“This is no time for sound-bites and smiles, Ann. We have a bomb to defuse.” He waved with the Guard cap he’d borrowed, incongruous against his gray suit. “If I screw it up, there won’t be any more campaign.”
“You got me there.” Johnson chewed on the cigar, but made no move to light it. “In a campaign, everything is PR, but this is over the edge.” She pointed at the lone cameraman, unloading gear from a beat-up van. “At least there’s the guy from the Reverend’s TV station. You can get footage from him, if it’s any good—and if there’s still a campaign.”
She looked at her watch and scowled. “Where the hell are your Guardsmen? Let’s go on in, they can find us.”
“You plan on smoking that stogie?”
Johnson took the cigar from her mouth, looked at it with vague surprise. “Didn’t know I had it out.” She stuck it in her coat pocket, and they headed in.
“Reverend Davis, it is good to meet you.” Siemens shook hands, pressing his left hand briefly to Davis’s shoulder. The elderly black cleric seemed frail, but his eyes blazed.
“General, I wish I hadn’t supported bringing the Guard here.” Davis shook his head sadly. “A tragic mistake, I fear.”
“There is tragedy enough, here, Reverend, and plenty of mistakes, but I still believe we’re on the same side.”
“But is it the side of righteousness, General? That is the question we must always ask.”
Siemens looked around the meeting hall, a sprawling room filled with moveable pews and folding chairs. He’d been to plenty of campaign dinners in rooms like this. This one was full, and the faces nearly all black. Ann and Reverend Davis had twisted arms and called in favors, and brought representatives from every black organization in the city.
They did not look happy.
The Guardsmen arrived, and found seats near the podium: three locals and three newcomers from Philadelphia. That had been Johnson’s idea. If Siemens was by himself, he’d be seen as a politician, even without the media circus. These six showed that he was talking for the Guard.
Davis stepped to the lectern. “Brothers and sisters,” he said, “this is a sorrowful time, and sorrow leads easily to anger. Anger can bring more pain, though, and greater tragedy. Before we go too far down that perilous road, we should stop and think, listen to the voices our anger opposes. Listen now to General Richard Siemens. I don’t ask you to agree with him or even to believe him; I don’t even know what he’ll say. I do ask you to listen to him, with an open mind and an open heart.”
Angry muttering swept the hall, against a few lonely “Amens.” A young man stood in the back. “Came to talk about these honkies, not to listen to them.”
“Hosea,” answered Davis, “you came because this church pays for your offices and your newsletter. Now sit back down and listen. General, it’s all yours.”
Siemens took Davis’s place, and put the cap before him on the lectern. He looked across the group: angry, tense faces. A long time since he’d been before a room as hostile as this. He picked up the cap, gestured with it.
“I wear no uniform or medals tonight, but I wore a Guard uniform for six years, and Air Force for two decades before then. It meant a lot to me. A symbol, of what I believed in, what I worked for, why I risked my life. I was proud of it. Now… now, for the first time, I’m ashamed.”
He looked around again. Had their attention, this wasn’t what they were expecting.
“Let’s talk about kids, two groups of kids. Damn-fool, reckless punks, about like I was—maybe some of you, too. Kids who wanted to be a part of something important. Who wanted to shape their lives, to stand up on their own. Kids who let their hearts lead them in the way of danger.
“Maybe none of them wanted a fight. I don’t know, maybe some of them were hoping for a scrape, kids are like that. They started out that night with ideals, high purposes, but they were ready for a fight when it came. Both sides, thrashing like sharks at the smell of blood.
“Only my kids had guns. They shot your kids. Killed them.
“That’s murder. And the kids who did it will be charged and prosecuted. Then it’s up to judge and jury, but I pray for a conviction. Because I damned sure don’t want this to happen again.” His voice rose steadily. “I want every goddamn kid in the Guard waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, scared to death that he might screw up so bad. And I want him a hell of a lot more scared of me than of any judge and jury.”
Siemens paused a moment, then resumed in a soft voice. They were listening, against their will. He could feel their thoughts, tune his pace and tone to their response. “The hell of it is, it wasn’t their fault. They were scared, they were confused. But they should have been trained for crap like that. They shouldn’t have had live ammo, just tear gas and rubber bullets. Let a battle-hardened sergeant hold ammo in case some asshole on the other side started shooting.
“All that’s the commander’s fault. I wish to God I could keel-haul Ramirez, hanging’s too good for him. Problem is, he didn’t break any laws. I can court-martial him, but I can t do much but toss him out of the Guard. Even the racist crap that provoked this was his fault.”
Siemens shook his head sadly. “His fault, and mine. I appointed him, I backed him, I saw the danger signs and I didn’t act in time.” He picked up the cap, turned it around to look at it like Hamlet staring at Yorick’s skull. “I still believe.” He looked back at the audience. “I believe that young men and women can break out of the ghetto, can find meaning and hope, can learn skills and trades. I believe in the power of the same forces the gangs have used so destructively—the burning desire for belonging and identity, the need to be somebody and do something.
“Harness those drives, and add training and discipline, a sense of duty and patriotism. The military has learned how to do that; let’s put it to use. We can turn things around. God knows we need to. Damn it to hell, a country should judge itself not by how many millionaires it creates, but by how it treats its poorest and most vulnerable…
“Hell, I’m off the point and onto politics. I’ll stop talking and sit down, listen to you. But I accept responsibility for all this. I’m getting into politics to fight the racism and violence that created this tragedy. I can’t go on with blood on my hands. If I can’t convince you that I mean this, that I will work my butt off to heal this country, I’m out. Think it over. If you believe that I’m the problem instead of part of the solution, say so and I’ll pull out of the senate race.”
Siemens nodded at the audience, nodded at Rev. Davis, then walked back to his seat. Johnson was staring at the floor, probably wondering why he’d done all this if he was ready to pull out. It wouldn’t come to that. “If you believe”—that was loose enough to drive a tank through.
Johnson looked up, and her expression was not anger. Not her professional good-old-girl smile, either. She looked like the Harvard Divinity graduate she was, eyes troubled, face pinched in concentration on a knotty issue of ethics.
Davis was back at the lectern, but Siemens didn’t listen. He looked over the crowd, measuring their reaction. Frowns showed indecision. There was still hatred, particularly in the youngsters; they didn’t like to be called kids, didn’t want their anger and yearning labeled and filed. The older generation took him seriously. Several women nodded back at him, faces guarded. That was progress, from the attitudes a half hour ago.