Yes, but being human and still learning your way, you judged. You measured them as human beings against their dark opposite numbers, and you learned that in basic terms they came out no better or worse; just even Steven, just human. So you began to learn the protective and distancing attitude of irony, and slowly, gradually, you took on a bit of the Christian virtue called “charity.” And even though you had no sense of what was happening to you at the time, you learned it; and then as a more experienced music maker you learned the power of art to confound the abiding scheme of things. Because you were forced to recognize that for all their pretending that you counted for nil in the glamorous room, you were there—both in body and spirit—and that within the limits of the role to which you were assigned you could still sound, shake, and even shatter the profoundest patterns of their self-confident lives….
Suddenly he shook his head, thinking, No, Hickman. No! Because there’s even a sin of pride involved in identifying pride. And don’t forget: You were getting paid and were glad to be there, even if only for the fine acoustics. Besides, didn’t you read somewhere that even Mozart sat beneath the salt? Yes, but at least he had a share of the salt!
[FALL]
TURNING FROM THE BUSTLE and flow of the lobby to the quiet of the lounge, he gazed at its scattering of guests with an increasing feeling of solitude. Here groups of men were talking and drinking and others sitting alone while smoking cigars or reading newspapers. And noting a group of men arrayed around one of its tables in stylized postures he thought, But where’s the photographer? Whereupon with a coordinated shift to the right the men revealed the figure of a waiter who bowed at the waist while serving their drinks in tall frosted glasses. And now, drawing erect, the waiter became a white-skinned Negro whose features were unmistakably Afro-American. And as he moved along placing drinks on the table his guests responded by swaying left and then right as they avoided making contact with his darting white hand.
Hickman, he thought with a grin, times may have changed but the old rule of “serve but don’t touch” still stands. So while they wait for “George” to get done and fade from the scene they’re adopting the postures of men of distinction. But since “George” is both black and white—and probably a student as well as a waiter—he knows that without him they wouldn’t be playing that skin game they’re playing. So while they fret for their liquor and sway like puppets he sidesteps and bows as though he were born to serve them.
Not that the joker isn’t concerned with the tips it’ll earn him, but in the meantime he’s having fun with the contrast between their pretensions and his having skin that’s as white as theirs! As Millsap would say, the real-life black-and-white comedy of this country is truly outrageous!
But now, distracted by howls of merriment, he looked across the lounge to where a group seated near a window were cracking up over something being related by a grave-looking man with a drooping mustache who appeared utterly befuddled by his companions’ laughter.
Well, Hickman, he thought, what do you make of what’s happening back there? There’s a bunch that’s acting just like fellows in a down-home barbershop, and although that old-timer who’s stirring them up is pretending he’s confused by what he’s saying you can bet that he’s spinning a lie that’s so outrageous and yet true to life that there’s nothing the others can do except laugh and grin as they say “Amen!” Well, that’s how the good ones do it, and if things were different I’d be back there joining in the fun. But they aren’t, so while they’re enjoying good fellowship and laughimg at life’s endless confusion I’m forced to sit here and worry about the fate of a high-flying rascal who refuses to see or even hear one of his oldest and most faithful of friends…. And suddenly reminded of his motive for being in Washington, he turned away and tried once more to conceive a plan for snaring the high-flying senator.
But now his eye was drawn to an area of the lounge in which a section of a wall bore bright splashes of color that were accented by lights concealed in the ceiling. And assuming it to be an example of abstract painting, of which he was ignorant, he was about to look further—when, suddenly, the “painting” became a tapestry, and its abstract forms details of a landscape in which a curving headland looked out to the sea and the sky toward far distant mountains. In the foreground a lonely man was plowing a field that ended at a cliff that dropped far down to an inlet on which a large ship sailed toward the sea.
And the sea’s blue-greenness extended past islands and rocks to a range of high mountains that loomed, luminous and white, in the distance. And seeing the sun’s misty goldness lingering between the cones of two extinct volcanoes, the scene became so mysterious that in seeking an answer his eyes flashed back to the headland and the man who was plowing.
Wearing an orange loose-sleeved blouse beneath a gray cloth cloak, brown, tight-fitting britches, and a dark, circular cap, the man was striding behind a wooden plow which was hitched to a high-rumped horse. And while neat furrows curled from his plow like slabs of beef from a butcher’s sharp blade, the man stared at the earth as though he were dreaming.
Well, Hickman, he thought with a chuckle, he might be dressed like a prince in a fairy tale, but that horse and plow spell farmer. Then, beyond the plowing man’s shoulder he saw a meadow in which sheep quietly grazed while a shepherd with a bedroll hung from his shoulders and a large dog sitting beside him stood gazing at the sky with his head thrown back…. And stirred by the scene’s pastoral air he recalled having arrived early at an empty theater for an orchestral rehearsal and heard the sonorities of Bach’s “Sheep May Safely Graze” pouring from the theater’s pipe organ and his surprise at seeing the usually irreverent, derby-hatted Fats Waller fingering the keyboard while swaying in time with the music. And now with Bach’s melody echoing in memory he relaxed and gazed at the scene’s images of peaceful labor with similar feelings of surprise and wonder.
Divided by a low green hedge, the meadow and farmland were bordered by trees through which he looked down to a steep green valley surrounded by tall shaft-like rocks, which were white in the tranquil light. And between the rocks and the headland the ruins of an ancient fortress arose from the sea. Then, far in the distance he saw the radiant towers and domes of a city that sloped down to the curving shore of a sea-carved bay.
Minature and white against a background of distant, cloud-capped mountains, the city appeared to lie under a magical spell. And far beyond, at the point where the sea met the sky, the misty globe of the sun, hovering at its center, endowed the scene with a feeling of suspense like that which often preceded a springtime storm. Then midway [in] the sea between the ruined fortress and the bayside city he saw three shadowy ships that leaned in the wind with white sails billowing. And far across the blue-green sea to his right the shores of a cloud-like island were awash with the foam-crested waves of a rising tide….
So there you go, Hickman, he thought, just when you were thinking that everything you saw was quiet and peaceful you’re reminded that while human life is ever-changing the earth keeps to its same old patterns. Put that farmer in Georgia—Lord help him!—and he’d be wearing overalls and driving a Missouri mule hitched to a John Deere plow, but he’d still be wrestling with old Mother Earth and counting on the sun and the rain for his daily bread. Yes, and whether ships move by sail or by steam engine the sea still gives sailors the same old problems. Progress brings changes in styles and machinery, but the worldly trinity of earth-sea-and-sky are ever the same. So, while life goes on being a process of permanence in change, human endurance is—and has always been—an endless matter of dealing with life’s unexpectedness. Amen! Therefore, after sending the dove and the flood, God gave us hope and a warning with His rainbow sign—first by water but by fire next time.
And with the lyric of the old song echoing in his mind the noise of the lobby and lounge faded to a murmur, and it was as though he were looking in upon the secret life of a long-vanished world made visible.
Clearly the clothes and equi
pment of the men in the landscape were of a much earlier time, and while the tile-roofed buildings of the seaside city reminded him of those he’d seen in Italy, the landscape’s feeling of life’s endless cycling was like that which came when looking down from lonely hilltops upon the troubled landscape of his own home country. There was even that feeling of a mystery unfolding which took over whenever he drove above the clouds through the Blue Ridge Mountains. Or looked into the sky on a star-filled night, or found himself marveling at the unworldly radiance of the rising sun. Here, too, the earth and the sun, the sea, the sky, and the weather were as they had been in the beginning….
So could the landscape’s feeling of suspense be nothing more than the effect of an approaching storm? Did that explain why the shepherd with his bedroll tied to his back was staring so hard at the sky? Most likely, because the sheep were grazing in a pasture that looked almost as dry as the earth on which the farmer was plowing. Could it be that the farmer and shepherd were praying for rain? And now as he stared at the headland more closely he became aware of other details that increased his sense of its ambiguity:
In a clump of bushes near where the farmer was plowing a man lay either asleep or dead; and there on the side of the cliff below the meadow a large bird looked down from a tree to where a man was angling for fish in the sea….
And suddenly he asked himself, Hickman, isn’t it strange that except for that solitary bird looking at the man fishing not a living creature—farmer, shepherd, dog, or sheep—appears to be looking at any other living thing? I’m beginning to suspect that there’s more here than meets the eye. It’s like Negroes and white folks riding in a down-home streetcar from which they’ve just seen something terrible take place, but right away everybody’s staring straight ahead because they all know the source of the conflict out of which it erupted so they’re pretending that it hasn’t really happened….
Then, recalling his shock at discovering a picture of Christ abandoned in a basement window he tensed, suddenly suspicious that what he had taken for a peaceful landscape might conceal similar details of shocking distaste. But despite his mounting feeling of unease the questions being raised by the scene before him demanded an answer.
For although composed of nothing more than colored threads and cloth, the details of the tapestry were amazingly like those of a painting, and the more closely he examined its composition the more the landscape seemed to pulse with some hidden meaning.
Whoever went about weaving this thing was truly some kind of artist, he thought, but what was he up to, and what am I missing?
Then, on a rock near where the farmer plowed he saw what appeared to be a knapsack and a clarinet—or was the “clarinet” actually a dagger? Which, considering the wooden blade of the plow and the fairy-tale clothing of the farmer, the shepherd, and fisherman, was far more likely…. Then among the many white grazing sheep he saw two that were black, and noted that behind the backs of the sky-gazing shepherd and daydreaming dog a single white sheep had strayed far too close to the cliff’s edge for safety—a sight at which he stiffened and grasped the arms of his chair.
Only moments before, the landscape had come as welcomed relief from his mission’s failure, but now the unfaithfulness implied by the shepherd’s inattention aroused an uncanny feeling that the scene was edging him inward and toward matters that were painfully personal. And in the process of backing mentally away he found himself recalling a forgotten game once played among jazz fans on those who disrupted concerts by arriving during moments when an inspired jazzman was up and soaring. For then they were challenged to identify the original melody on which the soloist was riffing, and if they made a mistake in answering their punishment was gales of contemptuous laughter.
It was strange that such an ancient landscape should make him recall such a game, but despite their differences of time and of place the weaver of the tapestry appeared to be testing his ability to discover some message or story which was woven into the landscape. If so, just as tardy jazz fans were challenged to mentally “hear” the original melody which inspired the jazzman’s soaring, he was now being invited to “see” and trace some hidden thread of a story which had been woven in threads.
In other words, he thought, by “signifying” with his needle and thread this man is needling me to get the point of the puzzle he’s woven!
And now as he searched for the needling thread of meaning he grinned at his pun, but the hidden connection continued to escape him. And yet, the longer he stared the more certain he became that once he located the elusive clue it would lead to a parable or story—much as the original chords and melodic line that sounded unheard in a swinging jazzman’s mind could move his listeners to a conclusion that was both inevitable and pleasing.
For being artists, the goal of both jazz musician and weaver was one of using their skills to arouse pleasure and wonder. And both did so by drawing upon that which was left carefully understated or concealed as a means for achieving a transcendent goal.
Brothers and sisters, he thought in ironic self-mockery of his role as minister, let us raise ourselves above the sheer sound and fury of that which is so faintly heard and so dimly seen so that we may COMMUNE, one with the other!
It was amusing, but whether by accident or design, he had stumbled upon a scene that challenged, so perhaps the key to the landscape’s mystery lay in his accepting it as a game with unwritten rules and himself as a willing but uninformed player.
Whereupon he recalled that during his early jazz days he had learned that the success of a performance depended upon his enticing his listeners into participating in his act of combining familiar sounds and rhythms into patterns made rare and exciting. For it had been such mutual give-and-take that earned him their most enthusiastic response. A feat that was accomplished by blasting his listeners with freewheeling quotations from any musical forms with which he and they were familiar, whether it be ballads or blues, love songs, anthems, or spirituals. The trick was to move them with tonal and rhythmical excitement from the known to the unknown, and from the old and familiar into that which was new and still unfamiliar.
Indeed, the same technique prevailed when he preached before unlettered congregations. Establishing the mood with the Word as written, he quickly put the Bible aside and ranged orally through the familiar troubles and joys of the human condition while being careful to avoid learned abstractions while using rhythmical phrases to evoke images charged with emotions which they knew and to which they eagerly responded. After all, such a strategy for revealing the new in the old was traditional, and part of the art of persuasion. Thus he and the congregations became as one in the Word’s graceful power. Which often depended upon his creating illusions, and which were indispensable aspects of all types of art, whether it be profane or sacred. It was a way of reaching the hearts and minds of his audience, and during his jazz days, when standing before crowds sweating and swaying as though possessed by spirits, he became a trombone-wielding agent through whom his listeners found musical transcendence. And if successful he was repaid with screams, applause, and dancing in the aisles, or bumper-to-bumper belly-bumping all over the floors of ballrooms.
But while on fortunate occasions such responses were truly inspired, on others he had simply gone through the motions of being possessed while relying on his acting skills to create a musical illusion. Nevertheless, such pretense went with being a jazzman and served as a lifesaver when true inspiration was lacking. To some extent all entertainers were actors, and that was true even of dedicated preachers, of whom spiritual eloquence and humility were not only expected but demanded. And wasn’t it out of similar expectations that the storyteller near the window was pretending to be dumb to the meaning of the tale he was telling? That was his storyteller’s way of flattering his listeners’ intelligence while persuading them to a willing participation in his spinning of tales. Like a preacher, he mimed and “called” and his listeners responded. But in a deeper sense there was more to it than that
. For while he hadn’t thought of it until now, playing dumb was also a self-sacrificial act through which good storytellers prepared their audiences to receive and enjoy such hard-earned wisdom as might underlie the surface of his tale’s comedy. And by pretending to be too stupid to recognize its underlying message, the storyteller assumed the burden of its underlying pain and embarrassment. Thus his listeners were freed to enjoy the comedy which such tales made of life’s complexity….
Three Days Before the Shooting . . . Page 90
