The Center Cannot Hold

"Don't mind if I do." Henderson waved for the waiter. As the Negro took the request back to the kitchen, Henderson gave a half apologetic smile. "Always been scrawny, no matter how much I eat."

"I wish I could say that." Corsets had been out of fashion for a good many years now, but A

The waiter returned with another whole chicken leg. Henderson devoured it. He patted his pale lips with his napkin. "Hit the spot."

"Good." Even if she envied him at the same time, A

After Grady Calkins assassinated President Hampton, after the Confederate currency stabilized when the USA eased back on reparations, the Freedom Party had sunk like a stone, and had stayed down though almost all the 1920s. If it failed again, she was sure it wouldn't revive. She couldn't stand the idea of trying to make peace with the Whigs once more. This run had to reach the top.

"Don't you worry about that, ma'am," James Henderson said. "Jake Featherston, he isn't about to lose." So, four hundred years before, a Spanish soldier seeing the might and wealth of the Inca Empire might have spoken of Pizarro. The Spaniard would have been right. A

She said, "It's not just Jake, remember. We want to grab with both hands."

"Think you're right," Henderson said. "Legislators, Congressmen-every place where we can win, we'll fight like the devil."

"That's right. Mayors and county commissioners and sheriffs, too. Some of those people can appoint judges, and the more judges on our side, the better. Same with sheriffs. A lot of them-and city policemen, too-have been on our side for a long time."

"Better be," Henderson said, nodding. The waiter came up with a coffeepot. After he'd filled cups for A

"Oh, yes," A

"That's the idea," Henderson said.

A

The waiter returned again. "Dessert, folks? Apple pie is mighty fine today, or we've got cherry or lemon meringue or pecan, too."

"Apple," Henderson said at once. "Slap some ice cream on top, too."

"Yes, suh." The waiter looked to A

She shook her head. "I couldn't possibly."

James Henderson could, and did. He had a second cup of coffee to go with the pie a la mode, too, and doctored it as thoroughly as he had the first. With a sigh of regret, he pushed away the empty plate. "Yeah, that hit the spot."

"If we do as well in November as you did at the supper table here, the Whigs are in even more trouble than I thought," A

He gri

W hen Scipio walked into Erasmus' fish store and cafe, he knew right away something was wrong. His boss looked like a man whose best friend had just died. Without preamble, Erasmus said, "I gwine shut her down, Xerxes."

"Do Jesus!" Scipio said. He'd spent a lot of time here; he'd thought the place would go on forever-or at least as long as Erasmus did, which had looked as if it might be the same thing. "Why for you do dat?" he demanded.

"You recollect how once upon a time them Freedom Party bastards come by here?" Erasmus said. "They was go

"I recollects, uh-huh," Scipio said. "Then the Freedom Party go down de drain, an' dey don't come back no mo'."

"They's back." All of a sudden, Erasmus looked old. He looked beaten. And he looked afraid. "Can't rightly tell if they's the same bastards as all them years ago, but they's the same kind o' bastards, an' that's what counts. They say I don't pay 'em what they want, I git bad luck like you don't believe. I ain't no fool, Xerxes. You don't got to draw me no pictures. I know what that means."

"How much they want?" Scipio asked.

"Too much," his boss answered. "Too damn much. Cut my profit down to nothin'. Down to less'n nothin'. I try an' tell 'em that. Way they look at me, it's That's your worry, nigger. We don't care, long as we gits ours. So I's shuttin' down, like I say. Sell this place, live off what I gits. I'm an old man now. Reckon the money'll last me."

"This here's blackmail," Scipio said. "You ought to go to the po lice."

Erasmus shook his head. "Ain't no use. It's like it was back the las' time. Some o' these fuckers, they is the po lice."

Scipio had never heard the older man use an obscenity like that. "Got to be somebody kin he'p you."

"If I was white…" But Erasmus shook his head. "Mebbe even that don't do no good, not now. These Freedom Party buckra, it's like they got everything goin' their way, and nobody else got the nerve to stand up to 'em. They win the 'lection, they's top dogs for six years, an' everybody reckon they gwine win."

"I knows it. I's scared, and dat de trut'," Scipio said. "What kin a nigger do? Can't do nothin'. Can't even vote. Can't run, neither-ain't nowhere to run to. USA don't want nothin' to do wid we. An' if we fights-"

"We loses," Erasmus finished for him. "Dumb Reds done showed dat durin' the war. Never shoulda riz up then, on account of they shoulda knowed they lose."

I thought the same thing. I told Cassius the same thing. He wouldn't listen to me. He was sure the revolution would carry everything before it. He was sure, and he was wrong, and now he's dead. Scipio couldn't say a word of that. He had a new name here. He had a new life here. Remembering things he'd done long ago, in another state and in another state of mind… What point to it? None he could see, especially since time-yellowed, creased wanted posters still proclaimed his other self fugitive from what South Carolina called justice.

Erasmus went on, "Sorry I got to let you go like this here. I know it ain't right. Times is hard, an' you gots young 'uns. But I can't help it, Xerxes. Can't stay in business no more. You hook on somewheres else, mebbe."

"Mebbe." Scipio didn't really believe it. How many places were hiring waiters? Even asking the question of himself made him want to laugh.

But it wasn't fu

I could be the best butler Augusta, Georgia's, ever seen. If he'd passed muster for A