Harlem Redux

by Persia Walker

  There was a silence. Roy’s lips began to tremble. He pressed them together, then put his hand over his mouth. He closed his eyes and his chest heaved. Tears leaked out from under his eyelids. He produced a torn but clean handkerchief and swiped his damp face with it. He looked at David with grateful eyes. “I came here to comfort you. Now you’s the one comforting me. Thank you.” He smiled through his tears.

  Roy left soon after that and David was returned to his cell. His memory stirred, he was swamped with images from the summer he’d returned, the “Red Summer” they called it, referring to the streams of Negro blood sent flowing down American streets. By the year’s end, bloody race riots had erupted in two dozen cities or counties, scores of blacks had been lynched and burned, and the Ku Klux Klan had resurged in popularity. David had read the reports, sickened. Still invigorated by his memories of France, he had planned to attend Howard, and then join the Movement. But as he contemplated a newspaper photograph of a black man’s scorched remains hanging from a tree, he knew there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of re-creating the openness he had seen in France in the United States, at least not in his lifetime. But he promised himself that he would do what he could. He vowed to work until he dropped to at least make it safe for black men, women, and children to walk the streets of American towns. As for what happened to that vow, that was the most painful thought of all.

  David’s next visitor couldn’t have been more of a surprise: Toby’s mother. She drew her chair close to the grate separating them. Her gentle eyes were actually amused. She couldn’t believe he had killed Sweet, she said, but she didn’t know what to think about the rest. Had he really led a double life? He explained and when he was done, she simply nodded.

  “Well, I suppose a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. And sometimes that means wearing a mask to survive.”

  He smiled at her pragmatic way of seeing the situation, but his conscience rejected it. It seemed that while part of him yearned for redemption, another part strove for condemnation, and the more his friends forgave him, the more he demanded punishment.

  “What happens,” he asked, “when that mask becomes your second skin? You forget how to live without it. You forget what your own face looks like. What’s worse, you’re not sure you want to know. And when a chance comes to take it off, to tell the world, ‘This is me. This is who I am,’ you pass it up. Life behind the mask has become too safe, too comfortable. That was me.”

  “You know, you think too much. It’s always bad to think too much. I got a sister who’s passing. She ain’t found nothing comfortable about it. She the loneliest person I know. At least you did it to help people. She ain’t into rested in helping nobody but herself. Everybody in the fam’ly know what she’s doing and why she’s doing it. And we still love her. We just don’t never see the need to talk about it.” Her eyes went over him. “You got to stop looking back. You done your best. The Lord don’t ask for more.”

  For an instant, she reminded him of Annie. “I don’t know what the Lord asks for. I used to think I did, but that was ...” He grimaced. “I was a child.”

  “My pappy used to say we got to love with the heart of a child and think with the mind of a man.”

  “Your pappy wasn’t talking about abandoning his friends. Lying about his identity.”

  “No, he was just talking about surviving.” She looked at him and shook her head. “I done known a lot of people in a lot of trouble, but you take the cake. I got to admit, though, you’d look good in stripes.”

  He could feel a smile coming on. “Could be I’ll be wearing them for some time.”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “No?”

  “A man like you got a plan.”

  “Have I now?”

  “Um-hm. Men like you, they always got a plan. So, what you gonna do?”

  He thought about it. It was getting harder to hold back that smile. He gave a wry grin. “Well, like you said, a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. And a man can’t live his life looking backward, now can he?”

  “Not if he don’t want to get an awful crick in his neck.”

  He couldn’t hold it in anymore. He laughed out loud, grateful for her mischievous humor. He asked her to tell him about Toby, something she was happy to do. He liked the way her eyes lit up when she spoke of her little boy. The minutes allotted them passed quickly and soon it was time for her to leave. She would attend the trial, she said, whenever she could, and nothing he could say would dissuade her. He needed friends and she meant to be among them. He watched her go with a new warmth in his heart. It was only then he realized that he’d again forgotten to ask her name.

  Nella stopped by. She was bold and to the point. “So tell me the truth, dear boy. Did you shoot him?”

  “Would you blame me if I had?”

  “Not a bit. But you didn’t, did you?” She sighed. “How unfortunate.”

  “Why?”

  “It would make my book oh so much juicier if you had.”

  Snyder puffed on his cigar and fixed David with a paternal eye.

  “You didn’t have to kill Sweet, you know. I can understand why you did it, but I wish you’d left him for me.”

  “I didn’t kill him.”

  “Too bad,” he said, but it was with an amused expression. “It always amazes me that I like you. But I do. And now I know why. When I first looked at you, I sensed an old wound—a deep wound—and I sensed the strength that went into hiding it. You’re a strong man.”

  “Am I?”

  All of the amusement left Snyder’s eyes. He was suddenly dead serious. “I don’t trust men who don’t feel pain. Men who don’t risk pain are cowards, and those who can’t carry it are weak.”

  “Well, if that’s the case, then my muscles should be busting through my shirt.”

  38. Lies and Whispers

  The leaders of the Movement demanded that the accused murderer of Jameson Sweet suffer the full brunt of the law. David McKay had not only destroyed one of the Movement’s best legal minds, but sullied the reputation of the Movement itself. Calling upon their white allies, the Movement’s officials put the heat on police and legal authorities.

  On Monday, April 5, one week after David’s arrest, a grand jury needed just twelve minutes to indict him. The trial was scheduled to begin two weeks later, on April 20. In the interim, both the prosecution and the defense scrambled to prepare.

  Byron Canfield became the prosecution’s mainstay. In a major deposition, he recapped how David had disappeared years earlier, then “conveniently reappeared” following Lilian’s death. He described David’s evasive answers at Nella Harding’s party and repeated Sweet’s complaint that David wanted to eject him from the house. Finally, he related the results of Sweet’s private investigation into David’s life and Sweet’s plans to expose David’s duplicity.

  Peters subjected Annie to hours of grueling interrogation. She was uncooperative, sometimes flatly refusing to answer. He threatened to jail her until she reconsidered. Annie was sent away with a proud mien and her lips sealed, but twenty-four hours in a cold, damp cell weakened her. With tears in her eyes, she “admitted” to having urged David to fight for the house and said, yes, she’d overheard him argue with Sweet on the day Sweet died. But she was sure she “heard Mr. David leave a long time before Mr. Jameson got shot. Miss Rachel was in the house when that happened. Mr. David wasn’t.” That last statement was given short shrift. She went home sure that she’d put a noose around her own son’s neck.

  David didn’t learn of Annie’s ordeal until it was over, but Rachel was there when Peters took Annie away and she saw the old woman’s sorry state when she came back. For the first time since the nightmare began, Rachel stepped forward to speak to reporters. With taunting, angry words, she denounced the way Annie had been treated and proclaimed David’s innocence. When reporters asked Peters for a response, he dismissed Rachel’s statement with a shrug. “A woman,” he said, “is expected to sta
nd by her man.”

  The scandal raged, and it spread beyond Harlem. White-owned publications with national circulation picked up the story; even the New York Times and one of the Washington papers expressed interest. As Mason Rugby, an influential white editor, put it:

  “This is not just an everyday murder, in some filthy Harlem back alley. Here we have a top attorney in the national civil rights movement slain— not by white men, but by one of his own: another civil rights attorney, the rich scion of a Harlem success story. Jameson Sweet wasn’t just any victim; David McKay isn’t just any accused killer. They represent the creme de la creme of cafe au lait society—the hopes of the Negro people, the best that the black man can produce. Yet all they could do was try to kill each other. What does that say about the Movement? What does it tell white America about the so-called New Negro? I’ll tell you what it says: It shows that them niggers can’t blame us whites for all their problems, can they?”

  The scandal divided not only Harlem, but the conservative black societies of Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. They were riveted and horrified. Everyone, it seemed, had an opinion. Not one fancy parlor—or funky pool hall for that matter—was free from debate.

  Passionate syndicated columns for and against David ran side-by-side with confused reports that presented rumors as facts. The newspapers continued to quote Canfield heavily, and he was merciless. He had David tried and convicted before his first court date. For his part, David neither hid nor scurried. He let reporters see him. He gave quiet, lucid, concise statements. By the time he was to appear in the packed courtroom, he had attracted much sympathy, especially among women, but few believed him—male or female—when he maintained his innocence. As the time approached for jury selection, the very newspapers that had inflamed the public now expressed concern as to whether a panel free of prejudice could be found.

  Nevin Caruthers, a superbly educated and privileged black man, offered to act as David’s attorney. In his mid-fifties, Nevin was of short physical stature but immense presence. His salt-and-pepper hair was closely cropped and his mustache was copious but carefully groomed. His walk was robust and energetic. Behind his eyeglasses, his dark brown eyes reflected a gentle heart and perceptive intelligence.

  “I was a friend of Lilian. I admired her work. Lord knows, she could be temperamental, but she was a talented woman. I won’t see her brother go down without a fight.”

  District Attorney Jack Baker, a ruthless cross-examiner, formed the prosecution. He was hungry for a high-profile conviction that would bring him closer to his goal: the New York State governorship.

  Nevin warned David that Baker would crucify him.

  “This is not about whether you killed Jameson Sweet. This is about Philly. You’ve done what most every colored man at one time or another wishes he could do but would never admit to. You committed the unforgivable. And you got caught doing it.”

  “When the time comes, let me testify,” David said. “Let me tell them why.”

  “Nobody gives a damn about why. They only care that you did. You are every white man’s nightmare. Someone who looks like them, sounds like them, but isn’t one of them. Someone who can pretend to be the Man Next Door. Character. It’s all about character. The prosecution is going to do its best to paint you as a devil and Sweet as a saint.”

  “Canfield and the papers have already done a good job at that.”

  “We have to reverse those images. We’ll remind them that you’re a war hero. We’ll bring in witnesses who’ll testify to the compassionate work you’ve been doing in Philly. Friends, people you work with—”

  “No, not that. I won’t let you.”

  “But why not?”

  “I won’t have them involved. It’s bad enough that they’ll be mocked because I tricked them—”

  “If they’re your friends, they’ll want to help.”

  “I can’t ask them to.”

  “Maybe you can’t, but I can.”

  “Don’t do it.”

  Nevin leveled a steady gaze at his client. He saw despair and regret and something else, too. “David, are you afraid that none of the people you helped, that none of the friends you made, would stand by you if given the chance?”

  “They’re good people and they would. But I’m not going to ask them to.”

  Nevin shook his head, frustrated. “All right. We’ll leave it alone for now. But we do need character witnesses. It’s crucial. So you think about it.”

  He looked down at his notes, scribbled a comment, and sighed. “While we’re on this difficult topic, we might as well broach another. Your best witness, you know, would be Rachel.”

  “No.”

  “I figured you’d say that.”

  “No one will believe her. She’s my wife.”

  “She was present when you struggled with Sweet. She can speak to his suicidal intent. People will wonder why she doesn’t testify on your behalf. Even if they’re set against believing her, they’ll want to hear her. Her appearance in court is crucial.”

  “I won’t have her exposed like that.”

  Nevin rubbed his forehead and sighed. “David, I—”

  “My answer’s no. Now let’s move on. I take it the second part of our strategy has to do with dressing down Sweet?”

  Nevin looked at David and shook his head. He paused to rearrange his thoughts, then went on. “If you don’t want Rachel to testify, we have to find another way to convince the jury that Sweet chose to die. That means, we’ve got to provide a motive for suicide. A good, strong motive that’ll compensate for the lack of physical evidence, like a note. To show motive, we’ve got to shore up your contention that Sweet killed Gem. Make them believe that he preferred to die rather than face a humiliating trial. The fact that the prosecution will put Sweet on a pedestal could then work in our favor. Sweet was a man with a lot to lose. Many proud men in his position have taken the same way out.”

  Gray skies heavy with rain clouds darkened lower Manhattan on the opening day of the trial. A loud, angry crowd assembled before the courthouse. Authorities decided to bring David into the building through a side entrance. They posted twenty policemen in front of the courthouse and sent another ten inside to guard the courtroom.

  With a blow of his gavel, Judge Sylvan Richter called the session to order, and District Attorney Baker took center stage. A skeletal man with parchment-colored skin and raven-black hair, Baker had small, marble-like eyes that seemed curiously dead behind round, rimless spectacles. He launched his case by calling Dr. Hubert Thatcher to the witness stand. Thatcher was broad and squat, with bulbous eyes and pencil-thin lips. His nose was so flat that it barely rose from his face and his nostrils were merely horizontal slits. With his pale, waxy skin, oddly tinged green, he resembled a large toad struggling for dignity in a tight black suit.

  Thatcher began by testifying as to the time of death. His first statement was not a matter for contention; his next one was.

  “I can say without doubt that the blood and human tissue found on David McKay’s right hand and coat collar belonged to the victim, Jameson Sweet.”

  “Did you conduct a laboratory analysis?” asked Nevin in cross-examination.

  “I didn’t need to,” said Thatcher. “Everybody can tell a Negro’s blood just by looking at it.”

  Nevin checked a smile of satisfaction and glanced at Baker. A look of irritation flashed across the D.A.’s face. His first expert witness had just revealed himself to be both a racist and a sloppy technician, the second quality being by far the worst.

  Nevin turned back to Thatcher.

  “Could David McKay have picked up the blood and tissue through contact with another person at the death scene?”

  David’s breath caught. How could Nevin do this, when he’d pleaded with him not to involve Rachel?

  Thatcher’s eyes shot over to Baker hoping for a hint as to how to answer. Finding none, he looked back at Nevin. A thin layer of sweat enhanced the waxy sheen of
his forehead. “I suppose it’s possible. But I, uh … I find it highly unlikely.”

  “But it is possible?”

  Thatcher hesitated. “Yes, it’s possible.”

  Thatcher was dismissed. Baker then sought to demonstrate that David was the last person to see Sweet alive. He called a reluctant Annie to the stand. Since she was a hostile witness, he was given leeway in questioning her. She answered with brief sentences and her eyes never left David. An expression of relief crossed her face when Baker sat down and Nevin rose to cross-examine her. He gave her a chance to emphasize that she was sure, “Mr. David was outta the house when it happened.” But on re-direct, Baker asked her whether she’d actually seen David leave and she had to admit that she hadn’t.

  Next came Byron Canfield. He told his story with devastating simplicity. David was forced to listen to an amalgam of circumstantial evidence that maligned and misrepresented him.

  To back up Canfield’s testimony, Baker summoned Frank Nyman, the white private detective Sweet had hired. David took one look at Nyman and sensed danger. Nyman was the kind of witness who could do damage. He was small, wiry, and scruffy. He was poor and made no attempt to hide it. He had chosen to wear a shapeless black suit and dusty shoes. His tie was crooked and his shirt none too clean. His hair was unkempt and a shock of it, black mixed with gray, fell over his narrow, lined face. His heavy-lidded eyes were as black as pitch. His lower lip was full and fleshy, and his upper lip, thin and cruel. He was indisputably ugly and more than slightly seedy, but David saw at once that none of that mattered. None of it made a damn bit of difference because Nyman was also utterly charming. In fact, his ugliness made his charm all the more disturbing. It allowed him to sneak up on you, to take you unawares. Humor flashed in his eyes, wisdom rested in the corners of his lips, and an easygoing lassitude rode his shoulders every time he shrugged. Despite his rough, uncouth manner, or perhaps because of it, he was entirely credible. He knew exactly what was expected of him and he delivered. He seduced the members of the jury and they never knew what hit them.