The Compass

by Deborah Radwan

  Frederick paused and took a deep breath. Rudy noticed how quiet it had become; the birds had gone off for their afternoon nap, as Jacob would say.

  “I haven’t spoken about this in years,” he said, “not since I told Yoshito and Jacob many, many years ago.”

  Rudy felt uncomfortable but couldn’t help but feel so sorry for this old man. It seemed to him that the memories were coming back just like they were yesterday.

  “How’d he die?” Rudy asked. “Did they shoot him?” Rudy had seen violence on TV and too many news stories of what happened in neighborhoods not far from them, shootings with guns almost every day of the week.

  Frederick knew that guns were his only frame of reference. Somehow, shooting someone seemed more humane than what he was about to reveal. Anyone could pick up a gun and shoot. It was a cold and unemotional way to kill someone—no feeling. What happened to his daddy took real hatred, a kind of sick, sadistic evil. It took someone who enjoyed watching another human being struggle for air in the most gruesome way and was willing to use their muscle to kick away a chair out from under a man. Rudy was looking intently at him. Frederick hesitated, but then thought that maybe this boy needed to know what gang or mob mentality could do. He drew in a breath and continued.

  “No, Rudy, they lynched him; hung him from a tree in the woods.”

  Again Frederick paused. It hurt just to say the words, even after all these years. His face was contorted with emotion and recall.

  Rudy was stunned and looked at Frederick with wide eyes; in a flash of understanding, the innocence gone. The little bit that he paid attention to at church began to resonate. There was wickedness in the world. People had a choice. Thou shalt not kill. This evil act proved to Rudy the existence of the devil and the home he called hell. For certainly the people that did this to Frederick’s daddy ended up in that place. It had been a merciless, inhumane way to die—one he wouldn’t inflict on an animal—and it had happened to Frederick’s daddy. Then, for a second, Rudy thought of the boy on the ground crying, and realized that this is what happens when people hate.

  In an instant, emotions that Rudy couldn’t control rose up from his depths, like a geyser reaching the surface: rage at his father for leaving, fury at what had happened to Frederick’s father, anger at his friends for turning what he considered harmless mischief into violence, and finally utter disappointment with himself for doing nothing that night in the park. He was shaking and almost crying. Rudy got up and began pacing like a restless animal.

  “But he didn’t do anything wrong!” Rudy realized he didn’t know if he was talking about Frederick’s daddy or the boy in the park or himself for being abandoned. But he gathered himself and directed his questions to Frederick. “Couldn’t you get help? Call the police? How could Moses just do nothing but watch it happen?” He was no better than Moses, he thought.

  It seemed Mr. Talkative finally had something to say. Frederick could see that this quiet boy was angry and had walls that ran as deep as the fence in Jacob’s yard. There was more going on than his story. Still, Frederick was relieved to see a reaction, despite the extreme emotion. Satisfied that there was hope for this boy, Frederick began comforting him.

  “Rudy, Rudy… ,” Frederick began slowly and deliberately, reaching out to him with one hand and patting the bench with the other, motioning for him to sit back down.

  “It’s not like today. There was no protection for black families. There was no one, no white man or black man that was going to stand up to those powerful white men. The police, the mayor, they were with them or just looked the other way. Figured my daddy must have deserved it. That’s how it was at that time. I look around today and know we still have a ways to go, but compared to then, well, it was a different world.”

  Frederick paused for a moment, wondering what he could say to explain.

  “We are still very imperfect as human beings, and we’re not where we need to be. We can be suspicious of each other’s races, religions, and differences, and we have no problem pointing the finger at other groups for things gone wrong. But, we’ve traveled a thousand miles since I was a boy in the South. Next time you think things are unfair, take a look at history and see how far we’ve come. We’ll get to where we need to be if boys like you grow up to be smart, productive citizens and good men.”

  Rudy was barely listening, still fixated and horrified by what they did to Frederick’s daddy and ashamed of himself. Calming down a bit, he sat back down, shaking his head. Could he be a good man, in this time and place, in this neighborhood? He honestly didn’t know—not after what had happened in the park.

  Finally, Rudy asked, “How’d you find out about your daddy?”

  “Moses, God bless him, cut my daddy down as soon as the men left. Could have been there with him if he got caught. He shimmied up the tree and climbed out onto the branch and with a pocket knife, cut the rope that had cut short my daddy’s life. Moses was a strong man, but my daddy was big. Do you know he slung my daddy over his shoulders and carried him a mile back to his car, crying and praying the entire time? I don’t know how he did it, but he did. Then he drove over to our house after picking up our church reverend.

  “Momma had been anxious all night long waiting for my daddy to get home. Then I saw momma’s expression when Moses and Reverend Robinson knocked on our screen door. ‘Lilly, can we talk to you alone out here on the porch?’ they said looking over at me.

  “Momma just looked at me blankly and told me to go to my room, and she stepped outside. No one had to tell me that something was terribly wrong. Then I became nervous and anxious. Where was my daddy? Why wasn’t he home yet? It was late.

  “It wasn’t long until I heard my momma’s sobbing, and then I knew. Daddy was dead. I just knew it. All three of them told me what happened together. I cried and cried along with my momma. I wanted to yell and scream, but I knew I had to be strong. The undertaker fixed my daddy up for the services as well as he could, covered up what he could. Clothes hid the rest, especially the mark around his neck. I don’t know how we made it through the burial services, and then we never talked about it again. It was just too horrible, too grisly. Of course, after time passed, Momma and I would mention Daddy; easy things like, ‘Daddy sure would have loved your berry pie tonight, Momma,” or she would tell me, ‘You’re getting to be as strong as your daddy,’ or ‘Your daddy would be so proud of you,’ when I graduated from high school.

  “My daddy died on August 24, 1943. Not a word ever appeared in the papers about what happened. It was as if my daddy’s life wasn’t even worth a footnote.”

  With that, Frederick and Rudy sat in silence as the heat of the day seemed to lessen and the light seemed to change.

  Rudy, now composed, said, “I’m sorry about your daddy, Frederick. He sounds like he was a great man.”

  Frederick just nodded.

  “I think that’s enough for today, Rudy. I’ll tell Jacob I held you up a bit today. Come back tomorrow, okay?” and with that Frederick got up and walked back through the yard until Rudy heard his back screen door slam.

  Chapter 6

  Rudy showed up the next day on time, and the next, but did not see Frederick again for the next ten days. Rudy had thought a lot about that story and how Moses had run in fear. In the end, Moses did the right thing and was a good friend. Rudy wanted to do the right thing too—just didn’t know how.

  Finally, almost two weeks after he had shared his history, Frederick strolled over with Yoshito, picnic basket in hand, and joined Jacob and Rudy.

  “What’s this?” asked Jacob. “Are we having a party? What’s the occasion?”

  “No occasion. We just wanted to break bread with friends,” Yoshito responded smiling and slightly bowing to Jacob and Rudy.

  “Did your flowers tell you to have a picnic?” Jacob asked winking at Rudy. Together, Jacob and Rudy had been
making an effort to have a more civil relationship, and he liked it when Jacob got into his playful mood. Jacob had told Rudy about Yoshito hearing his plants talk to him, and Rudy couldn’t help but smile at Jacob’s teasing. One day while they were working together in the garden, Jacob confessed, “As much as I would like to believe my dear friend is merely insane, I have known Yoshito too long and too well to believe he could be doing anything but telling the truth. Yoshito is one of the most spiritual, gentle souls I have ever met, and if he tells me that the plants are reading recipes in Hebrew, I am afraid that secretly I am going to believe him.” Jacob wished some of Yoshito’s inner peace would rub off on him.

  “Well, let’s see what feast you have rendered,” Jacob motioned for all to gather at an old wooden table nearby. There was corned beef, fresh Kaiser rolls, mustard, chips, and some sort of a cold noodle salad with carrots and cabbage that Yoshito had made.

  “What kind of salad is that?” Rudy asked.

  “This is soba salad, and I brought it in a bento box. This is your first lesson in Japanese,” Yoshito replied with a smile. Rudy looked over at the highly lacquered box containing the salad.

  After everything was set out, Frederick directed everyone, “Dig in.” Everyone reached for a fork except for Yoshito, who produced some chopsticks. When Rudy looked at him, Yoshito held them up and said, “Hashi.” Rudy nodded; “Hashi,” he repeated.

  “You are a fast learner,” Yoshito said. Rudy was surprised by his comment; he had never been good at learning anything.

  “Wait,” Jacob said. “Your gods have not seen fit to furnish this feast with its sweet libation, their golden nectar? What kind of gods are they?” he asked good-naturedly.

  “Ah, you’re right, Jacob. I left the pitcher on the counter. I’ll be right back.”

  After Frederick left, Rudy told the others, “Frederick told me about his daddy.” Yoshito and Jacob looked at him and then at each other.

  “Yes, it’s a very sad tale. But you must remember, Rudy, it’s not just a made-up story. This is Frederick’s and his father’s story that we are talking about and must be treated with great respect and honor. You must not disgrace the memory by telling your friends casually as you would discuss a football game,” said Yoshito. He continued. “If you share the story, it must be done with great reverence, and with Frederick’s permission.”

  “I haven’t told anyone. I just got really mad when he told me what happened. Frederick seems so nice, so calm. He must have a lot of anger deep inside just bubbling to get out. I know I would.”

  This was the most Jacob had heard Rudy talk and was relieved in an odd way.

  “Anger gets you nowhere, Rudy. Frederick, Jacob, and I all have reasons to be angry, to want to get even. Sometime this summer, we may all share our stories with you.” Jacob glared at Yoshito even as he said this. Surely Yoshito knew he may not want to talk about his past, how hard it was for him.

  Yoshito continued. “You may even have a reason to be angry. Anger is like a boomerang. Even though you aim it at someone else, it always comes back to you. It eats you up instead. The greatest peace you can find is to release the anger, and to do so usually requires great courage and forgiveness. Mahatma Gandhi said that, ‘The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.’ Sometimes it takes years to get to that place, sometimes decades. One must come to a great understanding and attain great compassion to forgive others.” Yoshito had begun speaking to Rudy but finished by aiming his words at Jacob.

  Frederick, who had been standing nearby, sat down and joined the conversation. “You want to know how I got past the anger and the fear, Rudy? It took me decades. I started out the other day asking you if you ever heard of the civil rights movement. That was a big part of my healing, and so was meeting my wife, Estelle, who helped me out of the darkness. In the years following my father’s murder, I became quiet, introverted, kind of a loner, and was angry inside, but I didn’t want any trouble, didn’t want to draw any kind of attention to myself. I also made myself a promise that I was going to get my momma and me out of that godforsaken place if it was the last thing I did. I directed my energies on school and became an honor student, and I worked however many jobs it would take to get me through college. I was a teacher—I’ll bet you didn’t know that about me, did you, Rudy? Taught high school English and literature for thirty five years.”

  “You were a teacher?” Rudy asked incredulously. Frederick, a teacher and married? There were a lot of surprises about Frederick. Rudy thought he had him sized up as just an old man with a garden; now it felt a bit funny to him that he would be sitting having lunch with a teacher.

  “Yes, sir, and I loved every day of it. Each day, I had a chance to mold the thinking of young people like you; try to get them to understand that we are all equal, that anyone can be a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher if they want it badly enough, that no one is better or worse than the next guy. I had the chance to show them different perspectives, experiences and different points of view. Reading and literature can do that: open doors, make you see things differently, allow you to get into another person’s head, see what makes them tick.”

  Frederick continued. “Have you ever read To Kill a Mockingbird? You’re old enough. You tell your momma to get you that book. It will open your eyes; not only validate the story I told you but also show you that there are people like Atticus Finch in the world. I always thought if I had had a son, I would name him Atticus.”

  Rudy still didn’t understand how any of this had kept Frederick sane, from going out and seeking revenge. Why he hadn’t exploded with rage?

  “I don’t understand how all this helped you after… .” Rudy looked away, the words fading.

  “I was angry for a time, but then came the change—in the world and in me. Now, I know you have heard of Dr. Martin Luther King.”

  Rudy nodded, of course he had. Frederick must think he didn’t know anything.

  “Well, I met Dr. King, shook his hand.”

  Rudy listened wide-eyed. Frederick knew him?

  “It was one of the proudest days of my life. I can’t say we were personal friends, but one day he came right up to me in a crowd, grabbed my hand, shook it, and thanked me for coming to the marches. It gives me chills to think of it even after all these years. Imagine you meeting the President of the United States. It was like that.

  “He started the change. He was what you would call a catalyst of change. He altered the trajectory not just of the black man but of all men. He was there at the beginning, helping change come. I used to go and listen to him speak, met Estelle at one of the rallies. Oh, you would have liked her. She was a wonderful woman; got me back on track, found a softness inside of me again.”

  Frederick paused and seemed to suddenly travel to a place only he could see. A smile crossed his face. Rudy wished he could see what his mind was seeing. Coming back from that long time ago, Frederick continued.

  “Soon after the first time I heard him, I started marching with him. Do you know what I found out? There were white people walking with me—sometimes arm in arm. They weren’t all like the mill owner. I discovered that there were a lot of people who were now brave enough to come forward and say things were wrong. Black people started to stand up and say, ‘I’m not sitting in the back of the bus anymore,’ ‘I’m going to go to the same school as white kids,’ ‘I’m going to sit at a counter in a restaurant and expect service,’ and governments were starting to listen. Jack and Bobby Kennedy made changes along with Dr. King. That was quite a team, but of course, we know what happened to them.

  “Those years were some of the most hopeful and exhilarating; you could feel changes happening while you lived it. Have you ever seen one of those time-elapsed movies where you see a flower opening up, or the seasons changing over a landscape? Well, that’s what it was like for all of us who lived during that time.
Everything seemed to be happening fast, and we were watching history before our very eyes. Yes, sir. Now this might sound like a contradiction, but sometimes in the moment, it didn’t seem so fast. When we heard about the deaths of Jack Kennedy, then Dr. King, and finally Bobby Kennedy… well, it just about took the wind out of our sails. So much tragedy, but I guess they completed the work the good Lord had in mind. Things were never the same again—in a good way. Yes, I’d have to say that those men accomplished their mission.”

  Sighing deeply, he continued. “We’re not perfect yet, Rudy—lots of intolerance from lots of people—but at least now we know it is wrong.”

  Rudy thought about his friends who thought everyone was inferior, below them. Maybe he had begun to think that way too, but now it wasn’t so clear. He didn’t think that way anymore—not after hearing Frederick’s tale, not after the park. Then he thought, Look at me. I’m having lunch with a Jew, an Asian, and a black man. He looked at these men gathered around this table and thought they were nice and not much different from him. They were older, of course, but they seemed to get it. He was beginning to like being with them, being included in their conversations. They were interesting, but they were also kind and respected each other despite their differences. Rudy’s friends would freak.