Three Days Before the Shooting ... (116 page)

And too full of emotion to speak, he smiled. And in silence he nodded his confirmation, thinking:
Yes, with all I know about him and his contradictions—Yes! And with all I have learned about the ways of men, this country, and the world—YES! And with all I know about white men and politicians of all colors, backgrounds and guises—Yes! And with all I know about the things you had to do to be you and remain yourself—Yes! You are one of the few who ever earned the right to be called “Father.” The Georges and the Toms and the Sams couldn’t bring themselves to do it, but you did. So yes, before all our reasons for holding reservations concerning you—Yes! It’s all right with me—Yes, sir! And although
I’m a man who despises all foolish pomp and circumstance, and all the bending of the knee before false values that some still try to force upon us—Yes again! And though I’m against all of the unearned tribute which the weak and lowly are forced to pay to power based on force and false differences and false values—Yes! For you “Father” is all right with me…. Yes!

And now, still gazing upward into the great quiet face, he rested his hand upon the sister’s arms; hoping to affirm by touch that complex of meaning which he was too full of emotion to convey by word, thinking as now he addressed the great man of stone:
Yes, and there you sit after all this unhappy time, just looking down out of those sad old eyes. Just looking way deep out of that old ugly but beautiful, storm-struck, windswept face. Yes, she’s right, it’s you all right; stretching out those long old weary legs as though you’ve just been resting a while before pulling yourself together again to go out and try to bind up all the wounds and injuries that have festered and rankled, and stunk up this land since the day they turned you back into that hard limestone from which you came. Yes, that’s right, it’s you; just sitting and waiting while taking your well-earned ease. Just getting your second wind before arising up to do all over again that which has been undone throughout all the long betrayed years. Yes, it’s you all right, just sitting and resting while you think out the mystery of how all of this mess could have come to be. Just puzzling out how all this could happen to a man’s work after he had done all one could possibly do, and then take the consequences for giving the world his all. Yes, it’s you—sometimes, I guess … sometimes…

And now he was saying it aloud, his eyes held by the air of peace and perception born of suffering which now he felt emanating from the great stone face, replying verbally to the sister now in a voice so low and husky that it sounded like that of another:

“Sometimes … I say, sometimes the good Lord in all His perfection gets disgusted with what’s happening in the world and He goes ahead and takes his own good time and He makes himself a
man!
And sometimes that man gets hold of the idea of what the Lord intends for him to do on this earth, and he gets an idea of how to go about achieving that goal, and that particular and unique man lets his idea guide him as he proceeds to grow and struggle and stumble and sorrow, until finally he comes into his own God-given shape. And no matter what he has to go up against he goes on to achieve his own lonely place in this troublesome world. It doesn’t happen often—oh, no! But when it does, then even the stones will cry out in witness to his vision, and the hills and towers will echo his words and deeds, and his example will live in the hearts of men forever!

“So there sits one of the few who have walked this land. The Master doesn’t make many like that, and few that he makes achieve their purpose. Which, perhaps, is just as well. Because that kind of man is such a threat to the sloppy functioning of human affairs that he becomes like a grand dimension reality—which is something for which human beings have little capacity. Nevertheless that rare kind of man loves truth and justice even more than he loves his wife, his children,
or his life. And that’s because he knows in his heart, and accepts the burden, of having been designated and set aside to perform those hard tasks that ordinary men are too timid and weak of purpose to tackle. But though frail and flawed, and often blind in his purpose, that kind of man will toil and struggle in the interest of what he conceives as truth and justice until the earth yawns and swallows him down. Yes, but even as he dies, as all must die, his deeds persist. So now you’re looking at one whose deeds will honor this land forever.

“So look at him a while and be thankful that the Lord allowed such a man to touch our lives, even if only a little while, then let us bow our heads and pray. Oh, no, not for him, because he did the Lord’s work and transformed the ground on which we stand. For in the words which my slavery-born granddaddy taught me when I was a child:

Ole Abe Lincoln digging in the sand
Swore he was nothing but a natural man.
Ole Abe Lincoln was chopping on a tree
Swore a mighty oath he’d let the slaves go
Free—And he did!

“So let us pray, not for him, oh, no! But for ourselves and for all of those whose job it will be to wear those great big shoes which he left for this nation to fill….”

And now in the sonorous shadows beneath his widespread arms they bowed their heads and prayed.

[RETURN]

P
RECEDING THE BROTHERS AND
sisters in their descent from the memorial, Hickman paused on its steps to look far across the Mall to where the broad Tidal Basin mirrored the sky. The banks of the basin were accented by trees whose branches were pale pink with blossoms, and above the curve of its southernmost bank the Jefferson Memorial loomed majestic and white in the sunlight. Then turning back to the steps below he looked beyond the reflecting pool to the Washington Monument and on to the far distant dome of the Capitol. Reflected in its pool Lincoln’s marble-clad memorial rippled and swayed, and the reflections of visitors arrayed on its steps were bobbing and weaving in the breeze-ruffled water like figures in a dream sequence from a historical movie. And far beyond the pool and the Mall’s stretch of stone structures and trees the nation’s grand Building of State glowed in a brilliance of light that reduced scrambling people and lines of traffic to hazy meshes of fluid silhouettes.

The scene was marked by an aura of grandeur, but in viewing it now through
the mixed emotions evoked by the great sculpture behind him he was suddenly disheartened. And as he continued his descent of the memorial’s steps there came from somewhere behind and above him the choked sobbing of a sister who gave mournful voice to his depressed state of mind.

Nor were he and the mournful sister alone, for as he observed the others descending in silence it was as though they too were measuring the harsh realities which now shaped their lives against the high hopes inspired by the man whose image sat brooding behind them in stone. And this after he had anticipated that visiting the memorial would mark the high point of their tour through the shifty hall of mirrors called “history.” But after assuming that a visual contact with its ambiguities would leave them exalted and refreshed for the task still ahead, he now realized that his thoughtless enthusiasm had been a mistake. For having long regarded the memorial as the nation’s troublesome commemoration of its moment of high tragedy he had failed to prepare them for its emotional impact, and thus left them exposed to moods marked by grave doubts and deep sadness.

Yes, and he himself had darkened that mood with his own uncontrolled response to the edifice. Clearly, he was responsible; for in giving voice to a conflict of feelings inspired by the man whom he considered the greatest of the nation’s heroes he had dimmed their hopes and defeated his motive for leading them there.

Yes, Hickman
, he thought,
you were so eager to give them bread that you’ve ended up giving them stones…
.

In keeping with Wilhite’s arrangement, the bus was waiting for their return to the Longview. And after all were seated he climbed aboard and responded to questioning glances with smiles and nods as he made his way to the rear of the bus, where Wilhite and the brothers had gathered.

The bus moved slowly, stop-and-go in the now heavy traffic, and as he sat meditating on his response to the memorial he found himself listening, at first remotely and then with attention, to Wilhite holding forth on the subject of Abraham Lincoln’s mixed attitude toward slavery and the consideration which the President had shown for the defeated owners of slaves. And suddenly he recalled looking up in the shadows of the edifice to see tears in his old friend’s eyes.

But now a note of contention in Wilhite’s argument suggested that his old friend was struggling to throw off the memorial’s spell and sounding a warning, both to himself and his listeners, against confusing the emotion aroused by the sculpture with the present-day realities that denied in millions of contentious ways the cost in blood, sacrifice, and hopes unfulfilled that accounted for its presence, there on the Washington Mall.

Pretty soon, he thought, Wilhite will be applying an antidote like the one we used in the old days when we marched from the saddest of burials playing happy tunes to rhythms that swung. So after my dampening their spirits he’ll try to give them a lift with an equivalent of “Oh, Didn’t He Ramble.”

“Looking at it hard and cold,” Wilhite was saying, “and in the light of what’s happening to us these days, no matter how a man might feel in his
heart
he has got to be at least as skeptical about what happened back there as Old Uncle Ned….”

“
… Ned?”
one of the brothers said. “Are you talking about old Uncle Ned
Wilhite?
”

“You can say that,” Wilhite said, “although he was better known simply as ‘Uncle’ or ‘Ned.’ Now, I don’t maintain that Uncle Ned was right, and in fact I know that he wasn’t. But I
do
have to sympathize with him because of what was happening back there when the South and the North were fighting. Anyway, on this particular day Uncle Ned was struggling down a muddy backcountry road pulling his old bone-dry cow along on a rope that was hardly more than a string. He was looking for some grass and doing his best to get her off that road because it was used by white folks on horses. But as luck would have it, here come some Yankee cavalry men busting out of the woods, and after looking him over one of them yells, ‘Hey there, Uncle, on which side of this ruckus are you?’ And with that Uncle Ned knew he was in trouble. But when his ear tells him that they’re
Northern
white folks he smiles and says, ‘Yas, suh, Captain, suh, but before I tell you that kin I ask
you
a question?’

“‘Why sure,’ says the Yankee in charge, ‘go right ahead.’

“‘Thank you, Captain, suh,’ says Uncle Ned, ‘but before I tell you there’s one thing I’d like to know. And that’s if you ever seen two dogs a-fightin’ over a bone?’

“‘Why, yes,’ the Northern white man said, ‘many times—but I can’t see what that’s got to do with whose side you’re on….’

“‘Naw, suh, Cap’n’, said Uncle Ned, ‘but that’s only because I ain’t finished my questioning. So now heah’s the rest: When them dogs was tryin’ to kill each other in order to see which one would get it, did the bone jump in there and start taking sides?’

“‘Well I be dog!’ the Northern white man said. ‘I never thought of it in those terms. Uncle, you’ve got something there. Yes, sir!’ And he took his men and rode away.

“‘You doggone right, I have,’ says Uncle Ned, and headed down the road pulling his bone-dry cow as fast as he was able….”

And while the other brothers laughed, Wilhite looked on with a blank expression.

“Now Uncle Ned was using his thinking piece,” someone said with a laugh.

“Yes,” Wilhite said, “and he got out of that one scot-free. But hardly are those Yankees out of sight than he looks up and here comes a bunch of Confederates riding out of the woods at breakneck speed.

“‘Hey there, uncle!’ the leader of the Confederates yells as he leans down from his horse, ‘Whose cow is that you leading?’

“‘She belongs to ole Mistress, Cap’n suh,’ says Uncle Ned.

“‘Oh, yeah? And whar you takin’ her?’

“‘Oh, just down the road a-piece, Cap’n suh; got to find her some grass….’

“‘Don’t lie to me now,’ the white man said, ‘are you sho she belongs to yo’ white folks?’

“‘Yas, suh, Cap’n,’ says Uncle Ned. ‘And what’s more, she’s the last one we got. The soldier boys done et all the others.’

“So the Confederate cavalryman looks Uncle Ned over a while then waves him on his way. ‘All right,’ he says, ‘if that’s the case, you can go; just see to it that you take good care of your white folks’ property—you hear?’

“‘Yas, suh,’ says Uncle Ned, ‘and you can count on it ‘cause I shorely will.’

“So Uncle Ned starts off—but, brothers, before Uncle Ned can get that cow’s engine revved up and moving he hears the white man calling after him, ‘Whoa up there, uncle, ‘cause I got me one more question to ask you….’ ”

“Oh, Lord,” one of the brothers said, “that cracker’s done caught up with Uncle Ned!”

“Please, brother,” Wilhite said,
“I’m
telling this truthful lie…. ‘Yas, suh,

Cap’n,’ says Uncle Ned, and he looks that white man dead in the eye and says, ‘I’m listenin’.’

“Then the white man says, ‘Uncle, whose side of this war you on?’

“‘Me, Cap’n?’ says Uncle Ned, ‘ain’t I heah taking care of ole Mistress and lookin’ out for her cow and the chillen and all?’

“‘Well now,’ the Confederate says, ‘but that’s what you niggers is supposed to do while us menfolks fight the damn Yankees. So what Ahm asking you is: Whose
side
of the war is you on!’

“So now with all those Rebels staring him dead in the eye, Uncle Ned starts to hemming and hawing and scratching his head, pretending to think—until finally he perks up and says, ‘Cap’n suh, do you mind if Ah ask you a question?’

“‘Go ahead, ask it—but be quick about it,’ the Rebel white man says, ‘’cause we got us some mo’ fightin’ to do up ahead!’