Memories of Another Day (49 page)

Slowly he picked up his speech cards from the lectern and held them out so that the audience could see them. "My brothers, my friends. These cards I hold in

my hand are the speech I'm supposed to make. Fm supposed to tell you how important it is for each and every one of you to join with us. I'm supposed to tell you how much money you will make with it and about the comforts that money will buy for you."

He paused for a moment. "But I've changed my mind. I'm not going to make that speech. Others can do that far better than I. Besides, each of you has been given a sheet of paper when you entered the room which tells you everything you need to know about it. So that speech I'm not going to make at all."

He opened his hand and let the cards drop to the floor. He looked at them for a moment, then back at the audience. *'The little time we have together is much too important to waste on that. Instead, I want to talk to you about something I feel is much more important, about something so important that it affects our lives each and every day of our existence. I want to speak to you about the way we live—something I call The Challenge to Democracy."

He paused and searched the faces in the audience. They were his people. He began to speak very slowly, very clearly.

''A man is bom, he works, he dies. Then there is nothing. . . . This has been the life of all of us who have been bom into the society of those who labor. We have accepted it. Because traditionally this is the way it has always been.

"But one day, some time ago, a group of men gathered to set down the principles of something they called democracy under which all men would be created equal. In race, in opportunity. And these goals became the challenge of democracy. Because it is always easier to state the ideal than to achieve it.

"The achievement becomes the stmggle, and the stmggle is ours. Because we are the people who labor, and we are the people who must accept the challenge of democracy and make it work."

He paused and gazed slowly around the audience

again. "My brothers, we have accepted that challenge. We have created unions to help us better our living conditions. And we must continue to improve our unions and create others to help those who need them. But there is more to the challenge than just unionism. The real challenge is life. We deserve more than just birth, work and death. We deserve more than being nothing. Because the world in which we hve is our world too. And each and every one of us by his actions must leave his mark on it. So that each and every man here will be remembered forever. Not forgotten."

He reached for the glass of water on the lectern. For a moment the silence in the hall made him feel as if they did not know what he was trying to tell them. Then the applause began to roll over him and he knew that he had reached them. He held up his hand and the applause died down.

**We are warriors in the battle. We must create as well as meet the challenge to democracy. Because only by searching in ourselves for our aims will we be able to help others to achieve theirs."

The applause came up again. He held up his hand. "And that is exactly what we must do. Care for one another as we care for ourselves. ..."

He stood on the platform for more than an hour. He spoke of youth gone by and dreams that had been lost and faiths that had vanished, and then he shared with them his dream of the future. His dream of the world, which they and they alone could make come true because it was their dream too. And he said that the only way they could make it happen was to accept the challenge. And if they did not accept that challenge, they were placing in other hands the responsibility for their lives, and in time they would go backward until all the newfound gains would be irretrievably lost.

When he finished, the audience was silent. He turned and started from the stage. Then the roar broke over him. The applause. The audience began to chant. "Big Dan! Big Dan! Big Dan!"

He turned back to them. They could see the tears running down his cheeks. He could hardly speak anymore. ''Thank you."

There was a strange silence backstage as he came off. None of the usual handshaking or backslapping of enthusiasm. Instead there was a strangeness, a kind of watchfulness, among the men who just before his speech had so exuberantly predicted that he would easily collect a half million dollars' worth of subscriptions from this rally alone. He could read the expression on their faces. He had blown it.

Even Moses and D.J were strangely silent in the car on their way back to the large suite they had reserved in the hotel for a postmeeting reception for the local union officials who had cooperated in the planning. Silently they went up in the elevator. They opened the door to the empty suite.

Daniel stood in the center of the Targe living room and stared at the preparations they had made for the reception. The large bar set up, the tables filled with sandwiches for those men who would be hungry.

He turned to Moses. "I guess you better make arrangements for the hotel to take this stuff back. Fm going to start packing. There's no use hanging around. Fm going to see if I can make a plane home tonight."

Moses nodded silently.

**D.J., you better start gathering up the papers. Don't bother sorting them out. Just dump them into a box and leave 'em here. Doesn't look as if we're going to need them now."

''Yes, Father."

The telephone began to ring as he went into his bedroom. He closed the door behind him and the sound of the ringing was blocked out. He walked to the bed and sat down heavily. Why the hell had he done it? He had had it all in his hands and he had thrown it away. And for nothing. Merely to tell them how he really felt, something they would forget by the time they sat down

for dinner that evening. How the hell could he have been so blinded by his own vision that he could have deluded himself into believing what he said was really important? Ideals were pretty words. They no longer moved people. Nor did people really believe in them. Power and money was the only faith that moved them.

The bedroom door opened and Moses stuck his head into the room. 'The President wants to talk to you," he said in a hushed voice.

*'The President?" Daniel asked stupidly.

"The President of the United States," Moses said.

Daniel stared at him, then turned and picked up the telephone at the side of the bed. ''Hello."

A woman's voice came through the line. "Mr. Hug-gins?"

"Yes."

"Just one moment for the President of the United States."

There was a click on the line, then the familiar sound of Eisenhower's voice. "Mr. Huggins, I called to congratulate you on your magnificent speech. I just saw it on television."

"Thank you, Mr. President."

"It was a magnificent reaffirmation of all the basic truths that have made America great. A restatement of ^the ideals with which we all grew up, ideals that far exceed the boundaries of labor but reach out and touch the core of all Americans who love their country and their fellowman. I want you to know that in that speech you not only spoke for all Americans, you spoke for me as well. It is a speech I would have been proud to make myself."

"Thank you, Mr. President."

"Congratulations again, Mr. Huggins. Goodbye."

The telephone clicked off in Daniel's hand. He looked up and saw Moses and D.J. in the doorway. "The President liked it," he said in a wondering voice.

Then, suddenly it seemed, all the phones in the suite

began to ring at the same time and people began pouring into the room.

The pains began somewhere in the middle of his speech. They were sitting in the living room watching him on the television screen. A moment after Daniel had begun to speak. Jack looked at her in surprise.

^That's not the speech we had worked on. Did he tell you he was going to change it?"

She shook her head. *'He never told me about any speech. I wouldn't know whether it's the same thing or not."

A few minutes later the first pain came. A spasm cutting through her like a knife. She tried to control it. She felt oddly embarrassed at letting Jack see it. She took a deep breath and it went away.

Two minutes later, it hit again. Stronger this time. Involuntarily, she gasped, bending forward in her chair.

Jack turned to her. *'Are you all right?"

She felt the perspiration on her face. *'The baby. I think it's coming. Call the doctor. His^ number is next to the telephone."

Jack got to his feet. *'Mamie," he called. The black woman appeared in the doorway. ''I think Mrs. Hug-gins' baby is coming. You stay with her while I phone the doctor and find out what he wants us to do."

The suite in the hotel was now a madhouse. Where all the men had come from, he didn't know. But they were there and they were exuberant. At the last count there was over a million dollars' worth of purchase contracts signed, and they were still being counted.

"You foxy bastard," the speaker who had introduced Daniel to the audience said to him. "You had us all thinkin' you were crazy, but you knew all the time what you were doin'."

Moses came toward him clutching a handful of telegrams. *The calls and telegrams are pouring in. From all over the country. Everybody wants you. From Dave Dubinsky in New York, who wants to take Madison Square Garden for you to talk to the I.L.G.W.U. and places the services of their bank, the Amalgamated, at your disposal, to Harry Bridges, who wants you to speak to the longshoremen in San Francisco. Even George Meany sent a telegram of congratulations and pledges his support in the achievement of all our common goals and ideals.''

Suddenly Daniel was tired. He began pushing his way through the crowded living room to his bedroom. He passed one man, already enthusiastically drunk, who clapped him on the shoulder. "Big Dan!" the man said. "You kin be the next President of the United States if'n you want to."

He slipped into his room and closed the door. He walked to the bed and sat down. He needed a few minutes' rest. Too much had happened. The highs and the lows had drained him. The door opened and D.J. came into the room.

"Are you all right. Father?"

"Just tired, son."

"It was a brilliant idea. Father," D.J. said. "You knew instinctively just the way to sell them. I don't think any of us even came close to understanding what you were doing."

Daniel looked at his son. And they still didn't. Even D.J. believed that it had been a clever plan to sell subscriptions. He didn't speak. The telephone at the side of the bed began to ring. He gestured for D.J. to get it.

D.J. picked it up. "It's for you, Father. Jack Haney."

Daniel took the telephone. "Yes, Jack?"

"Margaret's having the baby. I just took her to County. She's up in the labor room right now."

"Is she all right?"

'*Her doctor says she's just fine. Everything's normal. She should have the baby any mmute." There was a sound over the phone on jfack's end of the line. "Hold on a minute." Daniel could hear the voices. Then Jack came back on the line. "It's a boy, Daniel." His voice was excited. "Six pounds four ounces. Congratulations."

Daniel took a deep breath. "I'll leave right away. Tell Margaret that I'll see her this evening." He put down the telephone and looked up at D.J. "You have a brother," he said.

DJ.'s face broke into a smile. "Congratulations." He grabbed his father's hand and held it. "I'm really happy for you. Really."

"Get Moses," Daniel said. "I want to tell him I'm going back right now. The two of you stay here and wrap up."

Moses and D.J. came back into the room just as Daniel was closing his valise. "I'll slip out through the bedroom door," Daniel said. "Nobody'U even miss me.

Moses nodded, grinning. "Congratulations, Daniel." He gestured at the valise. "You don't have to take that. We'll bring it back tomorrow."

"Good idea," Daniel said. He went to the hall door. "I'll get a cab to take me to the airport," he said, opening the door and stepping oiit into the hall. They stepped out after him.

There were about ten or twelve men outside the main entrance to the suite. "They're still coming in," Moses said. "You better go down to the elevators on the other side."

Daniel glanced at the crowd and nodded, beginning to turn away. A picture clicked in his mind. He whirled suddenly, one hand reaching inside his coat for his gun; with the other he pushed Moses hard back into the open doorway. Moses crashed into D.J., and they both stumbled back into the room just as the first shot rang out.

Daniel felt the blow in his solar plexus, the picture of the blond man still bright in his mind. He struggled to raise his gun. The second shot brought him to his knees. He had the gun up now, holding it in two hands. It took all his strength to squeeze the trigger. Then the picture of the blond man's face exploded into a mass of blood and bone and disappeared as still another shot tore into him, tumbling him backward, unconscious, to the floor.

'7 am dying, my son. And you are being born. I will never see you. We will never know each other.''

'*Yoju will not die this time, Father. I have just come from the future and you are still there.* '

*7 will leave you my dreams, my son.''

*7 will wait for them, Father. But you will have to show me the way."

He struggled up through the maze of pain. He could feel the hands lifting him onto a stretcher. He opened his eyes just as they picked up the stretcher and saw D.J. and Moses bending anxiously over him. He managed a wan smile. ''I feel stupid. I should have expected something like this."

*Take it easy. Father," D.J. said. '^You^l be okay. The doctor said none of the wounds are serious."

"I know." Daniel nodded weakly. "Your baby brother has told me that ah-eady."

Now

The crisp October air felt good as it went deep into my lungs. All around us the West Virginia hills were covered with the red and gold and burnt orange of the early falling leaves, and those that were left danced nervously on the branches of the trees. We crested the hill. "Here/' I said.

Christina moved the white Rolls off the highway onto the shoulder of the road. She looked at me. "Are you sure you want to do this?"