by Scott Simon
“Berggren, Forty-nine!” called Lew. Anders pulled up to his desk to say, “Agras,” and Sunny sat up and steadied himself against the desk for the last vote and what would follow. Don Stubbs had turned to Lew Karp. His hand folded over the small microphone reminded Sunny of a bear enwrapping a berry. He could hear his note brush Lew's microphone as he lifted it up. Donald took off his hand and turned back to his microphone as he looked down at Sunny.
“The alderman of the Forty-eighth Ward,” he said, “should preside for this last vote.”
The clock behind the rostrum gave off a tin pop! as it snapped down to nine-fifteen as Sunny walked back to the stairs in the chamber's sudden, consummate silence. He heard the sole of his shoes scuff against the hard brown carpet of each of the four stairs. Don Stubbs was there to take his hand and swing the back of the mayor's burgundy chair around so that the deep red seat faced Sunny.
“Go out in the big chair,” Donald told him.
Sunny sat down and drew himself up to the rostrum with a smile. He nodded down at Lew Karp to proceed.
“Sefran, Fifty!” called Lew. Sunny could see Jaco begin to rise, but before he could answer, Evelyn Lee had climbed to her feet and waved a yellow legal pad of paper for recognition.
“Mis-ter President!” she called. “Mis-ter President!” Shirley Watson of the 16th, sitting to her left, put her arms against Evelyn's hip to steady her as she waved; so she waved harder. Sunny was puzzled but not displeased; it was another minute to hold the smooth gavel in his hand, to call out names, and thread a way through problems with immediate and practical answers.
“Does the alderman have a procedural question?” he asked.
“Yes. Am I recorded on this vote?”
“Oh,” Sunny heard himself say. Now that Vera had fallen short in this ballot, Evelyn might want to record a vote for Fred Sandoval before the count was closed. The change would do Vera no harm on the ballot; it might do Evelyn some good in her ward. You had to let someone who gave you a vote when it really counted make the best arrangement for herself when it no longer did. Sunny nodded gravely to Lew Karp.
“The alderman is recorded as voting for Vera Barrow,” he replied.
Evelyn had handed the pad to Shirley Watson. She wrung her knotted hands.
“Well I would like to change the way you have recorded my vote,” she announced.
“To what, alderman?”
“Sundaran Roopini,” said Evelyn. There was a quick handclap from someone in the gallery, swiftly hushed. Sunny was perplexed, but leaned forward with a smile.
“The chair thanks the alderman,” he said. “But my service here has been honor enough. Maybe a tie for the holidays; I have always admired the alderman's taste. But the chair is not a candidate for mayor.” Sunny tugged up his tie again and sat back from the rostrum.
Evelyn Lee stayed on her feet.
“The alderman is not offering a tribute. I am casting a vote. I think the ringmaster ought to know the animals by name,” she said, and when the aldermen surrounding Evelyn began to laugh and clap, including Dorothy Fisher of the 3rd and Wanda Jackson of the 4th in front of her, and Regina Gregory of the 34th at her desk behind, Sunny decided to amiably move on.
“The chair thanks the alderman. And now, Mr. Clerk—”
“Mr. President! Mr. President!” It was Wandy Rodriguez on the other side of the chamber. “Mr. President, am I recorded on this vote?” Sunny could not look past Wandy; he had carried too much for him. He lifted his left hand to hold back Lew Karp's reading of the final totals for a moment and answered, “I remember that one myself. You are recorded as voting for Alderman Sandoval.”
“However,” said Wandy. “I would like to change the way I am recorded.”
“It is the alderman's right,” said Sunny, uncertainty making his voice quaver, as if he had tried to hold a long note.
“Put me down for Roopini, too,” said Wandy.
“Rodriguez, Thirty!” Lew Karp repeated at full cry. “Votes for Roopini.”
Then John Wu was on his feet, from the first desk in the second row, waving a water glass for recognition. Two seats down, Kevin Corcoran stood up, and in the row behind them, Emil Wagner, who flapped his arms and called out, as if trying to catch the attention of a search plane. Sandy Booker rose in the center of the second row, barking, “Mr. President! Mr. President!” as if trying to keep a spaniel from running into the street. Sunny could see Astrid Lindstrom and Gerry White stand, just in front of his empty desk. He looked out over all the bobbling, bawling heads, for Rula and Rita, and finally saw them; Sgt. Gallaher, too, standing just behind. His daughter's eyes bubbled. Rula, then Rita, raised their hands alongside their faces, and when they were sure they had caught Sunny's gaze they nodded their heads and shook the tears from their faces. They nodded up and down.
“Perhaps,” Sunny began to speak from the rostrum. “Under the circumstances …” He looked down to Vera Barrow: fifth desk, first row on the left. Her face was amazed and amused. She put her hands together, as if to clap, then kept them folded at her chest, and simply bowed her head to Sunny.
“Perhaps,” he went on in sudden quiet, “I should remove myself from the rostrum. If the alderman of the Twenty-seventh Ward would please return …”
He came down the stairs in a daze, four steps after another, and not feeling a toe against the ground. The sergeant-at-arms cocked her head at someone from the City Clerk's office to give up his seat, a folding chair just below the rostrum. The young man moved, legs, arms, like a marionette being shaken and snapped. Sunny heard Don Stubbs's voice boom above him.
“Doesn't anyone here know how they voted?”
Jaco Sefran's trained voice carried above the others. “Mr. President,” he implored. “I didn't get to vote! The clerk called my name and before I could answer, this tsunami started.”
“Let me assuage your grievance,” said Don. “Mr. Clerk?”
“Sefran, Fifty!” Lew Karp repeated.
“Sunny Roopini!” Sunny heard Jaco call back. Don Stubbs called on Sanford Booker, who changed his vote for Vera Barrow to Sunny, and then on Astrid Lindstrom, who changed her vote to Sunny from Alfredo Sandoval. Sunny felt a rising sensation in his lungs and had to bend over at his waist to breathe. He saw the boat-heavy black, thick-soled shoes of about eight men and women in plain blue or gray suits begin to form a circle around him. The radios at their belts squawked; they replied and turned them down. When he could sit back up, he saw the backs of half a dozen uniforms. Sgt. McNulty drew by his side, and leaned down.
“Breaking up is hard to do, sir,” he said. “I'm back.”
Sunny looked up to smile, but McNulty's eyes scoured the crowd standing and waving behind the glass of the second-floor gallery.
Sunny could peer between two stout elbows. Vera Barrow had waved for recognition, and as soon as Donald Stubbs had said, “The alderman of the Fifth Ward,” the chamber was hushed. Sunny heard only small static squalls from police radios, the click of ballpoint pens, the mousy squeal of chair wheels being pushed back from desks. Vera began with a breath.
“Mr. President,” she said and paused, then raised her chin. “I move that Sundaran Roopini be made the choice of this council for mayor by acclamation.”
“Second! Second, Mr. President!” Sunny could see Arty Agras, Dorothy Fisher, and John Reginald in the first row.
“Roopini! Roopini!” John Wu began a chant in the second row. Emil Wagner and Shirley Watson picked it up. Janet Watanabe of the 20th and Mitya Volkov of the 19th began to clap along as they sang out each syllable. “Roo-pee-knee! Roo-pee-knee!” Along the rear row of the chamber, Keira Malek and Harry Walker III began their own cheer. “Sun-knee! Sun-knee!”
Somewhere in the clamor and commotion Don Stubbs called the question. The room was swept with a welter of Ayes. He called for Nays. Sunny was sure that several aldermen would have cast ballots against—Daryl Lloyd; Felix Kowalski; maybe Keith Horn and Cyril Murphy—but they did not feel embold
ened to shout back at a mob of hurrahs. He heard none. Don brought the gavel down. Sunny felt hands at his back and elbows push and steer him through the blue and gray suits and onto the rostrum. Don Stubbs placed the gavel in Sunny's hand. The chamber turned quiet, as if a plug had been pulled. The clock above the rostrum sizzled with a small buzz as it swept down to the half-hour.
“Good lord,” said Sunny, “I hope we'll be able to explain this in the morning.”
Sunny used the gentle babble of laughter that followed to turn his eyes down to the rostrum and think before he raised his head. He raised it just slightly.
“I came to this city as a child,” he began. “Our children were born here. My wife is buried here. We miss her—painfully. But in Hinduism, we like to think that her soul has been released. We are pretty sure, though, that her soul chooses to stay within the city limits.…”
He heard Linas Slavinskas laugh, then Brock Lucchesi and Collie Kerrigan.
“Long before I ever got the hang of Christmas, Hanukkah, or even Super Bowl parties, I learned about St. Patrick's Day,” he said. “It was always among the first things we were told about the city. People said that the lake is east, the Cubs are north, and the Sox are south. The Loop is the circle of elevated train tracks. Well, an oval, really. And we were told ‘They dye the river green on St. Patrick's Day.’ We thought, ‘Ah, this is our holiday.’
“You see,” Sunny continued, “there is a Hindu holiday called Holi. It's usually in March. For a few days, we can paint ourselves in bright colors and say to hell with all the formalities and restrictions of caste, gender, and age. People dance, they drink, they question gods— whatever they're not supposed to be able to do. And so it seemed to us that this was St. Patrick's Day here. All the babies in green snugglies and jammies, the grown men and women wearing green bowler hats and top hats. All the green sprouting in lapels and wound around necks.”
He wound a hand near his shoulder in illustration.
“So there was this St. Patrick's Day, about ten years ago,” he said. “At noon I marched in the parade with my ward. The Great Forty-eight. We were miles behind the Slotkowski Polish Sausage float, the Journeyman Plumbers Union float, and the float from the Pipe Fitters Union. All the brass bands from St. Patrick, Sacred Heart, St. Benedict, Cardinal Bernardin, Francis Xavier, and Our Lady of Perpetual Help. All the city workers, from Parks and Rec, and Streets and San, holding brooms and shovels over their shoulders like parade rifles.
“I remember the weather that day—so improbable for March. You could take off your topcoat. The parade ended in the late afternoon. I decided to walk north, toward home. I crossed the bridge over the green river. I looked west and saw the El running alongside. I looked east and saw the blue-gray lake, and the sun setting off these streamers of light in all the skyscraper windows. I walked down Michigan. I turned onto Rush, and then State. People spilled into the streets, talking and laughing. People in the park tossed footballs, and danced with their dogs.
“I sat in the window of this coffee bar. I'm trying to remember— perhaps it wasn't really coffee that I had. Sitting there, I saw a second parade of faces and slogans. ‘Irish Girls Know Italians Do It Better’— that was my favorite. Perhaps Alderman Ruffino would agree.”
From his seat in the left side of the third row, Aidan Ruffino called out, “My mother sure did!” Sunny acknowledged him with a smile, and went on.
“You know, on St. Patrick's Day, you often read the button or the scarf, then see the face. So you'll see a sweater saying, ‘South Side Irish,’ look up and see an Asian woman, or an African-American man wearing it. And I believe they mean it—Irish as a word for having a little bit of boisterous fun in your heart.
“So as I was sitting there, two young women passed the window. Early twenties, clad in green, laughing loudly and dancing as they walked. It took me a moment to see that they were Indian. I'd take them to be from farther north than our family, maybe Gujarat or Madhya Pradesh. No matter. We saw each and smiled. As if to say, ‘Fancy seeing you here, such a long ways away.’ It wasn't until we nodded that I noticed their foreheads. Right at the center.”
Sunny held his index finger to the center of his forehead and pressed gently and perceptibly before bringing his finger back and going on.
“Where some women might put a bindi, or a reddish dot of reverence on her forehead, or even a caste mark, they each had a green shamrock. There is no caste here. No reverence. Just—Chicago.”
He turned his head down for a moment, kept his hands folded on the rostrum, then brought his mouth subtly closer to the microphone as he brought his voice down.
“I know this place can be cold—very cold,” said Sunny. “Brutal, and uncaring. I know it can be hard, unsparing, and loveless. I know—my daughters and I know—how in a single, unpredictable instant—”
Sunny drew his hand across his chest; as if to suggest the weeping drip of a wounded heart.
“But we also have so many amazing lives to fulfill. This city takes in people from all over the world. It leaves its mark on us all.”
Sunny stopped. He raised his head, and opened his mouth, but only breath came out, and he halted. He looked out into the chamber. He saw Linas Slavinskas stand, then Jesus Flores Suarez and Tommy Mitrovic, then Vernetta Hynes Griffin and Astrid Lindstrom, Jane Siegel and Adam Wojcik.
“Chicago!” Linas cried. Then Fred Sandoval sprang up with the same cry, and Vernetta, Astrid, and Regina Gregory in the back row. Cries of “Chicago! Chicago!” rang the chamber.
Sunny looked down toward Vera Barrow; he still couldn't speak. He raised the gavel in his hand, feeling like a child wielding a toy hammer.
“Mr. President,” said Vera imperturbably into her microphone. The cries and chants died down.
“I believe our business is concluded,” she said in the quiet. “We have worked the night shift and done an honest job. I can hear birds twittering, and smell bacon frying. Mr. President, I move to adjourn.”
“Second! Second!” called out a chorus of voices; cries from the gallery chimed in. Sunny could feel his own voice surge back into his throat, even though he could only say, “Without objection—” and bring down the gavel.
“Keep it, sir,” said Sgt. Butler when Sunny handed the gavel back to her. “It should be your souvenir.”
“They gave it to him,” he told her. “It should go back.”
“You'll get plenty more,” she said.
Sunny looked around for his daughters. The floor of the council seethed with bleary, blathering aldermen staggering between their desks to talk. Most of them turned their faces to try to find Sunny.
Daryl Lloyd raised his strong arm in salute, and when he caught a look from Sgt. McNulty flexed his palm open and shut to say, “See? Nothing there.” Collie Kerrigan shouted something about a contract to remove solid waste from an abandoned site on south Kildare. “Six-hundred cubic tons of pooh, Sunny!” he shouted. “Stuck in committee!” Sunny tried to lean down from the rostrum to say something, but he was deferentially and forcefully nudged along at his elbows by Sgt. McNulty, who muttered behind his ear, “The scrum is getting a little thick, sir.”
He saw Rula. Then Rita. And then Sgt. Gallaher, her long hands curled like pink talons over a shoulder of each. She steered the girls through the droves toward Sunny, in tiny, faltering steps. He waved. He kissed his fingers and blew it their way. His daughters laughed, and Sgt. Gallaher's blue eyes brimmed when they caught Sunny's. They drew close and as the girls left the harbor of her long arms, her arms wound up around Sunny. He turned his head to put a kiss on her cheek, thought better of it, thought again, and then the two of them found each other's lips, as quickly and imprecisely as children trying it for the first time. They tried again.
Tina Butler had climbed through to crowd to Sunny's side, and fell in step. As they nosed along she called up to him, “There's about a thousand chihuahuas right outside the chamber, sir. You want to talk to them?”
“Might as wel
l give them a chance to get their teeth into my ankle, Sarge.”
“Okay, I'll break a path,” she said, but before she stepped ahead, she tightened her fingers along Sunny's arm.
“Oh God I miss him,” she said suddenly. “Such a rotten, gutless thing they did to him, may they rot in Hell. But I'm happy about you, sir. Maybe my crazy bastards here finally got something right.”
“We'll try to give them a good show, Sarge.”
They stopped at the swinging doors that opened onto the large, walnut room just outside the chambers. Vera Barrow had managed to scrape her way to Sunny's side and took an arm. Linas Slavinskas had been bumped so hard, his sandy pompadour was bucked from its perch and hung down over an eye, peek-a-boo style. He took Sunny's other arm and patted his hand, “Pallie,” he said. Art Agras and Alfredo Sandoval had scrambled through the uniforms, and clambered to stand right behind Sunny. They raised and wriggled their heads above his shoulders, looking for the blink and glitter of camera lenses. Sanford Booker, Gerry White, Vernetta Hynes Griffin, and Carlo Viola pressed themselves against the locked arms of uniformed officers, who tried to hold back the throngs. “Sunny!” they pleaded and waved. “Sunny!”
“Hey, Arty,” said Linas. “A ménage. Your kind of scene.”
The aldermen threw their heads back and laughed. Tina Butler asked, “Ready?” Sunny nodded and took a breath. The big doors rocked open. A swarm of cameras began to chatter, whine, and pop. Black-headed microphones darted and hovered. Streetlights scattered snowy midnight fireflies in the windows along LaSalle Street. Skyscraper lights winked back. In the dark blocks beyond, all-night trains groaned around turns and fire sirens warbled and shrieked.
Bright lights gushed. Cameras fizzled and hissed. Linas Slavinskas churned his right hand in the air and called out, “Ladies and gentlemen, the mayor of Chicago!” as about a thousand chihuahuas yelped and shouted, “Mr. Mayor! Mr. Mayor! Mr. Mayor!”