Capable of Honor

by Allen Drury

  “I don’t know where you get this blind optimism,” he said “but I think it is blind. You saw how they looked at us when we left the hotel. I’m sorry now I had this screwy idea. We should have eaten right there.”

  “They didn’t look friendly, I’ll admit, but I really got the feeling they were just pretending to be stern—like little kids, you know. They were so determinedly grim and self-conscious, and so pompous about it all.”

  “You know what happens when you make fun of the pomposities of little kids,” he said. “They get mad. So will these. They already have, in Union Square. Two people—two human beings, Crys—are near death, because they got mad this morning. What else is going to happen?”

  “And is that a reason to turn tail and run?” she demanded, while below the television crews turned on lights experimentally, focused cameras on the rostrum, shouted instructions back and forth. “Is that a reason for giving up what you believe in, just because evil people get mad and try to stop you? I’m ashamed of you, Hal Knox. I think that’s a time to fight twice as hard.”

  “It’s a time to protect what you have,” he said grimly, “and that, at the moment, consists principally of you and little Thumper, here.…No, of course not. I’m not saying we should turn and run, you know me better than that. But I am saying there’s no point in having any false optimism about it. We’re up against a really vicious battle here, today and tomorrow, and if Walter Dobius and his crowd keep fanning the flames, it’s going to explode into something really nasty. Ted Jason could stop it, but the bastard won’t, and Dad can’t, because it isn’t his responsibility and they all laugh at him, anyway. God damn them,” he said with a sudden, level anger. “Oh, God damn them in hell, these monsters of the age who inflame every tension in the world and then blandly tell you it’s your fault, not theirs, when kindness and decency are destroyed. I hate them, the awful, monstrous hypocrites.”

  “Well,” she said softly, placing a hand on his arm, “at least the Knoxes don’t belong among them, and that’s some satisfaction.”

  “Shouldn’t they have?” he asked bitterly. “Wouldn’t Dad have reached the White House long ago if they had? Wouldn’t I do better in Illinois, if I stay in politics, to side with the hypocrites? They can do a lot for you if they love you. Look at their headlines, listen to their programs, read their editorials and their columns! Oh, yes, they can do wonders, if you’re their boy. All they demand in return is that you become a hypocrite, too. You have to be one of them and mouth their dirty, upside-down, bass-ackwards version of what’s going on in the world. Then you’re all right, and they’ll sing you hosannas from New York City to the Golden Gate.”

  “But you don’t want to get out of it,” she said quietly. “And you don’t really want him to. Because, now, suppose: suppose all the people like the Knoxes and the Dantas and the rest of us did get driven out by the hypocrites. What kind of a world would it be if we all stopped fighting—if we all stopped insisting on what the truth is, even when they shout us down and vote us under—if we all gave up because it’s just too hard to fight and we’re too tired and disheartened and too occupied with other things? That’s what they’re counting on. But what kind of a world would that leave for”—and she gave herself an impatient pat on the stomach—“him—or her—or”—more lightly—“whoever you are, in there?”

  She stopped and stared down thoughtfully at the great hall. It was beginning to come to life a little more, the janitors and television crews had withdrawn, a few ushers were coming in and taking their stations, the sergeants-at-arms and police were beginning to take their posts at the entrances and aisles, a few band members were already in their chairs starting their first tentative trills and squawks and thumps of sound, and on the floor and in the press section an advance guard of early arrivals was beginning to straggle in and get ready to go to work.

  “So,” she said after a moment, “that’s what I think.”

  He chuckled, suddenly himself again for the moment, stood up and held out his hand.

  “You looked about ten just then—so solemn and positive, after your rhetoric. It’s good rhetoric, too. I agree with it. Always have and always will, more fool me. Come on, I’ll take you down to the box, and then I’ve got to be on the floor. I’ll check in whenever I get a chance, and come around to see you back to the hotel, later.”

  “If you can,” she said, standing up with some awkwardness, “but it isn’t necessary. I’ll be with Beth, and I believe Dolly Munson is joining us too. We’ll be all right.” She frowned. “You’re the one who’s more apt to get hurt. Suppose you be careful.”

  “I will,” he said, with a return to somberness. “It’s going to be a night to be careful, all around.”

  So thought they, too, in the penthouse at the Huntington as the little luncheon broke up.

  “I’ll do my best,” said Ceil.

  “I’ll do my best,” said Beth. “But I don’t think either of them is in control of the situation, any more.”

  “And if you will forgive me, Mrs. Hudson,” Ceil said, “I don’t think the President is, either. I hope he’s going to arrive soon.”

  “He must,” the First Lady agreed quietly, and suddenly they realized that she was under great strain, too. “He simply must. This is not going to be a pleasant night.”

  ***

  Chapter 5

  With this the Speaker and Senator Munson were also in agreement when, an hour later, they rode out to the Cow Palace in the Speaker’s limousine, watching on the small television set in the back seat the gathering delegates, the placards, the banners, the bands, the competing groups of demonstrators, the great numbers of police who guarded the entrances and mingled with the crowd. The Texas delegation managed to arrive, as always, whooping and hollering, but the levity of the rest was worn very thin: no matter how dutifully they waved their banners and shouted their slogan for the cameramen, the majority of delegates who had their little moment on the screen looked sobered and edgy. And time and again the cameras kept coming back to the reason for their nervousness, and the sight was enough to make any perceptive citizen shiver: the somber, sullen, blank-faced rank-on-rank, both white and black, who lined the main entryways and held with a portentous solemnity their standards proclaiming COMFORT WANTS A MAN OF PEACE—NOMINATE TED JASON! … OUR LEADER FOR PEACE AND BETTER JOBS—DEFY WANTS JASON! … KEEP FOR JASON—NO MORE FOREIGN WARS! And, with an uglier, more ominous note, FAIR PLAY, MR. KNOX! NO MORE STEALS—NO MORE BEATINGS! … AMERICA WANTS A DECENT MAN, NOT A RIOTER! BACK JASON!

  “Seems to me, Bob,” the Speaker remarked softly as the car inched along with the traffic, “that we’ve got our work cut out for us, tonight and tomorrow.”

  “Yes,” the Majority Leader agreed glumly. “I’m going to feel a lot better when you get your hands on that gavel as permanent chairman this afternoon.”

  “Me too,” the Speaker said. He gave a grim little smile. “At least I’ll be able to maintain a little order in the convention, if nothing else. About one more ounce of pressure and this crowd will turn into a pack of screaming maniacs. I don’t think Harley knows what he’s going to find when he gets out here.”

  “I wish he’d hurry,” Senator Munson said. His expression became ironic. “I never thought the day would come when I’d need Harley more than he needs me, but the moment is here. Why, Bill, I tell you, I don’t know that we can even hold all of the Michigan delegation, if things really get rough. And I get the same reports all over. The Jason people are well-heeled, well-organized, and absolutely ruthless—and they’ve got a new element on their side now: fear. Actual, physical fear.”

  The Speaker grunted.

  “I’ve got an element on my side, too: A hundred extra police. And I’m not going to hesitate to use ’em, either. Bob, if I have to. This convention is going to proceed in an orderly way and we’re going to maintain the dignity of the party, at least inside the hall. I can’t be responsible for what happens elsewhere, but inside, people are go
ing to behave.”

  And so they might have—just possibly might have, though no one could ever be sure, had things continued just as they were, what would have happened on that tense and foredoomed evening—had it not been for two people. One was named William Everett Hollister II. He was in Central Emergency Hospital. The other was named Booker T. Saunders. He was in Mount Zion.

  Both William Everett Hollister II and Booker T. Saunders were twenty-two. William Everett Hollister II had grown up in Hillsborough, witnessed the breakup of his parents’ marriage, been bounced along from boarding school to boarding school, wound up at the University of California, discovered in himself little aptitude for study but great aptitude for protest; organized riots, planned campaigns, uttered fiery slogans, screamed dirty words, toppled chancellors, harried legislatures, protested everything, graduated at twenty-one with nothing to do but hang around the grown-up world and keep on protesting.

  Booker T. Saunders had grown up at the unfashionable end of Divisadero Street, been unable to witness the breakup of his parents’ marriage because they had never been married and he didn’t even know who his father was; mumbled his way through grammar school, dropped out in his freshman year of high school, joined a street gang, launched his own form of protest, drank, took dope, raped, robbed, murdered, found himself at twenty-one with nothing to do but more of it.

  William Everett Hollister II joined the San Francisco chapter of COMFORT when the President of the United States decided to launch his shameful and unprovoked invasion of innocent Gorotoland. EX-CAMPUS REBEL JOINS GROUP PROTESTING U.S. AGGRESSION, said the Chronicle; and there was a flattering fifteen-hundred-word interview and two fine pictures. Booker T. Saunders didn’t join anything, because he didn’t know about Gorotoland, or indeed about much, before or since. He just stood around on street corners drunk, which was where he had happened to be that morning when some fellows came along in a truck, gave him a twenty-dollar bill, stuck a placard in his hand that said something about somebody named JASON, and carted him off to Union Square where there seemed to be bands playing and a lot of people and quite a bit of excitement. William Everett Hollister II marched into the square with head held high, going to glory: he knew what he was doing and reveled in it. Booker T. Saunders shambled into the square with his newfound buddies: he had twenty dollars, he was already drunk, and that twenty dollars was going to make him drunker after a while, and he, too, reveled in it.

  When William Everett Hollister II thought he saw a smart-ass college kid with a KNOX button in his lapel laughing at him, he didn’t stop to think. Something exploded in his brain at the sight of the grinning, capitalistic, imperialistic, rich-bitch monkey (William Everett Hollister I had fifty million dollars, but of course William Everett Hollister II didn’t get much of that from the crazy old reactionary), and he swung on him without thinking twice. The college student was startled but instinctively swung back, and, happening to be well balanced at the moment, knocked William Everett Hollister II down. Immediately William Everett Hollister II’s friends sprang to his defense, the college student’s friends sprang to his, and the riot was on.

  Somehow William Everett Hollister II became separated from his friends after about five minutes and found himself surrounded by eight or ten Knox supporters, still not entirely ill-natured, shouting, “Give up, give up!” But he wasn’t about to give up to the reactionary warmongering destroyers of humanity and even though he knew that he was guaranteeing violent retaliation, he raised his standard and brought it down like a claymore across the head of his nearest opponent. The reaction was just what he had expected—just what he had invited—just what he wanted. “Get that bastard!” somebody shouted, and in another couple of minutes, somebody did. He was battered, bloody, unconscious, but even so there was a hint of smile about his lips: he was a glorious sacrifice to a great cause, and obviously that had been his last thought before blackness closed in. Ten minutes later he was in an ambulance being rushed away to Central Emergency; critical, at that time, but with a reasonable chance for recovery if no complications set in.

  Booker T. Saunders’ saga was much less glorious, though in days to come, he would have been surprised to know, his name was destined to echo somewhat more loudly around the globe than that of his fellow hero. Booker T. Saunders had simply stumbled about when the riot began, striking out aimlessly with his standard, really too drunk to know much about what was happening, really too happy to care. But others were watching Booker T. Saunders, and when a desperate police officer, striving without much success to contain the riot’s outer fringes, suddenly drove his squad car right up on the Geary Street curb (POLICE BRUTALITY CHARGED IN RIOT, the headlines said later. It was a nice extra dividend.) it was decided that the time had come for Booker T. Saunders to make his sacrifice for a great cause, too. He never did know exactly what happened. There was a terrific shove in the middle of his back—he spun half-around in loose-limbed desperation—caught just a glimpse of another savagely triumphant black face and a waving placard that said something about “DEFY”—felt himself fall to the sidewalk—felt the beginning of a terrible crushing weight on his chest—felt no more. Five minutes later he, too, was in an ambulance, on his way to Mount Zion Hospital; terribly hurt, critical at that moment, but also given a reasonable chance if no complications set in.

  But now the time had arrived, as the Speaker’s limousine drew up before the entrance to the Cow Palace and he and the Majority Leader were carefully escorted in past the sullen watchers, for the sort of event, relatively small in itself, which usually concerns only a few, yet can sometimes concern great leaders, states, and causes. In Booker T. Saunders’ case it could normally have been expected to concern no one, in William Everett Hollister II’s case only a bitter old man hidden away in a mansion in Hillsborough and a raucous thrice-divorced harridan at that moment playing roulette at Harold’s Club in Reno. But it was destined to concern many more. Unknown to anyone at that moment in or around the Cow Palace, complications had indeed set in. At Central Emergency, William Everett Hollister II, and at Mount Zion, Booker T. Saunders, noble battlers in a noble cause, were dying.

  “And so I say to you, my dear friends of this great party” the temporary chairman, that rich rolling trumpet of the rich rolling Bluegrass, was finishing the keynote address with a suavity almost, but not quite, concealing his inner nervousness—“there rests upon us here the happy duty of backing a great leader and a great program—

  “A program which has encouraged and increased the greatest economic prosperity this nation has ever known—

  “A program which has educated our children, saved our poor, brought new medical benefits to all sections of our society and all age groups—

  “A program which has seen ever-increasing gains in the field of civil rights—

  “A program which has seen new advances in labor-management relations—

  “A program which has improved housing and urban development a hundredfold—

  “A program which has—”

  “What about foreign policy?” a voice shouted suddenly from some microphone on the floor, and instantly there was a confused chorus of boos, catcalls, hisses, and an applause which, beginning a little hesitantly, took strength and increased rapidly until it inundated the hall. A wild scramble started in the Illinois delegation, apparently a fight to grab the microphone. Other scuffles seemed to be breaking out elsewhere on the floor. In the public galleries JASON placards suddenly appeared everywhere, and out of the maze of sound a solemn, insistent, curiously mechanical chant broke through:

  JA-SON MEANS PEACE. JA-SON MEANS PEACE. JA-SON MEANS PEACE. JA-SON MEANS PEACE.

  “I’m coming to foreign policy,” the temporary chairman snapped into the uproar, but his words were lost; nor was his gavel, pounded with a will on the quivering lectern, of much more effect. For perhaps five minutes the foofaraw continued. In that period the press, standing on its benches to stare out over the crowd, and the television reporters, fra
ntically squeezing up and down the aisles and shouting into their walkie-talkies, were able to count six scuffles, five shoving matches, and one genuine fistfight, scattered through the delegations in no discernible pattern. Someone in Illinois, presumed to be heavily for Knox, had apparently started it; someone in California, presumed to be solid for Jason, had been observed fighting with another Jason delegate in neighboring Connecticut. None of it made sense by ordinary political standards of political analysis. What it did seem to mean was what the managers and the experts and the smart boys had already begun to conclude, that there was no pattern, no consistency, no predictable conformity, but instead a rebellion and uneasiness that cut far across the country and, more importantly for what was going to happen in the next few hours, far across the floor.

  “As I was saying when somebody tried to interrupt me,” the temporary chairman went on with an uneasily hearty laugh that did not, however, produce the tension-easing response he had obviously hoped—“we have the happy duty of backing a great leader and a great program which has, in the field of foreign policy that my friend down there is so concerned about, placed the United States squarely on the side of justice and peace—”

  Again there were wild hoots and hisses, but this time he did not pause but continued to shout into them—

  “—and peace; which has provided this world with perhaps its only chance to re-establish a system of international stability free from aggression, free from revolutions, and free from so-called ‘wars of national liberation’ which are really only wars of Communist conquest.”