does. Richard does. And so do I. Your job is becoming your wife, and the wife you married is becoming a goddam widow.” As she left the room the phone rang in the hall.
Julia answered. “It’s for you.” Her voice was brittle. “It’s your boss and good friend, Max.” She handed him the phone, turned on her heel, and went swiftly down the stairs.
Max’s voice was brisk. “The tickets for Oxford are at the airport, Teddy. Flight is at 7:40. Fly good and for Christ’s sake keep me in the loop. Oh, and say hi to Julia for me. She was off the phone before I had a chance.”
Everyone stood in the June sunshine in front of the Administration building, a puddle of humanity on the deserted Oxford, Ohio, campus. The talk was muted, people uneasy about what was about to take place. Kids smoked and shifted nervously, edging aside as Ted made his way over to Dale Billings, a young, black SNCC field worker who stood quiet and watchful on the edge of the lawn. “What are they going to do, Dale?”
Dale nodded toward a group of the staff who were carrying chairs from the dining hall into the center of the crowd. “They’ll set up a make-believe lunch counter,” Dale replied, squinting in the bright glare.
“Then they’ll integrate it.” He nudged Ted. “Like I was doing in Washington when we met. But this is about what happens when I do that in Mississippi.” He nodded toward a stocky young black who stepped into the clearing. “That SNCC kid is Jimmy Mack. He lives in the town of Shiloh in the Delta.”
Jimmy Mack held up his arms for silence, and Mendelsohn could hear the whir of the newsreel cameras that had arrived the day before. “This is the way you protect your body.” His voice was flat. “The vital parts of your body are your head, your neck, and your groin. You can protect them best by curling up like a baby, your legs together, your knees pulled up to protect your gut and your privates, your hands and arms shielding your head and the back of your neck.”
Mack bent forward, rolling into a fetal position, his arms lacing across his dark bent head and his hands cradling the back of his head and neck. The girl standing next to the reporter sucked in a deep breath. Mack rose from the lawn and led a volunteer from the crowd into the center. “Let me see you protect yourself.” The student assumed the position, and the young black pulled back his sneakered foot, gently tapping the exposed areas of the supine volunteer. “Your legs, your thighs, your buttocks, your kidneys, your back can take a kick or a billy club. So can your arms and your hands. Your head can’t. Your neck can’t. Your groin can’t. When your companion is being beaten or stomped while lying on the ground, you must protect him or her. You do it by shielding his head with your body. Your back can take it.”
Ted became aware again of the whir of the newsreel cameras. Everything would be recorded for the great spectator public except the nausea and the outrage of having to learn the art of protecting yourself from a Mississippi lynch mob or from American police who were waiting to assault you. When he turned to Dale Billings he saw that the young man was standing, arms folded, watching him.
Ted’s hand was shaking as he wrote in his notebook, seeking the words to convey to Max and Newsweek what he felt. When he looked across the tight circle of students there was not a sound. Their eyes stayed riveted on the tableau of a violence that until that moment had existed for them only in grade-B movies and tabloid spreads.
“It’s a nightmare theater. The loveliness of this June afternoon won’t be remembered by the students in the days and nights ahead in Mississippi. The sky is a delicate blue, and the sun-washed breeze is moving gently across the children who are play-acting on the green lawn. But it’s a nightmare theater.”
At the end of the week Ted called Max to let him know he was heading for Shiloh, Mississippi. “It’s going to be a hell of a story,” Max said. Then he added something very un-Max like. “Drive carefully Teddy. I’ve been to the Delta. You can bet your ass they know you’re coming.”
A Trailways bus took them to Memphis, and when they got there Dale Billings, another SNCC field worker from Shiloh named Harold Parker, and Johnny Buckley, a red-headed volunteer from Seattle, joined Ted at the Hertz counter. The Hertz lady was blond and pretty. “Yes, we have a car for you. No, we don’t have any with Mississippi plates.”
Johnny Buckley leaned over Ted’s shoulder and smiled at the woman. “You certain, pretty lady?”
Her eyes flicked from Buckley to the two Negroes waiting beside him. “I’m absolutely certain.” Her voice had altered. “Why don’t you try one of the other agencies? You planning a long trip?”
“Several weeks,” Ted said. “Thank you. I’ll check the other agencies.”
She watched them move to the other rentals. “No, sir. No car with Mississippi plates.” “No, sir. No car at all.” The cool blonde stood, arms crossed, as Ted returned to the Hertz counter. “Ma’am, I’d like to rent a car with Tennessee plates.” Deadpan, she reached for the form and filled it out. Without a word she pushed it toward him and held out a pen for him to sign with. As he thanked her, a small smile flitted across her face. “Y’all will find the car parked across the road in space 49.” She paused just a moment, leaned back on the counter and crossed her arms again. “It’s a yella Chevy. Bright yella, with Tennessee plates.” With a dimpled smile, Buckley said, “Thank you, pretty lady.” She looked at the engaging redhead and her eyes were clouded. “Y’can’t fool ’em, y’know.” When Buckley and Ted picked up the keys from the counter, Dale and Parker were already out the door.
The neat geometry of the Delta unfolded as they moved at 55 miles per hour into the heartland of Mississippi. Dwarfed cotton plants stretched in symmetric rows almost to the horizon, the dark soil between the rows cartwheeling like black spokes as the Chevy moved down Highway 49. Next to Ted, Dale Billings stretched his legs under the dashboard, looping his arm carelessly over the back of the seat. The attitude of repose was deceptive, for his eyes were quick and alert, scanning the road ahead and behind for any vehicles. “Take it easy,” he cautioned. “The car traveling toward us could be the Highway Patrol who move up and down this route.”
Ted’s eyes moved once more to the mirror, once more to the road ahead and the approaching vehicle, and then to the shivering needle of the speedometer. You can bet your ass they know you’re coming. For the first time he began to feel the tension in his neck. It was a Ford pickup truck. The two white men in farmers’ straw hats studied their license as they sped past, one craning his neck to see who was inside the Chevy. As Ted read his mirror, the man next to the driver turned and watched them. Dale saw the Ford grow small in the distance. “They’re gone, Ted. But watch your speed.”
Watch his speed! Christ, he’d never monitored his speed so carefully in his up-till-now long life. He was getting a stiff neck watching his speed.
“Doesn’t matter a hell of a lot whether you going fifty-five or sixty-five,” said Parker from the back seat. “If the Mississippi Highway Patrol arrests you and says you were going eighty-five, you were going eighty-five.”
“So why am I breaking my stiff neck going fifty-five, Dale?”
Dale Billings laughed. “Okay by me. Go eighty-five and we’ll get there quicker.”
“Maybe,” said Buckley.
A Negro kid was sitting next to him, and he was driving down Highway 49 in the Mississippi Delta. It was a new feeling, edgy, uncomfortable.
