The Black Mass of Brother Springer (14 page)

       "Why do you ask—off the record, or for publication?" I countered.

       "I was just wondering." He shrugged, a slow, exaggerated gesture; spat the cigarette into the gutter without touching it with his hands. "I'm used to this race business. I'm not from this hick town; I'm from Atlanta. This stuff wouldn't go in Atlanta. We know how to keep niggers in their place up there."

       "And what, exactly, is their place?"

       "They're black apes, Reverend, That's all. All any of 'em are interested in is a bottle of gin and a place to lay down. They all got one big ambition though, and that's to rape a white woman. That's why you got to keep 'em down. Lazy, good-for-nothing apes! The only thing a nigger really understands is a good swift kick in the ass."

       "I don't agree, Mr. Ames."

       "You're from the North, that's why." He spat into the street. "I could spot that accent as soon as you started talkin'."

       "I don't have an accent."

       "That's what I mean. Go ahead, Reverend, get mixed up with these people. Wait till you've lived down here as long as I have. I know 'em. You can't love a nigger. They won't let you. You're white and they're black, and the two colors don't mix. My daddy had a nigger servant for twenty years. Treated him like a king. My daddy thought more of that old nigger than he did of us kids. Well, you may not believe this, but it's true. Daddy had a stroke, paralyzed the whole right side of his body and he couldn't talk. We all thought it was fine that we had old John to look after Daddy and all. He had to be treated like a baby, couldn't do nothin' for himself. Know what that nigger did?"

       "How would I know what he did?"

       "Daddy was layin' there paralyzed and old John knocked out his gold inlays and sold them for old gold! That's right. We wouldn't never have found out about it if the pawnbroker hadn't got suspicious and called the house. Mama went down and identified 'em and they were Daddy's inlays all right. That's how John repaid my daddy's love. How would you like to be paralyzed and have somebody come along and knock the gold right out of your teeth?"

       "I don't think I'd like it, Mr. Ames. By the way, when you go back to the paper, I want you to give my thanks to the editor for the fine coverage he gave the story this morning."

       "Okay, Reverend, I'll do that little thing. I can see I'm not gettin' through to you." Ames moved away and leaned against a lamp post. "The Advertiser is goin' to feel pretty bad about runnin' that story if them nigger preachers don't show up for the bus ride." He laughed heartily, choked up a gob of yellow phlegm and spat into the gutter. "I doubt if they will show up. You show me a nigger and I'll show you a coward."

       Ames was wrong. Dr. Heartwell drove up a few moments later in a big 1939 Buick town car and parked across the street. While Ames maintained his position at the lamp post I crossed the street and joined Reverend Heartwell at the parking meter. He squeezed two nickels into the spring slot.

       "Good morning, Reverend Springer," he greeted me, smiling. "Do you think two hours will be enough?"

       "I really don't know. But why take a chance? Put in a quarter."

       As they climbed out of the car I greeted them: Dr. David, Reverend McCroy, and Tommy Heartwell, Dr. Heartwell's giant-sized son, the man who had lifted me off my feet for inspection the night before in the basement of the church. We gathered together in a small cluster to go over the plans one more time.

       "Tommy wanted to come along too," Dr. Heartwell explained. "I tried to discourage him, but he insisted."

       "There might be some trouble," Tommy grinned broadly, grinding the knuckles of his huge right fist into the palm of his left hand. "And just in case there is, I'd like to get me in a couple of good licks."

       "No!" I said sharply. "That's exactly what we don't want. One tiny spark of violence on our part, and we will lose before the start. The entire theme of our campaign is love! Turn the other cheek."

       "Suppose I turn the other cheek and it gets slapped too?" Tommy grinned. "Isn't it my turn?"

       "No," I replied. "You have to stay out of it. But you can follow the bus in the Buick. That might be a good idea. And then, after we're arrested, you can drive over and tell Reverend Hutto to get down to the courthouse with a lawyer."

       "All right," Tommy reluctantly agreed.

       Our plan was to get on the eight o'clock bus, and I had so informed the editor of the Jax Daily Advertiser. The Daily Advertiser and the Morning Advertiser were the only two newspapers in Jax, and for all practical purposes they were the same paper except for the time of issuance. The Morning Advertiser had given my story space on the front page with considerable carryover to page three. I expected a very big play, with photos, in the evening Daily Advertiser, and through the resultant publicity I anticipated a large church meeting, and as an aftermath, an all-out bus boycott by Negroes.

       On my part, I had no personal motives, nothing to gain one way or another. I didn't believe in what I was doing, and I didn't disbelieve in it either. I was indifferent. But the plan was interesting, almost exciting, and I wanted to see how it would work out. My fellow ministers were all very calm about the situation. If they were inwardly excited I could not tell it from their outward expressions or actions. If anything, they were run-of-the-mill martyrs. These Negro ministers were men with a painful, incurable disease They had tried cure after cure only to find that their disease persisted; and they felt in their hearts that not even death would wipe out the cause of their illness. Like victims of malignant cancer they would always be willing and eager to attempt any cure, no matter how extravagant and impossible the claim might be. Another straw to clutch at. Another skirmish, another brush with the law might bring a slight concession or gain to their never ending fight to gain equality. Most likely, they would lose. They fully expected to lose, but they were still willing to go through the motions. I found such an attitude very refreshing.

       My many years of deadly, stultifying employment, which demanded constant repression of all emotional feelings, had frozen my face into a waxy, defensive mask. Only my voice was alive, and my face rarely reflected any of the verbal excitement, laughter, passion, or sadness my voice could summon at will. Once, at a party in Columbus, the host had brought out a tape recorder and had recorded the conversation of the guests for a fifteen minute period. When he played the tape back for us all to hear and enjoy, I had listened from my place by the fireplace, looking into a mirror. As I watched my face and listened, the animated voice that belonged to me told a filthy joke, and was punctuated by the laughter of the other guests. My solemn, fixed expression in the mirror was the same expression I had had when I told the story. I knew this, and I wondered how anybody could laugh at any joke, no matter how funny it was, when he was also looking at a frozen, emotionless face. And I was amazed, too, at the ability of my reedy, thin voice to convey emotion that didn't match my expression. If a stranger had been asked to choose the face that went with my recorded voice, I would never have been identified. My voice was an independent organ I didn't fully own or control. Sometimes I talked and listened to myself at the same time, quite interested in what the voice had to say. There was a husky tenderness, at times, which was quite effective, and although my voice was highly pitched for a man, it wasn't squeaky, and within its narrow range there was a straight-forward, confident sincerity that was most impressive.

       Because of my expression, I had gained a reputation as a good listener. I had listened to hundreds of tales of woe, marital arguments, chunks of gossip, rambling, boring accounts of vacation trips, anecdotes, plans for impossible futures, and trite, domestic revelations over the years. When it was my turn to talk my voice consistently said the right thing; a murmured, sincere condolence or a cheering word of advice slipped readily through my lips, independently, and without effort or thought. There had been times when I had suspected a friend of embroidering a story, or adding details calculated to shock me into changing my expression, but I may be wrong about this. As a minister, my expressionless face was a definite asset to me. Who would ever suspect this persuasive voice of belonging to an insincere person?

       A small mixed crowd had gathered at the bus stop and they watched curiously as Mr. Ames took a couple of group shots of the League For Love standing by the bus stop sign. Mr. Ames then wrote our full names down in his reporter's notebook, and made a small diagram in the notebook showing our positions from right to left in the photographs he had taken.

       "I always do this," Ames said to me. "It takes a little more time, but since I started this system I've never made a mistake in the cutlines under a picture."

       "A very judicious precaution," I complimented the reporter.

       The flat-nosed, green-and-white city bus lumbered into the reserved slot, and Ames took another shot of us entering the door. There was a white policeman in the front seat, and we had to wait a couple of minutes before he could raise the window and stick his head out. The policeman wanted to get his face into the photograph, and after it was taken he wrote his name on the inside of a matchbook cover and gave it to Ames. While Ames reinscribed the policeman's name in his notebook, we clambered aboard and took our seats. Dr. Heartwell and I sat in the seat behind the driver, while Dr. David and Reverend McCroy sat directly behind us. The remainder of the bus was empty except for the policeman in the front seat opposite me, and the photographer-reporter sitting behind him. The driver, an affable sort, who wore his chauffeur's cap at a jaunty angle, turned and smiled, winked at the policeman.

       "Is everybody comfy?" the driver asked.

       "Move it out, Roy," the policeman said. "I reckon we're ready."

       The driver shifted into gear and the bus whirred down Lee Street. As the bus filled with white passengers, the driver would be forced to ask the Negro ministers to move to the rear. That was the law. When they refused, the policeman would be forced to arrest them. That was our plan. I was already disobeying the law by sitting beside Dr. Heartwell, but evidently, the policeman had decided to ignore the violation. We drove on. One block. Two blocks. Three blocks. The third corner was a bus stop and there were several Negroes waiting, but the driver didn't stop. I leaned forward and tapped him on the shoulder.

       "Driver," I said, "Why didn't you stop back there? There were passengers waiting."

       "Is that right?" he asked. "That's funny. I didn't see anybody. I'll stop at the next corner."

       At the next bus stop there were two white men, one white woman, and one Negro woman. The driver stopped, opened the folding door, and courteously tipped his cap.

       "Are there any nigger lovers here who would like a bus ride?" he addressed the white trio.

       One of the men laughed, and the other man and the woman smiled broadly. The Negro woman poked her mouth out, but said nothing.

       "Not me," one of the white men said. "How about you, Mr. Sawyers?" He addressed his companion.

       Mr. Sawyers shook his head and laughed. "Not me. I'd rather walk!"

       The white woman, a matronly type in her early forties, giggled.

       Our driver shrugged comically, closed the door, and drove on. He turned and grinned at the policeman.

       "Don't look like anybody wants to ride with these niggers, Officer."

       The policeman laughed. "Try again, Roy. There must be more than one white man in Jax who loves niggers." The remark was for my benefit and he glanced in my direction to see how I would take it. Naturally, I took it very well.

       Roy, the bus rider, made four more stops, and each time there was a similar reaction by the waiting passengers. None of them would get on the bus, and they all smiled or laughed, as though they shared a secret joke with the driver. The Negro passengers didn't climb aboard either. The presence of the policeman, I concluded, frightened them, and they didn't want to get "mixed up" in anything. The reaction by each group of waiting passengers was too pat. They couldn't all have been informed of our plan for disturbing the peace, and even if they had been briefed, many of the white men should have been delighted to see us get arrested. At the next bus stop, as soon as the driver had stopped, I got to my feet and stood by the door. Roy reluctantly opened the door for me and I jumped out. My suspicions were confirmed.

       The destination sign behind the glass didn't read, 132nd STREET: the driver had flipped the cards after we had climbed aboard, and it now read. NIGGER LOVER SPECIAL. No wonder none of the white passengers had wanted to ride! As I stood on the curb looking at the destination sign, a flash bulb exploded. Mr. Ames had followed me out, gotten behind me, and had taken a photo of me staring up at the ridiculous sign. This newsphoto was later picked up by the Associated Press and subsequently appeared in almost every major daily in the United States via wirephoto release.

       I shrugged, beckoned to Dr. Heartwell and the other ministers to come out and join me on the curb. After they had seen the sign they walked silently down the street to where Tommy Heartwell was waiting with the Buick. I followed them, and great guffaws broke out behind us as Mr. Ames, the policeman, and the driver released their suppressed laughter. We had been very neatly tricked.

       For a few minutes we sat in the car, and tried to come up with an alternate plan. Tommy Heartwell was sullen and angry and wanted us all to split up and each ride a different bus.

       "They can't take four busses off their regular runs and make them nigger lover specials," he said angrily.

       The other ministers favored Tommy's idea, but I talked them down.

       "No," I said, "let's call it a day. We failed because I came along in the first place, but I have a hunch we will come out on top. Our main reason for getting arrested was to get publicity, and we will. The paper this evening will give this story a good play and they will ridicule our efforts. I believe that ridicule will work for us rather than against us. You can make fun of almost anybody, but when you take a poke at religious leaders, regardless of their race or creed, you are attacking American fundamentals. Let's just go ahead and hold our meeting tonight, announce the bus boycott, and see what happens."