Three Days Before the Shooting ... (45 page)

Across the room bed clothing rustled as Minifees stirred on the cot. “Charleston,” he mused, “I swear that I think you ought to be behind these bars instead of me. You know you’re liable to get bounced off your job for bringing a newspaperman up here.”

“Hell, it’s all right, man, and I can take care of myself. This man swears he digs your music and he wants to help you, and I want you outta here, so it’s worth taking a chance.”

I heard the mop splash into the bucket and felt a nudge.

“Step in, Doctor,” Charleston said. “I’m going to cover you with this mop,” and I moved in, standing just inside the door and trying to see Minifees by the dim light from the hall.

“What’s your name?” Minifees said.

“It’s McIntyre, Welborn McIntyre,” I said, naming my paper.

“Pleased to meet you,” Minifees said. “So what is it you want from me?”

“Mr. Minifees,” I began, “I’d like to do a story about your situation. As you know, your burning your car caused quite a sensation, and I think it’s important that the public understand your motives and point of view. And all the more so, now that Senator Sunraider has been shot….”

“Shot!” His voice rang with surprise as the bed groaned and his feet slapped the floor.

“Yes, shot,” I said. “Didn’t you know?”

“Hell, no! My God, is he dead?”

“No, he was critically wounded but as late as a few minutes ago he was still holding on.”

“God! This is awful! Who shot him?”

“The gunman hasn’t been identified—but the authorities are working on it. He was a young fellow, about thirty. Rather well-dressed and handsome.”

“Do you mean that he got
away?”

Charleston stuck his head in the doorway. “No, man. The cat shot Sunrainder and then
killed
himself. He leaped from that gallery and tried to turn himself into hamburger meat!”

“Good God-a-mighty! What gallery?”

“The goddamn Senate visitors’ gallery, man.”

“What! So why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“Because it just happened a few hours ago. I was off duty. You know I meant to tell you….”

For a moment it was silent, and I could hear the dripping mop water striking the floor.

“Lord, Lord,” Minifees said, “that cat must have been out of his mind. This is crazy! Me, I meant to terrify the bastard and teach him something, but I wouldn’t have wasted the
time
it takes to
kill
him!”

“Obviously this man had a different attitude,” I said. “Could you have noticed such a man at the time you burned your car?”

“Hell, no, not that I recall.”

“Perhaps he was there when you drove across the sidewalk. Did you see anyone acting suspiciously?”

“I don’t recall. No.”

“Perhaps you noticed him standing in the crowd when you made your speech?”

“Man,
no
! NO! Too many people were out there! All I saw were faces, people. I was too mad to be looking at anyone in particular.”

“What about Senator Sunraider. Did you see him?”

“Sure, I saw
him
. I spoke to him, but what has that got to do with it?”

“I was wondering if this man might have been present when you were on the Senator’s lawn.”

“He might have been, but if he was
I
didn’t know it.”

“Did anyone besides yourself know what you were planning to do?”

“How could they, when I didn’t even know it myself?”

“What about the man who sold you the gas?”

“Folks who sell gas don’t ask you what you’re going to do with it, man.”

And suddenly to my bewilderment the Dorothy Parker line
Men seldom make passes/ At girls who wear glasses
flashed through my mind as I said, “That’s usually true, but you bought quite a lot of gas.”

“Yeah,” Minifees said, “and he was damn glad to take my money—but he didn’t ask me any questions.”

“And this is actually the first time you’ve heard of the shooting?”

“Yes, and I ought to whip Charleston’s head!”

“None of the doctors or nurses mentioned it?”

“Man,
no!
I wouldn’t jive you about anything like that.”

“What if you’d have found the Senator in the Senate instead of at home, would you have shot him instead of burning your car?”

I could hear him stand.
“Me?
Are you kidding? I don’t even own a gun. And besides, I didn’t even
know
he was at home.”

“Then why did you go there?”

“Because I hoped he’d be there, man, and it was the best place I could think of to make my point. If I’d made a speech in the Senate gallery they’d have only thrown me out. You know that!”

“But would you have burned your
car if
he hadn’t been at home?”

“Sure, I would have. That’s why I went there. But I still wouldn’t have shot the bastard.”

I heard the mop smack the floor behind me and Charleston saying, “Yeah, man, but you didn’t have to shoot him; you hit him with that Cadillac and that was enough to break his dickstring,” and Minifees’ laughter coughed and sputtered in the dark.

“Charleston,” he said, “this is serious, don’t start me to laughing, or we might as well turn on the light and call the guard. Damn, it looks like I hit a riff and now all hell has broke loose.”

“Man, and you can say that again, I bet old Sunrainder thought it was you standing up there blasting him; instead it was some white cat.”

“WHITE? What the hell do you mean, white? Why didn’t somebody tell me that?”

“I meant to,” I said. “I thought I had; he was blond.”

“Yeah, and wouldn’t you know that that’s how it would be? That granny-dodging sonofabitch!”

“That’s right, they’ll do it every time,” Charleston said.

“But I don’t understand,” I said.

“The hell you don’t; ain’t it usually some white cat who moves in on a man like that?”

“I don’t know, but does the gunman’s color make such a difference to you?”

“You’re damn right it does!”

“But why? I doubt if the Senator considers it important.”

“Well
I do!”

“But you said that you wouldn’t have shot him….”

“No, but that’s not it. What I’m talking about is how some white cats feel that they have the right to move in on anything you do. You take your time and you work out a riff from way deep inside yourself, and just as sure as you’re born, some white cat is bound to come up and grab it and
distort
it!”

“Oh, but he’s telling it like it is,” Charleston sang out behind me.

“That’s a fact, man,” Minifees said. “The cat’s going to grab it and then he’s going to distort the hell out of it. No matter what you come up with, if he sees that it works and stirs folks up a bit, he’s out to grab it and try to outdo you with it—even if he has to blow it all out of shape.”

“You’re goddamn right,” Charleston said, wringing the mop noisily into the bucket. “Like they grabbed ‘Tuxedo Junction’ from Erskine Hawkins and ain’t even smelled the funk of Birmingham! Like they grabbed credit for Don Redman’s ‘Marie,’ and never even rubbed a chick at a breakfast dance!”

“That’s very interesting,” I said, trying to get them back on the shooting, “but I’d like to ask you this …”

“Yeah,” Minifees said, “it happens every damn time. You work ‘til your brain sweats and try to come up with something nice and beautiful and sincere, you think it up and shape it and polish it until it swings, and then you blow it in public and it works and then
—bam
!—some white cat has stole it from you faster than a catfish can grab a turd. And what’s worse, he tries to hide the fact that he’s stealing by playing it on a hundred goddamn fiddles and a sonofabitching pipe organ!”

I was at a loss—where were the shooting and car-burning leading me?

“Perhaps you should have a lawyer to handle your copyrights,” I said.

“Hell, man, you can’t copyright a riff. Besides, the guys who do that kind of thing can hire better lawyers than I can because they can steal my stuff and make more money off of it than I can. But this is going too far! I thought I’d been served up all kinds of larceny, but now here comes a cat who’s done grabbed my Sunraider riff and blowed it through a goddamn
shotgun!”

“Not a shotgun, man,” Charleston said, “it was a pistol.”

“Hell,” Minifees said wearily, “it’s all the same: A gun’s a gun, and besides, that bastard was trying to blast both me
and the
Senator. It’s enough to make a man take off and go live in Paris. I bet if I had shot the man with a BB gun that bastard would have raced up behind me and blasted him with a bazooka—just to pretend that shooting him was
his
idea. Yeah, and to prove that the white folks are still in the lead!”

He struck the bed and was silent, and I could hear the music of Charleston’s mop dripping into his bucket.

“Tell me, Mr. Minifees,” I said, “if you had been present in the Senate would you have tried to
prevent
the shooting?”

“Prevent it? I don’t know. It’s hard to tell what a man will do on the spur of a moment. But I doubt if I’d have stepped in front of any bullets to save him….”

“He’s asking you that because some goddamn jackleg Boot preacher was up there trying to grab the cat with the gun when he should’ve been trying to steady his aim.”

“He did? Well, Charleston, a preacher is supposed to be against murder. They find out who he is?”

“His name is Hickman,” I said. “Do you know him?”

“Hickman? Hickman what?”

“Doctor Alonzo Hickman….”

“Alonzo Hickman … no, I don’t think so.”

I was waiting for Charleston to reveal that Hickman was below, but instead he said, “Look, y’all, I have to get back downstairs. So get on with your talk, and break it up before the nurses start making their rounds. I’ll check you later.”

And before I could protest, the door closed and I found myself alone with Minifees in the dark. I hadn’t expected this development and didn’t like it. Before now the questions of Minifees’ sanity and involvement in a plot had been abstract, now it might well be a matter of life or death. I turned, feeling for the door when he spoke behind me.

“All right, Doctor,” he said calmly, “what do you want to ask me?”

I hesitated and then, feeling assured by his calmness, I said, “Let’s start with your reason for burning your car.”

“Okay, man; she was a beauty.”

Through the dark his voice sounded with nostalgia, puzzling me.

“But surely that isn’t why you burned it?”

“Oh, no. I burned it because I had to. I had to answer that half-assed senator.”

“But why did you decide that you had to answer him, and why in that fashion?”

“Because he
messed with
me, man.”

“But it seems such an extreme thing to do.”

“Extreme, hell! Did you ever have a bastard signifying at you the way he did? Making fun of you?”

“No, at least not anyone so high in the Government. But he wasn’t referring to you personally….”

“Yeah, but I took it personally. Somebody had to, so I decided to hit the
bastard, and I had to hit him in such a way that everybody would know that I’d hit him….”

“And burning your Cadillac was the only way?”

“That’s it. You got it. It was the best way.”

“But why go to such expense?”

“Man, you can’t worry about money when you’re in that kind of fight. Any way you proceed you know you’re going to have to make a sacrifice just to get in a position where you can draw some blood. I wanted people to know how I felt about that bastard, because
somebody
had to tell him off.”

“I’m beginning to understand, but did you consider that the results might be different?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m referring to the possibility that you might have done more harm to yourself than to the Senator. Many people were so shocked that they failed to appreciate what you were attempting to do. They were terrified.”

“Are you telling me? Hell, I knew it and I thought about it and I’m glad it upset them. Many of them didn’t want me to have a Caddy in the first place, and when I realized that that Senator thought that by owning one I was trying to imitate him, I decided to change the rules of the game. I don’t have to drive a Caddy, but he didn’t think about that because he has to drive one in order to feel he’s got it made. Me, I’m free.”

Free
, I thought.
Perhaps he’s insane after all. How can he speak of freedom while locked up without access to lawyer or judge?

“But let me ask you this,” I said. “Why didn’t you burn the Senator’s automobile instead?”

“Because I hurt him more by burning my own, that’s why. If I had burned his I’d just be another outlaw, but this way he and everybody else has to know that I don’t have to take their crap. I realized that I didn’t have to
hit him
to hurt him; all I had to do was hit myself and he’d hurt more than I did. Him and a lot of others. I’m tired of people thinking that they can intimidate me just because I drove a Caddy.”

“Do other people feel as the Senator does?”

“Hell, yes.”

“How do you know this?”

“Hell, man, it’s impossible to miss it. Almost every time I pull up to a stoplight, I can see it in their eyes.”

“See what, Mr. Minifees?”

“I could see their eyes saying, ‘Hey, that Caddy’s too good for that Boot!’ And not only that, sometimes they put it into words. Take the other day when I’m in New York driving through Greenwich Village on my way to work a gig. I’m coming to a corner with the traffic light on the green, and I see a little old lady and a little freckle-faced girl about to cross the street from the other side, and I put on the brakes and let them cross.

“Now understand me, I’m not asking for any special credit for letting them pass; many a driver gives pedestrians the right of way and tries to be polite. Besides, my mama taught me manners. In fact, she beat them into me in order to save me from you people and in order to save you from me. So that’s not the point. The point I’m making is that when that little old lady and the little girl reached the curb, what do you think happens?”