Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow [75]
Thus, with no one completely in command of the situation, with municipal authorities, police, state militia and citizenry all nervous and unsure in their continuing vulnerability to the black guerrilla, two things were caused to happen more or less by public consensus that were roughly analogous to a recognition of his demands: the Model T Ford had been raised, possibly foretelling some kind of negotiation, and he could read, if he was in range of the New Rochelle papers, both of which gave the largest headlines in their history to the intelligence, that the Conklin family had gone into hiding in New York City. No concessions had been made and the streets bristled with military and paramilitary deployments. But the situation was altered. Let him now burn down the entire metropolis of New York, one editorial said. Or accept the principle that any man who takes the law into his own hands places himself against a civilized and resolute people and defames the very justice he seeks to enforce.
In contrast to all of this the family’s departure was private and unreported. Father contracted with the Railway Express to transport their baggage—a matching pair of wicker trunks he had bought for the occasion, each with several drawers and compartments and a commodious closet for hanging clothes, a brass-studded footlocker and several suitcases and hat-boxes—and they rode out of New Rochelle on a train that came through at the crack of dawn. Later that morning in New York they made connections with an Atlantic City train in Pennsylvania Station. This was the station designed by the firm of Stanford White and Charles McKim. Its stone colonnade façades, modeled on the Roman baths at Caracalla, spanned 31st to 33rd Street, and 7th to 8th Avenue. Porters helped with Grandfather’s wheelchair. Mother was wearing a white ensemble. The laundress held Sarah’s child. The station on the inside was so vast that although it was filled with people their voices were no more than a murmur. The boy gazed at the roof, an exposition of corrugated green glass vaults and arches supported by steel ribs and needlelike steel columns. The light fell through this roof like a soft crystal dust. Descending to the concourse of trains he looked right and left and saw as far as he could see in either direction the encouched locomotives waiting in an impatience of steam and shouts and tolling bells to be released on their journeys.
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And what of Younger Brother? His absence from home since his passionate defense of Coalhouse had caused no undue concern. They were used to his sullen temper. He appeared intermittently at the flag and fireworks plant. He drew his salary. He was not on hand for their departure and so Mother sealed a note and left it on the table in the front hall. The note was never claimed.
Some days after the attack on the firehouse Younger Brother had gone back to the Harlem funeral parlor from which Sarah had been buried. He was met at the door by the proprietor. I should very much like to speak with Mr. Coalhouse Walker, Younger Brother said. I shall wait every evening under the arcade of the Manhattan Casino until he is satisfied that it is safe to receive me. The mortician listened impassively and gave no sign that he knew what Younger Brother was talking about. Nevertheless, every evening thereafter the young man stood at the Casino enduring the stares of the black patrons and timing the intervals between trains of the Eighth Avenue El that periodically rumbled past the building. The weather was warm and through the ornate glass doors of the theatre, which were opened sometime after the evening concert began, he could hear strains of the syncopated music of Jim Europe and the applause of the audience. Of course Coalhouse had quit his orchestra job and moved out of his rooms weeks before his attack on the firehouse. To the police who tried to trace him it was as if he had never existed.
On the fourth night of Younger Brother’s vigil a well-dressed colored youth approached him and asked him for a dime. Hiding his astonishment that someone so well turned out should beg for a coin, he dug in his pocket and produced it. The fellow smiled and said he seemed to have more change than that, could he manage another quarter? Younger Brother looked in his eyes and saw there the intelligent appraisal of someone empowered to make a decision.