Texas

by James A. Michener

  At this period he was working on the four important carved figures which would decorate the corners on the second tier. Gordon had decided they would be draped female figures representing Justice, Religion, Motherhood and Beauty, and in a moment of infatuation Weegee started with the last-named, carving a really splendid portrait of Mabel Fister. When it was finished, he made bold to stop Mabel one morning as she was going to work; he could speak no English, but he wanted to explain that this statue was his tribute to her.

  She was embarrassed and outraged that he should have intruded into her life in this manner, and although she could speak no Italian, and certainly did not wish to learn, she did indicate that she was displeased both with his art and with his having stopped her.

  He next carved Motherhood, again in Mabel’s likeness, and again he was snubbed when he tried to interest her in it. He then turned to Religion, and this time the beautiful Mabel appeared as a harsh and rather unpleasant type, which he displayed to her one afternoon as she left her work with the judge. She pushed his hand away and spurned his tongue-tied efforts to explain his art and his deep affection for her.

  Before he started carving Justice, which he had wanted to be the best of the series, he asked the interpreter provided by Gordon to arrange some way for him to meet with Mabel Fister so that he could explain in sensible words his love for her, so one afternoon Earnshaw Rusk sat with Weegee and listened as the interpreter poured out the sculptor’s story. Rusk inspected the three statues and said: ‘I should think that any young woman would be proud to be immortalized so handsomely.’

  ‘Will you speak with her?’ Weegee pleaded, and Earnshaw said that he certainly would. Hurrying home, he asked Emma if she would accompany him, and they went together to talk with the attractive secretary: ‘Miss Fister, the gifted sculptor Luigi Esposito had asked us if we would—’

  ‘I want nothing to do with him. He’s a bother.’

  ‘But, Miss Fister, he’s working in an alien land.’ Emma was speaking, and when Mabel looked at her wooden nose she wanted very little to do with her, either.

  ‘I would not care to speak with a papist,’ she said.

  ‘In Rome they claim that Jesus was the first Catholic,’ Rusk said.

  ‘We’re not in Rome.’

  ‘Very few young women have themselves depicted in marble by young men who love them.’

  ‘That’s a foolish word, Mr. Rusk. I’m surprised you would use it.’

  ‘No one ever need apologize for the word love. I would deeply appreciate it if you …’

  Miss Fister was adamant. She would not meet with Weegee; she hoped that he would soon finish his carvings and go away: ‘He has no place in Texas.’ When Justice was finished, Weegee did not try to show it to her, but his mates could see that Mabel Fister had been treated harshly in it. Justice was hard, cruel and remorseless, and not at all what James Riely Gordon had intended. Indeed, he asked Luigi if he would consider trying again on that figure, but the Italian told him, through the interpreter: ‘You don’t change your plans. I don’t change mine.’

  Emma Rusk, aware that she, too, had been rebuffed by Miss Fister, was experiencing an emotional crisis of her own. Her son Floyd, nearly twenty now and as fat and unruly as ever, had made the acquaintance of one of the Italian workmen who had done some building in Brazil, and from him had obtained a most improbable piece of tropical wood. It was called balsa, the Italian said, and while it was lighter than an equal bulk of feathers, it was also structurally strong. He had paid the Italian a dollar for a piece three inches square and had then played with it, testing whether it would float and trying to estimate whether it weighed as much as an ounce, which he doubted.

  Satisfied with its characteristics and assured that it would accept varnish, he then retired to his room, and after several abortive experiments on fragments of the balsa, came out in great embarrassment, holding out his hands, offering his mother a beautifully carved nose which weighed practically nothing and to which he had attached a gossamer thread which he himself had plaited.

  He insisted that she try it on, explaining that it had been so thoroughly varnished and rubbed that it would resist water. But when she removed her heavy wooden nose, the one carved in oak by her husband, and Floyd saw her again as she was, the experience was so crushing that he fled from the house, weighed down by his haunting images of his mother in the hands of her Comanche captors.

  When he returned two days later, neither he nor his mother mentioned the nose. She wore it, with exceeding comfort; it looked better than its predecessor and its feathery weight gave her a freedom she had not enjoyed before. She felt younger and so much more acceptable that she went to the judge’s office to speak with Mabel Fister: ‘Young woman, not long ago you said some very stupid things. Don’t interrupt. If God can accept all children as His own, you can be courteous to this gifted man so far from home.’

  ‘I would never marry an Italian.’

  ‘Who’s speaking of marriage? I’m speaking of common decency. Of charity.’

  ‘I do not need you to come here—’

  ‘You shied away from me. I understand why. I might have done the same. But do not shy away from humanity, Miss Fister. We need all of it we can get.’

  She accomplished nothing, but with a boldness she did not know she had she sought out Luigi Esposito and, with the aid of the interpreter, said: ‘Miss Fister has never traveled. She thinks this little town is the universe. Forgive her.’

  When these words were translated, Luigi said nothing, but he did bow ceremoniously to Emma as if to thank her for her solicitude. Then he turned abruptly, strode to his workshop, and without orders from Gordon, toiled with passionate concentration on his secret carving for the fifth and last location. When it was completed he asked three of his fellow workers to help him cement it in place, and when it was fixed on the south façade of the courthouse between Beauty and Motherhood, the other Italians laughed until they were weak to think of the joke Luigi had played on the Americans. Covering it with a tarpaulin, they proposed unveiling it at some propitious moment. Then the three masons went to their quarters and got mildly drunk while Luigi searched for a pistol, with which he blew out his brains.

  When the courthouse was completed, a thing of flamboyant beauty, the time came for the unveiling of Luigi Esposito’s four symbolic sculptures plus the mystery creation, and since they were presented in the order in which he had done them, it was apparent that his model had grown increasingly harsh and ugly, as if Justice in Texas was always going to be a stern and uncertain affair.

  Some commented on this, but most were interested in what the fifth mystery sculpture would show, and when the three Italians who had cemented it into place withdrew the tarpaulin, smiling vengefully, a gasp issued from the crowd, for in amazing and intimate detail, Weegee had carved the private parts of a woman, and before nightfall rumor initiated by the workmen was circulating to the effect that Weegee had carved it from life. They vowed they had watched as Mabel Fister posed.

  There it stood on the south façade of this magnificent courthouse, immortalized in stone. Two days later Miss Fister left Larkin for Abilene and did not return.

  Earnshaw, of course, wanted the lascivious carving removed, but to his surprise Emma did not: ‘It’s part of the courthouse experience, let it remain.’ And she was supported by Clyde Weatherby, who predicted accurately: ‘Ten people will come to see the courthouse, but a thousand to see Mabel Fister’s unusual pose.’

  Surprising news from Jacksborough diverted attention from the statue. Floyd Rusk had disappeared for several days, and his parents feared that he might have gone to old Fort Griffin, where notorious gamblers clustered, but he had gone to Jacksborough, accompanied by Molly Yeager, whom he had married. She was a flighty girl, almost as round and pudgy as her husband, and Emma could find little reason to hope that she would prove a good wife, but as she told Earnshaw: ‘If I criticized Miss Fister for not being gracious toward her Italian, I can’t be ungr
acious to Molly.’ What she did not tell her husband was that each day she wore her balsa-wood nose she was reminded that in his grudging way Floyd did love her, and that was enough.

  As the century ended, a delightful charade occurred. An official from Washington, eager for a paid vacation, had come to Jacksborough just after Floyd’s wedding and had fired the postmaster, stating no reasons for his arbitrary act. He had then announced that henceforth the town was to be Jacksboro, whereupon with elaborate ceremony he reemployed the fired man as the new postmaster.

  After the celebration, at which he got roaring drunk, he boarded the coach to Fort Garner, where without explanation he fired that postmaster too. When Earnshaw protested such unfairness, the visitor pointed at him: ‘Because of your agitation, this town is now named Larkin,’ and the postmaster was reappointed by a letter from President McKinley.

  During the festivities celebrating the christening, Emma stood well to one side as she heard Weatherby extolling her husband for the good he had accomplished in this town: ‘He brought us the wire fence that made our fortunes, he found a way to get us our railroad, he engineered our noble courthouse, and now he has given us a proper name.’ The orator pointed out that this was an example to young people of how …

  Emma stopped listening, for she was staring toward the plains and calculating how costly this so-called improvement had been. ‘The buffalo that used to darken these plains,’ she whispered, ‘the Indians who chased them, the Longhorns who roamed so freely, the unmarked open spaces … where are they? Will our children ever see their like?’ She expected no answer, for she knew that the glories which had sustained her through the dark years would be no more.

  … TASK FORCE

  I tried to be polite when the governor intruded upon the planning session for our August meeting in Galveston. I explained that we had intended to invite a meteorologist from Wichita Falls to address us on Texas weather: ‘You know, things like hurricanes and tornadoes.’

  He said: ‘Those are the Texas storms aloft. What I’m worried about are the storms here on the ground.’

  When I explained that it would be difficult to disinvite Dr. Clay, he broke in: ‘You mean Lewis Clay? He’s one of the best.’ A governor, it seemed, was supposed to know everyone in his state, and without consulting me he grabbed a phone, dialed his secretary, and said: ‘Get me Lewis Clay, that man who supported me in Wichita Falls,’ and within a minute he was speaking to our meteorologist: ‘Lewis, your old pal, the governor. I hear you’re heading for Galveston with these fine people on our Task Force. Now, Lewis, I’m going to have to preempt the morning session.’ There was a long pause, after which I heard: ‘Lewis, in running a great state, unexpected things sometimes become imperative. And believe me, this is one of those times.’ Another pause: ‘Lewis, they’ll save you the entire afternoon.’

  When he hung up I was more irritated than before, because this really was an unwarranted intrusion, but as things worked out, the split meeting was one of the most instructive we would have, for the day dwelt first on those great tempests of the human soul and then on the tempests of the sky which mirror them, and when we were through, our Task Force understood the spiritual and physical settings of Texas much better.

  The impromptu morning session was monopolized by three worried Texans who had worked for the governor’s election and who now warned him that unless they were given an opportunity to present their opinions about the spiritual base of Texas history, they were going to lead a statewide campaign against our work, against the members of the Task Force, and against the governor himself for his carelessness in selecting the committee members. When we convened that morning in a beautiful room overlooking the peaceful Gulf of Mexico, we were faced by three determined citizens with a tableful of charts, studies and typed recommendations.

  Up to that moment they had not known one another personally, although they had been in correspondence regarding the threatened destruction of their state. The first was a tall, cadaverous man from Corpus Christi, an Old Testament prophet accustomed to dire prediction; he was not an ordained clergyman, but was prepared to advise clergymen as to how they should behave and what they should include in their sermons. He had a sharp, angular face, strong eyebrows and a deep premonitory voice. When he spoke, we paid attention.

  The second was a stern housewife from Abilene who sat with sheaves of paper which she had trouble keeping organized. About fifty, she had educated her own three children rather rigorously and was now prepared to do the same with the state’s. Her forte was to start talking and to keep going regardless of objections or obstructions thrown in her path. She was a verbal bulldozer, extremely effective in leveling opposition with force if not reason.

  The third member was a jovial man from San Angelo, conciliatory, nodding agreeably when introduced, and never offensive in what he said or how he said it. But he was often more effective than his companions because he started each presentation with some phrase like ‘It would really be hurtful, wouldn’t it, if we taught our children that …’ And he would follow with some established fact which everyone accepted but him, such as the truth that Texas was composed of some twenty radically different ethnic groups. He and the woman objected to any such statement in our conclusions on the ground that ‘it would be divisive, stressing differences in our population, when what we need is a constant reminder that Texas was settled primarily by one master group, the good people from states like Kentucky and Georgia with an Anglo-Saxon, Protestant background.’

  The rugged session covered four hours, nine to one, and we Task Force members tired of trying to digest the particularist ideas long before the three protesters tired of presenting them. Indeed, our visitors looked as if they could have continued throughout the evening, and next day too.

  The thrust of their argument was simple: ‘The essential character of Texas was formed by 1844, and our schoolchildren should be taught only the virtues which dominated at that time.’ They were much more interested in what should not be taught than what should, and they had a specific list of forbidden subjects that must be avoided. Each of the three had some personal bête noire in which he or she was interested, and I shall summarize the main points of their forceful presentations:

  The San Angelo man instructed us to downplay the supposed influence of the Spaniards, the Mexicans, the Germans, the Czechs and the Vietnamese: ‘As for the colored, there is no real need to mention them at all. They played no significant role in Texas history, and to confuse young minds with the problems of slavery, which rarely existed in Texas and then in a most benevolent form, would be hurtful.’ He also advised us to drop excessive coverage of Indians: ‘The Texas Indians were cruel murderers, but we don’t need to dwell on such unpleasantness. And the fact that we threw them all out of our state proves that they influenced Texas not at all. You needn’t be unkind about it. Just ignore it, for they vanished a long time ago.’ Most specifically, he warned against adverse comment on the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s: ‘Some people are speaking of this as if it was a blot on our escutcheon, and this has to stop. It really shouldn’t be mentioned at all, and if it is, it must be presented as a logical, God-fearing uprising of loyal citizens eager to protect Texas against the radical incursions of coloreds, Catholics, Jews and freethinkers.’

  The Abilene woman was gentler in her admonitions: ‘The job of the schools is to protect our children from the ugliness of life. We see no reason why you should even mention the Great Depression. It would be a reflection on the American Way. And we’re appalled that some textbooks speak of little girls having babies out of wedlock. It’s much better not to discuss such things.’ She cautioned us against including prominent photographs of Texas women like Barbara Jordan and Oveta Culp Hobby because they made their names in political activity: ‘Ma Ferguson is all right, because she was governor and she did stand for old-fashioned virtues, and I suppose you’ll have to include Lady Bird Johnson, but feature her as the mother of two daughters. We do
n’t want a lot of mannish-looking women in our books. They’re not proper role models for our young girls.’ She said she supposed we’d have to include Abraham Lincoln and F.D.R., but she hoped we would not praise them, ‘for they were worse enemies to Texas than the boll weevil.’

  The Corpus Christi man fulminated against secular humanism and what he called the Four Ds: dancing, deviation, drugs and Democrats: ‘And when I say deviation, I mean it in its broadest sense. There is a wonderful central tendency in Texas history, and when we deviate from it in any respect, we run into danger.’ When I asked for an example, he snapped: ‘Labor unions. All Texas will be deeply offended if you discuss labor unions. We’ve striven to keep such un-American operations out of our state and have campaigned to preserve our right-to-work laws. I have four textbooks here which speak of communists like Samuel Gompers and John L. Lewis as if they were respectable citizens, and this will not be tolerated. Organized labor played no part in Texas history and must not be presented as if it did.’ Like the Abilene woman, he wanted the roles of the sexes clearly differentiated: ‘Boys should play football and there should be no concession to movements blurring the lines between the sexes.’ When he preached against dancing, I think all of us listened with condescending respect, but when he came to drugs, we supported him enthusiastically: ‘I simply cannot imagine how this great nation has allowed this curse to threaten its young people. What has gone wrong? What dreadful mistakes have we made?’ We nodded when he said in thundering, prophetic tones: ‘This plague must be wiped out in Texas.’