'Because your template for interpretation is your own mind, which is tolerant and logical and orderly. But it is ill-equipped to deal with that which is not.'
'You say you never argue, sir? You argue well.'
'When I must, I can, I suppose. But the true expert on Thebes County has yet to speak.'
Earl had sat listening to these two palaver for an hour now. His ribs were still heavily taped, as four of them were broken. He had serious internal injuries, a doctor thought, possibly as bad as a ruptured spleen. He still could not walk without pain, or move quickly. The doctor had put 134 new stitches in him, and had grown annoyed when Earl stuck to a stupid story about being the victim of a beating by gamblers.
'If you are the victim of a beating,' he had said, 'why then would your hands be swollen still, your knuckles ripped to hell and gone? You may have several broken fingers.'
'If my fingers move, they must not be broke. As for the rest, those fellows must have drug me after I passed out,' was all Earl had said.
'I should call the police,' said the doctor.
'Sir, I can handle this.'
'No getting back at these fellows then. It has to stop here, or I will call the police. You must learn the power of forgiveness.'
'Yes, sir,' Earl had said.
Now, both pairs of eyes turned on him. He was in Sam's office three days after his return, and Davis Trugood, alerted by telegraph in Chicago, had arrived as soon as the travel schedules allowed.
'I have something of an idea,' said Earl. 'I would like Mr. Sam to leave the room. I don't want him to hear of it.' 'I will do no such thing,' said Sam. 'Earl, I am a party to this as much as you. I got you in. I will not leave.'
'I do not want you knowing what horror I am capable of imagining. Your opinion of me will drop. That, and you may feel obligated to make a report to the police, or no longer be able to represent the law fairly.'
'I don't like where this is going,' Sam said. 'Earl, you are a good man.
You are a hero. You have your whole life to live. We need you as a witness. You need to speak of what you saw down there. You need to be the centerpiece in our campaign, not merely to make those responsible pay, but to change the thinking of the South. Other Southerners must know what some Southerners are capable of and what is being done in their name.' Earl said nothing, as Sam lectured him. Sam, as usual, had all the answers. But possibly to the wrong questions.
'Earl, listen to me,' Sam continued. 'And you, too, Mr. Trugood. I have thought this all out, and it is the only way. Earl, we depose you. With your medal and your reputation, your account has instant validity and importance. We can get people to listen to your story. I have the whole campaign mapped out. I know that we can get the support of progressive people in Mississippi and throughout the South, but I also know it must be blue ribbon. We must not mess about with radicals, socialists or communists, and we should have white and Negro clergy united on our side, but no Negroes of frightful disposition or unruly countenence.
That is what is best. You are our secret weapon.
Your vengeance will be your survival and testimony, if need be in a court of law, if need be in the court of public opinion.' Earl listened politely. Then he said, 'First off, I do not want to be no singing clown in some kind of circus who is cry babying about all them awful things done to him. I don't like lights shining on me. But second off, and more important, here's what would happen after that.
Nothing. Not a thing.'
'See, that's my point too,' said Mr. Trugood. 'He sees it to the nub, Mr. Vincent.'
'I cannot give up on the rule of law and the majesty of the courts,' said Sam. 'Even in a benighted zone like Mississippi.' Earl said, 'You seem to think we have a choice. Your way isn't a choice at all. It's an impossibility.'
Sam made a face of disapproval.
'Now, Earl?' he began.
Earl kept going.
'You know, I don't have a education like you two. I don't know enough words. But I am looking for a word now, and it means something like 'logical.' But logical in the way of institutions. The way institutions act with each other. They progress along certain lines that everybody knows, that makes a sense everybody agrees upon. What is that word, Mr.
Sam? You would know it.'
Sam narrowed his eyes, then spoke. 'Earl, I believe the word you mean is 'Yes, sir, that is it. That is the very one, right there.'
'But where is this going?' asked Davis Trugood.
'I'm trying to be clear about what they've done down there, and why the ordinary remedies are doomed. You see what they've engineered? They've engineered a system that is unbreachable by what you would call a rational action, the action of men or systems who themselves are rational. They've thought about their enemies and how they'll come at them. Their whole campaign on me wasn't at all about me, but about who I represented. They thought I represented someone, and they had to work out a way to deal with that body. When they concluded I did not, it became clear they were going to kill me. But not until.'
'Earl, possibly you are thinking too hard about this.'
'No, Earl knows a thing or two,' said Mr. Trugood.
'They are set up along one line and one line only: to survive any 'rational' attack on them. If any institution attempts to change them, they can defeat it. They will know in advance it is coming. The newspapers, the police investigators, the federal investigators, all that: it can't work because that is what they are the best at. That is what they expect. You yourself asked some questions in Washington, and for your troubles nearly had your career destroyed, Mr. Sam, by federal investigators.'
'I may yet have it destroyed,' said Sam. 'And if we go where you're going, I may end up in prison.'
'You can't do nothing rational and get them. They will always have the answer. They will go on and on and on. They'll always know in advance, they have connections, they are doing what everybody wants them to do, and clearly at some level there's some federal protection.
So if you think newspaper campaigns and Negro ministers and blue ribbon fellows are going to do a thing agin them, you are wrong, dead wrong.
They're smarter than that, and they will win every goddamned time. You cannot do it on a rational basis.'
Now it was Sam's turn to say nothing.
Earl turned to Mr. Trugood.
'Sir, I don't know why you're in this, but I'm going to tell you what must be done and we will see if you have the grit to see this one through.'
'Go ahead, Mr. Swagger.'
'They are invulnerable to rational assault. They are vulnerable to un rational assault.' 'Irrational,' said Sam.
'Irrational, then.'
'And what does that mean?' said Mr. Trugood.
'It means something that can't happen. Something that isn't supposed to happen, not in this day and age, something that isn't in the cards.'
'And that would be?'
'Men with guns in the night. Boys who know the place and can shoot a bit. It means fast, hard, complete, total surprise. Seven is the right number, I think. And I can get those men. I can. I know who they are and where they can be found, and I have the means to convince them to sign aboard. I can get ' in, and lead ' in a good night's work, and get ' out. You know why this'll work, and nothing else?
Because everything they done to fight the rational opens them up to the irrational. The isolation. The guns pointed in, not out. An installation that's out of communication and that has no reinforcements at hand and thinks its location far up a river in a jungle and a forest is all the protection it needs. Seven men, Mr. Trugood, with guns and some light equipment. I can get ' in, lead ' to do a night of man's work, and get ' out. And the State of Mississippi won't cotton to it till three or four days later.'
'Earl, are you going to break some men out of prison? Is that it?' said Sam.
