Passing: A Fifth Draft Darling Goes

    These paragraphs are from page 239 and 240 of 311 in my Rough Draft, and I will have to find a way to note all of the preparation, but there are ways to do that without long narratives that slow down the story:

I had suspected as much, I now recalled, some time quite a while back, on a day when I was in attendance upon the Senator, when both of his head men arrived in his office. Loving, as the Senator’s personal secretary, had oversight of all financial affairs, which is to say, in point of fact, everything, while Smith was merely his head overseer, which made him lower in status. I had seen Loving transmit the Senator’s orders from time to time to Smith, usually carried as a message out to him by a series of servants. Smith was evidently a jealous man, to begin with, and took it hard having to defer in any way to any man, save the Senator, himself. To make matters worse, the one and only time I had seen Loving send a written message to Smith, the head overseer had come cursing through the office door in only a few minutes, complaining to the Senator of some insult or other dealt him by Loving. I had been sent out while the men discussed this problem, and had been relieved not to have to stay, so I had not listened to the goings on, but rather had tried to shut out all fo the noise, as I had been just in the next room. I now realized what that cat fight must have been all about, for only a man who could not read would see a written message as a deliberate insult. I wondered if Smith was jealous of Loving, not only for his position, but also for his learning. Such jealousy did not make sense if one was free to acquire it, but in a man like Smith, very little seemed sensible.

I had also had reason to believe that there was little love lost between the two, for it had always seemed to me that Loving had no stomach for the vulgar man’s presence. I had assumed that it was merely being very busy that kept Loving ready to depart as soon as Smith arrived, every time they met in the Senator’s office, but now it seemed, there was more too the story, after all. After what I had seen while hidden in that wagon recently, I decided that the Senator’s personal secretary, in fact, must detest his head overseer as much as the other hated him. Now what I had seen and overheard as I lay hidden in that wagon, and later heard as I sat hidden in plain sight, all made sense. This was news that I must report to as many Conductors and Station Masters as I possibly could, for I was certain that it was valuable, and could be put to some good use. But the questions remaining in my mind was, what use, and how? Then, I thought of an idea, the merest germ of a plan, and I thought that with careful preparation, it might just work. My mood brightened, and I thought, perhaps spring is not so far away, after all.

     I did like the idea of showing, or actually, telling, as the case may be, or is, in this case, Willow’s thought processes as she figures out that the evil head overseer is in fact both  illiterate, and highly jealous of just about everyone who is not illiterate.  But after reading both paragraphs a second time and reflecting on the ending just a bit, I realized two things.  First, I have actually made these thought processes known, more gradually, via the ending in the Final Ordeal, as Willow would not have been able to pull off what she does unless this set of processes had already occurred.  The second thing I realized was the my readers are not idiots, and so they would, or will, understand that some similar type of process must have happened in order for Willow to get to where she will arrive, by the end.  Also, I have read that it is important to trust your readers, and to trust that they will figure these things out, although I know that it can be a delicate balance, when dealing with historical fiction.  This, I think, is also a case of the question raised by Toni Morrison  , in discussing the problem of Black writers writing for ‘the White gaze.’  Explanations that we, as Black Americans, generally do not need because we grow up steeped in one culture, which we add even unconsciously for audiences that will not know certain things, or even imagine us to be capable of certain things.  This makes me wonder if I need to go back and read my entire Rough Draft all over again with that idea in mind.  Assuming and hoping that I am allotted the time necessary to do all of that work.

Shira

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