John Sayles - A Moment in the Sun

Milsap hesitates for a scant second — Mr. Clawson prefers not to separate black and brute on a line break — he adds burly and it squares off nicely. Milsap is hammering out slugs faster than little Davey, his printer’s devil, can supply him, but as he moves down the column the feeling begins to creep on him. It is upsetting, naturally, what has been going on throughout the state this fall, every day another story or two he types in, not to mention what he reads in the Raleigh papers Mr. Clawson lays out in the lunchroom. It is enough to make a white man pick up a gun. But this is different, it’s not anger — it’s that other strange sensation, that feeling where you’re sure you’ve seen it before, read it before, even if it is plain you could not have—

What tips it is that nameless crime is naked, unsheathed of its inverted commas, which Mr. Clawson believes add impact to the phrase without offending delicate sensibilities. The upstate papers, the Caucasian and the News and Observer , leave them off, though, just like they prefer to throw exclamation points on their scareheads, which Mr. Clawson considers vulgar and unnecessary.

None of the other compositors actually read the copy, allowing some very sloppy errors into print. But Milsap has the gift, has had it since he was a boy and could read the McGuffey’s across the room and upside-down, the gift of seeing and understanding a whole block of story at the same time instead of plodding through it word by word. Mr. Clawson says he ought to be an attraction for P. T. Barnum, only Barnum couldn’t pay him enough to give up Milsap. There were other boys growing up who called him freak, and his mother once had Reverend Calhoun from the Pentecostal cast devils out of him, but here, tucked into the metal racket of production, he is indispensible. “Drew practically resides here,” Mr. Clawson is fond of saying. “I’m only a daily visitor.”

Milsap finishes the page and stands slowly. Sometimes he is at the machine for so many hours without a break that the blood rushes from his head when he gets up. Once he even fell over.

Davey looks puzzled to see him step away before the paper is all set.

“I’ll be right back,” he says, and heads for Mr. Clawson’s office.

He passes Stokely Burns, preparing the line block for a cartoon for the editorial page, the negative photograph of the drawing clipped up on his lamp shade. Milsap likes to decipher the images from the negative—

“I see a lot of clear,” he says, pausing to cock his head and examine it.

The clear will become pure black when printed, and anything opaque will be white.

“If we keep running these nigger pictures,” Stokely says without taking the cigarette out of his mouth, “we gonna run out of ink.” Stokely’s greatest skill is burning a long ash on his cigarette but never dropping any onto the gel plate.

“He’s a big one.” Milsap can see it now, the negative reversing in his mind to show a huge black negro complete with plaid pants, vest and coat, bow tie, top hat, walking cane, sparkling diamond stickpin, lit cigar, spats and enormous black shoes, one of which is pressing on the splayed body of a tiny, underfed white man.

NEGRO DOMINATIONreads the caption beneath. HOW LONG WILL IT LAST?

“Is this ours?”

“The Journal sent it over. We run it tomorrow.” Without looking Stokely flicks an inch of cigarette ash into his wastebasket.

Mr. Clawson’s door is open and a poker game is in progress. There is Mr. Stedman and Mr. Parmelee who used to be the chief of police and Mr. Walker Taylor whose father was mayor once and is a colonel in the State Guard, sitting around the editor’s desk with cards in their hands, chewing over the important questions of the day. Milsap waits in the doorway, crossing his arms to hide his hands under his armpits. There are dozens of little burns from the hot lead on each, pocked up as bad as his face from the smallpox when he was eight, and away from the machine they draw attention. Mr. Clawson is studying his cards and doesn’t see him right off.

“Most of em, whether they admit it or not, would be pretty damn happy if we just stepped in and took over the whole shebang.”

“The people are crying out for Christian guidance, for responsible hands at the tiller — gimme two—”

This is the quietest part of the floor, but living in the machinery has taken away Milsap’s hearing and he has to strain to make out what they’re saying.

“A few of the you-know-whos might put up a fight. The ones that got big ideas in their heads. But push come to shove, I don’t think they’ll find a whole lot of support, not even from their own people — drawing one—”

“There’s a financial side to all of this, of course. A nickel.”

“Of course—”

“See you. No way we can hold our heads up out in the world if we just let nature take its course. We’ve got to be firm .”

The sudden wave of rape and terror in the state has pushed the Cuban situation off the front pages, but Milsap has been following that story, too, reading everything he can find in Wilmington. Victory, if the enemy is engaged, is less of a question than the fate of the natives once they are liberated.

“I’ll fold. The thing is, some people can deal with free will and some can’t. Poor witless bastards don’t know if they’re coming or going. I think it’s nothing short of our Christian duty to take over the reins.”

“The timing will be tricky, of course. Some people will need to be brought along.”

“The first thing I think we need to do,” says Milsap, forgetting that he has not been invited into the conversation, “is to get this Teller Amendment repealed.”

The men look up at him through the smoke in the room, a bit surprised. Mr. Clawson squints as if trying to make out who he is.

“Something wrong with the machine?”

“No sir. I just—”

“Then to what do we owe the honor of this visit?”

“I was setting the front page and—”

“What’s the Teller Amendment?” asks Mr. Stedman.

“It’s the one that says if we boot the Spaniards out we can’t keep the island,” Milsap explains. “You were talking about Cuba, and—”

The men all laugh, even Mr. Clawson who had seemed annoyed before.

“I’m afraid the conflict we were discussing is much closer to home,” he says. He indicates Milsap and addresses the others. “Drew here is the reigning mechanical genius of the Messenger. The con tent of our publication, however,” he adds, smiling, but his eyes going cold as he looks back to Milsap, “is not within his purview.”

“Our lead story, Mr. Clawson, the nameless crime—”

“Yes?”

“I’ve read it before. In the News and Observer , over a month ago.”

The smile remains fixed. The eyes remain cold.

“And what of it? We frequently reprint items of public interest—”

“The headline says New Outrage . If the story is that old, how can we say—”

“Do you believe our average reader is as diligent as you in perusing the upstate dailies?”

“No, but—”

“If they have not read the story before,” Mr. Clawson says with an edge in his voice, “the story, and the outrage caused by it, is new to them —is it not?”

The card players are chuckling.

“Yes, but—”

“But what?”

“In the original story the crime was in Zebulon. This version says it was Eagle Rock.”

Mr. Clawson sighs and then exchanges a strange kind of smile with the seated men. “Were you at the scene of the violation, Drew?”

“Mr. Clawson, I only know what I read in the papers—”