Read Trials of the Monkey Online
Authors: Matthew Chapman
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Nonfiction, #Retail
Trials of the Monkey (6 page)
I wonder what would happen if it turned out to be the other way around, that the Jews were in fact descended from American Indians? The true spiritual home of the Jews would then become Nashville instead of Jerusalem, and a Holocaust Museum would have to be erected there to commemorate another genocidal episode in their history, an episode which, during an epidemic of memorial building, is conveniently overlooked.
According to the
History of Rhea County, Tennessee,
compiled by Bettye J. Broyles—a massive tome which can be purchased at the Chamber of Commerce in modern Dayton—the Cherokee and the settlers lived together peacefully in the early days of white incursion into the area, even marrying each other and raising children. As in all things, however, the Indians soon got the shitty end of the stick. In 1650, a smallpox epidemic cut the Cherokee Nation in half and soon land grants were being freely given—20,000 acres here, 40,000 there—although the land still legally belonged to the Indians. Later, the government itself would grab 7,000 square miles of territory in a single day.
History of Rhea County, Tennessee,
compiled by Bettye J. Broyles—a massive tome which can be purchased at the Chamber of Commerce in modern Dayton—the Cherokee and the settlers lived together peacefully in the early days of white incursion into the area, even marrying each other and raising children. As in all things, however, the Indians soon got the shitty end of the stick. In 1650, a smallpox epidemic cut the Cherokee Nation in half and soon land grants were being freely given—20,000 acres here, 40,000 there—although the land still legally belonged to the Indians. Later, the government itself would grab 7,000 square miles of territory in a single day.
A complaint of the time, and an excellent excuse for genocide, was that Indians were difficult to ‘civilise.’ Whatever that means, it was not true of the Cherokee. Having come in contact with the white man’s alphabet, they created their own and, having done so, wrote several books about their culture. They adopted a written national constitution, built houses and paved roads. In 1828, the tribe even started its own newspaper, the
Cherokee Phoenix
. When parts of the tribe were forced west, they tried to hold their nation together, in spirit if not in place, by writing back and forth. They were, in short, considerably more civilised than the rapacious Christians who pushed them further and further back into their mountainous lands in northwestern Georgia. One Profitable Nation Under a White God was what these God-fearing men were after, and if the Indians had to be cheated out of their lands or killed, so be it. God Bless Genocide! Pass the turkey!
Cherokee Phoenix
. When parts of the tribe were forced west, they tried to hold their nation together, in spirit if not in place, by writing back and forth. They were, in short, considerably more civilised than the rapacious Christians who pushed them further and further back into their mountainous lands in northwestern Georgia. One Profitable Nation Under a White God was what these God-fearing men were after, and if the Indians had to be cheated out of their lands or killed, so be it. God Bless Genocide! Pass the turkey!
There had been rumours of gold in Cherokee country from the very start. John G. Burnett, a soldier who participated in the gold rush which followed and later wrote a memoir about it, says an Indian boy living on Ward Creek in Tennessee discovered a gold nugget in 1828 and sold it to a trader. The Cherokee were doomed.
Through bribery, corruption, and violence, the last of the Cherokee’s land was taken. In 1835, the Treaty of New Echota was achieved by a five-million-dollar bribe to a portion of the
tribe. The treaty demanded that the Cherokee now move west of the Mississippi. When some of the tribe refused to leave, the government decided to ‘remove’ them.
tribe. The treaty demanded that the Cherokee now move west of the Mississippi. When some of the tribe refused to leave, the government decided to ‘remove’ them.
Chief Junaluska, who had fought alongside President Andrew Jackson in a battle against the Cree, and indeed saved his life, was sent to Washington to plead with him. Junaluska explained that the majority of the tribe were not in favour of the treaty, which was internally unconstitutional. Jackson was cool to him and said there was nothing he could do. Davy Crockett and Ralph Waldo Emerson, among others, expressed their outrage at what was about to happen, but to no effect.
In the summer of 1838, 7,000 U.S. troops arrived. They rounded up all but a few hundred Indians and put them in stockades. Many Indians died here either of disease or what is now known as
bungungot
. A Filipino word,
bungungot
describes a spiritual homesickness, a sorrow so profound it kills. It occurs among people who believe their land is imbued with spirits, including the spirits of their ancestors. To be torn from this land is to be torn from your soul.
bungungot
. A Filipino word,
bungungot
describes a spiritual homesickness, a sorrow so profound it kills. It occurs among people who believe their land is imbued with spirits, including the spirits of their ancestors. To be torn from this land is to be torn from your soul.
By the time the tribe had been captured and imprisoned, it was already November. Undeterred, the soldiers loaded the Cherokee into 645 wagons and set off for Oklahoma. They travelled through the winter and did not arrive in Oklahoma until March. Four thousand Cherokee died of exposure and disease and the route they took became known as ‘The Trail of Tears.’
The ‘Trail of Tears’ passes right through Dayton. In the early 1880s an English company under the direction of Titus Salt Jr. came to town and formed the Dayton Coal and Iron Company. Dayton was almost unique in its natural resources and means of transportation. In the nearby hills were both coal and iron, as well as timber for props and clay for making bricks. Chickamauga Lake, which came right to the edge of town, was actually an offshoot of the huge Tennessee River only two miles away, and so, with the coming railroad, the city would have two ways to send its heavy goods to market.
Within five years of the company’s formation, the population
of the town shot up from 250 to 5,000. The price of real estate jumped by 300 per cent. By 1890, the population was over 6,000 and Dayton was a bona fide boom town. Soon there were several elegant hotels, and a year-round resort known as Dayton Springs.
of the town shot up from 250 to 5,000. The price of real estate jumped by 300 per cent. By 1890, the population was over 6,000 and Dayton was a bona fide boom town. Soon there were several elegant hotels, and a year-round resort known as Dayton Springs.
What no one in Dayton knew was that the parent company in Britain was in financial trouble from the start and that the boom was founded on debt and chaos. As far back as 1884, Titus Salt had been forced by lack of capital to sell much of his stock to James Watson and Co., Iron Merchants, of Scotland.
In December 1895 an explosion in one of the mines killed twenty-nine miners, including two boys, one aged fourteen, the other aged fifteen. The company, now entirely controlled by Watson, reorganised again, seeking to protect itself from possible lawsuits from the families of the victims. They need not have worried. The naive Daytonians settled for between $125 to $400 per dead miner. In the next few years there were two more explosions, which killed another fifty miners. From the turn of the century, the company operated at a loss.
In June 1913, Peter Donaldson, president of both the Watson company and Dayton Coal and Iron, drove down to the Thames in London, chained himself into his car, and took the plunge. As the car took the man, so the British company took the American company. Dayton Coal and Iron was declared bankrupt in 1915 and the boom was over.
In 1924, with the population of Dayton shrunk from 6,000 to a mere 1,800, one last attempt was made to revive the mine. A company named the Cumberland Coal and Iron Company was formed and an engineer was employed to explore the mine’s potential.
His name was George W. Rappleyea.
George, described variously as a chemical engineer and a metallurgical engineer, was from New York. He had married a local woman, Ova, a nurse he met in a Chattanooga hospital after he hurt himself playing touch football. In 1925, he was thirty-one years old. He had a grey-streaked mop of black hair which seemed to shoot directly up from his scalp. A short man, he
always dressed well, favouring snappy suits, bow ties, and a straw boater. Fast-talking and jumpy, his eyes were dark brown behind round horn-rim glasses. He was not good-looking, but clearly his intelligence and energy made him attractive. Always in motion, always busy, he danced and played tennis and drove his car too fast along the country roads as if he might miss something.
always dressed well, favouring snappy suits, bow ties, and a straw boater. Fast-talking and jumpy, his eyes were dark brown behind round horn-rim glasses. He was not good-looking, but clearly his intelligence and energy made him attractive. Always in motion, always busy, he danced and played tennis and drove his car too fast along the country roads as if he might miss something.
In 1925, Prohibition was in full swing, along with heavy drinking, flappers, the Charleston, and art deco. The first issue of the
New Yorker
magazine was on sale. Scott Fitzgerald published
The
Great Gatsby;
Theodore Dreiser,
An American Tragedy;
and an obscure Adolf Hitler, volume one of
Mein Kampf.
And on May 4, before dinner, George read the ACLU announcement in the
Chattanooga Times
.
New Yorker
magazine was on sale. Scott Fitzgerald published
The
Great Gatsby;
Theodore Dreiser,
An American Tragedy;
and an obscure Adolf Hitler, volume one of
Mein Kampf.
And on May 4, before dinner, George read the ACLU announcement in the
Chattanooga Times
.
George, who had fully accepted the idea of evolution while in college, was outraged by the law. He saw immediately—and this is where his genius came in—that this was a big issue and could become a big trial which, apart from being important and fascinating, might also attract investors to the ailing town. The whole state had read the ad somewhere or other. Only George saw what it could mean. The next morning, he drove through town to F. E. Robinson’s drugstore. Although there was some industry in the town, a lumber company, two canning factories, a hosiery mill, and Morgan Furniture manufacturing, all but one of the hotels, the Aqua, had closed down and the place had an empty, defeated quality. Robinson’s drugstore, which had a soda fountain, was a thirty-second walk from the large three-storey courthouse, and was the social centre for the town’s business elite. Fred Robinson, known as either the ‘hustling druggist’ or ‘Doc,’ was also chairman of the school board. In typical Southern fashion, where politics and business so often commingle, his shelves were stocked with school books.
George told him his idea. If the trial was staged here, it would attract publicity to the town and then perhaps investment. Perhaps the mine could be brought back to life. George was convinced that no matter where the trial happened, it was going to be a historic event. Why not Dayton?
The Christians down in Dayton say the ‘hustling druggist’ was no more than that, that the entire appeal of the thing was in the hustle; but his family and people who knew him well say Fred Robinson was a genuine believer in evolution. He was, after all, chairman of the school board. George and he called in some other civic leaders and the idea gained momentum. The group phoned the principal of the high school, who was also the biology teacher, and asked him if he’d care to be arrested, but he refused the honour. He was a family man. Attention soon focused on football coach, and young bachelor, John T. Scopes.
The Last Guest at the Magnolia House
Set in a half acre of unfenced garden dripping with rain, the Magnolia House is a big wooden ante-bellum Greek Revival house with a porch facing the street. There are two white rockers sitting on the porch, shaded by a vast magnolia tree which grows between the house and the sidewalk. Four tall and slender columns support an overhanging roof. A small balcony juts out above the front door. Before I’ve even rung the door I hear the clatter of boots and look up.
A large blonde woman, somewhat older and considerably heavier than the one in the photographs, appears on the balcony with a cigarette in her hand.
‘Hold on,’ she says, ‘I’m on AOL talkin’ with a guy in Atlanta. He has a boat.’
I wait outside, listening to the splatter of rain falling down the tree. Now I hear her boots again as she comes thumping downstairs and opens the door. She has slightly downturned eyes and a strong pointed nose. A faint air of suspicion lurks beneath her forthright manner. She has broad shoulders and narrow hips in tight pressed jeans over riding boots, all of which accentuate her confident strut. She’s very much a woman, and yet she is a tomboy too, a sportswoman. A loose T-shirt veils her midsection. Two dachshunds scurry around her, barking.
Having greeted me warmly (‘How y’all doing?’), she leads me down a windowless corridor toward the back of the house. The day is a black-and-white photograph that wasn’t left in the developer long enough, and in here it’s even worse. What little light the day has to spare cannot penetrate the lace curtain on the
front door nor creep in from the two large front rooms on either side. Seventy-five-watt bulbs excrete a dim yellow glow which is instantly consumed by the heavy wallpaper and the many dark antiques.
front door nor creep in from the two large front rooms on either side. Seventy-five-watt bulbs excrete a dim yellow glow which is instantly consumed by the heavy wallpaper and the many dark antiques.
My room is on the left at the back. A huge wooden bed juts out diagonally from the far corner. More lace curtains prevent light from entering, but as far as I can see the place is tastefully done with more antiques and some historical pictures of Dayton. On a table just inside the door are some home-made cookies and a jug of water.
Even on this trip, the peasant brings his hoe, a laptop, so he can keep on toiling for the Squire. I’ve been writing a screenplay for MGM/UA. Set in Manhattan during the Christmas season, it’s about a highly educated woman who uses chemical and biological warfare agents to intimidate the city into giving her millions of dollars.
I took the project because I needed the money and liked the studio people and the producer. I’ve done one draft, which is as scary as any thriller I’ve ever seen (too much so, as it will eventually turn out), but no one really likes it. It’s too complicated here and not complicated enough there. I’m interested in the psychology of it, they’re disappointed by the lack of action. It’s doomed to fail and if I had any balls I’d walk away. The trouble is I need the money a rewrite would bring and, even more embarrassing, I’ve fallen in love with my characters. Like a sentimental nun at an orphanage, I can’t bear to let them go into foster care. What if some hack comes along and stuffs a cigar and clichés in my hero’s mouth, gives him a big pistol, and writes BLAM!!! KERCHUNK!!! every time he fires it? And what if my wonderfully intelligent, shamelessly erotic woman becomes coy and simpering? No, it’s unthinkable.
So … I ask Gloria for a desk and set myself up for a couple of hours of work, a long, grovelling letter to the Lords of the Manor: I failed with the tomatoes, please,
please
let me try tobacco.
please
let me try tobacco.
My pathetic letter soon sickens me and I go in search of Gloria. She’s upstairs in her den. The place is stuffed with antiques
and dachshunds and ashtrays. The curtains are partially drawn and most of the light comes from a bulb mounted above a ceiling fan. This means the light flickers incessantly. The fan does not appear to cleanse the room of nicotine. She’s taking pennies from a brass bowl stocked over many years and inserting them in cardboard tubes to take down to the bank. Her computer is in a corner, connected to AOL, and she glances at it hopefully, as a fisherman checks his float; but for the moment the e-males lurk elsewhere.
and dachshunds and ashtrays. The curtains are partially drawn and most of the light comes from a bulb mounted above a ceiling fan. This means the light flickers incessantly. The fan does not appear to cleanse the room of nicotine. She’s taking pennies from a brass bowl stocked over many years and inserting them in cardboard tubes to take down to the bank. Her computer is in a corner, connected to AOL, and she glances at it hopefully, as a fisherman checks his float; but for the moment the e-males lurk elsewhere.
I ask her why she’s selling the Magnolia House. She tells me she bought it after many years of saving and then married a man who should have been an ideal partner—he was a chef—but the marriage failed and he left her in debt.
‘Now I gotta go back into retail. I’ve got a job up in Pennsylvania. Amish country. Imagine what the men are gonna be like up there.’
Her hoarse smoker’s laugh hacks out. She ain’t gonna whine, hell no, she’s a survivor, tough as nails, donchoo worry. That being so, she jumps up and says she has a few errands to run and would I like to come with her and she’ll show me some of the town along the way? I grab my notebook and join her outside. She has a Ford Explorer which she climbs into with a cigarette in one hand and a beaker of fluid in the other.
‘Yep, when I leave here I’m off to Hershey, Pennsylvania,’ she tells me as we set off. ‘It’s where they make the chocolate. They say they got street lamps in the shape of chocolate kisses.’ In the melancholy process of closing down one dream, she’s already reaching for another. Chocolate kisses, roses, and champagne: the heart is a lonely hunter but there’s a Hallmark card at the end of every highway.
As we turn onto the main street a car goes by. Gloria raises four fingers of one hand while keeping its heel on the wheel.
‘That’s the steering wheel wave,’ she says. ‘If you like someone, it’s like that. If it’s just an acquaintance, it’s this’: A single finger rises in polite acknowledgment. ‘And on the subject of greetings,
when you actually come face to face with someone? “Hey,” never “Hi” or “Hello.” Like this: “Hey, how ya doin’?”’
when you actually come face to face with someone? “Hey,” never “Hi” or “Hello.” Like this: “Hey, how ya doin’?”’
How
am
I doing? I’m doing fine. But I’m looking at the town and it’s not how I imagined it. Dayton’s population is now just over 6,000, about what it was a hundred years ago at the height of the boom. I had imagined a quaint Southern town done up for the tourists, but the place seems small and run-down and not very historic at all. I mention this to Gloria, who tells me a lot of old houses have been knocked down recently to make room for parking lots. A sign goes up saying, ‘Another Parking Lot Brought to You by the Town of Dayton.’ These parking lots are for the tourists, who will of course stop coming if there aren’t any old buildings left to see, and it’s not until much later I realise this perfectly symbolises how Dayton feels about itself. It’s proud such a historic event as the Scopes Trial took place here and happy to take the tourists’ money; but it’s also embarrassed because what H. L. Mencken ridiculed it for being in 1925 (a hick town full of ‘yokels’ and ‘Neanderthal’ fundamentalists) remains unchanged. In fact, even before the trial began, Dayton had qualms about how it might be viewed.
am
I doing? I’m doing fine. But I’m looking at the town and it’s not how I imagined it. Dayton’s population is now just over 6,000, about what it was a hundred years ago at the height of the boom. I had imagined a quaint Southern town done up for the tourists, but the place seems small and run-down and not very historic at all. I mention this to Gloria, who tells me a lot of old houses have been knocked down recently to make room for parking lots. A sign goes up saying, ‘Another Parking Lot Brought to You by the Town of Dayton.’ These parking lots are for the tourists, who will of course stop coming if there aren’t any old buildings left to see, and it’s not until much later I realise this perfectly symbolises how Dayton feels about itself. It’s proud such a historic event as the Scopes Trial took place here and happy to take the tourists’ money; but it’s also embarrassed because what H. L. Mencken ridiculed it for being in 1925 (a hick town full of ‘yokels’ and ‘Neanderthal’ fundamentalists) remains unchanged. In fact, even before the trial began, Dayton had qualms about how it might be viewed.
‘Today, with the curtain barely rung up and the worst buffooneries to come,’ wrote Mencken in a dispatch to the
Baltimore Evening Sun
in 1925, ‘it is obvious to even the town boomers that getting upon the map, like patriotism, is not enough … Two months ago the town was obscure and happy. Today it is a universal joke.’
Baltimore Evening Sun
in 1925, ‘it is obvious to even the town boomers that getting upon the map, like patriotism, is not enough … Two months ago the town was obscure and happy. Today it is a universal joke.’
Modern Daytonians prefer to talk about the economic promise of the highway or about the biggest La-Z-Boy plant in the United States, which lies just outside of town and provides employment for around 2,000 men and women. As good Baptists, they must stick with Bryan; as men and women on the verge of the twenty-first century, they blush.
We drive along Main Street, a pretty but unkempt street with several vacant storefronts, past the place where Robinson’s drugstore used to be—it’s a furniture store now—and come to the
courthouse where the trial took place. Set back in the middle of a grass square, it’s a tall, red brick building surrounded by old shade trees. It’s beautiful in a way and unchanged since before the Twenties. We park off to one side and enter.
courthouse where the trial took place. Set back in the middle of a grass square, it’s a tall, red brick building surrounded by old shade trees. It’s beautiful in a way and unchanged since before the Twenties. We park off to one side and enter.
Gloria struts in, toes turned out, good ol’ boy tummy thrust forward, and engages all she meets with gregarious elan. ‘Hey, how ya doin’?’ ‘Yep, that’s right. I’m closin’ out, I’m on my way.’ Everyone seems to like her … but they also seem a little nervous of her too. Her mother’s family is from here and she still has relatives, but she grew up in Los Angeles, only coming here for a year of school and during summer vacations. She must have been a real beauty in those days and if she doesn’t have the circumspection of the small-town dweller now, in middle age, you can be sure she didn’t then.
I wander outside and then down into the basement where the Scopes Museum is. It’s open Monday to Friday from eight to four, but not on weekends, when people might actually come to see it.
There are old photographs of Clarence Darrow, William Jennings Bryan, and all the other characters. Darrow looks rumpled and exhausted but amiably pugnacious, Bryan prim and foolish with his palm fan and his pith helmet, confirming my impression of an aging actor still desperate for an audience. From the photographs, you see no sign of ill-health in Bryan, who would die a few days after the pictures were taken and the trial ended. Rappleyea is wiry and alert, with his huge brush of greying hair. John Scopes is young and handsome and shy. There are shots of Mencken and crowds of other press and radio reporters, and of ‘Mendi the Monkey,’ actually a trained chimpanzee, cranking the handle of a movie camera. It’s a carnival, a vaudeville show on the subject of God. It must have been the most fun Dayton ever had.
I don’t have time to read everything so I walk upstairs to the courtroom, which is on the second floor. No one’s there. It’s a spacious court with large windows on three sides and it’s quiet and impressive in its simplicity and I can imagine how it must
have been during the trial, Darrow standing there, Bryan there, the jury—who in fact were almost never in court—over there, and the judge issuing his rulings from the bench.
have been during the trial, Darrow standing there, Bryan there, the jury—who in fact were almost never in court—over there, and the judge issuing his rulings from the bench.
I go downstairs and find Gloria, who has registered whatever bureaucratic admission of failure is required and is ready to go. We drive over to City Hall, or some modern section of it over by the equally modern library, and while she clatters off in her boots, I read old framed news clippings on the wall. One of them tells of a local resident, W. C. Gardenhire, who returned from Fiji in 1871 bringing four Fijians whom he ‘exhibited in Wood-ward Gardens in San Francisco, sometimes for $150, before selling them to P. T. Barnum for $20,000.’ Gloria returns and we get back in the car and drive to the One Hour Photo out on the highway. I sit in the car. A weather-beaten woman parks her pickup next to me, gets out, spits on the ground, and then enters the shop. Gloria comes out. The photographs she wanted aren’t ready. ‘As we say in the South,’ she explains, ‘“We’re fixing to start thinking about getting ready to do it.”’
We start driving around town.
There are two big events in Dayton these days. One is the Strawberry Festival. Strawberry farming has always been a large part of the local economy and this is its celebration. There are strawberry pie contests and all that kind of thing and a carnival comes to town. This latter draws all the rednecks out of the surrounding hills. Gloria says you can’t imagine how they’ve been up there all year long and you haven’t seen them, a scary crew, inbred retards, illiterates, and nuts. I’m devastated to have missed this, but I was busy poisoning New York when it happened and couldn’t get away.
Still, I’ve got the
other
big event, which will take place in about a month. In fact I’m only down here as a prelude to that, to pick up local colour.
other
big event, which will take place in about a month. In fact I’m only down here as a prelude to that, to pick up local colour.
The other event is the ‘Re-enactment of the Scopes Trial.’ In most people’s opinion the trial was a blow to the cause of fundamentalism. That the town would re-enact this humiliation each year—presumably to pull down some cash—strikes me as
hilarious and I can’t wait to see it. Gloria tells me that the real sheriff, Leon Sneed, actually plays the sheriff in the show. It is at this point that I decide for certain to make the play the centrepiece of my book.
hilarious and I can’t wait to see it. Gloria tells me that the real sheriff, Leon Sneed, actually plays the sheriff in the show. It is at this point that I decide for certain to make the play the centrepiece of my book.
As we continue driving around, I now see that Dayton is defined by two straight lines, the highway on one side and the railroad track on the other. The railroad goes from Atlanta to Chicago and carries only freight. Beyond the highway are some nice suburban houses scattered on the hillside. Beyond the tracks are the projects where most of Dayton’s black people live. No black families live in the hills. One tried a few years back and the rednecks burned the house down.
We cross the track, which has barriers but no gates. According to Gloria—and it’s confirmed later—more people have been killed on this section of track than on any other section
in the entire United States.
in the entire United States.
No one seems to know exactly how many have been killed in the last decade, but it’s approaching twenty. The railroad that brought Dayton to life and made it the number one city in Rhea County is now knocking off its citizens at an alarming rate. Six people were killed between March ’96 and August ’97. The train drivers call Dayton ‘The Big Blow’ because when they get to the edge of town they put their hand on the horn and keep it there until they make it out the other side. Why so many people have allowed themselves to be killed in this gruesome fashion is a mystery to everyone. And soon there’s going to be another mystery.
The projects are not like city projects. Cheap but not egregiously ugly two-storey houses are dotted around a loop. There’s not the same atmosphere of overcrowding and fear that you find up in Harlem or in Watts. Kids play amiably on the streets and sidewalks and residents stroll around gunless. I notice there are many kids of mixed race and remark on this to Gloria.
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