The Center Cannot Hold ae-2 Read online

  Face working with all the things he dared not say, the other man did as he was told. Bartlett finished tearing down the posters, then went on to the trolley stop. His only worry was that the Freedom Party man had a weapon of his own, one he hadn't had a chance to use. But the fellow had talked about beating him up, not shooting him. And he didn't reappear.

  Up came the trolley, bell clanging. Reggie tossed a dime into the fare box and took a seat. The dime should have been five cents; prices weren't quite what they had been before the war. But they weren't what they had been afterwards, either-he wasn't paying a million dollars, or a billion, for the privilege of riding across town to his flat.

  Nobody on the trolley car had the slightest idea who he was or what he'd just done. That suited him fine, too. He had a chance to relax a little and look out the window. Before long, the trolley passed more of those VOTE FREEDOM IN 1925! posters. Reggie's lip curled. He couldn't rip them all down, however much he wished he could.

  Seven and a half years after the Great War ended, not all the destruction U.S. aeroplanes had visited on Richmond was yet repaired. Plenty of burnt-out and bombed building fronts stared at the street through window frames naked of glass; they might have been so many skulls peering out through empty eye sockets. The damnyankees made my home town into Golgotha, Bartlett thought. One of these days, we'll have to pay them back. But how?

  He shivered, though the crowded trolley was warm with humanity. That was how the Freedom Party thought, and how it got its members. Haven't you had enough of war? he asked himself. Asked that way, he could hardly say no.

  He got off at the shop nearest his flat. For supper, he fried up a ham steak and some potatoes. After he did the dishes-he was a fussy, neat bachelor-he read for a while and went to bed. He wouldn't have minded a wireless set, so he could listen to music or a football game, but not on the salary of a druggist's assistant.

  The next day did bring a chilly drizzle. Work at the drugstore went much as the previous day had. He didn't bother telling his boss about the fuss over the posters. Jeremiah Harmon had no use for the Freedom Party, no, but Reggie didn't want him fussing like a mother hen, which was just what he would have done.

  "Hey, you!" somebody called to Reggie when he walked to the trolley stop that evening. It was the veteran he'd quarreled with. He wore a disreputable hat to keep the rain off his face.

  His hand went to the. 45. "Told you I didn't want you bothering me," he said.

  "No bother, pal," the fellow said. He pasted on a smile as he came up to Bartlett, and he made sure he kept his hands in plain sight. "We've all got to live and let live, ain't that right?"

  Reggie stared. "That's not how you talked yesterday," he said, his voice hard with suspicion. "What's wrong with you now?"

  "Not a thing," the Freedom Party man said. "I just got a little hasty, is all. You went through some of the things I did, you'd get hasty, too."

  "I went through plenty myself," Bartlett said. "You want to go through it again? That's what that damn Featherston's got in mind."

  "No, pal. You don't understand at all," the veteran said. He still had on the same ancient tunic he'd worn the evening before.

  Noticing that, Reggie didn't notice the footsteps coming up behind him till they stopped. That made him notice, and made him start to turn, his pistol coming out of the holster. Too late. He heard three shots. Two slugs hammered him in the chest. The next thing he knew, he was on the ground, reaching for the. 45 that had fallen from his fingers.

  The veteran scooped it up. "Nice piece," he said, and then, grinning, "Freedom!" Reggie heard him as if from far away, and further every moment. He didn't hear the man and his friend running away at all, or anything else ever again.

  Three guards came up to Cincinnatus Driver's cell. Two of them stood in the corridor, their pistols aimed at his midsection. The third opened the cell door. "Come along," he said.

  "Where you takin' me?" Cincinnatus asked.

  "That ain't none o' your business, boy," the guard snapped, for all the world as if Kentucky were still part of the CSA, not the USA. "Come along, you hear?"

  "Yes, suh." Cincinnatus got up off his cot and came. He'd quickly learned how far he could go with these guards before they stopped talking and started persuading him by other means. One beating had been plenty to drive the lesson home: not just the beating itself, but how much they enjoyed giving it to him. If they ever decided to beat him to death, they would do it with smiles on their faces.

  "Hands behind your back," the guard told him. He obeyed. The guard clicked handcuffs onto his wrists. They were cruelly tight, but Cincinnatus kept his mouth shut about that, too. Complaining just got them tightened more.

  The guards marched him along the corridor. He recognized some of the men sitting or lying in their cells. Some, black like him, were Reds. Others, whites, were men who'd been Confederate diehards during the war and probably belonged to the Freedom Party nowadays. Maybe some of the other prisoners recognized him, too. If so, no one gave a sign.

  "This way," one of the guards told him. They led him across the exercise yard he normally saw for an hour a week, down another corridor, and into an office. A tall, backless stool sat in front of the desk. Luther Bliss sat behind it. The guards slammed Cincinnatus down on the stool, hard.

  "Here we are again," the head of the Kentucky State Police said.

  "Yes, suh," Cincinnatus said. "I want a lawyer, suh." He hadn't tried that one in a while. The worst the other man could tell him was no.

  Bliss' smile never touched his hunting-dog eyes. "If you was still in Des Moines, maybe you could have one," he answered. "But this here's Kentucky, and the rules are different here. This is one of the reclaimed states, and we aren't about to put up with treason or rebellion. You mess around with that stuff and you get caught, we take care of you our own way."

  "I wasn't messin' around with nothin' here," Cincinnatus said bitterly. "I was just livin' my life up in Iowa till you got that sorry Hadrian nigger to write that lyin' letter to get me down here in the first place. You call that fair… suh?"

  "I had you once before," Luther Bliss replied in meditative tones. "I had you, and I was going to squeeze you, and Teddy Roosevelt made me turn you loose. He made me pay you a hundred dollars out of my own pocket, too. I have… a long memory for these things, Cincinnatus."

  Cincinnatus hadn't forgotten that, either, though Bliss hadn't mentioned it till now. "Do Jesus, Mr. Bliss, you want your hundred dollars back, I'll pay it to you. Just let me wire my wife an'-"

  Bliss shook his head. "I get paid back with interest."

  "I'll pay you interest. I got the money. I done pretty good for myself up there."

  "I don't want your money. I get paid back my kind of interest."

  He was what he was. His kind of interest involved pain and misery. That was what he dished out. That was what the people who told him what to do wanted him to dish out. If, every once in a while, he dished them out to people who didn't really deserve them, the people who told him what to do probably didn't mind. They might even figure he deserved a little fun on the job.

  Like a hunting dog taking a scent, Luther Bliss leaned forward. "Enough chitchat. About time we get down to business, I reckon."

  Before Cincinnatus could brace himself, one of the guards slapped him in the face. He tumbled off the stool and also banged his funny bone on the floor as he fell. "Why'd he do that, Mr. Bliss?" he said, slowly climbing to his feet. "I ain't done nothin' to nobody."

  "You lie. Everyone lies." Luther Bliss sounded sad but certain. Policemen got used to people lying to them. Maybe they even got to where they expected it. Secret policemen probably heard and expected even more lies than any other kind. Bliss pointed to the stool. "Sit your nigger ass back down, Cincinnatus. You got to tell the truth when I ask my questions."

  "You didn't ask me no questions," Cincinnatus said reproachfully. "Joe there, he jus' hauled off an' hit me."

  "That's for all the lies you'
ve already told me, and to remind you not to tell me any more," Luther Bliss answered. Again, his smile never reached his eyes. "You ought to be thankful we've gone easy on you so far."

  "Easy!" Cincinnatus exclaimed. "He damn near knocked my head off." A few months in jail-and years of sparring before then-had given him and the secret policeman an odd sort of camaraderie. He could, up to a point, speak his mind without making Luther Bliss any more likely to do something dreadful to him.

  Bliss nodded now. "He just thumped you a bit. Worse we've done, we've beaten you up. That ain't so much of a much, Cincinnatus, believe you me it ain't. It's a new age we're livin' in. Electricity's everywhere. You take an ordinary car battery and some wires, and you clip 'em to a man's ears, or to the skin of his belly, or maybe to his privates…"

  Cincinnatus didn't want to show fear. But his mouth went dry at the thought of electricity trickling through his balls. Would he ever be able to get it up again after something like that? Please, Jesus, don't let me find out!

  Meditatively, Bliss went on, "Other nice thing about that is, it doesn't leave any marks. You niggers don't show bruises as much as a white man would, but even so…" He leaned forward. "I reckon you already told me everything you know about Kennedy and Conroy and the rest of those goddamn diehards."

  "Mr. Bliss, I done sung like a canary 'bout them bastards." There Cincinnatus spoke the truth. He owed no loyalty to the white men who'd done all they could to help the Confederate cause in Kentucky. They might have killed him or betrayed him to U.S. authorities, but they'd had no great hold on his loyalty. As far as he could see, any Negro who backed the Confederates from anything but compulsion was some kind of idiot.

  The secret policeman pointed to him. "You're still holding out, though, when it comes to Apicius and the rest of the Reds. Like calls to like. Just like the diehards, you coons stick together."

  "Do Jesus, how can I know what they're up to when I moved away years ag-" Cincinnatus got that far before the guard belted him again. This time, he was braced for it, and didn't fall off the stool. He tasted blood in his mouth.

  "You don't expect me to believe anything like that, do you?" Luther Bliss sounded sad, like a preacher contemplating sinful mankind. "I ain't stupid, Cincinnatus, no matter what you think."

  "I never reckoned you was." Again, Cincinnatus told the exact truth. Fear of Bliss had helped him decide to leave Kentucky, but he'd never thought the other man was dumb. Just the opposite: he didn't care to live under Bliss' magnifying glass for the rest of this days. Living under his thumb, though, was even worse.

  "You get letters. You know what's going on here," the secret policeman said.

  "Not hardly," Cincinnatus told him. "Don't hardly know that many folks what can read an' write. You keepin' tabs on me all the time like I reckon you been doin', you know that's true."

  For a moment, he thought he'd got through to Bliss. The man's eyes narrowed. He looked thoughtful. But then, a moment before he spoke, Cincinnatus realized he was playing a part. He was building up hope in his captive only to dash it: "Well, sonny, so what? Long as you're here, you'll pay for everything you done anyways."

  Cincinnatus would have been more devastated if he'd had more hope to lose. He wanted to tell Bliss where to head in. A couple of times, back in the days when he was still free, he had told Bliss where to head in. He'd enjoyed it mightily then, too. But he was paying for it now.

  "What you got to tell me about them Reds?" Luther Bliss asked now.

  "I done told you everything I ever knew," Cincinnatus answered. It wasn't quite true, but he didn't think Bliss knew that.

  He did know what was coming next. It came. Joe and the other guards got to work on him. They enjoyed what they did, yes, but not to the point of getting carried away and doing him permanent harm: they were, in their way, professionals. It went on for a very long, painful time.

  What hurt most of all, though, was a casual remark Bliss made halfway through the torment: "You might as well sing, by God. It isn't like anybody on the outside gives a damn about what happens to one miserable nigger in a Kentucky jail."

  At last, the beating stopped. The guards dragged Cincinnatus back to his cell. He probably could have walked. He made himself out to be weaker and hurt worse than he really was. Maybe that made them go a little easier on him than they would have otherwise. On the other hand, maybe it didn't do a single goddamn thing.

  "See you next time, boy," Joe said as his pal undid the manacles from Cincinnatus' wrists.

  Cincinnatus lay on his cot like a dead man. Had Luther Bliss sent for him more often, he would have been a dead man in short order. Maybe Bliss didn't want to kill him right away. Maybe, on the other hand, the secret policeman was taking so many different vengeances, he wasn't in a hurry about finishing off any one of them.

  It isn't like anybody on the outside gives a damn about what happens to one miserable nigger in a Kentucky jail. In a way, that was a lie. Cincinnatus knew as much. Elizabeth cared. Achilles cared. Amanda cared. But what could they do? They were black, too, black in a white man's country. Nobody who could do anything cared about Cincinnatus. That burned like acid. It would keep on burning long after the pain of this latest beating eased, too.

  He ran his tongue over his teeth. So far, the goons had broken only one. He'd taken no new damage there today. They hadn't done anything to him this time that wouldn't fade in a couple of weeks. In the meantime… In the meantime, it's gonna hurt, and ain't nothin' you can do about it.

  A cart squeaked up the corridor: supper trays. Cincinnatus wondered if he'd be able to eat. You better. You got to stay strong. A redheaded white man shoved a tray of something that smelled greasy into Cincinnatus' cell. The fellow wore the same sort of uniform as the guards who'd beaten him.

  In a low voice, the redhead said, "Freedom." Cincinnatus suppressed a groan. Just what he needed-somebody with diehard sympathies mocking him. I ought to report you, you bastard. Luther Bliss'd make you pay. But then the fellow went on, "We'll get you out." He pushed the cart away. Cincinnatus stared after him. Did he mean that? And, if he did, whose side was he really on?

  IV

  Another trip down to Washington. Flora Blackford preferred Philadelphia, and didn't care who knew it. But she was willing to excuse the trip to the formal capital of the USA for one reason: so her husband could for the second time take the oath of office as vice president of the United States.

  "Now we think about 1928," she told him as the Pullman car rattled south from Philadelphia. Then she shook her head. "No. That's not right. We should have been thinking about 1928 since the minute we won last November."

  Hosea Blackford's smile showed amusement-and, she was glad to see, ambition, too. "I don't know about you, Flora," he said, "but I have been thinking about it since the minute we won last November, and a while before that, too. When I first saw what the office was, I didn't think I could do much with it or go any further. I've changed my mind, though."

  "Good," Flora said. "You should have, and you'd better think about it. You can be president of the United States. You really can."

  "That wouldn't be too bad for a boy off a Dakota farm, would it?" he said. "You always hear talk about such things. 'Any mother's son can grow up to be president.' That's what people say. Having the chance to make it come true, though…"

  "Of course, if you thought being president was the most important thing in the world, you never should have married me." Flora tried to keep her tone light. Other people would be saying the same thing much more pointedly in the years to come. She was as sure of that as she was of her own name. A presidential candidate with a Jew for a wife? Unheard of! How many votes would it cost him?

  "That has occurred to me," Hosea Blackford said slowly. "It couldn't very well not have occurred to me. But then I decided that, if I had to choose between the two, I would rather spend the rest of my life with you than be president. So I'll take my chances, and the country can take its."

  Flora stared a
t him. Then she kissed him. One thing led to another. The run from Philadelphia down to Washington wasn't a very long one, especially not when traveling on President Sinclair's express. They barely had time to get dressed again and set their clothes to rights before the train came in to Union Station.

  "It's a good thing you don't have to wrestle with a corset, the way you would have before the war," Hosea said, adjusting his necktie in the mirror.

  "Don't speak of such things-you don't know what you're talking about," Flora answered. "The only thing I can think of is, whoever put women in corsets must have hated us. Especially in summertime. A corset on a hot summer day…" She shuddered.

  "Well, you wouldn't have had to worry about the heat today." Her husband looked out the window. "The snow's still coming down."

  "March is late in the year for a snowstorm," Flora said. "I wonder if what people say is true: that the weather's been peculiar since the Great War, and that it made the weather peculiar."

  Hosea Blackford laughed. "Back in Dakota, I would have said May was late for a snowstorm, but nothing sooner than that. If you ask me, the weather's always peculiar. I have a suspicion it's peculiar because it's peculiar, too, and not because we made it that way. I can't prove that, but it's what I think. The weather's bigger than anything we can do, even the Great War."

  "I hope you're right," she said.

  On the platform, a military band blared away. Flora didn't care for that. It wasn't a proper Socialist symbol, even if it was a symbol of the presidency. But if President Sinclair wanted it-and he did-she could hardly complain. People called her the conscience of the Congress, but this wasn't a question of conscience-only one of taste.

  A limousine whisked the president and his wife to the White House. Another one brought the Blackfords there. The journey took only a few minutes. When Flora saw the Washington Monument, she pointed. "It's taller than it was when we came down here for Roosevelt's funeral. You can really tell."