CHAPTER 16

The air was stirring gently across his face now and the Senator could hear dimly the “Son, are you there?” of Hickman’s voice softly murmuring—but when he tried to respond Bliss had moved on….

… Stirring beneath the sterile grain of the sheet the Senator felt a binding pressure on heel and toe, and now alone in the hot world beyond the puckered seal of his lids he found himself wading through a sandy landscape bathed in an eerie twilight. In the low-hung sky before him, vaguely familiar images of threatening shapes appeared, flickering and fading as though to taunt him, and he found himself lunging desperately across the sandy terrain in a compulsive effort to grasp their meaning. But the closer he approached the more rapidly the images changed their shape, tearing apart in smokelike strands only to reappear in ever more ambiguous forms further, further ahead.

The Senator struggled on, his right foot flaming, and now as he paused for breath the sudden rhythmical gusting of a slight breeze irritated the feverish surface of his skin and he could hear Hickman’s voice again, at first muted and low, then becoming a booming roar. Hickman was somewhere above him but suddenly as he strained toward the sound he was swept up and carried through the air with such force that his body slanted headfirst into the wind and he kept his balance only by rotating his arms in the manner of a skier soaring in exhilarating flight above the earth. Then came a burst of light followed by a shrilling of whistles and the clanging of bells and the Senator realized that he was standing atop a speeding freight train, his feet dancing unsteadily upon the narrow boards of a catwalk that ran the length of the car. It was a long freight, and far up the tracks he could see the engine, pouring a billowing plume of smoke against the sunny landscape as with a nervous, toylike shuttling of driving-rods it curved the rails to the west….

Wondering at the sudden change of scene, the Senator fought desperately to keep his feet, holding on by flexing at ankle and knee in a bending, straightening, balancing, swaying, dancelike motion which moved his body with and against the erratic rhythms of the bounding car. In the blazing sun the train was hurtling downgrade now and the engineer seemed determined to send him flying into space, for he had the impression that every car in the train was being forced to knock the car just ahead into a capricious, offbeat, bucking increase of speed which nothing on top could withstand. For a while it caused him to bounce about like a manic tap dancer, rattling his teeth and fragmenting the landscape into a whirl of chattering images; then the grade was leveling off and with the going smoother the Senator looked about.

Beyond the rows of cross ties and gleaming rails to his left, wheat fields, turned tawny and dry by the sun, wheeled away at a slant accented by flashing telegraph poles: and below he could see his own thin shadow atop that of the car flickering swiftly along the grading. Flocks of blackbirds were whirling up from the strands of wire which fenced off the field and swinging in broad circles over the tilting land.

Sweeping ahead the train screamed shrilly as it gathered highball speed, its whistle sending snatches of vapor into the blaze of sun. Then to his right, past a sparse windbreak of trees, three dark dogs raced over a harvested field, the agitated music of their trailing cry reaching him faintly through the roar. The dogs ran with nose to earth and far beyond, where the land rolled down to a sparkling stream, he could see the white semaphore-flashing of a rabbit’s tail as it coursed in curving flight away from the hounds.

Hurry, hurry, little friend, the Senator thought, hearing the engines whirling again, the sound distraught and lonely as he heard a woman’s voice speaking to him in an intimate, teasing drawl, “So, honey, I tell you like the rabbit tole the rabbit, ‘Darling, love ain’t nothing but a habit—hello, there, Mister Babbitt Rabbit’—Now, now, honey, don’t go getting mad on me. All I mean is that you can come see me again sometimes; ’cause short-winded and frantic as you is I still think you kinda cute. You kinda fly too, and I like that. So whenever you feel like coming down to earth, why, drop in on a poor soul and thank you kindly….”

And in the cool shade of the back-alley porch he could see Choc Charlie pausing to drink from his frosty bottle of Chock beer then looking out bemusedly across the yard ablaze with a center bed of red canna flowers, shaking his head. Beyond the yard, the rutted roadbed of the alley was covered with broken glass of many colors and beyond its sparkling surface he could see a black cat yawning pinkly in the shade of the high, whitewashed fence which enclosed the yard beyond. Then Choc Charlie belched and turned, winking at Donelson, and he could see tiny wrinkles forming at the corners of Choc Charlie’s eyes as his querulous voice resumed.

“So now,” Choc Charlie said, “the dam’ hound was so hot on Brer Rabbit’s trail that he had to do something real quick because that hound was chasing him come hell for breakfast. So ’bout that time Brer Rabbit sees him a hole in some rocks—and, blip! he shoots into it like a streak of greased lightning—and too bad for him!”

“Looks like he made a mistake of judgment,” Donelson said. “How come, how come?”

“How come? Man, do you know who was holed up in that hole?”

“Not yet,” Donelson said. “You didn’t say….”

“Well, it was ole Brer Bear! That’s how come. Man, Brer Rabbit liked to shit his britches then, because didn’t nobody in his right mind mess with Brer Bear—and Brer Bear had done already looked up and seen him!…”

“Dramatic as hell, isn’t it,” Donelson said. “A turn in the plot; a ‘reversal.’ David and Goliath … Daniel in the goddamned lion’s den! Ole J.C. couldn’t do better.”

“Drink some beer, man,” Choc Charlie said. “I’m telling this lie and my initials ain’t J.C., they’re C.C.—You see, Brer Bear had been sleeping and when he sits up and rubs his eyes he’s flabbergasted! He’s hornswoggled! He’s hyped! He’s shucked! But he don’t know who dropped it! He’s looking right at him too but he can’t believe his own God-given eyes! Here’s Brer Rabbit in his very own bedroom! Somebody go get the chief of police, ’cause now Brer Bear is ’bout to move!”

“Ulysses alone in Polly-what’s-his-name’s cave,” Donelson said. “And without companions …”

“Man, what are you talking about?” Choc Charlie said. “How the hell did she get in there?”

“She?” Donelson said, “I didn’t say anything about ‘she,’ I said ‘he’—but forget it. What happened then?”

“Man,” Choc Charlie said, “you drinking too fast.—And sit back out of that sun—Anyway, don’t nobody name of Polly mess with Brer Bear, male or female. Not when he’s trying to get his rest …”

“That’s his name,” Donelson said, “Polly-fee-mess.”

Choc Charlie took a drink and looked wearily at the Senator. “Make him quit messing with this lie, will you please? I appreciate your buying me this Chock and those ribs last night and all but it ain’t really that good—know what I mean? Anyway, Brer Rabbit was there and he thought real hard and came up with what he hoped would be a solution. Because with Brer Bear in front of him and with that hound right on his heels Brer Rabbit had to come up with something quicker than the day before yestiddy … and that’s no bull.”

“We’re with you, hanging on,” Donelson said. “He’s reached a moment of grave decision….”

“Now you’re talkin’,” Choc Charlie said, “grave is right. He better do something quick or he’s in his grave, and that’s when Brer Rabbit made his move. Gentlemen,” Choc Charlie said, “git this: He spins in front of Brer Bear like a wheel of fortune, he spits on the floor like a man among men, he spins back around and makes his white tail flash like the nickel-plated barrel of a .45 pistol, then he wheels around agin and jumps way back and slaps his hips like he’s wearing two low-slung, tied-down holsters and a bushel of bullets, then he basses out at Brer Bear like he’s all of a sudden ten feet tall and weighing a ton. Said, ‘Let a motherfucker move and I’ll mow him down!’ ”

Donelson let out a howl. “Oh no, man, I must protest! You can’t do that, not add incest and insult to trickery….”

“Man, hush,” Choc Charlie said. “Now don’t forget, while this was happening the hound is streaking in like a cannonball, but when he hears all that evil talk coming out of the hole that hound throws on the brakes and makes a turn so fast that not only is he running along the wall but his own tail is whipping his head like a blackjack in the expert hands of Rock Island Shorty, the railroad bull—and man, he highballs it the hell out of there yelling bloody murder.

“Gentlemen, by now Brer Bear is sitting there in a flim-flam fog and before he can git hisself together, Brer Rabbit reaches up and snatched off his cap in order to cut down on the wind resistance and bookety-bookety, bookety, he lit up out of there and is long gone!”

“Act five, scene one coming up,” Donelson said. “What did they do then?”

“They? Hell, man, other than Brer Bear wasn’t no one left in there—unless’n it was that Polly fellow you brought up, and if so I guess he musta been under the bed. But Brer Bear, poor fellow, he was in a hell of a fix. He’s just sitting there rubbing his eyes, sweating gallons and shaking all over like he’s got the palsy. Gentlemen, it was pathetic….”

“Tragic,” Donelson said.

“Whatever it was,” Choc Charlie said, “it was a bitch and it gave Brer Bear the bad-man blues. Said, ‘What on earth is this here country coming to, with these bad acting bub-bub-bub, bad-talking bad men breaking into folks’ homes talking ’bout their mamas and threatening them with these outrageous, dum-dum-bullet-shooting pearl-handled .45’s?’ Poor Brer Bear thought Brer Rabbit’s tail was a pearl-handled pistol grip and he felt so bad he started to cry like a baby. Said, ‘What did I ever do to have a fellow like that come imposing on me? What this here dam’ country needs is more law and order—and that’s a fact! Where the hell did I put my Gatling gun …?’

“But, gentlemen, Brer Bear was already too late, because by the time he located his shooting-iron Brer Rabbit was already going slam-bam-thank-you-mam through all those fine young lady rabbits back in the briar patch.”

“And there,” Donelson said, “you have a scenario with conflict of will, high skullduggery, gunplay, escape and rampant sex!”

Smiling into the sun, the Senator had begun to enjoy the familiar sensation of flying, the rush of wind against his face, but as he looked back along the tops of the swaying cars a cloud of black dust had begun to rise from where, several cars to the rear, three hulking figures were slipping and sliding through a gondola loaded with soft coal. The figures were shouting and gesturing in his direction and for a moment the Senator hesitated, but now, seeing a flash of metal burst from a gesturing hand he turned, and bending low, pushed hurriedly through the heavy pressure of the wind to the metal ladder attached to the forward end of the boxcar. Reaching it, he looked back and seeing the figures crawling in a line along the top of the boxcar he clambered down the ladder and held on. Looking along the top where the figures came slowly forward he looked quickly ahead, seeing a cindered path running beside the tracks and to the right of the path the roadbed was falling steeply down into a narrow field. Sunflowers grew tall in the field and at its edge a wall of closely planted trees arose. The trees were tall with sunlight filtering through the high-flung branches and flickering gloomily upon the slender trunks and as the train swept him past, the Senator looked some dozen cars ahead to where a sunny clearing was suddenly breaking and growing wider and as now the car came abreast he braced himself and let go, feeling his body flying away from the car and trying to run only to see the cindered path slamming up to meet him as with a palm-searing, knee-burning explosion of breath he landed hard upon the shuddering roadbed.

Fighting for breath against the heaving path, he lay as though paralyzed, watching the wheels and undercarriages churning the light just beyond his head. Dust and bits of trash were whirling furiously about and he could see the rhythmical rise and fall of the sleepers as they took the pound and click of wheel on rail. Then, his breath returning, he was sitting up and watching the tail end of the train whipping swiftly up the track. The red lenses of lanterns glinted like enormous jewels from either side of the caboose and a flag was snapping briskly from the handrail as the three figures ran back along its top, continuing doggedly to advance toward him even as the train bore them smoothly away.

Sweeping on, with smoke and flame pouring from its stack, the engine screamed again as it plunged toward a rise of rocky country that lay to the west. And suddenly it was as though he were watching a scene from a silent movie—with the train hurtling toward a point in the rocks where, as it approached, a spot grew like that which blossoms in a paper napkin at the touch of a lighted cigarette. Widening mysteriously around its periphery, the hole was turning rapidly inward upon itself and in a flash the three figures, the train and sunlit surrounding scene had vanished, leaving behind only the cindered grade, the cross ties and gleaming rails, now running in steely convergence into the darkness of a void.

For a moment the Senator had the impression of gazing toward a huge rumpled sheet which hung against the landscape with a mysterious hole burned in its center, but still hearing the muffled, clicking sound of the receding train he got to his feet and plunged in jolting, stiff-legged bounds down the grade and into the trees.

The Senator was moving through deep country now, the sound of the train a faint rumble in the distance. Here in the shade of the trees the air was clear and cool and he walked beneath stands of towering walnuts, oaks and cottonwoods that grew in clumps broken by parklike spaces of grass accented by bushes and trailing vines. His leg and palms smarted from his fall but now he moved ahead with a sense of relief, breathing the spicy air and trying to recall when he had passed through such woods before.

Off to his right an abandoned apple orchard stood with gnarled limbs in surreal disarray and farther beyond he could see a stand of elders displaying clusters of dark red berries in the sunlight. He was moving in silence, brushing embedded cinders from his palms and stepping carefully to protect his injured leg—when, suddenly, a covey of quail flushed at his feet, breaking the cathedral quiet with a roar that caused his heart to pound and his nerves to hum as he watched the rocketing birds reel off and sail with set wings into a nearby thicket. A dampness broke over his skin, chilling him as he watched where the birds had blended magically into the background, and for a moment he stood silent, searching in vain for the slightest telltale motion from the quail.

Now the afternoon was motionless, the brown and green foliage where the birds had gone inscrutable. But for the distant cry of a single bird the only sound was that of his own breathing and the Senator’s mind stirred with excitement, thinking: Surprise, speed and camouflage are the faith, hope and charity of escape, and the essence of strategy. Yes, and scenes dictate masks and masks scenes. Therefore the destructive element offers its own protective sanctuary. Hunting codes are a concern of human hunters or otherwise. To imaginate is to integrate negatives and positives into a viable program supporting one’s own sense of value. Flown before the unseeing hand the bird crouches safe in the bush. Therefore freedom is a willful blending of opposites, a conscious mixing of ungreen, unbrown things and thoughts into a brown-green shade.… Where’s the light? What’s the tune? What’s the time?

For a moment he mused, his eyes playing along the quiet hedge. There was something missing from the formula but he would work it out later, for now he must move ahead.

But hardly had he approached a mossy clearing in the trees than the Senator froze again. Before him two foxes were moving past at a leisurely trot, their elegant brushes floating weightlessly upon the quiet air. One fox carried a limp rabbit retriever-wise in its jaws and he could see the lazy flopping of the rabbit’s leaf-veined ears, observed its white powder puff of a tail. And now, reaching the center of the clearing the animals paused, delicately sniffing the air as they regarded him quietly out of the amber remoteness of vulpine eyes. One of the animals was gravid and the forgotten image of plump fox puppies playing upon the hard bare bone- and feather-strewn earth before a rocky burrow flashed through his mind and a fragment from the scriptures sang in his head:

And before the quiet confrontation of their eyes the Senator stood breathless, feeling a breeze passing over the dampness of his arms and watching a lazy rippling begin to play through the fur of the foxes. And he felt the hairs stirring lightly along his own forearms as the breeze blew slowly past pointed muzzles and alerted ears to part with a gentle, silklike ruffling the long fine fur of the high-held tails.

Then imperceptibly the foxes moved, becoming with no impression of speed twin streaks of red moving past the thicket of green, and he watched their brushes floating dreamlike into the undergrowth.

All this I’ve known, the Senator thought, but had forgotten.… Then in the sudden hush, accented by a pheasant’s cry, he felt as though no trains nor towns nor sermons existed. He was at peace. Here was no need to escape nor search for Eden, nor need to solve his mystery. But again he moved, somehow compelled to go ahead….

Soon the Senator was beyond the woods, his throat throbbing with nameless emotion stirred by the foxes, and he moved with inward-turning eyes—until, high above, where it flashed like a minnow in an inverted bowl of a clear blue lake, a small plane caught his eye and he moved beneath the boughs of a pine tree, watching the plane bank languidly into the sun to write in smoke across the sky:

And watching the words expand and drift in ghostlike shapes he shook his fist at the sky and ran again, cursing the taut constriction of the sand.

Following the upward slant of the terrain the Senator found himself approaching a crowd gathered below the terrace of a clubhouse resting on the broad, level surface of a cliff which overlooked a winding river. Below the cliff and atop the river’s farther bank, a flock of grazing sheep was strung out along a rolling meadow, making dark foreshortened shadows against the green; and far below, past the brown and gray outcroppings of the meadow’s rocky edge, he could see the dark swirl and sparkle of the river as it flowed past a pile of boulders which protruded white and brilliant in the sun.

There was a feeling of holiday in the air now, and on the terrace he could see uniformed waiters serving pale yellow melon, frosted drinks and ices to smiling couples who lounged at tables set in the pastel shade of brightly colored parasols.

Moving painfully through the fashionable crowd the Senator squeezed past handsome women clad in sports clothing, and tweedy, heavily tanned men sporting alpine hats decorated with the feathers of a game bird, silver-mounted brushes of badger fur or tiny medals celebrating the hunt, and was suddenly aware of the fresh scents the women wore, the fine, smooth texture of their complexions. Then he had pressed to the front of the crowd and found himself leaning against a low barrier that fenced off the broad semicircle of a grassy shooting ring.

To his right, just inside the barrier a group of men with guns cradled in the crooks of their arms were looking out to the center of the ring where three workmen knelt in the grass working over a device attached to a length of rubber hosing. The hosing ran back to a truck parked at the rear where it was attached to the storage tank of a mobile air compressor. Other workmen, wearing black berets and blue coveralls, were standing in groups of three at four stations arranged at equal distances across the ring, all marked, like that where the men were working, by stacks of bright yellow dovecotes. They too were looking toward the kneeling, frantically busy men; and back near the compressor truck the Senator could see dozens of dovecotes stacked high on a wagon before which a small, bony horse with docked tail, wearing a farmer’s straw hat in which holes had been cut for its twitching ears, dozed wearily between the shafts. Then, as though someone had pulled a switch, the Senator was aware of the throbbing sound made by the cooing of many birds. The dovecotes were crammed with pigeons and he could see the nervous motion of their beaked heads thrusting back and forth between the bars. The air throbbed with the sound of their cooing reminding him of a crowd of summer passengers looking out of the grill of a trolley car as they commented on something out in the passing scene.

And now as the annoyed voices of the spectators began drowning out the noise of the birds, he saw the men drawing erect and heard one of them call out to the men with guns:

“O.K., gentlemen, it’s now in working order.”

“And it’s damn well time,” a spectator called; then a bell sounded and the Senator could see a uniformed official wearing a green sun visor stepping across the springing turf and signaling to a marksman who took the firing line and the action was resumed.

Suddenly at the cry of “MARK!” the Senator heard a fierce sound like that of air bursting from a punctured tire and saw a surprised pigeon bouncing some twenty feet into the air above the trap, hanging there for an instant of flurried indecision then taking off on a swift, rising course to the right; and he could see the marksman now, taking his time, his feet precisely placed, swinging smoothly onto and past the rising bird, and at the sound of the shot the bird abruptly folding on its course and as a second shot exploded, bursting apart in the air.

“Onesie, twosie, it’s a doosie,” a supercilious voice called behind him, but before he could turn to see who it was, the cry of “MARK!” came again and he was watching a pigeon taking off to the left and halting suddenly as though struck by a baseball bat, its feathers flying, as yet another bird shot aloft on a screeching jet of air.

Having dropped his final bird, the smiling marksman stepped back with lowered gun waving as applause and shouts of “Bravo!” erupted from the spectators; and now, as another gunman took the firing line, the action accelerated, moving so swiftly that the Senator had an uneasy feeling that things were getting out of hand. A fateful accuracy marked the match, disturbing him profoundly as the gunners, coming and going in swift rotation, took continued advantage of second shots and made great slaughter on the grass.

Suddenly, as a huge marksman wearing baggy seersucker pants took the line, a small, stooped, stiff-necked man appeared smoking a long cigar. As he came prancing along just inside the ring and waving a sheaf of banknotes about, he yelled, “Heads, gentlemen! I’m taking bets on heads alone!”

Heads, the Senator thought, what does he mean …?

“What! Are you kidding?” another man called.

“Not kidding, sir,” the little man said. “I’m betting a thousand that he leads the next bird so precisely that the pattern alone will take off the head and leave the body untouched.”

“You’re nuts and you’re covered,” the second man called; and now as the next pigeon sprang free the Senator watched the huge marksman wave his gun about like a weighted pool cue, wait until the bird had leveled, then cut loose shooting from the hip. And now he could see something fly away from the bird to sail across the ring as its body continued a few feet in headless flight and then collapsed.

There was wild applause and the Senator watched the little man laughing and dancing a jig step as he waved a fistful of money and yelled:

“Heads today and tails tomorrow! Heads! Heads! Heads! Who’ll bet three grand that he touched nairy a tail feather, a breast feather, nor nairy a feather in either wing? Speak up!”

“What’s the bet?” someone called from the rear.

“No breast! No tail! No wing! And ding-a-ding-ding at three thousand bucks a number seven shot,” the little man called.

“Covered!” the voice called, and as the Senator watched the little man scampering around the ring to where an attendant was picking up the headless bird the betting became furious.

Returning with the bird now plucked of its feathers, the little man displayed it proudly, pointing to the unblemished state of its skin and collecting his bets with an air of fierce satisfaction.

“How about you, sir,” he called to the Senator, his teeth clamped fiercely upon his long cigar, “you look like a man of quality, a betting man. Clarence has one bird left in the set and I’ll bet you ten thousand that he’ll turn him over easy, or turn him over slow. He’ll hit him high, he’ll hit him low—tip, tail, wing or duster—as you please, sir. Just say the word.”

“No,” the Senator said, “not today or ever.”

The little man laughed, revealing a set of wolfish teeth. “Smoked you out, didn’t I,” he said. “Four little children and a very nowhere wife, is that it?”

But when the Senator started to answer he moved quickly back into the crowd—which was stirring about and roaring so loudly that the Senator quickly lost sight of him.

Out in the ring now the traps were being sprung in no discernible order and the firing becoming so rapid that windrows of ejected cartridge hulls were piling up near the firing line. Rings of sweat showed at the armpits of the gunners’ jackets and the Senator could see waves of heat dancing along the vented gun barrels. Things were getting so much out of hand that he felt that the officials should do something to restore order, or at least slow the pace, but none were to be seen. And as fast as one stack of dovecotes was emptied of birds the handlers rushed replacements to the traps.

The Senator’s head felt light now, his nose stinging from the acrid gun smoke and he looked skyward with a feeling that the sun had halted just above his head. I must get out of here, he thought, but when he tried to leave the howling spectators pressed in upon him so tightly that he was unable to move.

Turning his back to the ring, he tried to break free to the rear, to make for the shade of the terrace. But now a woman whose luxuriant auburn hair showed beneath a white leghorn hat with aqua ribbon, pressed so closely against him that he could see beads of moisture standing out on the flesh beneath her deep blue eyes. The woman was smiling mysteriously into his face and he could see deep wrinkles breaking through her masklike makeup, revealing a far darker complexion underneath. Then the woman was saying something which he could not understand and as he bent closer to hear he was struck by a blast of disinfectant which was so repulsive that he turned quickly around and backed against the barrier. It’s Lysol, he thought, it’s Lysol!

Far to the rear of the crowd now he could hear a husky voice keeping score of the kills while a woman’s voice repeated the count in a shrill Spanish accent, lisping her words and shouting, “Olé! Olé!” as the firing accelerated in pace.

Closing his eyes against the blazing scene, the Senator plunged the tips of his fingers into his ears, trying to escape the noise. His leg had begun to pain again and he remembered the refreshment that he’d seen the waiters serving back on the terrace. He longed for a cold slice of melon, an iced drink, a bit of quiet. But now an explosion of shouting caused him to open his eyes to a crowd that was leaning over the barrier and shaking its fists in anger. Things had come to a halt; the guns were silent and no birds flying. At first he thought the object of the spectators’ disapproval was an official’s ruling, or some act of unsportsmanlike conduct by a contestant, and discovered instead that the anger was caused by a single slate-gray pigeon.

Out near the rear of the ring the bird was moving over the grass with the grave, pigeon-toed dignity of a miniature bishop, its head bobbing from side to side as it ignored the shouting crowd.

Close by, a man cupped his hands to his mouth, screaming, “Flush, you fink! Use your wings!”

“You’re wasting your time with that one,” another man called. “Where’s the official? Get him over here! Does he consider that a sporting bird? Who the hell bred the characterless fowl? I say who?”

“Now wait,” the sun-visored official called from within the ring. “These birds are the very best. Bred for the ring, for hand-launching and for the trap!”

“Then make him fly, dammit; make him fly!”

“It’s sportsman’s luck,” the man in the visor called. “Some fly, some fail.

We put enough air under these birds to launch a rocket, so if one doesn’t fly it’s just too bad. The gunner simply calls for another bird.”

“But I want this one,” the gunner called, “he owes me a chance!”

“He’s right,” a small blond woman called, “make the buzzard fly! Up in the air … you … you pretentious pouter. We didn’t come here to see you strut or take a dive. Play the game, you’re stalling the match!”

But the pigeon continued walking.

Behind the Senator the auburn-haired woman was in tears.

“It’s a crime,” she called past his ear, “it’s a disgrace. It’s impotence, it’s perversity, a politics of evasion and calculated defiance….”

Bewildered by her analysis, the Senator watched a soft-drink bottle land and scud across the grass, just missing, and the pigeon turning aside but still refusing to fly. And now a man with leather patches on the elbows of his fawn-colored jacket aimed an empty cartridge hull at the bird, cursing when it fell far short of the mark.

“Up, sir,” he called, “into the air!”

A tall man with the blue eyes and blond hair of a Viking stepped over the barrier and snatched off his yachtsman’s cap, rumpling it in his hands as he addressed the crowd in a cavernous voice:

“It’s against the rules,” he cried passionately, “the bird should fly! Damn his wings, it’s his profession, his identifying characteristic. The other two birds in the set took off, so why should he be a dirty third? If he continues this outrageous conduct I say let the officials give the gunner permission to lower his sights and blast the craven-souled varmit off the face of the earth!”

And before the Viking could continue a short-armed fat man whose eyes burned angrily behind yellow shooting lenses bounced into the ring carrying a gun with an exceptional length of barrel and, with cheek pressed tightly against the stock, got off a shot.

The report was like that of a small cannon and the Senator could see grass and bits of earth fly into the air as the blast lifted the pigeon a foot above the ring. But instead of taking wing, the bird landed on its feet and continued forward, limping now and with a small spot of blood showing on its breast.

For a moment the crowd was silent, gazing out across the ring in amazement; then the Senator’s ears were blasted by a howl of rage.

Out in the ring the fat man was in tears.

“Now I get it!” he cried. “Listen to me. We’ve been betrayed! Some anarchist has slipped a cynical gutter rat of a New York pigeon into our dovecotes. That’s what has happened. A guttersnipe!”

“A New York pigeon?” someone called. “What do you mean? Tell us!”

“Hell, it’s sabotage,” the fat man said. “New York pigeons are simply awful! They walk along the subway tracks, hitchhiking on freight trains! They fornicate on the hoods of moving cars and in the air. It’s treason!”

Whereupon he snatched off a shoe and sent it arching over the ring where it missed the pigeon and struck a blue-clad handler, who now stood glaring at the crowd.

“Now you watch it, Mac,” the handler called. “Respect the working man!”

“Respect?” the fat man called. “You don’t need respect, you get paid. And if you were earning your pay you’d give that stupid bird a goose so the match could continue. Instead, you make us speeches about the rights of labor!”

The fat man was speechless, his face red with anger, but as he started out toward the handler a tall distinguished-looking man in a white deerstalker hat grabbed him and pushed him back. Then, raising his arms for quiet, the tall man called out, “My advice is to have the handlers wring the bird’s neck and end this impasse! Anyway we look at it, a bird such as that is a disgrace. It’s a disgrace to the breed and to the sport. It’s a bloody spoilsport, a cringing dog-in-the-manger! A malicious nigger in the woodpile! A vengeful ghost at the wedding! In other words, it makes everything go bad. So I say, let’s wring its neck and immediately after the shoot I shall call a meeting of the governing board to see to it that in the future all such birds are blackballed….”

“There’s no need to wait,” the fat man said, slamming a shell into his weapon. “I’m taking no more crap from this walking …” But just as he raised his gun to fire a woman ran forward and knocked him off balance, causing the gun to discharge into the air and sending the fat man back with a bump upon the grass where he sat cursing the woman.

Watching the pigeon’s progress, the Senator felt that he was suffocating. He felt responsible for the pigeon’s life but was unable to do a thing about it. Flashes of blue-green appeared above the ring now as the crowd began lobbing Coca-Cola bottles at the bird; but still the pigeon refused to flush, and its orange-ringed eyes seemed to look straight at the Senator as skirting both the bottles and the bodies of its fallen fellows it continued with calmly bobbing head toward the barrier. He watched the iridescent play of the light upon its gorget and the slow pulsing of blood from its breast with painful feelings of identification which were interrupted by a sudden silence: The bird had stopped its stroll and was extending its wings.

“Now! At last,” the Viking called, “he’s found his courage! He’s about to take off, so careful, Mr. Marksman, careful!”

Thinking, Oh, no! Not after resisting this far, the Senator strained forward, seeing the pigeon’s head come around and the remoteness of its orange-ringed eye as the bird plucked a single feather from its breast and released it with a sharp snap of its head. Then with a series of short, hedge-hopping spurts it covered the remaining distance to the barrier, where it paused, calmly preening itself for a moment, then turning its back to the crowd it dived with set wings below the cliff.

As the bird dropped from sight the Senator seemed to fall within himself and as he struggled to keep his feet he was aware of a sudden darkening of the sun and looked up to see, at the point where the pigeon had disappeared, a huge hatch of flies boiling up from the river and swarming above the ring, where once again the birds were flighting before the guns.

Perhaps for you there’s safety in darkness, the Senator thought. Perhaps a few will have a chance….

But already the flies were thinning out, swarming veillike in broader circles, and as they boiled above the ring he heard an explosion of shrill cries and watched the arrival of a virtual aerial circus of small, sharp-winged birds.

Pouring down as from a net released high in the sky, a flock of swallows began swooping and wheeling between the booming patterns of the guns as they attacked the flies, bringing the air alive with graceful motion. Plunging and climbing, banking and whirling, skimming and gliding, the hunting birds filled the air with high-pitched, derisive cries as they executed power dives and Immelmanns, sideslips and barrel rolls, and dazzled the Senator with the cool, audacious miracle of their flight. Not a single swallow was struck by the flying shot and as they swirled above the ring it came to him that the swallows were contemptuous of both the pigeons and the guns, and there, braced between the auburn-haired woman and a man in a wide planter’s hat, and feeling the dank, steaming wetness of their bodies against him, he watched the swallows swoop and soar in grace, moving invulnerable among the doomed and falling rock doves….

Suddenly released and moving through the crowd, the Senator had started along the walk leading back to the clubhouse when suddenly something landed a sharp, stabbing blow to his right heel and he whirled to see a small handsome child who looked up at him out of a pair of intense, black, long-lashed eyes.

Why, I’ll be damned, the Senator thought, it’s a boy! A fine, grand rascal of a little boy!

The little boy, whose hair was cut in a Buster Brown bob, was dressed incongruously in red satin pantaloons and white satin blouse such as were worn by a child in a painting by Goya, a copy of which the Senator had seen long ago in a museum. Even his pompom-topped white satin slippers were from another time, and behind him, attached to a silken cord which the boy held in a chubby fist, there stood a stuffed goldfinch mounted on a small gilded platform equipped with wheels.

He’s been gotten up for either a wedding or a masquerade, but in either case he’ll steal the show. Dressed to kill, that’s the word, the Senator thought, resisting an impulse to sweep the child into his arms as he smiled down, saying,

“Why, hello there! Don’t I know you from somewhere? You look awfully familiar….”

But instead of answering, the little boy darted around him, the goldfinch clattering on the walk as the Senator turned to see the child standing in the middle of the path confronting him with an expression of hostility which distorted his tiny face.

“My, but you’re fast,” the Senator said. “What’s your name? Mine’s Adam Sunraider….”

Silently the little boy stuck out a small blue tongue, making an angry face, then with his fingers rigidly extended he thumbed his nose.

The Senator laughed, thinking, My, but he’s aggressive. Probably a dissatisfied constituent … And yet he had a nagging impression that he knew the child, had seen him before even though he could think of no one with a child so young.

“Look,” he said, leaning forward, “I don’t know what you’ve got against me but I’d like to befriends with such a fine young fellow as you. Shall we shake hands?”

His head shaking violently, the boy’s hands flew behind his back as he stared up at the Senator out of hot black eyes.

“Very well,” the Senator said, “people who can’t talk probably can’t know very much. I’ll bet you can’t even say your father and mother’s name….”

The boy grinned, his face transformed into that of a malicious adult as he retreated a step and spat at the Senator’s feet, and in a flash his tiny hands were at his head, fluttering like the wings of a hummingbird as he stuck out his tiny blue-coated tongue and thumbed his ears.

Thinking, How on earth could he have become so ill-mannered so young?, the Senator chuckled at the incongruity between the child’s size and his aggressiveness.

“Young man,” the Senator began, “I have an idea you’re lost. Maybe you’d better try to take me to where you last saw your mother—” and broke off, taken aback as the child went suddenly into a frenzy of action.

Turning his back and jackknifing forward, the boy was looking up from between his short legs and making a horrible face as he patted his backside and made nasty sounds with his vibrating lips. Then straightening, he raised his leg like a dog and with a grave expression on his face he thumbed the seat of his red satin pants.

“Hey!” the Senator cried, “that’s enough of that! Cut it out! What do you think you’re doing?”

But instead of answering, the boy began to run in circles before him, moving like a demented toy and stopping every few feet to repeat his insulting gestures. Profoundly disturbed and depressed, the Senator looked beyond the child into the crowd, hoping to see a frantic mother emerging to find the boy. A bird was rising above the crowd and all backs were turned, watching the marksman and the flighting target.

This is awful, the Senator thought, this one certainly needs attention. How did he ever get this way so soon? Probably doesn’t even know his alphabet, yet he’s already expert in the manual-of-arms of vulgar put-down! His leg was paining again and now as he started around the boy, he saw the child sneering malevolently as he leaned back and pushed out his little satin-clad stomach and began vigorously to thumb the fly of his red satin pantaloons.

It was too much for the Senator but as he reached out the boy leaped backwards, running and making a turn which caused the stuffed bird to disintegrate in an explosion of flying head and whirling feathers as it struck the walk and lay vibrating there as the boy shot silently into the crowd.

For a moment the Senator stood looking blankly at the shattered goldfinch in his path, thinking, He’ll be furious, absolutely furious; and his mother will probably blame me, and her with a boy running wild while she devotes herself to shooting matches.… It’s a crime.… And the Senator moved away.

There was a faint odor of smoke around him now and as the Senator came out upon the steps leading from the building his senses were assaulted by the hushed humid heaviness of the late afternoon air. And then, as at a signal, a silence seemed to move before him and grow like a rolling crescendo of suddenly inverted sound. Sometime earlier a shower had left the atmosphere unbearably hot and although the sky had begun to clear he could see drops of moisture still clinging to the leaves of the trees and the walks glistened with the rain.

Surprisingly, the traffic had disappeared and as far as his eyes could see the traffic signals were blobs of red, shimmering against the moist mistiness of the fading light. Then a movement down at the intersection of the street and the avenue caught his attention and he saw a bent little black-skinned woman moving toward him.

Wearing a blue bandanna head rag and a faded yellow apron over a red housedress, she made her way along in a pair of black high-topped old lady’s shoes which seemed, suddenly, to expand about her ankles and begin creeping up her legs: expanding and contracting violently as they climbed. It was as though they were intent upon engorging her within the bunion-distorted maws of their interiors. Yet she continued painfully forward and as she moved closer the Senator could hear the rhythmical beating of a clanking sound—But then she was no longer there but transported across the avenue where, standing before a building which showed dark against the eerie light of the fading sun, she called out in a senile quaver, “Hey! Heah Ah is, over heah!” and threatened him with an old-fashioned washing stick that she shook with awkward vigor.

“Oh, Ah knows you,” she called. “You old jacklegged, knock-kneed, bow-legged, box-ankled, pigeon-toed, slack-asted piece of peckerwood trash gone to doo-doo! Ah knows you, yas Ah do! Yo’ mammy was yo’ sister and yo’ grandmaw too! Yo’ uncle was yo’ daddy and yo’ brother’s cousin! You a coward and a thief and a snake in the grass! You do the dirty bo-bo and you eats bad meat! Oh Ah knows you, yas Ah does, and I means to git you! I means to tell everybody who you is and put yo’ nasty business in these white folks’ street….”

What on earth is this, the Senator thought; who is this senile old mammy-auntie and what’s she doing up here on the Hill? Where did she come from?

“Ah’ll tell you what you is,” the old woman called. “You ain’t nothing, that’s what you is! You is simply nothing done gone to waste, and if somebody was to plant you in a hill with a rotten piece offish you wouldn’t even raise a measly bush of beans! You think you so high and mighty but you ain’t doodly-squat! You ain’t no eagle, fox or bear! You ain’t a rabbit or a skunk or a wheel-in-a-wheel! You ain’t nothing—neither a mourning dove or a lily of the field! You ain’t a bolt or a nut or a crupper strap. Ah even knows pimps and creepers who’re better’n you….”

Very well, the Senator thought, but you’ll have to admit that if I’m not all that you say I’m at least a walking personification of the negative….

“Shet up! Shet up! You nothing!” the old woman screamed. “SHET UP! Or Ah’ll tell you who you really is!”

Shaking his head, the Senator turned away, amused but filled with a strange foreboding. Never mind, he thought, I know who I am, and for the time being at least, I am a senator.

But now for some reason he recalled a church service of a summer’s evening long past, during which in rapid succession a gust of wind had torn a part of the roof away and a stroke of lightning had plunged the church into darkness. The choir had faltered in its singing and women had begun screaming—when in the noisy confusion and whirling about Hickman had stamped three times upon the pulpit’s hollow floor, shouting, “Sing! Sing!,” startling them and triggering some of the singers into an outburst of ragged, incoherent sound. Frightened by the storm, he himself had been crying, but as the old church creaked and groaned beneath the lashing of wind and rain and the screaming continued, the foot-pounded rhythm had come again, this time accompanied by Hickman’s lining-out of a snatch of a spiritual in hoarse, authoritative recitative. And suddenly the singers were calmed and the screamers were silenced and a disciplined quietness had spread beneath the howling of the storm. Then through a flash of lightning he had seen the singers straining towards Hickman who, with voice raised in melody, was stomping out the rhythm on the floor. And as the singers followed his lead and were joined by the nervous choiring of the congregation, he had heard the blended voices rise up infirm array against the thunder. Up, up the voices had climbed until, surrendering themselves to the old familiar words, they were giving forth so vigorously that before his astonished eyes the pitch-black interior of the church had seemed to brighten and come aglow with a joyful and unearthly radiance generated by the mighty outpouring of passionate song.

A comfort, the Senator thought.

And moving down the steps and into the familiar scene of the street he felt the images of this long-forgotten incident imposing themselves upon the scene, distorting his vision with teasing fragments of memory long rejected. And now he stumbled along the stone walk with inward-searching eyes, expecting the abrupt tolling of bells, a clash of lightning, a choir of girlish voices lifted in vesperal song….

Across the way the old woman continued to rail, but now he was listening for the baritone timbre and voicelike phrasing of a muted trombone which would proclaim with broadly reverent mockery the lyrics of some ancient hymn; and looking back to the building entrance, he expected to see a crowd rush forth to shout down denunciations upon him, to shower him with stones.… But, like the street, the entrance was empty and the door now closed mysteriously upon the brooding quiet….

Soon, the Senator thought, it will come. They’re beginning to stir, so, as the old trainer said, watch their hands. And as old fighters, he warned, watch hands, feet and head. Yes, they’re moving out into the open and things are beginning to heave and the backwash is beginning. But Hickman here? Unlikely—though who knows who it was who came? Nine owls have squawked out the rules and the hawks will talk, so soon they’ll come marching out of the woodpile and the woodwork—sorehead, sorefoot, right up close, one-butt-shuffling into history but demanding praise and kind treatment for deeds undone, for lessons unlearned. But studying war once more …

Reaching the curb now, the Senator prepared to cross the boulevard when, sensing a rush of movement from his left, he spun instinctively and saw the car.

Long, black and underslung, it seemed to straighten the curving course of the street with the force of its momentum, bearing down upon him so relentlessly that his nerves screamed with tension as his entire body prepared itself for a supreme effort. An effort which, even as his muscles responded to the danger, was already anticipating itself in his reeling mind, projecting a long, curving, backward leaping motion through which his eyes were now recording in vivid detail of stone-steel-asphalt-chrome, damp leaves and whirling architectural stone as he saw himself sailing backwards and yet he was watching, still on his feet, the car approaching with such deliberate speed that now its fenders appeared to rise and fall with the heavy labored motion of some great bird flying and the heaving of its black metallic sides like that of the barrel of a great bull charging. And now two gleaming, long-belled heralds’ trumpets which lay along the enginehood ripped the air with a blast of defiant sound and he saw a pair of red-tipped bullhorns appear atop the radiator, knifing toward him—while an American flag, which snapped and rippled like a regimental pinion brought to aggressive life by a headlong cavalry charge, streamed fiercely above….

Only now did his body catch up with his mind, beginning its backward-sailing fling as the car, almost upon him now, veered suddenly and stopped with a night-piercing screaming of brakes. He was on his back then feeling the pain of the impact exploding in his elbows and spine and in the endless, heart-pounding, head-jolting instant the car seemed to leave the roadway and hover above the curb, hanging there like a giant insect; and inside its wide front seat were three men.

Dark-skinned and broad of face behind the murky window, they peered down at him through dark glasses topped by the narrow brims of high-crowned, shaggy-napped white hats, watching him with intense concentration as their mouths stretched wide in expressions of fierce, derisible gaiety. Whereupon the driver reached for a microphone and looking around his companions addressed him through the herald trumpets which lay along either side of the rakish hood.

“Next time you better swing your booty faster, boy,” the voice said, “or by God we go’ lo’ mo’ kick your nasty ass!”

Watching them, the Senator was speechless.

“Don’t be laying there looking at us,” the voice said. “You heard me correctly; we’ll blast you and do everybody some service!”

The Senator started up, trying to answer, but now there came a jetlike blast, and seeing the machine leaping into furious motion he rolled, turning completely over as he tried to escape its path—But instead of crushing him, the machine was braking and surging backwards with a blast of red and white light erupting from its rear. And then thundering with a rapid shifting and reshifting of gears it left the street once more and hung above him like a hovercraft, the black passengers looking down upon him with grim satisfaction, awaiting his next move….

“Hey, Mister Motharider,” the voice called down to him, “how’s this for a goongauge?”

“Hey, Shep,” the man in the middle said, “don’t ask he not’ing! Let’s show Charley how de car can curb. I don’t tink he believes you cawn drive dis bloody t’ing.”

“No, I don’t believe he does,” the driver said. “O.K., Charley boy, watch me snatch the butter from the duck!”

Staring into the grinning faces, the Senator scrambled to his knees, thinking, Who are they? as the machine shot away and shattered the quiet of the street with the flatulent blasts from its dual exhaust. He watched it lunging up the boulevard at a forward slant, seeming to flatten out and become more unreal the farther it receded into the distance. Techniques of intimidation, that’s what they’re using, the Senator thought. They were waiting for me; they were watching the building for the moment I started across the street so they could intimidate me. So they’ll be back and I’d better leave….

And even as he watched the car floating away he was aware that somehow it was beginning to flow backwards upon its own movement, dividing itself and becoming simultaneously both there in the distance and here before him, where now it throbbed and puttered, a miragelike image of black metal agleam with chrome, and there up the boulevard, where it was resonating street and buildings with the thunder of its power. And it came to the Senator that he was watching no ordinary automobile. This was no Cadillac, no Lincoln, Oldsmobile or Buick—nor any other known make of machine; it was an arbitrary assemblage of chassis, wheels, engine, hood, horns, none of which had ever been part of a single car! It was a junkyard sculpture mechanized! An improvisation, a bastard creation of black bastards—and yet, it was no ordinary hot rod. It was an improvisation of vast arrogance and subversive and malicious defiance which they had designed to outrage and destroy everything in its path, a rolling time bomb launched in the streets….

And now the image of the machine gleamed and quivered and throbbed before him, glowing with flames of luminous red that had been painted along the sides of the threatening, shark-finned fenders which guarded its licenseless rear. Two slender radio antennae affixed to either side of the trunk lazily whipped the air, one flying an enormous and luxuriantly rippling coon’s tail and the other displaying in miniature the stars and bars of the Confederacy while across the broad expanse of its trunk he saw the enormous image of an open switchblade knife bearing the words:

They have constructed it themselves, the Senator’s mind went on, brought the parts together and gathered in conspiratorial secret like a group of guerrillas assembling the smuggled parts of a machine gun!—And they’ve made the damn thing run! No single major part goes normally with the rest, yet even in their violation of the rigidities of mechanical tolerances and in their defiance of the laws of physics, property rights, patents—everything—they’ve forced part after part to mesh and made it run! It’s a mammy-made, junkyard construction and yet those clowns have made it work, it runs!…

And now the machine roared back, braking with a violent, stiffly sprung rocking of body and a skidding of tires, and again the men were looking out of the open window.

“Listen, Sunrobber,” the nearest called, “what the hell was that you just said about our little heap?”

“Hell, mahn,” the middle man said, “don’t ask he no’ting! I done tole you the bahstard has low-rated our little load! The mahn done low-rated our pride and joy, so don’t ask the bahstard not’ing, just show he whadt de joecah kin do!

“And remembah us mah-toe, mahn:

“Then, mahn, I say, KICK HIM ASS!”

“Yeah, man; but not so fas’,” one of the others said. “Not before we give his butt a little ride …”

A blast of heat struck him then, followed by the opening of the door. And as a dark hand reached down, he seemed to hear the sound of Hickman’s consoling voice, calling from somewhere above.