September Song

by Andrew M. Greeley

  He had to be twice as tired as I was. More adrenaline, I told myself.

  “We’ll take care of her, Ed,” I heard Vince Antonelli say. “Could we give you a lift back?”

  “I should stay with Dr. King,” he said firmly. “Thanks anyway.”

  Peg and Vince supported me on either side. A lot of people talked. The crowd replied as Negroes did in church, “Oh yeah! You’re right! Tell it like it is.”

  We sang hymns again. Astonishingly my adrenaline cut in yet again. My high surged back. I shouted and screamed as loudly as any Negro.

  Then it was all over and, still supported by my best friend and her husband, I stumbled back toward our Hertz car. I almost fell on my face as I stepped over a low concrete barrier. A young guardsman reached out to grab my arm.

  “Thank you, soldier,” I said brightly. “Thank you for everything.”

  The kid’s face split into a wide grin.

  “Yes, MA’AM !”

  “See, Rosemarie,” Peg, like the good April, had to make their point, “some of them are nice boys, just like he is.”

  Chuck was waiting at the car.

  “What took you so long? I have to get this last batch developed!”

  He swept me up in his arms.

  “Rosemarie, you’re wonderful!”

  “I just want to sleep for forty-eight hours and soak my feet in water while I’m sleeping.”

  I promptly went to sleep in the rear seat of the car, still in Chuck’s arms.

  Thank you, I told the Lord in my last waking moment. I am really an idiot to leave five kids at grandma’s house and come on this crazy adventure. Thank you too that it’s all over.

  My final gratitude was premature.

  I heard a sharp whine, something hit the window of the car and shattered it. Then there were several more whining sounds. The car leaped forward as though it had a turbocharger.

  “They’re shooting at us,” Peg screamed.

  “Hang on,” Vince shouted.

  My husband, who never swears, cried out a string of angry expletives I didn’t think he knew. But this is a dream, I told myself, so it’s all right.

  There was one more whine but it didn’t hit us.

  “Peg?” Vince asked, a choke in his voice.

  “Covered with shattered glass, but all right,” she murmured, her voice small and unsteady.

  “Chuck!”

  More fearsome obscenities.

  “Rosie?”

  “This is a nightmare.” I sighed. “So I won’t tell the good April the terrible things my husband said.”

  When they all laughed nervously in response, I realized it wasn’t a dream.

  “Well,” I said piously, “God didn’t let them hit any of us.”

  I curled up and went back to sleep in my husband’s brave arms.

  Two people died on that road the next day.

  I was exhausted the next morning, but my high was back. While Chuck worked in his makeshift darkroom, I bounced around the Negro quarter hugging people and singing with them, a weary Peg trailing behind me. Then she borrowed a Negro’s fiddle and we went into our usual act to the delight of the locals.

  Vince found us later and said that Chucky had finished his work and wanted to leave at once so he could begin producing prints. Suddenly I wanted to be home. Now. Back in peaceful Oak Park in my own Dutch Colonial home with my own children. Enough history for a while. Chuck was still riding high.

  “Rosemarie, this will be a book, a historic archive for the peaceful triumph of the nonviolent Civil Rights Movement. The Negro problem in our country is over. Martin Luther King is one of the great Americans in the whole history of America. An American Gandhi!”

  Chucky Ducky doesn’t usually get grandiloquent

  At the airport the man wanted to know what the fuck we’all done with his car.

  “Some white trash shot at us,” I told him before saner voices could be heard. “Almost killed us.”

  “Serves y’all right for not staying up North where you belong.”

  “You didn’t hear what our Southern president said the other night?”

  “Who’s goin’ to pay for what y’all done to my car?”

  “It’s Hertz’s car, you redneck asshole, and their insurance company is going to pay for it because I didn’t initial the waiver. I didn’t figure it was safe riding down your focking white-trash roads.”

  “Rosemarie!” Peg snapped.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” I said, putting on my humble-pie face and voice. “You get shot at in the night, you get a little edgy.”

  “Yes, ma‘am,” he said, “I surenuf can understand that. Praise the Lord that none of y’all were hurt.”

  “AMEN to that,” I replied fervently.

  “He done delivered y’all from the valley of death.”

  “And keeps us under the shadow of his wings.”

  “Surenuf!”

  “Chucky Ducky, where did you find this babe?” Peg asked.

  “She used to hang around with my sister when we were kids.”

  Chuck worked on his negatives on the flight back to Chicago.

  “Make the prints tomorrow and then ship them off to New York. They may want to use them next Sunday or the Sunday after.”

  We were met at the airport, like conquering heroes, by Vangie and the good April. Of course there was a celebration at their house with the usual crazy O’Malley songfest and drinks all around, save for me and my husband, who sipped Lapsang Souchong tea. The nine cousins cheered us and sang with us. Poor little Moire of the flaming red hair hugged me, and said, “I saw you on television, Mommy. You were singing and you were really pretty.”

  Her big sister did not share her enthusiasm. I was going to have a problem there. Did she resent our risking our lives? Or perhaps leaving her and the others alone for a couple of days? There was no telling what the crazy and very risky adventure might do to a sensitive fifteen-year-old’s head.

  Tomorrow, I told myself. Tomorrow.

  I woke up at least a dozen times that night. The rifle shots continued to whine by my head. I finally slept for a few hours and woke up, groggy and confused, about ten. I poured my morning cup of tea. Then suddenly it hit me. I had taken a reckless chance with my life and the lives of my friends. If it had not been for me, they would not have gone to Selma. If they had been killed, it was my fault.

  I glanced at the newspaper and sipped some more tea.

  The Marines had landed that day at Danang—the other side of Lyndon Baines Johnson.

  I would not tell Chuck until the prints were finished.

  I confessed my insanity to him as he worked feverishly in our darkroom.

  “St. Crispin’s Day,” he muttered, as a print came up in the tray.

  “What?”

  “You know, Prince Hal, men abed in England … Selma will be our St. Crispin’s Day for the rest of our lives. We were mad do it. But thank God we did it.”

  “And that we came home alive.”

  “That too!”

  “You’re not going to send that print of me and Eddie to the Times, are you?”

  “No! Your picture’s been in there too many times this year. I’ll save it for the book.”

  “Well, at least I have all my clothes on.”

  Chuck suspended his frantic work for a moment.

  “That really doesn’t make any difference, Rosemarie, my darling.”

  I left, lest I get into another silly argument with him.

  April Rosemary, in her plaid Trinity High School uniform, cornered me in my Edwardian, oak-paneled office where I was working on notes for my next conversation with my shrink. (Chuck had once insisted that it was more expensive than the Oval Office.)

  “I want to have a very serious conversation with you, Mother.”

  When I’m mother I am generally in deep trouble

  “Of course,” I said with equal formality.

  “Do you and Dad realize what you are doing to us?”

  O
h, boy.

  “Suppose you tell me.”

  “All the kids at school make fun of us because they say our parents are weirdos.”

  “The boys too?”

  “Mother, that’s not the point.”

  “And what is the point?”

  “Why do you and Dad have to be different from everyone else’s parents?”

  She wasn’t angry about the risk to our lives. She was angry because we were different.

  “Do they make fun of your cousin Carlotta too?”

  Carlotta was Peg’s daugther and April Rosemary’s “best friend.”

  “Mother! You know Carlotta is an airhead. Besides, her parents weren’t on television yesterday like you and Daddy and Uncle Ed.”

  “You’re embarrassed because we were on television yesterday … I’m sure we weren’t on for more than a few moments, were we?”

  “Mother, you don’t understand! You’re on television all the time!”

  I thought about demanding to know what other times, but decided against it.

  “Kids make fun of you because we’re on television?”

  Tears welled up in her eyes, tears of anger.

  “Why can’t you and Daddy just be like everyone else’s parents?”

  I bit my tongue. She was new in Trinity and different from the other kids, none of whom had spent almost four years in Germany. A few jerks were trying to put her down. At her age in life that meant that the whole world had suddenly turned cruel.

  Little bitches. I hated them just like I hated those who made fun of me twenty years ago.

  “Daddy is a very great man, April Rosemary. He doesn’t quite realize it and he doesn’t act like he’s great, but he is. You have to let him be who he is. Maybe you could even be proud of him.”

  “I just wish you and Daddy would understand what his greatness is doing to my life!”

  “There were very bad things happening down South, dear. Daddy felt … we all felt … that we ought to do something about it.”

  “Why couldn’t the Southerners do it themselves?”

  Tears were now pouring down her cheeks.

  “The Negroes can’t get their rights by themselves. They need our help.”

  “Why should you help them? If they can’t help themselves, isn’t it their fault?”

  Ah, the little bitches were racist and had racists for parents.

  I struggled to contain my temper.

  “Jesus said that whatever we do to the least of the brothers and sisters we do to him.”

  “Did he also say that you had to make your children feel like fools!”

  Angry sobs shaking her body, she jumped out of her chair and dashed from my office.

  Selfish little bitch!

  She would get over it.

  Yet I had lost her. I went over my words. Was there anything I might have said that would have helped? Probably not. She wanted to punish us. And she had.

  Not since I went sober had I thought that I might be an embarrassment to my children.

  I sat silently in my chair, paralyzed. I felt like one of the bullets fired the night before last had hit me. I could not even cry.

  Then a mass of red hair appeared at the doorway to my office, followed by the face of Moire as she peered around the corner.

  “Morgen,” she said in German. “Wie gehts?”

  Our youngest had absorbed the German language more completely than the rest of us. Imp that she was—a womanly Chucky without any of the hangups—she loved to pretend that she knew no English. Unlike the Trinity girls, her first grade classmates thought she was hilariously funny.

  One of her tricks was to enter a room with a fierce scowl as though she expected to fight someone and then, after giving the scowl time to have its impact, her face would light up like the Palmolive beacon on the top of the Drake Hotel and she’d rush at the nearest available lap.

  In this case, mine was the only available one.

  “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!”

  “What dear?”

  “Can I be with you on television the next time!”

  I tried to explain to her that there wouldn’t be a next time.

  Chuck dashed into the office, a large, neatly wrapped box propped up against his chest. He swooped down to hug and kiss his youngest child.

  “Off to the airport to put this on a plane to New York,” he said. “See you when I get back.”

  Everything Chuck did was neat. In reaction to the relaxed condition of his family life he had become almost compulsively fastidious. We had problems over this in our early days together because, in addition to being a drunk, I’m also a slob. I tried to get my act together, and I did improve. Then one day he said, “Rosemarie, there’s no reason why you should be as compulsive as I am. I wish I could be a slob.”

  So of course I relaxed and improved considerably—I was about as neat as the good April and Peg, not very neat by the Polish American standards of “Missus” our wonderful housekeeper.

  These thoughts did not distract me from the conviction that I had lost my daughter and might never get her back.

  Then the boys and Moire erupted back into my office—the poor little tyke trailing behind them but running to keep up. Their teachers thought I had been wonderful on television and praised me for my courage. April Rosemary’s problem was unique.

  No, there were probably jerks in the grammar school too, racist kids with racist parents, but boys would simply laugh them off.

  April Rosemary’s problem was unique among our kids because of age and gender and sensitivity. Unique so far anyway.

  I had lost her. It must be partly my fault.

  I made some more notes for the shrink, a new one since Dr. Stone had moved to Boston.

  Our dinner that night was typical—as many conversations as there were people. Except for April Rosemary. She sulked.

  Later that night, I waited naked in bed, the covers folded down at my waist for Chucky to finish his work in the darkroom.

  Finally, my husband ambled into our bedroom, so tired that he could barely walk a straight line. He closed the door softly.

  “I am a mere shadow of my former self,” he said, standing over me and smiling, “and the woman wants to make love.”

  He touched one of my breasts lightly. I winced as the electricity of desire rushed through my body.

  “Ah,” he said appreciatively, “the woman needs to make love. I should perhaps tease her ever so gently.”

  “You can do whatever you want to me, husband mine, but I must tell you about the conversation I had with your daughter this afternoon.”

  I told him as he undressed, slipped into bed next to me, and folded me into his arms.

  “I’ve lost her, Chucky. I know I’ve lost her.”

  “She’s trying out her role as an adult, Rosemarie,” he said softly. “We’re the first ones around to oppose. It’s part of growing up.”

  “It will never be the same between us.” I found that I was weeping, though I had sworn I would not. I did not want to spoil our bout of love.

  “In a way you’re right, Rosemarie. If we’re patient with her, however, and love her no matter how much of a little idiot she is, we will develop a new relationship with her which will be much better. You’ve been wonderful with her so far. Now we both must learn to be patient.”

  Where had he picked up all this psychological mumbo jumbo? Doubtless he’d read a book.

  “She hates us.”

  “For the moment. Someday soon she’ll celebrate our St. Crispin’s Day memories with us.”

  “How soon?”

  “I don’t know, Rosemarie. Maybe real soon. Maybe not for a long time. We have to believe in her and the faith and love we’ve had for her all her life.”

  “It’s probably my fault because I was a drunk when she was a kid.”

  “I don’t think so, Rosemarie. She loved you till last week. She’ll work it out eventually. God gives us children to take care of for a few years, then He expects us to
give them back to Him.”

  “She’s too young.”

  “It will do us no good to try to push her. We never have.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t have gone to Selma.”

  “Don’t say that, Rosemarie. Don’t let her blackmail us.”

  “Where did you get all this wisdom?”

  “Picked it up on the run, I guess … You still want to make love.”

  “OF COURSE I do.”

  So we lost ourselves in the deep well of passion. I slept soundly after. No more rifle bullets whining by my head.

  The next morning I woke up worrying about my daughter, about all my children. Would they all have to leave us?

  I also worried about my husband. He was as worried as I was about our kids. Since I am a neurotic and a drunk, he had to pretend not to worry.

  That wasn’t fair.

  4

  “Rosemarie, how many pounds have you gained since the last time we spoke with one another?”

  I had spilled out to my shrink the madness of our Selma excursion and my terror over April Rosemary. She responded by asking me about my weight.

  “Five pounds?” I suggested.

  Her gray eyes twinkling, she shook her head, a mother superior with a dishonest but amusing novice.

  “Three?”

  Dr. Ward shook her head again as if the novice, however appealing, was chronically dishonest.

  “A pound and a half,” I admitted, feeling very guilty.

  She sighed patiently.

  Her office was a tiny room overlooking Harlem Avenue, and a park across the street struggling to emerge from a Chicago winter. Two chairs, a desk, and a shelf with books and a few snapshots were the only furniture, save for the photos, a perfect setting for my novice mistress. Or confessor.

  “I thought we had agreed, Rosemarie, that, attractive as you may be when you look like an escapee from a prison camp, your physical and mental health require that you weigh ten pounds more than you do.”

  “I think I can remember that.” I granted her point.

  “You could at least snack on the way while you’re rushing madly about.”

  “That’s the way people my age get fat,” I argued stubbornly.

  “Shall we worry about that bridge in the unlikely event that we come to it?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”