The City Below

by James Carroll

  "Hey, isn't that—?" Mullen checked his question when he saw Squire's face, connecting it to hers, the look between them. Squire seemed timid, that was the first clue. And the woman—surely it was Terry's wife from the other day—seemed made of stone.

  Even before Joan reached ground level, she was moving, with her eyes fixed on Squire. Mullen began instinctively to back away, aware as he watched her leave the stairs and come forward that she did not see him. By the time she reached Squire, Mullen was safely on the fringe of the crowd, still watching.

  Joan stopped a few feet short of Squire, whose face showed nothing.

  "Do you feel better, Nick?"

  "Feel better?"

  "Now that you've fucked your brother. Wasn't that the point of fucking me?"

  Squire smiled. "Gee, it sure felt like you, just you."

  "It will never happen again. Do you understand that?"

  "I wouldn't want it either, sweetheart. Not that it wasn't great."

  "You got what you wanted, as usual."

  "Are you afraid I'll tell? Is that it?"

  "No. That would ruin it for you. I see that. But if you ever did tell Terry, it would destroy him—not because of me doing it, but because of you. You may not know this, but he loves you. He loves you, you bastard."

  Squire said nothing.

  "Get out of his life. Stay away from us. Do you hear me?"

  Sail Squire only stared at her mutely.

  She stepped closer. "I'll tell you something else. If you ever did tell him, I'd—"

  He seemed as hard as she, as close to an extreme. But he mistook for reluctance the pause during which she allowed weight to accumulate on her statement Without meaning to, he yielded something when he indicated curiosity by raising an eyebrow. You'd what, sweetheart?

  "—kill you," she said.

  ***

  Only moments had passed with Terry standing on the ledge of the masonry wall near the JFK Building. Now he saw Joan pushing through the crowd. She had seen him first, and when his eyes fell on her she waved, but there was doom in the gesture, not joy. He thought that was because of the scene she'd found herself in. He hopped down from the wall but remained by it, waiting for her.

  She ran across the last stretch of the brick pavement. With none of the composure he'd thought of as her absolute possession, she threw herself on him. He took her weight without budging.

  She held him as she rarely had before, and he misunderstood entirely. "They didn't get him," he said. "He got away."

  "Who?"

  "The senator. They would have killed him, but they didn't. He's safe. He's gone. It's Bright I just can't find."

  "What?"

  "Bright disappeared. I don't know what happened to him." Even as he spoke, with his mouth and nose at her hair, his hands tight on her slim hips, Terry began scanning the plaza again. Most of the crowd, heading off toward the Common or thronging the subway stop, had their backs to him. Even so, it was such a simple matter seeing them all as white.

  "Christ," Terry said then, "look who's here."

  As Squire passed the tag ends of the crowd, coming through them, the men and women gave way for him ever so slightly, and Terry recognized his brother's power. And at that moment it was only a relief to do so. Mullen came up behind, but it was only his brother whom Terry saw.

  "Nick, Nick—I can't find Bright."

  Squire had once searched for ways to get his brother to need him. He'd imagined Terry capsizing out in the harbor channel and waving desperately from the upturned hull of a dinghy. He'd imagined him getting stuck in the narrow storm pipe below the navy yard, pulling him out by his heels. He'd even imagined him asking for a job after he left the seminary. But the wish to help his brother had died with the expectation that he ever would. Besides, he was now thinking of Joan.

  She had not released Terry.

  "I can't find Bright!"

  "What happened?"

  "We were with Kennedy. When the mob pushed in on Ted, Bright disappeared. I saw him shoving back, same as I was, but then—"

  "Then?" Squire was what, making him spell it out?

  Terry shrugged helplessly, then looked down at Joan, soil in his arms. He turned her toward his brother. "Look who's here," he said again.

  Joan continued leaning against Terry. She knew how important it was to look at his brother, to speak his name. She raised her face. "Hello, Nick." But her eyes fell on the other one, the man she recognized as the leader of the gang who'd hung the effigy. His lips were parted and turned up in a half sneer—the smirk, she realized, of his knowledge. How did this creep know? Her former strength, the will with which she'd just confronted Nick, had evaporated. She simply could not keep track of herself. Who was she now? What would she become? Everything in front of Joan blurred as she thought of Nick and this lout discussing her. It would amaze her later that she had not, right then, simply ceased to exist.

  "Hi, Joan," Squire said. "We meet again."

  "Help me find him, Nick. It's my fault if something happened."

  Squire raised a hand at Mullen. "Check it out, Jackie."

  "What do you mean?" Jackie said.

  "Your radio. Call your dispatcher. Have him call the precinct."

  Mullen produced the walkie-talkie from inside his jacket.

  "Incidents involving Negro males..." Squire swept the scene with one arm. "How many Negro males are down here today?"

  "Negro male," Terry put in, "with an eye patch."

  Mullen brought the handset to his face, turning away. A moment later he swung back to them. "District One," he said. "They just brought him in."

  The station house was on the far side of the JFK Building, and they were there in minutes, only to find the entrance closed off by a barricade of paddy wagons parked bumper to bumper along the curb. The sidewalk was blocked by wooden barriers, inside of which a number of agitated uniformed and plainclothes police were milling. Terry tried to lead the way in, but a cop challenged him. He stepped aside for Mullen, who held up his credentials folder. Terry and Joan and, last, Squire, followed Mullen through. At the window cubicle inside the entrance, Terry pushed Mullen aside and demanded of the desk sergeant, "We're looking for Neville McKay."

  Jackie leaned back, his badge against the glass. "A nigger with an eye patch."

  The cop swiveled away from the window to confer with others. He came back "He's still in booking. We're not—"

  "Booking!" Terry yelled against the glass. "McKay is Senator Kennedy's AA! What do you mean, 'booking'?"

  "Just what I said, Mac. The man is being charged—"

  "He was protecting Kennedy," Terry screamed. "What the Boston Police clearly were not doing."

  "That so?" The cop's indifference was amplified by the metal grate through which his voice came. "You say his name is McKay? He didn't give us a name. He didn't mention Kennedy."

  "I'm mentioning him. You arrested the one black on City Hall plaza? Out of five thousand people, the only black? What is this, Mississippi?"

  The sergeant stood up. He pointed toward the entrance, speaking now to Mullen. "Get him out of here before—"

  "Hold it, Sarge," Mullen said, "hold it."

  But Squire pushed Mullen aside, and his brother too, stepping to the window, grinning like a bettor at the track. He put his mouth against the grate and said softly, "I want to see Lieutenant O'Brien. Tell Chuck O'Brien that Squire's out here. Tell him he's got a problem that Squire wants to help with."

  The desk officer shrugged, then crossed to a nearby door.

  Two cops at a metal desk beyond had been watching, and one of them raised a forefinger at Squire, who nodded.

  The sergeant returned with the lieutenant following, a Red Auerbach look-alike whose most impressive feature was the cigar in his mouth. He opened the cubicle door and waited as Squire walked over to him. They spoke quietly for a full minute.

  Then Squire turned to Terry. "They didn't know who he was. They'll bring him up."

  "No. I want
to see him now. I want to see where they have him."

  "Look, Terry, you've got to let these guys play it the way—"

  "No way, Nick."

  "What are you here for? To make a scene, or to help your friend?"

  "Make a scene? Me? After what your assholes have pulled? You talk to me? Goddamn you, you've done this before."

  "What?"

  "Thrown Bright to wolves, your wolves. Or have you forgotten? Are you happy with your Charlestown Marshals now? Or were they supposed to kill the senator? Why is Bright McKay under arrest and not you? Tell me that, Nick, will you?"

  Squire said, "Get yourself under control, Charlie."

  Terry turned to the lieutenant. "Take me to McKay."

  The lieutenant said, "We don't have a name."

  "The one-eyed nigger, Lieutenant. Take me to your one-eyed nigger."

  The cop looked at Squire, who shook his head in apology. "This is my brother."

  "The spoiled priest?"

  "That's right," Terry said coldly. "And also director of Senator Kennedy's Boston office."

  Lieutenant O'Brien took the cigar from his mouth and tapped it with marked defiance, so that the ash fell at Terry's feet He reached behind the door, to an invisible hook, for a ring of keys. "All right Come with me. Just you."

  Joan grabbed Terry's arm. "No. Take me too. Don't leave me here. Not with bim."

  "Lady, believe me, you don't—"

  "I'm not staying here."

  O'Brien rolled his eyes at Squire.

  Squire said, "I've got checks to write, folks." He backed toward the exit, grinning. Joan alone refused to look at him. He added with a mocking flourish, "Besides, I'm out of my element."

  "I'm coming too," Mullen said.

  Lieutenant O'Brien winked at him. "Still on the payroll, Jackie?"

  Mullen stopped, an emphatic interruption. "What payroll?"

  "Why, the governor's. Who else's?"

  "And you, Lieutenant?" They looked at each other out of similar, pug-shaped faces, joined by mutual expressions of contempt "I'll be sure to tell Captain Harris what a great job you're doing." Mullen followed Squire out.

  O'Brien led the way through an adjacent steel door. It opened on a starkly lit set of cement stairs that led down to a cinder-block corridor. At another heavy door he pressed a button, and while waiting to be buzzed through, he said, "The bear cage."

  The door opened on yet a narrower section of corridor, which was marked by a row of barred cell doors. Despite the furious outbreak on the plaza and the shattered wall of glass at the Kennedy Building, the holding cells were mostly vacant. Vagrants and drunks, but not Powderkeg rowdies, stood bleary-eyed at the bars as Terry, Joan, and O'Brien passed.

  In a cell at the end of the corridor was a lone figure in dark trousers and a white shirt. The man had folded himself into a corner on the floor next to a lidless steel toilet bowl.

  "Bright?"

  McKay brought his head up from his knees. His shirt was soiled and torn. His tie was gone, and so was his suit coat He had been holding a handkerchief against his brow. When he pulled it away, a red gash could be seen on his forehead above his good eye.

  Terry said, "Why hasn't that wound been treated?"

  O'Brien passed his hand across his own face, as if shooing a fly.

  Bright got to his feet and went to the bars. He spoke haltingly, through swollen lips. "I'd get a doctor, they said, when I signed a statement admitting I resisted."

  "When you told us your name," O'Brien corrected.

  "What difference does his name make?"

  "That wound is deep," Joan said.

  "It's not even bleeding," the cop answered.

  Bright held out the red cloth in his hand.

  Terry passed his own handkerchief through the bars. "Get him out of there."

  O'Brien unlocked the door and pulled it open. "Why didn't you say who you were?"

  Coming out of the cell, Bright put his face in the cop's. Its bruises and welts and the high color of his flushed brown skin were more visible now. "Because every time I opened my mouth, one of you motherfuckers hit me. So then I decided to just shut up and see how far you bastards would go."

  "And how far was that?" O'Brien asked.

  Bright looked at Terry. "Do you have a pen, a pad?"

  "Yes."

  "Take these numbers down." Bright waited while Terry pulled his pen out. Then he dictated a series of three- and four-digit numbers, a set of ten of them perhaps. Badge numbers. When he'd finished he turned to O'Brien.

  "Your word against theirs, Mr. McKay," the cop said.

  "Right. And against the doctor who sees me now. Against these two witnesses. In civil rights law, that's plenty."

  It wasn't, as Bright knew. And Terry knew it too. He admired his friend's defiance, especially when he saw the policeman falter, which was all Bright hoped for.

  "We offered treatment," O'Brien said. "You refused to sign a waiver."

  "Bullshit I saw what you wanted me to sign. There's no question of a medical waiver. This is one nigger who reads, Lieutenant." Bright turned to Terry and Joan. "Can you get me out of here?"

  Terry led the way down the corridor, past the other cells. One prisoner hissed, "Fucking coon!"

  The door buzzed open even before they reached it.

  On the street outside, Bright stopped. In the sunlight, the beating his face had taken was even more evident One side of his jaw was badly swollen, and the skin on his lips was raw. He touched the fresh handkerchief to his head.

  Joan went up on her toes to look at the wound. "We've got to get you down to MGH."

  Bright did not move, and neither did Terry. They were alike in looking up at the surrounding buildings, the distant City Hall. They had the air of men who'd just survived a car wreck.

  Finally Terry put an arm around each of them, but it was to McKay that he spoke. "Do you see what I see?"

  "This fucking city?"

  "I hate it as much as you do."

  Bright looked at him. "No. You don't."

  But Terry was still scanning the buildings, as if seeing them for the first time. A new idea was taking form in his mind. He said, "I'd like to show this town. Christ, I'd like to show it."

  "Show it what?"

  "Something it's never seen before." Terry looked at Bright. "I'd like to show it you and me."

  "Terry—"

  "No, listen. You and me, Bright. We should make a move on Boston. Let's take it on."

  "For Ted?"

  "For us!" Terry squeezed Bright and Joan both. "Christ, what a fool I've been." Doyle thought of that bench on top of Bunker Hill, how he'd longed for Boston to know of his existence. He said, "I thought that by serving —Kennedy, before him; the Church—but serving isn't it at all." The strength of his new idea, whatever it was, seemed all the strength he needed. "That's over," he said. "I don't want to serve Boston."

  "I get it," Bright said. "You want to own it."

  "Yes!" Terry laughed out loud, and he hugged them again, in the thrill of his recognition. "It's what I've always wanted."

  ***

  That night Joan took the black trillium into the bathroom and put it on the shelf by the tub. Nick's words hung in her mind: "The soil moist, but never wet." She plugged the tub and let the water run until it was full. Then she put the pot into the water, submerging the plant halfway up the stem. She took a pair of clippers and snipped the blossom. She put it between her hands, her own personal flower of the plague, and crushed it, what Terry had known to do immediately with his lapel flower. Now she knew too.

  Then she undressed and put on her striped pajamas. She went into the living room. Nearly an hour before, after the news with its scenes of the mobs assaulting Kennedy, the film showing the shattered glass, Terry had told her he wasn't ready for bed. He'd remained in front of the television. Now Johnny Carson, wearing a beanie and shoulder pads, was impersonating President Ford playing golf.

  Joan said, "I thought you might come in."<
br />
  "You still awake?"

  She watched him from behind, his broad, unmoving body. Women all over America going to bed without their husbands. No wonder Johnny Carson's laughs were always sly, as if he knew very well what was layered beneath his silliness, all his innuendo, all the prancing beauties, all of Ed McMahon's cracks about sex—and all the simultaneous, secret shuddering with loneliness, the going to sleep in shifts, the nightly ritual of not touching. We will not be such people, she told herself. We simply won't.

  She stood with one foot in back of the other, like a dancer. She looked at the glass on the floor beside his chair, drained again, and she thought perhaps he was drunk. Drinking and television—he would not become one of those men whose forest-size need to believe and to do is cut down to such stumps. He simply wouldn't. His will—she hoped this was so—was a match for hers. They only had to find each other again.

  "Then wake me up when you come in, would you?" She hesitated, then added, "I'd like to make love."

  Terry turned in the chair to look at her.

  "I'm just very full of feelings, Terry. After today. I don't want to be alone."

  He got up to turn the television off. When he faced her, she was gone.

  In the bedroom she was waiting for him with her pajamas off, the sheet covering her. The only light was on the table beside the bed, and when he came in he turned it off and sat next to her. Through the sheet he touched her breast, gently, admiringly, then turned away to undress.

  Pulling the sheet back carefully, he lay down beside her. They embraced with a tentativeness that had been unknown when they'd begun as lovers, but that had become customary between them. His passion began to mount To his surprise, she was way ahead of him. They kissed more deeply, wrapping their arms and legs together. His fingers found her clitoris, but when she arched up at him impatiently, he pushed one finger into her vagina, to moisten it, as she'd instructed once.

  And then he stopped.

  "You've forgotten your diaphragm," he whispered.

  "No. No, I haven't."

  "It isn't in you. I don't feel it."

  "I don't want it, not tonight." She put her face on his, pushed her tongue into his mouth, rolled onto him.