One Poem by Michael Ceraolo

 

Eight Weeks:  A Play of Voices

      Narrator (1)

 

A man arrived in Buffalo

on August 31,

                     and

asked for a room at John Nowak's saloon,

for which he paid two dollars a week,

giving his name as John Doe,

though he later admitted

his 'real name' was Fred Nieman,

                                                 which

he mistakenly believed translated

to nobody in Polish,

                              and

he was determined not to be a nobody

 

 

       William McKinley (1)

 

On the third day in Buffalo

Ida and I paid a visit

to the natural wonder of Niagara Falls,

after which we returned to the man-made wonder

of the Pan-American Exposition,

                                                where,

at the Expo's Temple of Music,

there would be a ten-minute meet-and-greet:

I would shake as many hands as possible

with my patented grip designed to keep the line moving,

exchanging a few pleasantries along the way

 

 

      George Cortelyou

 

As the President's personal secretary

I had some say in his scheduling

But he had the final say:

 

twice I removed the Temple of Music

from his scheduled appearances;

twice he put it back on his agenda,

the second time making it crystal clear

there would be no third attempt on my part

 

 

      Leon Czolgosz (1)

 

I stalked McKinley

when he arrived in Buffalo on the 4th,

again when he gave a speech on the 5th,

but I couldn't get a clear shot either time

 

 

     McKinley (2)

 

I had received threatening letters

ever since the war with Spain,

but I didn't take them seriously:

"Who would want to shoot me?"

 

 

     Czolgosz (2)

 

"It was in my heart;

there was no escape for me

I could not have conquered it

had my life been at stake"

"All those people . . . bowing to the great ruler

I made up my mind to kill that ruler"

The reception on the 6th would give me the chance

 

 

     John D. Wells

 

I saw "a man of unusual aspect---

short, heavy, and with a heavy black moustache"

and "a pair of black, glistening Italian eyes"

I thought:  anarchist assassin

Foster grabbed him, then released him,

and he passed without incident

 

 

     Czolgosz (3)

 

I had the gun in my right hand

covered by a handkerchief,

                                         which,

it being a hot day, drew no attention

I was also gladdened by the fact

that someone else drew attention away from me

I fired two shots into McKinley:

"I done my duty"

the duty of an anarchist

inspired by Emma Goldman's words

 

 

     Narrator (2)

 

anarchy- from the Greek anarchos rulerless

Seemingly few professed anarchists understood

that if you take someone's life

you have ruled over them in the most brutal way

 

 

     Private Francis P. O'Brien

 

I tackled Czolgosz after hearing the shots,

making sure to get the gun away from him

Pandemonium ruled,

and who else did what I can't say for sure

 

 

     James B. Parker

 

I've said in detail elsewhere

what happened right in front of me

on that fateful day,

so I won't repeat it here

All I'll say is

that the way I was treated afterward

by many who knew better

made me wish I hadn't been there

 

 

     Homer James

 

I was a guard there when it happened,

and I hit Czolgosz in the face with my club,

knocking him into the coloured man,

who then put him in a choke hold

Yet somehow,

when credit for the capture was assigned,

the two of us were left out of the story,

the Secret Service and the Buffalo police

taking all the credit allotted,

credit due others not in their employ

 

 

     Charles Schwab

 

The business of America is business,

as a later President would put it,

                                                and

"Should the President die

it would most certainly have

a most depressing effect

upon business and industry"

 

 

     McKinley (3)

 

After I was hit

I tried to convince everyone

I wasn't badly hurt

I knew for a fact one of the shots

didn't get into me:  it hit a button

and fell off when I was moved,

being picked up by someone for a souvenir

I was awake and alert enough

that, when I saw what several in the crowd

were doing to the fellow who shot me,

I ordered them to stop at once

They did so immediately,

and the fellow was taken in

I was taken by ambulance

to the Exposition hospital,

my fate placed in God's hands

acting through the doctors who arrived on scene

(The first doctor to arrive

 

I had met the previous day:

I remembered him, and remarked

I never thought I'd need his professional services)

The doctors never found the bullet that entered me,

but they felt good about my chances for survival

It was not to be, though:

a week later I developed gangrene

all along the bullet's path,

a death sentence

I said goodbye to Ida,

and died early in the morning on the 14th

 

 

     Dr. Roswell Park

 

I was performing surgery in Niagara Falls

when someone burst in to say I was needed in Buffalo

I was supposed to have said

I didn't care if it was for the President,

only to be told it was for the President

Like most if not all good stories,

it didn't actually happen that way

I finished the operation and headed to Buffalo;

another doctor was already in charge of his care

I never said publicly until years later

I would have put in a drainage tube

No one can ever say for sure

whether that would have saved the President's life,

                                                                           but

I always believed it would have

 

 

     Narrator (3)

 

In the assassination's wake many weighed in;

a few seemed to make it all about them,

some of those perhaps not without reason

 

 

     Robert T. Lincoln

 

I wasn't actually in Buffalo when it happened;

I was on my way there, arriving that night

 

 

The third time was not the charm regarding

my proximity to presidents being shot:

President McKinley met the same fate

as had my dad and President Garfield

 

 

     William Randolph Hearst

 

In April I editorialized:

"If bad institutions and bad men

can be got rid of only by killing,

then the killing must be done"

                                            and

after Czolgosz we were attacked

from coast to coast with savage ferocity

I saw that

"Things are going to be very bad"

Not for me personally:

my wealth protected me,

as did my being native-born,

                                          but

for those without such protections

who had espoused similar views

 

 

     Emma Goldman

 

"Am I accountable

because some crackbrain person

puts the wrong construction on my words?"

 

 

     Narrator (4)

 

Emma was not legally accountable,

                                                     but

whether she was morally accountable

was then, and remains, a matter of debate:

her expressions of support

for other assassins and would-be assassins,

as well as her pseudo-sympathy

for those who would be their targets,

 

 

argues that Czolgosz put

the correct construction on her words

 

 

     Czolgosz (4)

 

A number of alienists interviewed me

in order to assess my sanity

In my initial answers to them

I asked who McKinley was,

asked what had happened to him

The alienists were ready to declare me insane,

but I couldn't keep up the pretense

even though the truth could cost me my life

 

 

     Narrator (5)

 

Time was of the essence:

the police might tire of protecting Czolgosz

from the mob who wanted to have at him

He was given a speedy trial

in more ways that one:

                                    it began

a week or so after McKinley's death

and lasted only eight hours,

with the expected verdict reached

The sentence was death by electrocution,

to be carried off fifty-five days

after the shooting

 

 

     Czolgosz (5)

 

I had a moment of temporary insanity

when I felt it was "awful to feel you killed somebody

I wish I had not done it"

                                    but

I regained my senses as I was

being strapped into the electric chair,

and said I wasn't sorry for my crime,

if indeed it was a crime—-

Michael Ceraolo is a 65-year-old retired firefighter/paramedic and active poet who has had two full-length books (Euclid Creek, from Deep Cleveland Press; 500 Cleveland Haiku, from Writing Knights Press) published, and has two more, Euclid Creek Book Two and Lawyers, Guns, and Money, in the publication pipeline.