A Shade of Difference (73 page)

“No,” he said quietly. “Not so easy. But, I’m not so sure I care, any more.”

“Takes a while to get over that kind of caring. Easy to say, not so easy to do. You had dinner?”

“I’d like some.”

“I’ll fix it directly. So you’re all happy now, is that it? Going to stay home now and sing and dance?”

He snorted.

“Now why’re
you
riding me? Thought I could come home here to a friend. Now what?”

“Just wanted to be sure everything’s all worked out.”

“No,” he said sharply, “I didn’t say it was. I said I knew what I was going to do; I didn’t say it was all worked out. It’s a long way from that, but at least I know where
I’m
going. That’s what matters to me, old Maudie.”

“Matters to me, too. I was afraid all those fancy Africans and fancy Americans together would blow you right off the railroad. Best you do what seems right to you, I think, and let ’em holler. That’s what
I
think.”

He grinned.

“That’s what I think, too. I’m glad to know I can count on
you,
Maudie.”

“And don’t get sassy. You be needing all the friends you can get before it’s over, I expect.”

“I’m going to win. I don’t need friends.”

“Everybody needs friends,” she said sternly. “Don’t you go talking like that or the Lord will punish you. Hear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said meekly. “Get my dinner, Maudie. I want to feel like I’m home again.”

“You’re home.”

For a moment after she had gone into the kitchen he remained sprawled in the big easy chair. Then he went to the telephone and dialed a number.

“Hi, Jawbone,” he said easily. “This is Cullee. Is everything in shape for the vote tomorrow? How much of a margin are we going to win by?”

4

At precisely five minutes to noon, as was his invariable custom, the Speaker met the press. He had determined long ago that five minutes was exactly the proper time limit for his regular pre-session meeting with these industrious gentlemen and ladies—long enough to permit them to ask a sufficient number of questions so that they wouldn’t feel cheated, short enough for him to easily ignore or quickly choke off anything that threatened to be embarrassing. Now as he looked around his ornate old gold-and-glass office just off the House floor and studied the group draped on sofas and chairs or standing against the wall or crowded up to his desk awaiting his word, he could sense that today they would have been difficult if they had had the time. He chuckled inwardly. They didn’t, and he was ready for them.

“Mr. Speaker,” the Houston
Chronicle
said with a straight face, “is it true that all us white folks are going to have to wear blackface from now on as part of this Hamilton Resolution?”

“You can wear what you like,” the Speaker said promptly. “It’s a free country.”

“Mr. Speaker,” the
Afro-American
said with an air that indicated he was not amused, “what are the chances of the Hamilton Resolution?”

“Good.”

“Would you care to elaborate on that, Mr. Speaker?” the AP asked.

“Nope.”

“We hear tell the vote’s going to be awfully close,” the New York
Times
observed.

“What you hear and what happens can be two different things.”

“Can be,” the
Times
agreed, unabashed. “Are they?”

“Said chances were good. They are good.”

“Have you had any indication from Congressman Hamilton that he may withdraw his resolution?” UPI inquired. The Speaker grunted.

“Haven’t talked to him. I think he would have talked to me if he had any such plan.”

“Would you say your margin of victory will be comfortable, Mr. Speaker?” the Philadelphia
Bulletin
asked.

“Learned a long time ago,” the Speaker said, looking at his most sagacious, homespun, and knowledgeably experienced, “that any margin that’s for you is comfortable. Doesn’t matter how big it is. It’s only when it’s against you that it’s uncomfortable.”

“Time!” his secretary said, and obediently, laughing at his concluding remark, the reporters trooped out. Always leave ’em laughing if he could, that was his motto, and he usually managed. He rose, squared his shoulders, and walked with a solid and determined dignity across the hall into the crowded Speaker’s Lobby, and so through the elaborately etched swinging glass doors and into the great brown chamber of the House, filled with the buzz of arriving members and the mounting tension that always accompanies a major legislative battle.

And mounting tension it was, all right, at least for him, Representative Swarthman thought nervously as the convening bell sounded noon and the House dutifully stood and bowed to the Chaplain’s prayer. By dint of rolling his eyes up as far as they would go beneath his lowered brows—which gave him a feeling of muscle strain and an incipient headache, as if he didn’t have enough to think about—the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee could observe the Speaker staring thoughtfully down upon him from the dais as the Chaplain droned on. It was all very well for Bill to look so Spirit of Liberty, Jawbone thought with an aggrieved annoyance; he didn’t have to tote the burden of this day’s battle. It wasn’t his task to please everybody, something Jawbone knew very well couldn’t be done even though he felt he had to attempt it.

Nor had he already had the difficult experience Jawbone had undergone last evening, of having to reassure Senator Cooley on the one hand and Congressman Hamilton ten minutes later that each was going to win. Reviewing those two conversations, coming so close upon one another, he didn’t know how convincing he had been, and with a sort of nervous impatience he wasn’t so sure that he cared any more. Actually he had been so busy listening to the overtones in the two voices that he hadn’t been entirely aware of what he had said himself in his hurrying responses. Seab had apparently been his usual roaring, insistent self, but Representative Swarthman had thought he could detect a most unusual uncertainty underlying the stern old voice. It wasn’t anything he could put his finger on, exactly, but somehow the Senator’s heart just hadn’t seemed to be in it. There had been the customary exhortations, admonitions, and gently delivered threats, but underneath there had been a subtle tiredness that was not at all like Seab. Of course, the old man was seventy-six and facing a hard campaign, and—there had come into his mind with a guilty excitement a thought he had never dared permit himself before. The old man
was
seventy-six, and he
did
face a hard campaign; the state
was
looking for somebody new, and might it not be that the time had finally come for a deserving Congressman to move forward and take his proper place in the upper house?

But not, he thought now with gloomy dismay, if the Congressman was going to let himself get trapped into the position of being too friendly to Negroes. He couldn’t afford to have it said back home that he had put them ahead of his own people in this present tangle over the visit of the damned M’Bulu. When the showdown came, his loyalty after all was to South Carolina, in spite of what the Speaker obviously expected of him as he stared down while the Chaplain concluded and the Clerk began to run through a quorum call. He couldn’t afford to run Cullee’s errands too openly on this resolution, though he could of course understand why the Speaker and the Administration considered it so necessary. He just wished fervently he were somewhere else and didn’t have the position he did as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, which obliged him to take a leading role. He wished he weren’t going to have to do what he knew he must for his own political survival. But there came a time when you had to think of your own future. It was all very well for the Speaker to look smug and above the battle. His future wasn’t in question. It wasn’t that simple for Jawbone Swarthman.

Nor, if truth were known, was it that simple for Cullee Hamilton as he slid into a seat just behind Jawbone and leaned forward to tap him on the shoulder. For all that he was sure in his own mind what he intended to do, the consequences were many and the ultimate effect
upon his own career uncertain, and although his outward aspect was calm and determined, inwardly he was riding on courage and not much else. He didn’t quite know what Jawbone was riding on, for his colleague from South Carolina jumped as though shot when he touched him and swung about with a wild-eyed expression that didn’t focus for a moment. When it did, Jawbone gave a nervous and shamefaced laugh and tried to pass it off as a joke.

“Why, sure now! You scared me good, Cullee. You did, I swear. What do you mean, scaring your chairman like that, now!”

“Sorry. I didn’t know you were so upset this morning, Jawbone.”

“Me?”
Representative Swarthman demanded.
“Me,
upset? Cullee, you never saw a calmer man in your life. I tell you that truly, not a calmer man. Why should I be upset?”

The Congressman from California shrugged, his eyes scanning the crowded floor and galleries.

“I don’t know, I’m sure, especially after giving me that good prediction on the vote last night. I don’t think we have anything to worry about, do we?”

“Well, now, Cullee,” Jawbone said with an attempt at hearty assurance, “don’t you worry your head about that, now.”

“I said we didn’t have to worry, didn’t I?” Cullee said in a puzzled voice. “Or do we?”

“Well, sir,” Representative Swarthman said, “it all depends on what you mean by worry—it all depends on what you—hey! What!” He swung back hurriedly and half-rose, “Is it time for me to get up yet?”

“Relax,” Cullee said calmly, though he did not feel calm, for he was beginning to suspect that all this agitation concealed a far different approach to his resolution than Jawbone had indicated last night in his rambling and evasive telephone comments. “It won’t be time for you to make your opening statement for the resolution for another ten minutes.”

“I know,” Jawbone said, a trifle wildly, “but I have other—I have to—well, look, now, Speaker’s about to—the quorum’s over, isn’t it? The quorum’s over!”

“Yes, the quorum’s over, but what has that got to do with—”

“Mr. Speaker!” Jawbone cried, jumping to his feet just as the Speaker said, “A quorum is present. The Clerk will read the
Journal
of the last day’s proceedings.”

“Mr. Speaker!” Jawbone cried again. “Mr. Speaker, I demand that the
Journal
be read in full, Mr. Speaker. I do demand it, Mr. Speaker!”

There was a stir through the crowded chamber, for the reading of the
Journal
is customarily dispensed with, and is usually demanded only for purposes of parliamentary delay.

At the dais the Speaker looked both startled and gravely disapproving. His rejoinder came in a tone of sharp annoyance.

“All right, the gentleman from South Carolina has that privilege. You’ve demanded it, and you’ll get it. The Clerk will read the
Journal
in full.”

“Thank you, Mr. Speaker,” Jawbone said hurriedly, and sat down, looking about defiantly over the floor as his colleagues studied him. Behind him the Congressman from California reached forward and tapped his shoulder again, this time not gently.

“What are you up to, Jawbone? You trying to sabotage things?”

“Why, no, sir,” Representative Swarthman said. “No, sir, Cullee. I just intend to have a full and fair discussion here, that’s all.”

“So do I. With you, or without you.”

“That’s right,” Jawbone agreed nervously, “but don’t hold it against me now, Cullee. I have to do what my people want, just like you.”

“But you promised me and you promised the Speaker—” Cullee whispered savagely.

“I never did! I never did. I’m not responsible for what you and the Speaker thought.”

“Maybe you’re not responsible for what we
thought,”
the Congressman from California said as the Clerk began to drone through the
Journal
and more and more members began to leave the floor to get lunch, “but you’re responsible for what we’re going to think from now on. Did Seab Cooley put you up to this?”

“We discussed the situation, naturally. Sure we did. I wouldn’t refuse to discuss it with my senior Senator. Would
you,
now! Would you!”

“All right,” Cullee said in a tone of disgust. “All right, if I have to lick him, too, I’ll do it.”

“Mr. Speaker,” Jawbone cried, jumping to his feet again. “Mr. Speaker, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.”

“Now what?” AP asked of UPI in the Press Gallery above. “Is he out to sabotage the whole thing?”

“Apparently,” UPI said. “I think we’re in for one of the House’s great days.”

“The Chair will count,” the Speaker said testily as the Clerk stopped reading and blinked about the emptying floor. “Evidently the gentleman is correct and a quorum is not present. A call of the House is ordered.”

Twenty minutes later, after the Clerk had run through the list of 435 members, the Speaker announced:

“On this roll call, 313 members having answered to their names, a quorum is present. Without objection, further proceedings under the call will be dispensed with.”

“Mr. Speaker,” Representative Swarthman cried, “I object.”

“Mr. Speaker,” Cullee Hamilton shouted, rising to his feet just behind him, “I
move
that further proceedings under the call be dispensed with.”

“Mr. Speaker,” Jawbone cried, “I move to lay
that
motion on the table.”

“The Chair will state the question,” the Speaker said in a tired voice as the galleries buzzed with increasing excitement, and absent members, apprised of developments by the lightning-fast corridor grapevine, began to hurry back onto the floor from dining rooms, cloakrooms, and hallways. “The gentleman from California moves that further proceedings under the call of the roll be dispensed with. The gentleman from South Carolina moves to lay that motion on the table. The question is on the motion offered by the gentleman from South Carolina to lay on the table the motion of the gentleman from California to dispense with further proceedings.”

“Mr. Speaker,” Jawbone shouted, “On that I demand the Yeas and Nays.”