Roscoe

by William Kennedy

  There is a front-page Times-Union news photograph of Jimmy, Patsy, and Roscoe as they walk through Union Station on that August evening in ’32. Jimmy the dude is in a double-breasted gray plaid with the one-button roll, his best vest and kerchief, his sailor straw stylishly tilted onto his right ear. Patsy is also wearing his sailor, but pulled down as if he fears it will blow away, and he bulges like a puffball out of his collar and suit—it’s those mashed potatoes, Pat. And Roscoe, a bit to the right, appears almost thin beside Patsy, his fedora turned up like a diplomat’s homburg, and though modesty will never let him say so, his presence is one of companionate intelligence and dignity beside Jimmy’s dash and Patsy’s dumplingscape.

  This is a war photo: three warriors marching into combat against what Roscoe calls the Morality Plague, Seabury only its latest manifestation. The Plague comes out of oblivion every seven or so years and, like the locust, builds its white houses in public cemeteries, and propagates, with evil simplicity, “truth” and “honesty” as political virtues. This has the popular appeal of chocolate, the distorting capacity of gin. But Roscoe wonders: Since when has truth been a political virtue? Can you name one truth that is every where welcome? Certainly there are none in play in any quest for, or defense of, political power—Jimmy’s, for instance-for power is based in the deep comprehension and perverse love of deception, especially self-deception, and any man who seeks power through truth is either a fool or a loser. Roscoe knows of no candidate’s ever making a campaign pledge to reveal all his own self-inflation, all those covetous, envious, lascivious, venal, and violent motives that drive every move he ever makes in politics and will continue making if elected. Roscoe certainly did not invent the perverse forces that drive human beings, and he can’t explain any of them. He believes they are a mystery of nature. He concedes that a morally pure society, with candidates unblemished by sin and vice, might possibly exist somewhere, though he has never seen or heard of one, and can’t really imagine what one would be like. “But I’ll keep looking,” he concludes.

  Mayor Jimmy comes to the railing of Union Station’s elevated platform overlooking Broadway, and he salutes and quiets the cheering mob, then evokes new cheers when he tells them, “I am here to fight.” Castellano’s marching band parts the crowd and leads him down the stairs and through the concourse toward the limousine waiting to take him to the Ten Eyck.

  “Where is Patsy?” Jimmy asks Roscoe as they walk.

  “He’s waiting for us outside.”

  Bystanders hear the question and raise the cry, “Patsy, Patsy, Patsy,” and out of the crowd comes Pat, his smile as big as his hat, and the two old friends shake hands with excessive affection.

  “Grand turnout, Pat,” Jimmy says.

  “They all love you, Jim. Are you ready for that sonofabitch in the morning?”

  “If he cuts me, we cut him in the election and he’ll lose the state.”

  When they reach Broadway, Jimmy turns and tells the crowd, “I’m confident Governor Roosevelt will not remove me,” and, to another roar of cheers, he clasps his hands in the air like a triumphant boxer and slides into the back seat of the Packard limo.

  FDR sits in judgment on Jimmy for three weeks, and his anti-Tammany stance enhances his presidential campaign, just as Al Smith’s link to Tammany had wounded his presidential bid. Tammany Hall, history’s tar baby. But FDR also knows the liability of removing a wildly popular New York City mayor, and he moves slowly toward such a decision. Then Jim, drowning in Seabury’s negative evidence, solves the dilemma by abdicating before FDR can fire him, and flees to Spain to hide. Suddenly he deabdicates and heads home when Tammany decides to run him for re-election, and to hell with FDR. But the turbine of his ocean liner breaks down at Gibraltar.

  Now, while the 10th Infantry Band plays his theme song at the convention, Jim is en route home on another ship, but maybe too late. You shouldn’t have left, Jim. His renomination as mayor, though not a sure thing, remains the top priority for Tammany and Brooklyn, for his restoration is the key to the whole damn kingdom. Lehman, if elected governor, will, of course, echo FDR’s hostility to Jimmy’s comeback; but Patsy assures and reassures Curry and McCooey that as governor Elisha will never act against Jim, and that state patronage under Eli will open out like the petals of a great golden flower, and the Tammany-Brooklyn twins, along with Albany, will inherit the earth.

  The Showdown

  It is five o’clock in Tammany’s eleventh-floor suite at the DeWitt, and Al Smith is late. Roscoe, in memory, sees Curry and McCooey, with kindred, drooping white mustaches, sitting on the same sofa, the divine duality without which there is no candidate. Patsy is in his usual armchair. Roscoe chooses to stand across the room, the keeper of the master list of delegates, all names alphabetical within each county, all maybes converted to yeses or nays, and Roscoe reports a surprising tally: Elisha six votes shy of the nomination, even without McCooey’s Brooklyn. This is bizarre! Curry says Tammany is still solid for Elisha, and the upstate total is slowly rising. This rise is partly the work of Bart Merrigan and his crew, who have been polling upstate delegates all day; also, where tactfully feasible, promising a persuasive envelope after the vote, if there’s a floor fight.

  Money has come into play as Elisha closes on the brass ring. Some delegates wear “For Sale” signs on their chests, but most delegate purchasing requires subtle skills, and Bart excels at those, for he’s a likable fellow who makes friends instantly, he’s a veteran, as are many delegates, and he’s honest. Everything is based in trust, and money isn’t for everybody. Bart knows which delegations are open to suggestion, and he can read the honest men who’ll vote right. Albany cannot be passive in this battle after FDR’s threat of last night: “The enemies of Lehman will not only be defeated, they will be dead,” he said to the press. He means politically dead, but fortunately John Curry doesn’t give a rat’s tootie. He hates FDR for all his persecuting ways, is solid with Patsy and Elisha, and is waiting to put Jimmy back in City Hall. John McCooey, too, wants Jimmy back, and remains enduringly friendly to Elisha, still holding off his Brooklyn boys from tipping toward Lehman. But now Frank Roosevelt wants not just to overpower but to kill the enemy, and McCooey, not a suicidal fellow, has chosen restraint as his strategy, and by so doing holds the final balance of power.

  It’s hard to remember when John McCooey, or Brooklyn either, was so central to the future of New York State, New York City, Albany, and Christ knows where else, all rising and falling on what John says at these meetings. He leaves the room to pee and futures are bought and sold, fortunes are made and lost, such leverage! But he’s an old man and this is killing him, maybe before the night is out. Jesus, this is difficult. Why does Lehman have to be a Jew, and why does Roosevelt hate us? He’d hate us even if Lehman wasn’t a Jew. There’s no need for that. John Curry and John McCooey are likable men; they take care of the money because there it is, as it always was. Somebody’s got to take care of it. Just because you’re born with money and don’t need to accumulate any, don’t mean you close out the less fortunate. Christ Almighty, Frank, it’s only a few million, nobody’ll miss it, don’t drive your bowels into a stupor. The true question is jobs and families, the flower of our meaning, the source of our blessedness, we who have been chosen to raise up our people. These people can’t make it on their own, Frank, but they’re our future, those tots of ours in carriages, little boys on the altar, darling girls playing hopscotch, God bless them all, the world is not Irish, Frank, and it was never Dutch, if you’ll pardon the expression. We’re trying to do right, elect progressive people who want to promote the general welfare of our great city and great state, we need people in office who matter, people like Elisha, who’ll do what is good for them, and for us. That’s all we ask.

  Then Roscoe remembers how McCooey, coming back from a phone call, yet another pee, and still buttoning the fly, finally puts it: “I can’t keep all my people in line. They want Lehman.”

  “We don’t need all
your people,” Patsy says, and his flinty eyes are sparking as he looks over his little specs at McCooey. “Give us the six we can make it, John. Six.”

  “Six might as well be sixty. Frank means what he says. If he gets in, and you know he will, he’ll cut us dead on patronage, state and federal both.”

  “He’s already cut you dead. But Elisha won’t.”

  “Or Jimmy,” says Curry.

  But the Times and Daily News this morning quoted Al as saying he couldn’t support Jimmy for re-election. McCooey reminds everybody of this.

  “Al won’t back Jimmy,” McCooey says.

  They all have seen the papers. Patsy grinds his molars.

  “Al says that, but he’ll go along with us,” says Curry.

  “Where the hell is he?” Patsy asks.

  McCooey shakes his head and sighs, so weary of this, and Roscoe remembers the door opening on Al just then. He enters in his rumpled tuxedo, back from an afternoon wedding, gravy on his shirt and satin lapel, and he’s had a few pops, wants to change and rest awhile before the convention reconvenes.

  “Hello, Governor,” says Curry.

  “Christ, haven’t you solved this yet?” Al says.

  “Did you really tell the papers you won’t back Walker?” Curry asks.

  “Jim’s all done,” says Al. “The people don’t want him in there anymore. Tell him not to get off the boat.”

  “We’re running him,” says Curry, “and we’ll elect him.”

  “If you run him, I’ll run for mayor against him.”

  “On what ticket?”

  “I could run on a Chinese laundry ticket and beat you,” Al says.

  “We’re very close on Elisha,” Patsy says.

  “You’re not close,” says Al, “you’re finished.”

  “Lehman’s people are asking if Elisha will take lieutenant governor,” McCooey says.

  “No,” says Patsy.

  “What’s the difference whether he takes it or not?” says Al. “They don’t need him. This argument’s done and over. Lehman’s through the roof.”

  “You’re with Lehman?” Patsy says.

  For six weeks Al has been promising Patsy and Roscoe he won’t endorse Lehman unless Curry does; won’t do FDR any favors. Al brought FDR out of physical retirement to become Governor in ’28, and FDR nominated Al for President, but this June, at Chicago, FDR took the presidential nomination away from Al, and the happy warrior went into a deep and angry sulk. But tonight he is back in the spotlight.

  “Lehman,” says Al, “supported me all-out in ’28. He gave me half a million, and I’m with him till the cat comes back. I’m nominating him tonight.”

  “You hook-nosed sonofabitch,” Patsy says, “you did it again.” He stands up and Roscoe sees that curled fist. “You threw us in.”

  “You green baloney,” says Al, “you don’t even belong in this room. You’re still a truck driver in my book.”

  “Are you giving us those six?” Patsy asks McCooey.

  “I’m tired, Patsy. We held it as long as we could. It was a good fight.”

  Patsy turns to Curry. “What do you say to this, John?” he asks.

  “Tell Elisha we’re solid with him for lieutenant governor,” Curry says.

  Pluperfect Memory

  Roscoe and Alex separated at the bottom of the cemetery slope. Joey Manucci opened the back door of the limousine for Roscoe as he slid in beside Hattie-with-no-more-tears.

  “What was that all about?” she asked.

  “He’s worried about me,” Roscoe said. “He thinks I attract disasters.”

  “You attracted me.”

  “You’re not a disaster, you’re a sexual force of nature.”

  “Roscoe,” Joey said, “you’re not making a pass at the widow, are you?”

  “She made a pass at me,” Roscoe said.

  “I’m telling the priest,” Joey said.

  “Good,” said Hattie. “Tell Mother Superior too.”

  “I myself find this shocking,” Roscoe said. “I’m not used to sex in the cemetery. Tell me about 1932, the night Elisha lost to Lehman.”

  “You mean did I have sex that night? No. And you were no help.”

  “Don’t blame me for your dry spells. Do you remember Pamela that night?”

  “She stayed at one of my places. Obnoxious woman. Attractive. She climbed all over Elisha whenever she saw him.”

  Roscoe can now see Pamela sitting with the Albany delegation during that last session of the Democratic convention. The night is growing wild as the politicized mob, almost as many thousands on the street outside the Armory as inside, rushes the police line to see the historic confrontation of Al Smith and FDR. Will they spit in each other’s eye? Will Lehman and Elisha come to blows? Pamela sits in the first Albany aisle, two down from Veronica and Elisha, in Patsy’s empty chair. Pat the loser won’t sit, won’t put himself on display. Elisha is in his chair when Farley mentions his name as the next speaker, and fevered applause breaks out for the almost-Governor, what a fight you put up. They love you now, Eli; but ten minutes from now? Who can say how long love lasts?

  Roscoe, standing by the stairs to the speakers’ platform, watches Elisha rise, then lean over and kiss Veronica. Pamela rises also, and as Elisha passes her on his way to the microphone she does her boa-constrictor number, big huggypoo, big kissypoo. Once past Pammypoo, Elisha makes a speech that has more sincerity and solidarity than is necessary from a betrayed man. It is an honest speech from a profoundly loyal Democrat. He truly wants FDR to be the new President, and Lehman the next Governor; never wanted that for himself, was repaying the Patsy debt, and will go on repaying it for two years as lieutenant governor, the job Patsy now calls the door prize: no authority, not much patronage goes with it, and your only hope of advancement is for the Governor to drop dead. But Elisha cannot wish anyone ill, or be false to himself, which is why Roscoe, try as he might with memory’s eye, cannot see in Elisha’s behavior the lie that would make all that flirty intertwining with Pamela anything more than family effusion. Did he actually go off with her to her Jay Street lair this afternoon when they both disappeared? Did he take her to some dark speakeasy for a back-room flip? He could have focused on her in any number of rooms at the Ten Eyck, but Roscoe doesn’t believe these possibilities. Roscoe sees Elisha’s face in memory and cannot find a trace of the necessary concupiscence, or intrigue.

  “Stop at the grocery,” Roscoe said to Joey. “Get me four Hershey bars. I won’t have time for lunch.”

  And when he was gone Roscoe asked Hattie, “Do you think Elisha ever got it on with Pamela?”

  “God knows she was ready,” Hattie said. “And he did have a bit of a stable back then, didn’t he?”

  “I don’t know how serious he ever was about that.”

  “He was amused by women.”

  “Many are. He was also at a low point, with the mill and the loss of his daughter. And he was drinking too much. He was in New York often, and she did live there.”

  “Why are you bringing this up now?”

  “I’m trying to imagine him as Gilby’s father.”

  Hattie went silent at that, and in her silence Roscoe again sees the finale of the convention, the thrill, the bathos really, of the reconciliation on that stage when FDR shakes hands with Al and says, before a hundred newsmen and the whirring newsreel cameras, “I’m glad to see you, Al, and that comes from the heart.” And Al retorts, “How are you, old potato?” Hats fly into the air, and roars erupt from the headless, hatless mob at the restoration of affection between its not-quite and next presidents. Even Roscoe feels, against his will, this ready-to-wear emotion in his throat as enmity is publicly buried and harmony rises from the grave. But Al really will not stay harmonious for very long after this night, for it will quickly become clear that he will never be a New Deal insider, that his days of power and influence are over. And he will then become FDR’s vigorous enemy. Nor are Roscoe and Patsy destined to be New Deal wheelers. Their
dream—the Patsy dream that Roscoe borrowed—of proximate power at a more exalted level, also died with Elisha’s defeat. We came so close. But that’s that and quit brooding, says Roscoe. Think of tonight as the festive prelude to FDR’s presidential victory, which is only a month away: a Democrat in the White House at long last, a Democrat up at the Capitol.

  Roscoe, Patsy, and their Albany legion will officially bury all rivalries, will deliver heavy pluralities for every Democrat on the ticket. They will awake on the election’s morning-after and Roscoe will call Patsy to say for the first, but not last, time, “Pat, we are Democrats, remember? And we are steeped in Democracy. We own the city, the county, the state, and the nation. Things could be worse.”

  They also own the splendor of the night that follows the convention’s end, the midnight streets as bright and crowded as Times Square at the theater hour, lines forming in front of the restaurants, dance bands carrying on with their hot and sweet duty at the hotels, speakeasies guarded by plainclothes Albany cops against untimely raids by dry agents who should mind their own business on a night like this. Lights will burn all night long in The Gut, a time to get well, girls, and, in the Ten Eyck’s ballroom, Elisha’s private party is throbbing for half the town. Roscoe in memory sees his allies and kindred strangers shoulder to shoulder in the social afterglow of all that political stardust. He sees Hattie being wooed by a state senator whose name has long been erased from Roscoe’s memory. Bart Merrigan is ready to deck whoever pinched his wife on the elevator, but Bart can’t decide which of three men did it. The Democratic women are in great demand by the randy Manhattan delegates, and when Roscoe brushes against Veronica he says, “I remember you,” and she answers, “And I you.” Waxey’s beer is on tap, and Roscoe sees Mush monitoring the movement of two more kegs of it; but the Waxey-Mush axis will soon be redundant, the real goods coming back, and Roscoe’s Stanwix will again become the label of choice at political gatherings, also at all saloons hoping to prosper in the city. Mike Pantone’s six-piece jazz band is playing “Walking My Baby Back Home,” and in a corner to the right of the band, partly hidden by a potted palm, Roscoe sees Alex offering his silver hip flask to his Aunt Pamela, precocious youthful reveler joining the party. They learn quickly.