Jesse Jackson stood out with his leather jacket and turtleneck. But that was also according to his nature, and this time it did not annoy him. Jackson was younger, of course, though not as much as his style made him seem. That was the style of the day: to exhibit one’s youth without shame and celebrate it, almost boastfully, imitating the jargon of pimps and drug dealers.
To be thirty-nine years old made you an old man and, according to some, inevitably reactionary. So solemn, with his “Dr.” title always in front of the name, his Nobel Prize, his old-fashioned rhetoric. But beneath his tolerance for Jackson remained a sting of suspicion and that made him feel disloyal and ashamed of himself. He had never wished nor asked to be put on a pedestal, but they did it anyway; they elevated him to this earthly sainthood and then disowned him for not living up to their impossible expectations. They had turned him into a heroic statue only to throw stones at it. Shame was one of his most assiduous secret afflictions, throbbing deeper than the weight of his obligations, fed by the tension of public life, the gap between what others chose to see in him and who he really was. There is no public figure who is not an impostor.
Perhaps Judas Iscariot stood out among the other apostles; something made them mistrust him without a clear reason, and it was this unwarranted suspicion that pushed him to a place he would not have gone otherwise. But Jackson was not a traitor: he was just ambitious, anxious, impatient, and frustrated—as any veteran of the struggle would be—by the slow pace of change and the persistence of injustice. Perhaps he secretly wanted to put on a black jacket and a beret, wield a pistol or a rifle, and raise his clenched fist.
But Jackson also cared about being part of this circle of veterans of the struggle. Hadn’t he forced a situation that afternoon in order to get invited? Just a while earlier he had told him, not entirely in jest, that he should wear a suit and a tie to visit the home of Reverend Kyles. Jackson quickly responded that the only requirement for going to someone’s house for dinner is a good appetite. Now he was watching him from the balcony, the young man, strong, anxious, trying hard to joke with the others. He felt shame that he could not get over his unfounded suspicions despite the visible evidence of Jackson’s love.
* * *
He could recognize all of them, match every voice with a name and a face, histories that went back to the beginning. But there was a voice that in his mind stood out more than all the others precisely because of its absence; a presence even more special because it was hidden, invisible yet so close to him. She was also waiting for the signal that it was time to go, and when that happened she would come out and get in the last car at the last minute, slipping out of a room on the ground floor, the room where she had been since the night before, when she arrived, exhausted but happy after the ten-hour journey, her lips freshly painted.
She had gotten used to making herself invisible, waiting for him in hotel rooms that were never under his name or apartments that belonged to people unknown to her. They could be photographed together from afar. Surely there were policemen with binoculars watching from a window or terrace in some building nearby. There could be microphones in the room, perhaps in the lamp on the bedside table, or behind the headboard. They don’t bother protecting us from our enemies but they sure can keep a close watch on us, she had said, one of the first times, in another one of those secret meetings that always took place in the exact same way but were never immune to unleashed desire, the unbearable intensity of the wait, the gentle knock on the door at a late hour, the precious time between hello and goodbye, so short there was barely any time for a prelude, or the pleasant rest that came afterward, a cigarette in bed, the prolonged satisfaction of quenched desire.
They spoke in whispers. When he was about to moan she covered his mouth. At the end, he would embrace her and fall asleep for a few minutes wishing he could stay. Satiated love is the only sleeping pill that works, it is the only thing stronger than guilt, the irrefutable evidence of sin. For the lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil. A few minutes of rest and the weight of the world came back, the restless man who was always in a hurry, the one who had to look discreetly out the window before slipping out of her room and walking down to his.
Now, one or two minutes to six, on the balcony, he realized that he had dressed to look his best because she would be there and he would look in her intelligent and beaming eyes for approval. Georgia Davis, Georgia on my mind, he joked, whispering into her ear. No one else knew that the tie he had chosen for the occasion was a gift from her. They would sit very far from each other at the dinner table and try not to look at each other too much, but that would make the few glances they exchanged all the more exciting. He liked a line from a poem by T. S. Eliot: With private words I address you in public.
He would let her know that tonight, when they were back at the hotel, after the dinner and the assembly and the concert to honor the strikers, he would come down to her room as he had the night before. He wouldn’t even have to knock on the door because she would leave it unlocked. It is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, says the Song of Solomon. Lines that belonged not in sermons but in a whisper in the dark. Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.
The curtains would be drawn, the lights turned off, but his silhouette would be visible against the lights of the parking lot, tinged with the red, yellow, and blue of the hotel sign. He was the man whose true self almost nobody, or nobody but her, could see. Undressing silently in the room, staring at each other, her body even more tempting because it was no longer young, flattered by the strength of male desire, a real man and not a photograph or a symbol or one of those images of a saint. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
* * *
He had been so tired, yesterday evening, after an early morning and the flight from Atlanta and the lost hour at the airport due to a bomb threat, another one, and the arrival in Memphis, just a week after the previous trip, and the press conference, the malicious questions, the faces that had to be studied one by one in search of a look or expression that signaled immediate danger, the endless meetings, the rivers of unnecessary and worn-out words. Tired and depressed, exhausted to the bone, with no strength or desire for anything that wasn’t his bed, listening to the wind howl against the window and then the downpour of rain or hail.
He had fainted the Sunday before as he was getting ready to deliver a sermon and then suddenly found himself making a public confession. In the motel in Memphis the Holy Spirit seemed to have abandoned him. He had a fever, or at least he touched his forehead and wanted to feel a fever so he would have an excuse. He often dreamed that he was at the pulpit about to deliver a sermon and had not prepared anything. He dreamed that he kept getting lost in stairways and corridors on his way to an auditorium or church where people were waiting for him. He told Abernathy, not without remorse, that he was not well, that he didn’t even have the energy to get out of bed or light a cigarette. And his friend, who knew him so well, and was probably just as tired, told him not to worry, that he would speak on his behalf and apologize for his absence. And besides, who would even go out that night, with the storm that was already brewing, the repeated alerts on the radio and television about hurricane-like winds, torrential rains, and floods.
* * *
Not having to go anywhere that night had been an unspeakable blessing. Staying in bed while the storm raged outside, not having to see anyone for hours, doing nothing, perhaps watching a movie on TV for once; or just falling asleep, thinking about the woman who would be here in a few hours, all the way from Florida, because he had called her and said, almost in a whisper, breathing close to the receiver, that he had to see her, those were his words, I need you next to me.
It was a request for help that contained no promises. Neither was asking the future for anything more than what they already had. Secrecy, the brevity of each encoun
ter, shaped the only world where they could or desired to be together. Every meeting was a mutual gift, but there was no heartbreak at the moment of saying goodbye. Her intelligence and sense of humor allowed her to see in him what few others could: a man, not the symbol, not the probable martyr, not the prophet.
The phone rang but he had fallen asleep so soundly that the rings repeated several times inside his dream before he woke up and reached for the bedside table. Perhaps it was her. Perhaps she was calling from the pay phone in a gas station to tell him the car had broken down and she would not be able to make it that night, or that she had changed her mind and had decided to stay with her husband.
But it was Abernathy. He could hear the storm in the phone, accompanied by a clamor that sounded like rain but was the crowd. They clapped and sang hymns and slogans. They repeated a name that was his. Abernathy stopped talking and raised the receiver so he could hear what was happening, all the people who had gathered despite the storm, wanting to hear him. How could he let them down. How could he stay in this room while their chants filled up the temple, thousands of men and women with their heads low, dressed in their Sunday best, black sanitation workers who did not even get gloves to do their jobs, much less health insurance or a day of rest; who lost days of wages if they got sick or if bad weather prevented the garbage trucks from going out; no pension, no workers’ compensation, nothing for their wives and children should anything happen to them, like the two men who had been crushed to death when the compactor mechanism of a truck was accidentally triggered during a heavy rainstorm.
* * *
There was no limit to the horror and injustice. The cry of suffering never ceased. There could be no rest, no pause. So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. He hung up the phone and remained sitting on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, the loose tie hanging from his neck. Exhaustion was a stack of lead on his shoulders and a muddy swamp where every step sank and he no longer had the strength to keep moving.
As Job said, I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came. But what could he give these people who had come out on a night like this to hear him, to see him from afar, to get close to him and touch him, to hope for some kind of revelation or miracle, something that no one could define, much less him, something that perhaps did not even exist.
They watched him with pleading eyes and he didn’t know what they were seeing. Seeing the way they welcomed him into their homes without running water or electricity, he felt ashamed in his suit and polished shoes. They asked him to autograph books and photographs, magazines with his face on the cover, loose pieces of paper, printed prayers, drawings where sometimes he even had a halo around his head. They squeezed his hands and hugged him, and took photos as if trying to confirm that he was really there; they asked him to hold their babies, some asked for money, showed him medical bills, eviction letters, exorbitant rent and electricity bills.
At any moment, from any direction, close or far, a gunshot could end it all in a tenth of a second, in the flash of a camera, and the darkness that followed would be a relief. No warning, no time to be afraid: like the time Medgar Evers, a friend from many years in the struggle, was walking home at night and a bullet slammed him against his own door with keys in hand; or that time in Harlem, when he was signing books and a thin woman with glasses made her way through the crowd toward him. She had a drawn face and that expression of fearful shyness that was common on some of the people who were about to meet him for the first time and could not look him in the eyes. Her coat was buttoned all the way up, her purse held tightly against her chest. She seemed to be holding a pen. But that wasn’t it. There was a glint and a sharp point.
The small hand suddenly tightened around the object and the pen became a knife. Now she was within arm’s reach and the eyes behind her glasses were not shy but bloodshot, dilated, full of rage. No one but him seemed to notice her. It was as if the weapon were their mutual secret. The blade went into his chest and turned like a screwdriver. It penetrated so close to the aorta that had he taken a deep breath or sneezed in the hours that followed, the tip of the letter opener would have pierced right through the artery and he would have drowned in his own blood.
He stayed with the blade sunk in his chest, in shock, unable to move, a paused tape, as the ambulance sped through the streets of Harlem en route to the hospital. The blade had been so close to the aorta his whole chest had to be opened to remove it. After five hours, they succeeded. At first, upon waking in the hospital bed under the effects of the anesthesia, he could not remember anything, except the sweet pleasure of deep sleep.
* * *
He looked at the faces from the lectern where the Bible lay opened before him. He looked at the microphone and felt the heat of the spotlights. The concave depth of the auditorium in the Masonic Temple was so great that even with two or three thousand people in the stands, the place seemed almost empty. The vast space magnified the echoes of the crowd and the sound of thunder and rain pounding against the high windows.
It felt like a storm at the end of the world, the beginning of the Flood. As the applause and the screams began to wind down, he leaned in and grasped the sides of the lectern, an instinctive gesture that even he found theatrical, just another piece of the act. But that night he was holding on in order not to collapse, not from exhaustion, but from the monotony and lack of self-respect, which he saw reflected in the faces of his friends, the believers, the ones who were always there, Abernathy and the others, Andrew Young, Kyles, determined and capable but also tired, worn out by the fight that never seemed to end or accomplish an indisputable result, sometimes turned against one another by trivial administrations or pride.
If it were just a matter of marching with composure and courage through the rows of police officers and angry white people, or even going to jail, or delivering sermons and hearing the roaring approval of the crowd at the end of every sentence, then it would be bearable. But there was the organizing, the fund-raising, the schmoozing.
They were all, and he knew this well about himself, made of fragile materials, mud and dust from the earth, a mixture of gold and clay; noble and corruptible at the same time; heroes one moment and cowards the next; secret disbelievers, not for lack of faith but for the endless repetition of the same words, no matter how true or necessary they were, the whole routine that those closest to him could anticipate play by play, with resignation, cynicism, word for word, night after night, sometimes even several times the same day, like the assistants and technicians who follow a politician on the electoral trail.
* * *
But the cause of justice and equality had to remain sacred, the stubborn vindication of nonviolence, now that the ghettos in the cities were igniting with fury and the chemical fire of napalm was raining in Vietnam while people ran terrified and their homes, their crops, their jungles burned. How can anyone not decry the war in Vietnam while condemning segregation and exploitation in America? Three hundred thousand dollars to kill each alleged Vietnamese enemy; but not even fifty dollars a year invested in the life of a poor person in America.
He repeated these figures in his speeches and anticipated the reaction of the crowd. With his voice hoarse from fatigue, he announced, almost like a vision, the great march of biblical proportions that would descend on Washington before the summer; even more people than in 1963, with more immediate and unequivocal demands: work, livelihood, and dignity for all.
They would come by the thousands from all across the country. They would come by train and in caravans of buses, carrying backpacks and tents, ready to occupy the great lawns of Washington. There would be trucks filled with farmworkers, and even mule carts from the poorest cotton fields of the South.
They would come marching in compact columns and singing hymns, just as they ha
d walked through the streets of Montgomery and on the road from Selma, a multitude that just kept on growing and multiplying beyond their wildest predictions, black and white marching together, rabbis, Catholic priests, nuns, university professors from the North, even stiff Episcopalian bishops, the sound of millions of steps in unison. The more his strength gave out, the more he lost confidence, the more urgent it was to keep getting up, with or without hope, with the help of the Holy Spirit or with a hunger of the soul that perhaps had no cure.
* * *
The prophets had been vulnerable to disillusion, but not to vanity or ambition. They had been called and they had obeyed, knowing that life would have been easier if somebody else had been tapped to lend their voice to those words.
Jehovah called on Jeremiah to preach next to the gate in Jerusalem where the king went in and out, and he was whipped and locked in a cell with his hands and feet and neck fastened in stocks. When God chose an envoy it was beyond appeal. The selection was terrifyingly arbitrary; there appeared to be no motive or any particular feature or capacity in the chosen one.
The simplicity of the call was frightening. God said the name of the chosen one two times. Abraham, Abraham, he said, and Abraham answered, Here I am. And God was calling on him to behead his son Isaac. God imposed and demanded human sacrifices without explanation. He himself recognized that Job’s torment was for no reason. He welcomed Abel’s offerings and disdained those of his brother Cain. He called Moses’s name twice and ordered him to go before the pharaoh and demand the freedom of his people; but it was also He who hardened the heart of the pharaoh and thus brought upon the land of Egypt the plagues that He sent.
God broke the jaws of David’s enemies and crushed their teeth. God celebrated as the Babylonians sacrificed their children. God separated the waters of the Red Sea so his people could cross and then condemned them, as punishment for their ingratitude, to walk the desert for forty years before arriving at the Promised Land.
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