Five Smooth Stones (73 page)

David stood up, shook the coffeepot, and found it empty. Chuck said, "Don't make more, not for me, anyway." David set the pot down, stretched and said: "All night, by God, all night we've talked, and all we've got to show for it is a coffeepot empty for the third time and the well-known conclusion that nobody loves us black boys. And that unfortunately nobody up here hates us either."

"I think that unless something gives pretty soon you'll have some of that hate, because you'll have fear. And come fear, come hate. The walls around Harlem aren't going to hold up forever, not with what's inside them."

"They'll build higher ones next time," said David.

"No," said Chuck. "From what I've seen at first hand, there's so much hell bottled up, so much howling, hidden hell that it will break down any wall, and enough of it will spew out to scare the pants off the people on the outside."

"We need a Joshua."

"Amen, brother," said Chuck. "Amen. Amen." He was standing now, straightening clothes mussed from long sitting. His face was frowning and troubled. "You know the other name for Joshua? There was another Joshua—called Jesus— and no one paid much attention."

"The world was smaller then by a few billion," said David. "Suffer little children—love thy neighbor—hurt the least of these and you're hurting me. How long did the words last ex-

cept in print? And how much more than print are they to the people outside the walls?"

" T hear their gentle vo-oi-oices calling'—" As Chuck laughed, David said: "That's just an intro. What I've heard 'em singing, a long time ago, was 'Pharaoh's Army Got Drownded.' It used to be my favorite hymn, when I was a brat, before I started figuring out that somebody either made a mistake or they weren't talking about us—"

"You mean the song, 'Oh, Mary, Don't You Weep,'" said Chuck.

"It doesn't matter, nit-picker. Any old way you name it, that army's a long time drowning—"

***

The last week in August, Isaiah Watkins arrived in Boston to confer with ALEC officials at headquarters on the crisis that was building rapidly in Little Rock. He brought with him a jar of fresh filet powder from Gramp, as well as a number of admonitions and warnings. David's conscience hadn't let him tell Li'l Joe that he'd won his first case; he was still smarting with chagrin, and if he was going to brag he'd wait till he had something to brag about that would be to his credit as a lawyer.

Several weeks before, Brad had asked him to pinch-hit for a while at ALEC meetings. "I'm up to here in work," said Brad. And added, "As well as trouble." There was no necessity now for Brad to mince words with David. Both David and Sara had answered late at night "emergency" calls when Brad was out of town, and, fearful of mistaking a real cry of distress for a cry of "Wolf, Wolf!" had hurried to the Willis home and sat with a Peg Willis they scarcely knew: talkative, repetitive, tearful at times, progressing to incoherence and finally to a submissive somnolence, letting them put her to bed as they would a child. Then weeks would pass before they heard from her. Eventually there would be an invitation to dinner, either out or at home for the filet gumbo or deviled crab David had taught her to cook, and no mention of their last meeting; it might never have happened.

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 enlist 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."