margin of mystery

 

Louisiana Governor Huey Long, in 1935

nickname:  "The Kingfish"

Looking at the Robert Penn Warren novel All the King's Men again, the notion comes to mind that it's noir.  Like film noir.  There's a noirishness to the story.

        The book's main character, Willie Stark -- the Governor of an unnamed Southern state, the "Boss" -- was based on Louisiana Governor Huey Long.

------------------------ [excerpt, All The King's Men] ----------------

Alex Michel was a liar and the truth was not in him.  You could look at Willie and see that he never had been and never would be in politics.  Duffy could look at Willie and deduce the fact that Willie was not in politics.  So he said, "Yeah," with heavy irony, and incredulity was obvious upon his face.

        Not that I much blame Duffy.  Duffy was face to face with the margin of mystery where all our calculations collapse, where the stream of time dwindles into the sands of eternity, where the formula fails in the test tube, where chaos and old night hold sway and we hear the laughter in the ether dream.  But he didn't know he was, and so he said, "Yeah."

        "Yeah," Alex echoed, without irony, and added, "Up in Mason City.  Willie is County Treasurer.  Ain't you, Willie?"

        "Yes," Willie said, "County Treasurer."

        "My God," Duffy breathed, with the air of a man who discovers that he has built upon sands and dwelt among mock shows.

        "Yeah," Alex iterated, "and Willie is down here on business for Mason County, ain't you, Willie?"

        Willie nodded.

        "About a bond issue they got up there," Alex continued.  "They gonna build a schoolhouse and it's a bond issue."

        Duffy's lips worked, and you could catch the discreet glimmer of the gold in the bridgework, but no word came forth.  The moment was too full for sound or foam.

        But it was true.  Willie was the County Treasurer and he was, that day long ago, in the city on business about the bond issue for the schoolhouse.  And the bonds were issued and the schoolhouse built, and more than a dozen years later the big black Cadillac with the Boss whipped past the schoolhouse, and then Sugar-Boy really put his foot down on the gas and we headed out, still on the almost new slab of Number 58.

        We had done about a mile, and not a word spoken, when the Boss turned around from the front seat and looked at me and said, "Jack, make a note to find out something about Malaciah's boy and the killing."

        "What's his name?" I asked.

        "Hell, I don't know, but he's a good boy."

        "Malaciah's name, I mean," I said.

        "Malaciah Wynn," the Boss said.

        I had my notebook out now and wrote it down, and wrote down, stabbing.

        "Find out when the trial is set and get a lawyer down.  A good one, and I mean a good one that'll know how to handle it and let him know he God-damn well better handle it, but don't get a guy that wants his name in lights."

        "Albert Evans," I said, "he ought to do."

        "Uses hair oil," the Boss said.  "Uses hair oil and slicks it back till the top of his head looks like the black ball on a pool table.  Get somebody looks like he didn't sing with a dance band.  You losing your mind?"

        "All right," I said, and wrote in my notebook, Abe Lincoln type.  I didn't have to remind myself about that.  I just wrote because I had got in the habit.  

        You can build up an awful lot of habits in six years, and you can fill an awful lot of little black books in that time and put them in a safety-deposit box when they get full because they aren't something to leave around and because they would be worth their weight in gold to some parties to get their hands on.

------------------- [end / excerpt]

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       Philadelphia, 1787.

Mrs. Powel to Benjamin Franklin:  

"Well, Doctor -- what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"

Franklin:

"A republic -- if you can keep it."

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