Mozart and Leadbelly (7 page)

Students are always asking me, “Do you know the ending of your novel when you start writing?” And I have always used the analogy of getting on a train from San Francisco to go to New York. It takes three or four days to get there. I know some facts. I’m leaving San Francisco for New York. I also know the states I’ll travel through and some of the things I’ll do. I know that I’ll go to the dining car to eat. I’ll go to the club car for a drink. I’ll read the book I brought with me. I’ll get so many hours of sleep. These things I know. What I don’t know is how the weather will be the entire trip. I don’t know who will get on the train and how they’ll be dressed or where they’ll sit. I don’t know all the valleys and hills that I’ll cross during my trip. I don’t know all the different colors of nature, the colors of the leaves on the trees, the color of the different crops in the different fields. I don’t know all the turnings and twists of the rail or when the train will make a sudden stop. In other words, I can’t anticipate everything that will happen on the trip, and sometimes I don’t even get to New York, but end up in Philadelphia.

When I started
A Lesson Before Dying,
I knew that Jefferson would be sentenced to die. Because in Louisiana in the forties, if he had been caught on the premises where a white man had been killed with a bottle of liquor in his hand and money in his pocket, that added up to guilt. But would he be executed? I didn’t know for certain. Maybe the governor at the last moment would pardon him when the state could not definitely prove his guilt. The story could have ended there, because by now Grant could have reached him, convinced him that he was not the animal he had been so described in court, but that he was as much human as any of them and probably even more so. Because the story is not whether Jefferson is innocent or guilty but how he feels about himself at the end. However, the Cajun attorney gave me a different alternative. After he described that tarpaulin-covered truck delivering that chair and that generator on an early foggy morning, I knew that I had no other ending but that Jefferson would be executed. I wanted the reader to see that truck and that chair and to hear that generator.

Two things I had not anticipated when I began the novel and that would be vital in the story are the radio and the notebook. After I had gone so far into the novel and Jefferson still refused to communicate with anyone, I knew I had to find some way to make him talk. On that plantation where I lived as a child, on Saturday night the people of one or two of the homes in the quarter would give a house party—or a “supper,” as we also called them. At these suppers, there would be food and drinks and music, the music coming from an old gramophone. On one of his visits to the jail, Grant mentions the music to Jefferson. When Jefferson shows some sign of interest, Grant promises to get him a radio so he can have some music to listen to. The idea of the radio was not planned, but it turned out to be a most important turn in the story. From that moment on, there was some communication, although limited, between the two of them. Still, Jefferson refuses to open up completely to Grant or his godmother, Miss Emma, or the minister of the church. So we know little of what he’s thinking about or what he thinks about life. And I felt we had to know him better. Once I decided he would be executed, I knew, since he would not reveal his thoughts to someone, still in some way he had to give the reader some information. I didn’t want any last efforts, speaking on the walk to the chair. I needed the information long before then.

Thus, the notebook. Grant would bring him a notebook and a pencil and tell him to write down anything he wished. His least little thoughts. When Grant visits again, he sees that Jefferson has written in the notebook and erased. And Grant tells him not to erase, never to erase, just go on and write his first thoughts the best way he can, which he does from then on. Jefferson is barely literate. He has never written a letter in his life. He was barely able to write his elementary school assignments. But now, with his pencil and notebook, he tries to define his humanity—in the few days he has left to live. He does not know whether to write above the lines or across the lines, so he does both. He does not erase. He does not capitalize. He uses no punctuation marks. He writes what comes into his mind. He writes at night when he has light because he does not want others to see him doing so during the day. He writes the night before his execution because the sheriff promises him that he can have all the light he wants on his last night. His diary is made up of small things, about the people he knew and how they affected his life, about insignificant incidents. He thinks about justice and injustice. And he wonders about God. All of this is written above and across the lines of his notebook, without capitalization and punctuation.

Grant does not attend the execution. Though he has worked hard with Jefferson, he does not have the courage to be there at his death. The young deputy brings Jefferson’s notebook to him and tells him that Jefferson was the strongest man in that room when he came to die. The young deputy gives Grant this information outside the schoolhouse. When Grant returns to his class, his students are waiting, standing at attention, their shoulders back, heads high, to hear of the execution. Grant, cynical to this moment, looks at them, crying.

Writing for me is discovery. If I knew everything when I began a novel, I’m afraid it would be boring to write. I do not know everything that’s going to happen in the book. I don’t want to know everything. I want to discover, as you, the reader, want to discover, what it’s all about. Those little unknown things that happen on the train between San Francisco and New York keep me writing and you, the reader, turning the pages.

Oprah Winfrey asked what I try to reach for in my writing. And I said something to this effect: I try to create characters with character to help develop my own character and maybe the character of the reader who might read me.

Stories

CHRIST WALKED DOWN MARKET STREET

I have been asked many times when will I write a story or a novel about California after having lived there forty-four years, and I always answer that I will, but only after I have written Louisiana out of my life—which I hope shall never happen.

That does not mean that I have not
tried
to write about California—and I emphasize the word
tried
. I have parts of short stories, parts of novels; first drafts of each, in boxes at Dupré Library. Once I tried a romantic novel based on
Othello
—love and jealousy—but no murder. After a first draft I put it away, because it did not sound right. (Shakespeare had done it so much better 360 years earlier.) I tried writing a novel about bohemian life in San Francisco, but after drinking a bottle of liebfraumilch wine along with a loaf of French bread with salami and cheese, mayonnaise and mustard, I became so ill that I realized the bohemian life was not for me. There was a period when I read nothing but ghost stories, and I thought I could write one, too. I have said facetiously that it was so real that I scared myself, but the truth is that it never got off the ground. (I lost interest in it, because at about that same time I came up with the idea of a life story of a little lady who would live 110 years.)

But whenever I had a manuscript or a novel in New York with my agent or my editor, I would, to pass away the time, resort to the short story. Sometimes the story would be about Louisiana, other times about San Francisco. The Louisiana story was always completed, the San Francisco story hardly ever. None was ever published.

Many years ago, the late fifties or early sixties, I read a story by Isaac Bashevis Singer titled “The Spinoza of Market Street.” I have forgotten what the story is about, but I could never forget the title. Possibly because one of the main streets in San Francisco is called Market, and I have walked that street hundreds of times to clothing stores, movie theaters, record shops, and bookstores. And ever since I read that story by Singer, I’ve always wanted to write a story about San Francisco’s Market Street.

While on a one-semester leave from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 1984, I taught creative writing that fall at the University of Houston-Downtown. The hotel where I lived overlooked one of the main streets, and many times I stood at the window, looking down at the traffic below. One day I saw a man shuffling along the sidewalk, holding up his trousers with his left hand, while he stuck out his right hand to others and begged for money. I had seen people beg on Market Street in San Francisco many times, but the image of this person stayed in my mind because I saw him probably once or twice a week. Always coming from the same direction, and he seemed to always wear the same clothes, trousers much too big and much too long.

After I had seen him several times, I thought I could write a story about him. Who was he? Where was he coming from? Where was he going? Did he have a home? Did he have a family? Was he alone? Now, not only did I have to create a story around this figure, but I also would have to find a title for the story.

For some reason, and I still don’t know exactly why, the title of Isaac Singer’s story came into my mind. It was a title that I could not forget any more than I could that person who shuffled along the sidewalk below the window of my hotel several times a week. Since I didn’t know Houston well enough to write about it, I had to place the story somewhere else. Not in a small Southern town—my Bayonne, say—but in a large city: San Francisco. Use the rhythm in Singer’s title, but place it in San Francisco. Singer: “The Spinoza of Market Street.” Mine: “Christ Walked Down Market Street.”

I must admit that I’ve rewritten this story at least a half dozen times since 1984 and am still not satisfied with it. Maybe I’ll have to get the Louisiana stuff out of me first before I can write the story the way it should be.

But I’ve been asked for a story about California. So here goes.

You remember how it used to be when a bum was a bum, just a bum? No flower child, no hippie, Beatle, punker—nothing but a plain bum—you remember? You would have to go back twenty-five, thirty years—the late fifties, the early sixties, say. Back before Jack Kennedy was assassinated there in Dallas. Before Alioto had all these high-rises built here in San Francisco. About the time the Giants came to the city and had to play at the old Seals Stadium at Sixteenth and Bryant. Godamighty, I wish they were still playing at Seals Stadium and not in the goddamn icebox they call Candlestick Park. It makes me shiver just to think of that place. . . .

Well, now, thank you for the drink, sir, thank you for the drink. May all your days be sunny and bright, and your nights spent in the arms of some luscious babe. Only the best for a gentleman, sir, and I can tell by your attire that you are a true gentleman.

Sir, please do not take me for a drunk or a cynic. Maybe in some ways I am both—but I have not always been this way. As you see me, sir, in the past I have been as sober and sensitive, as compassionate, as loving, as giving and caring as the next man. Yes, sir, in the past I have possessed all these noble qualities. Yes, sir, I have. Yes, sir, I have.

Sir, I know the streets of San Francisco like very few men do. I am seventy-one now, and I have lived here most of my life. Oh, I have traveled this country many, many times—a job here, a job there— looking for something I know not what—but I’ve always returned to the city of St. Francis. Whored this town, drank this town from bar to bar, and walked this town from one end to the other. I’ve seen it all in this town, sir. Yes, sir, you’re looking at a man who has seen it all.

To your health, sir. To your health. Yes, sir, I can see you’re a true gentleman. Thanks for the drink.

Now, you take bums, sir. To be a true bum, it takes real talent, a genius. He knows man better than the psychologist. More clever than the novelist, or your poet. Knows more of man than your social scientist will ever know. (Shakespeare was right. Make your fool wise. . . . Oh, what Mr. William knew.) I respect the bum for that innate knowledge of man. Yes, sir, I do . . .

Sir, are you one of the chosen? Ah, I see by your expression you don’t know what I mean by one of the chosen. Then I’ll explain. The chosen is the one that the bum uses . . .

Let me explain, let me explain. Because if you’re not a chosen, then you think bums bum off everyone alike. Well, you’re right in a way, but only half right. The bum will alike beg off man, woman, or child, but unless you’re one of the chosen he’ll go so far and give up. But now with the chosen, he never gives up. He will hound and hound the chosen long as he can find him. He feels that the chosen owes him, and for some reason deep inside himself the chosen feels the same way.

Now, I know I’m getting a little philosophical. But that is true, sir, as night follows day and—et al., et al., et al. There are people—chosens; a word I thought of some thirty years ago—whom the bum will haunt when all others turn him down. For example, sir, you are looking at a 100 percent genuine chosen right now in the person of me. I am more of a chosen than your average chosen is. By that I mean I hunt for bums to give handouts; they don’t have to hunt for me. Or I should say I did it in the past. . . .

Bend an ear, sir; bend an ear—as that master of English drama, Mr. William, would say. I shall say one more thing about the habits of bums, then I shall get down to the nitty-gritty, as the saying goes today. But again to your health, sir. Sunny days; nights of wine and love.

Take a bum now, sir. A bum can spot one of the chosen in a crowd of a thousand people. I’ve been at football games among eighty thousand people; baseball games where there were fifty thousand or more; crowded airports, bus stations, crowded streets. On the other hand, I’ve been on empty buses, just me and the driver. Driver picks up the bum at a bus stop—and guess what the bum does? Go on and guess; go ahead and guess. Give up? Then I’ll tell you. He comes and plops down right beside me. Fifty, sixty empty seats—does he sit in one of them? No siree, bob. Plops down right beside me with his hand out.

Another example. Two o’clock in the morning. Twenty, twentyfive people on the bus. Hispanics, Asians, blacks, whites—name the races here in San Francisco, and they’re on that bus. Bus stops, bum gets on. Passes the Mexican, passes the Chinaman, the black, Italian, the Russian; everybody; then plops next to me, his hand out already.

Take a good look at me, sir. Am I so different from other men— even, say, yourself? Maybe I need a shave; can stand a shower; a change of clothes I can use; a haircut, too, I suppose. But these are minor things. The major thing, do I look different from other men? And the answer is no. No. Still I am. Because I’m one of the chosen.

Now, to get to my story, sir. And it is a very short story. . . . But first, well, before I get started, the old throat gets a little dry after so much talking. . . . Well, now, thank you, sir. Thank you. And may all your days be sunny and—well, you know all the rest. . . .

I am a walker, sir. Walked most of the major seaport cities of this country. Longshoreman being my work, I’ve been to Seattle, Port-land, New Orleans, Boston, New York. You name them, and I’ve walked them all. But my favorite has always been and will be the city of St. Francis, San Francisco.

To walk around Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park at seven o’clock on a cool, windy morning, with that fog rolling in from the ocean, to smell the eucalyptus and the pine, not even your best wine is more intoxicant. Take Kennedy Drive to the Great Highway, stroll along Ocean Beach from the Cliff House to the zoo and back—that is a blessing for any man who loves land, wind, and sea. There are so many wonderful places to walk here in this great city, should I stand here all day I could not name half of them.

But bend an ear, sir, as Mr. William would say. My story does not take place in the park or on the beach. Neither does it take place in one of the more romantic settings in the city—the Mission, China-town, Fisherman’s Wharf, Twin Peaks—no, sir. Market Street. Of all places—Market Street. Between Fifth and Sixth on Market Street.

It is raining, it’s windy and cold. Twelve-thirty, maybe one o’clock in the afternoon. Umbrellas all over the place, but doing little good against the wind. Must be fifty, sixty people on the block, all in a hurry to get out of the weather. Myself, I had been to the post office at Seventh and Mission to cash a money order, and now I was on my way down to Roos Atkins to get a jacket that they had on sale.

I saw him maybe a hundred feet away. But I’m sure he had seen me long before then. There were probably a dozen people between us, so he didn’t have too much trouble picking me out. And you have never seen a more pathetic figure in your life. Barefoot. Half of his denim shirt inside his black trousers, the other half hanging out. No belt, no zipper—holding up his trousers with one hand. They were much too big for him, much too long, and even holding them up as high as he could, and as tight as he could, they still dragged in mud on the sidewalk. From the moment I saw him, I told myself that I was not going to give him a single dime. I had already given a quarter to one who stood out in the rain in front of the post office.

As we came closer, I saw him passing the other people like they weren’t even there. And they were doing the same to him, avoiding him like they didn’t even see him. I could see from twenty-five, thirty feet away that he was angling straight toward me. I moved far to the right of the sidewalk as if I might go into one of the stores, but he knew I wasn’t, and he moved over, too, and kept coming toward me. Then at a distance of about six feet away he reached out his hand in slow motion. The palm of his hand was black with grime, his fingers were long and skeletal, I went by him without looking into his face. I made two more steps, then I jerked around. Because I had seen something in the palm of that hand that looked like an ugly sunken scar.

But as God be my witness He was not there. He was not there, sir, He was not there. No one was within ten or fifteen feet of where He should have been. No, sir, I had not made more than two or three steps before I turned around. And I should have seen Him as clearly as I’m seeing you now—but He was not there. Just this empty space between me and all the other people. Just empty space.

I stood there searching for Him. I looked all the way to the end of the block. I looked across the street. He could not have entered one of the stores that quickly. But nothing, nothing. Only the people rushing toward me or rushing by. I couldn’t possibly tell anyone what I had seen. They would have thought certainly I was mad.

I was terrified. And with all the traffic noise around me, I could still hear my heart beating—beating too fast, too loud. I forgot about the jacket, I went back home. I sat in my kitchen drinking a brandy, trying to calm myself. But I couldn’t rest, and I came back to Market Street. It was raining harder, it was colder, but I had to come back. I walked that one block between Fifth and Sixth a half dozen times. Late that afternoon, never mentioning it to anybody, I went back home.

I was a longshoreman then, working off Pier 50 in China Basin. Each evening when I got off I’d walk down Market Street. On days when I didn’t get work, I would walk down Market Street. I wouldn’t dare tell anyone what I had seen, afraid they would think I was crazy. But if I saw Him again I would tell the world and I wouldn’t care what they thought.

Market Street became a second home to me. For a couple of years, day or night, I would walk down Market Street. When I didn’t see Him again I got the idea that maybe He would not come back in that same form. Maybe He had already returned in a different form and I hadn’t recognized Him. Maybe He was one of my neighbors.

Though I continued to look for Him as I had seen Him that first time, now I searched the face of anyone and everyone I passed. I also looked closely at the palm of all hands I came in contact with, whether it was the hand of one of the dock workers, black or white; whether it was the left or right hand of a store clerk, a bus driver when I got my transfer, or the butcher when he gave me my change—I looked at all their hands.