The Hellfire Club(44)
“Thirty-nine people signed the Constitution; you want me to ID all of them?” Charlie protested. But he accepted the challenge and proceeded to rattle off names with ease, aware that he was showing off but unable to resist.
“Okay, that’s John Dickinson,” Charlie said, walking up a couple of stairs and pointing to the right of Washington’s table. The painting was so enormous, the figures were almost life-size. “But that’s not accurate, he signed the Constitution by proxy. He wasn’t there that day; he was sick.”
“Not bad,” said MacLachlan.
“As far as I know, there aren’t any portraits anywhere of two of the signers, Jacob Broom and Thomas FitzSimons,” Charlie continued. “We—history—have no idea what they look like. So on this, one of them must be that guy whose face is blocked by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney’s arm, and the other is next to Dickinson, with just the top of his wig showing? Is that right?”
“Very nice,” Street said, looking over MacLachlan’s shoulder at the key.
Charlie had continued to name the signers, frankly enjoying the chance to flex his academic muscles, unused since December exams and, until then, of no interest to his congressional colleagues. He’d been grateful to MacLachlan for allowing the lowliest freshman in Congress a brief moment in the sun.
And now, standing in the same spot just a few weeks later, looking up at the immense painting that filled the entire wall, he felt both small and acutely aware of MacLachlan’s absence. He had tried to project strength to Henrietta MacLachlan, but he felt as though they both knew she would soon be a widow. Street lightly tapped Charlie’s shoulder, seeming to know the reason behind the moment of melancholy, and they resumed their journey.
Street led the way and they found two seats in the House Chamber. Charlie sat right behind Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Charlie thought about the two men and their wildly different approaches to dealing with the ubiquitous racism Charlie had only really started to notice since becoming Street’s friend. Street had told him that after Powell was elected to Congress in 1944, Speaker Rayburn had cautioned him not to push matters too quickly. “Adam, everybody thinks you’re coming down here with a bomb in each hand. Maybe you are. But don’t throw them. Feel your way around. You have a great future.” That had lasted all of eight weeks, until Powell stood on the House floor and called for the impeachment of a Mississippi Democrat who said nigger and kike almost as often as he said hello and good-bye.
Beyond their race and job, Street and Powell had not much in common. For one, no one would ever mistake Street for a white man, as happened with Powell. In that, Street’s election by the good people of Chicago’s North Side—academics and liberal Jews in addition to a sizable black population—was a radical act for an era when Lena Horne was considered exotic. At Colgate, Powell had been able to “pass” and join a white fraternity. Street, who attended Morehouse, couldn’t and wouldn’t.
In a way, Charlie thought as he tuned out the Canadian governor-general, Street conducted himself according to the stark black-and-white limitations of newspaper photographs. Powell thrived in his world of ethical and moral grays; he was on his second marriage, to a Trinidadian singer, and was rumored to live in a Long Island estate far from his Harlem district, enjoying a chauffeur-driven limousine of mysterious provenance. But beyond his fondness for drink, which was common to most of the veterans Charlie knew, Street was the picture of moral rectitude. When poker nights devolved into bawdy tales of grateful or desperate French or Filipino women, Street would shake his head and focus on the game. Unlike many of the other young veterans, including Charlie, Street had not added any postwar padding.
Charlie couldn’t imagine what it was like for Isaiah to have risked everything for his nation in war and then return home and be treated not just as a lower caste but a potential menace. They had known each other for only two months, but Charlie’s glances at the world through his friend’s eyes had been revelatory. He was shocked by the disregard and hostility shown to Street by their fellow congressmen. Congressman Howard Smith of Virginia was one of the worst offenders, a man who would proudly proclaim his bigoted views from his perch on the Rules Committee. He automatically blocked any legislation that might help blacks and often pompously declared that the good folk of the Commonwealth of Virginia had “never accepted the colored race as a race of people who had equal intelligence to the white people of the South.” He said this within yards of Powell and Street and was applauded by his fellow Southern Democrats for doing so. After a particularly egregious display in which Judge Smith said that Truman’s move to desegregate the army meant the United States would never again win a war, Charlie had tried to stand and register a protest, but Street, seated nearby, caught Charlie’s eye and shook his head slightly, motioning for him to stay seated.
“That kind of thinking isn’t going to be defeated by you taking on Judge Smith,” Street said at the time as they walked from the House floor. “Remember what Branch Rickey said to Jackie Robinson: ‘I’m looking for a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back!’” Street and Charlie rarely talked about race, but it was the subtext of many policy debates, not to mention the culture. Charlie suspected that Street’s stoicism came at a price. Just as Jackie Robinson did not naturally possess the patience of Job, just as Second Lieutenant Jackie Robinson had nearly been court-martialed in 1944 for refusing to move to the back of a military bus, Street seemed to struggle with the notion that a black man had to tolerate abuse to be seen by whites as noble. India had gained its independence from the British, Street noted, but Gandhi had had to take three bullets to the chest. And an “uppity” Jackie Robinson would never have been voted Rookie of the Year, Street assured Charlie drily.