John Gardner - The Sunlight Dialogues

Benson sulked.

“Well he’s not getting one in Buffalo, I’ll tell you that.”

“You’ll get hib killed, that’s what you’ll do with all your signs,” Benson said.

“Really,” Marguerite said. “Why can’t we eat supper in peace?” She was close to tears.

“The city’s been warned,” Nuper said. His eyes got a curious glint. It made you think of a man watching a building burning down.

“I dode know about all that. Pass the potatoes.”

“But it doesn’t keep you from talking.” Nuper smiled.

“I’be a peaceful man, and I live in a peaceful city. Add I’ll tell you something.”

“Sure, by keeping the nigger in his place.”

“I’m not against niggers—”

“Then how come you call them that?”

“You called them—”

“Boys, boys, boys!” Her face was all pulled out of shape with grief and fright.

“I was imitating you.”

“I haddn’t said it yed!”

“Well, you would have.”

Benson slammed the table with his fist. “There are ways add ways of doing these things. And the way you people dake, starting riots and getting wibben add children killed—”

“And men.” Again he sounded conciliatory, and it threw Benson off.

Benson said, “I’m for peace. I believe when a city has a probleb—”

“It should face it.” Nuper smiled and chewed.

“No.”

“It should not face it.” He leaned back and winked at Marguerite, and it was that, that horrible, sneaky, filthy — (words failed him)— wink that drove Benson wild. He leaped to his feet and slammed the table so hard his milk tipped over.

“You dode care, do you! You just dode care. It dode matter to you who’s ride or wrong, you just win whatever way you can. You’re like all of them. Irresponsible! What have you god to lose? You dode have to live here. You just cub in and stir up trouble and have your fun and then you’re gone, and we’re the ones do the cleaning up. Citizens like me. You cub here—” He spluttered, red-faced, eyes bulging. “You cub in — a city like Buffalo — you rile up — you, you rile up the niggers, the Negroes — you throw bobbs around and start frights in the street.” He stopped himself. He was shaking all over, and Nuper was sitting cool as a cucumber, eating his lettuce with sugar on it, and Marguerite was pushing back her chair with a look of witless grief and rage, leaving for the kitchen. Benson tried to make himself calm and, bristling, watched Marguerite leave.

Benson said, voice steely, “I dode like the way you argue.”

Again, Nuper smiled. His upper lip went out of sight and his teeth showed, teeth like some kind of an animal’s, tiny and yellow. After a moment he said, “I’m sorry I made you angry, Mr. Benson. And I’m sorry your wife—”

“Dode you talk to me about my wife,” Benson said. He spit the words out so fast, with such rage, that Nuper looked at him and went white for a moment.

“If I’ve offended—” he said.

Benson sat down and put his hands in his lap to hide the shaking. He was frightened. It wasn’t like him to speak out like that, lash out as if tomorrow would never come. He could give himself a heart attack that way, or get the neighbors down on him, and they might call the police, and the police might have a picture, or there might be some cop from out of town. … He sat with his shoulders tightly hunched, his hands pressed together tight between his knees.

After a long time Nuper said, “Mr. Benson, you have the wrong idea about me. Seriously.” He spoke gently, all apology. “I realize you don’t approve of my activities, any more than I approve of yours …”

Benson looked at him, alarmed.

“But I think you should judge me without prejudice. We must all follow the dictates of our conscience, don’t you agree?”

The names of towns came into Benson’s head. He tried to listen, in spite of them, to Nuper’s talk. He found himself concentrating on the way Nuper’s chin ran into his throat, the way his ears peeked through his thin, rumpled hair, the way his upper gums showed when he talked. His nose was really amazingly like a sheep’s.

“Mr. Benson, how do you explain the poverty of the Negro?”

Benson’s lips twitched inward but he said nothing.

“Be frank. Do you think it’s because they’re lazy, or stupid, or — as you say — irresponsible?” He held up his long yellow hand. “It’s all right, you don’t need to answer. Let me tell you something that may surprise you. I agree with you. You expect me to ask, ‘But what made them lazy and stupid and irresponsible?’ and you expect me to answer, ‘The system! Environment! And so on.’” Nuper leaned forward, smiling, showing his tiny teeth, his eyelids halfway lowered. “Well I say nothing of the kind. I say what every white man knows in his heart: it’s because they’re closer to the ape!” He sat back, triumphant, smiling broadly, with his lips pressed together.

Walter Benson stared, slightly confused.

When he was satisfied that he’d made his effect, Nuper raised his eyebrows into a long inverted V and opened his hands, the heels pointing inward. He looked, for an instant, like Jesus at the Last Supper. “I don’t like them, you see. I don’t like them at all. But I like them better than civilized people, if you understand my meaning.”

Marguerite stood in the kitchen doorway, wringing her fingers and sniffling. “Please, Walter,” she said. “Why can’t we watch TV or something? Why do we have to argue.”

He ignored her and stared intently at Nuper, waiting for what he was saying to come clear. He wanted with all his heart and soul to answer him. The hunger to shout him down, make a fool of him, even physically tear him limb from limb made all Benson’s muscles tense, but he could not make out yet what Nuper was saying. Olean, he thought involuntarily. Endicott. It was as if Boyle were taking his body and brain away from him, creeping up insidiously inside.

“What is civilization?” Nuper asked softly, rhetorically. “Civilization, honestly defined, is the enslavement of the many by the few. Put it this way. What do we think of when we think of a civilized man? A man who understands paintings and music and litiracha — a man who plays chess or polo or what-have-you. A man who does no work. Now, how does such a man come into existence?” He waited. “You know as well as I do, Mr. Benson. He corners some market. Usually he corners land, Russia under the Czar. South America. Even the United States — though here it’s tricky. Here everybody had land at first, but little by little Bell Telephone and Heath Candybar and the rest are taking over. With the Government’s help, of course — tax cuts and so on. All right then. There’s your civilized man, your man of endless leisure. In the old days it used to be that every minute he spent in his hammock or his kidney-shaped swimming pool was a minute he stole from you or me. Not now. Now he has machines, he can make his mint without even giving you the satisfaction of earning your broth and bread. He can kill you, Mr. Benson. But he doesn’t. That’s what’s terrible. He throws you sops. Poverty programs. Handouts. Social security. He can keep you just well enough fed that you rest contented in your shanty. And there, my capitalist friend, is where the Blacks come in.”

Benson had listened closely, waiting to pounce. His muscles felt so tight he had a feeling he couldn’t untie himself if he tried. He felt monstrously cheated. It was a mistake to listen to people like Nuper, he’d always known that. He knew what Nuper was, all right. He knew that, for all his fine arguments, the man was a lying, cheating, slimy … Again he could find no words. Suddenly and loudly, as if inspired, Benson said, “I dode feel that the house I live in is a shanty.”