by Alan Glenn
When a card was passed to him, he took out his fountain pen, scribbled down three names—Huey Long, Charles Lindbergh, Father Coughlin—and then passed the card forward. There. Up front somebody laughed—“At last my idiot cousin will get what’s coming to him”—and then Teddy collected the cards, breathing a bit hard, and passed them to one of the Long Legionnaires.
“Okay, item number two, some remarks from President Huey Long that we’re gonna play right now. Hank? Got the Victrola ready?”
There was a smattering of applause. Sam sat still, thinking about the other names on those cards. Sixty or seventy city residents were going about their business tonight, not realizing or imagining that they’d just been put on a list, a list that would eventually destroy them. Just like that firefighter O’Halloran, carving toys from scrap wood, peddling them on the street. Something cold seemed to catch in Sam’s throat. Maybe his own name was on that list.
He folded his arms tight as the man named Hank fiddled around with a Victrola set up in the corner, and from two speakers set up on chairs, there was a crackle of static and then the familiar Southern drawl of the thirty-third president of the United States:
“But my friends, unless we do share our wealth, unless we limit the size of the big man so as to give something to the little man, we can never have a happy or free people. God said so! He ordered it.
“We have everything our people need. Too much of food, clothes, and houses—why not let all have their fill and lie down in the ease and comfort God has given us? Why not? Because a few own everything—the masses own nothing.
“I wonder if any of you people who are listening to me were ever at a barbecue! We used to go there—sometimes one thousand people or more. If there were one thousand people, we would put enough meat and bread and everything else on the table for one thousand people. Then everybody would be called and everyone would eat all they wanted. But suppose at one of these barbecues for one thousand people that one man took ninety percent of the food and ran off with it and ate until he got sick and let the balance rot. Then nine hundred ninety-nine people would have only enough for one hundred to eat, and there would be many to starve because of the greed of just one person for something he couldn’t eat himself.
“Well, ladies and gentlemen, America, all the people of America, have been invited to a barbecue. God invited us all to come and eat and drink all we wanted. He smiled on our land, we grew crops of plenty to eat and wear. He showed us in the earth the iron and other things to make everything we wanted. He unfolded to us the secrets of science so that our work might be easy. God called: ‘Come to my feast.’
“Then what happened? Rockefeller, Morgan, and their crowd stepped up and took enough for one hundred twenty million people and left only enough for five million, for all the other one hundred twenty-five million to eat. And so many million must go hungry and without these good things God gave us unless we call on them to put some of it back …”
* * *
Sam kept his hands fisted in his pockets as the record ended and most of the men in the room applauded. Not moving his hands was a small protest, but it was the best he could do. Sean sat next to him, head nodding forward, and Sam jabbed him with an elbow.
“Huh?”
“Speech over,” Sam said. “Look suitably enthusiastic.”
Sean covered a yawn. “Sorry. Dozed off. Must’ve listened to that same speech a half dozen times, starting ten years ago. Rockefellers and Morgans too rich. Everybody else too poor. A new Homestead Act. No man a slave, every man a king.” He looked about at the mostly smiling faces. “The same blah-blah-blah. If the Kingfish wants to get elected next year to a third term, he’s gonna have to do better than reusing the same old speech.”
“If it works, it works.”
Teddy, the Party leader, came back to the lectern and took another folded sheet of paper from his coat. “All right, all right, all right. Last item on tonight’s agenda. I gotta list here of some names. When I read out the names, you can leave the hall. For you, the meetin’ is over. We’ll see you next month. Okay, here we go: Abbott, Alan, Courtney, Delroy …”
It was as if the temperature in the hall had abruptly dropped. Sam saw that the others near him felt the same way, moving in their seats, looking around. No matter what Teddy said, this was unusual, this wasn’t right. Sean whispered gleefully, “That’s how it happens in the occupied lands. You get separated out. One group lives, the others get shot. Wonder what group we’re in.”
“Sean, nobody’s going to get shot.”
“Maybe so. But you got your revolver with you?”
“Why?”
“If there’s shooting, I want to be next to you. I get the feeling you wouldn’t go without a fight.”
Sam kept his mouth shut. He knew where his revolver was. Safe back at home. Teddy droned on, “Williams, Young, and Zimmerman. Okay, get a move on, get a move on.”
The sound of chairs being scraped and men walking away and the doors swinging open quieted down, and Sam saw that about a fourth of the room had filed out. Now the place was so quiet, he could hear a steam whistle blowing from the shipyard.
Teddy cleared his throat. “Okay. Now. The rest of you fellas, get ready for somethin’ important, okay?”
Sam looked at the rear door. It was unmanned, no sergeant at arms standing by. He could bail out right now and hit the street and—
Teddy carefully unfolded another sheet of paper. “Okay, these orders come straight from Party headquarters in Concord and Washington. Understand? Good. It’s been decided that the National Guard has to be expanded for future challenges. All the men that left, they’re already members of the Guard. You fellas aren’t. So you’re gonna volunteer this evening to join the New Hampshire National Guard. Understood?”
A voice came from the back. “Hey, Teddy! The hell with you! I got a bum knee! I ain’t gonna join the Guard, march around, and sleep on the ground. The hell with that!”
Teddy nodded, fat lips pursed. “That’s your right, then. And you know what happens next. We take note of who gets in and who doesn’t, right? Right. And then things happen. Maybe your uncle gets kicked off relief. Maybe your kid doesn’t get a summer job from the city. And maybe your boss, maybe he gets word that you’re not cooperative, that you’re not part of the team.”
The silence fell across the room like a cold, wet blanket. Teddy was right: Everyone knew what the threat meant. Not being part of the team, not being cooperative, meant you could get fired. Just like that. Whatever thin thread you were living by could be cut in an instant. No job, no government relief, no charity, and in a manner of weeks, you and your desperate family would be scratching out a living in the hobo camp out by Maplewood Avenue. Or selling cheap toys on the sidewalk.
Teddy looked about the hushed room. “Good. That’s more like it. I don’t want the word to get out that the Portsmouth district didn’t get one hundred percent enlistment. Good. Now. All you guys, stand up, raise up your right hand.”
There was the barest hesitation among the men, and Sam felt like here and now maybe somebody would make a stand, maybe somebody would push back. But nobody did. The room was still, and then one man got up, looking at his feet. He was joined by the man sitting next to him. A third man stood up, and another, and then the rest of the room joined in. Sam stood up with the rest, thinking, Not right, this is not right, and he realized with a sour taste in his mouth that it was just another step in that long descent into whatever was now passing for civil society, where you were conscripted and it was called volunteering, when the poor and homeless were called bums, and when you lied over the radio and it was called a frank talk with the American people.
So Sam raised his hand, his voice low and quiet, as he joined his fellow men in the American Legion hall in swearing to uphold and defend the constitutions of the state of New Hampshire and the United States, and to defend both the state and the country against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Teddy folde
d the paper. “Okay. Word is, a couple of weeks, you’ll report to the armory to get a medical exam and get issued gear. More training will happen down the road. For you guys with bum knees or whatever, don’t fret, there’ll be something for you to do. We all pull together and we’ll do just fine.” He went through the quick and formal phase of dismissing the meeting, and by then Sam was out of his chair, joining everyone else to crowd out the rear door.
It seemed there was one more bit of business left undone. Two Long’s Legionnaires were blocking the door, holding up their hands.
“Jus’ hold on a second there, fellas,” the one on the left said. “We got somethin’ special for y’all.”
The other Legionnaire reached under his leather jacket. There was a slight gasp from someone, wondering what was going on as the man’s hand slipped in, and Sam watched, the hand came out, holding a—
A paper sack.
The tall young man jiggled the paper sack, held it out. “As you leave, boys, take one, okay? Gonna be a nice way to find out who our friends are up here.”
The first man up put a hand into the paper sack, came out with a flash of metal. Sean whispered, “Oh, crap, look at that,” and Sam saw “that” was a Confederate-flag pin. The two Legionnaires grinned.
“Welcome aboard,” the one on the left said.
* * *
With the flag pin in his hand, Sam rushed out of the meeting hall, his stomach sick, his head aching. He stood on the sidewalk, sucking in the cool air.
“Can you believe this?” Sean demanded, holding the pin up. “Just like Russia, just like Germany. Show your loyalty to nation and party by wearing a bloody pin.” He dropped his pin in an open drain grate. Sam, without even hesitating, did the same thing. It felt good, hearing the clink as the pin fell into the shadows.
“And another thing,” Sean raged. “Did you hear the oath we just took? It’s not the foreign enemies I’m worried about. It’s the other half. The domestic. Pretty big fucking blank check, if you know what I mean. That’s one of the reasons why our fair President got to keep control in Louisiana when he started out. He had the Guard in his pocket. Now we’re part of his shock troops. We do his dirty work wherever he wants us.”
Sam knew exactly what Sean meant. The National Guard was a trained reserve to help out the army overseas during a war, but more and more, it was used for other things. Breaking strikes in the big industrial cities in Pennsylvania and Illinois and Michigan. Burning down hobo encampments when they got too large outside of New York and Los Angeles and Chicago. Shooting at mobs when the relief money ran out in Seattle and Miami and Detroit. And now he and the others in that smoky hall were part of it.
“Christ, Sam.” Sean’s voice was harsh with anger. “What’s going to happen to us?”
“Damned if I know,” Sam said, moving away, wanting to get away from the hall, to get away from Teddy, to get away from the Party and everything else.
Just to get away.
But when he got to his Packard, he was brought back to ground very quickly.
As he opened the door, the overhead dome lit the front seat, and there, lined up in a row, lay three bound grass stalks. He froze. He started to crumple them but then gently placed the stalks back in the car, got in, started up the big engine, and motored home.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sarah and Toby were both asleep, Sarah with the radio on low, Toby snoring, cuddled tight against his pillow. Out there was the Party, out there were the hoboes, out there armies and air forces and navies were grappling in the dark, men and women and children blown up, shot, drowned, burned …
Here it was peace. Inside this little frame house in this old port city, here was peace. A peace built on illusions, based on him doing his job, keeping his head down, not getting involved, and so far, the illusions were working.
But for how long?
He walked into the living room to the small bookcase. Among the books was a well-worn thick paperback with a faded green cover. The Boy Scout Handbook. His very own, and one that Toby liked to look through even though the boy was only old enough to be in the Cub Scouts. He opened the flyleaf, saw the little scrawl. Sam Miller. Troop 170. Portsmouth, N.H. Nearly twenty years ago.
A small black-and-white photo slipped out, a photo of Sam and his brother, Tony, in their Boy Scout uniforms, standing in front of their house. Sam was smiling at the camera, Tony was glum, no doubt at having to share the photo with his younger brother. Sam was struck again by how alike they looked. There were only two years’ difference between them, but in the right light and at the right distance, they could pass for twins. Brothers who really got along probably could have had fun with that as they grew up, confusing teachers and friends. Sam never remembered having any such fun with Tony.
He put the photo back and flipped through the pages until he found what he was looking for.
Secret messages to your troop mates. Danger. To alert your troop mates of danger, draw three lines in the dirt.
Or pile three stones.
Or gather three bundles of grass.
He closed the handbook, put it back on the shelf, and went over to the rolltop desk where the checkbook and the utility bills were kept. He looked into one of the wooden cubbyholes and found the small collection of postcards, the newest one on top. The card was postmarked from last week. Like most places, Portsmouth got its mail delivered twice a day.
His address was handwritten in the center, and in the upper left was a preprinted return address:
IROQUOIS LABOR CAMP
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
FORT DRUM, N.Y.
He flipped the card over and reread the message.
There were three printed lines.
AM DOING WELL.
WORK IS FINE.
YOUR FOOD PACKAGES MOST WELCOME.
TONY.
The postcards arrived once a month, with unerring regularity and with the same message. All outgoing and incoming mail at the camp was censored, of course. He rubbed the edge of the postcard and sat there in the darkness, hearing the frantic tap-tap from upstairs as Walter Tucker, former Harvard science professor, entered his fictional universes, a place where loyalty oaths and labor camps didn’t exist.
“Sam?” Sarah came in so quietly he hadn’t heard her. She was wearing a light blue robe, her hair tousled. “It’s late. How did the meeting go?”
“As well as could be expected. We were all drafted tonight.”
“Drafted? Into what?”
“Into the damn New Hampshire National Guard, that’s what.”
“How did that happen?”
A good question. How to explain that choking feeling in the smoky room, feeling desperately alone even in the midst of that crowd? “We all stood up like good little boys, raised our right hands, took an oath, and now I’m in the Guard. Along with practically every other able-bodied male in the city.”
Sarah sat down heavily on the ottoman. “And everyone went along? Nobody put up a fuss?”
“Sarah, your dad was there. Marshal Hanson was there. Hell, two of Long’s finest were sitting up front. It wasn’t a place for anyone to be brave.”
“Oh, Sam … And you’re not going to like this, either. We’re going to have a visitor tomorrow night. Sam, it’s just for the night and—”
He shoved Tony’s message back into the desk so hard the cardboard crumpled. “You heard what I said last night, right? No more. We’ve got Legionnaires in town, the Party and my boss know there’s an Underground Station here, and you want to keep shuttling people north? Sweet Jesus, Sarah, do I have to make it any clearer? I even went out on a limb today with Hanson, telling him I knew the station was shut down. Hell, what more do you want? Do you want to see me standing next to Brett O’Halloran, begging strangers to buy wooden toys?”
“No, I don’t want that.” Her voice was frigid. “I know you’re trying to protect me and Toby. But I told you there was one in the pipeline, and I couldn’t do anything about it—”
“Oh, come on—”
“What happened to that guy I knew back in high school? The one who kept on playing football even with a broken finger? Where did he go?”
“He grew up, Sarah, and got a whole bunch of responsibilities. Back then the worst thing would have been losing the finals. Now … Have you been to the hobo camp lately? Children barefoot in the mud? Moms and dads starving so they can give their kids whatever food they can scrape together?”
“I’ve been to the camp. All of us at school have, with used clothes and some extra food. We do what we can, to fight back, and part of that is our little cot down in our basement. I’m sorry, Sam, he’s coming. The last one, I promise. It’s an emergency and—”
The choking feeling was back, as if he had no choice in anything. “Fine. Last one. An emergency. Whatever you say.”
“Sam, please, keep it down. Toby—”
“Sure. Don’t want to wake him. Okay, one more, tomorrow night. Who is he?”
She said, “I don’t know. Some famous singer named Paul. On the arrest lists for sedition. Usual nonsense. He’ll be here tomorrow night; I promise he’ll leave before dawn. You’ll never even know he’s here.”
He looked at his wife, his very smart and pretty wife who would sometimes have afternoon card sessions with fellow secretaries and teachers from the school—“the girls,” she called them—where they would talk and gossip about marriages and births but also about politics and Long and Stalin and Marx. Her face was impassive, and for a terrifying moment, he looked at her and it was like looking at the face of his boss, Harold Hanson, not having a clue what was going on behind those eyes.