Three Days Before the Shooting ... by Ralph Ellison

ships (a highly dangerous cargo for those round bottoms and the men who sailed them) and, leaning carefully forward, began emptying its contents upon the shining chariot.
    And thus , I thought, is gilded an eight-valved, three-hundred-and-fifty-horse-powered lily!
    For so accustomed have we Americans become to the tricks, the shenanigans and frauds of advertising, so adjusted to the contrived fantasies of commerce—indeed, to pseudo-events of all kinds—that I thought that the car was being drenched with a special liquid which would make it more alluring for a series of commercial photographs.
    Indeed, I looked up the crowded boulevard behind me, listening for the horn of a second car or station wagon which would bring the familiar load of pretty models, harassed editors, nervous wardrobe mistresses, and elegant fashion photographers who would convert the car, the clothes, and the Senator’s elegant home into a photographic rite of spring.
    And with the driver there to remind me, I even expected a few ragged colored street urchins to be brought along to form a poignant but realistic contrast to the luxurious costumes and high-fashion surroundings: an echo of the somber iconography in which the crucified Christ is flanked by a repentant and an unrepentant thief, or the three Wise Eastern Kings bearing their rich gifts before the humble stable of Bethlehem.
    But now reality was moving too fast for the completion of this fantasy. Using my binoculars for a closer view, I could see the driver take a small spherical object from the trunk of the car, and a fuzzy tennis ball popped into focus against the dark smoothness of his fingers. This was joined by a long wooden object which he held like a conductor’s baton and began forcingagainst the ball until it was pierced. This gave the ball a slender handle which he tested delicately for balance, drenched with liquid, and placed carefully behind the left fin of the car.
    Reaching into the backseat now, he came up with a bass-fiddle bow upon which he accidentally spilled the liquid, and I could see drops of fluid roping from the horsehairs and falling with an iridescent spray into the sunlight. Facing us now, he proceeded to tighten the horsehairs, working methodically, very slowly, with his head gleaming in the sunlight and beads of sweat standing over his brow.
    As I watched, I became aware of the swift gathering of a crowd around me, people asking puzzled questions, and a certain tension, as during the start of a concert, was building. And I had just thought, And now he’ll bring out the fiddle , when he opened the door and hauled it out, carrying it, with the dripping bow swinging from his right hand, up the hill some thirty feet above the car, and placed it lovingly on the grass. A gentle wind started to blow now, and I swept my glasses past his gleaming head to the mansion, and as I screwed the focus to infinity, I could see several figures spring suddenly from the shadows on the shaded and shrub-lined terrace of the mansion’s far wing. They were looking on like the spectators of a minor disturbance at a dull baseball game, then a large woman grasped that something was out of order and I could see her mouth come open and her eyes blaze as she called out soundlessly, “Hey, you down there!” Then the driver’s head cut into the field of vision and I took down the glasses and watched him moving, broad-shouldered and jaunty, up the hill to where he’d left the fiddle. For a moment he stood with his head back, his white jacket taut across his shoulders, looking toward the terrace. He waved then, and shouted something which escaped me, then, facing the machine, he took something from his pocket, and I saw him touch the flame of a cigarette lighter to the tennis ball and begin blowing gently upon it, then, waving it about like a child twirling a Fourth of July sparkler, he watched it sputter into a blue ball of flame.
    I tried to anticipate what was coming next but simply