Ragtime Part 2

Thus did the artist point his life along the lines of flow of American energy. Workers would strike and die but in the streets of cities an entrepreneur could cook sweet potatoes in a bucket of hot coals and sell them for a penny or two. A smiling hurdy-gurdy man could fill his cup. Phil the Fiddler, undaunted by the snow, cut away the fingers of his gloves and played under the lighted windows of mansions. Frank the Cash Boy kept his eyes open for a runaway horse carrying the daughter of a Wall Street broker. All across the continent merchants pressed the large round keys of their registers. The value of the duplicable event was everywhere perceived. Every town had its ice-cream soda fountain of Belgian marble. Painless Parker the Dentist everywhere offered to remove your toothache. At Highland Park, Michigan, the first Model T automobile built on a moving a.s.sembly line lurched down a ramp and came to rest in the gra.s.s under a clear sky. It was black and ungainly and stood high off the ground. Its inventor regarded it from a distance. His derby was tilted back on his head. He chewed on a piece of straw. In his left hand he held a pocket watch. The employer of many men, a good number of them foreign-born, he had long believed that most human beings were too dumb to make a good living. He'd conceived the idea of breaking down the work operations in the a.s.sembly of an automobile to their simplest steps, so that any fool could perform them. Instead of having one man learn the hundreds of tasks in the building of one motorcar, walking him hither and yon to pick out the parts from a general inventory, why not stand him in his place, have him do just one task over and over, and let the parts come past him on moving belts. Thus the worker's mental capacity would not be taxed. The man who puts in a bolt does not put on the nut, the inventor said to his a.s.sociates. The man who puts on the nut does not tighten it. He had a way with words. He had gotten his inspiration from a visit to a beef-packing concern where the cows were swung through the plant hanging in slings from overhead cables. With his tongue he moved the straw from one corner of his mouth to the other. He looked at his watch again. Part of his genius consisted of seeming to his executives and compet.i.tors not as quick-witted as they. He brushed the gra.s.s with the tip of his shoe. Exactly six minutes after the car had rolled down the ramp an identical car appeared at the top of the ramp, stood for a moment pointed at the cold early morning sun, then rolled down and crashed into the rear of the first one. Henry Ford had once been an ordinary automobile manufacturer. Now he experienced an ecstasy greater and more intense than that vouchsafed to any American before him, not excepting Thomas Jefferson. He had caused a machine to replicate itself endlessly. His executives and managers and a.s.sistants crowded around him to shake his hand. Tears were in their eyes. He allotted sixty seconds on his pocket watch for a display of sentiment. Then he sent everyone back to work. He knew there were refinements to be made and he was right. By controlling the speed of the moving belts he could control the workers' rate of production. He did not want a worker to stoop over or to take more than one step from his work site. The worker must have every second necessary for his job but not a single unnecessary second. From these principles Ford established the final proposition of the theory of industrial manufacture-not only that the parts of the finished product be interchangeable, but that the men who build the products be themselves interchangeable parts. Soon he was producing three thousand cars a month and selling them to the mult.i.tudes. He was to live a long and active life. He loved birds and animals and counted among his friends John Burroughs, an old naturalist who studied the humble creatures of the woodland-chipmunk and racc.o.o.n, junko, wren and chickadee.

19.

But Ford's achievement did not put him at the top of the business pyramid. Only one man occupied that lofty place.

The offices of the J. P. Morgan Company were at 23 Wall Street. The great financier came to work one morning dressed in a dark blue suit, a black overcoat with a collar of lamb's wool and a top hat. He affected fas.h.i.+ons slightly out of date. When he stepped out of his limousine the car robe fell around his feet. One of the several bank officers who had rushed out to meet him disentangled the robe and hung it over the robe rail on the inside of the door. The chauffeur thanked him profusely. Somehow the speaking tube had come off its hook and another officer of the bank replaced it. In the meantime Morgan had marched into the building, a.s.sistants, aides and even some of the firm's customers circling him like birds. Morgan carried a gold-headed cane. He was at this time in his seventy-fifth year of life-a burly six-footer with a large head of spa.r.s.e white hair, a white moustache and fierce intolerant eyes set just close enough to suggest the psy-chopathology of his will. Accepting the obeisances of his employees, he strode to his office, a modest gla.s.s-paneled room on the main floor of the bank where he was visible to everyone and everyone to him. He was helped with his hat and coat. He was wearing a wing collar and an ascot. He sat down behind his desk, and ignoring the depositors' accounts which were usually the first thing he looked at, said to his aides I want to meet that tinkering fellow. What's his name. The motorcar mechanic. Ford.

He had sensed in Ford's achievement a l.u.s.t for order as imperial as his own. This was the first sign given to him in some time that he might not be alone on the planet. Pierpont Morgan was that cla.s.sic American hero, a man born to extreme wealth who by dint of hard work and ruthlessness multiplies the family fortune till it is out of sight. He controlled 741 directors.h.i.+ps in 112 corporations. He had once arranged a loan to the United States Government that had saved it from bankruptcy. He had single-handedly stopped the panic of 1907 by arranging for the importation of one hundred million dollars in gold bullion. Moving about in private railroad cars or yachts he crossed all borders and was at home everywhere in the world. He was a monarch of the invisible, transnational kingdom of capital whose sovereignty was everywhere granted. Commanding resources that beggared royal fortunes, he was a revolutionist who left to presidents and kings their territory while he took control of their railroads and s.h.i.+pping lines, banks and trust companies, industrial plants and public utilities. For years he had surrounded himself with parties of friends and acquaintances, always screening them in his mind for the personal characteristics that might indicate less regard for him than they admitted. He was invariably disappointed. Everywhere men deferred to him and women shamed themselves. He knew as no one else the cold and barren reaches of unlimited success. The ordinary operations of his intelligence and instinct over the past fifty years had made him preeminent in the affairs of nations and he thought this said little for mankind. Only one thing served to remind Pierpont Morgan of his humanity and that was a chronic skin disease that had colonized his nose and made of it a strawberry of the award-winning giant type grown by California's wizard of horticulture Luther Burbank. This affliction had come to Morgan in his young manhood. As he grew older and richer the nose grew larger. He learned to stare down people who looked at it, but every day of his life, when he arose, he examined it in the mirror, finding it indeed loathsome but at the same time exquisitely satisfying. It seemed to him that every time he made an acquisition or manipulated a bond issue or took over an industry, another bright red pericarp burst into bloom. His favorite story in literature was a tale of Nathaniel Hawthorne's ent.i.tled "The Birthmark," which told of an extraordinarily lovely woman whose beauty was perfect except for a small birthmark on her cheek. When her husband, a natural scientist, made her drink a potion designed to rid her of this imperfection, the birthmark disappeared; but as its last faintest outline vanished from her skin and she was perfect, she died. To Morgan, the disfigurement of his monstrous nose was the touch of G.o.d upon him, the a.s.surance of mortality. It was the steadiest a.s.surance he had.

Once, years before, he had arranged a dinner party at his residence on Madison Avenue in which his guests were the dozen most powerful men in America besides himself. He was hoping the collected energy of their minds might buckle the walls of his home. Rockefeller startled him with the news that he was chronically constipated and did a lot of his thinking on the toilet. Carnegie dozed over his brandy. Harriman uttered inanities. Gathered in this one room the business elite could think of nothing to say. How they appalled him. How his heart quaked. He heard through his brain the electric winds of an empty universe. He ordered the servants to place garlands of laurel on every pate and crown. Without exception the dozen most powerful men in America looked like horse's a.s.ses. But the pomposity that had accrued with their wealth persuaded them that perhaps these ridiculous vines held some significance. Not one of the women thought to laugh. They were hags. They sat on their large draped behinds, b.r.e.a.s.t.s drooping under their decolletage. Not an ounce of wit among them. Not a light in their eyes. They were the loyal wives of great men and the hard pull of rampant achievement had sucked the life out of their flesh. Revealing nothing of his feelings Morgan hid behind his fierce and doughty expression. A photographer was summoned to make a picture. There was a flash-the solemn moment was recorded.

He fled to Europe, embarking on the White Star liner Oceanic Oceanic. He had combined the White Star Line, the Red Star Line, the American, Dominion, Atlantic Transport and Leyland lines into one company numbering 120 oceangoing s.h.i.+ps. He despised compet.i.tion no less on the seas than on land. He stood at night by the s.h.i.+p's rail, hearing the heavy sea, feeling its swell but not seeing it. The sea and the sky were black and indistinguishable. A bird, some sort of gull, appeared from the blackness and lighted on the rail a few feet from him. Perhaps it had been attracted by his nose. I have no peers, Morgan said to the bird. It seemed an indisputable truth. Somehow he had catapulted himself beyond the world's value system. But this very fact lay upon him an awesome responsibility to maintain the illusions of other men. For his Episcopal brethren he would build a cathedral, St. John the Divine, on West 110th Street in New York. For his wife and grown children he would continue to provide an image of domestic stolidity. And for the sake of the country he would live in as grand a style as he could summon, dining with kings, or buying art in Rome and Paris, or consorting with beautiful companions at Aix-les-Bains.

Morgan had kept his vows. He spent six months of every year in Europe, moving in majesty from one country to another. The holds of his s.h.i.+ps were filled with collections of paintings, rare ma.n.u.scripts, first editions, jades, bronzes, autographs, tapestries, crystal. He looked into the eyes of Rembrandt burghers and Greco prelates as if to find kingdoms of truth that would bring him to his knees. He fingered the ill.u.s.trated texts of rare Bibles of the Middle Ages as if to pick up dust from the City of G.o.d. He felt if there was something more than he knew, it lay in the past rather than in the present, of whose total bankruptcy of existence he was confident. He was the present. He employed curators to find him art and scholars to teach him of ancient civilizations. He beat his way back through the Flemish tapestries. He fondled Roman statuary. He strode through the Acropolis kicking the loose stones. His desperate studies settled, inevitably, on the civilizations of ancient Egypt, wherein it was taught that the universe is changeless and that death is followed by the resumption of life. He was fascinated. His life took a new turn. He funded Egyptian archaeological expeditions of the Metropolitan Museum. He followed the reclamation from the dry sands of every new stele, amulet and canopic jar containing viscera. He went to the valley of the Nile where the sun never fails to rise nor the river to flood its banks. He studied the hieroglyphs. One evening he left his hotel in Cairo and rode seven miles on a special streetcar to the site of the Great Pyramid. In the clear blue light of the moon he heard from a native guide of the wisdom given to the great Osiris that there is a sacred tribe of heroes, a colony from the G.o.ds who are regularly born in every age to a.s.sist mankind. The idea stunned him. The more he thought about it the more palpably he felt it. It was upon his return to America that he began to think about Henry Ford. He had no illusions that Ford was a gentleman. He recognized him for a shrewd provincial, as uneducated as a piece of wood. But he thought he saw in Ford's use of men a reincarnation of pharaohism. Not only that: he had studied photographs of the automobile manufacturer and had seen an extraordinary resemblance to Seti I, the father of the great Ramses and the best-preserved mummy to have been unearthed from the necropolis of Thebes in the Valley of the Kings.

20.

Morgan's residence in New York City was No. 219 Madison Avenue, in Murray Hill, a stately brownstone on the northeast corner of 36th Street. Adjoining it was the white marble Morgan Library, which he had built to receive the thousands of books and art objects collected on his travels. It had been designed in the Italian Renaissance style by Charles McKim, a partner of Stanford White's. The marble blocks were fitted without mortar. A snowfall darker than the stones of the Library lay on the streets the day Henry Ford arrived for lunch. All the sounds of the city were m.u.f.fled by the snow. A city policeman was stationed at the door of the residence. Across the street and on every corner of 36th and Madison small groups of men with their coat collars turned up stood staring at the great man's home.

Morgan had ordered a light lunch. They did not say much as they dined without other company on Chincoteagues, bisque of terrapin, a Montrachet, rack of lamb, a Chateau Latour, fresh tomatoes and endives, rhubarb pie in heavy cream, and coffee. The service was magical, two of Morgan's house staff making dishes appear and disappear with such self-effacement as to suggest no human agency. Ford ate well but he did not touch the wine. He finished before his host. He gazed frankly at the Morgan nose. He found a crumb on the tablecloth and deposited it in the saucer of his coffee cup. His fingers idly rubbed the gold plate.

At the conclusion of lunch Morgan indicated to Ford that he would like him to come to the Library. They walked out of the dining room and through a kind of dark public parlor where sat three or four men hoping to secure a few moments of Pierpont Morgan's time. These were his lawyers. They were there to advise him on his forthcoming appearance before the House Committee on Banking and Finance then sitting in Was.h.i.+ngton for the purpose of inquiring into the possibility that a money trust existed in the United States. Morgan waved the lawyers away as they rose upon sight of him. There was also in attendance an art dealer in a morning coat who had traveled from Rome expressly to see him. The dealer rose only to bow.

None of this display was lost on Ford. He was a man of homespun tastes but was not at all put off by what he recognized as an empire different only in style from his own. Morgan brought him to the great West Room of the Library. Here they took chairs on opposite sides of a fireplace that was as tall as a man. It was a good day for a fire, Morgan said. Ford agreed. Cigars were offered. Ford refused. He noticed the ceiling was gilded. The walls were covered in red silk damask. There were fancy paintings hanging behind gla.s.s in heavy frames-pictures of yellowish soulful-looking people with golden haloes. He guessed n.o.body had their pictures made in those days who wasn't a saint. There was a madonna and child. He ran his fingers along the arm of his chair of red plush.

Morgan let him take it all in. He puffed on his cigar. Finally he spoke. Ford, he said gruffly, I have no interest in acquiring your business or in sharing its profits. Nor am I a.s.sociated with any of your compet.i.tors. Ford nodded. I have to allow that is good news, he said, giving off a sly glance. Nevertheless, his host continued, I admire what you have done, and while I must have qualms about a motorcar in the hands of every mongoloid who happens to have a few hundred dollars to spend, I recognize that the future is yours. You're still a young man-fifty years or thereabouts?-and perhaps you understand as I cannot the need to separately mobilize the ma.s.ses of men. I have spent my life in the coordination of capital resources and the harmonic combination of industries, but I have never considered the possibility that the employment of labor is in itself a harmonically unifying process apart from the enterprise in which it is enlisted. Let me ask you a question. Has it occurred to you that your a.s.sembly line is not merely a stroke of industrial genius but a projection of organic truth? After all, the interchangeability of parts is a rule of nature. Individuals partic.i.p.ate in their species and in their genus. All mammals reproduce in the same way and share the same designs of self-nourishment, with digestive and circulatory systems that are recognizably the same, and they enjoy the same senses. Obviously this is not to say all mammals have interchangeable parts, as your automobiles. But shared design is what allows taxonomists to cla.s.sify mammals as mammals. And within a species-man, for example-the rules of nature operate so that our individual differences occur on the basis of our similarity. So that individuation may be compared to a pyramid in that it is only achieved by the placement of the top stone.

Ford pondered this. Exceptin the Jews, he muttered. Morgan didn't think he had heard correctly. I beg your pardon, he said. The Jews, Ford said. They ain't like anyone else I know. There goes your theory up s.h.i.+ts creek. He smiled.

Morgan was silent for some minutes. He smoked his cigar. The fire crackled. Gusts of snow blown by the wind gently spattered the Library windows. Morgan spoke again. From time to time, he said, I have retained scholars and scientists to a.s.sist me in my philosophical investigations in hopes of reaching some conclusions about this life that are not within the reach of the ma.s.ses of men. I am proposing to share the fruits of my study. I do not think you can be so insolent as to believe your achievements are the result only of your own effort. Did you attribute your success in this manner, I would warn you, sir, of the terrible price to be paid. You would find yourself stranded on the edge of the world and see as no other man the emptiness of the firmament. Do you believe in G.o.d? That's my business, Ford said. Well and good, Morgan said, I would not expect any man of your intelligence to embrace such a common idea. You may need me more than you think. Suppose I could prove to you that there are universal patterns of order and repet.i.tion that give meaning to the activity of this planet. Suppose I could demonstrate that you yourself are an instrumentation in our modern age of trends in human ident.i.ty that affirm the oldest wisdom in the world.

Abruptly Morgan stood and left the room. Ford turned in his chair and looked after him. In a moment the old man was in the doorway and beckoning to him with a vehement gesture. Ford followed him through the central hall of the Library to the East Room, whose high walls were covered with bookshelves. There were two upper tiers with promenades of frosted gla.s.s and polished bra.s.s bal.u.s.trades so that any book could be easily removed from its place no matter how high. Morgan walked up to the far wall, pressed the spine of a certain book, and part of the shelving swung away to reveal a pa.s.sageway through which a man could pa.s.s. If you please, he said to Ford, and following him into a small chamber he pressed a b.u.t.ton that closed the door behind them.

This was an ordinary-sized room modestly appointed with a round polished table, two spindle-back chairs, and a cabinet with a gla.s.s top for the display of ma.n.u.scripts. Morgan turned on a table lamp with a green metal lampshade. n.o.body has ever joined me in this room before, he said. He turned on a floor lamp arranged to light the display cabinet. Come over here, sir, he said. Ford looked through the gla.s.s and saw an ancient parchment covered with Latin calligraphy. That, Morgan said, is a folio of one of the first Rosicrucian texts, The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencrutz The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencrutz. Do you know who the original Rosicrucians were, Mr. Ford? They were Christian alchemists of the Rhenish palatinate whose elector was Frederick V. We are talking about the early seventeenth century, sir. These great and good men promulgated the idea of an ongoing, beneficent magic available to certain men of every age for the collective use of mankind. The Latin for this is prisca theologia prisca theologia, secret wisdom. The odd thing is that this belief in a secret wisdom is not the Rosicrucians' alone. We know in London in the middle of the same century of the existence of a society called the Invisible College. Its members were reputed to be the very carriers of the beneficent magic I speak of. You of course do not know of the writings of Giordano Bruno, of which here is a specimen page in his own handwriting. My scholars have traced for me, like the best detectives, the existence of this idea and of various mysterious organizations to maintain it, in most of the Renaissance cultures, in medieval societies and in ancient Greece. I hope you are following this closely. The earliest recorded mention of special people born in each age to ease the sufferings of humankind with their prisca theologia prisca theologia comes to us through the Greek in the translated writings of the Egyptian priest Hermes Trismegistus. It is Hermes who gives the historical name to this occult knowledge. It is called the Hermetica. With his thick index finger Morgan thumped the gla.s.s above the last display piece in the cabinet, a fragment of pink stone upon which geometric scratchings were faintly visible. That, sir, may be a specimen of Hermes in the original cuneiform. And now let me ask you a question. Why do you suppose an idea which had currency in every age and civilization of mankind disappears in modern times? Because only in the age of science have these men and their wisdom dropped from view. I'll tell you why: The rise of mechanistic science, of Newton and Descartes, was a great conspiracy, a great devilish conspiracy to destroy our apprehension of reality and our awareness of the transcendentally gifted among us. But they are with us today nevertheless. They are with us in every age. They come back, you see? They come back! comes to us through the Greek in the translated writings of the Egyptian priest Hermes Trismegistus. It is Hermes who gives the historical name to this occult knowledge. It is called the Hermetica. With his thick index finger Morgan thumped the gla.s.s above the last display piece in the cabinet, a fragment of pink stone upon which geometric scratchings were faintly visible. That, sir, may be a specimen of Hermes in the original cuneiform. And now let me ask you a question. Why do you suppose an idea which had currency in every age and civilization of mankind disappears in modern times? Because only in the age of science have these men and their wisdom dropped from view. I'll tell you why: The rise of mechanistic science, of Newton and Descartes, was a great conspiracy, a great devilish conspiracy to destroy our apprehension of reality and our awareness of the transcendentally gifted among us. But they are with us today nevertheless. They are with us in every age. They come back, you see? They come back!

Morgan was now florid with excitement. He directed Ford's attention to the furthermost corner of the room where in the shadow stood yet another furnis.h.i.+ng, something rectangular that was covered with a gold velvet cloth. Morgan gripped the corner of the cloth in his fist, and staring with fierce proprietary triumph at his guest he pulled it away and dropped it to the floor. Ford inspected the item. It was a gla.s.s case sealed with lead. Within the case was a sarcophagus. He heard the old man's harsh panting breath. It was the only sound in the room. The sarcophagus was of alabaster. Topping it was a wooden effigy of the fellow who lay within. The effigy was painted in gold leaf, red ochre and blue. This, sir, said Morgan in a hoa.r.s.e voice, is the coffin of a great Pharaoh. The Egyptian government and the entire archaeological community believe it resides in Cairo. Were my possession of it known, there would be an international uproar. It is literally beyond value. My private staff of Egyptologists has taken every scientific precaution to preserve it from the ravages of the air. Under the mask that you see is the mummy of the great Pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty, Seti the First, recovered from the Temple of Karnak where it lay for over three thousand years. I will show it to you in due course. Let me now say only that I guarantee the visage of the great king will be of considerable interest to you.

Morgan had to recover his composure. He pulled back one of the chairs and sat down at the table. Slowly his breathing returned to normal. Ford had sat down across from him, and understanding the old man's physical difficulties, remained quiet and stared at his own shoes. The shoes, brown lace-ups, he had bought from the catalogue of L. L. Bean. They were good comfortable shoes. Mr. Ford, Pierpont Morgan said, I want you to be my guest on an expedition to Egypt. That is very much the place, sir. That is where it all begins. I have commissioned a steamer designed expressly for sailing the Nile. When she's ready I want you to come with me. Will you do that? It will require no investment on your part. We must go to Luxor and Karnak. We must go to the Great Pyramid at Giza. There are so few of us, sir. My money has brought me to the door of certain crypts, the deciphering of sacred hieroglyphs. Why should we not satisfy ourselves of the truth of who we are and the eternal beneficent force which we incarnate?

Ford sat slightly hunched. His long hands lay over the wooden arms of his chair as if broken at the wrists. He considered everything that had been said. He looked at the sarcophagus. When he had satisfied himself that he understood, he nodded his head solemnly and replied as follows: If I understand you right, Mr. Morgan, you are talking about reincarnation. Well, let me tell you about that. As a youth I was faced with an awful crisis in my mental life when it came over me that I had no call to know what I knew. I had grit, all right, but I was an ordinary country boy who had suffered his McGuffey like the rest of them. Yet I knew how everything worked. I could look at something and tell you how it worked and probably show you how to make it work better. But I was no intellectual, you see, and I had no patience with the two-dollar words.

Morgan listened. He felt that he mustn't move.

Well then, Ford continued, I happened to pick up a little book. It was called An Eastern Fakir's Eternal Wisdom An Eastern Fakir's Eternal Wisdom, published by the Franklin Novelty Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And in this book, which cost me just twenty-five cents, I found everything I needed to set my mind at rest. Reincarnation is the only belief I hold, Mr. Morgan. I explain my genius this way-some of us have just lived more times than others. So you see, what you have spent on scholars and traveled around the world to find, I already knew. And I'll tell you something, in thanks for the eats, I'm going to lend that book to you. Why, you don't have to fuss with all these Latiny things, he said waving his arm, you don't have to pick the garbage pails of Europe and build steamboats to sail the Nile just to find out something that you can get in the mail order for two bits!

The two men stared at each other. Morgan sat back in his chair. The blood drained from his face and his eyes lost their fierce light. When he spoke, it was with the weak voice of an old man. Mr. Ford, he said, if my ideas can survive their attachment to you, they will have met their ultimate test.

Nevertheless the crucial breakthrough had been made. About a year after this extraordinary meeting Morgan made his trip to Egypt. Although Ford did not go with him he had conceded the possibility of an awesome lineage. And together they had managed to found the most secret and exclusive club in America, The Pyramid, of which they were the only members. It endowed certain researches which persist to this day.

21.

Of course at this time in our history the images of ancient Egypt were stamped on everyone's mind. This was due to the discoveries being reported out of the desert by British and American archaeologists. After the football players in their padded canvas knee pants and leather helmets, archaeologists were the glamour personages of the universities. Mummification was described in detail in the Sunday supplements and the funerary concerns of the papyri were a.n.a.lyzed by cub reporters. Egyptian art, its look, was chosen for the interior decoration of homes. Out went the Louis Quatorze and in came the throne chairs with the carved serpent arms. In New Roch.e.l.le, Mother was not immune to the fas.h.i.+on, and finding the floral print in the dining room oppressively dull she replaced it with an elegant pattern of sloe-eyed Egyptian males and females in headdresses and short skirts. Colored red ochre, blue and tan, they paraded along the walls in that peculiar frontal way of Egyptians, with vultures on their palms, sheaves of wheat, water lilies and lutes. They were accompanied by lion, scarabs, owl, oxen and dismembered feet. Father, sensitive to every change, found his appet.i.te diminished. It seemed to him inappropriate to entomb oneself in order to dine.

The boy, however, loved the design and was inspired to study the hieroglyphic alphabet. He abandoned Wild West Weekly Wild West Weekly for magazines that published tales of violated tombs and the coming to fruition of mummies' curses. He had become intrigued with the black woman in the attic and in his quiet secret games incorporated her as a Nubian princess now captured for a slave. Unaware, she sat in her room by the window, while he pa.s.sed her door in a beaked papier-mache mask of an ibis which he had made himself. for magazines that published tales of violated tombs and the coming to fruition of mummies' curses. He had become intrigued with the black woman in the attic and in his quiet secret games incorporated her as a Nubian princess now captured for a slave. Unaware, she sat in her room by the window, while he pa.s.sed her door in a beaked papier-mache mask of an ibis which he had made himself.

One afternoon, a Sunday, a new Model T Ford slowly came up the hill and went past the house. The boy, who happened to see it from the porch, ran down the steps and stood on the sidewalk. The driver was looking right and left as if trying to find a particular address; he turned the car around at the corner and came back. Pulling up before the boy, he idled his throttle and beckoned with a gloved hand. He was a Negro. His car shone. The brightwork gleamed. There was a gla.s.s winds.h.i.+eld and a custom pantasote top. I'm looking for a young woman of color whose name is Sarah, he said. She is said to reside in one of these houses.

The boy realized he meant the woman in the attic. She's here. The man switched off the motor, set the brake and jumped down. Then he climbed the stone steps under the two Norwegian maples and walked around the side of the house to the back door.

When Mother came to the door the colored man was respectful, but there was something disturbingly resolute and self-important in the way he asked her if he could please speak with Sarah. Mother could not judge his age. He was a stocky man with a red-complected s.h.i.+ning brown face, high cheekbones and large dark eyes so intense as to suggest they were about to cross. He had a neat moustache. He was dressed in the affectation of wealth to which colored people lent themselves. He wore a fitted black overcoat, a black and white hound's-tooth suit, gray spats and pointed black shoes. He held in his hand a charcoal-gray cap and driving goggles. She told him to wait and closed the door. She climbed to the third floor. She found the girl Sarah not sitting at the window as she usually did but standing rigidly, hands folded in front of her, and facing the door. Sarah, Mother said, you have a caller. The girl said nothing. Will you come to the kitchen? The girl shook her head. You don't want to see him? No, ma'am, the girl finally said softly while she looked at the floor. Send him away, please. This was the most she had said in all the months she had lived in the house. Mother went back downstairs and found the fellow not at the back door but in the kitchen where, in the warmth of the corner near the cookstove, Sarah's baby lay sleeping in his carriage. It was a wicker carriage on four wooden tapered spoke wheels and it had a faded upholstery of blue satin with a plush roll. Her own son had slept in it and her brother before him. The black man was kneeling beside the carriage and staring at the child. Mother, not thinking clearly, was suddenly outraged that he had presumed to come in the door. Sarah is unable to see you, she said, and she held the door open. The colored man took another glance at the child, rose, thanked her and departed. She slammed the door harder than she should have. The baby woke and began to cry. She picked him up, comforting him, astonished by her extreme reaction to the visitor.

Such was the coming of the colored man in the car to Broadview Avenue. His name was Coalhouse Walker Jr. Beginning with that Sunday he appeared every week, always knocking at the back door, always turning away without complaint upon Sarah's refusal to see him. Father considered the visits a nuisance and wanted to discourage them. I'll call the police, he said. Mother laid her hand on his arm. One Sunday the colored man left a bouquet of yellow chrysanthemums which in this season had to have cost him a pretty penny. Before she took the flowers up to Sarah, Mother stood at the parlor window. Out on the street the black man dusted his car, cleaned the wheel spokes, the headlamps and the winds.h.i.+eld. He glanced up at the third-floor window and drove away. Mother now had cause to remember the expression on the faces of the Ohio seminarians who called on her when she was a girl of seventeen. She said to Father I think what we are witnessing is, in fact, a courts.h.i.+p of the most stubborn Christian kind. Father replied Yes, if you can call a courts.h.i.+p what has already produced a child. I find that an unkind remark, Mother said. There was suffering, and now there is penitence. It's very grand and I'm sorry for you that you don't see it.

The black girl would say nothing about her visitor. They had no idea where she had met him, or how. As far as they knew she had no family nor any friends from the black community in the downtown section of the city. There was a settled society of Negroes there but also, on its margins, a transient element. Apparently she was a transient and had come by herself from New York to work as a servant. Mother was exhilarated by the situation. For the first time since the terrible day she had found the brown baby in the flower bed she saw a reason for hope for the young woman's future. She began to regret Sarah's intransigence. She thought of the drive from Harlem, where Coalhouse Walker Jr. lived, and the drive back, and she decided the next time to give him more of a visit. She would serve tea in the parlor. Father questioned the propriety of this. Mother said He is well-spoken and conducts himself as a gentleman. I see nothing wrong with it. When Mr. Roosevelt was in the White House he gave dinner to Booker T. Was.h.i.+ngton. Surely we can serve tea to Coalhouse Walker Jr.

And so it happened on the next Sunday that the Negro took tea. Father noted that he suffered no embarra.s.sment by being in the parlor with a cup and saucer in his hand. On the contrary, he acted as if it was the most natural thing in the world. The surroundings did not awe him nor was his manner deferential. He was courteous and correct. He told them about himself. He was a professional pianist and was now more or less permanently located in New York, having secured a job with the Jim Europe Clef Club Orchestra, a well-known ensemble that gave regular concerts at the Manhattan Casino on 155th Street and Eighth Avenue. It was important, he said, for a musician to find a place that was permanent, a job that required no traveling. I am through traveling, he said. I am through going on the road. He spoke so fervently that Father realized the message was intended for the woman upstairs. This irritated him. What can you play? he said abruptly. Why don't you play something for us.

The black man placed his tea on the tray. He rose, patted his lips with the napkin, placed the napkin beside his cup and went to the piano. He sat on the piano stool and immediately rose and twirled it till the height was to his satisfaction. He sat down again, played a chord and turned to them. This piano is badly in need of a tuning, he said. Father's face reddened. Oh yes, Mother said, we are terrible about that. The musician turned again to the keyboard. "Wall Street Rag," he said. Composed by the great Scott Joplin. He began to play. Ill-tuned or not the Aeolian had never made such sounds. Small clear chords hung in the air like flowers. The melodies were like bouquets. There seemed to be no other possibilities for life than those delineated by the music. When the piece was over Coalhouse Walker turned on the stool and found in his audience the entire family, Mother, Father, the boy, Grandfather and Mother's Younger Brother, who had come down from his room in s.h.i.+rt and suspenders to see who was playing. Of all of them he was the only one who knew ragtime. He had heard it in his nightlife period in New York. He had never expected to hear it in his sister's home.

Coalhouse Walker Jr. turned back to the piano and said "The Maple Leaf." Composed by the great Scott Joplin. The most famous rag of all rang through the air. The pianist sat stiffly at the keyboard, his long dark hands with their pink nails seemingly with no effort producing the cl.u.s.ters of syncopating chords and the thumping octaves. This was a most robust composition, a vigorous music that roused the senses and never stood still a moment. The boy perceived it as light touching various places in s.p.a.ce, acc.u.mulating in intricate patterns until the entire room was made to glow with its own being. The music filled the stairwell to the third floor where the mute and unforgiving Sarah sat with her hands folded and listened with the door open.

The piece was brought to a conclusion. Everyone applauded. Mother then introduced Mr. Walker to Grandfather and to Younger Brother, who shook the black man's hand and said I am pleased to meet you. Coalhouse Walker was solemn. Everyone was standing. There was a silence. Father cleared his throat. Father was not knowledgeable in music. His taste ran to Carrie Jacobs Bond. He thought Negro music had to have smiling and cakewalking. Do you know any c.o.o.n songs? he said. He did not intend to be rude-c.o.o.n songs was what they were called. But the pianist responded with a tense shake of the head. c.o.o.n songs are made for minstrel shows, he said. White men sing them in blackface. There was another silence. The black man looked at the ceiling. Well, he said, it appears as if Miss Sarah will not be able to receive me. He turned abruptly and walked through the hall to the kitchen. The family followed him. He had left his coat on a chair. He put it on and ignoring them all, he knelt and gazed at the baby asleep in its carriage. After several moments he stood up, said good day and walked out the door.

The visit impressed everyone except Sarah, who gave no sign of relenting in her refusal to have anything to do with the man. The next week he returned, and the week after that. He was now visiting the family and each time brought them up on the news of his doings of the previous six days, never once a.s.suming anything but their total and consuming interest. Father was put off by the man's airs. She won't see him, he told Mother. Am I to go on entertaining Coalhouse Walker every Sunday for the rest of my life? But Mother saw signs of progress. Sarah had taken on the duties of the departed housekeeper and now cleaned rooms so energetically and with such proprietary competence that Mother laughed with the momentary illusion that it was Sarah's own house she was cleaning. She also began to claim her child at other than feeding time, first taking over his daily bath, then carrying him upstairs to her room at night. Still she would not see her visitor. Coalhouse Walker appeared faithfully through the winter. More than once, when the roads were made impa.s.sable by snow, he came on the train and caught the North Avenue streetcar to the bottom of the hill. He wore with his fitted black overcoat a lamb's-wool hat in the Russian style. He brought outfits for the child. He brought a silver-handled hairbrush for Sarah. Father had to admire his perseverance. He wondered to what extent a musician's wages could sustain such gifts.

It occurred to Father one day that Coalhouse Walker Jr. didn't know he was a Negro. The more he thought about this the more true it seemed. Walker didn't act or talk like a colored man. He seemed to be able to transform the customary deferences practiced by his race so that they reflected to his own dignity rather than the recipient's. When he arrived at the back door he gave it a stout rap and when admitted would solemnly greet everyone and somehow convey to them the feeling that they were Sarah's family, and that his courtesies to them simply measured the regard and respect he held for her. Father recognized certain dangers in the man. Perhaps we shouldn't encourage his suit, he said to Mother. There is something reckless about him. Even Mathew Henson knew his place.

By this time, however, the course of events could not be changed. In the late winter Sarah said she would see Coalhouse Walker in the parlor. For days there was a flurry of preparation. Mother gave her one of her own dresses and helped her to take it in. She came downstairs, beautiful and shy. Her hair was combed and pomaded and she sat on the sofa with her eyes lowered as Coalhouse Walker Jr. spoke his formal conversation and played the piano for her. It was only when they were seen together that it became apparent he was a good deal older than she was. Mother insisted that the members of the family excuse themselves so that the courts.h.i.+p could go on in privacy. Nothing was speeded by this. After the visit Sarah looked irritated and even angry. She was slow to forgive, and in some peculiar way her stubbornness seemed the only appropriate response to his persistence. Sarah had attempted to kill her newborn child. Life was not something either of these people took carelessly. They lived in brutal subjection to their hopes and feelings. They suffered themselves. Mother's Younger Brother understood this perhaps more clearly than anyone in the family. He had spoken to Coalhouse Walker just once but admired him immensely. He saw in the way the black man acted upon his intentions more manhood than he himself possessed. He brooded over this. Younger Brother understood the love in some hearts as a physical tenderness in that part of the body, a flaw in the physiological being equivalent to rickets of the bones or a disposition of the lungs to congest. He was afflicted with this and so was Sarah, colored though she was. He thought she was some displaced African queen; her very awkwardness as she moved suggested that it would be grace in another country. And the more reluctant she seemed to accept Coalhouse Walker's offer of marriage, the more Younger Brother understood what a terribly afflicted heart she had.

But one Sunday in March, with the wind blowing softer and small brown buds visible on the branches of the maple trees, Coalhouse arrived in his s.h.i.+ning Ford and left the motor idling. Neighbors in their yards came out to watch the strange intense black man, burly and correct, with his dark, dark eyes on the verge of crossing, and the beautifully awkward Sarah, wearing a pink s.h.i.+rtwaist and a black skirt and jacket and one of Mother's wide-brimmed hats, as they walked under the Norwegian maples and down the concrete steps to the street. She carried her baby. He helped her into the car and got up behind the wheel. They waved to the family and drove off through the suburban streets to the farmlands at the north end of town. They parked at the side of the road. They watched a cardinal skim the hard brown earth, then beat its way to the highest thinnest branch of a tree. This was the day he asked her to marry and she accepted. The appearance of these magnificent lovers in the family's life had been startling; the conflict of their wills had exercised an almost hypnotic effect.

22.

And now Mother's Younger Brother began again his trips to New York. He would work at his drawing table past the dinner hour and then catch an evening train. He had made friends of some ordnance officers on duty at the armory on Lexington Avenue and 34th Street. They complained about the Springfield rifle. They showed him their small arms and their grenade bombs. He knew immediately that he could design better weapons. He drank with the officers. He became known at the stage doors of several Broadway theatres. He stood in the alleys, like others, never so well-groomed as some of the older men, nor so carelessly handsome as the collegians from Princeton or Yale. But there was an intensity of expectation about his eyes that attracted a fair number of women. He was always so serious and unhappy that they were persuaded he loved them. They took him for a poet.

Still, his salary couldn't support these tastes. Broadway was alive with lights and entertainments and everyone connected with the theatre and charged by its excitement lived to the limit. He learned where to find women who would go to bed with him for a modest price. One of these places was the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. They walked in twos whenever the weather was mild. The days were beginning to lengthen. In cold luxurious sunsets they strolled about the fountain, shadows filling the great steps, the water already black, the paving stones brown and pink. He amused them by taking them seriously. He was gentle with them and they didn't mind his oddity because it was gentle. He would take a woman to his hotel room and then sit in a chair with one shoe in his hand and completely forget about her. Or he would not attempt to make love but only inspect her intimate places. He drank wine until he was insensible. He dined in steakhouses with sawdust on the floor. He went to cellar clubs in h.e.l.l's Kitchen where hoodlums bought everyone drinks. He walked Manhattan at night, his eyes devouring pa.s.sers-by. He stared in the windows of restaurants and sat in hotel lobbies, his restless eyes picking out motion and color before it defined itself.

Eventually he found the offices of the Mother Earth Mother Earth magazine published by Emma Goldman. They were on 13th Street in a brownstone that served now as the anarchist's residence when she was in New York. He stood in the street under the lamppost and stared at the windows. He did this for several nights. Finally a man came out of the door, walked down the steps and crossed the street to where he stood. He was a tall cadaverous man, with long hair and a string tie. He said It gets cold in the evenings-come in, we have no secrets. And Younger Brother was led across the street and up the steps. magazine published by Emma Goldman. They were on 13th Street in a brownstone that served now as the anarchist's residence when she was in New York. He stood in the street under the lamppost and stared at the windows. He did this for several nights. Finally a man came out of the door, walked down the steps and crossed the street to where he stood. He was a tall cadaverous man, with long hair and a string tie. He said It gets cold in the evenings-come in, we have no secrets. And Younger Brother was led across the street and up the steps.

It turned out that in his vigil he had been mistaken for a police spy. He was treated with elaborate irony. He was offered tea. Numbers of people were standing about in the apartment in their hats and coats. Then Goldman appeared in a doorway and her attention was directed to him. Good G.o.d, she said. That's no policeman. She began to laugh. She was putting on a hat and setting it in place with hatpins. He was thrilled that she remembered him. Come with us, she called.

A while later Younger Brother found himself in the Cooper Union down near the Bowery. The hall was hot, crowded to overflowing. There were lots of foreigners. Men wore their derbies though indoors. It was a great stinking congress garlicked and perfumed in its own perspiration. It had met in support of the Mexican Revolution. He hadn't known there was a Mexican Revolution. Men waved their fists. They stood on benches. Speaker after speaker arose. Some spoke in languages other than English. They were not translated. He had trouble hearing. What seemed to have happened was that the Mexican peons had spontaneously revolted against Diaz the President of Mexico for the past thirty-five years. They needed guns. They needed ammunition. They were striking from the hills, attacking the Federals and the supply trains with wooden staves and muzzle-loading muskets. He thought about this. Finally Emma Goldman got up to speak. Of all the orators she was the best. The hall went quiet as she described the complicity of the wealthy landowners and the despised tyrant Diaz, the subjugation of the peons, the poverty and starvation and, most shameful of all, the presence of representatives of American business firms in the national counsels of the Mexican government. Her voice was strong. As she moved her head and gesticulated the light flashed from her gla.s.ses. He pushed his way forward to be closer to her. She described one Emiliano Zapata, a simple farmer of the Morelos district who had turned revolutionary because he had no choice. He wore the share farmer's bleached pajama coat and trousers, bound over the chest with bandoleers and belted with a cartridge belt. My comrades, she cried, that is not a foreign costume. There are no foreign lands. There is no Mexican peasant, there is no dictator Diaz. There is only one struggle throughout the world, there is only the flame of freedom trying to light the hideous darkness of life on earth. The applause was deafening. Younger Brother had no money. He turned out his pockets, mortified to see all around him people who reeked of their poverty coming up with handfuls of change. He found himself standing at the foot of the speaker's platform. The speeches were done, she stood surrounded by colleagues and admirers. He saw her hug a swarthy man who wore a dark suit and tie but also an enormous sombrero. She turned and her glance fell on the balding blondish young man whose head came just above the platform stage, as if severed like a French republican's, the eyes turned upward in a kind of ecstasy. She laughed.

He thought at the end of the rally that she would speak to him but there was a reception for the Mexican back at the offices of Mother Earth Mother Earth. He was the Zapatista Zapatista representative. He wore boots under his cuffless trousers. He did not smile but drank tea and then wiped his long moustaches with the back of his hand. The rooms were crowded with journalists, bohemians, artists, poets and society women. Younger Brother was not aware that he was following Goldman about. He was desperate for her attention. But she was enormously busy with everyone else. Each new person who came in the door had to be seen. She had lots on her mind. She introduced people to each other. To different persons she proposed different things they must do, others they should speak with, places they ought to go, situations they ought to look into or write about. He felt incredibly ignorant. She went into the kitchen and whipped up the batter for a cake. Here, she said to Younger Brother, take these cups and put them on the table in the big room. He was grateful to be taken into her network of useful people. There were posters of representative. He wore boots under his cuffless trousers. He did not smile but drank tea and then wiped his long moustaches with the back of his hand. The rooms were crowded with journalists, bohemians, artists, poets and society women. Younger Brother was not aware that he was following Goldman about. He was desperate for her attention. But she was enormously busy with everyone else. Each new person who came in the door had to be seen. She had lots on her mind. She introduced people to each other. To different persons she proposed different things they must do, others they should speak with, places they ought to go, situations they ought to look into or write about. He felt incredibly ignorant. She went into the kitchen and whipped up the batter for a cake. Here, she said to Younger Brother, take these cups and put them on the table in the big room. He was grateful to be taken into her network of useful people. There were posters of Mother Earth Mother Earth magazine covers on every wall. A tall long-haired man was dispensing the punch. He was the one who had come out to the street to invite Younger Brother upstairs. He looked like a Shakespearean actor down on his luck. His fingernails were outlined in black. He was drinking as much as he dispensed. He greeted people by singing a line or two from a song. Everyone laughed who spoke to him. His name was Ben Reitman, he was the man Goldman lived with. There was something the matter with the top of his head, there was a shaven patch. Noticing Younger Brother's glance he explained that he had been in San Diego and had been tarred and feathered. Emma had gone there to speak. He acted as her manager, renting the halls, making the arrangements. They had not wanted Emma to speak. They had kidnapped him, driven him somewhere, stripped him and tarred him. They had burned him with their cigars, and worse. As he gave this account his face darkened, his smile disappeared. An audience had gathered. He was holding the punch ladle and it began to click against the side of the bowl. He couldn't seem to let go of it. He gazed at his hand with a peculiar smile on his face. They did not want my momma to speak in Kansas City or Los Angeles or Spokane, he said. But she spoke. We know every jail. We win every case. My momma will speak in San Diego. He laughed as if he couldn't believe his own hand shook as it did. The ladle clicked against the bowl. magazine covers on every wall. A tall long-haired man was dispensing the punch. He was the one who had come out to the street to invite Younger Brother upstairs. He looked like a Shakespearean actor down on his luck. His fingernails were outlined in black. He was drinking as much as he dispensed. He greeted people by singing a line or two from a song. Everyone laughed who spoke to him. His name was Ben Reitman, he was the man Goldman lived with. There was something the matter with the top of his head, there was a shaven patch. Noticing Younger Brother's glance he explained that he had been in San Diego and had been tarred and feathered. Emma had gone there to speak. He acted as her manager, renting the halls, making the arrangements. They had not wanted Emma to speak. They had kidnapped him, driven him somewhere, stripped him and tarred him. They had burned him with their cigars, and worse. As he gave this account his face darkened, his smile disappeared. An audience had gathered. He was holding the punch ladle and it began to click against the side of the bowl. He couldn't seem to let go of it. He gazed at his hand with a peculiar smile on his face. They did not want my momma to speak in Kansas City or Los Angeles or Spokane, he said. But she spoke. We know every jail. We win every case. My momma will speak in San Diego. He laughed as if he couldn't believe his own hand shook as it did. The ladle clicked against the bowl.

At this point a man pushed his way to the table and said You think, Reitman, the world is well-served by your being tarred and feathered? He was a short, totally baldheaded man with thick eyegla.s.ses, a large full mouth and a very sallow complexion with skin like wax. The issue has become Emma's right to speak rather than what she has to say. All our energies go into defending ourselves. That is their strategy, not our own. I'm afraid you don't understand that. What is so glorious, poor Reitman, about being bailed out of the tank by some guilty liberal. So that then he can congratulate himself. How is the world advanced? The two men stared at each other. Goldman's voice called cheerfully from the back of the gathering: Sacha! She came around the table wiping her hands on her ap.r.o.n. She stood next to Reitman. She gently removed the ladle from his hand. Sacha, my dear, she said to the sallow man, if first we have to teach them their own ideals, perhaps then we may teach them ours.

The party went on into the early hours. Younger Brother despaired of getting her attention. He sat, Indian style, on an old couch with sagging springs. After some time he realized the room was quiet. He looked up. Goldman was sitting on a kitchen chair directly in front of him. The room was otherwise empty, he was the last guest. Unaccountably, tears came to his eyes. You actually asked if I remembered you, Emma Goldman said. But how could I forget. Could anyone forget a sight such as that, my pagan. She touched his cheek with her thumb and mashed away a tear. So tragic, so tragic. She sighed. Is that all you want from your life? Her large magnified eyes peered at him through the lenses of her eyegla.s.ses. She sat with her legs apart, her hands on her knees. I don't know where she is. But if I could tell you, what good would that do? Suppose you got her to come back to you? She would only stay awhile. She would run away from you again, don't you know that? He nodded. You look terrible, Goldman said. What have you been doing to yourself? Don't you eat? Don't you get any fresh air? He shook his head. You have aged ten years. I cannot sympathize. You think you are special, losing your lover. It happens every day. Suppose she consented to live with you after all. You're a bourgeois, you would want to marry her. You would destroy each other inside of a year. You would see her begin to turn old and bored under your very eyes. You would sit across the dinner table from each other in bondage, in terrible bondage to what you thought was love. The both of you. Believe me you are better off this way. Younger Brother was crying. You're right, he said, of course you're right. He kissed her hand. She had a small hand but the fingers were swollen and the skin was red and the knuckles were enlarged. I have no memories of her, he sobbed. It was something I dreamed. Goldman was unappeased. This way you can feel sorry for yourself, she said. And what a delicious emotion that is. I'll tell you something. In this room tonight you saw my present lover but also two of my former lovers. We are all good friends. Friends.h.i.+p is what endures. Shared ideals, respect for the whole character of a human being. Why can't you accept your own freedom? Why do you have to cling to someone in order to live?

He bowed his head as she talked. He stared at the floor. He felt her fingers under his chin. His head was lifted, tilted up. He found himself staring into the faces of Goldman and Reitman. From Reitman's scatterbrained smile a gold tooth gleamed. They peered at him, curious and interested. Goldman said He reminds me of Czolgosz. Reitman said He is educated, a bourgeois. But the same poor boy in the eyes, Goldman said. The same poor dangerous boy. Younger Brother saw himself standing in line to shake the hand of William McKinley. A handkerchief was wrapped around his hand. In the handkerchief was a gun. McKinley fell back. Blood dyed his vest. There were screams.

When he left she hugged him at the door. Her lips, surprisingly soft, pressed his cheek. He was overcome. He stepped back. The literature under his arm fell to the floor. There was laughter between them as they crouched in the doorway and gathered it up.

But an hour later he stood between the cars on the milk train going up to New Roch.e.l.le. He considered throwing himself under the wheels. He listened to their rhythm, their steady clacking, like the left hand of a rag. The screeching and pounding of metal on metal where the two cars joined was the syncopating right hand. It was a suicide rag. He held the door handles on either side of him listening to the music. The cars jumped under his feet. The moon raced with the train. He held his face up to the sky between the cars, as if even moonlight could warm him.

23.

One Sunday afternoon the colored man Coalhouse Walker said goodbye to his fiancee and drove off to New York in his Ford. It was about five o'clock in the evening and shadows of the trees darkened the road. His route took him along Firehouse Lane, past the station house of the Emerald Isle Engine, a company of volunteer firemen known for the dash of their parade uniforms and the liveliness of their outings. In the many times he had gone this way the Emerald Isle volunteers would be standing and talking outside the firehouse, a two-story clapboard building, and as he drove past they would fall silent and stare at him. He was not unaware that in his dress and as the owner of a car he was a provocation to many white people. He had created himself in the teeth of such feelings.

At this time private volunteer companies were maintained as auxiliaries to the munic.i.p.al fire department; and these companies, which relied upon private subscription, had yet to motorize their equipment. As the Negro came along a team of three matching gray engine horses cantered out of the firehouse into the road pulling behind them the big steam pumper for which the Emerald Isle was locally renowned. They were immediately reined, causing Coalhouse Walker to brake his car abruptly.

Two of the volunteers came out of the building to join the driver of the pumper who sat up on his box looking at the Negro and yawning ostentatiously. They all wore blue work s.h.i.+rts with green handkerchief ties, dark blue trousers and boots. Coalhouse Walker released the clutch pedal and climbed down to crank his car. The volunteers waited until this was done and then advised him that he was traveling on a private toll road and that he could not drive on without payment of twenty-five dollars or by presenting a pa.s.s indicating that he was a resident of the city. This is a public thoroughfare, Walker said, I've traveled it dozens of times and no one has ever said anything about a toll. He got up behind the wheel. Tell the Chief, one of the men said to another. Walker decided to put the Ford into reverse gear, back up to the corner and go another way. He turned in his seat. At this moment two of the firemen carrying a twenty-foot ladder between them came into the street behind the car. Two others followed with another ladder and others came out with carts of coiled hose, buckets, axes, hooks and other fire-fighting equipment, all of which was deposited in the street, the company having chosen this particular moment to sweep out its quarters.

The Chief of the company was distinguished by a white military cap he wore at a c.o.c.ky angle. He was also somewhat older than the rest. He was courteous to Coalhouse and explained that while the toll had never before been collected from him it was nevertheless in force, and that if Coalhouse did not pay up he would not pa.s.s. With his two hands he lifted his hat from his head and reset it so that the visor covered his eyes. This caused hi