Peter de Lissovoy

I was reading some Hemingway stories the other day. I have a collection of Hemingway's stories, many good ones, the cover image and title of the collection, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," maybe the only bad story in the book. This raises two questions: Why do I think it is a bad story? And why did the editors or publisher make it the cover story, in this sense singling it out as the best story?

     The story is about a writer, in his avocation as a "white hunter," as they used to say, dying in his camp on the Serengeti or other East African plains, in the shadow of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa's tallest mountain, so tall it has snow year round on top. The "action" of the story is basically his recriminations with his wife and above all the internal flow of his regrets about his bad choices in his life resulting in the writing he has not done and now will not do, because he has been a wastrel and even a kind of prostitute (as he views himself) in terms of how he has lived off his reputation without fulfilling his promise. The main reason I think it is a bad story is that this theme is not enough to make a good story out of. I think it is popular because the reader can experience a kind of schadenfreude at the great writer's fall. (Of course this is not a self-portrait by Hemingway but a sort of projection of his worst irrational fears probably.) Beyond this there are some minor failings of the protagonist and of the story. The reason he is dying is twofold in his view, at the practical level. First, he carelessly did not properly treat a scratch from a thorn which has become gangrenous. This is cause for regret but hardly a tragic flaw we can get worked up about. However, it is a mere trickle from which a great river of his regrets now flows. Secondly, his Land Rover is out of commission and thus he cannot drive back to Nairobi or wherever to get treatment, and the blame for this is that his "stupid" Kikuyu driver did not check the oil and a "bearing" in the engine burned out. There are two things wrong with this second reason I don't like. Without oil more than a "bearing" has likely seized up, already suggesting a lack of understanding of the machine his lark on the plains has depended on, but far worse suggesting a feckless adventurer who has not made good his preparations and now blames his servant. A guy going out on the Serengeti in a Land Rover with his wife and a couple of servants who does not check the oil almost deserves what he has coming, but adding insult (not to himself) to injury is the blame ascribed to the black driver. It must be his fault. This is atrocious (and the way it is told more than verging on petty racism) and if I had any sympathy for this dying writer, I lose it at this point. However, he is in pain, is dying, the airplane with help is not coming, the hyenas and vultures are closing in, he's drinking too many whiskey and sodas, and the war stories he won't write that his regrets are about are elegantly and gauntly told and are the best part of the story, so we have that.

     What pushes this story over the mountain top as a bad story to me is its evocation of Africa as the rich white man's playground, where he can indulge his heroic fantasies as well as his nontragic regrets. This is a very old story and sadly one we haven't begun to see the end of. At the very end of the story he dreams that the airplane has landed and an "old Africa hand," that is, a terse and charming Brit acquaintance, has come to rescue him. They take off and seem to fly toward the mountaintop of Kilimanjaro, where it is said the carcass of a leopard is frozen, nobody knowing how a leopard got that far up there. But this is a complete misreading of Kilimanjaro as a white hunter's peak fantasy involving his vague spiritual aspirations, when the mountain is actually where the God of the African tribes live. (This would be superstition to the white man not worth mentioning and indeed it is not recognized in the story.) His whole understanding of Africa is false.

     Finally, why this story was chosen as the title and cover of the collection is the complete buy-in back in the day of the literary world to a sentimental exoticism that by now if not outgrown has been thoroughly exposed. If they publish a new collection, they will do well to leave out this dismal and corny story, or at least not put it on the cover. There are plenty of other great Hemingway stories to choose from. A quite bad movie of "Snows of Kilimanjaro" with Gregory Peck was made. It's been a long time since I saw it (and I can't possibly bear to sit through it again) but as I recall, it includes a scene of a hippopotamus stampede that is breathtakingly preposterous.

My friend Lucius Holloway from Terrell ("Terrible Terrell") County in Southwest Georgia wrote the following recollection of his voting there in the 1960s.

 

In 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law. The bill made racial discrimination in public places illegal. The law stated that all people shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of goods, services, facilities, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, without discrimination or segregation on the grounds of race, color, religion, or national origin.

     Later that year, there was a general election at the Terrell County courthouse. In Terrell County, the white folk would vote upstairs in the courthouse and the black folk would vote downstairs in the basement.

     The Civil Rights Act stated that all people shall be entitled to the public facilities without dis­crimination or segregation. That meant that the black and white folk in Terrell County could all vote upstairs in the same room at the courthouse. Holloway decided he would exercise his right to vote without being segregated. When he got off work, he went to the Terrell County courthouse to vote. As he was walking upstairs, he saw Mr. A. Edwards and Mr. Tyree King. They had just voted down­stairs in the basement where the black folk always went to vote.

     Mr. Edwards asked Holloway, "Where are you going?"

     Holloway said, "I am going upstairs to vote on the first floor, since President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. That means no more segregation in public facilities. You no longer have to vote downstairs in the basement; you can go upstairs."

     Mr. Edwards said, "I know that's true, but they are not doing that in Terrell County. If you go up there, they might try to beat you up. Don't go up there right now; go downstairs in the basement and vote this time, and the next time, maybe we all can go upstairs."

     Holloway told Mr. Edwards he was going upstairs to vote, and he did. When Holloway got upstairs, he saw lots of voting booths with curtains around them. Sheriff Z.T. Mathews and ten or twelve white men were standing in the voting area.

     Sheriff Z.T. walked over to Holloway and said, "Cap'n, where are you going?"

     Holloway said, "I am going to vote in one of those booths because President Johnson signed the bill that states no more segregation in public places. I can vote anywhere I want to vote."

     Sheriff Z.T. said, "Holloway, I don't want you to start any trouble up here today. You should go

downstairs to vote in the basement."

     Holloway said, "No, I will not. I am going to vote upstairs."

     Sheriff Z.T. said, "You can vote upstairs if you want to, but I am not going to be responsible for

anything that happens to you."

     Holloway got a ballot and went into the booth to vote. When he came out of the voting booth, he

saw two white men standing in each of the four exit doors in the courthouse. He put his ballot in the box. He was so afraid, he just stood there for a few seconds. He looked at the north exit, south exit, east exit, and west exit. There were white men standing there, slapping their fists in their hands and waiting for him to exit one of the doors. He started to walk out of one of the exit doors, and the white men blocked him. He turned around and ran out the door on the north side of the courthouse. He ran into the Dawson Furniture Store. He ran in there because he knew Mr. McGuire, and he had an account there. He had bought a sofa chair and two love seats. He paid fifty cents on his account every week and he paid it on time, so he thought Mr. McGuire would tell those white men to leave him alone. The white manager, Mr. Christie, said, "I am not going to have any mess in my store. Get out of here."

     Holloway walked out the side door of the furniture store, ran over to Stonewall Street, and ran all the way home to Ash Street. When Holloway got home, he was out of breath and terrified. He laid down on his bed to rest. His chest was hurting so badly. It felt like he had had a heart attack. Holloway was terrified that day, but not enough to give up on equality for the black folk in Terrell County.

 

—From Lucius Holloway, "A Time to Test the Water," The Civil Rights Movement through the Eyes of Lucius Holloway, Sr.

 

 

Once the Civil Rights Act of 1964 became the law of the land, the SNCC kids went out to test it out.

 

Hours after the President put his name to the civil rights bill last July, Nathaniel "Spray-man" Beech pulled open the wood-and-glass front door of the Holiday Inn restaurant in Albany, Ga., and dashed, like musical chairs, to the very first table he saw. In a near corner, a plump, brown-suited woman popped a white hand to her full mouth, but let escape: "Oh my soul and body!" To the right, a child pointed, and its mother slapped the tiny hand and whispered urgently. Spray-man tucked a shirt wrinkle into his black, high-pegged trousers, removed his shades, studied a water glass.

      In the split moment that the door stood open, Phyllis Martin, a SNCC field worker from New York, had slipped in before him. Her skin is soft mahogany, her hair natural, a silver-black bowl about her head. She stood, dark-eyed, staring around the dining room, and I came up, after Spray-man, and stood next to her. When the wax-smiling head waitress approached, Phyllis raised her eyes a little and pointed sternly, and the waitress obediently led the way to a central table. After a moment Spray-man summoned up his long limbs, rose, breathing deep and joined us, and by the time we had ordered he was holding down a nervous grin. But when his steak arrived, Spray-man could hardly eat it. "Jus' ain' hungry," he apologized, more to the meat than anything else. He mopped his forehead with a handkerchief, and leaned over to explain: "What it is, I was expectin' everything but this. I was expectin' this waitress to say, 'Would y'all min' fallin' back out that door you jus' come in at?' The niceness got my appetite, I guess."

      At this time, Spray-man was operating a shoeshine stand—among other things, for to "spray" is to hustle—in the entranceway of the Beehive Bar in Albany's Harlem. In his few years, he has seen a great deal of this country and taken his meals from many tables; yet here was one at which he had never expected to sit—nor ever wanted to. The white man could walk as he pleased on his side of town, but let him watch his step in Harlem, that was the geography of Spray-man's pride. And yet, improvised from a harsh reality though his was, pride hates all boundaries, and I was hardly surprised when he told me he wanted to come along when we tried out the new law. If he was supposed to have a right, he would enjoy it once anyway. In the car, he was full of cracks; and then, in front of the restaurant, I felt him grow tense. A sense of Southern realities deeper than his pride told him he would have to fight, go to jail perhaps, and he was ready. But the waitress was icily gracious all during the meal. Such was the strength of the President's signature. Nobody sat at the tables directly adjacent to ours; but nobody got up and left. Everybody stared or took pains to avoid staring. Nearest to us, a family of five giggled and glanced as if galloping through some marvelous adventure.

      "Reminds me of up North," said Phyllis.

      "What—the stares?" I suggested.

      "Yeah . . . and the music." From some hidden orifice, the tensionless, sexless music that you hear in airplanes before take-off was falling like gray rain. We decided that the next thing would be to integrate the sounds of places. Spray-man gave up on his steak about halfway through. When Phyllis finished, the waitress descended upon her plate like a cheery vulture, hurrying us. Abruptly, we were weary. "You 'bout ready?" Phyllis asked. I scraped up a little more and we rose. Spray-man left the waitress an exorbitant tip.

      All heads turned to watch us leave. Several white men followed us from the foyer into the parking lot. I started the motor and we rolled out into the street. Spray-man looked out the window. "Well . . . " he started; and then again, "Well . . . "

      Phyllis turned to him. "What's the matter? Doesn't progress make you happy?"

 

—From Peter de Lissovoy, "This Little Light," The Nation, December 21, 1964

 

 

John Perdew went out  with some friends and did the same in a far more dangerous neck of the woods, Americus, GA.

 

After a protracted battle with diehard Southern Senators, President Lyndon Johnson succeeded in getting a civil rights bill through the Congress. He signed the Civil Rights Act on July 4, 1964, with Martin Luther King, Jr., and other prominent civil rights leaders looking on.

      So just before dark, on a very hot muggy Friday night I piled into a car with five black buddies and headed for the Hasty House, a cafe on Highway 19 on the edge of Americus. This place had big windows in front and was next door to a gas station, a hangout for young whites with something to prove. This was one of the most dangerous places and times we could have picked for a demonstration because it was so conspicuous and because the cover of night seemed to give people more courage to unleash their fury.

      I knew by now that these were ingredients for trouble and sure enough when we walked in the patrons, waitresses and the manager tensed and glared at us. They took our orders after a while and brought them (I ordered a chocolate shake), slamming the glasses and dishes on the table. We didn't dare taste our food. No telling what the cook might have put into it. After about ten tense minutes, we decided to leave.

     We just weren't thinking, and I was the last one to leave the place. A crowd of very angry white guys was waiting for us, especially for me. They yelled at us, chased the others to the car and forced them to leave the area. Then the crowd surrounded me. Somebody swung at me, knocked my glasses off, shoved me to the ground. I felt fists and boots, blows, curses, Rebel whoops. "Giddup, yew sonuvabitch!" "Gawdam nigger lover!" "Gid outa town!" I stood up and brushed the dirt off my jeans. I saw two cops watching all this on the other side of the highway. I called out to them for help, but they laughed and didn't do anything. They seemed to be enjoying this spectacle.

     I was alone. The mob had forced my friends to leave the area. I had to get to the black community, where I thought I would be safe. It was at least a mile away, but what other choice did I have? Seeing what was happening, more whites were pulling up, headlights glaring in the night. I ran across Highway 19, dodging traffic, started up the bridge over the railroad tracks into town. Several men hopped in their cars to follow. They caught up with me, stopped, jumped out and attacked again, knocked me down, kicked me, told me to get out of town. I started running again to go farther up the bridge. They followed, caught up and tackled me and kicked me again. I thought, "They could throw me off the bridge! It must be forty feet down to the tracks!" I winced at the thought, then saw the same two cops across the street still watching and laughing. I ran up to them, with the crowd following.

     The thugs were right beside me. One officer said, with considerable sarcasm and amusement, "What seems to be the matter?"

     I said, "You saw what happened. These guys attacked me! Arrest them!"

     The second cop drawled, smirking, "Do you know their names? We can't arrest them unless you know their names."

     I said, "We haven't been introduced. Of course I don't know their names. You're being ridiculous. I am demanding that you take me into protective custody!"

     Finally, after a quick conference, they pushed me into their squad car and drove up to the police station a few blocks away. By the time I stepped out of the police car, the crowd was filling up the sidewalk in front of the police station, so I had to go through them. All the usual curses and accusations flew out of the mob: "white trash," "traitor to your race," "commie," pinko," and "nigger lover."

     Inside, I asked one of the cops if I could wash up in their bathroom. He said, "OK, but don't get any of your goddamn commie blood on our sink." I said I wanted to make a phone call. With teeth clenched and eyes blazing, a cop handed me a phone. I called Barnum Funeral Home, where I figured somebody would be. Willie Ricks, a SNCC worker, answered and said, "I heard what happened. Are you at the police station? OK, I'll be right there."

     Five tense minutes later, I heard Willie's voice at the front desk, boldly announcing, "I'm here to pick up John Perdew." I walked up to him, and said, "Let's go." And we walked out through the crowd, expecting more blows. But this time I think maybe those Defenders of the Southern Way of Life were intimidated by a couple of crazy young guys who dared to go on in spite of the danger.

    Reflecting the next day on that mob attack, I realized that if it had not been for the black community and the clear possibility that there would be retaliation, I might have been killed that night. For weeks afterward, I didn't go outside in the community unless I had somebody with me as a bodyguard (preferably a big football player). I had finally felt the full force of fear. I had known that people had been killed doing what I was doing. But coming that close to the mob's fury, now I felt fear, down deep in every level of my body—that was a new feeling. I was terrified, but I couldn't leave Americus. This was now my fight!

     Later in July 1964, when I heard that three civil rights workers were missing in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a chill went up my spine. I felt sick to my stomach. The possibility that something like this would happen to me was always in the back of my mind. The possibility was there. I had just been beaten up at the Hasty House Restaurant. I knew that there were people in Americus who wanted to kill me and who would brag about it if they did. Their hatred made me a target, and I believe the police and the sheriff would not have minded if I ended up dead. I was a hated symbol of change that was threatening their way of life, even their social status.

 

—From John Perdew, "Testing the Civil Rights Act of 1964," Education of a Harvard Guy

They had been dancing for some time, drawing steadily closer together. Thoughts had begun to come in his head, and he wondered if in hers, or if they were just dancing. It was quite a crowd. He didn't think he had ever been among so many people at one time, not even at the big Baptist church when Martin Luther King had spoken. It was a big roadhouse on the country road, owned by a black man, but with the backing of the white sheriff, so it was rumored. The music was loud and good.

    He had showed up here with several buddies, a musician (a singer), a guy from the Air Force base, and a workmate, who had somehow brought them together, guys who liked to drink beer, listen to sounds, maybe share a reefer. They had wound up at the roadhouse as a matter of course, not like they were going out anywhere. There was a good feeling. Things were as they should be. The word for that in those days, they were all "mellow."

    You could say the feeling in the SNCC office was mellow too, but with an edge to it, naturally. At the SNCC office they were planning all the time to break the law, the Jim Crow law. The kids were happy about it, even when they were in jail. Years later when recalling it, even bragging about it, they would dwell on the danger and the discomfort, all they had sacrificed. That was how older people remembered things from their youth that had turned out much better than expected. But at the roadhouse nothing in the way of protesting anything was planned, and for that matter President Johnson had recently signed the civil rights law.

    At the roadhouse something unexpected occurred. They were not protesting anything, they were just dancing and "mellow." The roadhouse was owned by a black man and everybody there that night was black except one white guy who was dancing. Suddenly the white cops showed up and arrested him for disorderly conduct although he had only been dancing. He protested that the civil rights law had been passed, integration was now legal, and all he was doing was dancing. Later in jail the white southern guys suggested that he was just ignorant and had something to learn about "Southern ways," which did not countenance "mixin'."

    What would stick in his mind for a long time afterward, more than anything else, was the looks on his friends' faces as he was being arrested and hauled off to jail. Particularly the Air Force guy. A look of regret in their faces. Powerful regret mixed with guilt and apology (to whom?). There was even a sick or injured feeling in their looks. These were black guys who felt bad about seeing their white friend being hauled away for dancing in a black night club. In those looks the white guy recognized the look that must have been in his own face often when seeing black friends beaten or arrested in the protests, or worse, just in the course of everyday life, beaten or hauled away for nothing.

    How often over the course of history must friendly white people have suffered vicariously and shown their hurt and regret in their faces as black friends or even employees were hauled away to jail, or even to be lynched, a profound sorrow you could do nothing to help. Such a hurt perhaps was nothing against a lynching maybe. Still a strange and awful hurt and regret to be mirrored back and forth between victim and witness. In the roadhouse that night the historical roles were reversed, but the feelings of fear and regret were the same.