“The North—”
“The North is far more segregated than we could be, given the fact that half of our population is colored and we interact with one another constantly — daily. The Negro lives in our very homes and always has. The North can’t even fathom. The North doesn’t even know what a Negro is.
“You see, Henry, for them the race problem is either a mental abstraction or a romance. For us, as perhaps you’re beginning to understand, it is a problem of practice and the everyday frustration of dealing with the colored appetite and intellect, which is entirely different from our own. It is quite easy to imagine the equality of all men when you sit on a high horse and don’t have to walk among them in the fields. Indeed, everyone appears the same height from that view. But demount the horse and it soon becomes apparent that there are not merely masters and slaves by happenstance, or overseers and laborers by happenstance, but that these divisions are inherent and unavoidable. God save the mark — there were slaves in the Republic, and these liberals would imagine themselves greater minds!”
Now his voice was rising, the color bloomed in his cheeks. “The problem, Henry, as I have always seen it, is that the Negro is fundamentally a child, and children are incapable of understanding their own inferiority. Indeed, they generally err on the side of grandiose delusion. Mind you, the Negro is naturally playful, with a great capacity for joy, and I can appreciate that. But he’s as self-pitying as he is playful, and like a child, he can despise you with as much passion in the evening as he loved and admired you with in the morning. Look at Filip—”
Henry leaned forward eagerly. “Yes, I wanted to talk to you about Filip.”
“Filip is, I believe, only five years my junior, but has lived his life in a state of perpetual adolescence. You know him as a quiet and sober man, but that’s only because I demand he stay sober in this house — and even then I sometimes have my doubts. My father always said Filip was weaned with a bottle of whiskey. You can’t imagine the scrapes your grandfather saved him from time and time again, because the man has the aptitude of a child. He simply cannot fathom consequence. Each bottle of liquor is his first adventure in drinking. Each hangover a fresh surprise. Dealing with the man has been an uphill struggle, but my father was unreasonably fond of him, and my father was not a kind man. That says something, and so here he remains.”
John Henry settled back into the curve of the davenport. With one hand, he held his ankle where it rested on the opposite knee. He looked over Henry’s head. With his other hand, he rotated his tumbler.
“I once heard a Northerner refer to the South as ‘that perplexing place,’ and I can’t say I disagree with him. Look at you — you’re distinctly privileged to be among the planter class, yet you’ve been surrounded your entire life by Negroes of all manner of quality, and also by your common white redneck. Or, rather, rednecks recently of the hill class, which is to say of no class at all, and saddled with a character so low it can’t claim the term. A sensible man would prefer the company of a hundred temperate Negroes to the prattling of one hillbilly. I know I certainly would.”
John Henry appeared on the verge of saying more, but then he cocked his head to one side, cleared his throat, and said, “White trash as your grandfather always called them. They have their uses. Their passions have their uses.”
“Like the men who cleared our fields when I was younger.”
“Yes, exactly,” said John Henry, “but I intended … Well, the story of the South is long. I sometimes think the Yankees hate us so much because the richness of our story frankly belittles theirs. The original nation is more alive here than it is in the North, and the Northerner resents that. We still know the land, we still know how to treat a woman, we still know the names of all our forefathers. Family actually means something here. Anyway, I was going to tell you a story about your grandfather’s activities in the county, but perhaps I’d better not. Let me just say that there are … artifacts in the house I pray your mother never stumbles upon. I fear she would never recover. I mean only — to return to the original point — that the poor white serves a useful purpose from time to time. The Klan is comprised largely of these country types, almost unfathomably stupid and passionate. This is the sort of man who would kill a Catholic but couldn’t define one. And yet, justice … Henry, it may seem a strange thing for a lawyer to say, but the courts can’t be relied upon to mete out justice in all cases. Abstraction can paralyze. Trust me when I say I know this better than most. I’ve seen the failure a thousand times over. The Klan and their ilk, for all their rabble-rousing, often have a keen sense of right and wrong undiluted by relativism, and they can carry out justice with alacrity. Rough justice, yes, but justice. I don’t wish to glorify the Klan — they’re fools — but … as your grandfather used to say, ‘Manners are morals. And a gentleman always minds his manners … until he can no longer afford to.’ That’s when the Klan comes in handy. They’re more discreet these days than they used to be.”
“Okay,” said Henry. But then, with an expression like petulance or confusion, he placed his chin in his palm and leaned forward and frowned.
John Henry watched his son through narrowing eyes. “Well, I’ve been speaking a good while. You came in to speak with me.”
“I don’t know…”
“Don’t be indirect, Henry.”
“Well,” said Henry innocently, “I guess I … Well, I just don’t really like Filip.”
John Henry blinked a few times, drawing his mind round to this tangent. He cleared his throat. “When you were a child, he was my biting dog. It was only natural that you would feel a certain antipathy toward him. But your insolence was a sign of high spirit, and I wasn’t unappreciative of that fact.”
Henry breathed once very deep, felt his heartbeat in his jaw, looked up into the face of his father. “I don’t trust him.”
There was a twitch of the lip. “Deservedly so. One ought not to entirely trust a drunkar—”
“I heard people talking.”
Into the warm tenor of their talk, a cool wind snaked. John Henry shifted almost imperceptibly, his chin lowering a fraction of an inch. “And what precisely was the nature of this talk you heard?”
“It was probably nothing.”
“Don’t equivocate, Henry.”
Henry’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know—”
“Henry!”
“I think it was about Mother.”
John Henry sat back. “What do you mean?”
“They were talking about someone touching Mother. Maybe Filip.”
The silence in the room was total.
Into its vast expanse Henry said, “I’m not even sure what they meant.”
His father laid his tumbler aside and sat up straight. “Who is they?”
“I don’t know; they were around a corner. Well, I think it was Filip and Maryleen talking? It was a while ago. I’m not sure. But Mother’s so clumsy without her hearing, maybe he was catching her as she fell. I’ve done that myself.”
“Have you spoken to your mother about this?”
“No, should I have?”
The response was a curt “Your five minutes are up.”
“Oh,” he said. “Yes, sir.” Henry was instantly on his feet, standing over his father, who was now reaching down for his shoes. His heart was hammering in his chest, but he felt suddenly unable to step back to open the door. With his father’s head downturned, Henry had a clear view of his thinning crown. In a strange gesture, Henry reached up and touched his own thick hair gingerly. Then, as if the motion had caught his eye, John Henry looked up at his son, who stood there with his hand to a tendril of his hair in what was a strangely winsome — even girlish — manner, looking perplexed and unsure. John Henry’s face was blasting furnace red. He rose up from his seat on the davenport with a suddenness that almost unbalanced him, so he swayed for a moment.