Three Days Before the Shooting . . .

by Ralph Ellison

“How I thrived, how I expanded! How gently she touched me with her compassion! I tell you, baby, there’s absolutely nothing like good treatment. Why, under her encouragement, and with three more inches added to my height—and how I do wish I’d known of those lovely elevator shoes at the time—I do believe that I’d have taken her exploring. And now, as a matter of fact, we did, but why go into that here? It was in another country, and besides, she went quite out of her head in the brush and tangle of that wild terrain, poor thing.”

  Suddenly feeling a release of strength, I raised him above my head, trembling as I prepared to slam him to the earth, hearing him say, “Easy, baby! Ease—sy!”

  “Why the hell is he calling me ‘baby’?” I said aloud.

  “Why? WHY? Because you are a follower while I am a leader, that’s why. And why am I a leader? It’s because I have been there, baby. I’ve been to all those places that you only think about and fear to investigate. And while you were yearning for the boat, I was the pilot. And there’s the other painful fact that when your old man started forcing me into the seams and cracks of things I was compelled to grow up in the ways of the wise. One swing things another, you see? Rocks in mother’s arms puts babe up the tree. So you see, it’s simple; and as a result I’ve undergone many metamorphoses. Don’t you believe me? You do and you don’t? You don’t trust me? Is that it? Well, you’re quite right to be suspicious. I do have this gap between my upper central incisors—which is called a ‘liar’s gap,’ and so I suppose that I’m sometimes compelled to tell lies. But not always, baby—as your dear mother could very well affirm. Au contraire, I sometimes tell incisive truths, as she could also affirm…. But as I say, I’ve undergone many, many changes….”

  This time I didn’t hesitate. It was as though a powerful spring had torn free within me, and I raised him above my head, striding forward with a burst of unexpected strength as I yelled, “Speak up, you—you Joady. Get on with your confession!” and sent him against the ground with a resounding WHUMP!

  “Speak up!” I yelled, becoming aware that now, no longer loquacious, he lay staring fixedly at the sky.

  “Go on, tell me about your metamorphoses,” I shouted, running forward to continue my attack—only to stop short at a sudden movement in his face. For a flash his expression seemed to waver and flow, accompanied by a high, grating sound. Then I was watching the black orbicular cheeks give way and my own face, pale and ghastly, eyes closed and dank-haired, was emerging as from the cracked shell of a black iron egg. I thought, Something horrible is about to happen, as a movement underneath me hurled me backwards and away to land on a hard surface. Whereupon, looking straight ahead I faced a dim white rectangle of a wall cut by a threatening grid of cagelike shadows which popped in and out of focus in time with a throbbing which had set up in my ears. Where did I throw him? I thought, for now the groom was nowhere to be seen. Where did he land?

  Then a grating sound from somewhere above and beyond caused me to roll swiftly to my left, and I could feel my chin brush the hardness as I came over, flush on my stomach now, from where, looking a distance along the slight incline, I could see the soles of a large pair of men’s shoes. He’s growing, flashed through my mind, expanding like a balloon—What the hell?

  Fighting to focus my eyes, I could see them, toes up and tilted slightly forward, resting back on their heels, as though a body had been suspended four-fifths of the way down in the sudden interrupting of a slow, nerve-chilled fall. As heavy as he was, what could be delaying him, holding him up, I wondered as I watched them warily for signs of continued expansion. Then my eyes snapped into sharp focus, and I came out of it.

  The shoes were Hickman’s, and I lay on the corridor floor watching with disgust as he slept with his huge legs stretched full-length before him, his head resting against the back of his chair. I could see the fleshy darkness of his chin, the broad curve of his chest, his arms hanging limply to either side so that the backs of his fingers gently touched the floor. And as I watched the rise and fall of his breathing, there came a peaceful sigh which erupted in a grating gasp which sent him snapping erect to look blankly around.

  “Bones! We need Elisha,” he said. “Get us Elisha!” Then, falling back as though stoned, he snored again; so swiftly asleep that I wondered if I were awake or still dreaming. Why was he calling for Bones and Elisha? And who was Elisha—Deacon Wilhite? What was going on with him?

  I lay watching him out of a depth of disorientation. From the floor, vibrations arising deep within the building reached me through elbow and knee, stirring like the low, barely audible tone of a pipe organ. Yet the quiet of the corridor was broken only by the rattling gasps of surprise which continued to punctuate Hickman’s snoring. Echoes of the iron groom’s precise and tauntingly loquacious ventriloquist’s voice sounded in my head as I watched him.

  What in my waking life could have conjured him up? I wondered. What taking place in the depths of my mind would bring on his malicious insinuations? Surely it wasn’t Hickman, because as annoying as I found him, I could see nothing about the old man that should inspire me to dream of the iron monster. And yet, as I watched him fold his hands across his lap in sleep, I couldn’t be sure. Perhaps if I looked at him for a moment longer he’d become aware of me and I’d see the smaller, iron-cast face again, grinning at me through the features of a living man.

  I got to my feet now, thinking, To hell with this story. It’s costing me too much. I’ll have to take care of myself, or soon I’ll do something to get myself thrown into a cell such as Tolliver said LeeWillie Minifees is occupying.

  Besides, I was hungry. I needed fresh air and a bath. And where was Tolliver? I’d seen him last entering the Senator’s room—what if he’d left while I slept? How long had it been?

  As I looked down the corridor past the sleeping Hickman even Bates was no longer to be seen. Perhaps he was standing just around the corner, but I wouldn’t trust myself to investigate; I might be tempted to stay and forgo my need for food and air. Hurrying, I left by the stairs, hoping that nothing would develop before I returned.

  CHAPTER 14

  OUTSIDE IT WAS BREATHLESS, the stars hanging high and the street-quiet broken only by the ringing clang of a distant piece of metal, struck by a passing car. At the corner I hailed a cruising taxi and climbed inside.

  “Where to?” the driver said.

  “Just drive until I tell you to stop,” I said. “I’m bushed.”

  Through his mirror his eyes met mine.

  “It’s okey,” I said, taking out my press card. “I’m a reporter. I’ve been inside too long, working on my story. I need the air. And food.”

  Then, as he pulled away, I told him on impulse to drive west. A voice from the nighttime radio sang languidly,

  Oh, darlin’, squeeze me

  And squeeze me

  Ag’in

  Oh, mama, don’t stop ‘til

  I Tell you when …

  as the driver made a U-turn, slamming down the flag as we rolled.

  I watched the darkened buildings, spotlighted national monuments, park spaces. The Capitol glowed pristine upon the hill. An old lady carrying a clublike cane walked a large black dog. Planes blinking their landing lights wheeled above, vibrating the night as they circled the field. And in my mind the events of the day rolled in a whirlpool of anxiety as we rolled wordlessly to the sound of the radio’s You must remember this / A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh … / As time goes by. Then as we stopped for a traffic light, I noticed a lunchroom, paid the driver, and hurried inside.

  The place was a bright, cool flash of monel metal and white enamel, a parade of empty stools. A noisily droning air conditioner muffled the sound of my entrance, and I felt dreamy and remote, as the chef-capped counterman who occupied the last stool failed to look up from his engrossment with a newspaper. I watched him remove a pencil from his cap and begin to print upon the page and realized that he was working a crossword puzzle. My stomach growled impatiently with the li
ngering aroma of fried onions as I watched him with silent self-containment, expecting him to look up. Finally I called out, “What word are you looking for?” and saw his head swing up and around.

  “Oh,” he said, “sorry, I didn’t hear you come in. I’ve had a request in about that air conditioner for over a week, and nothing has been done about it—I was looking for a twelve-letter word meaning ‘peace.’ ”

  His was a Southern accent, though not so aggressively Southern as McGowan’s, and I thought Virginian as I suggested “tranquillity.”

  “Tranquillity,” he said.

  “That’s right.”

  His lips moved, spelling. “But that’s only eleven.”

  “No,” I shook my head, “twelve. Two ‘1’s.”

  His lips moved again as he counted the spaces with his pencil. “Hey, you’re right,” he said, printing it in the squares with slow deliberation.

  He stood now and went around the counter. “Thanks,” he said. “All I could think of was ‘death’—which didn’t even begin to be long enough. I knew it was a ‘t’ word, though, because the vertical called for ‘taxes.’ ”

  He shook his head. “Tranquillity and taxes, who would have thought of that!”

  “Some congressman,” I said. “He promises us tranquillity and taxes us for it. Anyway, I’d like two double hamburgers and a chocolate malted. I’ll have coffee later.”

  “Coming up,” he said, and while he prepared the order I sat on a stool thinking of tranquillity and death, the disturbing illogic of dreams, the dream-like illogic of my recent hours….

  The counterman hummed an indistinct tune as he worked, but the food was nothing special. Nevertheless, I left feeling much better physically but no calmer in my thoughts.

  Out in the quiet of the street, strands of the dream still teased me. If a hitching-post boy could really speak, what would he say? What would he really tell us about ourselves, society, the world? What if all the little black cast-iron bastards on all the lawns throughout the country started talking? What a horrible, obscene chorus of accusations, insinuations, and provocations that would be! I could still hear the voice so vividly as I strolled along that I wondered whether I’d left the hospital so much for food and air as to offset its possible return. But where was I headed now? I asked myself, since there were still the facts to be gathered, a report to be written. Where was I heading, when anything could be happening in my absence!

  A glance at the street markers supplied an answer. I was only a few blocks from the morgue, and I hurried there under the pressure of a growing sense of urgency, feeling that by seeing the gunman’s body I would be able to reestablish the boundaries between dream and reality. Nor was I unaware that our discovery of Jessie Rockmore sitting erect in his coffin had led us not into logic and tranquillity, but into a more intense confusion. Indeed, it had foreshadowed the shooting which I in all innocence was to witness only a few hours later.

  My God, I thought. McMillen’s story had led me to think that Jessie Rock-more’s indignant eyes had dulled while looking through the empty space where the mysterious stranger had disappeared—when in fact he might have been looking straight through time and space into the Senate chamber where the shots were soon to send the Senator reeling, the gunman crashing bodily to the chamber floor, and shatter the nation’s peace. And instead of dying of a stroke or heart attack upon seeing an uninvited visitor in his house, it was this vision which had killed Jessie Rockmore.

  I hurried on, trembling, incoherent, and distrustful of my thoughts, but determined to have a look at the man who had brought all the random chaos which seemed to be bursting steadily from the springtime air into such confounding bloom.

  Standing in the cool of the morgue, I watched the attendant roll out the sheet-covered form on a smooth, soundless swivelling of wheels, positioning it beneath a low-hanging metal-shaded light. He gave me a quizzical glance as he swept the cover aside—and I was looking down upon a fully clothed human form.

  “You’ve been through this enough to know not to touch anything,” he said. “Just call when you’ve finished. I’m expecting a call.”

  He started away before I could ask why the clothing was still intact, and I could hear the closing of the door as I studied the gunman’s intriguing face.

  In the stillness of death it bore an expression eloquent of an eerie peace-fulness combined with an inner violence externalized now and spent. It appeared quite young, but for all its unlined youthfulness there was something prematurely aged about it; a face which seemed either to have seen and felt more than most people or to have lived through more in its self-terminated span than most managed to live. I asked myself if this was the effect of what he had done, or whether he had looked essentially like this before the murder, assassination, had ever crossed his mind. What cross had he borne to have pushed him across the boundary he had crossed? And the ambiguous look of aging—could it be that what he had done, his action, had blasted him into his present appearance within the split instant when intention had blossomed into act? How old could he have been? Twenty-nine? Thirty-nine? Looking down, I really couldn’t determine.

  And what was his motive? How long had he nurtured his will to kill? And why the Senator? Who was he? Where was he from? What had the authorities learned? Was there actually a plot?

  With such questions flashing through my mind, I noted the light brown hair waved back from its high forehead, the recently barbered cheeks with a small razor nick showing at the corner of the full-lipped mouth; the left cheek displaying a violence of red and blue flesh which marked, I suspected, a crushed misalignment of the bone. A trickle of blood had flown from the right ear onto his collar, leaving a dry, flaky line.

  But despite all evidence of the impact of his fall, I couldn’t shake off the impression that I was watching a young man napping after having participated in a wild party which, unfortunately, had ended in a brawl. If only this were true, I thought, if only he had!

  Jotting down notes for my story now, I observed that he had dressed himself carefully, even gravely, for the shattering occasion, and an air of an expensive and refined taste clung to his rumpled clothing—as though he had worn his best in order to do his worst. Or had he in fact considered this last act his best, his most meaningful assertion of self? But if so, why had he sought to render himself anonymous—or was this posture of anonymity a challenge by which he sought to more thoroughly establish an identity?

  A fine silk handkerchief blossomed sadly in the breast pocket of his jacket, a black tie with an almost imperceptible pattern of red was knotted Duke of Windsor style beneath the widespread collar of his light blue shirt, and beneath the French cuff held by square gold links a thin platinum watch was strapped to the inner side of his right wrist. The crystal of this had been shattered, making it impossible to read the exact time of impact, and I was fighting off an impulse to lift the wrist to inspect it when I became aware of a lush, cloying scent, incongruous in such a place, pressing upon me as my eyes were drawn to the crumpled gardenia in his lapel. There, thin rustlike lines were spreading in the places where the fleshy ivory-toned petals had been broken, a sign of organic life still lingering while the human life had fled. Yes, but soon a timeless shadow of beard would bloom up on the dead, still-dying, no-longer-human face, and I was held by the feeling of a mystery deeper than that of his personal identity.

  Such things shouldn’t happen, my mind went on. Society should be so ordered. But how, by lighting the shadows? This one struck, stepped out of sunlight….

  Who am I? The face before me seemed to ask, and I had no answers. It might have been the face of one of our Air Force generals, who for all the responsibilities undertaken at such an early age manage to appear eternally boyish, eternally romantic; striding ever to the air of some devil-may-care Mexican military marching song beneath pennants that snap ever in a breeze stirred by the soaring of golden eagles’ wings. Pancho Villa’s men marched to death singing of a cockroach, my mind went on.
What songs sang within this man’s reckless head?

  I could feel the strain of weariness in the calves of my legs as I was taken by a fantasy in which I watched him posing before a full-length mirror of a fashionable apartment or hotel suite, girding himself for his twin acts of destruction. A soundless, dream-like scene. With sunlight streaming through a tall window and with the gunman gazing at his own image with remote and critical eye. A part of the wavy hair, a precise two inches of cuff showing below his expensive jacket sleeve. While in the background near an arched doorway a dark valet waited with hat, gloves, and fresh gardenia for his finely wrought lapel…. Did he wear a hat, I wondered, and when had he armed himself? It must have been in private, for surely he had the weapon with him when he left for the Hill. Yes, but what had he told himself as he made his way to the visitors’ gallery to stand so calmly firing down? What could have kept him so cool, icy in all the confusion; calm even with Hickman’s voice booming out beneath the dome?…

  Hickman, I thought, HICKMAN! bending forward and seeing my shadow sweep across the face, sliding away as I bent forward, suddenly taken by the disturbing feeling that I had seen the face somewhere before. Yes, and at a much more intimate distance than when, immediately after the shooting, I had looked through the doorway to see it lying like a broken puppet upon the Senate floor. But where? Where? It was eerie. I wanted to leave, but the face was speaking to me now, and in some disturbing accent which prickled the hair on the back of my neck. I peered at the texture of the bruised skin with its mass of red and blue ruptured blood vessels, the dim highlights and transparent shadows thrown against the skin of the forehead by the high-hanging incandescent bulbs, asking myself what secret knowledge was frozen there.

  For even in death he seemed utterly aware of himself. Perhaps he had trained his face to keep itself under scrutiny; like a famous movie star once observed walking along a crowded street with his eyes riveted maniacally to his own moving image as it came and went in shop windows, stopping to stare, grinning, frowning, looking sinister, joyful, sad, in swift succession—utterly oblivious to the attention of fascinated pedestrians, himself his own best rubberneck. Yes, but here was a face long-trained to guard and direct its expression at all times. A face without spontaneity on a mission of no return. Could it be? It was like those faces once seen in the experimental silent-movie close-ups which owe their expressiveness not so much to the actor’s skill as to hard work performed in the editing room; images wherein each lift of eyelids, each movement of mouth, are calculated in advance and in which each of the complex movements necessary to achieve even the most casual expression of humanity are the results of the splicing together in skillful montage a series of carefully selected isolated exposures that are then projected and accelerated, controlled shadows against conspiratorial screen, into a flickering semblance of life.