The Street Sweeper (52 page)

‘Dad, what can I say?’

‘I don’t know, Charlie, what can you say?’

‘The university’s a microcosm of society.’

‘Is that what you can say? Is that
all
you can say?’

‘Well now what exactly are
you
saying? How exactly is all or even any of this my fault?’

‘Charlie, I don’t mean you personally. I’m mean you academics. You all sit there watching the flames as the barn burns down crying, “How’s this
our
fault? We didn’t do it!”‘

‘What exactly would you have us do, me or any of us?’

‘Charlie, how did you get to be this age, sitting in this office with your name and title on the door, Chair of the History Department, and you’re not ashamed to be asking me that?’

‘Dad, leaving the question of my shame to one side, what the hell
would
you have me do?’

‘You should be speaking out publicly about these things. You guys should be writing letters. You should be organising like-minded people to do these things. You should be giving encouragement, comfort and support to those people, students, faculty, people around the city who don’t have the chance to be heard like you do but who fear this institution is going to hell in a hand basket instead of …’

‘Instead of what?’

‘Instead of staying back late in this office leaving your wife and daughter at home so you can write narrowly focused arcane academic articles to be read by a handful of people just to keep your quota up and all of it merely in the service of your own aggrandisement.’

What does a good son do when the man you’ve most admired, the man who is responsible for all that you’ve ever felt was good about you, the man who has fought injustice all of his life, berates you for not actively protesting against the contemporary state of the world, which he views with ever-increasing powerlessness and horror? When this dear man, who has only you left in the world, is so eloquently delineating just how fully you’ve failed him, when his version of your fundamental failings are coming at you like a torrent downhill, what do you do?

If in doubt, keep quiet. There’s a rule for you, probably one he taught you. Don’t speak in anger lest you say something you might regret, something he’ll never let you take back. If in doubt, keep quiet. Hold your tongue even if he takes your silence as proof that he’s right. After all, in
keeping quiet and letting him hurt you, in loving him and wanting to protect him even against your own anger, are you not the very essence of the man he wants you to be even if he doesn’t realise it?

So Charles McCray let his father speak. He didn’t hurry him, he barely argued with him. But now it was late. William said he was too tired to come over to have dinner with his daughter-in-law and his granddaughter so Charles walked him home. He told Charles once again that Charles was the canary in the coalmine. He hugged him, which was how they always parted, and then the canary walked home.

The keys being turned in the door of the house where the son lived made a series of clicking sounds. These sounds once signalled that a father, a husband, had come home and a wife and a daughter would acknowledge it with a greeting. The sounds were the same in the door as they ever were. He closed the door quietly and put the keys in his pocket. He was late. Should he explain then or later? Now all three people who lived there were home. Nobody called out to greet him. A copy of
The New York Times
lay open on the kitchen table. Charles McCray, Chair of the History Department at Columbia University, the good son, just not always good enough, the good husband seemingly a little deficient here too, the canary in the coalmine, stood alone in his kitchen, briefcase in hand. For a moment he didn’t know what to do. You cannot demand that someone greets you when you come home. He looked down at the newspaper and, still standing, started to read. The headline always calls first: ‘Turks Angry Over House Armenian Genocide Vote. Turkey reacted angrily Thursday to a House committee vote in Washington to condemn as genocide the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey that began during World War I … The Bush administration … vowed to try to defeat the resolution on Capitol Hill.’

He looked over towards the telephone and saw the pen and a notepad he and Michelle kept there. They had always, since they started living together, kept a pen and paper near the phone for messages and shopping lists. Two educated, responsible people with similar values and aspirations had married and were raising a daughter. He had always thought they made quite a team. But a team is not a couple. He kept reading. ‘President Bush’s chief spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said, “We have national
security concerns, and many of our troops and supplies go through Turkey.”‘ Charles McCray reached for the pen and paper and, still with his coat on, he sat down at the kitchen table. You cannot demand that someone greets you when you come home, not your wife, not your daughter. Maybe they hadn’t heard him come in. ‘In Turkey, there was widespread expectation that the House committee vote and any further steps would damage relations between the countries.’ Leaning on the newspaper he began to compose a note to the professor from Columbia University’s Teachers College who had two days earlier had a noose left hanging from her door. Maybe someone would need something from the kitchen and see him there.

*

James Pearson, Mr Anything-You-Want, had a story for Tommy Parks, the meatpacker who lived in a room in the same apartment as Pearson at the Mecca Flats, the same apartment that Callie and Russell Ford had shared before they moved to the Borders’ Uptown house. It was the story of the events of the night the two white men appeared from nowhere looking specifically for him. These men, Ralph Hellerstein and Herb Marks, were union men. They had accurately predicted the dismissal of James Pearson’s colleague, Billy Moore, when Billy Moore had become unable to hide a soft tissue injury in his back. They had invited James Pearson to join them on the Packinghouse Workers Organising Committee.

‘You don’t want no trouble? You stay the hell away from them white unions. They got some shit goin’ on but they won’t be tellin’ you nothin’ ‘bout it. Anyways, whatever shit they up to, it don’t mean
you
no good,’ Tommy Parks advised Pearson as the two of them drank a beer late one night on the broken steps outside the Mecca Flats.

‘But they asked me to join ’em, not just the union but the Organising Committee.’

‘Join ’em?’

‘On the Packinghouse Workers Organising Committee.’

‘What that mean?’

‘It mean I be the same as them.’

‘Same as them?’ Tommy Parks laughed. ‘You the same as them, how come you ain’t getting them two white boys join you and a group o’ black men on the Packinghouse Workers Organising Committee?’

‘’Cause they already started it.’

‘Yeah and they started it for themselves.’

‘Well, why ever they started it, now they askin’ me to join. Ain’t no rank and file thing, they askin’ me to join the Organising Committee.’

‘You ask some of them old boys. They tell how them unions do for the black man back in the day. It were more an’ twenty year ago but ain’t none of ’em there forget it.’

‘What happened?’

‘There’s union trouble so the meatworks go and hire a whole lot of black folks.’

‘What do you mean “union trouble”?’

‘You know, the usual, union lookin’ for higher wages as they do. Meatworks flat refused as
they
do. So the union go on strike and the meatworks go and hire a whole lot of black folks. Negro men come up from the south, bring their wives, children and all, for the best job they ever had ‘cause ain’t no white man want it. Then the union say we stealin’ their jobs. Lot of black folks’ blood spilt before the meatworks and the union reach a deal and the black man left with his wounds and not a pot to piss in. Bunch of Polaks and Irishmen do real good out of it. That’s the union you want to join.’

‘Yeah, but that’s the difference between the twenties and now. These men tell me they want black men in the union so they won’t be workin’ for just the Polaks and the Irishmen no more.’

Tommy Parks smiled and slowly shook his head. ‘Man, I took you smarter ‘n that, I really did. Can you see all them Polaks and all them Irishmen workin’ for
you?
You be their nigger. You be their union nigger. Now how that feel, “Mister Anything-You-Want” union nigger?’

‘Tommy, we just talkin’, right? Now I ain’t sayin’ I’m smart or nothin’. But I’m smarter ‘n you if you don’t think maybe, just maybe I seen that possibility and I searched ’em out on it.’

‘Yeah? How you do that?’

‘They say they want a united union, black and white, all together, all equal. That’s why they ask me to join the Organising Committee.’

‘James Pearson! They got you dreamin’ of no place ever been on earth. They give you a fancy title, put you on the “Organising Committee” and you think you died and gone to heaven. Maybe they even want coloured workers to join. Maybe they do. So what if they do? They ain’t interested in the problems of a black man. They don’t even
know
the problems of a black man.’

James Pearson took another sip from his bottle. Then he smiled. ‘Tommy, you be surprised what they know.’

‘I be surprised!’

James Pearson turned to face him. ‘You know ‘bout the stars?’

‘The stars? What you talkin’ ‘bout?’

‘Ever wonder how when things get slow and the foreman gotta lay off people, he call out their name?’

‘Yeah, I seen it.’

‘They all Negro men.’

‘I know that.’

‘Yeah, but how the foreman know whose name to call? He don’t know everyone by their name. Too many there for that.’

‘What you talkin’ ‘bout?’

‘Each and every man at the plant got a time card.’

‘I know that.’

‘The time card of every Negro worker got a little star on it, a little black mark. It tell the foreman who’s who.’

‘The union men tell you that?’

‘Yes, they did. They say if I join and if we can get enough black men to join, their first campaign be the removal of that black star off of every Negro worker’s time card.’

‘The whole union going to fight for that?’

‘That’s what they say … if we can get enough black men to join.’

‘Well, they good talkers, I give you that,’ Tommy Parks said, lighting up a cigarette.

‘That all you give me?’

‘You starting with me, ain’t you? Jesus, boy! If you don’t have a hide
and a half! Get me talkin’ just so I agree every week to give a cracker-ass union some of my pay. How dumb you think I am?’ Tommy Parks laughed.

‘Don’t blame me; I know how dumb you are. It’s them union boys, they got no idea how dumb you are, much as I told ’em.’ ‘What you told ’em?’

‘I told ’em you don’t give a shit ‘bout no one but your own self.’

‘Wait a minute; this thing ain’t got nothin’ to do with me –’

‘I told ’em you squirm every single way God made just to get out of doin’ one thing for someone else, even for your fellow Negro meatpacker.’

‘Don’t put this shit on me, nigger. You let them sell you shit and all of a sudden I’m the bad guy.’

‘No, you the fool, Tommy. I told ’em that. But they want to meet you anyway. Insist on it.’

‘They want to meet
me?’

‘They know how folks round here like you, here
and
at the plant. They want
you
to join the Packinghouse Workers Organising Committee. They want you to join with me.’

A meeting was arranged. Tommy Parks was to be meeting Ralph Hellerstein and his younger offsider, Herb Marks, at Goldblatt’s Discount Store at the corner of 47th Street and Ashland Avenue. But given that it was still daylight, Hellerstein reconsidered his original choice of meeting place and later thought it wise to change the venue to the union hall at 48th Street and Marshfield Avenue, a mere five- to ten-minute walk from Goldblatt’s. He had tried to get a message through to Tommy Parks during the day but wasn’t sure Parks had got it. He talked it over with James Pearson later that day and Pearson had volunteered to meet Parks at Goldblatt’s, give him the message and walk with him to the union hall.

James Pearson, who had finished his shift and had young Russell Ford with him, was having his own second thoughts about the change of venue. It was not that it was so far from the original meeting place but in a way it might as well have been. The half-mile walk from Goldblatt’s Discount Store to the corner of 48th and Marshfield would put them
in an all-Polish neighbourhood. James Pearson was himself far from delighted to be going there but he knew Tommy Parks would be even less happy to go there. James Pearson was contemplating calling Hellerstein and suggesting they switch it back to somewhere around Goldblatt’s. He would argue that the detriment in discussing union business in broad daylight in a public place was smaller than the likely harm achieved by getting Tommy Parks riled before the meeting had even started. When James Pearson and Russell Ford arrived at Goldblatt’s, they found that Tommy Parks was already there and, although nobody was late yet, it appeared everyone was already too late for the meeting of Hellerstein, Herb Marks and Tommy Parks to achieve its purpose.

Tommy Parks was sitting alone at one end of the lunch counter waiting to be served. Between his seat and the next person in the row of seated customers were four empty seats. All of these customers had either been served or were being served. All those customers were white. James Pearson, with Russell in tow, walked over to Tommy Parks. He knew that while black workers and their families might have shopped at the store, while they might even have had accounts at the store, they didn’t eat there. This was where white folks ate.

‘You get the message? They changed the meetin’ place,’ James Pearson asked him.

‘Yeah, I heard,’ Tommy Parks said, looking around.

‘Well, you wanna go now? It’s the union hall over on 48th and Marshfield.’

‘I know where it is,’ he said distractedly, still looking around the room.

‘I got the boy here with me but … I mean … we don’t gotta go there if you prefer it some other way.’

‘Some other way …’ Tommy Parks repeated, still looking around the room when he wasn’t tossing a spinning coin into the air and catching it. ‘Yeah, I do prefer it some other way.’ James Pearson shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other.