Three Days Before the Shooting ... (32 page)

“‘McMillen,’ he said, ‘for years you have respected me as an intelligent man, but I want to confess right now that you’ve been wrong, ‘cause I’m nothing but a ninety-five-year-old goddamn fool!’

“I told him, ‘Take it easy, Mister Jessie; you oughtn’t to play yourself cheap like that.’ And he said, ‘No, you listen to me. I had everything all figured out logically. I had been a slave, you see, so it would take me quite a while to catch up with the liberty that Jesus Christ and Mr. Lincoln provided for me; and since the nation had men at the bottom, where I started both in terms of place and in terms of time, and men at the top like Mr. Lincoln and Ralph Waldo Emerson’ (he always talked about those two), ‘and Jay Gould,’ and somebody he called the Right Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, ‘there was order in the nation and in the world,’ he said. ‘And since the Bible teaches me that there is a heaven above and a hell below, with Satan the master of hell and God the Father and Christ Jesus sharing the throne of heaven above, then everything was in universal metaphysical order and in orderly process. A man was born and he had his chance to help himself by the manner in which he lived his life, and when he died he was buried and in time he was judged and he went either to heaven or to hell. Everything fitted the scheme, and if God could send His son down here as a man, that was a good enough guarantee that I could at least be a full citizen.

“‘So you see, McMillen,’ Mister Jessie said, ‘I lived the best way I knew how, and I was determined to take care of all those earthly things I could control. I refused the notion of rebellion. I didn’t drink whiskey, chase women, or sing the blues. I would play the game. Therefore, I bought that damned casket there while in the full strength of my manhood. I bought it so that when my time came I could be put away in the proper fashion and with no debts outstanding to man or government. I figured that time is but so long, and flesh is surely frail and unpredictable. So I lived in fear of God and in respect of law. I kept the faith in the orderly processes of justice and in the checks and balances of good government. But now just look at me and look
around me! Things have gone to hell right here in Washington. Here I’ve had to live these ninety-five years until I’m so old that I’m no good to myself or to anybody else. I’ve got as many gadgets on me as a five-and-dime store. My teeth are false, I have to hold my gut in with a truss, I can’t see worth a damn without my glasses, I have to hook up my ears to a doggone radio in order to hear, and I walk with a cane. I’m no good to myself or to anybody else. My children don’t want me and I’m even in my own way. And
still
I don’t see any prospect of passing on to my reward.

“‘McMillen, I was in this town when they killed Mr. Lincoln, and I watched with these eyes when they took FDR to his last resting place. And I’ve seen all kinds of crooks and thieves come up to Washington and do their nastiness in the name of country, liberty, freedom, and economy, and pass on. Different names but the same nastiness. With but a few exceptions, it’s been a matter of highbinders, clipsters, phonies, and confidence men in high places since I can remember. And they don’t get any better, they get worse.’ ”

McMillen interrupted himself now. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I want y’all to understand that this was Mister Jessie talking, not me. I don’t know nothing about politics.”

“We’re listening,” the sergeant said.

“Then he got going again. Said, ‘I fought in the Spanish-American War and left some of my blood down there on San Juan Hill, with Teddy Roosevelt getting so much credit that you’d have thought he fought the Spanish single-handed, while our people got none of the recognition and the crooks in the War Department even found a way to swindle me out of my pension. I’ve been a fool, McMillen, I’ve been a goddamn fool! Here I’ve been worrying all these years about dying well and not being a burden to anyone, and I’ve neglected to
live
well. In fact, I haven’t been living, I’ve been dying. Forty years ago I took my savings and bought me a decent suit of clothes and a pair of fine Johnston & Murphy shoes of the kind I’d denied myself the pleasure of wearing here on earth—and I bought me some decent linen. And now look at it, all worn out with waiting. The suit’s crumbling into dust, the shoe leather is hard and dry as Adam’s first fig leaf, and worst of all, the damned coffin is full of bugs and worms raising hell and stamping their feet even before I have a chance to get in there and serve them up their long-expected meal. Even
they
knew I was dead. This is the last straw, McMillen. I got nothing to live for or to look forward to. No
now
and no
hereafter
. No justice from my government and no hope for heaven or escape from hell. It’s shit hawks flying and shit hooks grabbing. Because both God and government have just been taking me for granted. Talking about God and the Devil making a pawn out of Job! Hell, I’ve been ignored and held in such contempt that even my coffin has fallen to dust, and that took away the only guarantee I have left in this world, so it’s time I started living for
me!’
”

Suddenly McMillen paused and looked at each of us. “And to the best of my recollection, gentlemens,” he said, lowering his eyes to his empty glass, “that’s how it happened….”

“That’s how
what
happened?” the sergeant said. “Listen, McMillen, are you trying to snow us? You haven’t said a word about what he’s doing propped up in that coffin—or about what that … that … woman over there—what’s she doing in here? What else was going on in here besides a lot of drinking and a lot of subversive ranting? Did you two rob him and put him in that coffin?”

McMillen became visibly upset at this particular question. I had noticed him avoiding looking in the direction of the woman, who sprawled in her chair, and now he shook his head in violent denial.

“No, suh, it wasn’t nothing like that. No, suh!”

“Then get on with your story. What the hell went on in here?”

“Yes, suh,” McMillen said. “But first, can I ask you gentlemen a question?”

“What is it?”

“I’d like to ask you all if you all are Northern gentlemen or Southern gentlemen?”

“Quit stalling,” the sergeant said. “What’s that got to do with it?”

“Well, Officer, it’s like this,” McMillen said, “Southern gentlemen is kinda touchy about some things, and I don’t want what I have to tell you now to be misunderstood.”

But before McMillen could continue, there was a whoop of laughter behind us, and I turned to see the woman in the corner, who I had thought was asleep, looking at us with unsteady head.

“Gen’lmen,” she said, “gen’lmen, what the man wants to know is, are you John Law gen’lmen in
back
of Mister Mason or in
front
of Mr. Dixon….”

The sergeant banged his fist on the table, sending up a cloud of dust which settled on the corpse in a fine brown veil. “That’s enough out of you,” he shouted. “Just one more word—”

“Sure, sure,” the woman said, “but just answer Uncle Tom’s question. ‘N I want you to answer
me
one lil ole thing, ‘n that’s how could that poor bastard confuse you buncha faggots with gen’lmen? Far’s
I
can see, he’s the only dam’ gen’lman in the crowd. Thass right, ‘cause who but a gent would pay me to do my number in this kinda costume?” and she flung Officer Tillman’s jacket aside, trying vainly to stand, and fell back, laughing.

The pitch of McMillen’s voice leaped an octave. “Officer, Officer!” he said, “I want it strictly understood that that woman’s being here wasn’t no idea of mine!”

“Then how’d she get here?” the sergeant said.

“Oh, I’m going to tell you,” McMillen said. “You can bet your life I’m going to tell you. And this is what happened. After Mister Jessie raved awhile about his coffin rottening out on him, he just stood there in the middle of the floor with his eyes shining. He must have been thinking up a storm too, because
all at once he started to yelling, ‘Hell and damnation!’ He said, ‘McMillen, when I was a young fellow I worked for a while as a porter in a house of ill-fame’—he meant a whorehouse—’and I never even tried to sample the goods!’ And I started to say, ‘Now is that a fact’ when he called my name like someone had stuck him with a pitchfork.

“‘McMILLEN,’ he said, ‘here’s what I want you to do. I want you to take this money—he carries his money in one of those ole long ole-fashioned leather pocketbooks with a snap on the top. You can see when you search him…. He said, ‘You take this money and go get us a case of the best bourbon whiskey you can find, and then I want you to get—’

“And I broke in then and said, ‘Now wait, Mister Jessie, you don’t want no
case
of whiskey….’

“And he said, ‘Boy, don’t tell me what I want! I say get me a
case
of whiskey like I told you. And when you get the whiskey, I want you to get me a sporting woman. Get me a raving blonde!’

“Gen’lmen, that’s when I really got disturbed. Now I knew Mister Jessie was disgusted, but I didn’t see any reason for him to be
that
disgusted; so I said, ‘Mister Jessie, I know you’re upset, but you don’t have to get all
that
upset. First you call for whiskey, and you don’t drink, and now you’re calling for a woman and you know,’ I said, ‘you know you too old for that kind of foolishness. And now on top of all that you asking for a blond pink-toe strumpet!’

“‘That’s right,’ Mister Jessie said, ‘that’s what I called for and that’s what I want. Here, take this damn money. I want you to get me one about forty-five, if you can find one who hasn’t hung up her bloomers and retired, as those Jezebels and Magdalenes I worked around used to say.’

“So this time I asked him real quiet, ‘Mister Jessie, have you been drinking?’ And he said, ‘No, but I plan to be as quick as you stop hanging around here asking questions and get back here with some whiskey. No, dammit, I’m not drunk; I’m just full of ninety years of disgust. You just get me the liquor and the gal.’

“So you see, gen’lmen, I really tried to argue him out of it, but I couldn’t get nowhere. He always was a stubborn ole man, still, he was my friend. So I found a taxi and went and picked up a case of Jack Daniel’s, and when I went to pay for it, I found out that Mister Jessie had give me an ole mildewed five-hundred-dollar bill. The man in the liquor store didn’t even want to change it. In fact, he sent a clerk to the bank to see if it was good or if it had been stolen. So then I took the same taxi and went and looked up a fellow I knew who used to work at one of these what they call ‘hit ‘em and skip ‘em motels,’ and he laughed at me like I was crazy and called me a fool, but he give me that lady over there’s telephone number.”

“How much did you pay her?” the sergeant said.

“I offered her seventy-five dollars and a tip if she satisfied Mister Jessie.
But she said that there was a big convention in town so that she’d have to have the union scale—a hundred dollars.”

“A hundred dollars—her?” one of the officers said. “I’ll be damn!”

“Yes, suh. She sounded like she was juiced already, and I started to tell her to forget it—”

“Juiced?”

“I mean she sounded like she had been drinking, about three sheets in the wind—high. But much as I wanted to help Mister Jessie, I didn’t want to go around looking for another woman for him. So I told her okey and dropped by her place, and though she didn’t look like she was worth any hundred dollars to me, I paid her most of the money right then and there; so that if she came out here and found that Mister Jessie had changed his mind, or if she didn’t like the deal, she wouldn’t start no black-and-white—I mean she wouldn’t cause no trouble. And to tell the truth, the fellow who give me the address also give me a drink, and I had started to get awful curious to see what Mister Jessie was going to do.”

“So what did he do?” the sergeant said.

“I’m gon’ tell you, Officer. So then I told the lady the address, and she said she’d be here in about thirty minutes. And then I got in a taxi and came back here with the case of whiskey. I was pretty worried, because not only was Mister Jessie acting like he’d been drinking billiards or something, but I was afraid that the lady had taken his money and wouldn’t show up.

“Well, gen’lmen, when I got back here Mister Jessie had shaved and got dressed up in that suit he used to wear when he served on the ushers’ board of his church. He was a trustee too, and always a very neat and dignified-looking man. And now although he wasn’t no calmer than when I left, he looked really sharp.

“I said, ‘Mister Jessie, here’s all this whiskey you ordered,’ and right away he wanted to know if it was the best, and I told him it was the best I knew about. So then he said, ‘I told you to bring me some whiskey
and
a woman, McMillen—where’s the gal?’

“So I said, ‘Now don’t get excited, Mister Jessie. She’ll be along in about twenty minutes.’

“‘She’d better be,’ he said. ‘McMillen, she’d sure better be. Because if she ain’t, I’ll go out and find another one. I’ll find me a half dozen! How much money did you spend?’

“‘About two hundred dollars,’ I told him, and I starts to give him his change.

“Well, he looks at me like I’d stepped on his corn then and said, ‘Two hundred dollars! And you talking to me about
value?
Why, when I was a boy you could buy a whole barrel of whiskey for fifteen dollars!’

“And I said, ‘Yes, suh, Mister Jessie, I reckon that’s when you should’ve
been buying it. Times have changed. I told you you didn’t want no whole case of whiskey. You can’t even buy a gallon of jump-steady bootleg for no fifteen dollars. Not today!’

“He said, ‘McMillen, I know what I want and I don’t want it for free. I got the money to pay for it and I’ll pay. How much did it cost?’

“Almost a hundred dollars—ninety-three dollars and seventy-three cents.’

“Well, then Mister Jessie looked at me kind of hard and said, ‘McMillen, what kind of damn woman did you get me?’

“‘I don’t know what kind she is, Mister Jessie,’ I said, ‘’cepting that she’s supposed to be a blonde.’ And just as I said that, that lady over there in the corner, she knocked on the door and Mister Jessie told me to let her in.