Free Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison

around so as to see the Senator, he saw that it was not a handkerchief in the young man’s hand, but a pistol. His body seemed to melt. Lord, can this be it? Can thisbe the one? he thought, even as he saw the young man coolly bracing himself, his body slightly bent, and heard the dry, muffled popping begin. Unable to move he sat, still bent forward and to one side, seeing glass like stars from a Fourth of July rocket bursting from a huge chandelier which hung directly in the trajectory of the bullets. Lord, no, he thought, no Master, not this, staring at the dreamlike world of rushing confusion below him. Men were throwing themselves to the floor, hiding behind their high-backed chairs, dashing wildly for the exits; while he could see Bliss still standing as when the shooting began, his arms lower now, but still outspread, with a stain blooming on the front of his jacket. Then, as the full meaning of the scene came home to him, he heard Bliss give surprising voice to the old idiomatic cry,
    Lord, LAWD, WHY HAST THOU …?
    and staggering backwards and going down, and now he was on his own feet, moving toward the young man.
    For all his size Hickman seemed suddenly everywhere at once. First stepping over the back of a bench, his great bulk rising above the paralyzed visitors like a missile, yelling, “No. NO!” to the young man, then lumbering down and reaching for the gun—only to miss it as the young man swerved aside. Then catching sight of the guards rushing, pistols in hand, through the now standing crowd, he whirled, pushing the leader off balance, back into his companion, shouting, “No, don’t kill him! Don’t kill that Boy! Bliss won’t want him killed!” as now some of his old people began to stir. But already the young man was moving toward the rail, waving a spectator away with his pistol, looking coolly about him as he continued forward; while Hickman, grasping his intention from where he struggled with one of the guards, now trying in beet-faced fury to club himwith his pistol, began yelling, “Wait, wait! Oh, my God, son—WAIT!” holding the guard, for all his years, like a grandfather quieting a boy throwing a tantrum. “WAIT!” Then calling the strange name, “Severen, wait,” and saw the young man throwing him a puzzled, questioning look, then climb over the rail to plunge deliberately headfirst to the floor below. Pushing the guard from him now, Hickman called a last despairing “Wait!” as he stumbled to the rail to stand there crying down as the group of old people quickly surrounded him, the old women pushing and striking at the angry guards with their handbags as they sought to protect him.
    For a moment he continued to cry, grasping the rail with his hands and staring down to where the Senator lay twisting upon the dais beside an upturned chair. Then suddenly, in the midst of all the screaming, the shrilling of whistles, and the dry ineffectual banging of the chairman’s gavel, he began to sing.
    Even his followers were startled. The voice was big and resonant with a grief so striking that the crowd was halted in mid-panic, turning their wide-eyed faces up to where it soared forth to fill the great room with the sound of his astounding anguish. There he stood in the gallery above them, past the swinging chandelier, his white head towering over his clustered flock, tears gleaming bright against the darkness of his face, creating with his voice an atmosphere of bafflement and mystery no less outrageous than the shooting which had released it.
    “Oh, Lord,” he sang, “why hast thou taken our Bliss, Lord? Why now our awful secret son, Lord?… Snatched down our poor bewildered foundling, Lord? LORD, LORD, why hast thou …?”
    Whereupon, seeing the Senator trying to lift himself up and falling heavily back, he called out: “Bliss! You were our last hope, Bliss; now Lord have mercy on this dying land!”
    As the great voice died away it was as though all had been stunned by a hammer