Witness Read online

100 percent americans.

  what is a 100 percent american?

  what of catholics, jews, negroes,

  citizens of any other race or color born here,

  whose fathers were born here,

  and grandfathers.

  are they not every bit as 100 percent american as the klan?

  i accompanied oscar scott to the train station

  to meet john philip sousa

  and bring him to the auditorium

  to play with his band of eighty musicians.

  i handed mr. sousa a bouquet of flowers and

  the key to the city,

  which he accepted grandly.

  the band played nine numbers though they

  had just three hours here in town.

  they gave a full concert,

  and a number of encores,

  all mr. sousa’s compositions.

  they saved for last

  stars and stripes forever

  and took the house by storm.

  harvey held a seat for me.

  but

  i watched the concert from the wings,

  as mr. sousa’s guest.

  viola pettibone, who mothers that cat of hers

  the way only viola pettibone can,

  found her maltese stuck way up in the crotch of a tree

  on the bank leading down to the railroad track.

  she tried coaxing it out,

  tried getting her boy willie to go after it, but that boy’s good for nothing,

  and her customers wouldn’t climb that tree.

  danged cat.

  pretty near everyone with a place backing the river came out,

  vexed from listening to it yowl.

  guess it was scared 60 feet up in the air,

  too scared to consider coming down on its own and no one

  willing to go up after it.

  fire department came.

  they sized up the scene and

  called me.

  i wasn’t going up in my uniform.

  pulled on a pair of overalls,

  placed a ladder against the lowest part of the tree.

  12 feet i covered that way.

  the remaining 48 had to be shinnied up,

  one inch at a time in the pouring rain.

  blasted cat wouldn’t come.

  not even when i reached it.

  i tried sweet talking it into letting go of the bark.

  finally had to pry it loose,

  put the thing on my shoulder, its claws stabbing into my back.

  slowly we came down.

  6 feet from the ground the cat ripped my shirt, climbed my face

  and leaped

  into viola’s arms.

  put my uniform back on and wrote up a ticket, handing it to

  harvey pettibone

  next time, i said,

  keep your cat to home.

  mr. clarence darrow,

  the lawyer defending those chicago boys,

  believes

  that under no circumstances

  should the state take a

  human life.

  that’s why he’s shouldering this case.

  the guilt of leopold and loeb,

  the two young murderers of bobby franks,

  is without question.

  it is darrow’s intention

  not to prove their innocence,

  but to cheat the hangman

  in spite of their guilt.

  and perhaps in so doing

  remove the underpinnings

  of every gallows across this land.

  a civilized man in america.

  how refreshing.

  leopold and loeb

  who had stuck together

  through the hearing,

  snickering and laughing

  as they moved to and from the courtroom,

  sat silently,

  avoiding each other

  as they heard for the first time,

  their separate confessions read aloud

  each accusing the other of

  stunning young franks with a chisel

  and snuffing out his life.

  i did watch with daddy at the railroad tracks this morning

  as the circus had their summer comings. daddy did keep a tight

  hold on my hand and he did tell me again the ways of trains

  while the circus people did roll their big wagons

  off the flat cars.

  they did have elephants pushing the wagons

  and horses pulling.

  all the circus people and animals

  had knowings of the job they must do.

  men and men with big hammerings.

  tent poles did stand up so quick

  and a cookhouse did nearly put itself together

  with breakfast sizzling inside it

  pancakes and fried eggs flipping

  and that good breakfast smell filling the meadow

  the same as is always in sara chickering’s kitchen.

  by the time sara chickering did come to get me

  the big tent did fill the meadow

  and the smaller tents did look like spiderwebs

  traced in raindrops.

  sara chickering and i did rush to watch the parade pass by

  on main street.

  we did see lions and tigers,

  hippos and kangaroos,

  monkeys and zebras and bears,

  and the beautiful ladies in their sparkly clothes,

  and acrobats and tightrope walkers and clowns

  who did make us laugh as they flopped past

  in their big shoes

  and i did tell sara chickering we must be bringing those clowns to

  daddy

  so he can give them better fittings for their feet.

  i’ve had this job with the paper nearly six months now,

  working the hours after the night men leave,

  before the day men come on and i have to

  get to school.

  the klan doesn’t think much of the paper.

  or its editor.

  but mr. alexander,

  he gave me this job,

  he got me out of jail,

  he made a set of three keys: the back door, the storeroom, the truck.

  no one ever trusted me like that before.

  i could climb pretty high with the klan, handing them those keys,

  but i wouldn’t do it.

  they’d use those keys,

  i don’t know what for.

  clarence darrow pleaded for the life of leopold and loeb. he said:

  why did they kill little bobby franks?

  not for money.

  not for hate.

  they killed him

  because somewhere

  in the infinite processes

  which go into the making of the boy or the man,

  something slipped.

  something has slipped

  not only in chicago.

  something has slipped in towns everywhere across america,

  in maine and in kansas,

  in oregon and indiana and vermont,

  something has slipped and as a result

  we are all

  sliding

  back toward the dark ages.

  nathan leopold, jr.

  scratched out his last will

  and testament, neighbor,

  beneath the arc light

  in the prison cell

  where, if there is justice in the land, he will soon end his days.

  he thanked his lawyer

  and

  he thanked his friends

  and

  he promised to contact them

  when he entered the afterlife.

  but neighbor, his friends will be waiting

  a long time to hear from him. there are plenty

  taking that slippery path from chicago to hell.

  but there are none,

  neighbor,

  there
are no souls who upon reaching the flaming inferno

  make the return trip from the devil’s clutches

  back up

  to

  chicago.

  chief justice caverly says

  he doesn’t believe in capital punishment for minors

  and for that reason,

  leopold and loeb

  broke a date with the hangman.

  not too many satisfied

  with a sentence that lets

  two cold-blooded murderers live.

  caverly says

  his decision holds

  with the dictates of enlightened humanity.

  enlightened humanity,

  now there’s something the klan could discuss at their next

  cross burning.

  first there was the circus,

  which esther still jabbers on about.

  so when the fair came,

  i knew i had to take her.

  esther never saw anything like a fair before.

  she said the midway reminded her of new york.

  and at the age of six,

  she knew already that games of chance

  were just that.

  she felt little affection for the sideshows, furious

  at the booth where people took shots at the “nigger’s head.”

  she did like the horse races.

  for a while.

  but what she loved most was

  the livestock.

  she wanted the names of the cows:

  holstein, guernsey, jersey,

  ayrshire, hereford, angus.

  she wanted the names of the horses, too,

  and the sheep.

  she cuddled one little lamb, whispering in its ear that funny way she

  does,

  telling the lamb that

  she’d be looking for it to come be counted tonight when

  she tunneled between her sheets,

  and i wouldn’t be surprised at all

  to hear bleating from her bedroom come midnight

  and find droppings down the hall tomorrow morning.

  harvey says:

  how was i to know

  they’d be so pushy over a broom sale?

  stinking stampede it was, vi.

  viola says:

  you never will learn, harv.

  harvey says:

  i thought putting those brooms out for one cent would be good business.

  viola says:

  twelve women taken to doc flitt, harv,

  with cuts and bruises. we’ll be

  lucky if they don’t ask us to cover the doctor bills.

  harvey says:

  doc flitt wouldn’t charge us for that.

  viola says:

  doc flitt hasn’t been too

  happy with you lately, harv. you and your klan. he might just

  charge us double.

  harvey says:

  klan will see to him if he does.

  viola says:

  oh fine, harv. you looking to drive away the

  one good doctor we got here?

  what happens if you need doctoring?

  the two stand facing off, each as stout and solid as a house.

  harvey says:

  nothing’s going to happen to me, vi.

  viola shakes her head in disgust

  and makes up baskets of food

  and a free broom

  for each of the women who got hurt.

  i was driving to the klan meeting

  when i picked up a man, his hood and robe in a paper bag.

  we were heading to the same place.

  but we hadn’t gone far

  when he pulled a knife on me

  and made me get out.

  i never have been out-bullied before

  but i thought about that boy in chicago,

  that bobby franks,

  and i looked at the drifter in my automobile,

  and i knew

  he would gladly do to me

  what leopold and loeb had done to that boy

  in chicago.

  and i got out.

  halfway across the country,

  the body of a polish man was found

  hanging in an oak tree.

  the sheriff’s report ruled the man’s death a suicide. they said there

  was a bottle of liquor in the man’s coat pocket.

  but certain neighbors made no secret of the fact that they

  were not pleased to have a polish national

  in their valley.

  night riders beat him up the month before.

  the bruises and cuts weren’t half healed when the letter arrived

  saying:

  we’re coming for you.

  signed, k.k.k.

  dang,

  young merlin van tornhout is walking everywhere

  because he “gave” his car to a klansman.

  if the riffraff joining the klan these days

  can take the one thing most loved from an awestruck boy,

  why couldn’t they plant a bottle of liquor

  in the pocket of a hanged man?

  daddy says this is the high holidays

  and i do need to come with him

  to the synagogue

  so we can have thinkings about

  what we did in the year that did just go by,

  and make a plan to do better in the year that is to come.

  he says mr. levin is locking up his shoes

  for the holiday.

  i did ask sara chickering if she will have locking up in the

  barn and in the field

  and have all the animals and the plants think about

  what they did last times and plan for the next times.

  sara chickering says,

  the animals and the plants are too young for such things

  and esther is, too.

  daddy says sara chickering is right.

  but he says

  i still have to come to the synagogue and

  have some deep thinkings and talkings to God.

  i do have talkings to God and deep thinkings

  every day.

  but i will come with daddy,

  even if i can’t go fishing there.

  the more time i spend with mr. field

  the more i learn.

  he never went to school after sixth grade.

  he had to work.

  and then he went to fight in the civil war

  on account of his strong feelings about slavery.

  and when he returned, he built

  carriages and sleighs.

  but what he loved most was to paint them

  with little flowers and scenes,

  and didn’t anyone need to show him how.

  just like most things he does,

  he sits and thinks about it a while,

  till he figures it out.

  i wash his dishes in the basin

  and he sits at the table,

  his bald head the brightest

  spot in the room.

  he’s thin as a broomstick,

  gangling tall,

  his eyes cloudy.

  he holds a palette up close to his face

  and then he hawks his shoulders and touches his brush to the

  waiting canvas.

  i asked if i could look through his paintings

  instead of just dusting them.

  he said i could have one if i wanted. he said the pickings were

  kind of slim these days,

  that the best had long gone.

  i remember when he offered me the typewriter.

  i wondered if someone would say i stole a painting

  if i carried one home.

  mr. field, i said,

  watching as he

  sprinkled a meadow with bluets under a cloudy sun.

  we could go out sometime so you could remember things to paint.

  i never do like being seen with white folks,

&nb
sp; but mr. field is different.

  anyway, he said he didn’t need to go out.

  he couldn’t see well enough anyway to make a difference.

  besides, he said, he

  could just sit down and think about a mountain he once saw

  or the end of a forest road

  and that was enough.

  i guess that comes of being around since civil war days.

  i have a lot more seeing to take in

  before i can sit down and rest with it.

  got my work cut out for me.

  more than 200 negroes

  have moved into the state

  to build the dam.

  i’ll have to protect them

  from the ku klux.

  i’ll have to protect them

  from themselves.

  this job sure doesn’t pay

  enough.

  viola says:

  harvey pettibone, how could you do such a thing?

  harvey says:

  they had booze in that hotel, vi. they were breaking the law,

  serving liquor.

  viola says:

  so you go in, dressed in those ku klux nightclothes of yours and you

  think you’ll save the world from the

  evils of drink

  by raiding the place and smashing a few bottles?

  harvey says:

  it felt so good breaking that glass, vi.

  viola says:

  did it feel $400 good, harv? did it?

  harvey runs his hand over the bulge of his belly

  beneath the straining vest,

  sits down on the steps,

  and sighs.

  i did not anticipate

  when word of the klan first arrived from the south,

  that they’d ever trace their way here to vermont,

  but

  this is no longer a problem

  facing some other community.

  the klan is in our homes,

  our schools,

  our factories, and stores.

  it has worked its

  fingers through the fabric of the state

  and if we do not mend the rents soon,

  we’ll fall to pieces.

  i rest my head against bossie’s side

  and the thrush,

  the white rush of milk hitting the pail,

  esther singing in the pear tree beside the barn,

  how silent the world would be without cows and birdsong.

  how silent my world would be

  without esther.

  jerry

  the dog that did make me feel happy here first

  when i did get my fresh air with sara chickering,