John Sayles - A Moment in the Sun

“Saw a boy die in the ring one night,” says Doc. “Hit the floor just like you did. An insult to the cranium.”

“You’re an insult to the cranium, Doc,” says Rev Bowers. “Suds, lay one out for our scrapper here.”

“Don’t think I could handle any liquor now,” says Hod. “Feels like I ought to keep what wits I got left as clear as I can.”

More laughter then and Red Gibbs thumping him some more which makes Hod want to deck him and then Niles is on his feet with a toast.

“To Young McGinty,” he says. “As game a warrior as ever stopped a punch.”

They drink several more rounds then, laughing, Niles imitating the various suckers they have skinned that night, while Hod props his elbows on the bar and holds his head in his hands. He feels like he might vomit. It’s late, only Jeff Smith’s party still in the Nugget, the wood stove and the whiskey warming them.

“And the sheeny and his fat Paddy manager,” says Rev Bowers, cheeks glowing, “think they’ve made a killing, tickets paid back to Frisco, when the steamers are so afraid of Jeff it won’t cost him a penny.”

“We have an arrangement,” Jeff Smith corrects him. “An understanding between business parties. Fear has nothing to do with it.”

They are halfway to the door, leaving Hod alone on the stool, when he remembers and calls out.

“Mr. Smith?”

They all turn as if they’ve forgotten he is there.

“A hundred dollars?”

He sees Niles winking to Rev Bowers.

“In trade,” says Jeff Smith.

“Trade?”

Smith moves his eyes to Addie Lee, leaning in the doorway of her little crib, watching with no expression. “You’ll keep track, won’t you Sparrow?”

She shrugs and slips behind the hanging flag.

White folks’ hair is easy. Dorsey never stops wondering at the way it just grows out straight from their heads, offering itself up to be trimmed. And the shaving, for the ones like Judge Manigault who don’t keep a beard or moustache, you just pull the skin taut and slide with the blade. It never curls back into the pores to make a bump or get infected like his own. If only they would keep their mouths from moving while you try to work.

“Humiliation.” The Judge sits in Dorsey’s chair, lathered up next to Mr. Turpin who owns the pharmacy, who is getting his trim from Hoke. Old Colonel Waddell waits near the door, his face hidden behind the Messenger. “We have attempted to hold on to our heritage, to our custom of living,” says the Judge, “and we have failed. So now we must be humbled.”

“I don’t know, Judge,” says Mr. Turpin as Hoke clips out the hair in his ears. Hoke is a good boy, stay on his feet the whole day if needs be, only sometimes he forget and commence to hum while the gentlemen are still talking. “You scratch under the surface just a bit, you’ll find somebody making a profit on it. That’s what politics is all a bout .”

“Russell got sufficiently fat before he was governor. But this appointing of half our aldermen — unprecedented. Another chance to force us to eat crow. I believe the yankees are behind him.”

“But our own Supreme Court—”

“Failed in their duty to protect the citizens who maintain it.” The Judge is one of those who keeps his own shaving mug here at the shop, has a favorite razor. He won’t let Hoke shave him, good as the boy is. Dorsey, of course, is famous at the Orton, and hasn’t drawn blood since he was a novice.

“ Lex ita scripta est ,” mutters the Colonel, lowering his newspaper a bit. “That was their verdict.”

“ The law as it is written ,” the Judge scowls, “is not meant to serve scoundrels.”

Dorsey cuts the guests at the Orton Hotel — merchants from around the state, politicians, even Governor Russell once when he was still running a dairy across the river — but many of the finest white gentlemen who live in the city come to be trimmed here as well. The Judge is a daily customer, as is Mr. Turpin. Colonel Waddell wears a full gray mane of hair and beard, like he did before the Emancipation, when he was known as a real fire-breather. Looks just like the Jeff Davis statue they put up in Raleigh, and only wants a bit of neatening up once a week. He waxes the tips of his moustache at home.

“They’ve got the governor and they’ve got the numbers,” says Mr. Turpin. “The way they’ve got it fixed, it’ll take a revolution to push them out.” Mr. Turpin is thin on top, and Hoke is carefully spreading what’s left with his comb to cover the scalp.

“We must not bow to the tyranny of numbers,” says the Judge. “What if tomorrow the Sprunts decide to bring in five thousand Chinamen to bale their cotton? Should we be ruled then by Chinamen? I think not.”

Dorsey waits, razor in hand, for the Judge to stop moving his jaw.

“Humiliation, I tell you,” the Judge goes on. “Russell and his gang sold the farmers and the illiterate mountainfolk a bill of goods, they bought the colored vote with bribes and favors and white men’s positions, and now he means to rub our noses in his success. He means to ruin this city.”

Dorsey crosses to put a couple towels into the steamer. When the Judge gets going like this it’s best to wait him out. He’s been known to jump to his feet and pace, so you have to be careful with the cutting edges.

“The Redeemers have worked wonders in other states,” says Turpin, soothingly. “South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana—”

“Where they’ve looked the thing in the eye and dealt with it.”

“It could happen here, Judge. And very soon.” Hoke is whisking the back of the pharmacist’s neck. “Somebody’s just got to put the thing in motion.”

“We’ve got them on the police force now.” The Judge shakes his head violently, ignoring the lather on his face. Dorsey taps a couple drops of witch hazel into his palm, holds it under his nose. Mrs. Scott brews up a batch of it for him and he has Hoke pour it into the store-bought bottles when they get low. The Judge swivels his chair around to face Mr. Turpin, getting himself indignant. “Do you think they’ll arrest their own? Not on your life . And if they do, they’ve got the juries packed and the darky walks out free as daylight and twice as bold as he was before.”

It is the gentlemen’s right to choose their topic, of course, but Dorsey always prefers sport to politics. He’s one of the sponsors of the Mutuals, and can hold the floor on the relative merits of every ballplayer in New Hanover County, black and white. He can talk horses, he can talk Bible if there’s a man of God in the chair, he can even recite The Arrow and the Song if pressed into service. Politics, though, especially the Wilmington variety, make him sweat.

“Plato believed that men should be governed by philosopher kings,” Colonel Waddell observes. “I fear we have drifted away from that ideal.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” says the Judge, “that if it serves the interests of these Fusioneers or Repopulists or whatever they’re labeling themselves now, we’ll have women’s suffrage thrown into the mix.”

“Women, white women, have the sense to listen to their husbands’ counsel,” says Turpin. “Giving them the vote would be redundant.” There is still a separate entrance for ladies at the Orton. Dorsey cannot imagine them in politics — the harangues and heated confrontations, the spitting and swearing. Women are above all that, made to bind up what the men have broken.

The Judge snorts and lather flies. “Well I daresay they wouldn’t have given the city over to carpetbaggers and Hottentots.”

Mr. Turpin laughs. “That’s what the illustrious Mrs. Felton would have us believe.”