Three Days Before the Shooting . . .

by Ralph Ellison

  Fortunately, there were too many spectators present for the guard to risk giving the old fellow a demonstration and he was compelled to stand silent, his thumbs hooked over his cartridge belt, while old Hickman strolled—or more accurately, floated up the walk and disappeared around the corner.

  Except for two attempts by telephone, once to the Senator’s office and later to his home, the group made no further effort until that afternoon, when Hickman sent a telegram asking Senator Sunraider to phone him at a T Street hotel. A message, which, thanks again to the secretary, the Senator did not see. Following this attempt there was silence.

  During the late afternoon the group of closed-mouthed old folk were seen praying quietly within the Lincoln Memorial. An amateur photographer, a high-school boy from the Bronx, was there at the time and it was his chance photograph of the group, standing with bowed heads beneath old Hickman’s outspread arms, while facing the great sculpture, that was flashed over the wires following the shooting. Asked why he had photographed that particular group, the boy replied that he had seen them as a “good composition…. I thought their faces would make a good scale of grays between the whiteness of the marble and the blackness of the shadows.” And for the rest of the day the group appears to have faded into those same peaceful shadows, to remain there until the next morning—when they materialized shortly before chaos erupted.

  Forty-four in all, they were sitting in the Senate’s visitors’ gallery when Senator Sunraider arose to address the body. They sat in compact rows, their faces marked by that impassive expression which American Negroes often share with Orientals, watching the Senator with a remote concentration of their eyes. Although the debate was not one in which they would normally have been interested (being a question not of civil rights, but of foreign aid) they barely moved while the Senator developed his argument, sitting like a row of dark statuary—until, during an aside, the Senator gave way to his obsession and made a quite gratuitous and mocking reference to their people.

  It was then that a tall, elderly woman wearing steel-rimmed glasses arose from her chair and stood shaking with emotion, her eyes flashing. Twice she opened her mouth as though to hurl down some retort upon the head of the man holding forth below; but now the old preacher glimpsed her out of the corner of his eye, and, without turning from the scene below, gravely shook his head. For a second she ignored him, then feeling her still standing, he turned, giving her the full force of his gaze, and she reluctantly took her seat, the muscles ridged out about her dark prognathous jaws as she bent forward, resting her elbows upon her knees, her hands tightly clasped, listening. But although a few whites departed, some angrily shaking their heads over the Senator’s remarks, others extending them embarrassed smiles, the rest made no sign. They seemed bound by some secret discipline, their faces remaining composed, their eyes remote as though through some mistake they were listening to a funeral oration for a stranger.

  Nevertheless, Reverend Hickman was following the speech with close attention, his gaze playing over the orderly scene below as he tried to identify the men with their importance to the government. So this is where he came to rest, he thought. After all his rambling, this was the goal. Who would have imagined? At first, although he was familiar with his features from the newspapers, he had not recognized the Senator. The remarks, however, were unmistakable. These days, much to the embarrassment of his party and the citizens of his New England state, only Senator Sunraider (certain Southern senators were taken for granted) made such remarks, and Hickman watched him with deep fascination. He’s driven to it, Hickman thought, it’s so much with him that he probably couldn’t stop if he wanted to. He rejected his dedication and his set-asideness, but it’s still on him, it’s with him night and day.

  “Reveren’ …” Sister Neal had touched his arm and he leaned toward her, still watching the scene.

  “Reveren’,” she said, “is that him?”

  “Yes, that’s him all right,” he said.

  “Well, he sho don’t look much like his pictures.”

  “It’s the distance. Up close though you’d recognize him.”

  “I guess you right,” she said. “All those white folks down there don’t make him any more familiar either. It’s been so long I don’t recognize nothing about him now.”

  “You will,” Hickman whispered. “You just watch—see there …”

  “What?”

  “The way he’s using his right hand. See how he gets his wrist into it?”

  “Yeah, yeah!” she said. “And he would have his little white Bible in his other hand. Sure, I remember.”

  “That’s right. See, I told you. Now watch this….”

  “Watch what?”

  “There, there it goes. I could just see it coming—see the way he’s got his head back and tilted to the side?”

  “Yeah—why, Reveren’, that’s you! He’s still doing you! Oh, my Lord,” he heard her moan, “still doing you after all these years and yet he can say all those mean things he says….”

  Hearing a catch in her voice, Hickman turned; she was softly crying.

  “Don’t, Sister Neal,” he said. “This is just life; it’s not to be cried over, just understood….”

  “Yes, I know. But seeing him, Reveren’. I forgave him many times for everything, but seeing him doing you in front of all these people and humiliating us at the same time—I don’t know, it’s just too much.”

  “He probably doesn’t know he’s doing it,” Hickman said. “Anyway, it’s just a gesture, something he picked up almost without knowing it. Like the way you can see somebody wearing his hat in a certain way and start to wearing yours the same way.”

  “Well, he sure knows when he says something about us,” she said.

  “Yes, I guess he does. But he’s not happy in it, he’s driven.”

  “I’d like to drive him the other way a bit,” she said. “I could teach him a few things.”

  Hickman became silent, listening to the Senator develop his argument, thinking, she’s partly right, they take what they need and then git. Then they start doing all right for themselves and pride tells them to deny that they ever knew us. That’s the way it’s been for a long time. Sure, but not Bliss. There’s something else, I don’t know what it was but it was something different….

  “Reveren’.” It was Sister Neal again. “What’s he talking about? I mean what’s back of it all?”

  “This is how the laws are made, Sister.”

  “Why does he want to give away all that money he’s talking about?”

  “It’s politics. He wants to keep those Asian people and the Africans on our side….”

  “Then why is he signifying at those other men and going on?”

  “That’s because he plans to use those Asian folks to divide the men down there who don’t like some of the things he’s trying to do over here. He’s playing divide and rule, Sister Neal. This way he can even put those Asian leaders in his hip pocket. They need the money he’s trying to get for foreign aid so bad that naturally they will have to shut up and stop criticizing the way things go over here. Like the way we’re treated, for instance….”

  “But will they get the money?”

  “Oh, yes, they’ll get it.”

  “Does that mean he’s really doing some good?”

  “It means that he’s doing some good in order to do some bad.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes,” he said, “and some bad in order to do some good. What I mean is, he’s complicated. Part of the time he probably doesn’t know what he means to do himself. He just does something.”

  “So what do you think?”

  “Well, I think that although it’s mixed, all that which he does about scientific research and things like that is on the good side. But that reactionary stuff he’s mixed up in, that’s bad.”

  “You mean his playing around with those awful men from down home?”

  “That’s right, that’s part of it.”

&n
bsp; “Reveren’,” she said, “why would he do things like that?”

  “I guess he’s in the go-long, Sister Neal. He has to play the game so that he can stay and play the game….”

  I guess that’s the way it is, he thought. Power is as power does—for power. If I knew anything for sure, would I be sitting here?

  Silently he listened to the flight of the Senator’s voice and searched for echoes of the past. He had never seen the Senate in session before and was mildly surprised that he could follow most of the course of the debate. It’s mainly knowing how to manipulate and use words, he thought. And reading the papers. Yes, and knowing the basic issues, because they seldom change. He sure knows how to use the words; he never forgot that. Imagine, going up there to New England and using all that kind of old Southern stuff, our own stuff, which we never get a chance to use on a broad platform—and making it pay off. It’s probably the only thing he took with him that he’s still proud of, or simply couldn’t do without. Sister Neal’s right, some of that he’s doing is me all right. I could see it and hear it the moment she spotted it. So I guess I have helped to spread some corruption I didn’t know about. Just listen to him down there; he’s making somebody mighty uncomfortable because he’s got them caught between what they profess to believe and what they feel they can’t do without. Yes, and he’s having himself a fine time doing it. He’s almost laughing a devilish laugh in every word. Master, is that from me too? Did he ever hear me doing that?

  He leaned toward Sister Neal again.

  “Sister, do you follow what’s happening?”

  “Some, but not quite,” she said.

  “Well, I’ll tell you,” he said. “He is going to get this bill passed and pretty soon the money will start to flowing over there and those Indians, those Hindus, and such won’t be able to say a thing about their high morals and his low ones. They have a heap of hungry folks to feed and he’s making it possible. Let them talk that way then and they’ll sound like a man making a speech on the correct way to dress while he’s standing on the corner in a suit of dirty drawers….”

  “He’s got no principles but he’s as smart as ever, ain’t he?” she said.

  Hickman nodded, thinking, yes, he’s smart all right. Born with mother wit. He climbed up that high from nowhere, and now look, he’s one of the most powerful men on the floor. Lord, what a country this is. Even his name’s not his own name. Made himself from the ground up, you might say. But why this mixed-up way and all this sneering at us who never did more than wish him well? Why this craziness which makes it look sometimes like he does everything else, good and bad, clean-cut and crooked, just so he can have more opportunity to scandalize our name? Ah, but the glory of that baby boy. I could never forget it and that’s why we had to hurry here. He has to be seen and I’m the one to see him. I don’t know how we’re going to do it, but soon’s this is over we have to find a way to get to him. I hope Janey was wrong, but any time she goes to the trouble of writing a letter herself, she just about knows what she’s talking about. So far though we’re ahead, but Lord only knows for how long. If only that young woman had told him we were trying to reach him….

  He leaned forward, one elbow resting upon a knee, watching the Senator who was now in the full-throated roar of his rhetoric, head thrown back, his arms outspread—when someone crossed his path of vision.

  Two rows below a neatly dressed young man had stood up to leave, and, moving slowly toward the aisle as though still engrossed in the speech, had stopped directly in front of him; apparently to remove a handkerchief from his inside jacket pocket. Why doesn’t he move on out of the way, Hickman thought, he can blow his nose when he gets outside—when, leaning around so as to see the Senator, he saw that it was not a handkerchief in the young man’s hand, but a pistol.

  His body seemed to melt. Lord, can this be it? Can this be the one?, he thought, even as he saw the young man coolly bracing himself, his body slightly bent, and heard the dry, muffled popping begin. Unable to move he sat, still bent forward and to one side, seeing glass like stars from a Fourth of July rocket bursting from a huge chandelier which hung directly in the trajectory of the bullets. Lord, no, he thought, no Master, not this, staring at the dreamlike world of rushing confusion below him. Men were throwing themselves to the floor, hiding behind their high-backed chairs, dashing wildly for the exits; while he could see Bliss still standing as when the shooting began, his arms lower now, but still outspread, with a stain blooming on the front of his jacket. Then, as the full meaning of the scene came home to him, he heard Bliss give surprising voice to the old idiomatic cry,

  Lord, LAWD, WHY HAST THOU …?

  and staggering backwards and going down, and now he was on his own feet, moving toward the young man.

  For all his size Hickman seemed suddenly everywhere at once. First stepping over the back of a bench, his great bulk rising above the paralyzed visitors like a missile, yelling, “No. NO!” to the young man, then lumbering down and reaching for the gun—only to miss it as the young man swerved aside. Then catching sight of the guards rushing, pistols in hand, through the now standing crowd, he whirled, pushing the leader off balance, back into his companion, shouting, “No, don’t kill him! Don’t kill that Boy! Bliss won’t want him killed!” as now some of his old people began to stir. But already now the young man was moving toward the rail, waving a spectator away with his pistol, looking coolly about him as he continued forward; while Hickman, grasping his intention from where he struggled with one of the guards, now trying in beet-faced fury to club him with his pistol, began yelling, “Wait, Wait! Oh, my God, son—WAIT!” holding the guard for all his years like a grandfather quieting a boy throwing a tantrum, “WAIT!” Then calling the strange name, “Severen, wait,” and saw the young man throwing him a puzzled, questioning look, then climb over the rail to plunge deliberately head first to the floor below. Pushing the guard from him now, Hickman called a last despairing “Wait” as he stumbled to the rail to stand there crying down as the group of old people quickly surrounded him, the old women pushing and striking at the angry guards with their handbags as they sought to protect him.

  For a moment he continued to cry, grasping the rail with his hands and staring down to where the Senator lay twisting upon the dais beside an upturned chair. Then suddenly, in the midst of all the screaming, the shrilling of whistles, and the dry ineffectual banging of the chairman’s gavel, he began to sing.

  Even his followers were startled. The voice was big and resonant with a grief so striking that the crowd was halted in mid-panic, turning their wide-eyed faces up to where it soared forth to fill the great room with the sound of his astounding anguish. There he stood in the gallery above them, past the swinging chandelier, his white head towering his clustered flock, tears gleaming bright against the darkness of his face, creating with his voice an atmosphere of bafflement and mystery no less outrageous than the shooting which had released it.

  “Oh, Lord,” he sang, “why hast thou taken our Bliss, Lord? Why now our awful secret son, Lord?… Snatched down our poor bewildered foundling, Lord? LORD, LORD, Why hast thou …?”

  Whereupon, seeing the Senator trying to lift himself up and falling heavily back, he called out: “Bliss! You were our last hope, Bliss; now Lord have mercy on this dying land!”

  As the great voice died away it was as though all had been stunned by a hammer and there was only the creaking sound made by the serenely swinging chandelier. Then the guards moved, and as the old ladies turned to confront them, Hickman called: “No, it’s all right. We’ll go. Why would we want to stay here? We’ll go wherever they say.”

  They were rushed to the Department of Justice for questioning, but before this could begin, the Senator, who was found to be still alive upon his arrival at the hospital, began calling for Hickman in his delirium. He was calling for him when he entered the operating room and was still calling for him the moment he emerged from the anesthetic, insisting for all his weakness, that the ol
d man be brought to his room. Against the will of the doctors this was done, the old man arriving mute and with the eyes of one in a trance. Following the Senator’s insistence that he be allowed to stay with him through the crisis, he was given a chair beside the bed and sank his great bulk into it without a word, staring listlessly at the Senator, who lay on the bed in one of his frequent spells of unconsciousness. Once he asked a young nurse for a glass of water, but beyond thanking her politely, he made no further comment, offered no explanation for his odd presence in the hospital room.

  When the Senator awoke he did not know if it was the shape of a man which he saw beyond him or simply a shadow. Nor did he know if he was awake or dreaming. He seemed to move in a region of grays which revolved slowly before his eyes, ceaselessly transforming shadow and substance, dream and reality. And yet there was still the constant, unyielding darkness which seemed to speak to him silently words which he dreaded to hear. Yet he wished to touch it, but even the idea of movement brought pain and set his mind to wandering. It hurts here, he thought, and here; the light comes and goes behind my eyes. It hurts here and here and there and there. If only the throbbing would cease. Who … why … what … LORD, LORD, LORD WHY HAST THOU … Then some seemed to call to him from a long way off, Senator, do you hear me? Did the Senator hear? Who? Was the Senator here? And yes, he did, very clearly, yes. And he was. Yes, he was. Then another voice seemed to call, Bliss? And he thought is Bliss here? Perhaps. But when he tried to answer he seemed to dream, to remember, to recall to himself an uneasy dream.

  It was a bright day and he said, Come on out here, Bliss; I got something to show you. And I went with him through the garden past the apple trees on under the grape arbor to the barn. And there it was, sitting up on two short sawhorses.

  Look at that, he said.

  It was some kind of long, narrow box. I didn’t like it.