Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow [57]
Here, given subsequent events, it is important to mention what little is known about Coalhouse Walker Jr. Apparently he was a native of St. Louis, Missouri. As a young man he had known and admired Scott Joplin and other St. Louis musicians and had paid for his piano studies with money he earned as a stevedore. There is no information about his parentage. At one point a woman in St. Louis claimed to be his divorced wife but that was never proved. There were never located any of his school records in St. Louis and it still is not known how he acquired his vocabulary and his manner of speaking. Perhaps by an act of will.
It was widely reported when he was achieving his notoriety that Coalhouse Walker had never exhausted the peaceful and legal means of redress before taking the law into his own hands. This is not entirely true. He went to see three different attorneys recommended by Father. In all cases they refused to represent him. He was advised to recover his automobile before it was totally wrecked and to forget the matter. To all three he insisted that he didn’t want to forget the matter but to bring suit against the Fire Chief and men of the Emerald Isle Engine.
Father himself telephoned one of these attorneys, a man who had represented his firm in several business matters. Is there not a case there, he asked. When he goes for his hearing, the lawyer said to Father, you can go with him. You don’t need me for this. When a property owner in this city walks into court with a Negro, a charge like this is usually dismissed. But he is not interested in the charge, Father said. He wants to sue. At that point Father realized the attorney was involved in a conversation with someone in his office. Glad to be of help, the attorney said, and rang off.
It is known also that Coalhouse Walker consulted a black attorney in Harlem. He had learned that the Emerald Isle Chief, whose name was Will Conklin, was a stepbrother of the Judge of the City Court and a nephew of a County Alderman in White Plains. The Harlem attorney advised him there were ways to divert the case to other jurisdictions but these were expensive and time-consuming. And the outcome was not at all predictable. You have the money for that? the lawyer said. I am soon to be married, Coalhouse Walker said. That is an expensive proposition, the lawyer said. Surely your responsibilities to your intended are more important than the need to redress a slight on the part of white folks. Then Walker apparently made a remark not entirely courteous to the black lawyer. The counselor stood up behind his desk and told him to leave. I have charity cases you know nothing of, he shouted. I want justice for our people so bad I can taste it. But if you think I would go to Westchester County to plead on a colored man’s behalf that someone deposited a bucket of slops in his car, you are very much mistaken.
It is known too that Coalhouse made a preliminary attempt to see the matter through as his own counsel. He had filed a complaint but did not know how to go about getting a place on the court calendar or what steps had to be taken to assure that it was correct in form in order to be heard. He appeared at City Hall for an interview with the Office of the County Clerk. It was suggested that he return another day when there was less pressing business in the office. But he persisted and was then told that his complaint was not on file and that several weeks would be required to trace it. Come back then, the clerk told him. Instead he went to the police station where he had originally filed and wrote out a second complaint. The policemen on duty regarded him with amazement. An older officer took him aside and confided to him that he was probably filing in vain since the volunteer fire companies were not municipal employees and therefore did not come under the jurisdiction of the city. The contemptuousness of this logic did not escape Coalhouse but he chose not to argue with it. He signed his complaint and left and heard laughter behind him as he walked out the door.
All of this happened over a period of two to three weeks. Later, when the name Coalhouse Walker came to symbolize murder and arson, these earlier attempts to find redress no longer mattered. Even at this date we can