Three Days Before the Shooting ... (157 page)

“She said, ‘Why must I do all this, Mister Love?’

“And I said, ‘Because it is good, and the best medicine for the seed that’s growing inside you.’

“And she said, ‘For the seed? What do you mean?’

“So I looked at her for a while and searched for words to span the distance between the ways of life she straddled, the ways of the State Negroes and the ways of the People. And when I spoke my tongue took over and said, ‘That that’s growing inside your belly, do it for your secret seed.’

“And then she blushed the ripe color of Alberta peaches, and her eyes were black with the longest of lashes, and she said, ‘Mr. Love, you oughtn’t to talk like that to me.’

“So I shook my head, knowing that in order to help I would have to hurt her, though not hard but gently.

“I said, ‘There’s no need for you to try to hide from me, because I am not of this town or its people. I talk to you straight in order to cut away the shame you are feeling. So don’t feel bad. The seed is there, and I am sorry over how it happened, but what I tell you is good and good for the seed.’

“I said, ‘Now you must look to the future and give what you carry within you love and consideration. So listen to the good voices around you. Listen to the good deep laughers of laughs, the bright laughers like old Deacon Turner who gets laughing-happy in that church you go to. Listen to him because his laughter is holy and he’s a man who is kind and good. And even though I reject his religion he’s one of the best men I know. What has happened has made you alone, so sit still sometimes and be by yourself and think about the world, about the great spaces and the clear distances now in this springtime. Listen to the growing of the grass—yes, that is possible if you try—and breathe the perfume of the flowers,’ I said, ‘because you are making a man. You have just got him started, and with his daddy gone he will need all these sights and sounds and feelings more than other children. To deal with the stresses of the world he will need a deep passion and strong sense of life, just as the trees of this country must be flexible and stand strong against the big winds, the cyclones and tornadoes. You’re making a man, so shape him like the arrow that flies high in the sunlit sky.

Mold him to respond to the best in this confused world of confused people. Learn, and teach him the wisdom of solitude, and the rare greatness which is possible for the best of men and women. Start now, Lavatrice! Start now, and make him a man of stature as you yourself are a woman of stature. And close your pretty ears to the gossip that will soon come like a sandstorm to pelt you and blister you, and you’ll give him the strength to stand firm and endure….’

“So as I say, Hickman, by now I had stopped speaking to the boy. Instead I was climbing back through the past on my lookout for the girl, his mother. But everywhere I looked I kept seeing those goggle-eyed fellows and those streets full of confusion.

“They wasted no time. They had tickets printed and given to all the girls and women who wanted to be in the picture—men too, but not so many, at least not in the beginning—and the contest was on. Most of the best-looking girls were in it, and even a few ugly ones; girls who were glad to compete because they knew that good looks are no guarantee of intelligence or talent. Even some of the whores from down in the red-light district got in it. And church women, housemaids, and cooks, and some of the big-busted sudsbusters, the strong washerwomen. Everybody was out peddling those tickets, if not for themselves, then for friends they were backing. And pretty soon the news spread so far that a crowd of oil-rich Cherokees showed up riding in hearses and fire engines just to see what was happening. You with me, Hickman? You getting the picture?”

“I think so, although I’m finding it a bit confusing. But I’m still with you.”

“Good,” Love said. “So let’s backtrack a bit: The goggle eyes rolled into town that Friday afternoon right after it was struck by thunder and lightning. For a while it seemed like a cloudburst, but it didn’t last. Then all day Saturday they were out hustling in the streets. The black-white one stopped in at the theater and had the manager announce the contest during the break between the movie and the newsreels. Then he talked to the businessmen and got them all excited. And when I saw him talking a mile a minute to the fellow who ran the Elite, which was a social club for young men and women, I could feel how it was going. Because the fellow who ran the club was so flattered by his being considered important enough to take up more time than it takes to say ‘Howdy.’ Those goggle-eyed fellows were running around all day, talking with folks and looking at the buildings and the dance halls and lodge rooms and churches.

“Then to sweeten the pot they unleashed that camera and started training it on the streets and on the buildings like they were surveying the town. But mainly they shot at the people. They’d shout orders back and forth to one another, and then consult among themselves and argue back and forth and go back and point that one-eyed man some more.

“So with that the boy wanted to know which of the fellows was one-eyed, and when I explained that I meant the camera, he laughed. Said, ‘You make it sound like Polypheman’—or maybe he said ‘Polyphemus.’

“‘I never hear of him,’ I said, ‘but you should have seen what that one-eyed
thing was doing. He collected such a crowd that soon you’d have thought that folks had nothing to do except follow those strangers and that three-legged contraption around the streets. It was like it had stirred up a storm and folks couldn’t run for watching it. And those fellows treated the damn thing like some kind of totem.’

“With it standing on those three wooden legs one of them would squint through its eye and wave his arms to warn the crowd against getting too close. Then one of the others would have
his
head down looking through it, and his buddies would have the crowd walking in front of it or crossing the street and doubling back. Sometimes it looked like they were having a roundup and the folks were the cattle.

“First the goggle eyes were polite about it, but when they saw how fascinated folks were by what they were doing in front of that one-eyed bastard and how pleased they were in doing it they started ordering them around in a pretty round way. In fact, I’ve seen men killed just for using the tone of voice they were using.

“But not this time—hell, no! Folks were not only taking it, but liking it. And when the goggle eyes finished working on one end of the street one of them would pick up that contraption and carry it to another spot on his shoulders. And when he sat it down it was like he was settling a pregnant woman on a cot or a child on a potty. Then they’d spread its legs and start aiming it again and giving folks orders.

“Then they took out a little slate like the kind used by children and a piece of white chalk. And after they’d aimed the one-eyed contraption at the crowd and cranked it a while they’d write something on the slate and hold it in front of it and crank it some more like they were feeding it something rare and special.

“Hickman, now-a-days that kind of fiddling wouldn’t mean much even to country folks, but back then it was heap big magic. So those fellows were causing no end of excitement because nothing like it had ever hit town. Folks were getting so drunk from just looking at them fiddling that pretty soon they began to act like they were no longer themselves. It was like the whole bunch had et a meal of loco weeds. Even old folks, and folks you’d have thought would know better got to making excuses for going out into the street to walk in front of that damn hunk of glass mounted on stilts.

“At first they’d walk natural, but then they’d double back and give it another try. They’d walk fancy and they’d walk lame. They’d strut and they’d creep. They’d walk tall and proud and then low and beat down. It was something to see. Verily, it was something to witness.

“And then it began to affect the kids. Because when those fellows would look through the one-eyed man they always had the bills of their caps turned to the rear, so pretty soon all the little boys—and a few of the grown ones too—they went in for the new style of cap-wearing. So that now they were walking around looking like somebody had cut their heads off and stuck them on backwards.

“Hickman, before those goggle eyes showed up only some of the pool sharks
and hustlers went for that kind of style, and if a respectable woman was to see her boy wearing his cap that way she’d break his neck. Yao! But now they were glad to let the younguns get away with it. You’d have sworn that every cap-wearing boy in town was walking around backwards. Never in my life have I seen a hunk of glass cause so much confusion.

[CYCLOPS 1]

“D
AMN NEAR EVERYBODY WAS
talking about this movie. I stood in Speed’s place listening to Jonas Ironwine going on about how it would benefit the community. According to him it would win nationwide attention and develop young actors who’d end up in Hollywood making movies with stars like Pearl White, William S. Hart, and Hoot Gibson. He said, ‘Hell, gentlemen, this thing’ll inspire the entire country!’

“So with that Editor looked at me and I looked at him. Because let something new come along, Ironwine’ll grab it and try to promote it. And he’ll do it even though he knows nothing about it or the folks behind it. In other words, he’s a self-promoter. And true to form, when Editor asked him to describe the movie the goggle eyes had in mind he comes up empty. So then Editor asks him if he didn’t think it a good idea to find out before things went any further.

“‘Not with such experts as these behind it,’ Ironwine said. ‘They’re gentlemen of vision who know what they’re doing. Besides, what’s important is that they’re making a movie right here, in our part of town, with
our
people doing the acting.’

“‘I understand,’ Editor said, ‘but acting what roles? Because after what happened with
The Birth of a Nation
that’s also important.’

“Well, that got Ironwine hot under the collar. Said, ‘Let me tell you something, Editor, you’re running true to form. Let something good come along which
you
don’t have a hand in and you’ll try to kill it. Oh, yes! You’re a great one for badmouthing another man’s ideas, but this time I’m putting you on notice: You interfere with this once-in-a-lifetime chance that’s come to this town and I’ll see to it personally that the entire community boycotts that crummy paper of yours!’

“Well, at this Editor shook his head and grinned.

“‘Ironwine,’ he said, ‘I’ve always taken the knocks that come from expressing my opinions, both editorial and otherwise, so don’t worry about me—unless you’re making this personal.’

“And with that Ironwine draws in his neck. Because like I told the boy, Editor was both a man of words and a man of action.

“Hickman, I once saw a bully twice his size go after him, but instead of backing off he bent the man double with a butt in the belly and then pistol-whipped his head with a Colt forty-five.

“So, knowing all this, Ironwine rushes out of Speed’s like he has an urgent appointment. Then when he’s halfway up the hill he starts yelling and giving Editor hell. Called him everything but a child of God.

“But Editor just laughed and said to the rest of us, ‘Gentlemen, I thought I was asking a sensible question. Because while the picture these strangers have in mind
might be
a good one, I think it’s reasonable to consider what might happen if it’s not.’

“So that’s the way it went, with folks laughing at Ironwine talking low but forgetting about Editor’s question. So things kept building.

“All day Saturday those three fellows were driving around pointing that one-eyed contraption at everything from churches to outhouses. They didn’t even miss the animals—I know because they pointed that thing at my mare with me in the saddle and she up and bolted.

“Everywhere you turned they’d be there, and with folks falling over one another asking questions and getting in the way. This went on until it got too dark for the three-legged bastard to see, and even then they hung around under an arc light which used to hang over the center of Bailey and Giles, pointing that bug-eyed sonofabitch at the shadows. Then they slipped a leather hood over its head and disappeared downtown in that Franklin.

“That evening after supper, I went down to Speed’s to get me a plug of tobacco, and there was Tom Jornigan carrying on about how this movie would help business, and how lucky we were to have the goggle-eyed fellows pick our town for a movie. So I asked him if anyone had found out what kind of picture they had in mind, but that he couldn’t tell me. And neither could anybody else.

“Well, the next day was Sunday, and since I’d promised to let Janey drag me to church I figured that except for the usual yelling and singing it would be more or less peaceful. Now don’t get me wrong: Being of the People I know how powerful religion can be. But Hickman, I swear, the uproar which some of the State Negroes set off in church on Sunday sounds like all hell is erupting. So thanks to Janey I’m prepared for that, but I’m dead wrong in thinking that otherwise things would be peaceful—which I began to discover when I pick up Janey and we start walking to church.

“By the time we head uphill the service had already started—which is how Janey likes it. Because with folks yelling their heads off and the organ blasting she can grandstand a bit by marching down to her pew in step with the music. And if it’s ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers,’ she likes it even better. Because then she takes a grip on my arm and pretends she’s captured a heathen and means to convert him. So since I’d been through it before I’m prepared to go along—only this time things take a turn I least expected.

“Hickman, as you know, those steep stone steps which lead up to the church have three landings with railings….”

“Yes, and I’ve climbed them.”

“Well, just as we round the corner and head for church I see what looks like a big bundle which some ornery coyote—be he laundryman, hobo, or thief—has dumped square in the middle of the topmost landing. And as we draw closer folks heading for church are squeezing past it and looking back with puzzled expressions. Then, as Janey and me reach the steps and start up, I see that this bundle is silk and a deep tone of purple, and I know right away that I’m staring at
trouble—
Yao! But since it’s too late to escape from Janey I have to keep climbing. And just when we’re about to reach it the damn thing moans and relaxes and I’m looking at the form of a man!