John Henry Days, page 27
They thought he was going to be the next Booker T Washington. Smart colored fellow like him. He dropped his law career to perform. Made his mark working with Eugene O’Neill, in All God’s Chillun Got Wings and The Emperor Jones. In God’s Chillun the races mix. A white actress touches his hand in one scene and they thought there might be rioting. There was no rioting. That would come later. Good reviews mostly, although there were naysayers; some white critics thought the play was an insult to the white race, some black critics thought it was an insult to the black race. Around this time segments of the black press started to get on his back for playing the “shiftless moron” and the “lazy, good-natured, lolling darkey.” Not the last time they’d make this point. His singing career got into full swing around this time, too; performing bills mixing black spirituals with secular songs, he hit upon a new formula. In Show Boat he sang “Ol’ Man River,” drawing deep OOOs from deep black wells. Sang around this country and then in other countries. Visited Africa, Europe. Sold out the Albert Hall in Merry Olde. Stayed away as much as he could from the U.S. of A. for ten years.
It was when he traveled that he began to change.
Outside his dressing room, the bustle of preparations, location of props.
In Moscow he dined with the Prime Minister. Eisenstein had invited him over; turned out he was into Touissant, too, and wanted to make a film about the man. Small world. They probably discussed this by a samovar. He dug the Soviets and they dug him. One night at the theater, a little Russian kid ran up to Paul Robeson, encircled his tiny arms around the big man’s legs and implored him to stay, saying he’ll be happy if he stays in the bosom of Mother Russia. Little moppet. Pretty moving. He moved on. Hung out with the Loyalists during the Spanish Civil War. The soldiers adored him. It wasn’t every day an international celebrity toured the front lines. He made the rounds, waved out the window of the Buick. Occasionally shells passed over his head. There was something changing in the world and in him, too. He said, “I belong to an oppressed race, discriminated against, one that could not live if fascism triumphed in the world.” All those people dying over there were dying here, in him. He said, “I have found that where forces have been the same, whether people weave, build, pick cotton, or dig in the mines, they understand the common language of work, suffering and protest.” The Negro sharecropper, the Welsh miner, the Slavic farmer. He said, “Folk music is as much a creation of a mass of people as a language. One person throws in a phrase. Then another—and when, as a singer, I walk from among the people, onto the platform, to sing back to the people the songs they have created, I can feel a great unity.” We are our songs. He said, “I am sick of playing Stepin Fetchit comics and savages with leopard skin and spear.”
He came back to America a new man.
Tonight he’s John Henry. Already in costume. Dark blue dungarees held up by a broad brown leather belt. Sleeveless T-shirt, brown cowboy hat. The dialogue is terrible, the characters racist, the situation appalling, but in John Henry, a man of the land, Paul Robeson sees the folk. The masses. He wants to represent the experiences of the common man. Out of this folktale, even if diverted down ruined streams, flows the truth of men and women. They sacrifice and give. It didn’t turn out the way he wanted it to. Some guy in the press said even Robeson “could not carry on his back 800 pounds of bad play.” Ouch. But he is trying. He’ll be back on Broadway and knock ’em dead in “Othello.”
Someone knocks on his door, hey it’s five minutes to curtain, Mr. Robeson.
This is a turning point. No thunderbolts from the sky or neuron-zapping epiphany, nothing flashy, but there was something going on inside him. Where was America when the blood of the Loyalists spilled in rivers? Where was America when the blood of the lynched spilled in rivers? He performed at rallies for the Communist Party, benefits for socialist causes. No card-carrying member, but still. Brushes are made for tarring. Down in D.C. Hoover opened a file. He was always opening files. Open a file on a box of cherries for being too red. The file got fat, that’s what FBI files do. Still performing, making movies, making the scene on Broadway again in “Othello” but Paul Robeson’s making speeches, too. Defending the Soviet Union, watch out. In Paris ’49, he said, “It is unthinkable that American Negroes would go to war on behalf of those who have oppressed us for generations against a country which in one generation has raised our people to the full dignity of mankind.” Actually, he didn’t say that, but the Associated Press attributed the remarks to him and there you have it. Who is this Negro to speak this way? Here we are trying to get this Cold War thing off the ground, and there’s this guy talking our heads off about human dignity. Called before the House Un-American Activities Committee, he did not denounce himself. The paper of record said, “We want him to keep singing and being Paul Robeson.” They cannot recognize this man.
Boy, it’s cold outside. Pitiless New York winters get inside the bones. Inside the dressing room the steam heat clangs.
A few months later they rioted in Peekskill. New Jersey, that is. An anti-Paul Robeson riot. This lefty arts group asks him to do a benefit and all heck breaks loose. Not in our town. Goon squads roved, red-blooded Americans of multiple epithets and a single hue. Dirty Commie, Dirty Nigger, Dirty Jew. The mob smashed the stage to kindling, which came in handy when an individual or individuals later burned a cross. They sent Robeson fans, assorted fellow travelers to the hospital. The cops stood by with their arms crossed: Do you hear anything? Nope. You? Nope.
After that, it just ain’t the same. Concert tours cancelled. Theater owners hated pinkos or feared repercussions. Sympathetic venues couldn’t book him because of threats. You get a phone call in the middle of the night, you have a family, what choice do you have. He couldn’t make a living. He became the first American banned from television when an appearance on Eleanor Roosevelt’s NBC show was called off. If his country had gone mad, maybe overseas would be better. They loved him overseas. But get this—the State Department pulled his passport. It would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States Government” for him to go abroad and speak on black rights. He’s “one of the most dangerous men in the world.” If he signed a paper saying he wouldn’t make any speeches, everything would be copacetic. But he wouldn’t do it.
Stuck here. Exiled to his own country, he started to fall apart. Got more and more broke. A man with a voice like that, and he can’t even open his mouth. He began to talk about the pentatonic scale. He had a theory about the pentatonic scale. The ubiquity and universality of the pentatonic scale in folk music around the globe proved the brotherhood of man. By studying the pentatonic scale we can peer into human truths. The commonality of the folk. Pentatonic scale this, pentatonic scale that. Trip on the rug and it was the pentatonic scale. Beset by mental as well as physical problems, he slid. After a couple of years, things loosened up but the years of confinement had taken their toll. When the withdrawal of his passport was finally declared illegal in ’58, he settled in England, where successive breakdowns finished his career. Suicide attempts, electroshock treatments, overmedication. He was a plate of scrambled eggs. As the civil rights movement reached fruition, as he sat across the ocean, far from the front lines, and few remembered his name. When he returned to New York in ’64, the newspapers gloried over his reduced capabilities. Look at Goliath, hobbled now. DISILLUSIONED NATIVE SON, went one headline. A reader wrote a letter back. It said, “That’s John Henry himself you’re insulting.”
Maybe he should have been a baker. His great-great-grandfather was born into slavery, purchased his freedom and became a baker. He baked bread for the Revolutionary Army, and the story goes that George Washington himself thanked him personally for his patriotic contribution. So maybe he should have been a baker.
Hey, Mr. Robeson. Hey, Mr. Robeson, goes a voice outside the dressing room door. It’s time. The people are waiting.
He is John Henry tonight.
It’s me. Calling to see if you’re back in town. Give me a call. I’m at work. This is Gene in factchecking calling about your piece. Just have one or two queries, if you could call me back today that would be great.
Hey, J., this is Marshall, calling on Friday around three-thirty. Hey, man, hate to bug you again about that contract, you have to send that in before you can get paid, so … send it in! Have a nice weekend.
This is your Aunt Jennifer calling about your father’s birthday. I’ll be home all night.
Gene in fact-checking again. Guess you didn’t have time to get back to me yesterday. Legal has a few queries about your piece, that last section where you say “it’s so easy even a dimwit can do it.” Do you have a source on that, that dimwit thing? Is that in their press material or did you just, where did you get that from is what I’m asking. Thanks.
HE ERASES EVERYTHING.The answering machine company had prominently advertised the salient feature of its new product—Keep Track of Your Messages from a Remote Location—and he can’t, by his sights, get more remote than he is now. He presses a button and is free. This is modern technology. One time he forgot his ATM number and he became less than human, see-through, he waved his hands in the faces of other people but they could not see or hear him. This was how he felt. He wandered the streets for a few hours without currency or an identity until his ATM number returned to his recall as suddenly as it had disappeared. It had been something of an existential dilemma and troubling but it hadn’t happened since.
This is Herb in Accounts Payable at Saturn Publishing. I’m still waiting on that Social Security number, sir, we can’t pay you unless we get a Social Security number for you. I assume you have one.
Checking his messages reminds him of the record so he starts thinking about how he’ll fill the requirements next week. There’s that paperweight thing on Tuesday so that’s taken care of. He can probably skip lunch that day, probably breakfast too because Sharp always puts out a nice spread for their products, and if this new paperweight is half as good as the buzz maintains, they’ll really go all out… He catches himself salivating at the idea and blames One Eye. One Eye’s crackpot mission to get himself off the List had undone all the good work J. had put in this morning. He had shaken off his conditioning for a few hours and it had required much effort, renunciation, reserve-tapping struggle. Real hair-shirt stuff, this morning. Then, like that, corralled into that dumbass business and he stood in the bathtub waiting for Lawrence to leave. They were lucky they didn’t get caught. He slid back into custom too easily.
Hello, J., it’s Elaine. The piece looks great. There were just one or two things I changed so I’m going to fax you the new version and tell me what you think. We’re closing the issue in half an hour, so if you can get back to me before then, great.
He walks over to the bathroom and urinates. Feels so at home in this place he forgets to tend to his fly. He has half an hour until the taxi comes back for another run to the festival site. Pamela will be there. He opens up the press packet so that he’ll be able carry on a conversation.
This is Margaret at Legend returning your call. About that check, I’m going to have to check with someone in processing to check out what happened to your check. My assistant says she remembers seeing the check request form so it should have gone in and the check should have gone out, so I don’t know what happened.
He reads, “The C&O railroad provided a great opportunity for the slaves freed by Mr. Lincoln’s Proclamation. The C&O paid the passage to West Virginia for any freed black willing to work and provided the first salary some of those men had ever seen. The laborers came from all over, from as far north as New Jersey and as far south as the Florida panhandle. When work on the Big Bend Tunnel finished many stayed with the railroad for the rest of their lives. They were proud to join the C&O family.”
It’s me again. I don’t know if you’re mad or what or I don’t even know. When you get this message call me.
He stops. But what if he doesn’t go to the paperweight event on Tuesday or skips whatever event (he’ll have to look it up) is going on Monday? It isn’t as if he bet anyone any money that he could do it. Go for the record. It is a competition between him and himself. Or him and the List. Depended on how you looked at it. He had bet himself he could do it. Hadn’t he? Looking back it seems to him that he just started doing it and it made a certain kind of sense so he kept going. It wasn’t even particularly hard, going for it. If he deposits that check that should have arrived by now it will take five days for it to clear. The company is based in New York, is in fact one of the biggest magazine concerns in New York, but their bank is in Idaho and it takes five days for their checks to clear. (How quickly his cars jump the tracks, are derailed.)
J., long time no see, it’s Jane Almond from Hotshot Media calling you again about that event at Haze on Tuesday, it’s for that new paperweight Sharp is launching. I’m going to put you on the list plus-one, but you should get there early because I know a lot of people are coming. Love ya!
He checks the digital clock, faithful ally through an infinity of hotel rooms, and reads on. “While it was hazardous work, the C&O utilized all the best safety procedures of the day to provide the healthiest working conditions for its men.”
J., it’s Mark. Someone on the business side put a red flag on some of your reimbursements for the L.A. trip. Got it right here on my desk, see you put down lunch one column, but then the receipt you put in there lists three margaritas. You know if it was up to me, but they’re really cracking down on that sort of thing here since we got bought, so.
He skips ahead. “Those who say that John Henry is a mere legend will risk the ire of local residents. Many of the older residents recall being told the story of the great competition by grandparents or uncles who were employees on the C&O and witnessed the race with their own eyes.” Lucky he didn’t get beat up in that diner this morning.
J.—good news. This is Victor. We’re finally going to run that luxury doorknob piece it looks like. Turns out we have some space in the section because one of our writers went AWOL. I know it’s been a while but do you have any factchecking material you can send me on that? I hope this is still the right number.
“The foreman and the drill salesman ran to get the results of the race. By the time the referee fired his shot signaling the end of the competition, John Henry had drilled a total of fourteen feet. The poor steam drill, however, had only drilled nine feet. John Henry had triumphed over the nefarious machine!”
Hey, J.—hey, that rhymes. Umm it’s Evelyn and I’m going to send out that kill fee today, but I don’t think I said it was for the whole thing. If you look at the contract, it’s a twenty-five percent kill fee for things now ever since we got that new editor in chief. Sorry about that. Gimme a call.
He realizes that he hadn’t thought of the record for whole hours, not until he got back into his room. Seeing the room, being back in the room reminded him that he was only a temporary guest here. He is one in a series of people who are given the key and this is only one in an uninterrupted series of assignments. Best to keep thinking of it as such, not expect too much from whatever kinds of encounters he has with Pamela, and plan for next week’s streak of junketeering.
This is Gene in factchecking again. Just… give me a call when you get in.
“Some say that the great steeldriver was laid to rest with his beloved hammer in the fill near the eastern portal of the tunnel. There are others who insist that John Henry sleeps on top of Big Bend mountain, where a log church once stood. But if you ask the old-timers of the area, they’ll tell you that the bones of the legendary hero lie in the old Negro cemetery that still stands in the northern slope.”
Hey, it’s Jane from Hotshot. I can’t remember if I called you back about that paperweight thing, but it’s still on for Tuesday and you’re plus-one. Love ya!
He sees himself holding cotton candy at the festival and telling Pamela, “You know, there’s no doubt that the great John Henry lies on the northern slope. At the old Negro cemetery, you know the one,” dispensing this like some metropolitan cocktail party tidbit. He’ll probably get some ribbing from the others if he’s hanging there talking to Pamela with his nose all open. One Eye will say something. Best to avoid his friend for now. Immediately following their escapade, when they were safe in the parking lot, once they were out of the bathtub, his monocular comrade tried to enlist him in the next mission: to break into Lucien’s room and hit the master. He smelled the asphalt bake as One Eye cried, “It’s Lucien that bastard! I knew it was him. We go in there, we’ll just take our names off, click click, that’ll show ’em.”
“It’s one thing if you want to know who runs the List. Fine,” J. said. “It’s an elegant idea in its way, a machine to keep the media-saturated society up and running. Deserves a patent, or at least a franchise agreement so that other cities can get in on the action. Now you know who thought it up. Here’s a lollipop. But it’s one, stupid to try that trick again and think you won’t get caught and two, if you don’t want to go to events just don’t go. No one is forcing you. There’s no gun at your back. Lucien walks in and pals or no pals he’ll probably call the cops to teach you a lesson.” Thinking, these white boys think they can do anything mighty-whitey style. Like there are no consequences.
“I’m talking symbolism here. Symbolism is important. Many important events in human history have happened because of symbolism. You got your Boston Tea Party, dump the shit in the harbor, love that dirty water, you got all kinds of shit, giving blankets full of smallpox to the Indians. Our country is built on symbolism. Look, answer me a question. Why are you going for the record?”
