A Fatal Glass of Beer (16 page)

A sign, hand painted in red, large letters on a whitewashed piece of wood, pegged into the ground, read: Rally. An arrow pointed to the right.

“Take it,” shouted Fields.

Gunther made the right turn, shooting Fields across the seat into me. He crushed me against the door. Gunther straightened out and headed down the road, wide enough for one large car or one small truck.

There were no more shots.

Gunther looked at the map in his atlas for an alternate road to Ogallala. Wind blew through the car and Fields awkwardly turned and began to throw glass out the rear window.

“He tries to follow us and the odds are good he’ll get a blowout and die an excruciating death,” said Fields with some satisfaction as he continued to discard glass of all shapes and sizes.

Ahead of us through the trees, a glowing red light filled the early night. We were headed right for it and by the time we realized what it was, it was right in front of us—a burning cross about twenty feet tall in a wide grassy opening in the forest.

Surrounding the cross were about twenty people in white sheets and white pointed caps that covered their faces except for two small circles for their eyes. The white-sheeted men stood on a low wooden platform, the burning cross behind them. On either side of the platform were speakers. A microphone on a stand stood in the center of the low stage. About forty people wearing street clothes were visible in the burning light, facing the platform and the burning cross. We had stumbled on a Ku Klux Klan rally. Every face was turned toward us.

“Shall I turn around?” Gunther whispered.

“Too late,” I said as a pair of burly men in sheets strode toward us. “And not enough room without taking a few of them with us.”

We didn’t have to open the window. Bullets had already done that.

The two men looked at us through the front window, only their eye sockets visible. I think I would have preferred our chances with the gunman.

I looked at Fields. He smiled at the two men and said, “Where do we park?”

One of the men pointed to the right, where a line of cars stood in the low grass.

Gunther pulled the car into the line of vehicles, mostly old cars and battered trucks. There were a few newer-model automobiles but nothing like the Caddy we stepped out of.

The two burly ghosts in white were at the side of our car before we could get fully out.

The two men looked at the broken windows and with the light of the burning cross examined the glass on front and back seats and may even have seen the hole in the seat.

“Accident,” I said, getting out.

“Attacked by Indians,” said Fields, climbing out, straw hat under his arm. “But we were determined that not even the threat of death would keep us from the rally.”

The two men looked down at Gunther as he got out.

“Driver,” said Fields. “Swiss. Doesn’t speak a word of English. Really his idea to come to the rally. He is an ardent supporter of the Klan, trying to start a coven or a team, or whatever you call it, in the lovely town of Berne.”

One of the two men motioned for us to follow him. We followed while the other man stood at our side as we moved through the small crowd, which parted as we were guided toward the circle of men in white sheets on the platform below the burning cross. The people who weren’t on the platform were dressed in everything from washed overalls to shabby suits and ties. Some of them held the hands of little children.

We stopped as one of the burly men leading us moved up on a small wooden platform before the burning cross and whispered to another white-sheeted clansman who wore some kind of chain around his neck. The man with the chain spoke into the microphone.

The one with the chain, who I figured for the leader, looked at us.

I felt like the Cowardly Lion about to face the Wizard.

“I have spoken,” the man with the chain said, holding up his hands. “Our numbers grow. Our cause is God’s and the preservation of a white America under Christ. Now those of you who want to join can step up while our brothers take your names and we administer the pledge.”

There was some movement in the crowd. A man in overalls and a cap with a weary face, led his family out of the crowd and toward the line of cars. The family included an equally tired wife, a boy about fourteen, and a small girl.

“Brother, stop,” called the man in white with the chain around his neck. “We must unite or be mongrelized.”

“Wife’s part Sioux,” the man said, turning, unafraid, as he motioned his family toward and into a pickup truck. “Guess that makes my kids a smaller part. Men are dying in places I’m too uneducated to say right. Men who are dyin’ ain’t just white Christians.”

“Conscripted cowards,” said the man with the chain. “They started this war and they manage to stay alive while we die for them.”

“Ain’t the way I see it,” said the man with the family. “But I ain’t got the words to argue.”

A few of the hooded men had advanced toward the family getting into the pickup. There was a stirring in the crowd and a second man who looked like a farmer stepped out of the crowd with a woman and a teenaged boy.

“Brother, stop,” said the man in the chain, pointing to him.

The second farmer was bigger than the first and older. He stopped and turned toward the burning cross and said in a deep bass, “All of God’s children are equal. Christ preached love and forgiveness, not hate. I read the Bible every night with my family. There’s nothing like this in there.”

“You’re not reading it clear, brother,” the gold-chained Klansman on the platform shouted.

“I can read clear,” said the man, turning his back with his family and heading toward their battered pickup as the first family pulled out. Others in the crowd followed them. I started to turn, but the second burly man barred our way. Over his shoulder I saw a new car pull in, just missing the family in the first pickup. The new car pulled over near a tree, not in line, and the Chimp got out.

I nudged Fields, who followed my eyes. Gunther turned to me and whispered, “We cannot remain.”

A little more than half of the crowd stayed while the others got in their vehicles and pulled away. The Chimp was lost in the dark shadows at the rear of the gathering.

“Though we are small in numbers,” said the talking Clansman, “yet are we strong in our faith and the righteousness of our mission.”

Gunther looked toward the crowd.

“And,” the Klansman with the chain went on, “our numbers throughout the land remain strong. We are joined constantly by even those of rank, power, and station, as we are tonight. Politicians, businessmen, factory workers, farmers, and farmhands. White, Christian, and united.”

The cross continued burning and crackling. A few glowing splinters flew off, but the fire stayed bright. I wondered what they had doused it with.

“Tonight,” said the head Klansman, “we are joined by an obvious sympathizer in our cause, Mr. W. C. Fields, the great comic actor whose interests tonight are not at all comic. We urge Brother Fields to join us and say a few words.”

Fields smiled at the crowd, doffed his hat at their applause, and shook his head, saying to the burly man at our side, “I’m here only as an incognito observer seeking the truth.”

The burly man took Fields’s arm and led him toward the platform. I stepped forward and was stopped by two men in white sheets and hoods who folded their arms and blocked my way.

The man at the microphone stood back and let Fields take his place.

“Testing,” Fields said.

There was a reverberation and a whine from the speaker.

“Friends,” he said, scanning the small crowd for a sign of the Chimp and ready to hit the planks of the platform nose-first if another shot rang out.

“Friends,” Fields repeated. “There has always been much I have admired about the Klan, particularly the uniforms. I’ve heard the muckety-mucks down South get to wear different colors as they move up the spectrum, but I’ve always been partial to the white and wondered at how you keep your sheets cleaner than the ones at the Boiler Hotel in Winnipeg, where Mrs. Bertha Crumpbunny takes such pride in her linens that she washes them daily, by hand, with a crew of chunky Ukrainian girls who can’t speak English. But I digress. Canada is not on today’s agenda. Another thing I have always admired about the Klan is the way you guys keep those hoods pointed. Knew a clown in the circus who wore a hood. Used wires to keep it pointed. Very impressive.”

He paused to scan the crowd more closely.

There was some scattered and confused applause.

“I’ve made a few notes here,” Fields said, fishing into his pocket and coming out with what I could see was the ad for turtles with their names painted on them. Fields made a show of pulling out a pair of rimless reading glasses and perching them on the end of his sizable nose.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “In anecdotal support of your cause, I wish to draw upon a few examples from my own experience. When I was a lad traversing this great land, I found myself starving and cold in Lansing, Michigan. One night I slept in a church pew. The deacon found me, gave me some bread and coffee, said ‘God bless you,’ and sent me on my way. I was huddling in the doorway of a modest grocery during a storm when the door opened and I was taken into the establishment by a family I soon learned was named Rubenstein. Jews, all of them. They took me to the back of the store to a small storeroom, fed me hot soup, and made up a bed for me. Even as a child I could tell there was something cunning going on in their devious brains. They lived upstairs of the store. There was a small fireplace in the back room. One of the family, three girls and the mother, took turns staying by my side for three nights while I recovered. They talked to each other in a strange tongue.”

There was a murmur, more of confusion than understanding, in the crowd.

“Well,” said Fields, “after three days, the weather had broken, the temperature had risen, and I felt almost like my own self again. I told the Rubensteins I wanted to leave. They urged me to stay a while longer. When I insisted, they gave me an old but warm coat and some clothes and a shoebox full of food. The father, a fat man who wore one of those little black hats on his head, no doubt to ward off heavenly spirits, had been amused by my juggling. He told me about another Jew named David something, in Kalamazoo. I walked to Kalamazoo and the Jew named David gave me a job juggling between screenings at his movie house.” -

Fields looked over his glasses at his confused audience. His eyes opened wide and he nodded toward the crowd. The Chimp had slowly made his way forward.

“I had escaped from the Rubensteins with my life,” Fields said. “I left on a Thursday night. The next night would have been Friday, the night of their dark Sabbath. What better to offer as a sacrifice to their false god than a homeless Christian boy who they had done their best to plump up in three days. Who knows how many babies and young virgins the unholy tribe had dispatched over the years? I shall never forget the evil Rubensteins and can only surmise that the Lord had saved me like Isaac for a purpose, maybe to stand up here today.”

There was mild applause. A
few
of the Klansmen also applauded. Fields looked through his glasses at the turtle ad and went on. “Ah, yes. One day when I first started out and was stranded with a troupe of hapless performers in Cody, Wyoming, not far from Yellowstone National Park—you see we had been abandoned by our road manager, who had paid us nothing—I checked the contents of my small satchel, heavy with bowling pins, cigar boxes, various hats, a shirt, and a pair of socks of dubious longevity. We sat in the train station and those who could bought tickets and prepared to spend the night waiting for buses heading in whatever direction offered them hope. I had a total of a ten-cent piece and six pennies with the likeness of an Indian on them. On our small bill was a fellow of the Negro persuasion, every bit as devious as the dreaded Rubensteins. This fellow, known as Happy Smith, the World’s Greatest Banjo Player, was an old man. False teeth clacked as he played his foot-tapping medleys on stage. ‘Shine on Harvest Moon’ was his showstopper. But I digress. This Happy Smith motioned me over to him and asked me if I had any money. I showed him my palm with the white dime surrounded by savage copper Indians. My friends, can you imagine what that former slave had the audacity to do then?”

Fields looked up. No one had the slightest clue of what Happy Smith had done. So Fields told them.

“With his gnarled black fingers, he took a small purse out of his pocket, opened it, and asked me where I wanted to go. I told him New York, where the work was, and he gave me the money for the ticket. While accepting money from his lowly race was beneath me, none of the other members of our troupe had made a similar offer. I took the money and promised to return it promptly. The mistake of a young, innocent lad. For it was at that moment, brothers and sisters, that I needed a staunch man with a clean white sheet and finely pointed hood to come to my rescue, to warn me about what I had gotten into by dealing with the creature of inferior race—who, by the way, was one hell of a banjo player. From that day on I was beholden to Happy Smith. The humiliation, which he had obviously intended, haunted me. I could see nothing but his black smiling face as he handed me the tainted money that got me back to New York and a well-paid job as the tramp juggler on the Keith circuit. Needless to say, I soon located Happy Smith with a troupe of entertainers in St. Louis and returned his filthy money with interest. Two days later, the interest was returned to me with a note saying he was glad I was doing well. Insidious. The man had managed to get his nails into me and make me grateful for the rest of my life. My friends, you should not underestimate the evil cunning of the Jew and the treachery of the Negro. The Klan is dedicated to the demise of people like the Rubensteins and the ilk of Happy Smith.”

There was more applause. Fields looked down. The Chimp was in the front of the line, looking around. He saw me, Gun-ther, and certainly Fields. The Chimp’s hand was in his pocket. He knew he couldn’t make his move surrounded by the crowd. I watched him inch his way to the edge of the crowd toward the line of cars.