“Still got it, Claude ol’ boy,” he said out loud. “A little thinking, a little planning, and that brain of yours can figure out anything, damn near anything.”
His brain kept working all right. It noticed the way the furnace made a rolling thud when it shut down. It noted the metallic clicking the refrigerator made when it kicked on. It focused on a dripping outside the family room window, tap, tap, tap, tap, one drop after another of the previous night’s snow melting, rolling down the roof, falling somehow not into the collection gutter and down the pipe but over the gutter and through the air until it struck the cheap, hollow aluminum pipe with an amplified thwack! that pierced Claude’s brain and contracted the muscles in his shoulders and back. God damn. Still, Claude didn’t get up to investigate, to pull the ladder around to that side of the house and see the clump of frozen leaves forming the trickle bridge that led the water past the gutter, through the air, and to the tinny gutterspout below. Nah, he’d have to put on shoes for that.
And that might require more hunt than he had in him, what with the mess he’d created in the family room. Week-old dishes, clothes of all kinds, newspapers, magazines, empty vodka bottles, three or four chock-full ash trays—somewhere there were a pair of shoes or two, but under what, he didn’t know.
I wonder what the guys are doing, he thought. Let’s see, 1:15, the poor suckers are probably unloading a delivery, or are stuck in the stacks getting ready for 2:30 when the trucks roll in. The snow was light, and didn’t come with much wind, so there probably weren’t many outages. He pictured Frank leaning on his safety bar, doing nothing in particular, Scotty scurrying around with printouts, Darezzo cat-napping on his forklift. He thought of Felicia. Mmm, Felicia. Such beautiful black hair, the blackest. Dark eyes, with irises no lighter than her pupils. Strong, thin, arms and shoulders. Perfect little cans. That ass. Mmm, Felicia.
Hell I could be mentoring her, teaching her everything there is to know about stores, showing her how to dodge Schulke and when to scoot up to the nest for an afternoon breather. Show her the Sharon Room. Mmm, Felicia and the Sharon Room. For twenty minutes, he invented scenes of Felicia in his head.
When the Felicia daydream broke, Claude pondered his replacement. He tried to think of linemen and meter readers with enough seniority to get into stores, but no names came to him. Maybe they hadn’t filled it at all. Maybe it was still open. The corners of his mouth rushed down, and his eyebrows rushed up, stretching the cheekskin between. But then he shook his head. Nope, he thought, I don’t want nothing to do with that hellhole. I’m better off here.
He looked around, at the sticky dishes and the dirty socks and the bottles emitting tiny gulps of evaporating vodka, and the smartass in him pounced on his own straight line.
“Oh yeah,” he said, “I’m a whole lot better off here.”
He grabbed the remote control and flipped through the channels, watching an hour of television without spending a full minute on any single show. On one of the all-news stations he caught something about the Supreme Court modifying the Americans With Disabilities Act. A reporter from Washington gave the details.
“Labor groups and disability-rights organizations were stunned by the ruling, in which the court asked if the inability to do specific job tasks made a worker disabled. The unanimous answer was no, that for an impairment to qualify under the ADA it must significantly impact, in the words of Justice O’Connor, the types of manual tasks of central importance to people’s daily lives, end quote. People who can wash themselves, make the bed, and brush their own teeth may no longer fall under the protection of the ADA umbrella even if they do have an illness or injury that prevents them from performing certain functions of their job. Of course, the verdict was hailed by business groups, which have long complained that the scope of the ADA had been broadened by the nation’s courts beyond the original intent of Congress when it enacted the law in 1990. Analysts I spoke with off the record say American businesses will save hundreds of millions of dollars over the coming decades by increasing productivity and reducing the costs of replacement workers and workplace modifications. But the real losers, Bill, are those men and women who are disabled today, but will be forced to go back to work tomorrow—or face termination if they don’t. From Washington, I’m Carlos Lima for Newswatch Today.”
Claude squeezed the mute button. Or face termination if they don’t? Shit. Is that me? But they can’t. I have it in writing. I’m disabled, now and forever. They can’t fire me just because stores has spiders. Or can they? Screw it. If they say I’m not disabled, I’ll go back to work.
Chapter 45
Claude shaved for the first time in days while Jamie ironed his clothes for the Christmas party. He wore a pair of straight leg dark blue Dockers, with a white short sleeve dress shirt and a red tie with a winking Santa on it. He felt both Christmassy and patriotic at once. When Jamie forbade him to wear work boots to the party, Claude didn’t dare cross her, and dug as instructed under the bed to retrieve a pair of misshapen but unscratched oxblood loafers. Even after he managed to force his feet into them, the tip of the left loafer pointed skyward.
The party began at 7 but Claude was ready at 5. Since he figured it’d be cheaper to get a head start at home, he poured a big screwdriver and slugged it down. Still, he couldn’t wait. He paced until 5:30, then grabbed his coat and hopped in the truck. Although he took the long route, he arrived an hour early. The front doors weren’t yet unlocked. He waited in the truck, figuring others would pull into the parking lot and wait with him, but no one did.
At 6:20 he saw a waiter come through the front door and light a cigarette, so he walked down the hill from the parking lot to Sparta-by-the-Sea’s main entrance. The waiter smiled as Claude passed. Inside, bartenders made final preparations, cutting limes here, counting the cash box there. After checking his coat, Claude ordered a beer. Although he was the only customer, once he’d been served nobody paid him any attention, so he leaned on the bar and watched waiters in black and white scurry around. Despite his urge to down his beer, he nursed it. After ten minutes at the bar he decided to walk around the place.
Sparta-by-the-Sea was technically on the ocean, as long as an inlet of Narragansett Bay qualified as the Atlantic, but Sparta-by-the-Sea didn’t need the ocean to succeed. It had beautiful lawns—in the summer anyway, not in December, when the grass clumped in the mud of melted snow—vine-covered trellises, bench-lined walkways, and a double row of trees leading down to the bay. During wedding season it was booked at least a year in advance, sometimes two years. The bigger your party, either in numbers of guests or in social importance, the more likely you were to book Sparta-by-the-Sea.
The lobby wasn’t anything spectacular, just a bar and coat rooms and rest rooms and doors to the kitchen, but once you stepped from the lobby to the main hall, either from the first floor or by taking stairways on the flanks to the balcony, you stepped into the nineteenth century. The hall was simple, without fancy carvings or ornate metalwork. The white walls were bare. A white rail with fence-like slats fronted all three faces of the balcony, and behind the rail lay a ring of two-person V.I.P. tables. One step up was another ring and more tables, and one more step up was another ring and more tables. Behind the third level of tables, another white rail separated the V.I.P.s from the traffic of the boardwalk-like promenade.
There were modern touches, of course: the stage was too large, with too many electrical outlets, to be nineteenth century; the maroon tablecloths departed from the general tone of the decor; and the black-cushioned four-legged chairs looked as though they’d been purchased on sale from an office supply megastore. A disco ball also hung over the stage.
But opposite the stage hung the piece of Americana that brought forth images of political bosses, of men in striped suits holding tall signs for McKinley/Hobart and Bryan/Sewall, of non-voting women in hoop skirts and wide hats holding Renoir painting parasols, of gosh and golly and watching daytime baseball for a nickel a ticket. Oppos
ite the stage, suspended between two white pillars, was an American flag, a giant one, ten feet high and twenty feet wide. But it wasn’t cloth. It was wood, a big, thick slab of wood, cut into a curl as if rippling in a stiff August breeze. Red, white, and blue paint had been applied in the right places. Red and white light tubes outlined each curling stripe, and in the field of blue small white light bulbs represented stars. At one point the flag had been a wonder of innovation, no doubt about it, despite its eight stripes and sixteen stars, and one could easily imagine the collective gasp a marveling throng made in the dawn of commercial electricity when that beautifully painted piece of wood suddenly lit up in vibrant red and white. Indeed, the cultural eyeblink that was America’s transition from flame to light bulb trumpeted Sparta-by-the-Sea’s heyday: the flag came from the days when the country moved from horse to auto, from still photos to silent movies, from a tentative, expanding nation to a country ready to flex its muscles on the world stage. The lessons of the robber barons of the Gilded Age had been learned, with Congress passing laws to curb corporate greed. The lessons of sweatshops and killer coal mines and the value of a day’s work were beginning to be learned too, with worker unions rising to demand safe conditions and a living wage. Before long, a great economic collapse would force governments to mitigate volatile capitalism, to trim wealth from the handful who held it and toss it down to those who didn’t, and more lessons were learned. More lessons were learned.
Claude looked up at the flag. “About time they dragged you to the dump, ain’t it old boy? Your time’s no longer.”
He climbed the stairs to the balcony and meandered the promenade, looking out the windows and glancing down to see if anyone else had come into the main hall. Claude downed the remainder of his beer and headed for the lobby.
When he descended the stairs he saw a large man he didn’t recognize. As he ordered another beer, Felicia Lopez emerged from the coat room and sidled up next to the man.
“Felicia,” Claude called. “How are you?”
When his beer arrived, Claude walked over to Felicia, stepping so close that she had to back away from her date.
“How do you like stores?” Claude said. “Have you learned everything there is to know? Say, who replaced me—I mean, not who moved up into my slot, but who came in on the bottom?”
“Bugsy, I’d like you to meet my fiance, Brad,” Felicia said.
Brad extended a hand. Claude missed a little in his grasp, and ended up with only fingers in the heart of the other man’s paw, which felt a little feminine, but rather than regrip and do the whole thing over, Claude simply drew his hand back and put it in his pocket. Felicia used the handshake to slip to the bar and order two drinks.
“So what do you do?” Claude said.
“Police officer,” Brad said.
Claude waited for some elaboration, but it didn’t come. Felicia returned with the drinks. After handing a scotch and soda to Brad, she turned to Claude.
“So Bugsy, nice deal you got for yourself, eh?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, fake headache, sweetheart deal from human resources. Pretty slick.”
“I didn’t fake a headache,” Claude said. “It’s all legit. But you’re right, it’s a sweetheart deal. Miss me?”
Felicia fought back a laugh. “Oh, sure, you bet. It’s just not the same there without you. That’s the truth, too.”
Claude beamed. The three sipped their respective drinks. Brad put an arm around Felicia’s shoulder.
“You want to walk the promenade?” he said.
Felicia nodded, and they turned toward the side stairway. They shifted their drinks so they could hold hands as they ascended the stairway. At the top, Brad held the door open so Felicia could pass to the balcony, but when he let go of the door, it didn’t close as he expected. He turned and saw Claude.
“So who replaced me in stores?” Claude said.
Felicia mumbled the answer. When Claude fired another question about work, then another, and another, Felicia picked up her pace, leading Brad, and Claude, to the center stairs, down them, and across the floor. Once in the lobby again, Felicia announced she was going to the bathroom.
“Women,” Claude said to Brad. “Can’t hold two sips of liquor without running to the can.”
Brad stared at Claude. “Um, excuse me,” he said. “Excuse me.”
He turned to walk away, but when he saw Claude begin to follow, he wheeled back around and placed a hand against Claude’s chest.
“No,” Brad said. “Excuse me.”
He walked into the main hall. Claude shrugged his shoulders. By now more guests had arrived, though most were management. He saw a fellow union brother, George Mara and his wife—Hilda? something horrible like that—across the room and strode toward them.
“Hey, Georgie boy,” Claude called. “How’s life in the meter department?”
“Same old, Bugsy, same old. Geez, I didn’t expect to see you here. I thought you weren’t at the company any more.”
“I’m still an employee,” Claude said. “I’m just on disability.”
“I heard. Have you met my wife, Hazel?”
Hazel held out a tiny hand. “Years ago,” she said. “You’re the son of the old union president, right?”
“That’s right,” Claude said. “Jackie Amognes, the best president the UUW ever had.”
Hazel nodded her head and held her smile. George slipped his arm around Hazel’s waist and moved her toward the bar even though they both had drinks already.
“Hey, Bugsy, can I buy you a drink?” George said.
“Sure, George, sure, that’s awful nice of you.”
“Okay,” George said. “Wait here and we’ll be right back.”
The Maras left. Before they reached the bar, they were stopped by Ian McCoy and his wife. Hugs and handshakes were exchanged, and with a big smile George moved again toward the bar. The crowd started to thicken. Claude watched as George spoke to a bartender, saying something that elicited a laugh. The bartender turned away. George leaned on the bar, removed a bill from his wallet, and set it near his elbow. The bartender returned with two drinks. George took them to the McCoys, and the Maras and McCoys left the lobby without a glance toward Claude.
The smile left Claude’s face, and he watched the door to the main hall for a moment to see if George would return. When Claude realized he wouldn’t, he glanced quickly to his left and right to see if anyone witnessed the scene. No witnesses, at least none he could see. He downed his beer and edged to the bar to order another.
As he waited for service, Claude saw couple after couple come through the front door and burst into smiles upon running into another couple. Groups of four laughing faces turned into six, ten, twelve. People shook hands and kissed cheeks. Little begloved wives touched the exposed shoulders of other little begloved wives. The noise level rose and the happy energy flowed. Bartenders buzzed to keep up with orders, pointing to the next customer before the current customer had collected his bottles and paused to map a path back to his group. Although it seemed some of the bartenders had overlooked Claude, he didn’t mind, because as long as he held an empty beer bottle, he was safe at the bar.
But his new beer arrived, forcing Claude to step through the crowd to find friendly faces. He bumped into Dan Thompson, who didn’t mention the disability and seemed genuinely interested in talking about fishing. Claude and Dan chatted until Dan’s wife, Terry, pulled him by the elbow to come talk with the Fitzgeralds. Dan apologized to Claude, and rolled his eyes to tell Claude, well, got to please the wife. Claude smiled and sipped his beer.
For a few minutes Claude stood by himself. He saw Gino and Elton arrive, but didn’t move to greet them. Then he saw John and Jane Carrollton come through the door, and back came Claude’s smile.
“John, Jane, how are you?” he said before they’d even closed the door behind them. Claude spoke with Jane while John dropped off the coats and fought his way through the cr
owd at the bar. Jane asked about Jamie and Joan, and Claude put a good spin on life at home, badmouthed Schulke a little, and talked about how great it was to not have to go to stores every day. By the time John returned Jane hadn’t spoken, but for her initial question and a series of “yups,” “uh-huhs,” and “I sees.”
“John, dear,” Jane said, “I think we should go in and find seats.”
John agreed, and Claude followed them toward the main hall. Each table sat ten people. John paused a second upon entering the main hall to scan the room, then headed for the far corner where Felicia and Gino sat with their dates and Elton sat with his wife. John sat next to Elton. Claude jumped into the seat next to Jane and launched into chatter with her, asking about her kids, her yard, what she planned to buy for Christmas. While talking with Jane, he avoided eye contact with the others at the table. Before long John interrupted to bring Jane into his conversation with the MacGibbons, and Claude immediately stood and walked to the bathroom.
He did have to go, but his real purpose was to run into Scotty or Frank, or even Junior. After Claude entered the men’s room, the crowd behind him forced him into line for one of the urinals. But when Claude’s turn came, nothing happened, even though he was on his third beer, and with all eyes upon him he had to endure the embarrassing moment of zipping up without going. Guys snickered as he passed through the door.
Again he downed his beer. While he waited for another, he found himself next to Brianna Mickleson.
The Jig of the Union Loller Page 34