John Gardner - The Sunlight Dialogues

“Sorry,” Benson said.

The Negro in the red straw hat looked at them with his head tipped back and one leg thrown forward. The cigarette between his fingers was burned down to the last half-inch. The car moved away. Another great roar came from the crowd.

“We’d better move back,” Benson said.

The Negro shrugged. He dropped the cigarette and stamped on it, making a little dance of it, then touched his red straw hat cocking it forward, and started across the street toward the side away from the crowd. Benson pursed his lips, then followed. When he came to the sidewalk he took a place a few feet away from the Negro. There were people standing here watching, leaning up against the sooty, scarred buildings and observing the meeting as casually as they’d have observed a crew of construction men at work. The crowd in the park began singing. Someone on the platform had a banjo. Now Ollie Nuper was on the platform too, clapping his hands and nodding up and down. And now the Negro with the red straw hat was at Benson’s elbow again, standing on tiptoe, saying, “You thirsdy, brother?” Benson turned, and the man pointed with his thumb at the green padded leather door directly behind them.

“I don’t drink,” Benson said.

“Me neither,” the Negro said. “But sometime I do take a Coke and a liddle bitta rum.” He smiled.

Benson pinched his nostrils together, then on second thought got out his handkerchief and blew his nose. At last, suddenly realizing what the Negro wanted, he got out a fifty-cent piece and gave it to him. Again their fingers did not touch.

“God bless you!” the Negro said. “I accept your bribe.” He smiled again and turned toward the door.

Nuper’s speech went on for what seemed hours. From what he said one would not have guessed that he thought them apes. His talking was full of facts and figures, yet so simply put, any child could have understood it. It was so convincing, at least to Walter Benson, that he began to believe all Nuper’s talk at the supper table had been a grim joke at Benson’s expense. Benson stood leaning forward, straining to catch every word. His concentration was so intense that he did not notice the penguinlike man until he spoke.

“Brilliant, isn’t he,” the man said.

Benson collected his wits.

It was the nose, mainly, that made the man penguinlike. As for his eyes, they were wide and blue as a baby’s, and he had eyebrows permanently lifted as if to say affectedly, “How charming!” He looked twenty at first glance; but he was probably past thirty-five. He had a large jewel of some sort on his ring finger, and, as if to advertise it, he fluttered his hands almost perpetually and when he rested them, did so with the fingertips pressed together so that the ring was clearly displayed. It struck one immediately that there was something odd about him, some definite quirk that set him apart from ordinary humanity — some elusive quality or singular madness which, once found out, would make everything about him clear. One knew what it was the moment he said it. He was a Quaker.

He stood with his back arched, his weight on one leg, his left hand pressed to his waist, bent at the wrist. “Brilliant,” he said again. “Don’t you think so?”

Benson said noncommittally, “He’s something.”

“Nuper’s his name, you know. Oliver Nuper. One of the professionals.” He spoke rapidly, with excessively precise pronunciation. “It’s pure hogwash of course, every word he says, but he does it superbly, in my opinion. I’ve seen them all. It’s a kind of hobby of mine — a bachelor, you know, sick and tired of the movies and those eternal cocktail parties and the rest. And of course I have students mixed up in all this. It’s inevitable, you know. Youth. Enthusiasm.” He showered down laughter.

“Ah,” Benson said.

“Excuse me, I ought to have introduced myself. My name’s Veil, as in Vile.” He made a face. “Ridiculous, I know, but that’s my name. Professor John Veil, Department of English, University of Buffalo. And you are—” He waited, head cocked, smiling with lifted eyebrows.

“I am …” In horror he realized that again he couldn’t think of his name. “I am,” he said, blushing, “very interested in these demudstrations.”

Professor Veil threw up his hands. “Then you’ve come to the right place. I know all about them!”

“Ah,” Benson said.

“That fellow over there, the one with the guitar and the beard and the thick, thick glasses — you see him? That’s ‘Baron Von Badger’—so he calls himself. Actually his name’s John Jones or something. Comes from way out West someplace. Crazy as a loon, I assure you. I’ve had him in class, as a matter of fact. He sits in the front row and looks at me through binoculars turned backwards. That’s mad, don’t you think?”

Benson considered it.

“His father’s rich as Midas, so they say. One of those rice kings or something. He doesn’t sing, the Baron, that is. He uses the guitar as a kind of drone for his lunatic chants.” The Professor suddenly stooped over like an ape, head thrown far forward, arms surrounding an imaginary guitar.

I been on this road a long time,

and the road’s been on me, O Lord, Lord,

and I don’ know who’s walking this road and O

it is a road Lord,

is it me, Lord,

is it a long time Lord or is it

Lord are you there

ARE YOU THERE, LORD, LORD, I

been on this

road’s been on

Mankine have mercy on my soooo-oo-OOL!!!

The Professor straightened up, eyebrows lifted, smiling. “Mad, you see.”

Solemnly, Benson nodded.

The crowd was clapping. Nuper shouted, “People tell me the Muslims are gonna wipe us out, us libeiais, the white men that are marching on the side of justice for the blacks. What do I say? I say then let them do it! In every war mankind has ever fought, there have been mistakes. Korea! We lost whole battalions from our own air support — and I’m not counting the black battalions that were shot by white infantry from behind. No sir! There are always mistakes! Napoleon made them! Caesar made them! For all we know, maybe Moses made them! It don’ matter! When a war gets started you’ve got to fight it out and don’ look back. And the white man’s driven the black to war, and that’s the truth! And if you don’t believe it’s war I tell you you’re yellow-bellied! Yeah! And if you don’t like my standing here saying it to you, don’t you look at me, brothers, you just look at the white men that think it and never say a word to you, No! they just sit there and smile and smi-ile!” The crowd roared.

The Professor said, “That man could make a fortune selling used cars.”

“He’s the devil,” Benson said.

The Professor smiled. “Well, yes, so he is, of course. But aren’t we all?” Still smiling, but only with his lips, he scrutinized Benson’s face. At last he said, “See here, you know something? You have the look, right now, of a murderer!” He laughed. “I’m quite serious! Something about—” He fluttered his fingers around Benson’s nose. “Your eyes, I think. Heavens. Listen! You must be calm, contain yourself. Look at me!” He held out his hands, smiling, supremely calm.

Benson said grimly, “I know that man — Nuper.”

The Professor pursed his lips, and after a moment his fingers fluttered up to them. “I was afraid you did,” he said. “I’m a member of the Society of Friends, myself. I abhor violence, and I denounce people who advocate it. But I wouldn’t dream—” Again he was scrutinizing Benson’s face. He tapped his upper lip lightly, thoughtfully, with the knuckle of his index finger. “You’re an interesting type,” he said. “You had me completely fooled, at first. Completely. I’m interested to meet you. It’s very curious, really.” He looked away and stood like a man analyzing the quality of a pain in his abdomen. Whatever the question was that he was asking himself, he apparently found the answer. He smiled more brilliantly than ever. “It takes all kinds, doesn’t it,” he said. “Good day.” Quickly, without another word, he stepped off down the sidewalk.