Three Days Before the Shooting . . . Read online

  Suddenly I felt cold. Only yesterday morning the Senator had been insulting Negroes before television cameras, and during the afternoon he’d castigated them from the floor of the Senate, and now this round-about-face. It was unbelievable.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “You must be leaving something out. It just isn’t logical—”

  “Like hell, I am,” McGowan said. “That’s the point, McIntyre. What I mean is, this thing has gone stark, raving crazy! When they took him out of here the Senator was damn near dead—some say in a coma—but still he comes to long enough to demand that that old nigra be taken to the hospital along with him, and he ordered them to keep the bastard on hand while he’s undergoing surgery. What’s more, he ordered them to make a place for the nigra in his own private room! Now, I could understand it if this had taken place before the War and the Senator was a Southerner. Because then that nigra would’ve been a body servant or some kind of old family retainer. But not this, because that there nigra that the Senator’s got with him, he ain’t nobody’s servant. His attitude is wrong, I can tell from the way he made all that fuss up there in the visitors’ gallery. I’m telling you, it’s enough to make a man go homesteading in Bolivia!”

  It was indeed, and as McGowan puffed off to spread the news, I forced a path to the wall, backing against it and fending off the crush as I tried to make sense of this latest development.

  In spite of the shock, the emotional drain, the sickening incredibility of the assassination attempt, I was flabbergasted. Why would the Senator, of all people, demand to have a Negro with him in this crucial moment? The old man’s conduct had been confounding enough, but if McGowan’s news was correct, the Senator had outreached even this extreme of unreason. Suddenly things had ricocheted from the potentially tragic to the blatantly bizarre, and the image formed in my mind by the incongruous juxtaposition of the Senator and old Hickman in an ambulance—the one shot and bleeding, and the other weeping and praying, speeding along together through frozen lines of traffic with the screaming of sirens and the roaring of an out riding escort of policemen on motorcycles—shook me in ways I couldn’t analyze, resounded with overtones of possibility that I was reluctant to hear ….

  How could I ever describe to someone like M. Vannec the element of free-floating threat introduced into the scene by this simple yet incongruous fact? He’d think me mad. And perhaps he’d be right, I told myself. Perhaps the shooting has unhinged you just as it has old Hickman. Then the distasteful idea which I mentioned earlier struck me full force, that it was not only a plot, like the hysterical man insisted, but a piece of conmanship, with Sun-raider performing as actor-dramatist, and old Hickman as supporting player in yet another Sunraider plot to confound the public.

  But what of the gunman? His bullets were real, his leap no piece of playacting, his crushed body was no mere piece of stage property. In fact, it was rapidly becoming the only “normal” detail in the entire chaotic scene. Even so, now that the idea had gripped me, I couldn’t rule out the possibility that the Senator had indeed seized upon his own shooting as a final opportunity to arouse widespread consternation, a means of making what might well be his parting assault on the public’s credulity.

  Because from what I knew and had heard about the Senator, it wasn’t at all beyond him to have conceived of such a ploy, even while going down under a hail of lead. Was it possible that he had planted the Negroes there to interrupt his speech, and then had had the plot explode in his face with the deadly and unscheduled appearance of the gunman? Had Fate stepped in to give a sinister twist to his cynical scheme? It all seemed possible. And where I had begun to think that we had been the unwitting witnesses to a single outrageous plot, it now seemed quite possible that there were two, separate and unconnected: one to deprive us of an important politician, the other to sever us from our sanity. What on earth had happened to this nation?

  CHAPTER 3

  AROUND ME NOW, LEGISLATORS, reporters, and lobbyists were going over the Senator’s career, much of it in whispers, recalling his combination of geniality and viciousness, his technique of delivering jabs below the belt in the guise of humor, the manner in which his obsession with racial matters had recently led to sharp discontinuities of argument, non sequiturs, gaffes—all erupting during moments when he seemed most seriously concerned with major legislation. Some noted his excellence in debate and his great skill in mimicry (a gift which provided his opponents with much discomfort), his frequent violations of private confidences in public debate, during which he was apt to say almost anything. And from a position of apparent logic, and in the interest of the highest principles.

  Others were rehearsing how the Senator, a Northerner, flaunted his association with the Southern bloc to the embarrassment of his party, and how he boldly asserted the realism of his actions. Several of the discussants held that the Senator was more honest and responsible to the public than those who pretended that such collaborations across party and sectional lines were both unnecessary and immoral. To pretend that such wheeling and dealing isn’t necessary, the Senator has insisted, is to misguide and miseducate the public as to the real difficulties of governing a diversified nation, and to obscure from the electorate the true nature of its conflicting interests. Certain party leaders have regarded the Senator’s position as an attack upon the very foundation of their power.

  The talk then returned to the news concerning the Senator and Hickman, and this sparked an intense discussion of the malicious attacks which Senator Sunraider had made against Negroes and Jews, whose working alliance he seems bent upon destroying by dividing their leaders over issues usually assumed to reflect their common interests as political minorities. On several occasions he has remarked that such collaboration not only presented possible violation of the principle demanding separation of church and state, but were to be distrusted by both sides because of the basic religious differences of the parties involved. For Jews, he claims, are Jews, while Negroes are “black white Anglo-Saxon Protestants,” and that such alliances were unnatural. This caused quite an outcry and presented the occasion for McGowan to create a most unlikely—and inaccurate—acronym. “Well, I’ll just be damn,” he said, “here I been thinking all along that ole Brer Rabbit and ole Uncle Remus and Sam the waiter were just nigras, but now ole Senator Sun-raider swears they aren’t nigras at all, they’re goddamn burrwasps!”

  That others have made such statements is bad enough, but the Senator’s attacks against Negroes have become so gratuitous and in such extremely bad taste as to cause resentment far beyond the Negro community. Recently even reporters have found his provocations revolting.

  Listening as they furiously re-created the Sunraider legend, I felt that, despite the heated blending of fact and fiction, real incident and rumor, cold observation and wild opinion, no one, not even those who “knew” the Senator, seemed to know exactly who he was, nor what to make of him. It was difficult to decide whether he was actually as reactionary or as radical as some of the men were insisting. For in matters like his support of scientific research, his efforts to preserve our national resources, our parks and shorelines, he seemed forward-looking. In other matters he seemed like a figure out of some past which had never existed—at least not in our history.

  But what was clear is that there is something basically willful, quirky, exasperatingly capricious, and downright questionable about him. And there was no question but that even while lying shot, with his voice silenced and with no cloak of charm and eloquence to shield or project himself, he had, through the simple expedient of having a Negro present during his hour of mortal crisis, rendered himself even more confusing in the public mind.

  And yet, as one man was pointing out, in spite of the confusion which he created, for many people the Senator possesses a mysterious charm, a charisma.

  “You know,” the man was saying, “the reason why I say this is that I’ve felt it myself. I went to see him about a certain matter, and a most interesting thing occur
red ….”

  “You mean that he hit you for a contribution?”

  “Oh, no, nothing like that. We were talking over a proposition, and all of a sudden I could actually feel the magnetism surging from the man. It was almost physical, a vibration. Unfortunately he was unable to do anything about my immediate problem, but I left his office feeling that everything would work out okay. And so it did, by the way. Up to then I’d been pessimistic.”

  “Yes, I experienced something similar,” another man said. “I never talked about it before because it’s pretty strange. Still, I discovered that he has the ability to make you feel somehow relieved.”

  “What do you mean by ‘relieved’?”

  “Relieved of my uncertainties, of some of my deepest fears ….”

  “Maybe so, but I don’t get you.”

  “I don’t either,” I said. “Develop it a bit.”

  “It’s hard to explain. But the way he goes over the details of a problem and relates them to other things, to other moves in government, to the economic cycles, you come away feeling that you’re ten times more perceptive than you usually are.”

  “But perceptive of what?”

  The man reddened, gave a quick shake of his head.

  “Hell, of life, events; of the patterns underlying the processes of public affairs. What am I, a philosopher? What I’m trying to convey is something he makes you feel—or makes me feel.”

  A faraway look came into his eyes as he broke off, shaking his head again.

  Suddenly I felt uneasy, as though we had approached an unknown, dangerous, and somehow unclean territory dominated by one near death. The image of a grimacing halitosis ad flashed through my mind.

  “You know,” another man said, “I believe that one of the main sources of the Senator’s power lies in his ability to make so many people feel that he justifies their weaknesses. He makes them feel that they have a human right to be weak, and he even justifies their unfairness to others weaker than themselves.”

  “Oh, bull!” a man wearing a hairbrush moustache said. “You make him sound like some kind of saint of negative permissiveness!”

  “No,” the man said, completely undaunted by the rococo definition, “I don’t mean to do anything like that. But whether we like it or not, many people seek comfort from their political leaders, and the Senator is one who delivers. And in spite of what his many critics say, he has insight. He has a subtle understanding of people. And when he wishes, he can be like a wise priest who sees their secret failings and understands them. Besides, he hands out excellent advice on many things having nothing to do with politics per se ….”

  “Sweeney,” the man with the moustache said, “you sound like Sunraider’s done you a few favors.”

  “He has and I’m not hiding it. But in my opinion he’s done the whole country a lot of good, and I’m proud to have him for a friend.”

  “Well, at least you admit it,” the man with the moustache said. “But you really don’t have to go mystical about it, just because he’s allowed you to get close to the pork barrel. As far as I’m concerned, Sunraider is such a crook that all he has to do is to look at a man in a certain way and he feels that he’s automatically involved himself in a conspiracy.”

  “Tell me, Larson,” Sweeney said, “why is it that you always have to get personal whenever you present your bigoted and lamebrained political opinions?”

  “Lamebrained!” the moustached man said. “Who are you calling lamebrained?”

  “You,” Sweeney said, “and in spades!”

  “Why, you sentimental sycophant, you self-serving creature of Sun-raider’s guile. You bumptious blatherskite from Boston!”

  Larson reached out, and I saw a short fat man pushing his way between them.

  “Now wait, fellows,” the fat man said. “Remember where we are—let’s not get upset.”

  Someone cleared his throat. Sweeney and Larson glared.

  “I’ll tell you something else that’s interesting about the Senator,” the fat man said. “That fellow has the damndest way of making a man want to laugh!”

  Larson and Sweeney glared silently down upon him and then across at one another.

  “You mean when he mimics his colleagues?” someone said.

  “Oh, no.” The fat man shook his head. “He’s a riot when he does that, but I’m speaking of what goes on in private. You can be in his office talking about something as serious as all hell, you can be worried near to death and damn near in tears, and he’ll be looking at you with a perfectly straight face while he goes on talking seriously, explaining something—and the next thing you know, you’re breaking up. Laughing your head off. Everything appears in a funny light. I can’t explain it, but it’s happened to me a couple of times.”

  “Oh, come off it, Pat,” a voice said, “you live for laughs. Your mind wandered and you thought of some of Sunraider’s tricks and you broke up. There’s nothing mysterious about your laughing at anybody.”

  “But that isn’t it,” the fat man said. “Now, I admit that I live for good food, strong liquor, and laughs, but this is something else. He makes you feel that there’s a joke lying at the bottom of everything.”

  “So now we have the testimony of a philosopher,” Larson said with a grimace.

  The fat man smiled. “What makes a philosopher,” he said, “a bad temper, a bad case of boils? But it’s not just me. Why, coming from a funeral one time, I rode in the same car with old Judge McCaslin and some friends, and that dignified old gentleman, who had been standing beside the Senator at the graveside—and it was a very sad funeral—the old gentleman almost embarrassed himself. Had to jam a handkerchief into his mouth to keep from exploding right there in the funeral car. He was crying like a baby, and when he finally got himself under control and we asked him what had happened, all he could do was shake his head and say, ‘Oh, that Sunraider! That damnable Sunraider!’ And then he had to jam that handkerchief right back into his mouth!”

  There were smiles, then Larson said, “Listen, Sweeney, getting back to this name-calling—you have your opinion about Sunraider and I have mine, and I think it’s too early to start turning a character like him into some kind of saint or even into a perfect politician. Anyway, not before he’s cold!”

  For a moment this produced silence, which was broken by a policeman who approached through the crowd calling for “Congressman Brock,” and the calm man excused himself and left. Then the fat man chuckled. “Saint?” he said. “Who the hell said he was a saint? Why, I could tell you things about Sunraider that …”

  And now it was as though he’d given a signal to release a veritable deluge of the lies and rumors that had collected about the figure of the Senator. Drawing together, they pressed me even closer to the wall as they let themselves go. First they rehashed the rumor that for a time during his youth the Senator had been the leader of an organization which wore black hoods and practiced obscene ceremonials with the ugliest and most worn-out prostitutes they could find. Like certain motorcycle gangs of today they also engaged in acts of violence and hooliganism and were accused of torturing people—derilicts and such. They were also said to have distributed Christmas baskets and comic books to the poor.

  I was familiar with this rumor and had found no substantiation for it, except for the hardly related fact that the Senator was famous for wearing a spectacular black cashmere overcoat of balmoral cut that was lined full length with sable.

  Next came the rumor that the Senator, a wealthy bachelor, had kept for a time a beautiful Jewish mistress whom he showered with expensive jewelry, furs, works of art (he was alleged to have given her one of the finest Picas-sos), but I dismissed this as untrue when the narrator, a columnist known as a notorious liar, claimed that this fair lady was kept locked in a luxurious establishment in Georgetown which was staffed with mute Oriental servants and guarded by three vicious dogs—a Doberman pinscher, a German shepherd, and a Weimaraner.

  “Sonsabitches would let you en
ter,” the columnist said, “but God help anyone who tried to leave without the Senator’s permission.”

  “What happened to the mistress?”

  “Damn if I know,” the columnist said. “But I understand that one night she got the dogs to turn on Sunraider, and he got rid of the whole shooting gallery. He was jealous as hell of that woman.”

  Then came the hair-raising and eye-stretching story that cast the Senator as villain in the destruction of a highly skilled diplomat’s career. For reasons of his own—about which the gossipmonger relating it was unclear—Sunraider was said to have persuaded a pious Pullman porter to accuse the diplomat of having approached him, the porter, with some odd deviationary sexual proposition while returning in his Pullman car via San Francisco from Casablanca. The porter, said to be an extraordinarily homely black man, was described as a high deacon of his church, a Shriner, a Prince Hall Mason, an Elk of the I.B.P.O.E. species, an Alpha Phi Alpha, a lifetime member in good standing of the United Sons of Georgia—all highly respected Negro fraternal organizations. Thus, with these charges coming from such quarters, the diplomat’s goose was cooked. The executive branch simply could not withstand the anticipated outcry.

  Which makes us once again aware that anyone can do just about anything in this country—throw it off track, strip its gears—if only he knows where to throw a fistful of mud or where to stand to speak out of turn. In this democracy, of course, all things are possible. But why on earth should a Pullman porter, at that time privy by the very nature of his employment to all manner of peccadilloes of the great, be allowed to affect the destiny of a diplomat? Even so, I don’t believe that the Senator could be that malicious or irresponsible. And besides, the official records show that the diplomat in question left the service simply because he wished to retire. Objectively, the dwindling of his family fortune, one of the official reasons given, not to mention the increasing complexity of the world situation, what with so many of the old orders changing, was reason enough for his voluntary departure.