11
“We were pulling for you from the start,” said Groat. He sat at the kitchen table, which he and Withersby had covered with weathered, string-tied portfolios crammed with reams of green-tinted paper. It was the first time I’d seen Groat up close and in strong light. A fat, froggish man, he lifted the soft drink I gave him and drained it in one long swallow. His skin had the texture of rice paper. His sweat smelled oily. Clearly, he did not meet the weight standard set for federal agents, which meant either he or his physician falsified his yearly medical examinations in order to save his job. He talked on for a while in his thick-tongued voice about his arthritis, his recurring knee problems, reciting his weaknesses and defects the way people sometimes do to disarm you, as if to say they know full well their deficiencies and need to mention them before you take notice and think poorly of them. On the other hand, I thought, this might be nothing more than a ploy to shape our opinions of him before we’d properly had time to pass judgment.
“Back in Washington,” he said, giving his brittle, snaplike smile, “there’s a lot of … concern … about what’s happening to Dr. King.” Groat lifted a pack of Winstons from his shirt pocket, lit one, blew smoke toward the ceiling, then flicked the ash into his soda can. “His friends, some of his closest aides, are damned worried. Did you two know that?”
“No,” I said. “Worried about what?”
“Despair, fits of depression.” Groat spread open one of his portfolios, then read from his pages like a doctor delivering a diagnosis, his face knotted around the eyes. “According to reports I’ve got here, he’s got everyone worried. Most of the time he’s morose, distracted. Can’t sleep at night, so he stays up making his staff listen to his sermons over and over again. I figure he’s worn out Andrew Young by now, and earlier this month when he took a vacation — about the first he’s had in years — he damned near scared Ralph Abernathy to death after he got out of bed in his pajamas and started singing “Rock of Ages” on his hotel balcony. More people on Atlanta’s SCLC staff than I care to mention can’t see the logic behind his plan to flood Washington with the poor; he’s known to walk out of those meetings when things don’t go his way. See, I think it’s the strain. All the riots and death in the cities last year. And the years before that. He blames himself for them. And if he doesn’t, if he denies that there’s blood on his hands, his critics lay the corpses right on his doorstep, telling him the day of nonviolence is done, that it was just a foolish dream anyway. Then you got to figure how he’s feeling, what with Adam Clayton Powell calling him Martin Loser King, H. Rap Brown taking over SNCC, donations to the SCLC dropping, and one of his own folks, James Bevel, saying whites are the most savage, bestial, murderous, and corrupt people on earth ’cause at bottom they’re mentally ill. Look at all he’s got stacked against him. Every civil rights leader — Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, Jackie Robinson, Ralph Bunche, and even King’s own father at first — says his stand against Vietnam is the most reckless thing he’s ever done, a move that’ll splinter the Movement right down the middle, seeing how the military’s been at the forefront of integration, and Johnson’s committed himself to the Great Society’s war on poverty. His former allies feel betrayed. His enemies constantly tell him he’s failed. That’s right, he hasn’t had a civil rights victory in two years. And it’s showing. Hairline cracks here and there, ones he can’t hide. He told Jesse Jackson he ought to go on one of those Gandhi-like fasts unto death to make the rioters in the cities stop and the bickering factions among black activists come together. You watch him out in public, you’ll see how his eyes keep moving, looking for someone about to attack him. That’s called paranoia, isn’t it? When he’s talking, he balls his right fist and keeps rubbing his fingers with his thumb. His speeches sound morbid. They’re all about dying. Hell, you listen close enough, they sound like they’re about a death wish. Not long ago he sent his wife a bouquet of plastic flowers. Red carnations. And when she asked him why, he told her, ‘I wanted to give you something you could always keep.’ Does that sound like a man who has given up or what? Just between you and me, one of his friends has been urging him to see a psychiatrist …”
Withersby rubbed his nose, looking up from his notepad. “He shot that idea down. I think he’s suspicious of psychoanalysis.”
“Comes from his college days,” Groat agreed. “He’s probably worried some shrink’ll go right to those two times he tried to commit suicide when he was a kid.”
“Yes, but look at Malcolm Little. He was better on that score.” Withersby glanced from Groat to me, then to Smith. “During the last year of his life, before those Muslims shot him onstage at the Audubon Ballroom, he was looking into analysis to understand how for seven years he could have preached that doctrine of Yacub, the black scientist, being the inventor of the white race. He told photographer Gordon Parks he’d been mad and sick earlier. Actually, what he said — I’ve got the report right here — was, ‘I was a zombie — like all the rest of them. I was hypnotized, pointed in a certain direction and told to march.‘”
Groat rocked his head. “I read that report. It’s sad it took so long for him to come to his senses. But, you know, I think Little made a lot of sense. I’m all for integration, but you ought to see some of the slime me’n Vincent spend our time investigating, scumbags like Carlo Gambino, the Gallo brothers, and Joe Columbo. I mean, do colored folks really want to integrate with them?”
“Why,” Smith asked, “are you telling us this?”
“Because we think you can help King before it’s too late. As you can tell, he won’t — or can’t — slow down. Not even for a day. You know, it’s funny how some men try to kill themselves. Not all of them take pills or stick a shotgun in their mouths. Some I’ve seen force policemen to do it for them. Others, the workaholics, do it slow. They do it by taking on tasks they know they can’t finish, projects they know will put them six feet under. I think that’s what we’ve got here. Damn near every hand is turned against this man. And what does he do? Plan night and day to bring all the poor together in April to disrupt and shut down the federal government, despite his pal Rustin telling him there’s no way he’s gonna get Irishmen, Puerto Ricans, Indians, Chicanos, and Negroes to put aside their differences and form an alliance. He brought some of their leaders together a few weeks ago, and what they said was, ‘Our problems are different from yours.’ A sane man might have second thoughts, he might wonder if he’s over-reaching himself, especially since his antiwar work’s depleted most of his funds. He’d probably wonder, I’m saying, if this last, greatest dream of his — this jump from race to class, from local crises to a national one — might turn into a nightmare when he brings all those poor people to Washington to demonstrate and fill up the hospitals and jails. He’d ask himself, What if there’s violence? How do we feed them? Where will they sleep? Or go to the toilet? Now me, I believe in what he used to stand for. I’m a Democrat, I voted for Kennedy. King’s done some good work, but there’s a problem. It’s the company he keeps. Ex-Communists and fellow travelers. In Washington they figure if he’s not red, he’s awfully doggone pink. Maybe a security risk. And dammit, I think they’re right. He’s calling for an Economic Bill of Rights, the redistribution of wealth, and a guaranteed income. Listen to this note King made to himself in fifty-one. ‘It is a well-known fact that no social institution can survive when it has outlived its usefulness. This capitalism has done. It has failed to meet the needs of the masses.’ Now, that sure as hell sounds to me like what I hear coming from behind the Iron Curtain. What do you think?”