Percival Everett - Percival Everett by Virgil Russell

Martin, Ralph, Andy, Philip, and Nat were sitting at a round table in the hotel room. They were playing poker, but not for money, as Nat was opposed to gambling. Martin took two cards. Andy took one. Ralph took none. Philip took three. And Nat took four.

You’re not good at this game, are you? Martin asked Nat.

I’m better at other things.

I’m out, Ralph said.

Me too, from Philip.

Ditto, said Andy.

Call, said Nat.

Martin put down his hand and revealed two aces and two eights.

Nat stared at Martin’s hand and felt a chill. Then he simply placed his cards facedown on the table. I guess I’ll have to call it a night, he said. Tomorrow is the big day and I’m going to go look at the mall while it’s still empty.

Even on the twenty-seventh there were so many people around and arriving that it was difficult to know who was friendly and not. We had for some time known about Hoover’s desire and mission to undermine the movement and that he especially wanted to destroy Martin. What we didn’t know at the time was that Kennedy’s little brother had okayed wiretaps and who knows what other kinds of surveillance were employed. Regardless, we were all swimming or sinking in a glass bowl. I came from the SNCC meeting, still fuming that my lines in John’s speech had been excised, knowing well that they were probably right, but knowing also that I had been inserting just a fraction of the truth of what we all felt. Everything felt off, awkward, like a typewriter that would not sit level on a desk, like a toothbrush with one long bristle that you can’t find when you stare at it, like the smell of gun oil in a baby’s nursery, like a simile in the mouth of the man who is robbing you. Anyway, I sat down on the grass near the Washington Monument at about dusk to eat a ham-and-cheese sandwich and noticed a couple of suited white men walking the mall, chatting up people. They might as well have been wearing sandwich boards that read fbi and it was this very fact that made me doubt they were, but of course they were. They finally made their way to me.

What’s your name? one asked. They each took a knee on the grass in front of me, hiking their trouser legs up at the thigh in unison.

Puddin’ Tame, ask me again and I’ll tell you the same.

No, really, what’s your name?

He apparently had not heard me. Puddin’ Tame.

Do you know who we are?

A couple of queers cruising the park at the early edge of some particular hour? Profoundly lost John Birchers?

He’s funny, the other said to his partner.

I’m going to eat my roast beef sandwich. If you want to arrest me for that, it does have mayo, be my guest. If you want my name, then you will have to arrest me. By the way, what are your names? I shouted. Who the fuck are you?! I made my voice as loud as I could make it. Don’t shoot me! Help! These bad mens wants to hurt little ol’ me! Somebuddy, hep me, please! Oh, lawdy! People turned and looked. Some men started to approach.

The agents stood.

See you later, I said.

Yes, you will. And though he didn’t actually say it, the word nigger rang out. Like a shot, it rang out. Nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger NIGGER NIGGER. What they call the N-word these days, as if N-word does not mean nigger. Can’t you just imagine some dear old white racist blue-haired old ladies at the church picnic or bake sale? Claire, I heard that Strom has been sleeping with, well, an N-word. No, no, really. What is the world coming to?

Oh, lawdy, what do you mean by N-word?

Why, I mean NIGGER.

Well, why didn’t you just say that?

Claire, I did.

The following morning the chartered trains and buses started arriving. By eleven o’clock hundreds of thousands of people filled the grounds and faced a sitting Lincoln, appearing to wonder still if he really should have freed the slaves. A. Philip Randolph spoke first, listing the demands of the marchers. The day grew hot, humid. James Farmer wasn’t there so Floyd McKissick read his speech. John Lewis spoke. Josephine Baker spoke. Bob Dylan sang. Marian Anderson sang. Peter, Paul, and Mary sang. Mahalia Jackson sang. Martin Luther King stood to give his speech and there was obvious confusion. Martin looked at the paper in his hand and then let it float to the floor. The white-capped security didn’t seem to notice, but I did. Martin leaned into the microphone and gave his speech. It was not the speech he had written. It was clear to me that his written text had been stolen, probably by the FBI, and that it had been replaced by the pages he had let flutter to the stone of the Lincoln Memorial. He gave his speech and what a speech, as he constructed it as he went, built it as he spoke and moved all of us, startled all of us, but none so much as the FBI. When he was done and all had been changed forever, I found my way through the bodies and legs and feet and rescued the discarded pages.

It read: I have been asked to give a history of the motives which have induced me to undertake this insurrection. To do so I must return to the days of my infancy and even before I was born. In my childhood was a circumstance that occurred which would make an unrelenting mark on my being and laid the foundation for the zealotry that has led to this day and will end so fatally for so many, both black and white. I must tell you of a belief of mine, one that has grown with time, that I cannot shake, that I cannot ignore. I was at play with other children my mother overheard me speaking to the other children and she called me and told me of my great power, of my power as a prophet and told me that I was intended for some great purpose in this world. She told me that the Lord had shown and would show me things that others could not see and that I must take it upon myself to show the way to so many. My mother and grandmother and other religious men who visited our house and whom I often saw at prayer meetings noticed the singularity of my manners and my uncommon intelligence for a child and remarked that I would lead my people one day. To a mind like mine, restless, inquisitive, and observant of all around me, it was easy to see that religion would be the vehicle for my directed message.

I gasped. I recognized the text. It was the bogus confession that 85 had been attributed to me by that white devil Thomas Gray. The man who claimed to have sat with me in my cell days before my execution, but really had come in to merely taunt me, saying, So, you’re the killing nigger.

The text of the speech went on to outline how Martin Luther King had planned to steal away a portion of the nation’s constitution and subvert the charity of white America to his own monetary benefit, casting aside his own race and the poor people he claimed to represent on his way to great glory and wealth. Of course Hoover could not have imagined that King would have actually read the thing, hoping rather that he would have been so upset by it, confused by it, that he would have just stood in front of the three hundred thousand, speechless and dumb, but instead they received his dream speech, the world heard it.

Charlton came upon me as I folded the pages and shoved them into my jacket pocket.

What’s in your pocket?

Nothing, I said. Have you ever met Mr. Hoover?

Yes, I have.

He has a gun?

I suppose he does. He should have one. He’s America’s top cop. Americans, every one of us, should have a gun.

He is a giant, I am told. But not of fixed height. I understand that from time to time there is a nation dwelling inside his mouth, around his teeth.

What are you talking about?

Why, the Abbey of Thélème, Charlton. Can’t you just see the gate? Can’t you just see it? Grace, honor, praise, delight. And one clause to live by, Do what thou wilt. Do what thou wilt.