Evan Hunter: Sons

I dreamt that they watched me silently as I began to speak, their arms folded across their beaded chests, faces impassive, feathers rustling slightly in the wind. The sky behind them was blue, the platform rose from the center of a vast plain that stretched beyond me and the gathered Indians. My fine feathered friends, I said, I know that I am not one of your highly exalted paper tycoons whose every uttered syllable dears your normally clogged eustachian canals, I know in fact that my own beginnings were humble indeed, for where did I start if not with pulp, where I had to talk loud and talk fast to be heard over the pounding of the drum barker, where if not there? But listen to me, I dreamt I said.

Please, I dreamt I said.

Oh, I know that you have seen me standing here before you on many a previous occasion and perhaps you thought I was trying to sell you fraudulent medicine in glittering bottles, though I tell you now in all honesty my offers were sincerely made, and whatever small ills and tiny ailments I hoped to cure seemed terribly important to me. And should you now, my gathered tribal brothers, should you now fail to recognize the elixir because of what you once erroneously thought to be snake oil, well — the loss will be mine, of course; I am exposed alone to the angry wind here. But the loss will be even more seriously yours.

There was suddenly in my dream an enormous bonfire shooting sparks to the Chicago night, and more Indians dancing about it holding signs that read HARDING-COOLIDGE and chanting “We Want Harding, We Want Harding,” while white men stood beyond the circle of light proscribed by the flames and jeered and taunted, “Harding is a nigger, Harding is a nigger!” I held up my hands for silence while everywhere around us the white men passed their leaflets surreptitiously into the crowd, black type flaming against the orange and red of the fire:

When one citizen knows beyond the peradventure of doubt what concerns all other citizens but is not generally known, duty compels publication.

The father of Warren Gamaliel Harding is George Tryon Harding, second, now resident of Marion, Ohio, said to be seventy-six years of age, who practices medicine as a one-time student of the art in the office of Doctor McCuen, then resident in Blooming Grove, Morrow County, Ohio, and who has never been accepted by the people of Crawford, Morrow and Marion Counties as a white man.

“I ask you now,” a white man shouted, “is this the one you want in the White House, is this the one you would choose to lead this great nation to its proper destiny, is this the one you will vote for tonight against James M. Cox and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the men who deserve to become the President and Vice President respectively of this our bountiful land, and not a person whose colored ancestry can be traced back through four separate lines! Do we want, I ask you, this blackguard in the White House?”

I dreamt I fell to my knees and said, But you do not understand, surely you do not understand. I am no longer involved with Rosie Garrett, I saw her only a baker’s dozen times, it was the heat, I beg you to understand it was only the dire heat that drove us near to crazy with temptation and desire, it was only the heat that caused our fornication, copulation, then and but a dozen times more in the parlor of her flat, but that was all, I swear to you!

The Indian chants rose from around the lire, sparks fled upward into the night, “We Want Harding, We Want Harding,” and now there was a cross-chant from the white men, “Cox, Cox, Tyler is a Coxman! Cox, Cox, Tyler is a Coxman!”

Wait, I dreamt I begged them, wait, please listen to me, I am a veteran of the Great War, ask these noble savages if I did not personally know Geronimo and Cochise, ask them if I did not fight bravely and watch my comrades fall, ask them if I am not now incensed by these false charges against Mr. Harding and determined to vote for him despite this vicious slander, although I am only twenty years old, having been born on the first day of January in the year 1900, and will not be eligible to vote until two months from now — but I would if I could, I swear to you! Please understand, I know you will understand, I do not speak with a forked tongue, I am no longer forking Rosie, I swear that to you, Nancy, please don’t cry, I am no longer seeing her, it is over, it is done.

“It is over, it is done,” the Indians chanted.

The white men faded into the distance, scattering their leaflets behind them, tossing them into the fire, flames of blue and green changing the colors on the redskins’ faces. The Indians stared at me. Behind them, the sky turned a promising mauve. There was music now, somewhat celestial, harps and violins, a gentle wind sweeping from some secret plain.

We are on the threshold, I said, of greatness, the threshold of greatness. We can go either way, you or I, we can take this treasure that we hold here in our hands, my friends, we can take it and squander it, toss it into the fire there where it will burn like those leaflets bearing malicious slander, libel — is there a lawyer among you, my tribal brothers? Is it libel or slander? Which one is printed and which one spoken? No matter. I tell you now that we can take this gift magnanimously bestowed upon us by a generous Lord, yours or mine — what do you call Him, my friends? Is it The Great Spirit? That’s a good name for a righteous God. I have nothing against your God, I tell you we are all one and the same and we all have the duty to make sure we do not squander this heritage of ours, do not scatter it to the winds or toss it on the flames. Side by side we have hunted the buffalo and defended our homes against the invaders from over the mountains, planted our corn and — no, my friends, wait, don’t leave, make no mistake, I do not come to you in Indian guise now, I do not come to you in feathers and buckskin, face painted, it’s just me, just Bertram A. Tyler, your old song-and-dance man, don’t be afraid, don’t leave yet, please wait, please listen.

I think you know what I’m about to tell you. I have the feeling that we’ve shared this dream together, shared it often enough before, lived it together for a long long time, and that we are too wise now to— Damn you, I’m losing my patience!

Shall I talk to you like the ignorant savages you arc, shall I promise dire happenings, heap curses upon your feathered heads, the witch doctor warning of what may come if you do not purchase from me this colorless, tasteless, odorless liquid I’ve naively labeled — well now, where’s the label, must have come unglued. There is no name for it then, my friends, you’ll just have to trust me, I suppose. You’ll have to drain bottle after bottle of this stuff, pour gallons of it into your systems to rid your bodies of the sores and chancres, purge the liver and the bile, make yourselves pure again, for Christ knows, The Great Spirit knows, we are sullied and scorned, we are on the edge of an abyss so deep it might just as well be bottomless. Take it, my tribal brothers, pull the cork and drink deep draughts, it will not hurt you, it can only help. For if you ignore my warnings, here then are the things that will happen to us, to you and to all of us, if you do not hear, if you choose to remain deaf to the music coming from somewhere out there — is there a musician among you? Can anyone tell me what that lovely instrument is?

Though you are brave, you will tremble before ghosts.

Though you are free, you will remain as slaves to the past.

Though you are provident, you will shun visions of the future.

Though you are considerate, you will slaughter your leaders.

Though you are wise, you will engage in thoughtless battle.