When they left the station and drove I'd never seen a blade like that before, I WORE A cap when I went to New York in 1928, "I thought you were older," she said. "Only boys Collegians vs The Klan toward the main highway, they were fol- it was huge. She threatened to slit any but the girl I met at the ten-cent dance on Broad- wear caps in New York. Do men wear them in CONTINUED FROM PAGE 18 lowed by the unmarked car. When traf- 'nigger or nigger-lovers' throat.' And fic thinned out, the car behind them she meant it, too. She would've used way thought I ought to wear a hat. California?" , mitment is fine, but your body's got to suddenly shot forward and pulled along- that knife." That was the last time I wore a cap. That afternoon I bought a hat, but I didn't see be on the line. So we dropped out of side. One of the whites shoved a gun Larry Rubin, like Jack Heyman, also The girl I met at the ten-cent dance was at least the girl again. She had asked me to meet her later came face to face with violence while school. The five of us were getting forty out an open window. Seven shots rang thirty to my twenty. She wasn't good-looking, al- dollars a week. We needed more staff out and the car sped away. hitch-hiking. Rubin, a student from An- at the ten-cent dance, but once was enough. The so we cut the salary in half and doubled The bullets smashed all the front win- tioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, though she had a lot of body, some of the upper dance was full of out-of-town boys and men buying the staff. We did that again to'get more dows and the rear window of the car. spent some time in southwest Georgia, part of which she pushed out at me. That's why I half-minute waltzes for a dime each from crazy- staff till we were getting $10 a week One of the bullets hit Travis in the working with SNCC in the four-county asked her to let me take her to a restaurant or to 'a looking women. The place is still there, upstairs, two each. I figure as long as you can survive, neck, near the spine. He recovered, but area around Albany. He had meant to you don't need anything else. the SNCC office itself was later burned work for only one quarter, then got a movie the next day around four. When I showed up doors from what used to be my favorite theater in "I worked out of the Atlanta office, down. special extension from the college and she ,was surprised that I was wearing a cap, and I '.:•"..-• traveling around as sort of a general "At night," claims McDew, "you have stayed for two. was surprised that she was surprised. It had never In the entrance hall are a dozen or more photo- field supervisor, and also raising funds to stop and think where's the best place "I was hitchhiking into town," he occurred to me to wear anything else. graphs of the girls who are waiting upstairs, and and spreading the word." to sleep—someplace where a bullet or said, smiling (he can smile about it McDew did a fairly good job of a bomb won't hit you." now), "and got a lift from some guy spreading the word. From the original in a pick-up truck. All the while we twenty students, SNCC has grown till VIOLENCE sometimes sneaks up on you, were riding along he kept telling me it now has 150 former students working as harrassment. The friendly cop who how he hated these racial agitators who nostalgia full-time all year round, all of them re- cheerfully gives directions to motorists were stirring up all this trouble. He ceiving only subsistence pay, when they and helps little old ladies across the • said if he ever caught one he'd slash 'by get paid at all. (The present Executive street is usually neither cheerful nor 'im up and showed me this large knife William Saroyan Secretary of SNCC is a former Chicago friendly with SNCC workers. If a SNCC he carried in his pocket. 'I'm ready for grade school teacher named Jim Forman. worker owns a car, he'll be ticketed a 'im if I ever meet one,' he told me. I In Chicago, Forman and his wife had a dozen times a day—for speeding, loud just kept nodding my head and waiting combined income of a thousand dollars mufflers, faulty headlights, you name it. for that ride to end. a month. As Executive Secretary of Or he may be taken to jail, finger- "Finally we got into town and I saw SNCC, he's paid $60 a week.) Last sum- printed, questioned, and eventually turn- two of the other SNCC workers in the THE mer, when vacationing students tempo- ed loose. No charges. If he's actually area walking down the street. He saw rarily joined the ranks, there were 200 thrown in the lockup overnight, then them, too. There's two of 'em now,' he working with SNCC in 13 Southern it might get a little rugged. Other pris- told me, and started playing with that and border states. This summer several oners may be prodded by their keepers knife in his hand. 'Let's you and I get CALIFORNIA times that number are expected. Most to beat up on the workers, a variation 'em.' of them will work in voter registration of the situation where the local peace- "I told him to do what he. wanted, programs, community centers, and "Free- keepers do riot lay a finger on SNCC but to count me out. I kept hoping that CAP dom Schools" in Mississippi. They will workers themselves but will pay a quick those two wouldn't see me and wave or be assisted by hundreds of adults in the visit to a nearby bar and sic some something. That would've been it. So professions — doctors, nurses, teachers, easily-inflamed redneck onto the "niggah I looked around the inside of that truck AND and so on. lovah." for some way to hide my face. Finally One thing is for certain: working for In SNCC's work, violence is not a I pulled out a road map, unfolded it, SNCC will be exhausting—and danger- sometime thing but almost a way of life. and held it up so they couldn't see me. ous. SNCC has dozens of small offices Jack Heyman, a thin, black-haired I got out of that one okay." THE L scattered across the South. It may be a student from Penn State tells of taking room in a Negro family's home where off a quarter to work with SNCC and WHEN THE SIT-IN movement began in a lone SNCC field worker lives, or a hitch-hiking to Atlanta from his home the South, the violence that SNCC NEW A small house which several SNCC in New Jersey. He stopped off in North workers had to face came from the workers share and where local leaders Carolina where sit-ins were going on white mobs. But now, since voter reg- can always be found, sitting and talking in Chapel Hill, home of the state uni- istration has become a major goal of the and planning in the front room or man- versity. "In one place the waitress lifted movement and the basic Southern politi- YORK ning an old, dilapidated mimeograph her skirt and urinated on the demon- cal structure is threatened, the police machine. strators. Another time in North Caro- themselves frequently take a hand in the But while on the inside, there may lina, I got picked up by two guys in violence—often while Justice Depart- HAT be talk, on the outside, there will be a car. They looked at me and said, 'If ment and FBI officials watch (only trouble. there's one thing we hate more than when police use mass brutality, as in A . At 1 P.M. on February 28th of last niggers, it's integrationists.' And there Birmingham, does it get publicity). year, Randolph T. Blackwell, Director we were—driving over back country Last fall, in Selma, Alabama, SNCC noted ;a;uthor of the Voter Education Project, drove roads. I was really scared." Nothing hap- held a "Freedom Day," a day of inten- up to the SNCC office in Greenwood, pened—only because they never found sive voter registration activity. When reminisces Mississippi. He noticed three whites sit- out who he was. SNCC workers "Chico" Neblett and ting in a car without plates parked I met and talked to Jack the day Alvery Williams tried to bring sand- about life, nearby. When Blackwell left at 9:15, after a demonstration, "I was scared wiches to a line of Negroes at the court- they were still there. Blackwell noted as hell last night," he told me. "I was house who were trying to register, state New York, and this with dismay. As he drove away, part of the first wave in a sit-in. We troopers attacked them with clubs and the car pulled out behind him. Black- were supposed to see to it that the other cattle prods and then arrested them. The the high cost well thought better of it and returned group got in. But they locked the door FBI watched. Justice Department offi- to the office for reinforcements, picking and wouldn't let them in. Then the wait- cials stood by, largely indifferent. ot up SNCC workers James Travis and ress pulled out a knife"—he held out Howard Zinn, former Chairman of Bob Moses. They stopped to eat sand- his hands in front of him, about 15 the History Department at Spelman Col- taxi dancers. 26 wiches and get gas at a gas station. inches apart—"this big, a butcher knife. (Concluded on page 58) even today there is always a boy or a And so, two or three days after I begun to climb the stairs did I put it on. man standing there, looking at the reached New York, I went to the ten- I was glad to be free again, but at the photographs. Millions of such photo- cent dance to have a look at the girls. same time there was a moment of doggy graphs are taken of women every year. I bought ten tickets and looked at the regret that I hadn't gotten to know her Girls and women who haven't got it women who weren't dancing. And then in the usual manner. go to a photographer, hoping he'll give I had to try to keep them from tramp- it to them, and sometimes he almost ling over me, although I was flattered I PUT THE California cap away, and be- does. When worst comes to worst, the by the commotion. Three or four of the gan to wear the New York hat. I shaped girls take off their clothes and then the girls bore down on me, smelling high of it the way newspaper reporters in movies photographer has more to work with a mixture of sweat and perfume. Several shaped their hats and I put it on my and a new order of discovering to do. of them grabbed my hand that held the head and forgot all about it, only to be In 1928 as well as in 1964 the girls in tickets, and I thought, "Boy, I always surprised now and then by the image the photographs at the ten-cent dance was a killer with women, wasn't I?" The of myself in a store window, because tried to look as if they were not wearing music stopped and I saw the men who for a moment I hadn't known who it clothes. The fact is something was the were dancing tear off a ticket each and was. It was me, with my New York hat matter with every one of their faces. hand it to the girl he was dancing with. • on my head: a man of the world now, They seemed to be trying too hard. The music started again, they all started a man of the biggest city in the world, They had become involved in a kind dancing again, and then almost imme- a man of Broadway, a man who had of performance, as if they were in the diately the music stopped again, and the been to the ten-cent dance just beyond theater. Each of them had assumed the tickets were torn off and handed around the Palace and had not only danced ten role of the irresistible woman. For the again. You didn't even have time to get dances but had escorted one of the girls boys and men from out of town they into the spirit of the music. In the mean- to a restaurant. were irresistible. time the girls bearing down on me had My wages at the telegraph office were I certainly had had illusions about the dwindled to two. One of them was the fifteen dollars a week for the first two girl I had spent all my tickets on and girl who noticed the next day that I weeks, which had been trial weeks, but the next day had taken to a restaurant, wore a cap. Now, I had never danced after that they were twenty. Getting to and she definitely had not been the most in a dance hall, or for that matter any- meet the girl had cost me a total of a beautiful girl in the world. The girl who where else. I told the girl so, and she little under three dollars, or a day's had wiped the table with a wet cloth said, "That's all right. Nobody's dancing. wages. It had been expensive. had been more beautiful, perhaps be- Come on. I'll give you twelve dances for I remember having asked her while cause she hadn't known what she was the ten tickets." I stepped out onto the we drank coffee, after I had run out of doing or where she was. She was only floor, going around the railing to get tickets, "Do you like to walk?" I liked earning a little money the hard way. there. She came forward to be held, and to, and I had always imagined my girl The girl I sat with was earning a she was a big armful. I had had no idea walking with me. little money the easy way, although at standing and chatting with her that there But the girl said, "Oh no. After danc- one time she may have been a girl who could be so much to have my left arm ing and standing on my feet all night, wiped tables in a restaurant, too: not a around and the front of my body up I'm too tired to walk. Was there some- waitress, which calls for a certain amount against. It was something like the feel- wheres you wanted to take me?" of pace, buoyancy, sharpness, and just a ing one has in getting on a horse for At the restaurant I tried to see us touch of concern about getting things on the first time, but only from the point married, but I got a blurred picture. She the table in a way that doesn't scare the of view of the unsuspected largeness. had been a large armful, I remembered people who are there. The table-wiper For a second, I though, "Well, this is that vividly, and while under the influ- had a kind of beauty that had nothing the one all right. This is the girl. This ence of the largeness I had almost been to do with her features, or a bath, or a is mine." But I wasn't really thinking willing to believe I had found the right little beauty-parlor work on her head. with my head. The music started and one. But in the restaurant I knew I Her beauty had to do only with the stopped. We moved around, and I tried hadn't, and I was glad that I could go travail of getting by. The girl at the my best to chat pleasantly. When there back to looking again. This looking was table, on the other hand, looked like a were only three more tickets to dance important to me, a kind of liberty 1 caricature of somebody in the movies. away, I brought up the matter of the felt I had come near to losing. I know Now, of course I had left home in the following afternoon, and I was delighted I wouldn't be likely to find my girl at first place in order to be in a position that the girl fell in with the idea im- a ten-cent dance, but who could be sure to see a wide variety of girls, and per- mediately. about such a thing? She might even be haps to know, perhaps to marry, one of "Four o'clock sharp in front of the found in a "house." Hadn't I read some- them. I had left Fresno, the first time Palace," she said. where in Guy de Maupassant, or perhaps before I was eighteen, for the same In the restaurant, though, away from in something by one of the Russians, of reason. It had become time to start look- the jungle atmosphere of the ten-cent a boy who had gone to a "house," and as ing for my girl, and I didn't want to dance, I couldn't help noticing that the luck would have it had come upon a girl look for her in Fresno. I was fed up with girl was not my girl. I hadn't made a who had just that day started and was my family. I wanted to see about start- mistake, though: I had only started scared to death, and he took her away, ing a family of my own. Twenty is a looking for my girl in New York. If and they became the father and mother hard time in a man's life. He may need the first girl I had met had, at first, of seven wonderful kids, and whenever any woman, but he hopes to find a seemed to be my girl and then hadn't, friends asked them about their great woman who is his, and his alone. that couldn't be considered a mistake. luck in finding one another, and where I didn't mind not knowing anybody Not entirely, at any rate, for the girl they had met, the woman always re- in New York, and, on the contrary, felt taught me that caps are worn in New plied proudly, "At Madam Clara's. He that by not knowing anybody I had a York only by boys. Nobody else had was my first customer." better chance of meeting somebody I pointed that out to me. The girl simply really wanted to know. The whole city wanted me to look right, in relation to I WAS WEARING my hat when I got was full of girls, and some of them were her. I took her back to the dance hall, back to San Francisco early in 1929, breathtaking, but I didn't know how I but on our way back I didn't wear the after five months in New York, after "All right—who's the joker that arranged this gallery?' 28 would ever be able to meet them. cap. Only after she had turned and had (Continued on page 78) 29 There'll be no more here." I knew that Stapleton went back to New York, A sort of delighted smile appeared on to be hard, and I might fail. I took off looked around nervously, noticed some It's safe with you. Safer'n a bank." He the bail would be forfeited. a long and arduous journey. The plane Xanthu's faces. With a tremendous ef- my hat and hung it in the hall and went silverware in a case, and began chatting picked up his ticket and the ten dollars "Just turning him loose on other in which he flew crashed, nose-diving fort he descended. in and saw my family again, and al- about Sheffield plate with Uncle who and staggered out. Uncle looked at me towns," the deputy said, grumbling. from 30,000 feet into an ugly crop of though I couldn't stand them from want- happened to be an expert on silver. and shrugged. He went through the ritual with key rock. There were no survivors except OF COURSE it was absurd—the curse, the ing a family of my own so much, there Then he took his dollar and pawn An hour later the chick came in with and gunbelt, leaving me standing be- Stapleton. The boat on which he then amulet, the string of misfortunes all was a certain resignation in them about ticket and scurried out. Uncle shrugged. the pawn ticket and collected the r~—?+ side the desk as he vanished into the in- embarked sank in the midst of a lunacy around him from the time he had en- me that I had to respect. And although "One lesson you learn in this business hundred dollars. LSJ terior of the jail. He came out, followed of winds and howling waters and un- tered the tomb. Coincidence, Stapleton I hated to be there, to have had to go is never ask questions." by Paul and the other two. paralled numbers of sharks and sundry thought, in the best tradition of those back, I was glad, too. My family was Next day Uncle smilingly displayed The deputy put on his gunbelt, sat sea creatures. The sea beasts turned faced with supernatural menace. He still all I had in the world that I had an expensive book on Sheffield silver. June Wilkinson down at the desk, and opened a drawer. belly up and watched mournfully as walked back and forth in his expensive any real connection with. It was ^-—-^ "Gift from that guy from last night," he "Here's your stuff," he said in a hard, Stapleton glumly paddled his solitary hotel room, letting his fancy play with sad, but it was true. L^U said. "You know what that was all CONTINUED FROM PAGE 70 remote voice. "Sign for it." lifeboat away. the notion. about? He's a Wall Street broker. Friend He began tossing wallets and small The train .that carried him next met If it were true (of course, it was only give him a lift uptown and dropped him he said, "follows me everywhere. I could- n't care less about all this." change and packages of cigarettes on head-on with another. Stapleton stood a joke) then this little piece of stone Bester's World . off near the Garden. Then he finds he the desk top. Paul lit a cigarette im- beside the jumbled ruins with a sadly would make him the most invulnerable left his wallet in his office, and didn't Those sentiments turned out to be June's exactly. mediately, his face high and cold above shaking head. At last in New York, man since the old gentleman who orig- CONCLUDED FROM PAGE 8 have cab fare to get home. He was the movement of his hands. They signed climbing from the ruins of the taxi inally owned it. It had already kept him walking around for an hour, trying to the receipt and stuffed their small pos- which had conveniently destroyed itself from the worst imaginable sorts of near Madison Square Garden one eve- get up nerve to ask a cop for a loan THERE'S A LOT of boredom attached to sessions into their pockets. and its driver against the stone face of harm! Stapleton thought on, his excite- ning when Uncle was explaining to me before he come in here." being in the public eye all the time. The deputy looked at Paul after it his own hotel, Stapleton began to do a ment growing: Why, nothing can harm how the disappearance of hockable gold Hock shops get all kinds of customers Identity gets lost in a mire of something was done. "You're free," he said. "Go little serious thinking. me! I can, uninviting as it sounds, rule curios was killing the business. The in all sorts of emergencies; butchers who called Image. Fame frequently is a two- right on out of town or you'll be back Lying on his bed, Stapleton drank a the world! Better yet, I can steal any- gentleman behaved guiltily, which im- have to pay a C.O.D. on a beef ship- edged sword: people know who you are, in here." glass of Scotch (the instantaneous poi- thing I want and get away with it! mediately offended Uncle. ment, distracted mothers who must make but they don't regard you as a human "All right," Paul said. son changed back to drinking whiskey Stapleton walked to the dresser and "Is this a pawnshop?" the gentleman down payments before they can get their being. You're something to be looked The deputy stood up. "And I'll tell the moment it reached his lips), and prepared himself another Scotch-on-the- asked. children into hospitals, junkies who need at, and whispered about, but you're way you," he said. "We don't need your took stock of the events in his life since rocks, humming a little. From the cor- Uncle nodded. money for a fix, and stranded musicians up there, on another plane. kind down here. We didn't ask for your his business venture in the soggy rain ner of his eye, he half noticed a growing "How would I go about ... er ... who are always regular clients. But per- "I never get to really meet anyone," help to handle them Freedom Riders forest. He rubbed and fondled the amu- glow of very pale light, over in the cor- pawning something?" haps the most amusing emergency un- June confided one evening between bites and them drugstore sitters. We can take let, now on a key chain in his pocket. ner of his room, by the bathroom door. "Slumming?" Uncle snapped. folded in one of my favorite hock shops of filet mignon at Chicago's popular care of our own problems without no He thought of the rudely worded curse Reflection, he thought, returning to his "No, I ... This really is an emer- down near Old Slip on the East River. London House. "Of course, I meet a lot Yankee outsiders butting in." (standard equipment in that sort of strange but delicious fantasy. gency." A sailor rolled in and asked, "Hey, of people, but it's almost always just in He walked around the desk. Paul did place) which he had half deciphered What could they do to me? he "Well," Uncle said. "You put some- you guys hock anything?" the line of business." not flinch away from him as the dep- on the stone door of the tomb. He thought. Bullets would turn away, elec- thing down as security for a loan. That's "If it isn't alive, and you can get it She wasn't kidding. During her recent uty's hand went up to touch the black thought of the ancient corpse puffing tric chairs fizzle out, ropes break around the pledge. Then I make you the loan, through the door, you can hock it." six-week stint in the Windy City, she swastika on the khaki sleeve. into nothing as he removed the amulet; my neck! He fondled the amulet on its and your ticket is your receipt. See? "Then gimmie ten bucks on this." didn't have one date. But she met a lot "I fought them German Nazis in the he recalled the thunder clap, the various string. When you're ready to claim your pledge, The sailor planked a hundred-dollar bill of people: at things like fashion shows, Battle of the Bulge," the deputy said. destructions and disasters which had oc- The glow in the corner of the room you pay back the loan plus interest. down on the counter. automobile agency promotions, inter- "I don't like the home-grown kind no curred about him since that time, and grew brighter. A dizzy,shape was form- Simple." Uncle's face worked as he handed the views, etc.—all of the dull, time-killing more than I did them. Now get on out he got up from the bed, found a bit of ing there. "What could I pledge?" pawn ticket to the sailor to fill out. functions that are so necessary to keep- of here before I lose my temper again." string, and tied the amulet about his "All the money in the world," Sta- "Depends on how much you want." Finally his discretion gave way. "Listen," ing a name in print, and thereby keep- We went outside into the hot South- neck. It was all absurd, superstitious and pleton said out loud. He hiccupped, "A dollar." he said, "we make it a rule never to ask ing a "name." ern sun, Paul Harness walking tall in absurd, but Stapleton was about to take whooped softly, and began to twist in- "Then your fountain pen ought to questions, but this I got to ask. Why Worse yet, at least to June, is that front. We automatically fell into step a shower, and he was not going to do so expertly, sipping again from the Scotch, do it," Uncle said, pointing to a gold are you hocking a hundred-dollar bill?" everywhere she goes, she is not regarded as a woman, but as a sex symbol. That as we marched away I"'""'"! without the amulet connected to his quite drunk, in fact. He glanced once pen in the gent's vest. "Got a chick in the saloon around the from the jail. L^J body. more at the annoying reflected glow in The gentleman handed over his pen. corner," the sailor explained. "She's a bothers her. "It's funny," she said, "but the corner of the room. Then he tried While Uncle was preparing the pawn real fast hustler, and I don't want her men who know me don't think of me to know I got this much money on me. that way at all. Maybe it's because of XANTHU WAS in a mood, and when he to shriek, but could not. ticket for him to fill out, the gentleman Later that night, his sounds attracted my sense of humor. When you say some- Ugly God was in a mood, his appearance cannot thing that makes men laugh, it's pretty be described. He was both deeply frus- attention. First a bellboy, then the as- sistant to the manager, then the mana- difficult for them to think of you as a CONCLUDED FROM PAGE 50 trated and full of godly rage—a savage symbol of sex or anything." ger. An ambulance came soon after and combination. Others in his circumstance And that's the irony. June Wilkinson his scholarly restraint. After a rudely took Stapleton away to a place outside had flooded the entire earth, destroyed doesn't think of herself as a sex goddess. aborted attempt to steal and sell the town, where he lived for the rest of his cities and populations, rained locusts, And she doesn't like to be thought of in precious artifacts, he had disjoined him- and the like. But Xanthu was more natural life in perfect health, totally in- self from any official organization con- sane with terror. Gibbering, in fact. that way. But she, herself, created that temperate. There had to be a way out image and for now she's stuck with it. cerned with archaeological discovery. of his contradictory stalemate. The mor- Xanthu was an extremely {*"•*} ugly god! L"¥"-J And all that goes with it—the empty, There was more gravy in grave robbing, tal, safe from all unnatural bodily harm shallow things she must do in order to Stapleton humorously deduced. through all his natural life span, still stay in the limelight, and the looks, leers, He had had fair luck. He had become must be destroyed to fulfill Xanthu's and comments she must bear. expert in smuggling prizes from the obligation to the curse. There had to be The California Cap To be completely candid, the public Far East (and from the Lower Nile re- a way: Xanthu was sleepy. —or at least her public, which is 99 and gion and from Central America) past Some light years away, a group of CONTINUED FROM PAGE 28 99/100ths per cent male—regards her the glances of customs and govern- portly, obviously anthropomorphic dei- only as a busty-lusty-bounce-of-BE-YOO- ment men. From there, Stapleton's finds ties tramped resignedly through the having looked all over the city for my TI-FUL "tail." wound their way discreetly into the heavens, looking for a place to settle. girl, after not having found her, after And that's why she's unhappy. She's glass cases of private collections, bring- From one of the new African States, not having made my fame and fortune, intelligent enough to want a man's in- ing him considerable relief from pain of Xanthu observed. Just then they caught after having only worked for low wages, terest in her to be centered somewhere remorse over his greediness. He was do- a glimpse of Xanthu. They vanished in and after having found out that it wasn't above her bra and above his belt buckle. ing quite well until he took the old a blur of solar waste, one fearful yelp going to be easy to find my girl and The image she's so dissatisfied with 79 78 king's amulet in the rain forest. drifting back to Xanthu's many ears. make my fame and fortune. It was going