Three Days Before the Shooting ... (115 page)

Reaching a spot with a distant view of the Jefferson Memorial he was reminded that several of the members were Virginia-born when Sister Gipson grasped Brother Matt Jefferson’s arm and held up her hand for silence.

“Brother Matt,” she said as the group paused to listen, “now that we’ve reached this place I think it’s time for you to make a public and long overdue confession….”

“Me?” Brother Jefferson said with a frown. “Confess what?”

“Nooow you know very well,” Sister Gipson said, “so don’t be wasting our time!”

“Oh, no I don’t,” Brother Matt said, “I’ve been living a clean life, I pay my debts, taxes, and life insurance, and Deacon Wilhite there can testify that I do my bit for the widow women and orphans—so will somebody please tell me what this woman is talking about?”

Placing hands on hips with a backward snap of her head, Sister Gipson stared at Brother Matt with a frown of disapproval.

“Now look, brother,” she said, “don’t think you’re going to get out of it by talking like that. It’s nothing recent that I’m talking about, it’s something from
years
ago.”

“Years ago,”
Brother Matt repeated. “How
many
years ago?”

“Long enough, and I think it’s time for you to stand up like an honest man and confess it! And since we all believe that public confession is good for the soul I don’t think that you can find any more public place than where we’re standing.”

Brother Jefferson frowned, turning to Hickman.

“Revern’,” he said, “maybe
you
can tell me what this woman is signifying about. After all, this is neither a church, police station, or courthouse; and everybody here, including you, has heard me testify no more than a few weeks ago. So what’s she going on about?”

Amused and deciding to play along with Sister Gipson, Hickman returned Brother Jefferson’s stare with a blank expression, thinking,
Whatever she’s up to it’s got him feeling guilty, and since he knows it’s impossible to live without wrongdoing he’s racking his brain, trying to give whatever it might be a name
.

“I’m sorry, Brother Jefferson,” he said, “but I’m afraid you’ll have to put your question to Sister Gipson. Now, as far as
I’m
concerned you’re about as innocent as a man your age can be, but it’s the sister who’s bringing the charges. And since she’s a bit older than me she knows a lot more about sin and sinning—but wait, since I’m your pastor maybe she’ll let me in on it. How about it, sister; what has this brother to confess?”

“Revern’,” Sister Gipson said, “I’m going to pretend that I didn’t hear what you said about my age, but I’ll be more than glad to tell you.”

And with flashing eyes she whirled and pointed to where the Jefferson Memorial gleamed in the distance.

“Now,” she said, “it’s true that from time to time our brother here has testified to many a slip, wrong, and sinful transgression. Yes, sir, and yes, ma’am, he has. As a matter of fact, this man has a Sears, Roebuck catalog of wrongdoing that’s so long and so outrageous that sometimes when he’s confessing I’ve suspected him of doing some bragging!—Don’t laugh,” she said, throwing up her hands. “And that’s not all, because I’ve also noticed that he’s always done it amongst
us
, and that it’s always been in the family where he
knowed
he’d be understood and forgiven—even though the good Lord might not have been so sympathetic. But all the time when he was beating his breast and going over his sins at the wailing wall there was a lot of folks who wasn’t present….”

Pausing with a sly expression Sister Gipson nodded suddenly to a group of white tourists who were gazing toward the Jefferson Memorial with radiant expressions of reverence…. “Like them,” she said softly, “over there. So this time I

want the brother to stand up like a man and confess for real, and I mean out loud!”

“Confess
what?”
Brother Jefferson said.

“Aw, man,” Sister Gipson said, “quit stalling! You know what I’m talking about! I want you to confess to claiming that you and that man standing out yonder in that monument used to be kinfolks!”

And now, shouting “What!” Brother Jefferson turned to him with an expression that wavered between exasperation and relief, saying, “Good Lord, Reveren’, do you see what this woman is doing? Here she is standing right in your face and has the nerve to be bearing false witness against me—and I mean
boldly
!”

“Aw, man,” Sister Gipson said with a scornful wave of her hand, “why don’t you stop your weaseling and confess!”

“All right,” Brother Jefferson said, stepping backward and facing the others, “I will!

“Brothers and sisters, for a second there I was worried that maybe this woman had something on me which I had overlooked, but now that she’s made her charges I’m
glad
to confess—and here’s my right hand raised to God: The only connection between me and that man out there that
I
ever heard about is the fact that my daddy, his daddy, and his daddy’s daddy’s daddy was
all
born in the State of Virginia! And as far as I’ve ever heard or seen they were all honest hardworking men and good Christians. Therefore I’m proud to be a part of their honorable line…. And here’s something else: If Mister Jefferson out there owned any of them, or had anything
else
to do with our bearing our name, it rests between him and his God! So the sister here can worry about the mixed-up past all she wants to, but as for Matthew Morgan Jefferson … who’s nobody else but me … he’s looking to
tomorrow
!”

“Well, praise the Lord,” Sister Gipson cried in the sudden silence. “Because for once our brother has confessed to both the daylight and the darkness of his complicated condition! Yes indeed! And this time his public confession shall cleanse his mind and make him whole!”

“And
free
him, don’t forget that,” Hickman added with a grin. “And that goes for all of us—at least in our hearts and minds, so don’t forget it. For while all human knowledge is limited, the dimensions of truth are endless, complicated, and ever unfolding. And while there’s no statute of limitation on the truth of how it came about, all we know is that our brother’s name is
Jefferson
, which is as honorable a name as Jackson, Jones, or even
Gipson—
that’s right, sister! So no matter who originally bore the name
Jefferson—
rich man, poor man, beggar-man, thief, lawyer, doctor, or Indian chief—it’s still our beloved brother’s name. And like any other name, including our own, it amounts to no more or less than what
he’s
made it….”

“Amen,” sang Sister Gipson….

“… And he’s been doing that the only way he can…. Which is by the way he lives. So let the past bury the past. All right now, and with the sister having heard his confession, let’s keep moving.”

“So where do we go next?” a brother called as he started away.

“Just come along,” he called over his shoulder. “I realize that it’s getting late and we have other things to do, but this discussion makes me realize that now is just the time for us to take a look at something each and every American should see at least once before they die….”

“And what is that, Reveren’?”

“You’ll see,” he said, “it isn’t far….”

And now he walked ahead and alone. Behind him the talk and laughter continued, sounding with a regeneration of spirit evoked by Sister Gipson’s playing joking with their past condition, the dazzle of elegant vistas seen through the springtime air, and moments of history memorialized. The members were enjoying themselves far more than he had dared hope, but now, recalling his own mixed emotions and conflict of mind which had left him shaken during his first visit to where they were headed, he had an impulse to draw Wilhite aside and suggest that they find an excuse for returning to the hotel. Perhaps, he thought, it would be better to preserve this moment of good feeling and return to the Longview….

But now it was there before him, rising calm and austere in the ambient light. And as he stared in wonder it seemed to slow the scene’s rhythm of trees, grass, and curving walks to a melancholy legato in which the distant, mechanical murmuring of traffic that marked the mindless rush of time was muted by the voiceless eloquence of impermeable stone.

“What place is that, y’all?” he heard as the others came to join him. “Revern’, is that the place you mentioned?”

“That’s right,” he said, “that’s the place.”

“But what is it?”

“You’ll see,” he said. “Oh, yes, you’ll see!”

And now, approaching the broad sweep of steps he moved upward toward the high-columned space with an uncanny feeling of entering a mystery being cast by the great sculptural form before him. And as its spell of place descended upon him an old, restricted part of himself seemed to fall away, giving him a sense of moving from the familiar world of the given into the misty sphere of the possible. As when, during his initiation as a green young musician his imagination had taken flight and he had suddenly found himself possessed of the power to create his own heartfelt patterns of soul-felt sound while riffing the blues on his battered trombone; or again as when, during the early days of his ministry, he had begun a sermon with dry, uninspired diction and had been arrested by the disappointed look in his mother’s eyes and suddenly felt the power of the Sacred Word surging so rapturously within him that his mind, tongue, and elated heart sang forth with the poetic power of his native, slave-born idiom.

And now, with footstep slowed and heartbeat pounding he was looking upward, his right foot raised as it fumbled for the ultimate step that would raise him into the full force of the sculpture’s mysterious power. Then, shaking with the sudden force of his emotion, his foot found the final step and moved him upward into the cool, shaded, and sonorous calm of the edifice, and he was passing with a dream-like slowness over stony floor and fluted shadows until, now, he stood facing the great stone image which sat with legs outstretched and arms extended as it relaxed in its huge stone chair.

And now in the hush descending around him he heard as from afar the voice of a single sister calling out in a tone of awed recognition, “Revern’… Revern’…” a tentative, questioning plea echoing in his mind with the slow sweeping motion of great wings flying… “Revern’? Revern’?”

Then he, Hickman, was looking up through the calm and peaceful light toward the great brooding face above him. He, Hickman, standing motionless as he stared up into eyes that seemed to gaze from beneath their shadowed lids toward some vista of perpetual dawn that lay far beyond infinity.

And gazing upward as though listening to the groping explanations of another he thought,
Now I understand: It was that brooding facial expression which caused his enemies to accuse him of being one of us! It wasn’t the darkness of his flesh, the cast of his features, or what he did on our behalf—oh, no! It was that expression and what those sorrowful eyes reveal about what it means to be a man who struggles to reconcile all of the contending forces of his country out of a belief in simple justice. It was their sad revelation of what it means to be a man of vulnerable heart and floundering mind who found clinging to an elusive ideal more desirable than all the pride and glory of great wealth and great armies. Yes, that look in those eyes and the struggles which placed it there—those are what made him one of us, and him a most confounded and confounding American…. Yes, he was
one of us. But it wasn’t in the skin tone which made him a target of those dirty dozens which his enemies used in attacking his family and background, but in that look in his eyes. That look and his struggle against those who put it there and saddened his brooding expression. It was in all of that, in his being the kind of man he made himself to be. And it was in enduring the ordeal of it all that he became one of us. Oh, yes, he partially failed and came to learn that he could only take one short step along the road which leads to freedom. But in earning that look and the view of life to which it gave rise he joined us in what we have been forced to learn about living. And about what it means to be truly human in the face of perversity. In that too he was like us at our best. Because one thing we’ve been forced to learn is that when man is set down in all the muck and confusion of life and continues to struggle for his ideals he comes as near the sublime as any human being can ever arrive. So yes, he’s one of us. And not only because of his act of freeing the slaves to the extent that the times and circumstances would allow, but he freed
himself
and a good part of this nation of that awful inheritance of pride which denies us our humanity. And by doing so he became the one man who pointed the way for all who are willing to pay the hard price of true freedom—Yes!

And as he stared upward into the great brooding eyes he felt a strong impulse to turn and share their distant point of focus, but was held fast, the eyes regarding him quiet and still as though asking a question. And now he was seeking to grasp the mystery of their secret life in the stone; aware of the stone, and yet feeling the presence of something other than stoniness. And as he probed for the secret source of the emotion which held him with a gentle but all-compelling power, the stone seemed to come alive, the great chest appearing to heave as though stirred at last by the aura of acts unfinished and promises unkept which he and his flock brought into its presence, and the sculpture had extended them a silent sign in recognition because of who and what they were; had chosen to reveal its secret life for those who still sought to live and survive by its vision. And then he, Hickman, was searching the stony visage as though waiting to hear it give forth with the old familiar eloquence which he knew only in the form of mute sounds and rhythms conjured by his ear from the printed page—when a sister’s voice sang out as from a distance, “Oh, my Lord! Look, y’all, it’s HIM!”

And now as her voice quavered and broke in a rush of tears he was silently addressing himself, crying in upon his own spellbound ears even as the sister’s anguished, “Ain’t that him, Revern’? Ain’t that Father Abraham?” resounded in his mind like the cry of an old slave holler called across a moonlit field.