He thought at the end of the rally that she would speak to him but there was a reception for the Mexican back at the offices of Mother Earth. He was the zapatista representative. He wore boots under his cuffless trousers. He did not smile but drank tea and then wiped his long moustaches with the back of his hand. The rooms were crowded with journalists, bohemians, artists, poets and society women. Younger Brother was not aware that he was following Goldman about. He was desperate for her attention. But she was enormously busy with everyone else. Each new person who came in the door had to be seen. She had lots on her mind. She introduced people to each other. To different persons she proposed different things they must do, others they should speak with, places they ought to go, situations they ought to look into or write about. He felt incredibly ignorant. She went into the kitchen and whipped up the batter for a cake. Here, she said to Younger Brother, take these cups and put them on the table in the big room. He was grateful to be taken into her network of useful people. There were posters of Mother Earth magazine covers on every wall. A tall long-haired man was dispensing the punch. He was the one who had come out to the street to invite Younger Brother upstairs. He looked like a Shakespearean actor down on his luck. His fingernails were outlined in black. He was drinking as much as he dispensed. He greeted people by singing a line or two from a song. Everyone laughed who spoke to him. His name was Ben Reitman, he was the man Goldman lived with. There was something the matter with the top of his head, there was a shaven patch. Noticing Younger Brother’s glance he explained that he had been in San Diego and had been tarred and feathered. Emma had gone there to speak. He acted as her manager, renting the halls, making the arrangements. They had not wanted Emma to speak. They had kidnapped him, driven him somewhere, stripped him and tarred him. They had burned him with their cigars, and worse. As he gave this account his face darkened, his smile disappeared. An audience had gathered. He was holding the punch ladle and it began to click against the side of the bowl. He couldn’t seem to let go of it. He gazed at his hand with a peculiar smile on his face. They did not want my momma to speak in Kansas City or Los Angeles or Spokane, he said. But she spoke. We know every jail. We win every case. My momma will speak in San Diego. He laughed as if he couldn’t believe his own hand shook it did. The ladle clicked against the bowl.
At this point a man pushed his way to the table and said You think, Reitman, the world is well-served by your being tarred and feathered? He was a short, totally baldheaded man with thick eyeglasses, a large full mouth and a very sallow complexion with skin like wax. The issue has become Emma’s right to speak rather than what she has to say. All our energies go into defending ourselves. That is their strategy, not our own. I’m afraid you don’t understand that. What is so glorious, poor Reitman, about being bailed out of the tank by some guilty liberal. So that then he can congratulate himself. How id the world advanced? The two men stared at each other. Goldman’s voice called cheerfully from the back of the gathering: Sacha! She came around the table wiping her hands on her apron. She stood next to Reitman. She gently removed the ladle from his hand. Sacha, my dear, she said to the sallow man, if first we have to teach them their own ideals, perhaps then we may teach them ours.
The party went on into the early hours. Younger Brother despaired of getting her attention. He sat, Indian style, on am old couch with sagging springs. After some time he realized the room was quiet. He looked up. Goldman was sitting on a kitchen chair directly in front of him. The room was otherwise empty, he was the last guest. Unaccountably, tears came to his eyes. You actually asked if I remembered you, Emma Goldman said. But how could I forget. Could anyone forget a sight such as that, my pagan. She touched his cheek with her thumb and mashed away a tear. So tragic, so tragic. She sighed. Is that all you want from your life? Her large magnified eyes peered at him through the lenses of her eyeglasses. She sat with her legs apart, her hand on her knees. I don’t know where she is. But if I could tell you, what good would that do? Suppose you got her to come back to you? She would only stay awhile. She would run away from you again, don’t you know that? He nodded. You look terrible, Goldman said. What have you been doing to yourself? Don’t you eat? Don’t you get any fresh air? He shook his head. Yu have aged ten years. I cannot sympathize. You think you are special, losing your lover. It happens every day. Suppose she consented to live with you after all. You’re a bourgeois, you would want to marry her. You would destroy each other inside of a year. You would see her begin to turn old and bored under your very eyes. You would sit across the dinner table from each other in bondage, in terrible bondage to what you thought was love. The both of you. Believe me you are better off this way. Younger Brother was crying. You’re right, he said, of course you’re right. He kissed her hand. She had a small hand but the fingers were swollen and the skin was red and the knuckles were enlarged. I have no memories of her, he sobbed. It was something I dreamed. Goldman was unappeased. This way you can feel sorry for yourself, she said. And what a delicious emotion that is. I’ll tell you something. In this room tonight you saw my present lover but also two of my former lovers. We are all good friends. Friendship is what endures. Shared ideals, respect for the whole character of a human being. Why can’t you accept your own freedom? Why do you have to cling to someone in order to live?
He bowed his head as she talked. He stared at the floor. He felt her fingers under his chin. His head was lifted, tilted up. He found himself staring into the faces of Goldman and Reitman. From Reitman’s scatteredbrained smile a gold tooth gleamed. They peered at him, curious and interested. Goldman said He reminds me of Czolgosz. Reitman said He is educated, a bourgeois. But the same poor boy in the eyes, Goldman said. The same poor dangerous boy. Younger Brother saw himself standing in line to shake the hand of William McKinley. A handkerchief was wrapped around his hand. In the handkerchief was a gun. McKinley fell back. Blood dyed his vest. There were screams.
But an hour later he stood between the cars on the milk train going up to New Rochelle. He considered throwing himself under the wheels. He listened to their rhythm, their steady clacking, like the left hand of a rag. The screeching and pounding of metal on metal where the two cars joined was the syncopating right hand. It was a suicide rag. He held the door handles on either side of him listening to the music. The cars jumped under his feet. The moon raced with the train. He held his face up to the sky between the cars, as if even moonlight could warm him.
23
ne Sunday afternoon the colored man Coalhouse Walker said goodbye to his fiancée and drove off to New York in his Ford. It was about five o’clock in the evening and the shadows of the trees darkened the road. His route took him along Firehouse Lane, past the station house of the Emerald Isle Engine, a company of volunteer firemen known for the dash of their parade uniforms and the liveliness of their outings. In the many times he had gone this way the Emerald Isle volunteers would be standing and talking outside the firehouse, a two-story clapboard building, and as he drove past they would fall silent an stare at him. He was not unaware that in his dress and as the owner of a car he was a provocation to many of the white people. He had created himself in the teeth of such feelings.
At this time private volunteer companies were maintained as auxiliaries to the municipal fire department, and these companies, which relied upon private subscription, had yet to motorize their equipment. As the Negro came along a team of three matching gray engine horses cantered out of the firehouse into the road pulling behind them the big steam pumper for which the Emerald Isle was locally renowned. They were immediately reined, causing Coalhouse Walker to brake his car abruptly.