John Sayles - A Moment in the Sun

Junior is smiling and shaking hands, modest but firm, grown up in so many ways so rapidly, and the Doctor has a sudden rush of hope that it might be here, Wilmington, that the tide is turned, here that a final, desperate battle against ignorance and disenfranchisement is fought and won. Such hopes had been pinned on young men before, Lowery and Eagles carried the burden in their own day, but look at him, Aaron Jr., handsome, educated, confident — and a war hero. Dr. Lunceford’s own father bore arms for the cause, and was wounded at New Market Heights, and now Junior—

“Got to be a proud day for you, Dr. Lunceford.” Dorsey Love, moving up behind him.

Dr. Lunceford nods. “A very proud day.”

“A credit to his race,” says the barber, smiling admiringly at Junior as he fends off compliments a few yards away. Dorsey cuts white people’s hair at the Orton Hotel, owns a shop on Brunswick where his employees serve negroes.

“I can only hope that the credit will be rendered.”

“Oh, they got to take note, Doctor, got to take note. That San Juan Hill—”

“Junior was at El Caney.”

“That too, that too. And how is your lovely wife?”

“Mrs. Lunceford is well. Extremely happy for a visit from her son, of course.”

“And little Miss Jessie?”

The barber always calls her “little Miss” to disguise his interest, but the Doctor is not fooled. Love is a decent sort, industrious, a man of property, but uneducated. He has no more chance of success than that Royal boy who always attaches himself to Junior in order to skulk around her.

“She has a recital coming up in November, after the election. And of course, she’ll be off to Fisk soon.”

If the mention of the University fazes Dorsey Love in any way he does not reveal it. He has a constant, bemused smile, perhaps a manner he’s adapted for his profession, as if life is a perpetual wonder.

“That’s a clever girl you got, Dr. Lunceford,” says the barber, shaking his head at the unique quality of the phenomenon. “Gonna make a prize for some lucky gentleman.”

Dr. Lunceford reminds himself to have a word with Junior about the Scott boy before he leaves tomorrow. The way he looks at Jessie — those people, well-meaning some of them but bone ignorant, living over in the Brooklyn section with their liquor and their crime and their disease. When the smallpox hit in January he was asked, with Dr. Mask, to administer the vaccination program. One would expect open arms, gratitude, at the least a grudging submission to the public good. But instead they were met with suspicion, with lies, with violence. After Dr. Mask’s carriage was despoiled and himself threatened by a drunkard wielding an ax, they petitioned to be relieved of the duty unless law officers were dispatched to accompany them. It was superstition, of course, distrust and fear of the unknown stirred up by those jealous folk practitioners, like Scott’s own mother Minerva, who persist in bilking their neighbors with roots and potions and Indian cures despite the legal prohibitions. Had she not accepted vaccination herself, and made no observable effort to dissuade others, he would have had her arrested.

Isham Joyner has the gavel by now, rapping the gathering to order.

“Gentlemen, if you’d please arrange yourselves!” Isham loves his voice like a preacher, and is always the one chosen to recite epic poems or quote Patrick Henry’s exhortations on Emancipation Day. The men still standing begin to find seats.

“Brothers of the canton, honored guests, this is not an official meeting of our Lodge, and we will dispense with the customary observances and invocations.” He is the Noble Grand Sire and a stickler for protocol, Isham, a stern master of rites when Degrees are awarded. Dr. Lunceford is a Patriarch himself, Treasurer of the Lodge, but is uncomfortable with the swordplay and passwords, the mysteries and symbols, the play-acting around Abram’s Tent and the Oak of Mamre. He would be content to “ visit the sick, relieve the distressed, bury the dead, and educate the orphan ” without any of the baroque ceremony, but perhaps his Brothers’ secret, allegorical selves are preferable to their everyday ones.

“We have gathered instead to honor and to listen to remarks from a young man who not long ago was my pupil—” Isham tutors Latin in the foyer of his undertaking business, “—but, as we will see, he has survived that ignoble apprenticeship to become a guiding star among our youth.”

Isham spotted Junior first when the young boy’s oration on Remembrance Day overshadowed his own. What to do with the competition but take some part in, and therefore some credit for, its development? Latin was a must for a medical career, of course, but Junior has always exhibited more interest in the Doctor’s political efforts than in his profession.

“To introduce this paragon, I cede the floor to one who took part in his development at a much earlier stage than I—” laughter here, “—Dr. Lunceford?”

Polite applause as he steps to the podium they’ve pulled out from behind the bar.

An excellent turnout, really, Fusionists, many of the more wary Repub-lican die-hards, men who voted but chose to leave their allegiances unspoken, even a few who owe fealty to the Old Fox Crowd, employees or functionaries of powerful white men or those, like Dorsey Love, who are under their constant scrutiny. In light of the racial enmity that has been so publicly encouraged in the state, all will need to pull together to survive this next election, and he hopes this common celebration, this moment of shared pride, will help drive that idea home.

“When Mr. DuBois,” he begins, knowing that the mention of that controversial gentleman’s name will assure their attention, “speaks, as he often does, of the ‘Talented Tenth’—and I would argue that we can boast of a much higher percentage than that — he is being both practical and political.”

He sees that Alex Manly is already scribbling. A word to him later about editorial restraint.

“It does not ordinarily, in this section of the country, behoove us to celebrate our gains too openly. However, the showing made by our colored regiments in the recent conflict—” and here there is more hearty applause, “—brings credit to all of us. I confess my particular pride in sheltering one of these fine young men under my roof. Gentlemen, I present to you — Aaron Lunceford Jr.”

Men stand on their feet when his son takes the podium. Dr. Lunceford has made many speeches, has won election to a post vital to the community’s welfare, has saved lives even, in his professional capacity, but men have never stood to applaud him. He could be the one, Junior, to build it on. An orator, a tactician, a man with the sound of cannons on his record. A black Bryan, perhaps, a stirrer of men’s souls.

Junior looks the gathering over slowly before speaking.

“We are honored tonight to have in our midst men who defended the Union, and I need not add, freed our people, bringing us honor as they fought beneath the flag in the desperate days of ’64,” says Junior, bowing to old John Eagles sitting ramrod straight in the first row. “I have had the honor of carrying that banner to a foreign shore to liberate its oppressed citizens, many of them of our own hue, and can only hope that our performance there is a worthy reflection on the glory of those illustrious patriots.”

A black Lincoln, thinks Dr. Lunceford, but a handsome one.

Later, Alma will decide that she was just too weary to oppose it. Her own clothes are hanging between lines of the Luncefords’ sheets, Mrs. L never objecting as long as she keeps them hidden from the neighbors, and dry by the time Jessie reveals her plan. Or is it pure treachery? They pay her a bit more and treat her at least as well as any of the white folks she has worked for, but there is something about Doctor’s tone with her, about the way Mrs. L always says “a young lady of her standing” when she’s talking about Jessie. White folks don’t know any better, plus they’re white and don’t need to do anything to be sure nobody mistakes them for the help.