If I have so little regard for a small town newspaper, if these people are my enemies, why don’t I move away? I could accept Lubin’s offer. In New York. On a pro-integration paper.

Is it because, he asked himself, you like Caxton, and you like these people—even if they are enemies—and editing the Messenger is exactly what you want to do?

“Shipman won’t let me tell the truth,” he said to Ruth, to himself. “If I do, I’ll be fired.” He looked down at his wife. “Well, what do you think of me now? What do you think of a man who’s a nigger-lover and doesn’t have the guts to say it out loud?”

Ruth was silent.

“Go on! I know what you’re thinking. Why don’t you say it!”

“I’m—confused,” she said, pressing her hand to her forehead. “If you’d told me any of this before, or even hinted—if you’d tried to make me understand—”

Tom nodded. “Instead of ‘jamming it down your throat’ . . . I know.” He felt angry and disgusted. “It’s all ruined now, I suppose,” he said.

Ruth did not answer. He could see the tears that had fallen, unchecked, down her face.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Please believe that. I’m sorry.”

They drove home, then. They went into the darkened house and did not speak or look at one another; neither knew what to say, what to do: We’re strangers, Tom kept thinking; strangers.

“Dad!”

He turned and saw Ella standing in the bedroom doorway. She was in her pajamas, but she had not been sleeping.

“Dad, call Mr. Allardyce right away. He’s been trying to get you for an hour.”

“All right, thank you, kitten. You go on to sleep now; it’s late.” Tom picked up the phone. “He didn’t say what it was, did he?”

“Huh-uh. But he said it was real important. You two been warring?

Ruth wiped her face with a handkerchief and smiled. “No. Come on, now, off to bed.”

Ella shrugged. “Okay,” she said dubiously, and closed the door.

“Tom?” Jack Allardyce’s voice was loud with excitement.

“Yes. Ella says you were—”

“Tom, you better get over to Simon’s Hill right away.”

“Why?”

“You ain’t heard about it?”

“Heard about what?”

The old man almost shouted the words.

Tom said, “All right,” and put down the phone slowly.

“What is it?” Ruth asked.

“The Baptist church on Simon’s Hill has been dynamited,” he said. “The preacher was inside.”

19

19

They drove slowly past the cemetery into the section known as Death Row. It was like any other section of Los Angeles—old, gray, quiet—except that the streets were lined with funeral parlors. They began as rather ornate establishments, mostly in the colonial style, but as you proceeded toward the Civic Center they grew smaller, less fancy and more to the point.

From the third block onward, they dropped their disguises entirely. The barbered lawns and Southern mansions gave way to bleak little structures of plaster and wood, and there was no attempt made at a cheerful atmosphere.