Roadsong, 1901
by B. Marcus Walker
You can name just about any town, and there’s a fighting chance I was there for a spell. Louisville, St. Louis, Chicago, Youngstown, Morgantown... I’d do whatever labor I found, at least until I felt that weight. It was like a heavy shell that grew outa my back. It made the air thick and movement slow. I learned to trust that feeling as a boy in Tennessee. So, whenever it came on, I had to move.
I just about gave up on settling down when a stint as a railway bagman brought me to a lakeside city. It was lit up with pole lamps and puffing smoke into the night sky. I took those streetlights as a sign from above and decided to give it a go there, in Buffalo.
I had a nice set-up in George’s Grooming Parlor on Michigan Avenue. Toojo Mason — George was the name his mammy gave him — had a heart as large as his gut, and that jutted out enough he’d rest his razors on it. He let me ply my trade in the front of the parlor for free.
My trade was pictures.
Hard times fell everywhere after ninety-three. In some town or another along the way, a mill-owner, who ain’t have no coin or paper, paid me with a wooden box. It had a hole in the front with a lens behind it. That was how I got into pictures — snapping them for other negros from town-to-town. I charged a nickel at first and later a dime.
The parlor was a sweet spot for pictures, with a window at my back and a clear wall behind my customers. Sometimes the men, after getting a fresh shave and a trim, would bandy over and act like they were really struggling to hand over a dime. The most willing was them with ladies they were courting. They wanted a photo of them looking their best to leave as a reminder for when they were scraggily and unwashed and bitter at the world like we all get. Eventually, most of Buffalo’s colored knew where they could come and get a photo.
“I’m gonna meet the President,” Big Jim announced one Thursday. Big Jim Parker, tall as an oak, was as smooth-talking a negro as you’d be likely to meet. And he been in many of them same towns as I had... sometimes at the same time. But we never met till we landed in Buffalo, where he ended up waiting tables at a diner. He was sitting for a trim from Toojo’s oldest boy, Junior.
Junior was finishing up and brushing the hair off Jim’s wide shoulders. The boy’s mouth was set hard, as though he didn’t like what he was hearing. “The President of the United States?” Junior asked.
“Yeah, President McKinley is in town for the Exposition. Folk been talking about it in the restaurant.”
“I thought you got fired a few days back?” I asked. It was a slow morning. A couple of men had been in for trims, but no one wanted a picture. I’d mostly been fiddling with my old box camera and tripod and jawing with Toojo and whoever else came through.
“Yeah, but I still eat,” Jim snapped. “And I heard two white folks discussing how the President gonna be at the expo.” He lifted his chin for Junior to give a final inspection. “I figure I’ll go down.”
Jim stood when the boy stepped back and wiped his long legs for any stray hairs. Jim was wearing the same dark suit he wore whenever he was out begging work. On this day, he wore a bow tie, which he straightened before putting on his overcoat.
“You gonna want a picture of this,” Jim said and stood in front of the wall where I snapped my customers.
“You got a dime?” I asked. I was ribbing mostly. Jim had got fired on account of his tomcatting with too many of the girls working at the restaurant and was broke for sure.
“Man, you know I’m good for it,” he said and held a serious pose.
I twisted my lips into a skeptical frown but went on and adjusted the focus and drew back the curtain behind me to let the light pour over Jim. I snapped the shot — Big Jim with his head a little tilted and his jaw hard.
“Hate to tell a man his business, but don’t you think you should go and find work?” I asked.
“Who says I ain’t?” Jim’s lips spread apart into a smile.
I didn’t have a clue what he was suggesting. “I say you ain’t. Ya just said you gon’ meet the President.”
“Well, you never know what can happen. Who says the President can’t use a worldly individual like myself?”
I wagged a hand at the man as he strode through the door.
When the day ended and Toojo and his boys took off, I went to the storeroom I used as my darkroom. While my spot for pictures was free, it was only right I throw Toojo a dollar now and then for the room.
In my time snapping pictures, I took to the darkroom more than the snapping itself. It was magic in that little room, a tiny miracle of creation: birthing a near true to life image on a metal plate. Being alone with my thoughts was never something I took to, but in the darkroom, I wasn’t alone. I had the company of trays and glass bottles filled with chemicals, and the metal plates which slowly became faces of the people I’d snapped.
When I started in pictures, waiting to see those faces was like standing on a razor. I didn’t know what I was gonna see. Many a time I had to bring someone back to take the shot again. But over time, I got so I could tell from the light what adjustments needed to be made. More than the pride I took in it, the near certainty of the thing which had once seemed like a miracle was... well, I guess it’s what some men find in church.
Under the dim light of a lantern fitted with a blood-red flue, I bathed the day’s plates in a chemical bath before moving them into water. When the plates were drying and Big Jim’s mug was emerging on the steel surface along with my other customers’, I hung them to dry and left.
I was on my way to supper when the news came.
Rushing down the street like a stiff wind... it came in the form of a child — lil’ colored boy I hadn’t seen before. He was drenched in sweat from running and was hollering. I couldn’t hear him, but the people who did stopped cold and looked at each other with stretched eyes. Even horse-carts came to a stop.
The boy raced down my way, just behind his words which washed over me like a chilly wave. “The President was shot at the Exposition!”
I felt a flush of panic. I hadn’t any feelings at all about old William McKinley. But anything bad happening was always worse for negros. Colored folk were gathering in little circles of three or four, all preparing for the worst. Many were looking around, wild-eyed like whoever got the President might come for them next. Or something worse.
After some time, I realized I wasn’t moving and decided to skip supper and retire to the rooming house on Mulberry where both me and Jim stayed. I worried for Jim as I walked. If there was shooting and arresting going on, a tall negro like Jim would surely stand out. What has that boy got himself into? I tried to put it outa my mind and tapped on his door, hoping he was there and not anywhere near the President, but there weren’t no answer.
Something else was bothering me. For the first time in Buffalo, I was starting to feel the weight on me. I tried to ignore it, mainly because I had a good thing goin’. But the heaviness only grew. It made for uneasy sleep and a late waking.
Now, I hated getting up from sleep on my best day, but that morning I laid on my mat with a troubled mind until my body hurt to stay laying. So, I drag myself on down to the parlor and there, I saw something that made me feel light again.
There was Toojo and his two boys fixing to start shaving and trimming. But there were also a couple of men at play, scuffling, and one of them was Big Jim. He had the other man in a headlock and one of the man’s wrists in his grip, and they were both laughing.
Jim was talking loud and fast. “I shook that gun from his hand and kicked it away. At this point, all the white men and guards joined in. We wrestled him to the ground, and they were punchin’ and kickin’ and stompin’ him... and ol’ McKinley — he goes, ‘Don’t be too rough with him, boys.’”
I looked at Toojo who was cackling with the man in his chair and sharpening his razors for the day. “What is this negro goin’ on about?” I asked.
“Man, where you been?” Toojo was looking at me with his face scrunched up like he hadn’t realized I was there before. “Big Jim over here is a hero,” he added.
“Hero? Wasn’t the President shot?”
“Yeah. Two times,” Jim said. “Would have been more if yours truly weren’t there.”
“How so?”
Jim was happy to start his story again. “So, this man — white man, young, too — walks up with a rag of some sorts wrapped around his hand—”
“Are we gonna listen to this again?” Junior cut in, scowling.
“Boy, hush,” Toojo said.
“And he raises that covered hand to shake with the president’s but then... I hear a soft pop. There was so much noise in the room, nobody else noticed. Right away, though, I heard another one, but what especially caught my eye was the fact this rag on his hand was on fire... ”
I kept listening to Big Jim’s story as I walked back to the dark room for my camera and tripod and a few plates. When I came back, Jim was finishing the story again, re-enacting his punch of the would-be killer and telling how President McKinley told them to take it easy on him.
“He said that after he was shot twice?” I asked, shaking my head in disbelief.
“Yeah... he was still standing. I tell you, he must be one tough old goat.”
“Or it was a weak shot,” Junior said dismissively. He was lathering up the face of a man who sat in his chair.
We didn’t pay Junior no mind. I got my camera set up and asked, “What happened next, Jim?”
“Holy hell is what happened. There was folks runnin’ and screamin.’ We held him down till the police come, and some men helped the President out to a carriage. A bunch of the Edison men was there with their cameras, snapping pictures. That remind me, you got my picture ready?”
“I do. You need it now?”
“Some of them newspapermen wanna picture of me. They was tryna take one, but I wouldn’t let ’em ’cuz I was all undone from touslin’ with that fella.” He wiped a hand across his hair.
I went and got the dry picture of Jim, standing tall and leaning back just a little. He looked good, and I couldn’t help laughing. Everything was light again.
I handed the plate to Jim, and he grinned at his own face. “They say they can telegraph my picture to papers all over.”
“What’s gonna happen to him?” It was Junior asking.
“Well, I was taken down to the police station to give my account, and they had the boy locked up. He was beaten bad already but he likely gonna hang, I figure. There was a lynch mob outside demanding to hang him right then and there.” Jim was smiling at all the men in the room, who nodded.
Junior, who had his blade out, ready to start shaving the man in his chair, cut in, “I meant what’s gonna happen to McKinley?”
“He alright from what I hear,” Jim shot back.
Toojo cut in here. “You can’t be sure now... remember Garfield?” He turned to his sons: “Now, y’all too young, but President Garfield got shot, and he hung on for... two or three weeks?”
“It was more than two months,” the man in Toojo’s chair piped up.
Jim frowned. “He’s gonna be fine. I told you he was still standing. They carried him out to be careful, but he could have walked.”
Junior snorted and muttered, “Well, that’s too bad.” Everyone, including the men in the chairs, gasped.
“What kind of thang is that to say?” Toojo demanded. “We raised you better’n that, boy.”
Junior said nothing and hunched to begin shaving his customer.
“You got a problem with the President, Junior?” I asked.
Junior didn’t look up, carefully studying his customer’s face. “Way I figure, we all should,” he said and stood to wipe his blade. His pa was staring at him, madder than I’d ever seen the man. “He ain’t done nothing for us?”
“What you think?” Toojo’s voice was high. “You expect the President to come down here and sweep up hair?” Toojo forced a grin to his face and looked around at the grown men in the room. We all made sure to laugh a little, but the feeling of merriment was gone from the room.
“I mean he ain’t done nothin’ about the lynchings,” the boy barked, and cold silence followed.
“We don’t wanna be talking about that,” I said, raising my hands. The weight was back and as heavy as it’d ever been. As heavy as when I raced out of Memphis with fire at my back and tears on my face.
“All I’m saying is he’s the damned President. He could do something!” Junior’s eyes were full of heat even though they were just about squinted shut. For a moment, none of us had anything to say to him.
“Alright, boy, you done said what you have to say.” Toojo’s voice was soft, and his eyes were locked on my frozen face.
Junior wasn’t done. “What about that thing down in North Carolina. Remember Wilmington? More than twenty negros was killed. And did McKinley do anything?”
None of us were looking at each other now. I was just staring at the floor and knew the other men were, too. Junior was glaring at all of us, though. I could feel it.
“Hell no! Not a thing!” Junior thundered out an answer to his own question.
We were all silent until Jim piped in. “Well maybe he will now after a negro saved his life,” he was grinning and nodding at us. I stayed silent and could barely peel my eyes off the floor.
“Mmm,” Toojo forced himself to agree with Jim. He nodded to the men getting shaves and soon they were nodding, too.
Junior made a skeptical huff and went back to shaving.
I didn’t say a thing, nearly buried under the weight on my shoulders and my back. I thought about the mob Jim mentioned, calling to hang that man who shot the President. These men had smiled, but they had to know all too well how easy any mob might turn on us.
“Well, gentlemen,” Jim cut the silence and held his picture up. “I’ve got interviews to give... and a thankful president out there probably lookin’ for that handsome colored feller who took on his attacker.” He slowly tipped his hat and bent forward slowly before smirking and tearing out the door.
I wanted to share in Big Jim’s good cheer, but the weight had settled in so heavy my legs had a hard time moving me across the floor. If I were to listen to that feeling — as I did when I saw men gathering in Memphis, snatching up all the rope and kerosene for torches — Buffalo might have to be at my back soon. I tried to tell myself that Big Jim had done good for us all. Hell, the President owes a negro his life! In my heart, I couldn’t believe it, though.
I sat at the lunch counter later, half expecting the stool to cave in beneath me. A whole lot of folks were talking about this young fella who shot President McKinley, raving about some people I’d never heard of before: anarchists.
That word didn’t mean a thing to me, but I was afraid for them, whoever they were. There was no mistaking the tone of them folks. It eventually came to every town I’d known: a chorus of voices, each one growing to a rageful quake just as others joined in. It was a song I heard every time I thought I’d found somewhere to hang up my walking shoes.
I ain’t think for a moment when they cried anarchist, they weren’t talking about negroes. Part of me knew right then I’d be packing up my things and moving on.
Copyright © 2025 by B. Marcus Walker
