Alice Walker - Meridian

For Staughton and Lynd and Maryam L.

and for John Lewis the unsung.

I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now... I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A peoples dream died there. It was a beautiful dream ... the nations hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.

BLACK ELK, Black Elk Speaks

me rid i an, n. [L. meridianus, pertaining to midday, or to the south, from meridies, midday, the south; medius, middle, and dies, day.]

1. the highest apparent point reached by a heavenly body in its course.
2. (a)the highest point of power, prosperity, splendor, etc.; zenith; apex; culmination; (b)the middle period of ones life, regarded as the highest point of health, vigor, etc.; prime.
3. noon. [Obs.]
4. in astronomy, an imaginary great circle of the celestial sphere passing through the poles of the heavens and the zenith and nadir of any given point, and cutting the equator at right angles.
5. in geography, (a) a great circle of the earth passing through the geographical poles and any given point on the earths surface; (b) the half of such a circle between the poles; (c) any of the lines of longitude running north and south on a globe or map, representing such a circle or half-circle.
6. (a) a place or situation with its own distinctive character; (b) distinctive character.
7. a graduated ring of brass, in which a globe is suspended and revolves.

first meridian: see prime meridian under prime.

magnetic meridian: a carefully located meridian from which secondary or guide meridians may be constructed.

me rid i an, a.

1. of or at noon or, especially, of the position or power of the sun at noon.
2. of or passing through the highest point in the daily course of any heavenly body.
3. of or along a meridian.
4. of or at the highest point of prosperity, splendor, power, etc.
5. southern. [Rare.]

TRUMAN HELD DROVE SLOWLY into the small town of Chicokema as the two black men who worked at the station where he stopped for gas were breaking for lunch. They looked at him as he got out of his car and lifted their Coca-Colas in a slight salute. They were seated on two boxes in the garage, out of the sun, and talked in low, unhurried voices while Truman chewed on a candy bar and supervised the young white boy, who had come scowling out of the station office to fill up the car with gas. Truman had driven all night from New York City, and his green Volvo was covered with grease and dust; crushed insects blackened the silver slash across the grill.

Know where I can get this thing washed? he called, walking toward the garage.

Sure do, one of the men said, and rose slowly, letting the last swallow of Coke leave the bottle into his mouth. He had just lifted a crooked forefinger to point when a small boy dressed in tattered jeans bounded up to him, the momentum of his flight almost knocking the older man down.

Here, wait a minute, said the man, straightening up. Wheres the fire?

Aint no fire, said the boy, breathlessly. Its that woman in the cap. Shes staring down the tank!

Goodness gracious, said the other man, who had been on the point of putting half a doughnut into his mouth. He and the other man wiped their hands quickly on their orange monkey suits and glanced at the clock over the garage. Weve got time, said the man with the doughnut.

I reckon, said the other one.

Whats the matter? asked Truman. Where are you going?

The boy who had brought the news had now somehow obtained the half-doughnut and was chewing it very fast, with one eye cocked on the soda that was left in one of the bottles.

This towns got a big old army tank, he muttered, his mouth full, and now they going to have to aim it on the woman in the cap, cause she act like she dont even know they got it.

He had swallowed the doughnut and also polished off the drink. Gotta go, he said, taking off after the two service station men who were already running around the corner out of sight.

The town of Chicokema did indeed own a tank. It had been bought during the sixties when the townspeople who were white felt under attack from outside agitatorsthose members of the black community who thought equal rights for all should extend to blacks. They had painted it white, decked it with ribbons (red, white, and of course blue) and parked it in the public square. Beside it was a statue of a Confederate soldier facing north whose right leg, while the tank was being parked, was permanently crushed.

The first thing Truman noticed was that although the streets around the square were lined with people, no one was saying anything. There was such a deep silence they did not even seem to be breathing; his own footsteps sounded loud on the sidewalk. Except for the unnatural quiet it was a square exactly like that in hundreds of small Southern towns. There was an expanse of patchy sunburned lawn surrounding a brick courthouse, a fringe of towering pine and magnolia trees, and concrete walks that were hot and clean, except for an occasional wad of discarded chewing gum that stuck to the bottoms of ones shoes.

On the side of the square where Truman now was, the stores were run-down, their signs advertising tobacco and Olde Milwaukee beer faded from too many years under a hot sun. Across the square the stores were better kept. There were newly dressed manikins behind sparkling glass panes and window boxes filled with red impatiens.

Whats happening? he asked, walking up to an old man who was bent carefully and still as a bird over his wide broom.

Well, said the sweeper, giving Truman a guarded look as he clutched his broom, supporting himself on it, some of the children wanted to get in to see the dead lady, you know, the mummy woman, in the trailer over there, and our day for seeing her aint till Thursday.

Your day?

Thats what I said.

But the Civil Rights Movement changed all that!

I seen rights come and I seen em go, said the sweeper sullenly, as if daring Truman to disagree. Youre a stranger here or youd know this is for the folks that work in that guano plant outside town. Po folks.

The people who dont have to work in that plant claim the folks that do smells so bad they cant stand to be in the same place with em. But you know what guano is made out of. Whew. Youd smell worse than a dead fish, too!

But you dont work there, do you?

Used to. Laid off for being too old.

Across the square to their left was a red and gold circus wagon that glittered in the sun. In tall, ornate gold letters over the side were the words, outlined in silver, Marilene OShay, One of the Twelve Human Wonders of the World: Dead for Twenty-Five Years, Preserved in Life-Like Condition. Below this, a smaller legend was scrawled in red paint on four large stars: Obedient Daughter, read one, Devoted Wife, said another. The third was Adoring Mother and the fourth was Gone Wrong. Over the fourth a vertical line of progressively flickering light bulbs moved continually downward like a perpetually cascading tear.