Recently Brad had hired a housekeeper. "Peg doesn't want it," he said to David. "But what else can I do? How else can I dare go out of town? And I often have to. This woman —Peg doesn't know this—was a practical nurse in a sanitarium. I'm paying her the national debt monthly, but it's worth it in peace of mind."
During the week Isaiah was in town, there were several ALEC meetings, and the break in routine was a welcome one. Joseph Klein, ALEC's executive secretary and attorney, was back at his desk after an enforced six-month absence for health reasons, trying to hold himself to a reduced work schedule. He was a driving, intense man, one of the few whites David had ever known who had the complete trust of every Negro who knew him with no vaguely suspicious holdouts. When there were night sessions David briefed him informally the next day. "You're the only one gives me an objective account," Klein said. "I have to sift out everyone else's personal likes and dislikes for this one or that one."
David and Isaiah had just attended a meeting and were cutting across Boston Common to Boylston Street in midafternoon on a day toward the end of Isaiah's visit, when Isaiah said abruptly, "When we gonna git up off our fat black asses and do something, David?"
After a moment David said, "I suppose 'Saiah, when someone fills 'em with buckshot."
"You think you're kidding? You ain't. But first we got to expose 'em to the buckshot. It's hard to hit a man in the ass when he's sitting down even if you got good aim."
"A few tacks in some chairs, maybe?"
"What we trying to do if it ain't that?"
Walking across the Common had been Isaiah's idea. It was easier on his gimpy leg, he said, than "Them sub stairs." Now he pulled a large cigar from his pocket, lighted it, and puffed vigorously for a minute. Suddenly he chuckled from behind it.
"So?" asked David.
"These whites," said Isaiah. "These whites you got up here. Lawd have mercy! I ain't sure we ain't better off without 'em down there."
Starting at Pengard, David had come by his knowledge of the starry-eyed liberal of the North gradually, those well-meaners who wouldn't even give a Negro a chance to be a son of a bitch even if he happened to be one. Those dewy-eyed characters were hard to deal with, just waking up, as they were, to the sins of their own people, looking on every Negro as a potential saint just because he was a Negro, seeing in every brown skin a mantle of persecuted righteousness. And it was so damned easy to fool these fledgling liberals, so damned easy to take them down almost any path you wanted them to go. His people had done it countless times.
Take this woman they were talking about, this Mrs. Hubbard, to some of the places he knew in New Orleans or Chicago or New York, tell her how Negroes themselves were afraid to walk the quiet side streets of Harlem, afraid of their own, show her the violence, expose the trickery they practiced among themselves even as the whites did—how would she react? She'd recoil, and in her recoil might in all likelihood take away her support. Or she'd become defensive about her own position, and rationalize and justify these manifestations of Negro life and character as being the results of pressures and persecutions and denials. He was sure she wouldn't turn out to be one of those rare whites who actually saw the Negro as a human with balanced capacities for good and evil. Somehow the dewy-eyed liberals could manage to deprive a Negro of his identity with the human race as effectively as any white supremacist. They were the ones he feared, damned if he didn't, because you could never be sure of them, never know how they'd react when the truth hit 'em—that the poor, downtrodden Negro their hearts bled for weren't just Negroes—they were mortal humans.
They had reached Boylston Street, and David steered Isaiah to a small restaurant. "I've just got time for a cup of coffee and a piece of pie before I get back to the office." When they were seated he said, "Go on, 'Saiah. Don't stop there. What do you, mean, 'better off without 'em'?"
"I ain't talking about guys like Joe Klein. He's a fine man. A good man, every way. Can't fault him for anything except he's killing hisself." He chuckled again. "But you take a woman like this here Miz Hubbard—"
"Yes, Lawd, take her—"
"Now there's a good woman. Don't matter what color she is, she's a plumb good woman. And she got no more idea of what the score is—man! She don't even know what teams are playing or who's pitching."
"Hell, we know that!" said David. "Sure we know it. But she's got energy enough for ten people, and she'll do anything, even if it's only licking stamps for a mailing. And she's loaded, 'Saiah, loaded. And generous. And her husband's one of the most powerful politicians in the state. Except when he's at home, and then she is."
They sat drinking coffee, smoking, talking of the meeting they had just left. It had been an informal meeting with Klein keeping it on the track, finally letting it relax into a general talk session. Klein was an opportunist and a brain-picker without equal when it came to furthering the cause of ALEC, and he rode his ethics with an easy rein when he felt that the savage injustices against those whom he represented called for it. With Mrs. Hubbard, a new member of the executive committee, he was in public most earnestly and tenderly cooperative. In private he had said to Brad and David: "Half the time I don't hear what she's saying. She is, however, almighty useful."
Brad had stirred uneasily; "One of these days she's going to back out."
David added: "Brad could be right. Someday some Negro is going to shoot some white in the back of the head, and that poor soul is going to be plumb sick-a-bed with disillusionment. To her, if you're black you are, per se, a Jesus-on-the-cross type. Get down off the cross and bop your persecutors over the head and you're something else again. I don't think her convictions would survive a fighting Jesus."
Klein shrugged. "So what? Our budget is in better shape because of her, our 'image'—if you want to use that word—is enhanced, and every once in a while she comes up with a good idea."
She had come up with an idea that afternoon. It was, she said, high time some thought was given to the education of the Negro in the South in the political field, how to use the vote once the crusading armies of ALEC and the NAACP had won their battle. She brushed aside Klein's gentle reminder that any such battle would have to be fought with guerrilla tactics. In spite of his doubts about her staying powers once she was face to face with the Negro as a human and not a symbol, David always had to make an effort to keep from smiling when she took over. Other members of the committee were less tolerant and fidgeted noticeably.
"How would you go about this educational program, Mrs. Hubbard?" asked Klein.
What had been a gleam in her eyes became a bright and shining light. "By recruiting young workers to go into the South to start what I have called 'citizenship classes.' It is a terrible commentary on our country that such large numbers of its people should need such instruction, but—there it is." She was, thought David, Facing Facts Bravely. "When the present situation in the South is abolished and all our citizens are granted their rights, they must be prepared to use their powers in the most constructive fashion possible. In other words, they must be armed against corrupt political pressures from the outside."
David started to speak, caught a silencing flick of a finger from Klein.
Mrs. Hubbard continued, head bobbing vigorously to emphasize her points: "My thought is that we could set up a separate division of the League under strong leadership. Send the workers everywhere, into the cities and the small towns and the rural areas, to organize these study groups. I've given the matter a great deal of thought. We could call such a movement the Citizens' Army for Political Enlightenment. CAPE."
Dear God! thought David; she must have lain awake nights for a month to think that one up. It was so far removed from reality that it silenced him completely.
Isaiah was not so easily made speechless. He removed the unlighted cigar from his mouth and inspected it carefully. "You fixing to get a lot of people killed, Miz Hubbard," he said.
"You're understandably pessimistic, Mr. Watkins. But I believe we could enlis
t the help of our government in such a movement." She made it "Our Government," and David heard Klein make a low, involuntary sound of protest.
"You don't agree?" Mrs. Hubbard's bright eyes pinned Klein down.
"I agree absolutely that the need for such education exists, Mrs. Hubbard. But inasmuch as we are currently having trouble persuading the administration to take a moral stand on the desegregation of secondary schools, don't you think it's a bit overly sanguine to expect help on a project such as you suggest? I think it would be well to wait for a change in political climate."
Mrs. Hubbard's political toes had been stepped on, and the pain showed in her face. "The administration is taking a firm —a very firm—stand in support of the Supreme Court. Really, Joe Klein—"
"Mrs. Hubbard." David did not look at Klein because this time he did not want to be silenced. He spoke slowly and distinctly, feeling that he was trying to put over an abstract philosophical argument to a child. "In the South the Negro is expendable. He is as expendable as a possum in the woods or a nice fat catfish in the river. And he shares a common peril with them—it's always open season. In short, Negroes would be murdered in large numbers if they encouraged or engaged in such activities. Have you ever been in a community during a rabid dog scare? Every loyal, trusted pet becomes suspect.
If such a movement started openly in the South, not only would Negroes be murdered in cold blood, but those who survived would be bombed, beaten, jailed, deprived of their jobs, their credit cut off, and their welfare funds withdrawn. Whether they were participants or nonparticipants."
"Surely not!"
"Surely yes."
Isaiah broke in. "David, you saying 'the Negro would be —if.' What you talking -bout, man! It don't take any big movement for them things to happen."
"It seems incredible," said Mrs. Hubbard. Her lips set in a determined line. "It only serves to make the fight that much more challenging."
"When has it ever seemed far short of impossible?" asked Klein gently.
"All I'm trying to do, Joe," said David, "is point out to Mrs. Hubbard that human life, if it happens to exist inside a black skin, comes cheap in the South. Except, of course, to the owner of the black skin. He sort of wants to keep on living. Sometimes a fellow wonders why."
"Hope," said Mrs. Hubbard brightly. And, undaunted, "Faith."
"I'll grant you the faith, Mrs. Hubbard. Not the hope. But the faith the average southern Negro has—except the younger generation—is not a faith that freedom will come to him in any future that he can foresee, in which he will live to participate. His faith is in the future of another world, after death. What we must try and do is build a new kind of faith on a concept of more immediate freedom, an 'in-this-lifetime' concept of freedom."
"But, Mr. Champlin—David—isn't that just what this type of program would do? Especially if we could enlist government aid and protection? We could stress the American-way-of-life approach. Surely the Southerners would not retaliate against that? Perhaps we might design an emblem, have banners made and fly them with the American flag over our headquarters buildings or in the windows. After all, the American flag—"
David felt a near hysterical urge to roar with laughter, followed by an equally strong urge to explode with a single four-letter word and walk out. It was like being confronted by a responsible and otherwise intelligent adult who sincerely believed in Santa Claus. Or that the world was flat. He carefully avoided looking at Isaiah while mentally passing the ball to him, praying that he'd get the unspoken signal. Klein was either too stunned and chicken, or too amused to tell her she was nuts.
Isaiah must have gotten the signal, because he picked up the ball and now proceeded to make a few yards with it. "I tell you what, Miz Hubbard. You design that there emblem you talking about and you fly it with the Confederate flag down there and you got something. And you teach just the whites. The whites down there needs education in citizenship worse'n the colored do, anyhow. Ain't no American flag flying over a place where they teaching citizenship to colored going to get you anywheres but in a jail or a grave. But you figure out a way to use the stars and bars and you got yourself a real idea."
David stood and started for the door. "We'll teach 'em all the rebel yahoo—I have to get back to the office. Let us know about the next meeting, Joe?"
Klein said, "Wait a minute, David." He turned to the others. "Mrs. Hubbard will understand, I'm sure, when I say that she hasn't taken into consideration certain conditions of which she could have no personal knowledge. In fact, I have no personal knowledge of them, but I am in a better position to know they exist and that David and Watkins don't exaggerate. But I feel that if we take those conditions into account, and try and circumvent them by as much secrecy as is humanly possible, Mrs. Hubbard's plan has merit."
Mrs. Hubbard brightened visibly. She laughed gently. It was in these moments of capitulation that David discovered he could feel a sort of affectionate warmth toward her. "I know I'm an elderly idiot," she said. "I'm afraid far too few of us are aware of true conditions down there. You honestly think, Joe Klein, some such plan—modified, I realize—might work?"
"Yes. As you say, modified. There must be an approach geared to the general advancement of the civil rights movement. I doubt that it would be possible for anyone to walk into a southern town today and convince any but the younger and more progressively minded Negroes that even a semi-millennium was near. But with concrete evidence of progress the picture might be different. Although apathy born of deep-rooted, generations-old fear isn't going to be an easy obstacle to overcome."
We been frightened people. Gramp had voted in most elections, but he had never seen his Tiger, Tiger. David smiled at Klein. "After we get every Negro on the registration rolls, I'm starting my own campaign to get 'em orchestra seats. Have I your support, Joe Klein?"
"Unqualified, David. See you next week—"
Isaiah left with him, and now, sitting in the coffee shop near the Common, David ate the last mouthful of his pie and looked at his watch. "Gotta go, 'Saiah."
"Hold up there, son. We'd ought to give some thought to v what that woman was saying. 'Out of the mouths of babes'—"
"My God! She's no babe—"
"Sure she is, son. Being a chile's got nothing to do with years. And she ain't nothing but a chile, comes to living."
"Maybe so. Anyhow, what she was talking about sounded to me like recruiting a whole crew of John the Baptists to go crying in the wilderness, prophesying the coining of something that's a long way off—"
"Sure. But mebbe that's good."
"Do you think you could get more than a handful?"
Isaiah nodded. "Yes. You ain't been down there much lately, David. Things is working inside; fermenting, you might say. Young folks are beginning to think. The old folks are still backing away from trouble. But you get some of them young people fired up and we could get something going. Not but what there ain't too many of them looking for the quickest way out, looking to their own future and the hell with us what are left behind. But they's some that are thinking right. It'd take time, David. It'd take time. The old folks'd be a hindrance, but, shucks what else we had all our lives?" Isaiah had turned his chair around so that he was sitting sideways to the table. Now he rolled his eyes toward David, then away again. "Take quite a few people. And they'd have to be educated people what know the score."
"You could be right, 'Saiah." David grinned. "Dead right."
Isaiah grinned back. "That's all right, son. Lots of us going to be dead right before everything over."
"And a lot of them dead wrong. Stone-cold-daid-in-the-market wrong."
"Even your Gramp say that. Way back when you wuz just a chile he said it. Bloodshed."
"I know. Look, 'Saiah, I've got to go back for sure now. I'm way late. But I'll think about it. I'll come up with some ideas and some notes for a plan. At least, it'll be doing something besides yapping."
"That'll be fine, son."
CHAPTER 47<
br />
Isaiah was staying with relatives, and the next morning David dropped off at Klein's office the rough outline he had made. Isaiah would pick it up later in the day. When he reached his own office Dora said, "Mr. Willis wants you." She wrinkled her nose at him. "You aren't teacher's pet today, either."
"Can't you protect me any better than that, woman? If I had your gift for gathering scraps of important information, I'd never lose a case. What is it?"
"Go right on in. He's waiting."
Brad looked drawn and tired, the lines from nostril to mouth deeply etched, but when David entered he smiled. "Good morning, my learned colleague."
David grinned. "Just give me the facts. I've been warned."
"Let me give you some background, David. I want you to help a client who was a classmate of mine at Harvard for two years, before he decided to go all out for science. His name is Lloyd A. Litchfield. He looks a most unremarkable man, but he has a most remarkable scientific mind."
David said, "Something about space? There's a bell ringing in the back of my mind—"
"Yes. Research on a totally new kind of fuel. It got a few paragraphs in Time a while back. One of these days it will rate a cover story. To get back to the beginning—and don't interrupt. This is your first baptism in corporation law. Several years ago he started, with my help, the research firm of L. A. Litchfield and Associates. It inevitably became known as LaLa. Like a lot of artists, musicians, writers, and scientists with fuzzy fiscal minds, he prides himself on being a good businessman. Actually, he's a lousy one. His two associates aren't much better. One of them is a whiz in the electronics field, and they want to expand into manufacturing. They have already, in a small way, with a resultant foul-up that stood my hair on end. Now they want to go public. No one of them, believe me, knows a share of stock from a debenture, and I'm sure all of them think that 'convertible' is only a name for a car with a top that folds back. I'm turning the spadework over to you. He'll be in this afternoon at two o'clock."
Five Smooth Stones Page 57