John Sayles - A Moment in the Sun

Niles shakes his head, grinning. “No blood coming out of that stone.”

The bicycle shop has been doing well for him the last few years, word that he’s a wizard with a wheel spreading beyond the city, and he’s put quite a pile aside. But Niles — he’s seen Niles throw away a twenty-dollar double eagle on a single roll of the dice, throw away more in one sitting than the wheel shop takes in for a month.

“I could part with ten,” says Harry.

Niles makes a pained face.

Harry knows that there is no way to gauge what his own expenses will be if he really makes the break and goes up north, how long it might take to get himself situated. He tries to hold firm.

“Ten dollars,” he says, “if you promise to pay me back on the first.”

Mc Ginty he got roaring drunk

His eyes were bulging out

He jumped on the pianer

And loudly he did shout—

Niles has never paid him back a dime, not on any of the loans over the years, so it is as good as gone. The sky, he knows, is not the limit for Niles. His brother crosses his arms and stares darkly at the stage, sulking.

“Who put the overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s chowder?”

Nobody answered, so he shouted all the louder

“It’s an Oirish trick it’s true

And I’ll lick the Mick that threw

The overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s chowder!”

“Like our Board of Aldermen,” grumbles Niles, “but with more dignity.” Before he broke off with Mae, Niles had considered a career in politics.

“Most men step into public life from another profession,” the Judge observed when this design was revealed, “with allegiances and rivalries already forged in the world at large. Since you are as yet— in nocent of employment,” and here he raised his eyebrows the way he does when lecturing a convicted man from the bench, “you will be free to defraud the citizenry without encumbrance.”

The lights rise again on the minstrels.

“Brother Tambo!” calls the Interlocutor. “Explain to me why you were tardy for tonight’s presentation.”

“Well, suh,” explains the tambourine man, “I’s on my way here when I’s accosted by a whole mess a young boys.”

“Ruffians.”

“Little bitty ones. They was wearin sho’t pants.”

“You mean knickers?”

“Nawsuh, they was white boys.”

This one earns the biggest laugh of the night. Harry looks back up to the left rear balcony and they are laughing too, mostly sports out on the town for the night, a few with their hats still on their heads. He has been to tent shows where the numbers have been reversed, five colored to every white man, but those were with real colored on the stage. It was Niles who dragged him to his first nigger show at the Thalian, sneaking in late and staying in the back in hopes they would not be spotted and reported to the Judge. In the afterpiece one of the actors descended from the ceiling wearing angel wings and Harry had been more fascinated with that, with the mechanics of how it was done, than with any of the jokes or songs or travesties played out on the boards.

“Brother Tambo, how would you like to earn a dollar?”

The end man’s eyes bug out even more. “Is it ’lection day awready?”

Righteous applause from the fair-skinned patrons. The sports in Nigger Heaven are not amused.

There is furniture in the room Royal doesn’t have a name for. He has never been in a white man’s house, rich or poor, but his mother is in them now and then to take the laundry and he has read books. Is that a divan or a credenza? Or maybe a credenza is a kind of piano, like the one Jessie is resting her hand upon, smiling slightly, standing in her white dress like somebody is painting her portrait.

“We’ve been the first called, I believe,” says Junior, “because they think we’re immune.”

“Immune to what?”

Dr. Lunceford is the most intimidating man Royal has ever met, black or white, despite his soft tone and his manners. Sergeant Jacks with his forehead resting on your own, screaming instruction and insult, breath hot on your face, has got nothing compared to this man’s gaze. Why, exactly, are you in my house? it asks when he smiles and grips your hand. You don’t really belong here, do you? it suggests as he inquires about your training and destination.

“To tropical diseases,” says Junior.

“That’s nonsense.”

“A prejudice perhaps, but one that works in our favor. This is a grand opportunity. Fighting for the flag, shoulder to shoulder with our white brothers in arms, freeing the oppressed Cuban from his bondage—”

“You really think it will happen?”

“A foregone conclusion. The explosion in the harbor—”

Dr. Lunceford turns to Royal. “And what do you think?”

Royal is surprised by the sudden question. He glances to Junior, who smiles and nods to him to get on with it.

“I enlisted to follow the flag, sir.” He can’t quite see Jessie out of the corner of his eye. “If hostilities commence — China, Cuba, the red men straying from their agencies — we will do our duty.”

“People look up to the man in uniform,” says Junior. Junior has told him of the Doctor’s disapproval of his enlistment, shown him the letters full of underlined words. “If we are to take our rightful position in this nation, we must be ready to defend it.”

“As a private in the infantry.”

“You used to call it Mr. Lincoln’s Army.”

They are all still standing, all but Mrs. Lunceford, who sits in her chair by the silk-covered whatever it is called, a pleasant smile on her face.

“I think he looks splendid, Aaron,” she says. “We should be proud.”

“Mr. Lincoln,” the Doctor continues, seeming to ignore her, “gone these many years, turned to colored troops only as a desperate measure.”

Alma Moultrie steps in with a tray bearing wine and glasses, lays them on a small table that probably has a special name too.

“They both look splendid.”

Royal turns to smile at Mrs. Lunceford and sees that Jessie is looking at him, an unwavering gaze much like her father’s, but there is no challenge in it. Only what—? Admiration? He feels her in the room even when he can’t see her.

“We’re regulars, sir,” he says. “Professional soldiers. If war is declared, the volunteers, whoever they are, will have to wait their turn.”

“So you’re spoiling for a fight?” Again the gaze, challenging, unblinking. And what have you to do with my son’s reckless decision, young man?

“If a fight presents itself, we’ve been trained to handle it.”

The others, the veterans, give the rookies no end of razzing about how green they are, about their lack of experience, their lack of the true stuff, how they will turn tail and run at the first angry shot. Junior, immune to every hint that he should hide his breeding or at least not wave it around in public, is their special target. Royal hopes for a fight, if only to break up the boredom of drill and detail that makes up their days in the regiment.

“Put a little water in Jessie’s glass before you pour, Alma,” says Dr. Lun-ceford. “I suppose we have to drink a toast to these young fools.”

Junior is beaming. Royal can tell, no matter how stiff and strange these people are, that something has happened between his friend and Dr. Lunceford, an acceptance of some kind. There must be a word for it, a word that means only that thing that has happened and nothing else, but he doesn’t know what it is.

Niles remains tight and distant as the minstrels reappear and trade a few more jokes and then exit gaudily, cakewalking out to There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight. He holds the pose, never once laughing or commenting during the olios, not when the soubrette reappears in front of the curtain to sing On the Banks of the Wabash or the equilibrist and his lovely assistant Rose who tosses Indian clubs for him to juggle while rolling precariously along the edge of the orchestra pit atop a huge medicine ball or the tenor back with a beautiful rendition of Silver Hairs Among the Gold that has Harry teary-eyed again or even Gerta Wetzel the Human Pretzel and her grotesque bar act that has the audience wincing and turning their heads away at the most extreme of the contortions or the little fellow in leather breeches and campaign hat who is introduced as the Great Teethadore who Harry supposes is meant to be Roosevelt of New York. The little man’s routine, high-stepping in place and singing If Uncle Sam Goes Marching into Cuba , is the only one that doesn’t draw even polite applause, the local folks not sure if it is meant to be funny or patriotic. Niles is still stewing when Perfessor Scipio Africanus steps out for his lecture.