by Karen Hesse
100 percent americans.
what is a 100 percent american?
what of catholics, jews, negroes,
citizens of any other race or color born here,
whose fathers were born here,
and grandfathers.
are they not every bit as 100 percent american as the klan?
i accompanied oscar scott to the train station
to meet john philip sousa
and bring him to the auditorium
to play with his band of eighty musicians.
i handed mr. sousa a bouquet of flowers and
the key to the city,
which he accepted grandly.
the band played nine numbers though they
had just three hours here in town.
they gave a full concert,
and a number of encores,
all mr. sousa’s compositions.
they saved for last
stars and stripes forever
and took the house by storm.
harvey held a seat for me.
but
i watched the concert from the wings,
as mr. sousa’s guest.
viola pettibone, who mothers that cat of hers
the way only viola pettibone can,
found her maltese stuck way up in the crotch of a tree
on the bank leading down to the railroad track.
she tried coaxing it out,
tried getting her boy willie to go after it, but that boy’s good for nothing,
and her customers wouldn’t climb that tree.
danged cat.
pretty near everyone with a place backing the river came out,
vexed from listening to it yowl.
guess it was scared 60 feet up in the air,
too scared to consider coming down on its own and no one
willing to go up after it.
fire department came.
they sized up the scene and
called me.
i wasn’t going up in my uniform.
pulled on a pair of overalls,
placed a ladder against the lowest part of the tree.
12 feet i covered that way.
the remaining 48 had to be shinnied up,
one inch at a time in the pouring rain.
blasted cat wouldn’t come.
not even when i reached it.
i tried sweet talking it into letting go of the bark.
finally had to pry it loose,
put the thing on my shoulder, its claws stabbing into my back.
slowly we came down.
6 feet from the ground the cat ripped my shirt, climbed my face
and leaped
into viola’s arms.
put my uniform back on and wrote up a ticket, handing it to
harvey pettibone
next time, i said,
keep your cat to home.
mr. clarence darrow,
the lawyer defending those chicago boys,
believes
that under no circumstances
should the state take a
human life.
that’s why he’s shouldering this case.
the guilt of leopold and loeb,
the two young murderers of bobby franks,
is without question.
it is darrow’s intention
not to prove their innocence,
but to cheat the hangman
in spite of their guilt.
and perhaps in so doing
remove the underpinnings
of every gallows across this land.
a civilized man in america.
how refreshing.
leopold and loeb
who had stuck together
through the hearing,
snickering and laughing
as they moved to and from the courtroom,
sat silently,
avoiding each other
as they heard for the first time,
their separate confessions read aloud
each accusing the other of
stunning young franks with a chisel
and snuffing out his life.
i did watch with daddy at the railroad tracks this morning
as the circus had their summer comings. daddy did keep a tight
hold on my hand and he did tell me again the ways of trains
while the circus people did roll their big wagons
off the flat cars.
they did have elephants pushing the wagons
and horses pulling.
all the circus people and animals
had knowings of the job they must do.
men and men with big hammerings.
tent poles did stand up so quick
and a cookhouse did nearly put itself together
with breakfast sizzling inside it
pancakes and fried eggs flipping
and that good breakfast smell filling the meadow
the same as is always in sara chickering’s kitchen.
by the time sara chickering did come to get me
the big tent did fill the meadow
and the smaller tents did look like spiderwebs
traced in raindrops.
sara chickering and i did rush to watch the parade pass by
on main street.
we did see lions and tigers,
hippos and kangaroos,
monkeys and zebras and bears,
and the beautiful ladies in their sparkly clothes,
and acrobats and tightrope walkers and clowns
who did make us laugh as they flopped past
in their big shoes
and i did tell sara chickering we must be bringing those clowns to
daddy
so he can give them better fittings for their feet.
i’ve had this job with the paper nearly six months now,
working the hours after the night men leave,
before the day men come on and i have to
get to school.
the klan doesn’t think much of the paper.
or its editor.
but mr. alexander,
he gave me this job,
he got me out of jail,
he made a set of three keys: the back door, the storeroom, the truck.
no one ever trusted me like that before.
i could climb pretty high with the klan, handing them those keys,
but i wouldn’t do it.
they’d use those keys,
i don’t know what for.
clarence darrow pleaded for the life of leopold and loeb. he said:
why did they kill little bobby franks?
not for money.
not for hate.
they killed him
because somewhere
in the infinite processes
which go into the making of the boy or the man,
something slipped.
something has slipped
not only in chicago.
something has slipped in towns everywhere across america,
in maine and in kansas,
in oregon and indiana and vermont,
something has slipped and as a result
we are all
sliding
back toward the dark ages.
nathan leopold, jr.
scratched out his last will
and testament, neighbor,
beneath the arc light
in the prison cell
where, if there is justice in the land, he will soon end his days.
he thanked his lawyer
and
he thanked his friends
and
he promised to contact them
when he entered the afterlife.
but neighbor, his friends will be waiting
a long time to hear from him. there are plenty
taking that slippery path from chicago to hell.
but there are none,
neighbor,
there
are no souls who upon reaching the flaming inferno
make the return trip from the devil’s clutches
back up
to
chicago.
chief justice caverly says
he doesn’t believe in capital punishment for minors
and for that reason,
leopold and loeb
broke a date with the hangman.
not too many satisfied
with a sentence that lets
two cold-blooded murderers live.
caverly says
his decision holds
with the dictates of enlightened humanity.
enlightened humanity,
now there’s something the klan could discuss at their next
cross burning.
first there was the circus,
which esther still jabbers on about.
so when the fair came,
i knew i had to take her.
esther never saw anything like a fair before.
she said the midway reminded her of new york.
and at the age of six,
she knew already that games of chance
were just that.
she felt little affection for the sideshows, furious
at the booth where people took shots at the “nigger’s head.”
she did like the horse races.
for a while.
but what she loved most was
the livestock.
she wanted the names of the cows:
holstein, guernsey, jersey,
ayrshire, hereford, angus.
she wanted the names of the horses, too,
and the sheep.
she cuddled one little lamb, whispering in its ear that funny way she
does,
telling the lamb that
she’d be looking for it to come be counted tonight when
she tunneled between her sheets,
and i wouldn’t be surprised at all
to hear bleating from her bedroom come midnight
and find droppings down the hall tomorrow morning.
harvey says:
how was i to know
they’d be so pushy over a broom sale?
stinking stampede it was, vi.
viola says:
you never will learn, harv.
harvey says:
i thought putting those brooms out for one cent would be good business.
viola says:
twelve women taken to doc flitt, harv,
with cuts and bruises. we’ll be
lucky if they don’t ask us to cover the doctor bills.
harvey says:
doc flitt wouldn’t charge us for that.
viola says:
doc flitt hasn’t been too
happy with you lately, harv. you and your klan. he might just
charge us double.
harvey says:
klan will see to him if he does.
viola says:
oh fine, harv. you looking to drive away the
one good doctor we got here?
what happens if you need doctoring?
the two stand facing off, each as stout and solid as a house.
harvey says:
nothing’s going to happen to me, vi.
viola shakes her head in disgust
and makes up baskets of food
and a free broom
for each of the women who got hurt.
i was driving to the klan meeting
when i picked up a man, his hood and robe in a paper bag.
we were heading to the same place.
but we hadn’t gone far
when he pulled a knife on me
and made me get out.
i never have been out-bullied before
but i thought about that boy in chicago,
that bobby franks,
and i looked at the drifter in my automobile,
and i knew
he would gladly do to me
what leopold and loeb had done to that boy
in chicago.
and i got out.
halfway across the country,
the body of a polish man was found
hanging in an oak tree.
the sheriff’s report ruled the man’s death a suicide. they said there
was a bottle of liquor in the man’s coat pocket.
but certain neighbors made no secret of the fact that they
were not pleased to have a polish national
in their valley.
night riders beat him up the month before.
the bruises and cuts weren’t half healed when the letter arrived
saying:
we’re coming for you.
signed, k.k.k.
dang,
young merlin van tornhout is walking everywhere
because he “gave” his car to a klansman.
if the riffraff joining the klan these days
can take the one thing most loved from an awestruck boy,
why couldn’t they plant a bottle of liquor
in the pocket of a hanged man?
daddy says this is the high holidays
and i do need to come with him
to the synagogue
so we can have thinkings about
what we did in the year that did just go by,
and make a plan to do better in the year that is to come.
he says mr. levin is locking up his shoes
for the holiday.
i did ask sara chickering if she will have locking up in the
barn and in the field
and have all the animals and the plants think about
what they did last times and plan for the next times.
sara chickering says,
the animals and the plants are too young for such things
and esther is, too.
daddy says sara chickering is right.
but he says
i still have to come to the synagogue and
have some deep thinkings and talkings to God.
i do have talkings to God and deep thinkings
every day.
but i will come with daddy,
even if i can’t go fishing there.
the more time i spend with mr. field
the more i learn.
he never went to school after sixth grade.
he had to work.
and then he went to fight in the civil war
on account of his strong feelings about slavery.
and when he returned, he built
carriages and sleighs.
but what he loved most was to paint them
with little flowers and scenes,
and didn’t anyone need to show him how.
just like most things he does,
he sits and thinks about it a while,
till he figures it out.
i wash his dishes in the basin
and he sits at the table,
his bald head the brightest
spot in the room.
he’s thin as a broomstick,
gangling tall,
his eyes cloudy.
he holds a palette up close to his face
and then he hawks his shoulders and touches his brush to the
waiting canvas.
i asked if i could look through his paintings
instead of just dusting them.
he said i could have one if i wanted. he said the pickings were
kind of slim these days,
that the best had long gone.
i remember when he offered me the typewriter.
i wondered if someone would say i stole a painting
if i carried one home.
mr. field, i said,
watching as he
sprinkled a meadow with bluets under a cloudy sun.
we could go out sometime so you could remember things to paint.
i never do like being seen with white folks,
&nb
sp; but mr. field is different.
anyway, he said he didn’t need to go out.
he couldn’t see well enough anyway to make a difference.
besides, he said, he
could just sit down and think about a mountain he once saw
or the end of a forest road
and that was enough.
i guess that comes of being around since civil war days.
i have a lot more seeing to take in
before i can sit down and rest with it.
got my work cut out for me.
more than 200 negroes
have moved into the state
to build the dam.
i’ll have to protect them
from the ku klux.
i’ll have to protect them
from themselves.
this job sure doesn’t pay
enough.
viola says:
harvey pettibone, how could you do such a thing?
harvey says:
they had booze in that hotel, vi. they were breaking the law,
serving liquor.
viola says:
so you go in, dressed in those ku klux nightclothes of yours and you
think you’ll save the world from the
evils of drink
by raiding the place and smashing a few bottles?
harvey says:
it felt so good breaking that glass, vi.
viola says:
did it feel $400 good, harv? did it?
harvey runs his hand over the bulge of his belly
beneath the straining vest,
sits down on the steps,
and sighs.
i did not anticipate
when word of the klan first arrived from the south,
that they’d ever trace their way here to vermont,
but
this is no longer a problem
facing some other community.
the klan is in our homes,
our schools,
our factories, and stores.
it has worked its
fingers through the fabric of the state
and if we do not mend the rents soon,
we’ll fall to pieces.
i rest my head against bossie’s side
and the thrush,
the white rush of milk hitting the pail,
esther singing in the pear tree beside the barn,
how silent the world would be without cows and birdsong.
how silent my world would be
without esther.
jerry
the dog that did make me feel happy here first
when i did get my fresh air with sara chickering,
