Ragtime (22 page)

At four in the afternoon the newsboy ran by and tossed the folded evening paper to the porch. The killer arsonist was believed to be an unidentified Negro male. From his hospital bed, the sole survivor of the attack had been able to describe him to the police. Apparently the Negro put out the fire burning the clothes of the injured man. And then, lest that be interpreted as an act of mercy, he had held his head by the hair and demanded to know where the Fire Chief was hiding. But it was Fire Chief Conklin’s good fortune not to be at the station house that evening. It was not known how the Negro knew Conklin or what he had against him.

The professional consensus was that there had to have been accomplices—this from the fact that a false alarm had been set to bring the volunteers out of the station. Nevertheless an editorial described the disaster as the work of a lone crazed killer. Citizens were called upon to lock their doors and maintain their vigilance, but to remain calm.

The family sat at the dinner table. Mother held the baby in her arms. Without realizing it she did not now expect ever to put the child down. She felt the touch of his tiny fingertips on her cheek. Upstairs in his room Grandfather groaned in pain. There was no dinner this
evening, nobody wanted to eat. A cut-glass carafe of brandy was set in front of Father. He was drinking his third glass. He felt that something, some sort of small bone or piece of dust, was lodged in his throat and he had conceived of the brandy as the only thing that would fix it. He had taken from his bureau drawer his old army pistol from the Philippine campaign. It lay on the table. We are suffering a tragedy that should not have been ours, he said to his wife. What in God’s name possessed you on that day? The county has facilities for indigents. You took her in without sufficient thought. You victimized us all with your foolish female sentimentality. Mother regarded him. She could not remember any time in their long acquaintance when he had reproached her. She knew he would apologize; nevertheless tears filled her eyes and eventually ran down her face. Wisps of her hair had come undone and lay on her neck and over her ears. Father looked at her and she was beautiful in the way she had been as a girl. He did not realize the pleasure he felt in having made her cry.

Younger Brother was sitting with his elbow on the arm of his chair and his head propped in his hand. His index finger was extended and pointed at his temple. He watched his brother-in-law. Are you going out to find him and shoot him? he said. I’m going to protect my home, Father said. This is his child here. If he makes the mistake of coming to my door I will deal with him. But why should he come here, Brother said in a goading tone of voice. We did not desecrate his car. Father looked at Mother. In the morning I will go to the
police and have to tell them this murdering madman was a guest in my home. I will have to tell them we are keeping his bastard child. Younger Brother said I think Coalhouse Walker Jr. would want you to tell the police everything you know. You can tell them he’s the same Negro maniac whose car is lying at the bottom of Firehouse Pond. You can tell them he’s the fellow who visited their own headquarters to make a complaint against Will Conklin and his thugs. You can tell them he’s the same crazed black killer who sat by the bedside of someone who died in the hospital of her injuries. Father said I hope I misunderstand you. Would you defend this savage? Does he have anyone but himself to blame for Sarah’s death? Anything but his damnable nigger pride? Nothing under heaven can excuse the killing of men and the destruction of property in this manner! Brother stood so abruptly that his chair fell over. The baby started and began to cry. Brother was pale and trembling. I did not hear such a eulogy at Sarah’s funeral, he said. I did not hear you say then that death and the destruction of property was inexcusable.

But the fact was that Coalhouse Walker had already taken several steps to identify himself with the crime. It turned out that within an hour of the explosion he, or some other black man, left identical letters at the offices of the two local newspapers. The editors after conferring with the police chose not to print them. The letters were written in a clear firm hand and told of the events leading up to the attack on the firehouse. I want the infamous Fire Chief of the Volunteers turned over to
my justice, the letter said. I want my automobile returned to me in its original condition. If these conditions are not met I will continue to kill firemen and burn firehouses until they are. I will destroy the entire city if need be. The newspaper editors and police officials believed it was in the interest of the public welfare not to print the letter. An isolated crazed killer was one problem. An insurrection was another. Squads of police quietly went through the Negro neighborhoods and asked questions about Coalhouse Walker Jr. At the same time police of neighboring towns with Negro populations did the same. To headquarters the word filtered back: Not one of our Negroes. Not one of ours.

In the morning Father took the North Avenue streetcar downtown. He strode to City Hall. He went in the door a widely respected businessman in the community. His career as an explorer had been well reported in the newspapers. The flag that flew from the cupola on top of the building had been his gift to the city.

F
ather had been born and raised in White Plains, New York. He was an only child. He remembered moments of light and warmth in the days of summer at Saratoga Springs. There were gardens there with paths of washed gravel. He would stroll with his mama down the large painted porches of the great hotels. On the same day every year they went home. She was a frail woman who died when he was fourteen. Father attended Groton and then Harvard. He read German Philosophy. In the winter of his sophomore year his studies ended. His father had made a fortune in the Civil War and had since used his time losing it in unwise speculations. It was now entirely gone. The old man was the sort who thrived on adversity. His confidence rose with every loss. In bankruptcy he was beaming and triumphant. He died suddenly, all his expectations intact. His flamboyance had produced in his lonely son a personality that was cautious, sober, industrious and chronically unhappy. Coming into his majority, the orphan took the few dollars left to him and invested it in a small fireworks business owned by an Italian. Eventually he took it over, expanded its sales, bought out a flag manufacturing
firm and became quite comfortable. He had also found the time to secure an army commission in the Philippine campaigns. He was proud of his life but never forgot that before going into business he had been to Harvard. He had heard William James lecture on the principles of Modern Psychology. Exploration became his passion: he wanted to avoid what the great Dr. James had called the habit of inferiority to the full self.

Now every morning Father rose and tasted his mortal being. He wondered if his dislike for Coalhouse Walker, which had been instantaneous, was based not on the man’s color but on his being engaged in an act of courtship, a suspenseful enterprise that suggested the best of life was yet to come. Father noted the skin mottling on the back of his hand. He found himself occasionally asking people to repeat to him what they’d said. His bladder seemed always to demand emptying. Mother’s body did not arouse his lust, only his quiet appreciation. He admired her shape and softness but was no longer inflamed. He noted that she had grown heavier in the upper arms. Once accustomed to life together after his return from the Arctic, they had slipped into an undemanding companionship in which he felt by-passed by life, like a spectator at an event. He found distasteful her promotion of the black girl’s marriage. And now that Sarah was dead he felt altogether invisible, Mother’s grief having directed her attention solely on Sarah’s boy.

He recognized that he took satisfaction in going to the police. It was not an entirely righteous feeling. Perhaps
in compensation, he represented Coalhouse as a peaceful man driven mad by circumstances not of his own doing. This was exactly the argument Younger Brother made at home. Father confirmed the account of events in Coalhouse’s letter. He was a pianist, Father said, using the historical tense. He was always courteous and correct in his dealings. The police nodded gravely. They wanted to know if the Negro was likely to strike again. That is what the Police Chief said, strike again. Father said that once Coalhouse had set a course for himself he was nothing if not persevering. Largely upon this advice a defense was organized. Police guards were assigned to all the firehouses in the city. The main roads were placed under watch. In the headquarters a wall map was installed showing the deployment of forces. On the basis of Father’s information the New York City Police Department was persuaded to assign detectives to look for Coalhouse in Harlem.

Father had expected criticism from the police. This was not forthcoming. They regarded him as an expert on the character of the criminal. They encouraged him to spend as much time at headquarters as he could. They wanted him to be on hand for their deliberations. The walls of the rooms were painted light green to a line at waist level, dark green below. There were cuspidors in every corner. Father agreed to make himself as available as he could. This was his busiest time of year. All the orders for rockets, sparklers, Roman candles, crackers, flares and bombs had to be shipped in time for the Fourth of July celebrations. He went back and forth between his office and the police. To his disgust
he found himself at the station in the company of the Emerald Isle Chief, Will Conklin. Conklin smelled of whiskey and the experience of being a hunted man had turned his florid face the color of veal. He was by turn bombastic and craven. He offered counsel of the same level of wisdom that had triggered the crisis in the first place. He wanted to go to the black neighborhood and clean all the niggers out once and for all. The officers heard this with disinterest. They teased him about his fate. We may have to give you to the boogie man, Willie, they said. Just to get some peace around here. Conklin could take little of this. Are we not in this together? he said. God love you, you were cruel lads at St. Catherine’s and yer cruel now. Willie, the Police Chief said, we had to wait to hear from the black man himself that one of your shenanigans is what started this, you dumb Mick, telling us now we’re in this together.

But the Fire Chief’s character and mentality seemed appropriate to the place. There was a constant traffic through the glass doors of felons, lawyers, bondsmen, policemen and hapless relatives. Drunks were brought in by the collar and thieves with their hands cuffed. Voices were loud and language was vile. Conklin owned a coal and ice business and lived with a wife and several children in an apartment over his yard office. It dawned on Father that the man was spending so much time at the police station because he felt safe there. Of course he would not admit it. He boasted of the precautions he had taken at his yard. Not relying on the two posted policemen, he had enlisted all the
survivors of the Emerald Isle to billet themselves at his place. They were armed. The nigger might as well attack West Point, he said.

Father felt demeaned by the man. Conklin spoke to him differently from the way he addressed the policemen. His diction improved. His assumption of social equality was galling. It’s a tragic thing, Captain, he would say. A tragic thing indeed. Once he actually put his hand on Father’s shoulder, a gesture of such alarming brotherhood that it felt like an electric shock.

Nevertheless Father found himself spending more and more time here. He found it difficult to go home. On the day of the mass funeral for the victims of the Emerald Isle fire, he went to hear the eulogies. Half the city turned out. A large brass cross swayed over the heads of the crowd. Will Conklin did not leave the police station. I’d be a perfect target for the rifle shot, he said. Questions about his behavior began to circulate through the city. Then the news that the killings of the Night of the Emerald Isle stemmed from a grievance was published in the New York City dailies, where reporters were not constrained by the interests of the local chamber of commerce. The
World
and the
Sun
printed the text of Coalhouse’s letter. Will Conklin became a despised person everywhere. He was hated as the stupid perpetrator of events leading to the death of men whom he ostensibly commanded. On the other hand, among certain elements he was scorned as someone who knew how to bait a Negro but not to put the fear of God into him.