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Moving Day
^ By John Logan
Ewrtly after noon on a spring
Saturday George Maddon drove his
small two door car down Chalmers
street and headed toward a square
block of buildings that had mush
roomed there in the last months.
In the back of George Maddon’s
flimsy car the shade of a lamp
was perched on the scratched top
of a small radio. A wicker basket
filled with dishes was on the floor.
George Maddon, auto worker, 35,
negro, was moving.
There was the usual city noise
over Chalmers street but another
noise also was there as George
drove toward the square, brick
buildings. It had sounded there
when George had first come there
looking for a new home.
George Maddon was almost to
the buildings. He was looking only
at them. He knew what would be
on the other side of the street and
-—be did not want to look that way.
He looked at the new squareness
of the Chalmers Settlement
Project and he did not look across
the street. But he could hear the
noise, hear it above the noise of
the street car and the other pass
ing autos. It was a low murmur
but George Maddop could hear it
very well.
George’s wife, Susie, had looked
at him that morning as he sat
heavily on a kitchen chair eating
his breakfast. She never interfered
much with what George did. But
that morning she said, “I don’t
know if we ought to do this,
George,” and her liquid, negro
voice was thick and low.
“We got as much right as any
one else.” George didn’t look up
from his food. He was a heavy,
bl^ck man, short and with large
""Shoulders.
“But we might get into trouble.”
Su3ie didn’t like trouble. She was a
small, meek wife to George, kept
their inadequate house clean, and
didn’t like to bother with other
things. She wanted to be left
alone.
“No one never stays clear of
trouble by running away from it,”
George said. “I’m not going to be
pushed around by anyone and if
I want to do anything like this
I’ll do it. In this here country folks
TEMPERATURE
GOING UP?
Keep cool as a cucumber
in this simple cotton dress.
. . . deliberately designed
for summer comfort and
figure enhancement.
Gordon’s
can do what they like about things
like this.”
So now George Maddon was driv
ing along Chalmers street, slow
ing his car now as he almost
reached the walk leading to the
side entrance of the Project. As
he did so a large rock crashed
through the right window of his
car, flaying glass in all directions,
and hit George’s large shoulder,
making him give a shriek of pain
as he dropped his hands from the
wheel and the car skidded to a
stop against the curb.
The low murmur that George
Maddon had heard was gone now
and in its place were yells, shouts
of rage, bitter taunts that came
from that side of Chalmers street
.that George had so studiously ig
nored. For on that side of the street
was no mere collection of small
shops and two-family flats. These
were there, yes, and other things
were there too—the crates of
apples before the grocery marked
Johnathan S. Buburelli on its grey
awning, the two stacks of Spike
Muron’s daily papers with the
rocks on top of them, one of which
was now gone, resting instead be
side George Maddon on the cheap
auto seat as he clutched his shoul
der in agony. But Spike and Johna
than Buburelli were joined now,
joined with all the inhabitants of
the west side of Chalmers street
plus a swelling crowd that had
gathered as crowds gather, like
whistled notes in the night, meet
ing to form a harsh overbearing
discord. The murmur that George
had heard had come from the
ranks of that crowd and now it
was more than that. The rock that
had left Spike’s hand had started
a hail of missiles through the air,
striking George’s car, bouncing off
the tinny hood and fenders, shat
tering the headlights, and going
through the now-broken windows,
striking George Maddon, hitting
on his hard, close-cropped head
and beating against his large
shoulders as, with low moans, he
slumped over the steering wheel.
Above George’s car the brick
Project towered, its windows,
empty of curtains, staring down at
him with disinterest. The place
that George had selected for his
new home was still empty of any
evidence of his possession. The
three windows that would be his
among the many windows in the
large building Ijad their sills free
of the two geraniums that Susie
had nursed so carefully. The lamp
shade was still in the back of
George’s car, ripped and torn now,
instead of peaking through one of
these windows from behind the
cheap curtains still on the car
floor, covered now with sticks, tin
cans, apples from Johnathan
Buburelli’s crate, and other handy
missiles.
Now the crowd no longer mur
mured, no longer stood and stared
but it moved, surged forward with
threats on its lips, and it sur
rounded the car where George was
crying now, sobs breaking through
his chest and tears mixing with the
blood on his black face. Violent
hands opened the left door of the
car and pulled George Maddon out
and shoulders strained at the car,
lifting its left wheels from the
ground and tipping the car over
on its side so that it struck the
walk before the Settlement Project
with a shattering crash. F’ists were
hitting at George now, arms were
flying, and he went down, slumping
down to his knees, to his hands,
and finally laying flat as heavy
shoes kicked at his chest and body,
and blood flowed from him and
collected in little pools in the
middle of Chalmers street.
And the crowd had found its
battle-cry. The separate taunts
that had come from it had resolved
into one taunt and the word split
the air above Chalmers street,
raised itself above Johnathan Bu
burelli’s'awnings and Max Stiner’s
shine parlor so that it seemed that
one gigantic voice cried it to the
grey skies over the smoky city.
“Nigger!” cried the voice. “Nigger!
Nigger! Nigger!” And to George
Maddon, sobbing half-conscious on
a blood-wet pavement the voice
was heard. “We got as much right
as anyone else,” George had said,
and so here he was now, lying in
the middle of Chalmers street
while the dishes from the wicker
basket that he and Susie had
packed that morning were being
thrown into the air and crashing
into the curb on the far side of
the street. “In this here country,”
he had told Susie, “folks can do
what they like about things like
this.” So when the Chalmers street
Settlement Project had been open
ed by the government George had
applied for an apartment. Before
this it had been hard for George
to find a new home so that he
could move Susie from their small,
miserable house. But the Project
would be a good place, it would
be just fine. So the shoes hit
against him and the stones were
thrown down and George Maddon
learned that Chalmers street itself
as well as the government which
had built the Project could speak
about his intention to move from
his tiny house which was sur
rounded by other tiny houses filled
with negro families. Chalmers
street was speaking now and
George Maddon listened. The Bu
burellies and the Stiners had lifted
their voices and they were saying
to George, “Go back, go back to
your little, unpainted house. Go
back to your negro street and your
curly-topped babies playing on the
sidewalks and don’t come to Chal
mers street again. We want no
negroes here. We’re above you and
we always will be above you and
we won’t have you for a neighbor.”
That’s what Chalmers street was
saying now and trying to make
George believe it.
Suddenly, like a pile of leaves
blowing away in the wind, the
crowd was gone. The sirens were
raising their clamour above the
city noise and the mob noise, and
the blue-jacketed policemen were
coming out of the squad cars, clubs
in hand, and breaking up the
crowd with scientific efficiency.
The blue-clad arms and the shiny
clubs were being raised and low
ered over the heads of the inhabi
tants of Chalmers street and Spike
Muron was scurrying back to his
paper pile where he scooped the
papers under each arm and scam
pered up the street. The huddled
figure of George Maddon lay in
the middle of Chalmers street and
the little pools of blood collected
together and made large pools.
George’s car lay on its side, its
left wheels spinning a trifle in the
air and the glass and dishes and
curtains were scattered in broken
specks on the pavement in front
of the Settlement Project. Susie’s
china teapot was a shattered heap
at the foot of a fire hydrant and
the lampshade was being carried
by a gust of wind down the street.
The crowd was gone, the police
men were standing by the squad
cars, and an ambulance came to a
halt beside George and white
clothed men lifted him inside and
the ambulance went off. The empty
windows of the Settlement Project
were still empty and Johnathan S.
Buburelli and Max Stiner and
Spike Huron and all the inhabi
tants of Chalmers street still did
not have a new neighbor.
But in a bare, white bed in a
bare, white room George Maddon
lay with many layers of cloth
wound around his hard head and
looked at the ceiling while a small
girl in white was doing something
beside the bed. And George said,
“I just wanted to—” when he was
stopped by a look from the girl.
Haunted Forest
Last night, when no one was around,
Warm slanting rain the only sound
Against the darkening earth, I heard
A haunting cheerful tune; no bird
Was this—the robins were in bed.
Another singing in their stead
1 he song I followed, past the stream,
W herever transient tune would seem
To beckon; through the thick green fern.
Through clumps of trees, whose rigid, stern
Gray branches held me; there before
My searching eyes a forest door
Had opened on a grassy place
I saw the kindly, bearded face,
The pointed hoof and pointed ear,
Heard music only fairies hear.
I looked again, and Pan was gone,
The grass he had been sitting on
Was springing back and echoes dim
Were all that then remained of him.
I know he’ll never come again
(I think I was a fairy, then.)
JOAN BECKMAN
But later when the girl was gone
George turned to the pillow and
cried as he had cried while slump
ed over the steering wheel of his
car. He cried with large sobs
breaking through his big chest and
tears running over his black cheeks
and between his sob's he whispered
to the pillow, "They don’t give no
body a chance at all.”
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