Underground Airlines by Ben Winters
For my kids, and their friends
No future amendment of the Constitution shall affect the five preceding articles…and no amendment shall be made to the Constitution which shall authorize or give to Congress any power to abolish or interfere with slavery in any of the States by whose laws it is, or may be, allowed or permitted.
—From the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It is the last of six amendments that, together with four congressional resolutions, make up the so-called Crittenden Compromise, proposed by Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky on December 18, 1860, and ratified by Congress on May 9, 1861
Part One
North
It is a strange kind of fire, the fire of self-righteousness, which gives us such pleasure by its warmth but does so little to banish the darkness.
—Augustin Craig White, from The Dark Tower, a pamphlet of the American Abolitionist Society, 1911
1.
“So,” said the young priest. “I think that I’m the man you’re looking for.”
“Oh, I hope so,” I said to him. “Oh, Lord, I do hope you are.”
I knitted my fingers together and leaned forward across the table. I was aware of how I looked: I looked pathetic. Eager, nervous, confessional. I could feel my thin, cheap spectacles slipping down my nose. I could feel my needfulness dripping from my brow. I took a breath, but before I could speak, the waitress came over to pour our coffee and hand out the menus, and Father Barton and I went silent, smiled stiff and polite at the girl and at each other.
Then, when she was gone, Father Barton talked before I could.
“Well, I must say, Mr. Dirkson—”
“Go on and call me Jim, Father. Jim’s just fine.”
“I must say, you gave LuEllen quite a start.”
I looked down, embarrassed. LuEllen was the receptionist, church secretary, what have you. White-haired, apple-cheeked lady, sitting behind her desk at that big church up there on Meridian Street, Saint Catherine’s, and I suppose I behaved like a wild thing in her tidy little office that afternoon, gnashing my teeth and carrying on. Throwing myself on her mercy. Pleading for an appointment with the father. It worked, though. Here we were, breaking bread together, the gentle young priest and I. If there’s one thing they understand, these church folks, it’s wailing and lamentation.
But I bowed my head and apologized to Father Barton for the scene I’d caused. I told him to please carry my apologies to Ms. LuEllen. And then I brought my voice way down to a whisper.
“Listen, I’m just gonna be honest with you and say it, sir. I’m a desperate man. I got nowhere else to turn.”
“Yes, I see. I do see. I only wish…” The priest looked at me solemnly. “I only wish there was something I could do.”
“What?”
He was shaking his head, and I felt my face get shocked. I felt my eyes get wide. I felt my skin getting hot and tight on my cheeks. “Wait, wait. Hold on, now, Father. I ain’t even—”
Father Barton raised one hand gently, palm out, and I hushed up. The waitress had come back to take our orders. I can remember that moment perfectly, can picture the restaurant, dusk-lit through its big windows. The Fountain Diner was the place, a nice family-style place, in what they call the Near Northside, in Indianapolis, Indiana. On that same Meridian Street as the church, about fifty blocks farther downtown. Handsome, boyish Barton there across from me, no more than thirty years old, a tousle of blond hair, blue Irish eyes, pale skin glowing like it had been scrubbed. Our table was right in the center of the restaurant, and there was a big ceiling fan high above us, its blades turning lazily around and around. The bright, sizzling smell of something frying, the low ting-ting of forks and knives. There were three old ladies at the booth behind us with thin beauty-shop hair and red lipstick, their walkers parked in a neat row like waiting carriages. There was a pair of policemen, one black and one white, in a corner booth. The black cop was leaning halfway across the table to look at something on the white one’s phone, the two of them chortling over some policeman joke.
Somehow I got through ordering my food, and when the waitress went away the priest launched into a speech as carefully crafted as any homily. “I fear that you have gotten the wrong impression, which of course is in no way your fault.” He was speaking very softly. We were both of us aware of those cops. “I know what people say, but it’s not true. I’ve never been involved in…in…in those sorts of activities. I’m sorry, my friend.” He placed his hand gently over mine. “I am terribly sorry.”