The Nigger Factory (22 page)

35

Downhill Snowball

Miss Felch never had a chance to stop Gloria Calhoun from entering her husband's office. Mrs Calhoun came through the open door to the outer office and barged by the startled secretary before a word could be exchanged.

Ogden Calhoun was both surprised and annoyed to see his wife intrude on him. He was putting the finishing touches on his press statement and having a last cup of coffee when the interruption took place. He leaped to his feet and held out a warning hand to his wife.

Mrs Calhoun's face was bitten with anger, her dark eyes flashing too much despair to withstand the tears she felt about to boil over and smear her carefully prepared makeup. Her hair was glistening from the raindrops that had started to sprinkle the air.

‘I just came to tell you something important!’ she declared ignoring her husband's hand. ‘I came to tell you that I'm leavin’ you tonight. Right now! I swear to God in heaven, Ogden, that if you send those troops down on those boys I'm through.’

‘I have no choice,’ Calhoun said, rushing to the door to be sure that it was closed and locked.

‘That's a lie!’ his wife objected. ‘That's as much of a lie as anything else that's gone on this week. There is a choice. You've always had some kind of choice. But you're old. You don't want to see. An’ now the choice is almost life or death.’

‘I have my duty to . . .’

‘Stop! God, I hate to think that I'm really hearin’
you
sayin’ those sort of things. I hate to think of you callin’ on cliches and lies when I'm practically down on my knees askin’ you to take a look at what you're doin’.’

‘I know.’

‘Stop! I said stop!’ Mrs Calhoun almost screamed. ‘I'm very tired. I didn't come here to argue. I didn't even come here to change your mind. I was leavin’ without a word, but when I called to talk to you as usual you were too busy for me.’ Mrs Calhoun sat in the chair facing the president's desk.

‘Gloria, you don't know all the facts.’

‘Maybe not,’ Mrs Calhoun agreed. ‘But,’ she added as she struggled for composure, ‘I do know that there are boys out there ready to die for what they believe in. Boys that are takin’ a stand that you would have taken when you were their age. But, God that must have been a long time ago. And they have to face this, this death, because you're an old man. Not really old. Not too old to see as I see, but all you have been able to see for a long time has been yourself. Any idea that wasn't conceived by Ogden Calhoun is not a good idea.’

‘They're wrong,’ Calhoun said heavily. ‘You're wrong. We never did things like this. There was communication an’ we faced everybody like a man. We sat down an’ argued an’ fought.’ Calhoun was flustered beyond his frayed nerves and late hours. The mask of rock-hard calm had split like fabric stretched too tightly against its subject, leaving him feeling old and tired and open.

‘We never did,’ his wife snapped. ‘
WE WHO?
We, in the thirties?
WE WHO?
We, at Howard? For nine years I've watched you fool people and lie to yourself, using Sutton University as an example to show everyone that the same tough man who was fired for speaking his mind about Black psychology is still as tough and as hard to overpower as ever. All I've read about is the history of collective thought you've been in favor of here at Sutton. That's another lie! Everything that you have implemented here that
wasn't
your idea has been used and publicized as though you had conceived it. Threatening students. “My way or the Highway Calhoun” . . . I feel so sorry for you Ogden. And me, too. I feel sorry for me too. Because I never said anythin’ though I saw it all happening a long time ago. But I thought you knew you were acting. I
never suspected that you believed that liberal façade that you exposed an’ the talk about being on the students’ side. I thought you knew that you were only on your side.’

‘You're wrong,’ Calhoun repeated.

‘And you really think I'm wrong too,’ Mrs Calhoun said, standing up as though she had just had another revelation.

‘I know you're wrong,’ Calhoun said weakly.

‘I'm leaving,’ Mrs Calhoun said turning for the door. Her husband didn't look up as she departed. ‘Good-bye,’ she concluded.

Minutes tick-ticked by. Ogden Calhoun stared out of the window watching darkness engulf the campus. He saw the sparkling shadows of the raindrops dancing across the path of the light outside his second-floor window.

Miss Felch cut into his thoughts by way of the intercom.

‘Yes?’ he asked, getting up.

‘The Guard is here,’ Miss Felch said.

‘Where are they?’ Calhoun asked.

‘Their commander is downstairs with Captain Jones. The rest of them will be pulling in in a few seconds.’

‘Good. I'm coming out.’

Calhoun straightened his tie in the small mirror on his desk, finished his coffee, and smoothed out his hair with his palm. When he came through the oak door into the outer office Miss Felch was throwing a sweater over her shoulders. Together they went down the flight of stairs onto the first floor and then out into the misty Virginia evening.

Captain Jones was standing on the second step talking to a man in an army uniform. Flashbulbs went off in the president's face. Huge rows of illuminating camera lights were turned on and the night television cameras started to roll.

‘This is the Guard commander, General Rice,’ Captain Jones said introducing the two men. ‘This is President Ogden Calhoun.’ Calhoun shook the general's hand and more pictures were taken.

‘I'll be very brief, gentlemen,’ Calhoun said to the assembly
of reporters and photographers and interested by-standers. ‘In the past forty-eight hours Sutton University has been the scene of over twenty-three thousand dollars’ worth of damage. We have lost ten thousand dollars’ worth of equipment in our resident facilities and today, a thirteen-thousand-dollar school bus, formerly used to transport our teams to athletic events, was blown up. The members of the community were asked to leave in order that we might establish a readmission program, but there are certain members of the community who didn't leave. I think, and Captain Jones will correct me if I'm wrong, that the men responsible for the majority of the damage, the Student Government Association heads and members of a militant group called MJUMBE, are the only students who insisted on staying. All other students apparently saw the sincerity and responsibility from my office to bring peace to Sutton. Therefore . . .’ President Calhoun was interrupted by the large roar of motors as the six huge transport trucks carrying the Guardsmen wheeled around the oval and pulled to a stop in front of the office. Flashbulbs were fired at the halting trucks. One man from each truck dropped off quickly and trotted through the rain toward the building. ‘. . . therefore,’ Calhoun continued, ‘I have summoned the National Guard unit placed at my disposal by the governor, and I am asking them to clear the buildings here at Sutton. That's all.’

Had Calhoun looked up just at that moment he would have seen one last student car leaving the campus. It was a late-model Ford station wagon with Fred Jones at the wheel and Speedy Cotton and Ralph Baker sitting in the back seat as passengers. The other two MJUMBE men were not in the car.

Ben King was sitting in a chair on the third floor of the frat house. He couldn't see through the darkness and mist across the oval to where Calhoun stood in front of Sutton Hall, but he had heard the roaring engines of the transport trucks as they arrived on campus and then idled in front of the administration building. He was readying the 30.06.

Abul Menka heard the trucks entering too. He was standing at the side window of Carver Hall knocking on the glass window, trying to summon Earl Thomas. Abul had turned down an opportunity to ride with Fred Jones and had even got as far as revving up the motor for his own car to leave, but the lights in Carver Hall, just across the parking lot from the fraternity building, made him think of Earl and the reason why he was leaving. He saw no reason for Earl to die because of King's stupidity either.

‘Earl,’ he was calling. ‘Earl!’

The SGA president finally heard him above the transistor radio that was playing on the desk and went over to the window and opened it.

‘Abul. Whuss up, brother?’ Earl asked.

‘This whole thing,’ Captain Cool replied. ‘Baker an’ Cotton an’ Jonesy already left. We found a bomb that Ben King had made. He was planning to use it this evenin’. He was the one who bombed the bus.’

‘So you leavin'?’

‘What the hell?’ Abul asked. ‘When I realized that whatever those parents saw and felt during that meetin’ explosion really
was
our fault instead a jus’ somethin’ that someone had planted to blame us, it really took the wind outta me . . . thass why I came over here to tell you to split.’

‘No can do,’ Earl laughed without humor, turning his face up into the mist. ‘The money you guys bet over the las’ couple days is comin’ to be collected. My signature was on the bogus check.’

‘You don’ have ta stay,’ Abul complained. ‘Man, King fucked everything aroun’. Thass part a the reason the ol’ man is sendin’ the Guard in. You don’ have to pay for
that
.’

‘Look, man. I know how you guys got those papers that Baker made up the demands from. Sheila tol’ me everything . . .’

‘What?’ Abul asked.

‘That Baker took the papers from my desk after she loaned him the key. She tol’ me today.’

‘I didn't know that . . . either,’ Abul said sincerely. ‘Baker convinced us all that you wuz jus’ another bootlickin’ ass-kissin'-type-cat.’

‘Doesn't matter,’ Earl said. ‘Somebody had to start it.’

‘It was like a snowball, man,’ Abul continued blankly. ‘One lie led to the nex’ one.’ Abul looked up again suddenly as the truck engines began to rev again. ‘They comin’, man,’ he declared. ‘Why don’ yawl c'mon out. Can't you see that ain’ nothin’ like we thought it was?’

‘But regardless, man,’ Earl said calmly, trying to peer through the density of the rain now falling heavily, ‘the things on that paper was comin’ to a head, an’ this was the inevitable result.’

‘What you're sayin’ is that you gonna pay fo’ our mistakes. You know that if you had been runnin’ things they would a been diff'rent.’

‘Maybe. It don’ matter now.’

‘Move aside,’ Abul said climbing through the window. ‘I'll wait with yawl.’

There was little room in the cramped office. Odds and Lawman were sitting on the floor because all of the furniture had been propped against the door.

Abul was welcomed. He sat in the middle of the two SGA appointed workers and poured himself a drink. He didn't have time to enjoy it.

The first burst of fire came from the direction of the fraternity house. It was a series of four shots echoing like firecrackers to the men in Carver Hall. The return fire shook them where they sat. There was a repeating-rifle burst, followed by a thundering from guns. The last explosion was a mammoth roar that none of the four men in Carver Hall would ever believe had come from a gun. Abul Menka dropped his glass when he realized the truth.

‘They hit the bomb,’ He cried leaping to his feet. ‘One of those bullets hit the bomb. Oh, God!’ he raced to the side window to see the fraternity house being swallowed by flame
leaping toward the stairs starting at the top floor and running quickly down the front of the old wooden structure.

Earl, Odds, and Lawman were rooted to the window unable to react. They could scarcely accept the fact that Ben King was somewhere in that building.

Abul Menka was still screaming as he tore the barricades from their prop positions at the door. He threw the chairs behind him in his haste to leave and shoved the desk far enough away from the door to exit. Earl and his companions arrived at the door just behind him, too late to divert him. They stopped. Through the rain they saw his running figure disappear across the parking lot headed toward the fire.