Five Smooth Stones (118 page)

Garnett pushed his way through a group at the side of the table and stuck his head as far forward as his short neck would permit. "You can't do that!"

Haskin glared at the fat figure. "Why we can't?"

"They said they wouldn't talk to no outsiders. Said they'd only talk to Cainsville people."

David moved toward the table. "They wanted to talk to 'our nigras.' That's what they said, isn't it, Garnett?"

Garnett turned to him, and again David saw the anger in his eyes, and again the plump smile obscured it. "You got no call to say that, Davey-boy. That ain't what they said. Not in them words, anyhow. After all, ain't the people who lives over here the most concerned?"

A quiet courtroom Brad was corning forward now, speaking. "In many ways this resembles contract talks in a labor dispute. No responsible union will permit rank-and-file employees of a plant to sit around the bargaining table with management representatives. Too much pressure can be brought to bear. Joe Doaks received advances on salary when his wife had triplets; John Doe remembers the help he got when his kid was in an accident—or if he doesn't remember, he's reminded of it. Others may owe money to the credit union. A committee from the ranks is never advisable if you hope for real results."

"They ain't goin' to talk to anyone else." Garnett's face was set in stubborn immobility.

Now Murfree spoke, and when David looked at him he saw that the white man's eyes were looking directly at him. The message in the eyes and in the almost imperceptible nod of the head toward the kitchen was unmistakable: Go along with me, it said; we'll discuss it later.

"Mr. Willis is right," said Murfree. "In group negotiation between two opponents, frequently the weakest is the man with the most at stake."

Now David saw what was in Murfree's mind, and kicked himself mentally for not having thought of it himself. The men on the other side of Main Street had a lot at stake too; not the welfare of a hundred Negro children, but what to them was vastly more important: a deal that could bring them thousands upon thousands of dollars. Yet Murfree could not mention this, must present other arguments.

"However," continued Murfree, "in spite of pressure that will be brought to bear on a group of local Negroes—pressure from your own people and pressure from those on the other side—it is my opinion that it's worth a try. My advice is that no one on your committee have authority to make decisions without consulting with your legal experts, and believe me, you couldn't have finer. The main objective, as I see it, is to obtain release for those children. But don't let yourselves be stampeded. Or tricked. If I thought it would do any good, I would ask to sit in, but my welcome would be even less warm than would be extended to any of what they call the 'outsiders.' Actually, on this side of the street I am in the position of outsider. I hope you trust my sincerity."

Winters spoke quietly. "I don't believe any man who has suffered what you have suffered has the right to call himself an outsider."

Murfree smiled, the tension in his face lessening for a moment. "Thanks, Winters."

It did not take long to appoint the first three members of the committee: Haskin as chairman, a man named Al Williams who looked formidable and bitter to David, a man named Dexter Peters who was not present. "Home helping his wife mind the kids," said Haskin.

"I would suggest five," said David.

"How about two women?" asked Brad.

Haskin frowned thoughtfully, then slapped a hand on the table. "Damn! Damned if you ain't sayin' something! Womens been active other places, but they've sort of held back here. It'll give them guys over there a jolt." He listened to suggestions from the people present, and said: "There's one, Willy, there's one! That's a hell of a good one. Ella Simmons. We'll take Miz Simmons and—and—I got it. Liz Peters?" He looked around, saw his wife standing in the doorway to the kitchen. "What you think of Liz Peters for the committee, Ma?"

Mrs. Haskin's laugh must have been heard on the other side of the barriers. "Liz Peters? Lawd, man, you get Liz Peters along, and I only got one thing to say, jes' one thing: Gawd he'p the whites! I feels sorry for 'em, even bad as they're acting. I swear I do!"

***

Brad and David headed for the kitchen after Brad made arrangements to meet with Haskin's committee as soon as someone could bring the missing members to the house. "My wife'll stay with them Peters kids," said Al Williams.

Gracie was stooping over, reaching for something far back in a lower cupboard, amply rounded hips and buttocks outlined by her skirt, the brown smoothness of her thighs showing above stocking tops. She said something indistinguishable, then emerged and stood upright, a bottle of bourbon in her hand.

"Lawd Gawd!" said David. "Drinkin' liquor! Lemme at it—"

Gracie laughed. "Daddy Jim says it don't do to have hard stuff out, time like this. Trouble enough without it. We even went light on the beer—"

Brad poured and handed David a stiff one, and was pouring a second for himself when Murfree entered from the dining room, where a babble of talk was becoming more intense. "I'll have to go back in there in a minute—"

"No, you won't," said David. "That's good for a long time yet. You don't know our people if you don't know that. Join us? On the rocks?"

"Just straight, with some water on the side. Thanks." He looked at Brad. "You're not pleased at the idea of a local committee, are you?"

"To be honest, no."

"You, Champlin?"

"No. But I think I see the point."

"If Brad briefs the committee properly, I cant see the harm. Incidentally, it's a good committee. I know them all. Mrs. Simmons has cause to be tough. Her oldest boy—he's left home now—has a stiff leg as the result—" he stopped, embarrassed.

David smiled. "It's all right. A truck ran over mine. When I was a kid." A sensitive guy, this, he thought

"As for Liz Peters, she's a widow. Granted her husband was a no-account rascal and she was well rid of him, almost any woman would resent being widowed by a policeman's club. And she does. He died of a blood clot on the brain. Prompt hospitalization and surgery might have saved him, Dr. Anderson tells me."

Chuck Martin had come in quietly and was standing beside Brad. "Is this a private fight?" he asked.

"Definitely not," Brad said. "Drink?"

"It may wreck my image, but I could sure use one."

David had not taken his eyes from Murfree's face. He felt too damned tired to be polite, to play games, and he said now: "I'd like to ask you a question. Feel free to tell me to go to hell."

Murfree smiled. "Of course."

"It's this: Why are you over here? Instead of over there?"

For a moment the man in the white suit did not answer, but stood facing them, looking through the window behind them at the rain coursing down its panes, the drops caught in the light from the overhead fixture. One hand was in a trouser pocket; the other held his glass containing a half-finished drink.

When he spoke he said: "It would be easy to say 'I don't know.' Or, classically, T don't remember.' Do any of us know what makes us commit ourselves? Any of us remember the exact moment of our involvement?" The hps that had been thin and tense when he entered the house had relaxed now; the mouth was wide, sensitive, delicately shaped.

"I'm not as noble as one might think," he went on. "I'm striking my colors as soon as this is over. You heard me say 'I travel alone these days.' Last week my wife took our children and went to her mother's in Philadelphia. She is as committed as I am, but when little children become the targets for filth—am I boring you?"

"Good God, no," said Brad. "Go on."

"Our little girl's birthday was a week ago last Sunday. It happened to fall on the same day as her confirmation. Just before we left the house a boy rang the bell, handed our maid a package marked for our daughter, and ran off. My wife opened it on the spot. It was a doll. Handmade, at least in parts. A little black doll, naked, very—er—male and precocious, in an obscene posture. Attached to the doll was a card, 'Happy Birthday little nigger lover.' "

He finished his drink, handed his glass to Brad, and David noticed that Brad's hand was shaking when he took it. "My wife cracked. One can't wonder. The next day she packed and left. I've stayed on, to pull up stakes." He laughed shortly. "They've left precious few stakes for me to pull up."

Brad gave him a refilled glass, and he stood looking into it, not touching it at first. "That doesn't answer your question, Champlin; I was committed long before that. All it does is explain my continued commitment, my physical presence here tonight."

"Look," said David, "I shouldn't have asked. Forget it."

"I don't want to." Murfree smiled. "Do you mind? It's doing me good. I don't know why I'm talking to you like this, but it's satisfying a long-felt compulsion. My family were, and my wife and I are, Catholics."

"One strike against you to start with, in these parts," said Chuck.

"I know." Murfree looked at the big blond man who had hoisted himself up so that he sat now on the tiled counter, long legs dangling, a glass in his hand. The four men were alone in the room. Once Mrs. Haskin had hurried through the kitchen, clean bed linen over her arm, and gone through to the back porch. Murfree went on: "Strange, isn't it, Chuck? You've had your lumps, but they have not been as big as they would be if you had been of my faith. Yet, basically, where do we differ? You and I or those of any faith who believe that God is something more than an exterior force." Murfree took a swallow from his glass, shook his head at Brad's gesture toward the bottle. "Later, Brad. These things are difficult enough to sort out with a clear head. But one must sort them out sooner or later. There is endless talk, there are hundreds of thousands of words in writing, about the 'guilt complexes' of the white Southerner, his subconscious burdens and urges, his divided loyalties, his sexual and economic fears. I'll buy some of it, I'll buy a good deal of it. But, by God, I won't buy all of it."

"Well, hallelujah," said Chuck. "Excuse me, John."

"Quite all right, my friend. A noncontroversial interruption if I ever heard one. Of course, if one refuses to acknowledge anything but that which goes on within the finite mind of man, one can accept all the glib and complicated explanations of the theorists and those who attribute all commitments to humanity to subconscious motivations and enlightened self-interest. I happen to believe that there are other and equally valid reasons—'causes' may be a better word—for the involvement of a great many of us, white and black, Southerner and Northerner, in a movement that is concerned with something far deeper than merely civil rights."

David had pulled a high stool forward and was perched on it now. "May I interrupt?"

"Of course."

" 'Merely civil rights.' I think I like that. I think I like it very much. What you are saying, in part, is that denying a fellow citizen the right to vote is more than a crime against established law, something our courts will eventually correct Whether we live to see it or not" He waited for Murfree's nod, and went on: "And you're saying that the greater crime —sin, you would call it, perhaps—is the refusal to accept other men in—in—I don't know exactly how to say it—I'm no theologian—"

"The fellowship of the Holy Spirit?" said Chuck.

"Yes," said Murfree. "But by your phrasing you are narrowing it to Christianity, Chuck. A man called Brother Lawrence, back in the seventeenth century, a cook in a monastery, wrote as no one has ever written before or since, in my opinion, of what he called the 'practice of the presence of God.' He wrote within the frame of reference of his own religion, of course. But the same thoughts, the same spiritual truths, have been a part of all the great religions. That God is not the exterior entity which some people use as a crutch, but is a force which moves within us, sometimes unrecognized, unrealized, but which, once it is recognized, can never be ignored again. It goes by many different names, in many religions. I have to fall back on my own. We Catholics call it grace."

"Two cents worth, please," said Brad. It was the first time David had ever heard a note of tentativeness in Brad's voice; deference, courtesy, puzzlement, but never tentativeness or uncertainty.

"A dime's worth if you want it." Color had come into Murfree's face now; he was smiling easily, warmly.

"What you're saying is—" Brad stopped and laughed. "We keep putting words in your mouth. Your point is one of first principles: two things cannot occupy the same space at the same time. This—this thing of the spirit you call God—and I thoroughly understand your differentiation between the exterior entity some people worship and the interior presence— cannot occupy the human soul at the same time that it is occupied by hatred. A simple matter of what might be called spiritual physics."

"You've managed to be a hell of a lot briefer and more succinct than I was. And you've made my point."

"Hold on," said Chuck. "Are you saying that all those who have been outspoken against—"

"Outspoken? No. I'm talking about commitment, involvement. Those who hear the voice behind them saying: 'This is the way; walk ye in it.'" He laid his empty glass down. "My God, how insufferably pious I sound. And yet, in spite of all I've been saying, I'm running away."

"No," said David. "After what happened? You have children. It wouldn't be right—"

"Right. Wrong. Who's to say where the difference lies in a case like this? Who's to say where wisdom ends and cowardice begins? At times they run courses that are close to parallel, and the ends and beginnings are hard to spot. Anyhow, Champlin, did I answer your question? I'm afraid not."

David did not reply immediately. When he did, he said: "My question was a rude one; it was about you, specifically; about John Murfree, white Southerner. That question you answered; My God, yes, you answered. But I don't think this particular finite mind is big enough to include, in that answer, all the phonies I've known: the Northerners who do not recognize that expediency is masking as conscience, or who want to feel all comfy warm inside; the southern moderates who may not hang you from a lower limb, as Gregory says, but who nevertheless hang you so that your toes just touch ground and you don't quite strangle to death. I'm afraid I'll have to reserve my opinion."