Sundial

By L.C. Morse

"L.C. Morse's Sundial is the defintive novel of the Black college experience. It captures vividly the depths of human passions shot through the intellectual and affective rites of passage in a turbulent time. Morse stands in the grand tradition of Ellison, Baldwin and Morrison!" - Cornel West, Princeton University

"The 60s were a dramtic time in the lives of Black college students. Campuses, particularly Black ones, became the stage -- often the staging area -- for Black discontent and the search for new values. They were the places where Black heroes could be not only held but touched; where often the first confrontations with class and color prejudice, regional differences and adult authority took place. For many, it was during the college years when they came face to face for the first time with the tragedy of the death of peers; when love left indelible impressions on the heart; when traditions found meaning and adulthood finally arrived. All of these things are poignantly described by L.C. Morse in his novel Sundial." - ESSENCE Magazine

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 30, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450280938

L.C. Morse

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, L.C. Morse grew up in Jacksonville, Florida where he attended then racially segregated public schools. In the fall of 1969, he entered Howard University -- one of the nation's most prestigious black institutions of higher learning -- at a time of increasing enrollment of black students in formerly all- or predominantly-white colleges and universities, and consequent considerable public debate over the future need for black colleges and universities to exist. The prior year, in the spring of 1968, student-led demonstrations at Howard, sparked in part by rumors that the university's administration was actively engaged in efforts to end the school's status as a "black" institution, culminated in a two-week long student occupation of the school's administration building which made national headlines, and inspired one popular magazine to dub the school "the breeding ground for black revolutionaries". It was this politically-charged atmosphere that formed the backdrop to his student years at Howard, a time indelibly seared on his consciousness. He spent his junior year abroad at The London School of Economics, and returned to graduate from Howard in the spring of 1973 (B.A., Economics, Summa Cum Laude). Subsequently, he earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Economics at Princeton University, and has been a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Harvard University. For the last thirty years he has sought to indulge his dual passions -- entrepreneurship and literature. Currently, he makes his home in Stamford, CT with his wife, their two children, and their beloved canine.

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Sundial

L. C. Morse

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

Sundial

Copyright © 1986, 2010 by L. C. Morse

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the late Sterling A. Brown for permission to reprint selected lines from his poems: Return, Sporting Beasley, Mill Mountain, Strong Men, and After Winter.

The drawing, Sundial, by George Ganges, was commissioned for this edition.

ISBN: 978-1-4502-8091-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4502-8092-1 (dj)

ISBN: 978-1-4502-8093-8 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 12/27/2010

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Epilogue

End Notes

The golden days are gone. Why do we wait

So long upon the marble steps, blood

Falling from our open wounds? And why

Do our black faces search the empty sky?

Is there something we have forgotten?

Some precious thing

We have lost, wandering in strange lands?…

Arna Bontemps

Nocturne at Bethesda

I have gone back in boyish wonderment

To things I had foolishly put by.…

missing image file

There I have lain while hours sauntered past—

I have found peacefulness somewhere at last,

Have found a quiet needed for so long.

Sterling A. Brown

Return

Prologue missing image file

Week by week, they came—David Hilliard, Stokely Carmichael, Ron Karenga, Imamu Amiri Baraka, Bayard Rustin, Ralph Abernathy, Jesse Jackson, Julian Bond, Louis Farrakhan. We were told to seize the times or the times would seize us; that Pan-Africanism was the highest expression of black power; that Amerikkka was a fascist police state that could be transformed into a good, decent, just, and humane society only by revolution based on a program of Marxist-Leninism; that we need only keep marching to the voting booth and we would most certainly overcome; that Allah Oou Akbar and that his divine messenger—The Honorable Elijah Muhammad—had been sent among us to resurrect the so-called American Negro from the living dead.

Two years after the death of one who knew his lot to be that of all other men and was a safe man to guide us, and five years after the death of one who had come to recognize all men as his brothers and was a sound man to guard us, they came, as they had always come — to the Capstone. They came with words that dripped like honey or thundered like bolts of lightning from their tongues. Those who would lead us—the children of Ham in the Western world—back to Africa, beyond the horizons into the socialist New World, into the utopian dream of a neutral society in which cultural differences made no difference, into a nation within the nation.

And are they to blame?

Those who did not know or did not care—as leaders should—that their push to extremes would leave us alienated, confused, or worse still, indifferent?

Those who did not know or did not care—as leaders should—that in the long march to freedom, it were best not to tarry long at an oasis, lest the front ranks grow fat and lazy and the rear guard jealous at the sight of them?

Those who did not know or did not care—as leaders should—that the young who cheered them as they taunted our country’s hypocrisy in the face of the ideals that attended its birth, the young who applauded them as they decried its distorted values and its blind march to the drums of materialism, saw them through the bright, unsophisticated eyes and soft, fragile minds of youth, as yet unable to disentangle their personal shortcomings from the values and ideals that they professed?

Those who did not know or did not care—as leaders should—that when they did not live that which they told us they believed, it was not the extent of their belief in those ideals and values alone that would be questioned, but the worth of those ideals and values as well?

Or was this juncture, this pause, not inevitable? The distance from the valley of darkness to the promised land great enough to drive some men mad, dissolve the appetites of others, cause the weak and weary, in despair and cynicism — craving cheap freedom — to abandon hope? Call the promised land a mirage?

They came and left in their wake all manner of campus admirers—disciples, true believers, imitators, and charlatans. Some were deeply committed to the struggle—and are so still. Others saw merely an opportunity for show, a fleeting stardom—nine months on the stage of campus politics with an ever-present audience.

Only someone older, or at least wiser than I, could have known that this was the beginning and the end of something, perhaps a dream. And if from its spell, I—like so many others—should have descended into a darkness like some great black hole of the spirit, time and thought bid me now lift my soul from that shadow into which no light penetrates, and from which none escapes. For I understand now that what happened there, during that year, was but a node in the rhythm, the dance—the dance around the Sundial.

I had not known before

Forever was so long a word.

The slow stroke of the clock of time

I had not heard.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Forever

Chapter 1 missing image file

Five years had passed since I had been there or even spent time in that part of Washington. And afterward, for a moment, I wondered whether I’d have consented as readily to being project architect had I known at the time that the cafeteria we were to convert was so very near it. But that is neither here nor there now.

The cafeteria was a small place on Georgia Avenue between Harvard and Fairmont Streets, quite near the campus. It had been called the University Luncheonette when I was a student. I had eaten there frequently during the latter part of my third year; sparingly before, and never after. It had been a sort of refuge for me in the aftermath of a difficult experience; a place to sit alone and feel the weight of a very private disappointment.

The door had been open when I arrived that day, shortly after the lunch hour, but aside from two folding chairs in the corner to the left of the doorway, all that remained of the place as I had known it was the mural that covered three of its four walls. The stove, oven, and grills were gone, as were the jukebox, cigarette machines, and soda fountains; gone too were the serving line and eating booths.

I had been standing inside only a matter of seconds when an elderly but spry gentleman entered from a rear door. He spoke in a strong voice as he walked toward me. Yes, sir? May I help you?

Yes. Yes, you can. My name is William Bennett; I’m with—

You with Attorney Lewis?

Well, in a way, yes. I’m an architect with the firm that’s going to do the renovations here.

Oh, I see. That fellow Lewis sho’ don’t waste no time. Course, I shoulda known you was an architect or something like that; I see you got your tape measure and stuff. Well, you just take your time and do what you gotta do. I’m Emerson, Emerson McKnight, and I’m pleased to meet you. I’m the one who sold this place to Attorney Lewis. Opened my door here in nineteen-hundred and thirty-three. Called this place the Varsity Luncheonette; course I changed the name back in the early forties. You ever been here before?

Yes, I have. I ate here quite often when I was at Howard.

You don’t say! When did you go there?

From ’68 to ’73.

Goodness! You was ‘round a long time, wasn’t you? Bet you was chasing them pretty girls over there. We both laughed.

Well, architecture at Howard was a five-year program then, so I’m really class of ’72.

Oh, I see. Guess that makes sense; takes a lot of time to master something like that. Never went to college myself. Came up here from Birmingham, Alabama in 1925, just before the depression hit; got me a job on the railroad. Had an uncle up here, my mother’s older brother; stayed at his house so I could save some money. This property was originally his, you see. Helped me open up this place in ’33; I wasn’t but twenty-seven years old then. Course I—

It was clear to me that he could go on this way for quite some time. I had never seen him there during the time I was at school, and I subsequently learned from him that he hadn’t personally managed the place in fifteen years. He was immediately likeable, and certainly talkative enough, but the simple truth of the matter was that I had work to do, and though I did not want to be rude or brief, neither could I afford to pass the afternoon listening to his entire life story. So in an effort to short circuit this, I asked him about the mural—whose idea it had been, who had painted it—hoping that this account would be brief but would at the same time allow me to discharge an obligation of courtesy. After a few minutes, however, I was all but certain my strategy had failed, that I would have to listen awhile longer, when a young man of perhaps twenty appeared in the rear door and asked Emerson if he wanted to go along on the truck ride to the junkyard with him and another fellow, who I did not see, or if he would instead remain behind. Perhaps providence was aware of my plight or Emerson simply wished to get on to other things. He decided to go along. Turning to me to excuse himself, he said, in a low voice—so as not to be heard by the young man, Those young fellows can’t do nothing without me. If I let ’em go to the junkyard alone, the man will cheat ’em blind! Well Mr. … what’s your name again?

Bennett.

Oh yeah, that’s right. Well, Mr. Bennett, I’ll be gone for a few hours, so you just feel free to do what you gotta do. If you have to leave before I get back, just don’t worry about trying to lock the place up or nothing. There ain’t nothing here that anybody could walk off with. Nice meeting you again. You take care now.

He shook my hand with extraordinary vigor, walked briskly to the rear door, and closed it firmly behind him. The impact of its shutting caused the walls to vibrate for some time after he had gone.

Standing alone, near the center of the room, I turned my attention to the mural. I thought that I would spend a few moments savoring its story before proceeding to what I had come to do.

Nine years earlier, when first I realized the series of paintings along those walls told what appeared a simple story of student days at Howard during the mid- to late 1940s, I had thought them cute—if disarmingly romantic, a chronicle of simpler, more innocent times. For when in subsequent years they had caused me to reflect on my own time there, I had seen in them only stark contrast. But standing there alone on that day in late March, I thought of Hugo; how like him to have—in jest—called them hieroglyphs … and to have been right.

We had come there in the fall of ’68 by very different paths, he and I. I had always known I would attend Howard, as had my parents, grandparents, and paternal great-grandfather. And though, with the increased opening of Ivy League colleges to us, I sensed a desire on my father’s part that I should break with family tradition, the blood of alma mater ran too deep in his veins to allow him open objection to my intention (at