Ragtime

One week after the attack on Emerald Isle, a group of Black men corner and shoot policemen on patrol. They give a note to a surviving policeman to be published in the newspapers and then bomb a nearby firehouse. Coalhouse’s new letter reaffirms that he wants Emerald Isle’s Fire Chief, Willie Conklin, turned over to his justice and the Model T returned to its original condition. The incident causes citywide panic and renewed pressure on the Mayor and Chief of Police to catch Coalhouse. After the newspapers print a photograph of Walker and the public learns more about him, reporters harass the family in New Rochelle for information and photographs of Coalhouse’s child. The spotlight on their lives causes a “crisis (that) was driving the spirit from their lives” (225). To show that he can keep his family together, Father offers to take the little boy to a baseball game the next day.

Father and the boy go to the baseball game. Two reporters follow them on their excursion. Father reflects on the current state of the game, which he feels has none of the decorum and professionalism as when he was a child.