Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow [101]
Coalhouse rose from his chair and went out to talk to the young men in the hall. They gathered around the detonation box. They were stunned. You don’t have to give him nothing, they said. We got Morgan’s balls! You don’t have to negotiate nothing. Give us Conklin and that car and let us out of here and you get the Library back! That’s the negotiation, man, that’s the kind of negotiation!
Coalhouse was calm. He spoke softly. None of you is known to the authorities by name, he said. You can disappear into the city and reclaim your life. So can you, came the answer. No, Coalhouse said. They would never let me out of here, you know that. And if they did they would spare no effort to hunt me down. And everyone with me would be hunted down. And you would all die. To what purpose? For what end?
We always talked before, one of them said. Now you doing this. You can’t, man! We all Coalhouse! We can’t get out we’ll blow it up, another said. Younger Brother said What you are doing is betraying us. Either we all ought to go free or we all ought to die. You signed your letter President of the Provisional American Government. Coalhouse nodded. It seemed to be the rhetoric we needed for our morale, he said. But we meant it! Younger Brother cried. We meant it! There are enough people in the streets to found an army!
Certainly no theorist of revolution could have denied the truth that with an enemy as vast as an entire nation of the white race, the restoration of a Model T automobile was as good a place to start as any. Younger Brother was shouting now. You can’t change your demands! You can’t reduce the meaning of your demands! You can’t betray us for a car! I have not changed my demands, Coalhouse said. Is the goddamn Ford your justice? said Younger Brother. Is your execution your justice? Coalhouse looked at him. As for my execution, he said, my death was determined the moment Sarah died. As for my Godforsaken Ford it is to be made over as it was the day I drove past the firehouse. It is not I who reduce my demands but they who magnified them as long as they resisted them. I will trade your precious lives for Willie Conklin’s and thank God for him.
A few minutes later Father walked back across the street. To get justice Coalhouse Walker was ready to have it done to him. But the people following him were not. They were another generation. They were not human. Father shuddered. They were monstrous! Their cause had recomposed their minds. They would kick at the world’s supports. Start an army! They were nothing more than filthy revolutionaries.
Coalhouse’s famous stubbornness had now become a fortress against the arguments of his men. It was he who stood between Mr. Morgan and disaster. Father confided none of this to the District Attorney. He felt Whitman would have trouble enough with the official terms. This turned out to be the case. Whitman threw back several shots of whiskey. Stubble covered his face. His protuberant eyes were red and his collar was wilted. He paced. He stood at the window. He made a fist of his right hand and several times smacked the palm of his left. He looked again at the wire from Morgan. Father cleared his throat. It does not say you have to hang the confederates, Father said. What? said Whitman. What? All right, all right. He looked for a chair to sit down in. How many of them are there, did you say? Five, Father said, unconsciously excluding Younger Brother. Whitman sighed. Father said I think this is the best you can do. Sure, said the District Attorney. And what do I tell the newspapers. Why, Father said, you can tell them, one, Coalhouse Walker is captured, and two, Mr. Morgan’s treasures are saved, and three, the city is safe, and four, the entire facilities of your office and the police will be used to track down the underlings until every last one of them is behind bars where he belongs. Whitman