Jim Lewis - The King is Dead

He came home half skinned, with a nice medal to cover his rawness. His brother Donald was waiting for him in Louisville with a handshake and a proud smile, belied only by a little tightness around his eyes, where the war would not be forgotten. Everyone Walter met wanted to congratulate him, to call him, hire him; there were car horns blowing all over Louisville, and the lights burned in the house through the night. College went by quickly; he had a history professor who insisted he was made for public service and coaxed him into attending law school at Vanderbilt. Six years after peace had resumed, there were still people who remembered how well he’d done when war was at hand, and when he graduated he was asked to help out with a local campaign, a congressman whom no one believed stood a chance of reelection. And then, to everyone’s surprise, his candidate had won, and Walter felt a deeper and deepening satisfaction. After the War there would be no wars but that for the security and justness of Tennessee. He’d been offered a job in the Congressman’s office, but he declined: the Congressman himself was not inspiring, and his seat, in the lonely east, had no power to lend. What’s more, Walter liked the campaigning, the knowing, moving, and fixing. He was a young man with an authority that seemed inborn, thoughtful and stern, an educated man who nonetheless liked to get down on all fours and fight, a formidable man getting more formidable, a force to be feared or a comfort to those he cared for.

One winter afternoon, Walter received a call from a state senator in Nashville. He had heard a bit about the man: soft-spoken, frank, well trusted by his wan constituents, who had voted him into his father’s office a few years after his father had died, and kept him there for more than a decade. He was known to be thoughtful and thought to be fair; all his legislation had been sheer windmilling to the State’s higher machinery, but the people in the small towns, the failing farm communities and the middle poor, loved him for his promises and his undisguised contempt for the old men in the capital and Boss Crump’s machine in Memphis. He was more interesting than most, and Walter went to meet with him.

The senator had an elderly, tremulous factotum waiting in his anteroom who guided Walter into the office, disappeared, and returned a minute later with a tumbler full of Tennessee whiskey, a seltzer bottle, and a porcelain bowl filled with ice, which he set down on the table by Walter’s elbow. The Senator will be with you shortly, the factotum said, and took his leave again.

After a few minutes, the door opened and in came a small slight man with a great big round head, and hair and eyebrows so white he might have been an albino; but he was merely old, and stripped clean of color by the speed with which it happened. Walter stood; the senator shook his hand softly and motioned him to sit again, taking a winecolored leather chair himself and drawing in a long breath.

Walter Selby … said the senator, gazing at him frankly. You’re a big fellow, aren’t you? That’s good. I like that. He took a moment to look at the papers on his desk. Walter Selby: I’ve been hearing about you. Walter nodded, and then there was silence, but for the airs of the house around them. At length the senator spoke again. Do you know how far it is from Memphis to Sugar Creek? he said.

About five hundred miles.

Four hundred and seventy-five, said the senator. That’s a long way. A lot of highway. Our truckers are getting shaken down all along it. We have to do something about that. We’ve got to help the farms a little, as much as we can. We’ve got some classrooms with forty-five children in them, and others with just two or three. It doesn’t make any kind of sense. We’ve got utilities up in arms about the TVA, and people still don’t have power in some parts of the state. No power. No lights, no refrigeration, no radio to listen to after dinner. There are people who believe that the only solution to our problems is World Government.—The senator paused to taste the words.—World Government. Over there in Memphis there’s a group of businessmen, meet in secret every Thursday night at the Badger Room to discuss the establishment of a … World Government. There’s another group, meets in secret every Monday at noon in the back room of a luncheonette on Union Avenue, to discuss how to thwart the first.—The senator held his hands up in an attitude of prayer and pushed them against each other. You see? he said. Two opposite and equal forces. I’ve taken them both aside and told them how much I appreciate what they’re doing. Told them, I can’t come right out and endorse you, of course, but you have my tacit support and my gratitude. And they do. As long as they keep pushing against each other, they can’t push against anyone else.—Here the senator shook his head sadly. Sweet Jesus, the state’s crawling with lunatics. Half my job is keeping them howling at the moon, so they don’t start howling at me. I was talking to a doctor down at Vanderbilt the other day, man working on an immunization program. A good program, too, and I’m going to get behind him. Then I asked him: When are you boys going to come up with a vaccine for foolhardiness? That would solve about half our troubles right there.

Walter smiled slightly.

All right, said the senator. Let’s talk.—He leaned back in his chair, paused, and then leaned forward, until Walter could smell his clean breath and barbershop aftershave. I saw what you did in that campaign. I watched you pretty closely. You’ve got your war record but you’re not riding it all over the state. You’ve got family ties here from a long ways back. I know all about it, don’t you worry. Nothing to be ashamed of. There’s probably a little colored blood in all of us.

What? said Walter.

Old Lucy Cash, she did what any woman in her position would have done.

The name had come from so far back that Walter had to pause and think.

You didn’t know, did you? the senator said softly.

That’s my great-grandmother.

She was a colored woman from Chicago, said the senator. High yellow, a lovely girl. She wanted to pass, so she came down here.

Walter shook his head, looked down, and studied his blood—the same blood now, but it felt burnt. Where did you get this from? he said.

Well, you know, I looked into things, said the senator. I wanted to know who I was talking to. The important point is that it’s not important. Do you see?

Walter nodded and said, No. A pause. No, of course it’s not important. I bet half the people in Tennessee have some Negro blood in them somewhere.

That’s right, said the senator. That’s what I’m saying. But I don’t think people are quite ready to hear that yet. Not today, anyway. Maybe tomorrow.

Maybe, said Walter. Tomorrow. Is that why you and I are meeting?

Oh, that’s just a little part of it, said the other man. We have so much work to do, you and I.

I suppose maybe we do, said Walter.

I can tell you’re a virtuous man, and a practical man, and an eloquent man. You represent the future of Tennessee, and you carry it well. One of these days you’re going to be an important figure in this state, perhaps even the country as a whole.—The senator paused and gestured needlessly to the papers on his desk. I’ve been talking to the state party chair, going to dinners all through the wards. I have solid support. I’m going to run for governor, and I think I’m going to win. But I need you, Selby. I need you to go down to Memphis for me and watch what goes on. Keep an eye out, keep Crump’s men at bay. I need you to write some speeches for me, to get these people out to vote. So, said the senator, and he lifted his head and smiled. What can I give you to make you sign on?