The people had begun to applaud Phillip, and he raised his hands for silence. Shepherd, who stood next to Virginia’s new tenant in the back of the room, could see the two big rings on his fingers and the gold watch band round his wrist. The people would not stop applauding him, and Shepherd could see how the gold watch band sparkled in the light as Phillip shook his hands for silence.
Phillip told his audience that he didn’t have a speech to give, that he only wanted to remind them about next Friday when the committee would meet with Albert Chenal.
“It took us years to get Mr. Chenal to hire black people in the first place,” he said. “Now, after he hires them he don’t want to pay them nothing. When we go up there Friday we go’n make it clear. Either he pay the black workers the same he pay the white, or we march before the door. Now, we spend more money in that store than white people do—the white people go to Baton Rouge and New Orleans—some of them even go up North and ’way to Europe. Poor black people don’t have that kind of money to do all that traveling; we spend ours here in St. Adrienne. Therefore, we want our black workers to get the same pay, the same treatment, or we close down shop. We’ll see how long he can last if no blacks go in his store. Mr. Chenal—”
Elijah standing in the center of the room led the applause. He clapped his hands over his head and turned completely around so others would see him and join him. Phillip waited until he had quiet again.
“But Mr. Chenal will challenge us,” he went on. “Sure as I’m standing here talking to you, Mr. Chenal will challenge us. First, he’ll offer us pennies. When we turn that down, he’ll make it nickels. Turn that down, then dimes. When we turn all of this down, he go’n tell us to get out. See how long we can take the cold. You may recall he did the same thing before—not when it was cold, when it was hot. He beat us when it was hot. Yes, when it was hot. And you know how much black people love hot weather—we thrive on hot weather.”
The people started laughing, and Phillip held up his hands.
“Just why d’you think so many our people leaving the North and coming back home?” he asked them. “Our good old Southern hot weather, that’s why. Still, we let Mr. Chenal beat us on the hottest day. Took the crumbs he offered us and said thanks. So what will he do now, knowing how much black people hate cold weather? He go’n offer us crumbs again, and when we turn it down he go’n tell us to get out his store. In the back his mind he go’n be thinking, ‘They can’t take cold weather. Ten minutes out there with Mr. Jack Frost, they go’n run home and drink hot toddy. He-he-he.’ Well, Mr. Chenal is wrong, deadly wrong, we can take cold weather.” Phillip looked across the room. “What you say, Mills?”
Tall, gray-headed Howard Mills standing against the wall raised one big fist up in the air.
“Got my overcoat cleaned this week,” he said. “And got me some new rubber boots to hit that rain.”
The people laughed at Howard Mills.
“Jonathan, ain’t you ready?” Phillip asked.
Jonathan, who stood next to Mills, raised both fists high up over his head.
“I’m ready to walk till next year this time,” he said. “And I hope every last person in here is ready to do the same.”
The people applauded Jonathan. Phillip waited for silence.
“Poor Albert Chenal,” he said. “Poor, poor Albert Chenal. I don’t hate Albert Chenal. I don’t want you to hate Albert Chenal. I want you to pray for Albert Chenal. Tomorrow in church, pray for Albert Chenal. Before you go to bed tonight, pray for Albert Chenal. Remember, love thy neighbor as thyself.”
One of the two white women in the room applauded quietly. But when no one else joined her in support of praying for Albert Chenal, she brought her applause to an abrupt end.
Phillip went on. “Love is the only thing. Understanding the only thing. Persistence, the only thing. Getting up tomorrow, trying again, the only thing. Keep on pushing, the only thing. You got some out there screaming Black Power. I say, what is Black Power but what we already doing and what we been trying to do all these years? Then you have that other crowd sitting in the bars—they even worse than the Black Power screamers—they saying, ‘What’s the use? Nothing will ever change. Hey, Mr. Wrigley, pour me another drink.’ I’ll call on Brother Mills again. What you say, Mills? You seen any changes round here?”
Mills nodded his gray head. “I’m a witness to it,” he said.
“Jonathan?” Phillip said. “You been there too. Well?”
“I’ve seen progress,” Jonathan said. “But we have a long way to go, a long way to go.”
“Amen,” Phillip said.
But Jonathan was not through. He raised both fists over his head and looked round at the people in the room. “We need more people,” he said. “More young people. More old people. We need the ones in the bars. We need the schoolteachers. We need them who go to work for the white people every day of their lives. We need them all. All, all, all. No reason to stay back, no reason at all. The wall is crumbling—let’s finish tearing it down.”
“Amen, amen,” Phillip said, as the people applauded Jonathan.
Jonathan wanted to say more, but Phillip didn’t give him a chance to go on.
“I’ll call on a sister now,” Phillip said. “Remember our sisters was out there first. Miss Daisy Bates, Miss Autherine Lucy, and countless more. And there’s Sister Claiborne standing over there with her fine foxy self—you seen any changes, Sister Claiborne?”
A small gray-haired woman dressed entirely in black nodded her head to Phillip.
“Sister Jackson?” Phillip said. “Don’t that bus run back of town now? And don’t we even have a little bench there for you to sit on when you tired?”
Sister Jackson, who was about the same age as Sister Claiborne, also wearing black, and a red bouquet, nodded her head as Sister Claiborne had done.
“If you want to know about changes, talk to a couple of these sisters round here,” Phillip went on. “Sister Aaron, can’t you vote today for the mayor of St. Adrienne, the governor of Louisiana, the President of the United States?”
“Yes,” Sister Aaron said. “And I’m go’n vote for the first black Congressman from Louisiana too, who will be no one other than our own Reverend Phillip J. Martin.”
The people started to applaud, and Phillip raised his hands for silence. But the people would not be silent. Anthony McVay, the white attorney, standing on one side of Phillip, and Octave Bacheron, a white pharmacist, standing on the other side of him, each took one of his hands and held them high up in the air. And the applause was deafening.
After things had quieted down some, Howard Mills put on his overcoat and left the house. About a dozen other people left at the same time. But still the big living room remained noisy and crowded. Half the people were gathered round Phillip on one side of the room, the rest were in smaller groups throughout the house. Virginia’s new tenant had moved. Now he was standing near the door that led out of the living room down the hall. But even when he moved he never took his eyes off Phillip Martin. Whenever someone got between them he would move again, never getting any closer, but always keeping Phillip in sight. Yet he did it so discreetly that no one, not even Shepherd, who stood next to him most of the time, was suspicious of anything. Beverly had joined them, and both Shepherd and she moved about the room with Virginia’s tenant. They were never aware that he was doing this on purpose. They felt that it was the crowd pushing them into different places.
For the past few minutes Joyce Anne, Phillip’s ten-year-old daughter, had been playing the piano. But there was so much noise in the room that no one paid any attention to her until Crystal McVay, the wife of the attorney, moved away from the crowd round Phillip and turned to the girl at the piano. Others in the room soon joined her. Elijah, who was Joyce Anne’s teacher, stood behind the crowd with his tray of cups and glasses. Each time she played a difficult piece well he would shut his eyes and shake his head from side to side. But when she came to a part that might give her some tr
ouble he would catch his breath and wait. Then when it was over, when she had done it in good form, he would sigh deeply (loud enough for others to hear), nod his head, and continue on through the crowd with his tray.
But not everyone near the piano was listening to the music. Phillip Martin was not. Neither to the music nor to the people round him. For the past couple of minutes he had been looking across the room where Shepherd, Beverly, and Virginia’s tenant were standing. Shepherd, who had noticed it, didn’t think Phillip was looking at them in particular. They were at opposite ends of the room, there were at least three dozen people between them, so he could have been looking at anyone in that direction. Still, he looked nowhere else. And even when someone would speak to him or touch him on the arm, he would give that person his attention only a moment, then look back cross the room again. He looked puzzled, confused, a deep furrow came into his forehead, and he raised his hand up to his temple as if he were in pain. Shepherd continued to watch him watching them. Suddenly he became very jealous. He knew of the minister’s past reputation with women, so maybe he was eyeing Beverly now. Shepherd was angry for a moment, then he thought better of it, and he grinned at Phillip to let him know that he knew what was going on in his mind. But if Phillip saw him grin, he showed no sign that he did. Yet he looked only in that direction. When someone got between him and them, he craned his neck to see them better. Shepherd told Beverly what was going on.
“He’s a handsome man, isn’t he?” she said.
“Yes,” Shepherd said. “And if I ever catch you anywhere near him somebody’s getting hurt.”
“Really?” she teased him.
“Really,” he told her.
Phillip was not aware that they were talking about him, he was not aware that they were even looking at him; yet he continued to stare at them, the expression on his face still showing confusion.
Joyce Anne was bringing her third song to an end now, and the people were applauding her performance. But Phillip Martin was not hearing a thing. He pushed his way out of the crowd and started across the room. He had taken only two or three steps when he suddenly staggered and fell heavily to the floor.
The pharmacist, Octave Bacheron, was the first to reach him and told everyone else to stay back. But the people did not get back, they pressed in closer. Sister Aaron, whom Phillip had called on during his short speech, cried out that he had been poisoned, and soon the word was all over the house that he had been drugged. The little wife of Octave Bacheron, who was hard of hearing, kept asking who had fallen. The other white woman, the attorney’s wife, told her that it was Phillip.
“Phillip drunk?” Phoebe Bacheron asked. “Phillip drunk?” She was a very small woman, and she had to lean her head back to look up at the people round her. “Phillip drunk?” she asked. “Phillip drunk?”
No one answered her. They moved in to look at Phillip on the floor. Virginia’s new tenant was there with all the others. His reddish eyes narrowed, his face trembled as he stared down at him. It seemed for a moment that he might say something, maybe even scream, but he jerked away from the crowd and went out. He was the only one who left, but there was so much confusion in the room that no one paid him any attention.
Alma, who had rushed to Phillip when he fell, now knelt beside him holding his head up off the floor in her lap. He had lost consciousness only a moment, as a fighter might who has been hit hard on the jaw, but now he began recognizing people round him again, and he tried quickly, desperately, to push himself up. Octave Bacheron, who knelt on the other side of him, put his small white hand on Phillip’s chest and told him to lie still a moment.
“I’m all right,” he said to Octave Bacheron. “I’m all right,” he said to Alma. He looked up at all the people standing over him. “I’m all right, I’m all right,” he said to them.
“No,” Octave Bacheron said, pressing his small white hand on his chest. “Be quiet a moment. Listen to me. Can you hear me, Phillip? Be quiet. Lie still a moment.”
“I’m all right,” Phillip said. The people who stood over him canopylike could see tears in his eyes. “I’m all right. Please let me up. I have to get up. Don’t let me deny him again.”
No one knew what he was talking about. No one asked him what he was talking about.
“You don’t feel well, Phillip,” Octave Bacheron said. “Listen, you don’t feel well.”
“Alma?” Phillip said. “Alma, please,” he begged her. “I’m on the floor. I’m on the floor.”
Octave Bacheron nodded to Anthony to help him get Phillip to his feet. Jonathan, who was closer to Phillip, took his arm, but Anthony pushed him roughly aside.
“What you think you doing?” Jonathan asked him.
“Helping your pastor,” Anthony said.
“Ain’t y’all done enough helping for one day?” Jonathan said. “That’s why he’s on his back now.”
“Watch it, boy,” Anthony said. “Watch your tongue there, now.”
“Boy?” Jonathan said. “Boy?” He turned to the others in the room. “Y’all hear that, don’t you? It’s boy now. It’s boy all over again.”
“Please, Jonathan,” Alma said. “Please. Phillip’s on his back. Please.”
Jonathan and Anthony glared at each other a moment, then Anthony turned to Phillip. Phillip told them again that he was all right and he could stand on his own. But the two white men insisted on helping him to his feet, and they made him lean on them as they followed Alma down the hall to the bedroom. Elijah, Joyce Anne, and another woman followed after them.
Everyone had deserted the two white women now. The smaller one, Phoebe, was crying and asking why was Phillip drunk. Why did he drink? Didn’t he know drinking was no good? The other white woman did not try to explain but took Phoebe in her arms and patted her shoulders. The rest of the people watched the door and waited for some kind of news from the bedroom.
After about ten minutes, Octave Bacheron came back into the front. He told the people he believed that Phillip had fallen from exhaustion, but he was calling the doctor to be sure. He told them that both he and Alma would appreciate it if they did not take the rumor out of here that Phillip had been poisoned. Now, he wished that they would all get their coats and leave quietly, because their pastor needed rest more than anything else.
The doctor, a small clean-shaven bald man wearing a trench coat over a brown tweed suit, came to the house a half hour later. He was in the bedroom only a couple of minutes, then he wrote out a prescription for two bottles of pills. Elijah followed the pharmacist uptown and brought back the medicine.
Now that everyone else had gone, the house was deadly quiet. The doctor, repeating exactly what the pharmacist had said earlier, told Alma that what Phillip needed most was rest—quiet and rest. Alma, Elijah, and Joyce Anne sat in the living room talking so softly among themselves that they could hardly hear each other.
But things were quiet and peaceful only a short while, then the telephone started ringing. Elijah, who sat nearest the telephone, would try to reach it before it rang a second time. Everyone wanted to know what the doctor had said about Phillip. “He’s tired and needs rest,” Elijah told them. “Other than that he’s fine. Fine. Fine. He just needs his rest.” Elijah would hang up the telephone, but no sooner had he sat down it would ring again. Several people had heard that Phillip had been poisoned. “It’s nothing like that,” Elijah assured them. “Nothing like that. That’s the kind of rumor we don’t want out.” Virginia Colar called from the boardinghouse. “You sure he’s just tired?” she asked. “You sure he wasn’t poisoned? You know how these white folks are. Remember President Kennedy, don’t you? They ain’t straightened that mess out yet—putting it all on poor Oswell. Remember King, don’t you? Remember Long, don’t you?” “I remember all of them,” Elijah told her. “But Reverend Martin is just tired. Everybody ate the same food. Everybody drank out the same pot of eggnog, which I made myself. Mr. Octave drank out the same cup Reverend Martin drank from. Nothing happened to him.??
? “And how you know it was the same cup?” Virginia asked. “You got to watch white folks. They sharp, them. Can switch a cup right ’fore your eyes and you’ll never see it.” “It was the same cup,” Elijah said. “Reverend Martin’s little blue-and-white china cup from Maison Blanche. I know that little cup like I know my name. He drinks out the same cup every day.” “That’s the trouble right there,” Virginia said. “He drinks out the same little blue-and-white cup, and everybody know it. Can’t they go to Maison Blanche and buy another little blue-and-white cup just like his?” “Listen, Virginia, now listen,” Elijah said. “It was his little blue-and-white cup. His. Now, good night. I’ll see you in church tomorrow.”
Elijah sat up answering the telephone long after Alma and Joyce Anne had gone to bed. Then around midnight he went down the hall to his own room. He had been lying in bed wide awake for about an hour when he heard Alma and Phillip arguing out in the hall. Phillip had gotten out of bed and gone into his office, and Alma was trying to get him out of there. Elijah could hear her saying that she was going into the kitchen to warm up a glass of milk, because those pills weren’t doing any good. He heard her passing by his room on her way into the kitchen, and a few minutes later he heard her going back up the hall again. It was quiet another hour, then more footsteps. Elijah listened for Alma’s voice but didn’t hear it. Now he called her, calling quietly: “Alma? Alma?” When she didn’t answer, he got up and went to Phillip’s office and knocked. It was quiet in the office, and Elijah pushed the door open and went in. Phillip sat behind his desk in the dark, facing the curtains over the window.
“Something the matter?” Elijah asked him.
“Thinking about service tomorrow,” Phillip said without looking round.