Ragtime (21 page)

37

Booker T. Washington was at this time the most famous Negro in the country. Since the founding of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama he had become the leading exponent of vocational training for colored people. He was against all Negro agitation on questions of political and social equality. He had written a best-selling book about his life, a struggle up from slavery to self-realization, and about his ideas, which called for the Negro’s advancement with the help of his white neighbor. He counseled friendship between the races and spoke of the promise of the future. His views had been endorsed by four Presidents and most of the governors of Southern states. Andrew Carnegie had given him money for his school and Harvard had awarded him an honorary degree. He wore a black suit and homburg. He stood in the middle of 36th Street, a sturdy handsome man with all the pride of his achievement in the way he held himself, and he called out to Coalhouse to let him in the Library. He disdained the use of the megaphone. He was an orator and his voice was strong. There was nothing in his manner to indicate any other possibility than that the desperadoes would grant him his demand. I am coming in now, he called. And he stepped around the crater in the street and walked through the iron gates. He climbed the steps between the stone lionesses and stood in the shadow of the arched portico between the double Ionic columns and waited for the doors to open. There was now a silence and a stillness in the scene that allowed the horn of a cab many blocks away to be heard clearly. After some moments the door opened. Booker T. Washington disappeared inside. The doors closed. Across the street District Attorney Whitman wiped his brow and sank into a chair.

What Booker Washington found was the awesome gilded library of paintings and tiers of rare books, statuary and marbled floors, damask silk walls and priceless Florentine furniture, all wired for demolition. Fascia of dynamite were strapped to the marble pilasters of the entrance hall. Wires led from the East and West rooms along the floor to the rear of the entrance hall, where there was a small alcove. Here sat a man straddling a marble bench. On the bench was a box with a T-shaped plunger which he held with both hands. His back was to the brass doors and he was leaning forward so that if a bullet were to kill him instantly the weight of his falling body would depress the plunger. This fellow now turned to look over his shoulder at Washington and the great educator drew in his breath sharply as he saw it was not a Negro but a white in blackface, as if this were some minstrel show. Washington had entered in a stern and admonitory frame of mind but with the intention to be diplomatic. He disdained persuasion now. He looked in on the West Room and then walked across the hall to the doorway of the East Room. He had expected to find dozens of colored men but saw only three or four youths standing each side a window with a rifle in his hands. Coalhouse stood waiting upon him in a well-pressed hound’s-tooth suit and a tie and collar, although he carried a pistol in his belt. Washington looked him over. His handsome brow furrowed and his eyes flashed. Summoning all his declamatory powers he spoke as follows: for my entire life I have worked in patience and hope for a Christian brotherhood. I have had to persuade the white man that he need not fear us or murder us, because we wanted only to improve ourselves and peaceably join him in enjoyment of the fruits of American democracy. Every Negro in prison, every shiftless no-good gambling and fornicating colored man has been my enemy, and every incident of faulted Negro character has cost me a piece of my life. What will you misguided criminal recklessness cost me! What will it cost my students laboring to learn a trade by which they can earn their livelihood and still white criticism! A thousand honest industrious black men cannot undo the harm of one like you. And what is worse you are a trained musician, as I understand it, one who comes to this famous enterprise from the lyceum of music, where harmony is reverenced and the strains of the harps and the trumpets of heaven are the models for song. Monstrous man! Had you been ignorant of the tragic struggle of our people, I could have pitied you this adventure. But you are a musician! I look about me and smell the sweat of rage, the impecunious rebellion of wild unthinking youth. What have you taught them! What injustice done to you, what loss you’ve suffered, can justify the doom you have led them into, these reckless youths? And, may you be damned, you add to this unholy company a white who smears with color and adds mockery to your arsenal.

Every word of this speech could be heard by every member of the band. They were not so steeped in revolution that the sentiments of Booker T. Washington, of whom they had heard since they were children, could not awe them. It must have been crucial for them to know Coalhouse’s reply. Coalhouse spoke softly. It is a great honor for me to meet you, sir, he said. I have always stood in admiration for you. He looked at the marble floor. It is true I am a musician and a man of years. But I would hope this might suggest to you the solemn calculation of my mind. And that therefore, possibly, we might both be servants of out color who insist on the truth of our manhood and the respect it demands. Washington was so stunned by this suggestion that he began to lose consciousness. Coalhouse led him from the hall into the West Room and sat him down in one of the red plush chairs. Regaining his composure Washington mopped his brow with a handkerchief. He gazed at the marble mantel of the fireplace as tall as a man. He glanced upward at the polychrome carved ceiling that had originally come from the palace of Cardinal Gigli in Lucca. On the red silk walls were portraits of Martin Luther by Lucas Cranach the Elder and several adorations of the Magi. The educator closed his eyes and locked his hands in his lap. Oh Lord, he said, lead my people to the Promised Land. Take them from under the Pharaoh’s whip. Free the shackles from their minds and loosen the bonds of sin that tie them to Hell. Over the mantel was a contemporary portrait of Pierpont Morgan himself when he was in his prime. Washington appraised the fierce face. In the meantime Coalhouse Walker had sat down in the adjoining chair and together the two well-dressed black men were the picture of probity and serious self-contemplation. Come out with me now, Booker Washington said in a soft voice, and I will intercede for the sake of mercy that your trial shall be swift and your execution painless. Dismantle these engines of the devil, he said waving his hands at the dynamite packs strapped in the corners of the carved ceiling and against every wall. Take my hand and come with me. For the shake of your young son and all those children of our race whose way is hard, and whose journey is long.

Coalhouse sat lost in thought. Mr. Washington, he finally said, there is nothing I would like more that to conclude this business. He raised his eyes and the educator saw there the tears of his emotion. Let the Fire Chief restore my automobile and bring it to the front of this building. You will see me come out with my hands raised and no further harm will come to this place or any man from Coalhouse Walker.

This statement constituted Coalhouse’s first modification of his demands since the night of the Emerald Isle, but Washington did not understand this. He heard only the rejection of his plea. Without another word he rose and walked out. He went back across the street believing his intervention had accomplished nothing. Afterwards Coalhouse paced the rooms. His young men stayed at their posts and followed him with their eyes. One lay on the roof atop the domed skylight of the portico. He lay in the rain on guard and felt, though he could not see, the presence of thousands of quietly watchful New Yorkers. During the night he thought they made a sound, some barely detectable mourning sound, not more than an exhalation, not louder than the mist of fine rain.

38

After Booker T. Washington conferred with the District Attorney he spoke with reporters in the parlor of the temporary headquarters. Mr. Morgan’s library is a dynamite bomb ready to go off at any moment, he said. We are faced with a desperately brainsick man. I can only pray the Lord in His Wisdom will bring us safely out of this sad affair. Washington then made a number of phone calls to friends and colleagues in Harlem—church pastors and community leaders—and invited them to come downtown and demonstrate the opposition of responsible Negroes to the cause of Coalhouse Walker. This took the form of a vigil in the street. District Attorney Whitman granted his permission even though the report brought back from the Library was grim enough to cause him to order an evacuation of every house and apartment within two-block radius. Such was the state of things when Father arrived. He was escorted through the police lines and marched past the bareheaded silent black men standing in prayer. He looked for a moment at the Library and then went up the stairs of the brownstone. Inside he was left to himself. Nobody spoke with him or wanted anything from him. He turned around, facing this way and that, waiting for some word or notice from the authorities. None was forthcoming.

The house was filled with police in uniform and men of indeterminate responsibility. Everyone milled about. Father wandered back to the kitchen. Here were the reporters. They had eaten the food in the icebox. They sat with their feet on the table and stood leaning against the cupboards. They wore their hats. They used the sink for a spittoon. Father listened to the conversation and heard the details of Booker T. Washington’s interview with Coalhouse. He marveled at the fame of the man who had played piano in his parlor. But it sounded to him as if Coalhouse had modified his demands. Was this so? Nobody seemed to perceive it. Yet if the life of Willie Conklin the Fire Chief was either conceded or at least negotiable, he ought to inform someone. He looked for an official and came upon the District Attorney himself, whom he recognized from his pictures in the paper. Whitman was at the bay window in the parlor, a pair of binoculars in his hands. I beg your pardon, Father said, and introducing himself he told Whitman what he thought. The District Attorney regarded him with startled eyes. Father noted small broken veins in his face. Whitman turned back to the window and raised his binoculars and stared out like a sea admiral. Not knowing what else to do Father remained with him.

Whitman was waiting for the replay from Morgan. He kept looking at his watch. Then someone ran by in the street. There was a commotion in the hallway. A boy came into the parlor followed by the curators and several policemen. He had a wireless from the
Carmania
. The District Attorney tore at the envelope. He read the wire and shook his head in disbelief. Goddamnit, he muttered. Goddamnit to hell. Suddenly he was shouting at everyone in the room. Out! Get out! He herded everyone through the doors. But he held Father’s arm and kept him there. The doors closed. Whitman thrust the cable into Father’s hands. GIVE HIM HIS AUTOMOBILE AND HANG HIM, the text read.

Father looked up and found the District Attorney glaring at him. This is the one way I would never consider, Whitman said. I can’t give in to the coon. Even to hang him. I can’t afford it. It would finish me. Goddamnit, I took care of that son of a bitch Becker. The crime of the century. That’s what the papers called it. And now the D.A. giving in to a nigger? No, sir! It can’t be done!

Whitman paced the room. Father experienced an infusion of boldness. He was holding in his hands a private message from J. Pierpont Morgan. It enabled him to accept immediately and without question his investiture as confidant of the District Attorney of New York.

Father saw clearly that the situation was ready to be negotiated. Even across the world Morgan had understood this. Coalhouse seemed to have softened on one of his demands, that Conklin be turned over to him. It was Father’s opinion, furthermore, that since Sarah’s death Coalhouse Walker’s most fervent wish was to die. He informed the District Attorney of this. The whole matter might be resolved quickly, he said. The car has no real value. Besides, it’s Mr. Morgan’s idea. I’ll say, said Whitman. Only Pierpont Morgan could think of it. Who else would have the nerve. No, Father said, I mean it’s his idea. Of course I don’t anything about politics, but doesn’t that absolve you of the responsibility? Whitman stopped in his tracks and gazed at Father. Right this minute, he said, I am supposed to be in Newport with the Stuyvesant Fishes, he said.

And so it happened just after midnight that a team of dray horses was backed up to Coalhouse Walker’s ruined Model T sitting by Firehouse Pond in New Rochelle. The rain had gone and the starts were out. The horses were hitched to the bumper and they pulled the car up to the road. Then they began the long journey to the city, clip-clopping along, the driver standing up in the front seat holding the reins in one hand, grasping the steering wheel with the other. The tires were all flat, the car rocked as it went, and every revolution of the wheels grated on the ears.

Even as the Ford was advancing toward Manhattan, Whitman managed to get Coalhouse on the phone. He told him he wanted to talk about his demands. He proposed Father as the intermediary to carry the discussion back and forth. This was more private than the telephone. You can trust him and I can trust him, Whitman said of Father. After all, he’s your former employer. No, Father said in Whitman’s other ear. I was never his employer. Father now had grave misgivings. In too few minutes he found himself outside in the chill early morning, walking across the floodlit street around the crater and up the steps past the state lions. He reminded himself that he was a retired officer of the United Stated Army. He had explored the North Pole. The brass doors opened, not widely, and he stepped in. He heard his own footsteps ring on the polished marble floor. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim light. He looked for the black man and saw instead his brother-in-law undressed to the waist but with his face blackened and a holstered pistol under his arm. You! Father cried. Younger Brother pulled out the pistol and tapped the barrel against his temple in a kind of salute. Father’s knees buckled. He was helped to a chair. Coalhouse brought him a canteen with water.

The first agreement between the two sides was that the twenty-four-hour deadline be extended. The second agreement was that wooden planks should be laid over the hole in the street. Father went back and forth doing his job capably but in a state of peculiar numbness, like a sleepwalker. He did not look at his relative. He could feel queer pulses of bitter glee breaking over his back.

While these points were being settled Whitman was on the telephone using all the means at his disposal to find Willie Conklin. He had the police looking for him in every borough. Then he thought of calling Big Tim Sullivan, Fourth Ward leader and the grand old man of the Tammany machine. He roused him out of his sleep. Tim, he said, there’s a visitor in town, a Willie Conklin from up in Westchester County. I don’t know the feller, Big Tim said, but I’ll see what I can do. I’m sure you will, Whitman said. In less than an hour Conklin was brought up the stairs of the brownstone by the scruff of the neck. He was wet and disheveled and frightened. He had lost the lower buttons of his work shirt and his belly protruded over his belt. He was shoved in a chair in the hallway and told to shut up. A policeman stood guard over him. His teeth were chattering and his hands shook. He reached in his back pocket where he carried his pint in a paper bag. The cop grabbed his arm before he could withdraw it and swung a pair of handcuffs like a whip against his head.

By dawn the crowds, somewhat diminished during the night, filled up again four and five deep behind the barricades. The rusted-out Model T stood on 36th Street along the curb in front of the Library. At a designed moment, the door of the brownstone opened and out on the stoop came two policemen holding between them the forlorn figure of Willie Conklin. He was held there on exhibit. Then he was taken back in, and Whitman, having in good faith brought forth the two item of debate, the car and the Fire Chief, now gave his terms. He would urge his counterpart in Westchester to bring charges against Willie Conklin for malicious mischief, vandalism and illegal detainment of a citizen. In addition the Fire Chief would right there in the street in full sight of everyone help to restore the Model T. It would be a humiliation that he would live with for the rest of his life. And the car of course would be made over new. Whitman wanted in return the surrender of Coalhouse and his men. And then I guarantee that you will have your full privileges and rights under the law, he said.

When Father brought these terms to the Library the young men laughed and hooted. We got him, they called to each other. He givin in. We gonna get the whole pie. They had been buoyed by the sight of the car and the exhibit of Conklin. But Coalhouse himself was silent. He sat alone in the West Room. Father waited on him. Gradually Coalhouse’s somber reflection overcame the spirits of the young men. They became apprehensive. Finally Coalhouse said to Father I will surrender myself but not my boys. For them I want safe passage away from here and full and total amnesty. But stay here, please, until I have a chance to tell them.

Coalhouse rose from his chair and went out to talk to the young men in the hall. They gathered around the detonation box.. They were stunned. You don’t have to give him nothing, they said. We got Morgan’s balls! You don’t have to negotiate nothing. Give us Conklin and that car and let us out of here and you get the Library back! That’s the negotiation, man, that’s the kind of negotiation!

Coalhouse was calm. He spoke softly. None of you is known to the authorities by name, he said. You can disappear into the city and reclaim your life. So can you, came the answer. No, Coalhouse said. They would never let me out of here, you know that. And if they did they would spare no effort to hunt me down. And everyone with me would be hunted down. And you would all die. To what purpose? For what end?

We always talked before, one of them said. Now you doing this. You can’t man! We all Coalhouse! We can’t get out we’ll blow it up, another said. Younger Brother said What you are doing is betraying us. Either we all ought to go free or we all ought to die. You signed your letter President of the Provisional American Government. Coalhouse nodded. It seemed to be the rhetoric we needed for our morale, he said. But we meant it! Younger Brother cried. We meant it! There are enough people in the streets to found an army!

Certainly no theorist of revolution could have denied the truth that with an enemy as vast as an entire nation of the white race, the restoration of a Model T automobile was as good a place to start as any. Younger Brother was shouting now. You can’t change your demand! You can’t reduce the meaning of your demands! You can’t betray us for a car! I have not changed my demands, Coalhouse said. Is the goddamn Ford your justice? said Younger Brother. Is your execution your justice? Coalhouse looked at him. As for my execution, he said, my death was determined the moment Sarah died. As for my Godforsaken Ford it is to be made over as it was the day I drove past the firehouse. It is not I who reduce my demands but they who magnified them as long as they resisted them. I will trade your precious lives for Willie Conklin’s and thank God for him.

A few minutes later Father walked back across the street. To get justice, Coalhouse Walker was ready to have it done to him. But the people following him were not. They were another generation. They were not human. Father shuddered. They were monstrous! Their cause had recomposed their minds. They would kick at the world’s supports. Start an army! They were nothing more than filthy revolutionaries.

Coalhouse’s famous stubbornness had now become a fortress against the arguments of his men. It was he who stood between Mr. Morgan and disaster. Father confided none of this to the District Attorney. He felt Whitman would have trouble enough with the official terms. This turned out to be the case. Whitman threw back several shots of whiskey. Stubble covered his face. His protuberant eyes were red and his collar was wilted. He paced. He stood at the window. He made a fist of his right hand and several times smack the palm of his left. He looked again at the wire from Morgan. Father cleared his throat. It does not say you have to hang the confederates, Father said, What? said Whitman What? All right, all right. He looked for a chair to sit down in. How many of them are there, did you say. Five, Father said, unconsciously excluding Younger Brother. Whitman sighed. Father said I think this is the best you can do. Sure, said the District Attorney. And what do I tell the newspapers. Why, Father said, you can tell them, one, Coalhouse Walker is captured, and two, Mr. Morgan’s treasured are saved, and three, the city is safe, and four, the entire facilities of your office and the police will be used to track down the underlings until every last one of them is behind bars where he belongs. Whitman thought about that. We’ll tail them, he muttered. Right back to the woodpile. Well, Father said, that may not be possible. They’re taking a hostage and they won’t let him go until they know they’re safe. Who is the hostage, Whitman said. I am, Father said. I see, Whitman said. And what makes the coon think he can hold the building alone? Well, Father said, he will be out of the sightlines of skylight or windows with his hands on the dynamite box. That would do it, I should think.

Perhaps Father at this moment nourished the hope that after his release he could lead the authorities back to the criminals’ lair. He thought without Coalhouse they would lack the spirit and intelligence to continue successfully to defy the law. They were anarchist murderers and arsonists but he was not personally afraid. He knew their stamp and was a better man than any of them. From Younger Brother he was so totally alienated that he felt at this moment only joy in the thought of being responsible for his capture.

Whitman was staring into space. All right, he said. All right. Maybe if we wait till dark nobody will see what we’re doing. For Mr. Morgan’s sake, and his goddamn Gutenberg Bible and his five-page goddamn letter from George Washington.

And so the negotiations were completed.