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By Root 5106 0

next evening the household experienced the oddness of a visit by Coalhouse Walker that was not on a Sunday. He sat in the parlor with his arms folded and told the story in detail. There was no aggrieved tone in his voice, he recited calmly and objectively, as if he were describing something that had happened to someone else. Mother said Mr. Walker, I am ashamed that this community is represented in your mind by that bunch of toughs. Father said The company has a bad reputation. They are an exception, the other volunteer engines being in all ways upright and responsible. Younger Brother sat on the piano stool with his legs crossed. He leaned forward, totally engaged by the problem. Where is the car now? he said. And what about those two boys? They are witnesses for you. But the pianist had spent the afternoon tracking down the boys only to find their parents refusing to have them involved in the matter. I’m a stranger to the Negroes here, he said matter-of-factly. They have to live here and they want no trouble. As for the car I have not looked at it again. And I won’t until it is returned to me as it was when I drove away from this house yesterday evening.

Standing in the hallway just out of sight during this interview was Sarah. She held her baby on her hip and she listened. She perceived as no one in the family could the enormity of the misfortune. She heard Father say to Coalhouse that if he intended to pursue his claim he should engage a lawyer. There was such a thing as the power of subpoena for witnesses. Are there any colored lawyers here? Coalhouse asked. I don’t know of one, Father said. But any lawyer who loves justice will do, I should think. He paused. I will underwrite the expense, he said in a gruff voice. Coalhouse stood. I thank you but that won’t be necessary. He put an envelope on the side table. In it was fifty dollars in cash. This, Mother learned afterward, had come out of the money he was saving toward the wedding.

The next day Mother’s Younger Brother took it upon himself to go to the site of the incident and see the car. After work he rode his bicycle to Firehouse Lane. The Model T had been thoroughly vandalized, whether by the volunteers or others it was impossible to determine. It sat with its front end in the tall weeds at the edge of the pond. The wheels were sunk in the mud. The headlamps and the windshield were shattered. The rear tires were flattened, the tufted upholstery had been gutted and the custom pantasote top was slashed to ribbons.

24

Younger Brother stood at the pond. Since his evening with Emma Goldman he had been in considerable difficulty. People at work were surprised by his animation. He fixed his attention on anything that could sustain it. He produced small talk that verged on hysteria. He sat at his drawing table and turned out designs in endless modifications for rifles and grenades. He measured the small squares and made his computations and watched the point of his pencil as it impressed the paper. When there was no other recourse he would begin to sing, just to hear the sound. Thus with continuous concentration and the expenditure of enormous amounts of energy he tried to keep himself from slipping into the vast distances of his unhappiness. It was all around him. It was a darkness as impudently close as his brow. It choked him by its closeness. And what was most terrifying was its treachery. He would wake up in the morning and see the sun coming in the window, and sit up in his bed and think it was gone, and then find it there after all, behind his ears or in his heart.

He decided he was on the verge of a nervous collapse. He prescribed for himself a regimen of cold baths and physical exertion. He bought a Columbia bicycle and rode it to work. At night, before bed, he would do calisthenics until he was exhausted.

On the floor below, Mother and Father felt the house shake. They realized he was jumping up and down. They were used to his eccentricities. He had never confided in them or shared his hopes or feelings and so they saw no marked change in his behavior.