Death of a City

by Lionel White

  3 LEAVING the hospital moments later, Carlton Asmore thrust his right hand into the coat of his jacket, searching for the ignition keys to his car. His hand encountered the small square box which held a platinum-mounted diamond which he had purchased that afternoon, the engagement ring he’d planned to give to Caroline this very evening, the ring which he hoped and prayed she would accept. Accept, but only after he had told her what he knew he must tell her.

  It hadn’t been easy reaching that decision. And it had been only after agonizing over it for days on end that he had finally decided

  that she had to know, that he must tell her the truth, the complete and whole truth, before she committed herself.

  Pulling away from the curb and heading back toward police headquarters, he experienced a sense of relief that, because of the riot, he would be able to postpone his meeting with Caroline. At once he was overcome by an additional sense of guilt when he realized that, in a way, he was almost glad that the events of the evening had taken place, giving him a legitimate excuse again to procrastinate. It wasn’t, of course, that he would have wanted the riot, God knows. But it had happened, it was happening and it certainly made it impossible to see her, at least for awhile.

  Once more his mind went back to his earlier plans for the night. They would meet at the country club, go to the party they’d been invited to and leave early, returning to her apartment. It would be like the other nights, except for one thing. This was the night he would give her the ring and they would make the final and definite plans for their marriage late that fall. And this was the night that he knew he must make his confession, tell her everything there was to tell. He must get it off of his chest, once and for all. If their marriage was to work out, to be the marvelous, beautiful thing that he hoped it would, there must be no secrets between them.

  God knows, it was going to be difficult enough to tell her, to try to make her understand. It would be doubly difficult because he knew that she wouldn’t want to know about it. He remembered the one or two times before when he had been on the verge of explaining it to her, when he had started to lead up to it, first in telling her about that wild series of affairs he had had several years back, when he’d first returned to Oakdale, affairs with black girls and white girls, married women, prostitutes and just about any available female.

  But she’d refused to listen, had stopped him before he could even get started, had said that she wasn’t interested and that what had happened had happened and that it had nothing to do with her. He’d tried then to explain that everything that had ever happened to him during his entire life, had to do with her if they were to be married and live together and that he wanted her to know. But she’d refused to listen and so he hadn’t pursued it.

  ill

  And then, the other time, when, still trying to get it off his chest, > he’d tried to lead into it in a roundabout way, talking to her about

  his Uncle Cass, his uncle’s peculiarities, the fact that Cass Asmore

  was a bisexual.

  But again she’d turned a deaf ear. She said that she had guessed as much but that it certainly made no difference to her. She didn’t sit in judgment on other people’s sexual habits. She simply wasn’t interested.

  “Anyway,” she said, "what can it matter? After all, you are the man I want to marry, not your Uncle Cass.”

  They had been in bed together at the time, lying naked, side by side, almost casually making preliminary love and she had pulled him over her and kissed him, one arm and hand around his shoulders holding him close and the other going down to feel him as he hardened.

  She twisted her head and took her mouth away and said, “Yes, you are the one I want and I certainly don’t have to worry about your sexual proclivities. Other male members of your family may be as queer as bedbugs, but darling, you make up for them all. If you were any more normal, I would probably need blood transfusions once a week to cure chronic exhaustion, and so would you.”

  And then, conversation was no longer needed nor really possible as she again pressed her mouth against his and his hands moved from her breasts down and around her back and he pulled her close as he slowly penetrated her and their bodies began to move in rhythm.

  But even as the blood surged through his veins and he felt his heartbeat increase, he couldn’t help but wonder what she would say if he were to go on and tell her that for a long time he’d suspected that he was anything but normal, that he’d been convinced he was a homosexual, that he’d gone through that one odd homosexual experience when he’d been in college. In spite of everything the psychiatrist had told him, in spite of all the reassurances, he still wondered about and questioned his normalcy.

  He had, of course, had some, if not complete reassurance during the last session when Dr. Gottlieb had dismissed him as a patient.

  "There is no point,” the psychiatrist had said, “either in your

  wasting your money or in my wasting my time. You’ve told me all I have to know and I have tried to give you an honest interpretation of the facts. All of us have some degree of homosexual proclivities, like it or not. Your case is anything but unusual. The only thing which makes it different than a lot of others, is that your problems stem more from your conscious memories than your subconscious ones.

  “Those first early experiences with your uncle, immediately after the death of your parents when you went to live with him; his fondling of you and your responses—there may be and probably were strong sexual overtures in his actions, but yours were completely normal. You were a child, little more than an infant, and you were seeking the love which you had lost when you lost your parents.

  “Later on, that experience in college which has worried you, believe me, it was not really unique or unusual. Mutual masturbation between schoolboys who are isolated from normal contact with females is commonplace. In your case, it happened in college rather than in prep school. As you say yourself, it was an isolated experience and hasn’t been repeated. The thing to do is to disregard it. Go out and get yourself a woman. And don’t let the fact that you often prefer the company of men bother you. A good many completely normal men still prefer the company of other males. Your basic fear of being homosexual has not been predicated on any abnormal desire for men; it has been established because of a certain fear you have of women, combined with a deep-seated lack of confidence in your ability to satisfy them. So get yourself a girl, get yourself a number of girls. I think you will discover that you are completely normal.”

  He had taken the doctor’s advice. It was during the next few years that there had been that long parade of girls and, true enough, he had found sexual gratification. And although there had been no emotional gratification, he had gradually overcome his fears of being potentially homosexual.

  The strange and almost terrifying thing was that now, after he'd found Caroline, had found both sexual and emotional satisfaction in a woman, the old fears had returned.

  He had been tempted again to return to Dr. Gottlieb, but some-* thing told him that this time the doctor wouldn’t be able to give him the answer. And so, at last, he’d decided that the only way to find the answer was in going to Caroline herself, putting the whole thing on the table between them. And this he was determined to do before they went through with the marriage which they both

  wanted so badly.

  Tonight was the night that he would make his confession, before he gave her the ring.

  But tonight he had a riot on his hands.

  4 COLONEL Waldorf Sims, head of the state police, made an effort to keep his tone of voice conciliatory and control the irritation he felt rising within himself.

  “I know,” he said. “I understand this is the Associated Press and that you are entitled to any information that we have. But I have already explained to you. The situation is well in hand. We are fully informed as to what’s taking place. Yes, yes, I’ve been in touch with the Governor. He has things completely under control. How? Well, shortwave radio I shoul
d imagine. No, you’d have to ask him about that. I have no idea whether he’s calling out the National Guard or not. I only know what we are doing here. Twenty units earlier this evening and I’ll have more in before morning. It takes a little time, you know, to get the cars in. That’s right, we cooperate in every way with the local law-enforcement officials. I have every confidence in Chief Partridge, one of the very best law-enforcement men in the country. Sure, he can keep things under control.”

  He took the telephone away from his face, holding it out at arm’s distance, and yawned, winking at Jeremy, his assistant, who sat across the desk from him half-grinning. The voice came through the earpiece but the words were merely an unintelligible sound.

  The Colonel again spoke into the mouthpiece of the telephone.

  “Sorry,” he said, “but I have to hang up now. Have another call waiting.”

  He replaced the receiver and again yawned.

  “Damned newspapermen,” he said. “They’re the ones, the newspapers and radio and TV guys, who make the trouble. If that guy calls back, stall him. Tell him I had to go out. The Governor wants us to play this down as much as possible. These things are contagious. Some Goddamned reporter or newscaster goes on the air and starts to get hysterical and the first thing you know the thing will spread like wildfire. Governor wants as little publicity as possible. It would be bad for Oakdale, bad for the entire state.”

  “You think Whip Partridge can handle it all right?” Captain Jeremy asked.

  “Well, if he can't, no one can,” the Colonel said. “Of course, we don’t know yet just what is and what is not happening, the damned phones being out and all. We know there’s been fire bombs and looting, a lot of people hurt, but from what I gather, mostly niggers.”

  “Sergeant Pliny got a message through,” the Captain said. “Came in a few minutes ago while you were on the phone. He said two or three Oakdale policemen have been shot and killed.”

  The Colonel looked up, surprised.

  “Those black bastards," he said. “I just hope Whip Partridge goes all out against them. The police always take it on the chin when these things break out. That’s why I instructed our men to stay out of the colored districts and let the local people take care of that end of it. Damned if I want to lose any men protecting a bunch of nigger tenement houses and Jew stores. If the blacks want to burn down their own homes, I say let ’em. And if the Jews want to go into nigger town to make a fast buck, then that’s their risk. Our boys will protect the white part of town, the residential sections.”

  “How about the downtown district in Oakdale?” Jeremy asked. “As I remember, it’s right up against the colored section.”

  “That’s right," Colonel Sims said. “But it’s probably just about the safest place in town at this moment. The niggers would never dare set fires or loot in the main business district. They never have anywhere else and they wouldn’t do it there. They just don’t have that sort of imagination or brains. They probably know that,

  once they started something like that, it would be all out war. The police wouldn’t be standing by just keeping an eye on them. They’d shoot and they’d shoot to kill. No, I don’t think Oakdale has to worry about its business district tonight. Their big problem will be to contain the fires and keep them from spreading.” He stood up stretching and again yawned. “Think I’ll go up and catch a little shut-eye,” he said. “You call me if anything comes up.”

  “Any special instructions, Colonel, if the boys call in?"

  “Well, you might have them set up road blocks on the main high

  ways leading out of Oakdale, especially on Route 17 going north. Tell them to stop any suspicious cars, out-of-state licenses being driven by niggers. You can bet that there are outside agitators who are in back of this thing. Anybody suspicious, we'll hold them until we can check ’em out with the FBI. And tell them to keep an eye open for loot, radios, TV sets, and that sort of stuff. That’s the main reason behind all these Goddamned riots, loot. Won’t be anything big, of course, but what the hell, stealin’ is stealin’ in my book. Just ’cause a man has black skin doesn’t give him the right to steal.”

  5 “MISS Vargle," Shirley Candle said, “I think you should go home. You outna be down here tonight. You should go home.”

  Caroline looked at Shirley and cocked her head, forcing a half smile.

  “What’s this ‘Miss Vargle’ bit, Shirley?” she asked. “We’ve been ‘Caroline’ and ‘Shirley’ since we’ve known each other. Why suddenly ‘Miss Vargle’?”

  Shirley looked embarrassed for a moment but her mouth set in a stubborn line.

  “Tonight’s different,” she said shortly.

  “But we’re not, Shirley,” Caroline said. “We haven’t changed. When there’s trouble, that’s when friends should stick together more than ever.”

  “All right,” Shirley said. “We’re friends. So what? I’m still black and you’re still white.”

  “I’m still Caroline and you’re still Shirley,” Caroline said. She pushed away from the card table at which she sat facing Shirley and stood, tossing out her hands in a sort of half-helpless gesture. “I know how you feel, Shirley,” she said. “Oh, God, I know how you feel, how you can’t help but feel. What has happened and what is happening. I can’t blame you for being mad, for hating, hating me, hating white people. But don’t you see, that’s just what is wrong. That’s what is behind the things that are happening. Hatred. Blind, stupid hatred.

  “I’m just as sick about tonight as you are, but you can’t blame the whole white race for what one or two or half a dozen white men may have done. You have to take people as individual human beings. If you don’t, then you are making the same mistake the white racist makes. He damns you not for what you are or who you are, but what color you are, who your parents happened to be.”

  She moved around the table and put one arm over Shirley’s shoulder and she could feel her stiffen and grow taut. She didn’t pull away, however, but merely looked down at the floor.

  “You’re right, of course,” Shirley said. “Only, well, I don’t hate you personally, certainly, Caroline. But tonight, well, tonight, I’m just sort of confused. What happened at the church, what’s going on outside. I’m just all uptight. Real tight. Those little kids in that church being killed and now our homes being burned down and all.”

  “But, Shirley, white people aren’t burning down your homes,” Caroline said.

  “I guess that’s one reason I’m confused, this rioting and all. I just don’t know what to think or what to do.”

  “The only thing we can do now is to try to help any way we can," Caroline said. “That’s why I came here. If we could only get some of the children off the streets, keep them from getting into trouble. The young ones, they don’t know any better. They don’t understand.”

  “None of us understands. Those boys who came in a few minutes ago—loaded down with stuff they took out of the stores, upstairs now, drinking beer they looted. Why did you tell them they could stay here? They’re half crazy and don’t even know what they’re doing."

  “That’s why I wanted them to stay here, even if they are drinking beer. I don’t even care if it’s hard liquor or if they are smoking pot, just so they stay off the streets and don’t get into trouble, get themselves hurt or killed. At least here they are safe."

  “If they start hard drinking, start getting high, they might not be so safe,” Shirley said. “That’s why I think you should go. Get out of here and get home, someplace you yourself will be safe. I know them. They are my people. This is no night for a white woman to be down here. Even you. Anything can happen tonight. There isn’t anything you can do here any more. At least now.”

  Caroline shook her head.

  “No,” she said. "No, you’re wrong. There are things I can do. A lot of the children who have been coming here to the Youth Center are out on the streets right now. Sooner or later they are going to have to find some place to go and a number of the
m are not going to have any homes left to go to. They’ll come here. Like those boys who came in awhile ago and went upstairs. They have to have some sort of place to stay. At least we can feed them, take care of them if they are hurt or injured.”

  Shirley took out a cigarette and lighted it and then looked up at Caroline. Her voice was cold and distant when she spoke.

  “I guess you mean well enough," she said. “But you don’t really understand. You’re like all the other liberals, all the other do-gooders, like the white radicals I knew up North. I suppose they meant well, too. But when the cards are down, you don’t really get the scene.”

  She threw her hands out and shrugged her shoulders and her face took on an almost helpless expression. For a moment then her eyes seemed to grow dim and far away. She was suddenly remembering Max.

  She had it at last, the answer, the real, honest to God, hard and true answer. He hadn’t got the scene. Max—Max, in spite of his keen intelligence, his sincerity, his sympathy, his understanding, in spite of his love for her, he still hadn’t got the scene. He hadn’t understood the thing which she herself had carefully avoided seeing right up until this moment.

  She was black. Black, black, black! And God damn it, they—

  Max and Caroline and all the rest of them—were white. She was black and she lived in a white world. All the blacks in America lived in a white world, whether they liked it or not. And nothing, nothingatall was going to change it.

  The Maxes and the Carolines of this white world might be liberal and decent and sympathetic and everything else, but no matter how they felt or how they acted, it changed nothing. She was still black and she still thought black.

  There hadn’t been a day in her life when she had not been made conscious of the fact. It was like a man with an ugly face looking into the mirror every morning when he shaved. That mirror told him the truth. It didn’t lie. And each morning he knew damned well he was just as ugly as sin.

  The white world in which she lived was her mirror and that white world reminded her every day of her life that she was black. It didn’t matter worth a damn whether black was beautiful or black was ugly. It was merely an established and incontrovertible fact, as sure a fact as that other truth—that so long as a black man lives in a white world, a confrontation is inevitable. It may lie dormant beneath the surface, but it is always there. This all black men know consciously or subconsciously. And this is the one reality which escapes the perception of those well-meaning, decent-hearted people like Max and Caroline.