Quartet for the End of Time

by Johanna Skibsrud

  Perhaps it was not such a long time as it seemed before Sutton understood. The Indian was the man, John, whose company they had for some time been anticipating, and whose dinner still remained on the table, in discrete portions. It was he who was the father of the child, and husband to small, pale Aida. It might have only been a few moments—just the span of time it took for John to settle at the table, and begin to scoop the portions of the meal, and scrape the meat that remained—still clinging to its bone—from her mother’s flowered serving bowl. It was so incongruous a sight that, as Sutton’s alarm diminished, she nearly laughed out loud. To think of what her mother or her father might say if they knew! She felt a distinct pleasure at the thought of it. There was nothing to be afraid of! She was sharing a table with an Indian whose child she had held just moments before in her own arms—whose plate she had eaten from on countless occasions, and would (if it managed to return itself to her mother’s kitchen) eat from on countless occasions again. What was there in that to be frightened of? What in the world could, after this, remain extraordinary or unknown?

  All of this over the course of mere seconds, during which time John settled himself, chewing thoughtfully. From time to time, he presented a small morsel to the child, whom he still held crookedly in one arm.

  Only after he had finished his meal did he begin to speak.

  It was true what they’d heard about Waters, the Indian told them.

  He’d disappeared again. Third time that month.

  Chet raised his arms toward the ceiling in an unreadable gesture, and looked pointedly at Arthur, who sat across from him.

  IT HAD BEEN WATERS who had rallied the first “troops” in Portland, Oregon, nearly six months before. His countless adventures between there and the Capitol—both rumored and true—had been regular currency for some time in the camp. Everyone traded in stories—their own and others’—and if you ever ran into the same one twice, it would be a wonder if you recognized it. An especially popular one was how the Waters gang had got hung up in Illinois, where the rail companies had been forbidden by law to give any more “free rides.” Trying to strike a deal to suit everyone, an engineer suggested the group might ride on top. Waters refused. It would be dangerous, he said, and besides, they wouldn’t have any way to bring their supplies. He organized his troops, instead, to unhook the train cars, so that no sooner had the train pulled out of the yard than it had to stop in order that the railway men could go and hook all the cars back together again. But by the time the train made to pull out once more, the cars had once more been unhooked by Waters and his men. It went on like that for some time. Finally the train master got down and made several telephone calls. (I called the police but they won’t come down, the cowards, Waters had heard him growl.) Then he turned and, begrudgingly, led Waters and his men to four empty cars at the back of the train, and they clambered aboard.

  THERE WERE RUMORS WATERS had fled as far away as Florida. Most suspected, though, he’d simply locked himself up in the well-appointed apartment provided for him by a certain Mrs. Evalyn Walsh McLean— who, as it was well known, had adopted Waters as her latest charity project. She had also provided, out of her own pocket money, sandwiches and coffee for every veteran and his family, on at least half a dozen occasions. It was for this, more than anything else—the beds, and expensive cast-off clothing for the children in the camps (her own children having already grown)—that Mrs. Evalyn Walsh McLean was much revered by most of the Bonus Army. There were some, though (due in no small part to the inevitable rapidity with which the sandwiches and the coffee disappeared), who remained less than satisfied.

  Wasn’t that just like a woman, Chet had said, for example, when the conversation came around to it, to think that a round of tea sandwiches and a few hand-me-down clothes could fix everything?

  Aida threw him a hard glare.

  I mean, of course, Chet said, women of a certain type.

  Says he’s sick, John said.

  Sick! Chet said.

  Are you only going to go on repeating everything that gets said? asked Arthur.

  It’s the health departments and not the government threatening to close us down, John said. Glassford’s working hard—I do believe he’s got our best interests at heart—but everything else seems to be lining up against us. There’s the health reports—

  It’s not the camps they’re worried about, Alden cut in. You know that! It’s the rest of the neighborhood. There’s been complaints—the camp is spreading out too far, they say. Out to the more … wellestablished neighborhoods. The “health reports” are just an excuse—

  Either way, put in Arthur, it’s not good news if the result is the same. There’s no result yet, Chet said. Nobody’s moving anywhere yet. This is all just talk.

  Then again, under his breath: Sick, he said.

  JOHN —ALDEN INFORMED SUTTON later, as they walked home together through the wet streets—had worked as a “code talker” during the war. In the summer of 1918, he (Alden said), along with twenty or so other young Choctaw Indians from southern Oklahoma, had been shipped to France as part of the 142nd Infantry. Shortly afterward, and almost by accident, it had been discovered that transmitting messages in Choctaw (a language unrepresentable in English or German, or any other written tongue) rendered Allied military communication virtually unbreakable.

  After the war ended, John had been kept on—transferred to a government division and employed for several years in developing a new military code, which, though still based on the Choctaw language, would no longer be dependent, solely, on the availability of native speakers.

  Now, like everyone else, the Indian was out of work, but he still had his connections in Washington, and, once more, his services had—if unofficially—been enlisted. For a small remuneration, the Indian supplied the War Office with regular reports on the “climate” of both the Anacostia and Penn Ave. camps—information that was then passed directly to General MacArthur, the Army chief of staff.

  DESPITE THE CLOSE EYE Washington was keeping on things, however —and how hard Waters himself worked to enforce his All-American Agenda—the camp’s reputation as a hotbed of Communist sympathizers and potential unrest only continued to grow. It was perceived, for example, that, by and large, the veterans were not really veterans at all—that they had another agenda above and beyond the passing of any Bonus Bill. In response, Waters had the camps “swept” routinely of possible Communist infiltrators, and tirelessly promoted himself for what he was: a committed anti-Communist. This inspired broad support from the veterans, who—on the whole, and despite the rumors— were a conservative crowd. They’d elected Waters for a reason—they appreciated the strict code of conduct he had introduced and now enforced in the camps. Many of the men (and Arthur was especially particular in this regard) dressed each day in a formal suit and tie, a sort of testament to the “all-American” integrity of their intentions, and those of the rest of the army. The suit Arthur wore was of a cheap quality, and because he washed it nightly as a point of pride, it had quickly become threadbare. Still, he took an obvious pleasure in it— and still more in keeping, folded within its breast pocket, his release papers, which proved that he had been twice honorably discharged: once in 1918, after being wounded at Belleau Wood, then again in January 1920, after serving sixteen months with the American Expeditionary Forces in Siberia—under some of the worst conditions the U.S. Army had ever seen. From time to time he would take the papers from his pocket, and smooth the crease between his fingers, almost absently, before placing them carefully back inside. The suit had been inherited, of course, from the Salvation Army—he had never otherwise owned a suit in his life—but the papers were his own.

  —

  IN THE KELLY HOUSE, IN THOSE DAYS, IT WAS A RARE EVENING THAT did not end with the Judge and his son nearly coming to blows—and always over the subject of the bonus, and the Bonus Army. The Judge was of the opinion, which he often expressed, that there was something deeply skewed at the very h
eart of the affair—indeed, Waters’s assertion of the “all-American” intentions of his men was certain evidence that this was the case. In contrast to what Waters seemed to assume, patriotism, the Judge said, was not a thing that could be bought or sold. No, indeed. Patriotism which is bought, he said one evening—just as the cook, Germaine, was bringing in the hot dishes and they were all sitting down to their meal—cannot, properly, be considered patriotism at all. Do you know who said that?

  He was speaking, as usual, pointedly to his son. But Alden kept his head down, and continued only to work away at a piece of meat on his plate, which stubbornly refused to detach itself from the bone.

  I am speaking to you, son, said the Judge.

  In answer, Alden’s knife scraped noisily across his plate. He stabbed the loosened meat with his fork and chewed slowly for a while, before nodding in his father’s general direction.

  Yes, I hear you, he said.

  The meat—unswallowed—was visible in his mouth as he spoke. Alden, his mother warned, that’s repugnant.

  The thirtieth President of the United States, the Judge said. The greatest leader this country has ever seen and—I have strong reason to suspect—will ever see. Yes—he continued—I am starting to get the distinct impression that you and your friends may be right, after all; that this great country of ours really will go the way of Rome, and somewhat sooner than expected. Eight years ago, Calvin Coolidge himself spoke those words. Patriotism, he said, is not something to be bought or sold— or, worse, he might have added, to be bartered with. But even he gave in, said the Judge; made certain compromises back in ’24, which we are surely paying for now. Everything at a price! Certain compromises—the Judge repeated—which threaten the very principles this country was founded upon; the soundness of which the Kelly family itself is living testimony! Had the Kellys not—the Judge asked, taking increasing pleasure now at the sound of his own voice—raised themselves up (as it was the clear right of all men in this country to do) from nothing at all? Had they not managed to build for themselves a life, the proportions of which only a generation before—from their tiny half acre on the Dingle coast—they never could have dreamed?

  A half acre, yes! Upon which, for a thousand years or more, they had toiled without hope of progress or change. When the crops failed—the Judge said—they’d simply starved. Were pushed off the land.

  That was 1847, the Judge said. (Though they had, all of them, heard the story—word for word—more than a dozen times.) The “Gregory clause” had just been put into effect. They had no choice but to sell! To move to a farm near Castlemaine, and work for other men. But before long, even that was gone. Their small cottage destroyed—literally lifted from under them. With a rope tied to each corner of the house, the Judge said, and the help of a single oxen team, the “crowbar brigades” could accomplish in minutes what otherwise might have taken ten men and a whole afternoon.

  After that, there was nothing to do but wander the streets and beg for a living—there being no longer any chance to earn one. They began to build their coffins with little trapdoors, so that they might easily reuse them. Imagine! The Judge shook his head. Three times the Kellys placed their dead inside coffins like these, and pulled the latch.

  Then (here the Judge’s voice rose as it always did at this point in the story) then came the rebellion of 1848 in which your Great-Grandfather, Michael (a nod, briefly, at Sutton and Alden both) was always proud to take part; he and his eldest brother, John. There being nothing more they could do for either themselves or their families in Castlemaine, they made their way to Tipperary. Joined O’Brien and his gang. They stood next to O’Brien himself, the Judge said (the same O’Brien who was soon to become—though nobody could have known it then—the most feared sheriff in the state of Montana; he cleared the plains of the Indians almost single-handedly, they say), their guns pointed at the farmhouse of a certain Mrs. Margaret McCormick, where the police (the scoundrels) had locked themselves, along with her five surviving children, inside.

  Later John would be shot through the heart by a stray bullet, and your great-grandfather would just barely escape with his life. In any case (and here the Judge sighed happily), the battle was lost. Michael, he didn’t know what to grieve for most—the loss of the battle, or his brother, John. Still, he was proud he had tried. But now there was nothing to do but leave the country that had thrice spurned him—once when it took his land, a second time when it took his brother, and a third and final time when it took his pride.

  Through all of that—the Judge said (his voice trembling now, as he stared around the table at his own family, each of whom, for their own private reasons, stared down instead at the table or their plate, or past him, toward the darkened window, refusing to return his gaze)—he himself, his wife, and three of his children, my father among them—the youngest, barely two years old—had managed to survive.

  They made their way first to New York. And from there—a more difficult journey still—on to the Indiana plains. Why? (The Judge was looking directly at Alden now. In his voice, for a brief moment, a note of genuine appeal.) What was there for them, there? (He slammed a fist on the table, to emphasize the words.) Nothing but dirt! But they turned that dirt into a life for themselves. By the labor of their own hands, they profited by it! That was the reason men came to this country—and thrived. They knew the meaning of words, then, when they spoke them—and the worth of the money they earned. They knew, then, that patriotism— patriotism (the Judge said, having found himself with some satisfaction back at his starting point)—was not a thing that could be bought, but something, instead, that grew in a man’s heart in accordance with the value he himself invested in the land he profited by.

  ALDEN HAD REMAINED CURIOUSLY calm while his father spoke, but now two bright spots appeared on his cheeks. How dare you, he said quietly—when, after only a moment’s triumphant pause, the Judge at last began to tackle his food, which for some time had been growing cold on his plate. How dare you talk about “fairness,” Alden said. I don’t believe that, for all your talk—about the meaning of words, and your pride in the fact that once—once, the Kellys, too, worked for a living—that you yourself have the slightest idea—

  But he did not have time to finish. Slamming both fists onto the table now, and knocking his plate back so that a newspaper, which had been concealed beneath, fell to the floor, the Judge had already risen. Alden continued to speak—his voice trembling with fear now, as well as indignation: what that word means, he managed. The Judge towered above them all, his face dark and swollen with rage. Again, he hit the table with his fist. The silverware bounced. A water tumbler poured its contents across the tablecloth, leaving a dark, temporary stain.

  You—the Judge said. Glaring across the table toward his son. But then something strange occurred. He became, suddenly, unsteady on his feet, and where his face had darkened with rage it was now blanched of color as a vague panic fluttered across it. After one uncertain moment, in which it was unclear to anyone—least of all, it seemed, to the Judge himself—what had happened, or was about to happen next, he sat down again, looking stunned. His wife’s eyes had remained riveted on him from the moment of his first shout. They did not look panicked or alarmed, only frightened in the way that they always looked frightened when something unexpected happened. The same expression had crossed her face, for example, only moments before, when she had exclaimed in unrestrained horror at the sight of Alden’s semi-masticated food.

  No one spoke. The Judge’s breath, though raspy and audible, soon regulated itself, and it seemed that the crisis—if one had indeed occurred—had passed. Sutton glanced briefly at Alden, then away.

  That, the Judge said bitterly. Right there, is the problem. You think if you give a thing a different name it changes that thing. You call them lazy, dishonest, you call them misjudged and underrepresented. At the end of the day it amounts to the same thing. Ten thousand lazy, dishonest, misjudged, and underrepresented men threatening to
overthrow the very principles upon which this country has been founded. Oh, sure, you can put a different shine on things for a while. But you know how quickly it’s going to wear off? You know how long you’re going to look good with that shine on you?

  But I wonder—the Judge cleared his throat. I’m serious now, he said. It’s a question that’s been plaguing me. Do any of your friends down there in the swamps really understand what it is they’re after? It’s kept me up nights. Do they, I wonder—the Judge said—even know what it is they’re asking? A bonus, my boy, is just another “name” we gave to the most basic sort of life insurance policy back in ’24! Payable at death— or 1945—whichever for these poor lads comes first. Do they understand that, I wonder? All of those boys are worth more dead than alive! Insurance, see. It’s a thing, like anything, you buy into. Something you earn . A calculated investment in chance—a commodity like any other. Bonus. If you’re looking to define your terms, you might want to start with that one. And here’s a hint, which you might pass on to your friends. Pressing for the payout now means the amount of money due is only a small proportion of the money that would be paid out in 1945. That’s how it works! The very principle of economics!

  The Judge began to chuckle. Alden, who had remained silent all that time, betrayed himself only by two small red squares, which had once again inflamed themselves on his cheeks.

  SUTTON COULD NO LONGER clearly remember when what had once been mere playacting became something more. There had, at one time, been only what seemed to her the same endless battle waged in the back room, where they had played, before their mother established herself more permanently there. Sutton was, for the most part, assured an integral part in the world Alden created for them, because she was always willing (so aware was she at all times of how ultimately expendable she was—it was, in the end, always Alden’s world) to take the less glamorous roles. She was endlessly taken for prisoner, locked behind a complicated network of their mother’s chair cushions, or publicly executed—her head dangling over the edge of a tipped chair. But she was never troubled on these occasions because she would, of necessity, be revived almost instantly—in order to serve as a messenger or, on rare occasions, an officer or even a general in the tireless operations of Alden’s imagination. It was so gradual, when it happened—that the imaginative battles gave way to real ones—that, at first, Sutton hardly noticed the transition at all. Hardly realized that the pamphlets Alden had begun to bring home (which he first read to her out loud, then left out around the house, in order—when they were not first prudently removed by their mother or Germaine—to be discovered by the Judge), or the copies of The Militant (which he had, on occasion, with the same glint in his eye with which he had launched all his previous campaigns, pressed into her hands) belonged to the real world. When she did realize it, it struck her as a great loss, not only to herself personally, but also to the world that she and he had once inhabited—so happily—together. By contrast, what little she knew of the “real” world seemed rather limited in scope and possibility.