Ragtime

One Sunday, Coalhouse Walker drives through New York past the Emerald Isle Fireman Company. As he drives by, a group of firemen stop Walker and tell him that he must pay a toll to pass. Walker argues that this is a public through-way and that a toll is not required. Another group of firemen build a blockade in the street. Walker sees a couple of Black boys playing nearby and tells them to watch his car while he walks to the police station. Walker finds the police uncooperative. When he returns to the firehouse, the road is empty, and his Model T car is vandalized.

Walker confronts the Fire Chief, who denies that he ever requested a toll. As the firemen laugh at Walker, the police arrive. The officers urge Coalhouse to leave and forget the incident. Walker refuses and is arrested. He calls Father from jail, who rushes to the station and provides bail. Coalhouse explains the incident to the entire family. Mother and Mother’s Younger Brother are disgusted at how the community has treated Walker. Father encourages Coalhouse to consult a lawyer. The next day, Mother’s Younger Brother finds Walker’s car. It has been further vandalized and pushed into the grass and mud on the side of the road.

Mother’s Younger Brother has become increasingly unhinged since his conversation with Emma Goldman. He is withdrawn and talks to himself. He can no longer stand his upper class family and their frivolous conversations. Coalhouse consults several lawyers, all of whom point out different difficulties in the case. Walker decides to act as his own counsel, but hits roadblocks when the city government refuses to be amiable. The family becomes increasingly obsessed with Coalhouse’s troubles. Father insists Walker should have simply driven away, while Mother’s Younger Brother argues that Father has revealed his lack of principles. Sarah later confides in Mother’s Younger Brother that Coalhouse has refused to get married until his Model T is rightfully returned to its original state.

Mother and Sarah become close as Sarah works as a maid at the New Rochelle house. Sarah’s baby grows at a healthy rate, and the little boy takes a liking to the infant. Coalhouse Walker becomes wrapped up in finding justice after the Model T incident and stops visiting the family. Sarah forms her own plan to sort things out. One night, she travels to a campaign event for the Republican presidential candidate, James Sherman. Sarah wants to petition the American government to support Walker. When she arrives, Sarah runs toward Sherman. A militiaman, “with the deadly officiousness of armed men who protect the famous” (191), strikes Sarah in the chest with the butt of his rifle. She is held at the police station overnight, coughing blood. The next day, she is transferred to the hospital. Mother and Father realize Sarah is missing and look for her, eventually finding her in the public hospital. Sarah develops pneumonia. Coalhouse arrives and stays by Sarah’s bedside. At the end of the week, Sarah dies.

Sarah’s funeral is held in Harlem: “Everything was black including the sky” (194). Many of the mourners are Coalhouse’s fellow musicians. Walker pays for the funeral out of his wedding funds. A band plays as the dirges bring Sarah from Harlem to her funeral plot in Brooklyn.

It is now spring. Grandfather falls out in the garden and fractures his pelvis. Upstate, Harry K. Thaw escapes prison and flees to Canada before returning to the United States in Buffalo, New York. The police finally catch him on a train. Thaw refuses to tell who helped him escape, flippantly responding to his interrogators: “Just call me Houdini” (197). Houdini, meanwhile, is at his mother’s grave mourning her loss. His mother died months ago, but he is still trapped in depression and grief. He becomes obsessed with finding out a way to contact the dead. Houdini hunts for a true medium and hires a detective agency to sniff out frauds.

Meanwhile, Houdini throws himself into his work, developing radically difficult illusions for his audiences. His performances become so intense that they startle and disturb show-goers. At a show in New Rochelle, he is held in a glass tank filled with water for minutes on end, creating panic. He escapes and tries to calm the audience by revealing the secret behind the trick, but an explosion goes off. It is strong enough to shake the building. The audience flees in fear, believing Houdini is engaging in satanic tricks.

The explosion occurs two miles away at the Emerald Isle Engine. The fire station blows up and is destroyed. As bodies are recovered from the building, police begin to suspect a homicide. Father hears the explosion and fears that his fireworks plant has gone up in flames. The next day, he inspects the explosion site and sees Walker’s ruined Model T in the mud. That afternoon, news spreads that the killer and arsonist is believed to be an unidentified Black man. Many believe that he had a crew of accomplices. Later that night, the family has dinner at the New Rochelle house. Father blames Mother for housing Sarah and bringing drama into their household. Mother’s Younger Brother taunts Father and accuses him of being a privileged racist.

Meanwhile, the city’s newspapers receive letters from an unidentified party who claims to be behind the firehouse explosion. The letter lists a series of demands. The writer wants the Fire Chief handed over to deliver justice. They also demand the return of the Model T in its original condition. The letter concludes by saying that if these demands are not met, the writer will continue to burn firehouses. The papers do not print the letters, but hand them over to police. The New York police begin an investigation into Coalhouse Walker.