of the door, walked down the steps and crossed the street to where he stood. He was a tall cadaverous man, with long hair and a string tie. He said It gets cold in the evenings—come in, we have no secrets. And Younger Brother was led across the street and up the steps.

  It turned out that in his vigil he had been mistaken for a police spy. He was treated with elaborate irony. He was offered tea. Numbers of people were standing about in the apartment in their hats and coats. Then Goldman appeared in a doorway and her attention was directed to him. Good God, she said. That’s no policeman. She began to laugh. She was putting on a hat and setting it in place with hatpins. He was thrilled that she remembered him. Come with us, she called.

  A while later Younger Brother found himself in the Cooper Union down near the Bowery. The hall was hot, crowded to overflowing. There were lots of foreigners. Men wore their derbies though indoors. It was a great stinking congress garlicked and perfumed in its own perspiration. It had met in support of the Mexican Revolution. He hadn’t known there was a Mexican Revolution. Men waved their fists. They stood on benches. Speaker after speaker arose. Some spoke in languages other than English. They were not translated. He had trouble hearing. What seemed to have happened was that the Mexican peons had spontaneously revolted against Díaz the President of Mexico for the past thirty-five years. They needed guns. They needed ammunition. They were striking from the hills, attacking the Federals and the supply trains with wooden staves and muzzle-loading muskets. He thought about this. Finally Emma Goldman got up to speak. Of all the orators she was the best. The hall went quiet as she described the complicity of the wealthy landowners and the despised tyrant Díaz, the subjugation of the peons, the poverty and starvation and, most shameful of all, the presence of representatives of American business firms in the national counsels of the Mexican government. Her voice was strong. As she moved her head and gesticulated the light flashed from her glasses. He pushed his way forward to be closer to her. She described one Emiliano Zapata, a simple farmer of the Morelos district who had turned revolutionary because he had no choice. He wore the share farmer’s bleached pajama coat and trousers, bound over the chest with bandoleers and belted with a cartridge belt. My comrades, she cried, that is not a foreign costume. There are no foreign lands. There is no Mexican peasant, there is no dictator Díaz. There is only one struggle throughout the world, there is only the flame of freedom trying to light the hideous darkness of life on earth. The applause was deafening. Younger Brother had no money. He turned out his pockets, mortified to see all around him people who reeked of their poverty coming up with handfuls of change. He found himself standing at the foot of the speaker’s platform. The speeches were done, she stood surrounded by colleagues and admirers. He saw her hug a swarthy man who wore a dark suit and tie but also an enormous sombrero. She turned and her glance fell on the balding blondish young man whose head came just above the platform stage, as if severed like a French republican’s, the eyes turned upward in a kind of ecstasy. She laughed.

  He thought at the end of the rally that she would speak to him but there was a reception for the Mexican back at the offices of Mother Earth. He was the Zapatista representative. He wore boots under his cuffless trousers. He did not smile but drank tea and then wiped his long moustaches with the back of his hand. The rooms were crowded with journalists, bohemians, artists, poets and society women. Younger Brother was not aware that he was following Goldman about. He was desperate for her attention. But she was enormously busy with everyone else. Each new person who came in the door had to be seen. She had lots on her mind. She introduced people to each other. To different persons she proposed different things they must do, others they should speak with, places they ought to go, situations they ought to look into or write about. He felt incredibly ignorant. She went into the kitchen and whipped up the batter for a cake. Here, she said to Younger Brother, take these cups and put them on the table in the big room. He was grateful to be taken into her network of useful people. There were posters of Mother Earth magazine covers on every wall. A tall long-haired man was dispensing the punch. He was the one who had come out to the street to invite Younger Brother upstairs. He looked like a Shakespearean actor down on his luck. His fingernails were outlined in black. He was drinking as much as he dispensed. He greeted people by singing a line or two from a song. Everyone laughed who spoke to him. His name was Ben Reitman, he was the man Goldman lived with. There was something the matter with the top of his head, there was a shaven patch. Noticing Younger Brother’s glance he explained that he had been in San Diego and had been tarred and feathered. Emma had gone there to speak. He acted as her manager, renting the halls, making the arrangements. They had not wanted Emma to speak. They had kidnapped him, driven him somewhere, stripped him and tarred him. They had burned him with their cigars, and worse. As he gave this account his face darkened, his smile disappeared. An audience had gathered. He was holding the punch ladle and it began to click against the side of the bowl. He couldn’t seem to let go of it. He gazed at his hand with a peculiar smile on his face. They did not want my momma to speak in Kansas City or Los Angeles or Spokane, he said. But she spoke. We know every jail. We win every case. My momma will speak in San Diego. He laughed as if he couldn’t believe his own hand shook as it did. The ladle clicked against the bowl.

  At this point a man pushed his way to the table and said You think, Reitman, the world is well-served by your being tarred and feathered? He was a short, totally baldheaded man with thick eyeglasses, a large full mouth and a very sallow complexion with skin like wax. The issue has become Emma’s right to speak rather than what she has to say. All our energies go into defending ourselves. That is their strategy, not our own. I’m afraid you don’t understand that. What is so glorious, poor Reitman, about being bailed out of the tank by some guilty liberal. So that then he can congratulate himself. How is the world advanced? The two men stared at each other. Goldman’s voice called cheerfully from the back of the gathering: Sacha! She came around the table wiping her hands on her apron. She stood next to Reitman. She gently removed the ladle from his hand. Sacha, my dear, she said to the sallow man, if first we have to teach them their own ideals, perhaps then we may teach them ours.

  The party went on into the early hours. Younger Brother despaired of getting her attention. He sat, Indian style, on an old couch with sagging springs. After some time he realized the room was quiet. He looked up. Goldman was sitting on a kitchen chair directly in front of him. The room was otherwise empty, he was the last guest. Unaccountably, tears came to his eyes. You actually asked if I remembered you, Emma Goldman said. But how could I forget. Could anyone forget a sight such as that, my pagan. She touched his cheek with her thumb and mashed away a tear. So tragic, so tragic. She sighed. Is that all you want from your life? Her large magnified eyes peered at him through the lenses of her eyeglasses. She sat with her legs apart, her hands on her knees. I don’t know where she is. But if I could tell you, what good would that do? Suppose you got her to come back to you? She would only stay awhile. She would run away from you again, don’t you know that? He nodded. You look terrible, Goldman said. What have you been doing to yourself? Don’t you eat? Don’t you get any fresh air? He shook his head. You have aged ten years. I cannot sympathize. You think you are special, losing your lover. It happens every day. Suppose she consented to live with you after all. You’re a bourgeois, you would want to marry her. You would destroy each other inside of a year. You would see her begin to turn old and bored under your very eyes. You would sit across the dinner table from each other in bondage, in terrible bondage to what you thought was love. The both of you. Believe me you are better off this way. Younger Brother wa
s crying. You’re right, he said, of course you’re right. He kissed her hand. She had a small hand but the fingers were swollen and the skin was red and the knuckles were enlarged. I have no memories of her, he sobbed. It was something I dreamed. Goldman was unappeased. This way you can feel sorry for yourself, she said. And what a delicious emotion that is. I’ll tell you something. In this room tonight you saw my present lover but also two of my former lovers. We are all good friends. Friendship is what endures. Shared ideals, respect for the whole character of a human being. Why can’t you accept your own freedom? Why do you have to cling to someone in order to live?

  He bowed his head as she talked. He stared at the floor. He felt her fingers under his chin. His head was lifted, tilted up. He found himself staring into the faces of Goldman and Reitman. From Reitman’s scatterbrained smile a gold tooth gleamed. They peered at him, curious and interested. Goldman said He reminds me of Czolgosz. Reitman said He is educated, a bourgeois. But the same poor boy in the eyes, Goldman said. The same poor dangerous boy. Younger Brother saw himself standing in line to shake the hand of William McKinley. A handkerchief was wrapped around his hand. In the handkerchief was a gun. McKinley fell back. Blood dyed his vest. There were screams.

  When he left she hugged him at the door. Her lips, surprisingly soft, pressed his cheek. He was overcome. He stepped back. The literature under his arm fell to the floor. There was laughter between them as they crouched in the doorway and gathered it up.

  But an hour later he stood between the cars on the milk train going up to New Rochelle. He considered throwing himself under the wheels. He listened to their rhythm, their steady clacking, like the left hand of a rag. The screeching and pounding of metal on metal where the two cars joined was the syncopating right hand. It was a suicide rag. He held the door handles on either side of him listening to the music. The cars jumped under his feet. The moon raced with the train. He held his face up to the sky between the cars, as if even moonlight could warm him.

  23

  One Sunday afternoon the colored man Coalhouse Walker said goodbye to his fiancee and drove off to New York in his Ford. It was about five o’clock in the evening and shadows of the trees darkened the road. His route took him along Firehouse Lane, past the station house of the Emerald Isle Engine, a company of volunteer firemen known for the dash of their parade uniforms and the liveliness of their outings. In the many times he had gone this way the Emerald Isle volunteers would be standing and talking outside the firehouse, a two-story clapboard building, and as he drove past they would fall silent and stare at him. He was not unaware that in his dress and as the owner of a car he was a provocation to many white people. He had created himself in the teeth of such feelings.

  At this time private volunteer companies were maintained as auxiliaries to the municipal fire department; and these companies, which relied upon private subscription, had yet to motorize their equipment. As the Negro came along a team of three matching gray engine horses cantered out of the firehouse into the road pulling behind them the big steam pumper for which the Emerald Isle was locally renowned. They were immediately reined, causing Coalhouse Walker to brake his car abruptly.

  Two of the volunteers came out of the building to join the driver of the pumper who sat up on his box looking at the Negro and yawning ostentatiously. They all wore blue work shirts with green handkerchief ties, dark blue trousers and boots. Coalhouse Walker released the clutch pedal and climbed down to crank his car. The volunteers waited until this was done and then advised him that he was traveling on a private toll road and that he could not drive on without payment of twenty-five dollars or by presenting a pass indicating that he was a resident of the city. This is a public thoroughfare, Walker said, I’ve traveled it dozens of times and no one has ever said anything about a toll. He got up behind the wheel. Tell the Chief, one of the men said to another. Walker decided to put the Ford into reverse gear, back up to the corner and go another way. He turned in his seat. At this moment two of the firemen carrying a twenty-foot ladder between them came into the street behind the car. Two others followed with another ladder and others came out with carts of coiled hose, buckets, axes, hooks and other fire-fighting equipment, all of which was deposited in the street, the company having chosen this particular moment to sweep out its quarters.

  The Chief of the company was distinguished by a white military cap he wore at a cocky angle. He was also somewhat older than the rest. He was courteous to Coalhouse and explained that while the toll had never before been collected from him it was nevertheless in force, and that if Coalhouse did not pay up he would not pass. With his two hands he lifted his hat from his head and reset it so that the visor covered his eyes. This caused him to tilt his chin upwards in order to see, giving him a pugnacious look. He was a heavyset man with thick arms. Many of the volunteers were grinning. We need the money for a firetruck, the Chief explained. So we can drive to fires just like you drive to whorehouses.

  The Negro calmly considered the courses of action available to him. The Emerald Isle firehouse looked across the street to an open field that sloped down to a pond. Conceivably he might drive off the road, turn in the field and circumnavigate the ladders and hose cart. But he was wedged in tightly, and even if he could pull the wheel hard enough to clear the horses the severe angle of the turn might tilt the car over on the downhill slope. Apparently it did not occur to him to ingratiate himself in the fashion of his race.

  Playing down at the edge of the pond were a couple of Negro boys, ten or twelve years old. Hey, Coalhouse Walker called to them. Come on up here! The boys came running. They stared at Coalhouse as he switched off the engine, set the brake and stepped down to the road. I want you to watch this car, he told them. When I come back you tell me if anyone touched it.

  The musician quickly strode back to the corner and headed toward the business district. After ten minutes he found a policeman operating a stop-and-go traffic signal. The policeman listened to his complaint and shook his head and spent some time removing his handkerchief from under his frock coat and blowing his nose. Those boys don’t mean no harm, he finally said. I know them all. Go on back now, they’re probably tired of the sport. Walker may have realized this was probably the maximum support he could expect from a policeman. At the same time he may have wondered if he’d been oversensitive to what was intended as no more than a prank. So he went back to Firehouse Lane.

  The fire engine and horses were withdrawn. The road was empty of volunteers and his car stood off the road in the field. He made his way to the car. It was spattered with mud. There was a six-inch tear in the custom pantasote top. And deposited in the back seat was a mound of fresh human excrement.

  He went across the street to the firehouse door. Standing there with his arms folded was the Chief in his white military cap and green bohemian tie. The Police Department advises me there is no toll road anywhere in this city, Coalhouse Walker said. That’s right, said the Chief. Anyone is free to come and go on this road anytime he thinks he has to. The sun having set, the electric lights were on inside the firehouse. Through the glass panels in the door the Negro could see the three matching grays in their stalls, the great nickel-plated pumper with its brass fittings backed up to the rear wall. I want my car cleaned and the damage paid for, he said. The Chief began to laugh and a couple of his men came out to join the fun.

  At this moment a police van drove up. It carried two officers, one of them the traffic policeman to whom Coalhouse Walker had appealed. He went into the field, looked at the car and came back to the firehouse. Willie, the policeman said to the Fire Chief, did you or your boys do any desecratin? I’ll tell you exactly what happened, the Chief said. The nigger here parked his damn car in the middle of the road right in front of the firehouse. We had to move it. It’s a serious business blocking a fire station, ain’t that so, boys? The volunteers nodded righteously. The big policeman came to a decision. He took Coalhouse aside. Listen, he said, we’ll push your tin lizzie back on the
road and you be on your way. There’s no real damage. Scrape off the shit and forget the whole thing. I was on my way when they stopped me, Coalhouse said. They put filth in my car and tore a hole in the top. I want the car cleaned and the damage paid for. The officer had now begun to appreciate Coalhouse’s style of speech, his dress, and the phenomenon of his owning a car in the first place. He grew angry. If you don’t take your automobile and get along out of here, he said loudly, I’m going to charge you with driving off the road, drunkenness, and making an unsightly nuisance. I do not drink, Coalhouse said. I did not drive my car off the road nor slash the roof nor defecate in it. I want the damage paid for and I want an apology. The policeman looked at the Chief, who was grinning at his discomfiture, so that the issue for him was now his own authority. He said to Coalhouse I’m placing you under arrest. You’ll come with me in the wagon.

  Early that evening the telephone rang at Broadview Avenue. The caller was Coalhouse and after quickly explaining that he was at Police Headquarters and why, he asked Father if he would consider putting up bail so that he could get to the city and not miss work that evening. It is to Father’s credit that he responded at once, holding back his questions until there was the leisure to have them answered. He called for a cab and went down to the station house and there wrote a cheque for the amount, which was fifty dollars. But as he reported the incident to Mother he was put off because Coalhouse Walker was barely civil in his gratitude and rushed off to the train station saying only he’d make good the sum.