A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond

by Percival Everett

  And then my sister is making demands for after Thanksgiving, and I must see her at some point, crone that she is. I’m telling you, Barton, you’d be happier and safer cozying up to Jeffrey Dahmer than to my sister. Not that you would, of course. I’m just expressing how lethal she is.

  Have a great holiday!

  Juniper

  OFFICE OF SENATOR STROM THURMOND

  217 RUSSELL SENATE BUILDING

  WASHINGTON, D.C. 20515

  November 29, 2002

  Dear Juniper,

  Do you realize that you signed your last epistle “Juniper.” Not so much as a “Yours truly” or “Love.” You just slam the fucking door without so much as a by your leave. I would think decent manners would have made you more gracious, even if heart-stirring feelings couldn’t.

  Obviously they couldn’t.

  I don’t believe a word you say about your sister, especially not now. You have probably subjected her to some of the torment to which you have subjected me. Do you derive pleasure inflicting torture on innocents? Oh sure, as children we all set dogs on fire and ripped turtles from their shells, but most of us, MOST of us, graduate from such things.

  Not you.

  Reba and I will find much in common and will be able to grow whole together.

  Notice that I will not sign off as if I were talking to the IRS or Count Dracula.

  My fondest wishes,

  Barton

  Oh Roba, Roba, Roba

  How could you be so low—bah?

  SIMON & SCHUSTER, INC.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  November 29, 2002

  Dear Professor Kincaid,

  I can see why your students respond to you as they do. You do indeed radiate much warmth. I wish I had been lucky enough to have taken a class with you or someone like you at NYU.

  I thank you very kindly for your shrewd counsel. As for playing Wilkes and Snell off against one another, I don’t think I have the skill for that. I can see the wisdom of your advice and appreciate it deeply. I know someone as skilled in these things as you could mastermind it adroitly. Me, I’d probably just tangle things up badly, like the snarls you used to get in your fishing line. Knowing me, I’d probably get them both clawing at me just by trying to get away. Like running from a couple of killer bees. Incites them.

  Again, I cannot thank you enough for your generosity. Please let me know if there is any way I can be of assistance in this project. My abilities may be limited; but they are at your disposal.

  Your friend,

  R. Juniper McCloud

  Juniper McCloud

  November 29, 2002

  Dear Mr. Wilkes:

  I have received your address from my brother, by way of the publishing house.

  I am not sure how you got onto me or even how you determined my phone number, though I guess it is in the book. In any case, I am afraid I must ask you not to call me any more. I am sorry to be rude and I do not like to hurt you or anyone else. However, I am not now at liberty to complicate my personal life, much less to be spending Thanksgiving with you.

  As for your questions about my brother, I, again not wishing to be rude, must ask you not to go on to me about him. Your messages are sometimes almost violent in tone. I do think, though, that you have no reason to be so angry. Without knowing the details, I do know Juniper and am quite sure he is incapable of a mean or hurtful act. Please do not threaten him or attempt to relay your threats through me. It is an odd way to persuade me to spend time with you anyways, don’t you think? As I say, circumstances absolutely prevent me from doing so.

  I wish you well, Mr. Wilkes, but trust you will not pursue me or my brother, as you are surely not the person to give pain wantonly.

  Thank you.

  Sincerely,

  Reba McCloud

  Reba McCloud

  November 29, 2002

  Dear Professor Kincaid:

  You cannot possibly know who I am, and I apologize for intruding on you. I just wanted to thank you for your kindness to my brother, Juniper McCloud. (He showed me your letter.) It is not everyone who would take the time to write such a wise letter to a forlorn stranger.

  Whether or not Juniper is able to take your advice, it is nonetheless a rare and fine thing you did.

  I am as grateful as he.

  Warmest wishes,

  Reba McCloud

  Reba McCloud

  FROM THE DESK OF PERCIVAL EVERETT

  November 29, 2002

  Jim—

  What is this latest shit from Barton?

  What should we do?

  Percival

  Interoffice Memo

  November 29, 2002

  Percival:

  What is this latest shit from Barton?

  What should we do?

  Jim

  Interoffice Memo

  November 30, 2002

  Percival—

  Glad we talked. I agree that we should write directly to Strom—or try to. The only sane one in this whole mess seems to me McCloud’s goddamn sister. Lot of fucking good that does us.

  You go ahead and write Strom. You got that South Carolina touch.

  By the way, the hearing was a fucking farce. I’ll tell you more when I’m less depressed about it. The upshot is I have to go to sensitivity training, apologize, and “watch my step.” Can you believe it? And can I appeal or anything? No! Of course not. Maybe I should have brought character witnesses, but the thing was stacked from the beginning. You get the picture—young woman and middle-aged man (albeit distinguished professor with unblemished record). That’s all she wrote. (What does that phrase mean? Where does it come from?)

  Anyhow, go ahead and write to Strom.

  Fuck!

  Jim

  p.s. What will they train my fucking sensitivity to do? Fetch? Roll over? Ha ha!

  Percival Everett

  University of Southern California

  University Park Campus

  Los Angeles, CA 90089

  December 2, 2002

  The Honorable Strom Thurmond

  Russell Senate Office Building

  Washington, D.C.

  Dear Senator Thurmond:

  Only the most extreme desperation sends us coming straight to you. I hope you will excuse us and, when you look into matters, agree that we are justified in horning in on your valuable time.

  We are the writer/research team assembled by Simon and Schuster (Martin Snell is the Editor in charge there) to assist in the completion of your HISTORY OF THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN PEOPLE. We are eager to proceed with this work and have been, often frantically, trying to worm out of Snell, the Editor, and especially one Barton Wilkes, your Assistant, clear directions on how to proceed.

  I don’t know if you’d believe the smoke which has been blown in our faces (and, excuse me, up our skirts) when we’ve tried to get a view of the terrain. I append here copies of all the correspondence, along with the materials Mr. Wilkes has sent us to “write up.” You will see for yourself.

  Believe us, Senator Thurmond, when we say that we are not habitual complainers. We simply want to help you in your project and have arrived at the conclusion that we cannot possibly do that when everything is reflected in the funhouse mirror that is Barton Wilkes, Snell, and (so says Snell) Ted Kennedy.

  A word or two from you on what you want would set us straight, I am sure.

  We write with respect, with eagerness to proceed, and with frustration amounting to frenzy.

  Very sincerely yours,

  Percival

  Percival Everett

  James Kincaid (who signs but has not read)

  SENATOR STROM THURMOND

  217 RUSSELL SENATE BUILDING

  WASHINGTON, D.C. 20515

  December 6, 2002

  My dear Mr. Everett and Mr. Kincaid,

  Yes, by Jesus, I see what you mean.

  That Wilkes seemed a nice boy, and very likely he is. Don’t seem to have a
ll his apples from government inspected orchards, though, does he? As my dear mother would say, he’s a caution. You boys probably have stronger language to shitswipe him with. Don’t blame you.

  I do most sincerely apologize to you for not keeping an eye on this. It has always been tough for me to keep my eyes from wandering, as you may have heard. I should have been more vigilant.

  Why don’t you boys come down to Edgefield and have lunch with me? I’ll have an assistant call you and see what you’d like to eat. And when you can come of course.

  The assistant calling you will not be Barton Wilkes. He the one who wears those light blue outfits? You wouldn’t know, I expect.

  Over lunch, we can work all this out.

  I hope you boys enjoy bourbon.

  Sincerely,

  Strom

  LUNCH

  The following is a transcript of a lunch attended by Senator Strom Thurmond, Professor James Kincaid and Percival Everett. I am Percival Everett. You can tell because I appear last in the list of attendees. That is the polite thing to do, list one’s self last. Courtesy is a curious business at best, and one of the businesses of the American South, however little obvious profit is in it. I was taught that it is always best to be courteous and fair, even when others are not, that there is no better way to irritate your enemies, that a kind word is often appreciated and never hurts. So, it was that I put my assumptions and knowledge of history aside to share a meal with a person whom I had previously once called the Reddest Neck. I am, by nature, more polite than my associate, Mr. Kincaid, who often says to me “fuck you” when we disagree. But perhaps I should hear that as a nice thing, as Lenny Bruce suggested. Kincaid also says “get fucked,” but he says it in a friendly, jovial, brotherly way, which is troubling in and of itself.

  This transcript was going to be a straight reporting of what was said, with no description whatsoever. But a glance through a couple of books of quotations worthy of repeating changed my mind, as I realized that I not once found anything uttered by the good Senator worth repeating. This will be dry enough, except for those really tedious historian types who pore over archives page by page counting the number of times a certain person refers to another person in a certain way to substantiate something most of us knew all along about the way one person felt about another. “See, Humphrey really didn’t like Nixon.”

  Edgefield, South Carolina. I spent years five through seventeen in South Carolina. My parents said I was growing up. I did grow up. Apparently, South Carolina did not. Jim and I drove from the airport in Charleston to Edgefield on a Saturday. Still, I will attempt to stay with my original transcript idea by not describing much, or anything, for that matter. Just let me say that the Edgefield we drove into, in our turquoise subcompact rental (publisher’s expense), was probably no different from the Edgefield young Strom walked through when he was ten.

  THE TRANSCRIPT:

  THURMOND: Gentlemen, I’m glad you could join me for lunch.

  EVERETT: Thank you, Senator.

  KINCAID: Thank you.

  THURMOND: You’re Mr. Everett.

  KINCAID: How could you tell?

  EVERETT: I am. I’m pleased to finally meet you.

  THURMOND: No, the pleasure is mine. And Mr. Kincaid.

  KINCAID: Senator.

  THURMOND: Come on out and join me on the porch. You know, sitting on the porch is a Southern thing. Not that people in the North don’t enjoy their porches as well, but down here it’s special. Yes, porches are as Southern as mint juleps or kudzu. So is the enjoyment of cold drink. Hollis!

  HOLLIS: Sir?

  THURMOND: Hollis, what kind of refreshments can we offer our visitors?

  HOLLIS: Would you gentlemen like iced tea, lemonade, a soft drink or something a bit stronger?

  KINCAID: Lemonade, please.

  THURMOND: Mr. Everett.

  EVERETT: Just water, thank you.

  THURMOND: And Hollis, I’ll have my usual.

  HOLLIS: Yessir.

  EVERETT: You have a lovely home.

  THURMOND: Thank you. And Hollis?

  HOLLIS: Yessir?

  THURMOND: I’ll have my usual.

  HOLLIS: Yessir.

  THURMOND: This is the very porch on which my father and my dear mother would sit and watch us children at play out in the yard. There were six of us finally. Bill, myself, Gertie, George and the twins. I taught Gertie to dance out on that lawn. More than once I beat the tar out of my brother Bill. Bill’s a doctor now. History, there’s history here on this porch. On all porches, I suppose.

  KINCAID: Senator, that’s why we wanted to actually meet with you. We’d like to understand what you mean by history vis-à-vis our current project.

  THURMOND: That’s getting right to the point. You’re from the Midwest, aren’t you?

  KINCAID: I am, indeed. Ohio.

  THURMOND: And Mr. Everett, you’re a fellow South Carolinian?

  EVERETT: I was born in Georgia.

  THURMOND: You’re the one who gave that speech at the State House.

  EVERETT: That was a long time ago.

  THURMOND: Would you look at those clouds? We’re going to have a storm this afternoon for certain. My dear mother hated thunder and lightning. She’d sit on a chair in the foyer for the duration of any storm, said it was the safest room in the house. She never gave any reason for thinking that, but she believed it.

  EVERETT: About the book.

  THURMOND: I have to confess that the book project was not my idea, though I have grown rather fond of it. Barton Wilkes, a staff member, concocted the idea and I let him move with it. He found a publisher and now it appears the two of you are involved. I hope things are going smoothly.

  EVERETT: Your reference to Mr. Wilkes doesn’t suggest the closeness that he has led us to believe exists between the two of you.

  THURMOND: No?

  KINCAID: No, to hear Wilkes talk, he’s in constant contact with you, you’re best buddies.

  THURMOND: Perhaps in his mind I am. He’s an odd man. I think his family is from Florida. Do you know what Rhode Island and Florida have in common?

  KINCAID: No, what?

  THURMOND: Neither state counts in a national election.

  EVERETT: That’s very funny. That aside, how do you see this project?

  HOLLIS: Sirs, here are your drinks. Your lemonade, Mr. Kincaid. Your water, Mr. Everett. And your usual, Senator.

  KINCAID and EVERETT: Thanks.

  THURMOND: Thank you, Hollis. Hollis, isn’t this a fine day? HOLLIS: Yessir.

  THURMOND: And Hollis, isn’t this a fine porch? We’ve sat out here often in the evenings, haven’t we?

  HOLLIS: Yessir.

  THURMOND: We’ve slapped our share of mosquitoes. They seem to favor Hollis, don’t they, Hollis?

  HOLLIS: They do indeed, Senator.

  THURMOND: Okay, Hollis, you can go see to lunch.

  KINCAID: We’ve been wondering when the history is to begin. With slavery? The Civil War?

  THURMOND: When I was a child we referred to the war as the War of Northern Aggression. [laughs] I’m not sure where the book should begin.

  EVERETT: I was thinking that you might comment on the shaping influences of Reconstruction. Though I assume you didn’t live through it, I imagine the effects were still quite evident when you were young.

  THURMOND: That’s true. You boys know that I don’t pretend to be a historian. However, I consider myself part of the history of the land you two know at present. I lived most of the last century and participated in running this country for three quarters of it. Does that sound like bragging to you, Mr. Kincaid?

  KINCAID: Why, yes.

  THURMOND: And to you, Mr. Everett?

  EVERETT: It depends.

  THURMOND: Depends on what?

  EVERETT: Whether it’s finally true.

  THURMOND: You understand of course that I’m not seeking to write this thing in order to clean up my image. I don’t think my image is in such bad shape,
however much the liberals vilify me.

  KINCAID: That’s refreshing.

  THURMOND: I’m more concerned with addressing what I see as the unfair treatment of the South.

  EVERETT: You’re not still bitter about Reconstruction, are you? You’re not out to get those carpetbaggers?

  THURMOND: [half laugh] No, I’m mostly over that. No, I mean the image of the South right now, how the media chooses to paint it, the endless fun-making and stereotypes.

  EVERETT: Say more.

  THURMOND: You know when you get old your toenails get yellow and harder than the shell of a Brazil nut? You know what we used to call those nuts?

  KINCAID: What?

  THURMOND: Back to the South thing. You remember when those New York City Police shot that African boy in that doorway? Why, they shot that poor colored boy over forty times and media and the country jumped all over the policemen and the NYPD, calling them racists and pigs and such, but no one suggested anything about the character of the city of New York.

  KINCAID: Your point being?

  THURMOND: Well, when those rednecks, those dumbass peckerwoods down in Texas dragged that poor boy to death behind that pickup, all you heard was how awful Texas and the South remain.

  EVERETT: And you disagree with that.

  THURMOND: To tell the truth, I don’t. But why not offer the same judgment about the Northeast? Can you imagine the outcry if that African had been shot down dead in that fashion on a stoop here in Edgefield?

  EVERETT: So, this whole project is an attempt to set the record straight, a forum for you to say that the South isn’t as bad as it’s cracked up to be. Or maybe you’re about pointing out that the whole country is as racist as ever.

  THURMOND: Maybe, maybe not. I’m an old man. I just want things to be fair to the South.

  KINCAID: To rewrite history.

  THURMOND: That sounds awfully fancy.

  EVERETT: Nonetheless.

  THURMOND: You know, this is the very porch on which I first met Pitchfork Ben Tillman, former governor of this state. I walked up to him, like my daddy told me to, and I shook his hand. He glared at me with that hard face and said in that high voice of his, “Boy, if you’re gonna shake a hand, then, by God, give it a shake!” That was my first and most important lesson in politics and one I’ve never forgotten.