Snatch

by Gregory Mcdonald

  Robby did not know which song they were singing, so, with Divine Gusto, he sang one verse of one song and one verse of the other, alternating lines for the third chorus. This technique had always worked so well at Wolsley School that he had been permanently excused from choir practice.

  The mouse in his coat pocket, doubtlessly invigorated by the joyful noise, scurried chirruping among the lint. Robby stroked the wee beastie with his thumb.

  As the hymn was wearing down—especially around Robby, where people were looking at him again, as apparently his noise was not making them joyful—Pastor Maple climbed into the pulpit so slowly one would think his every step weighted by centuries of consideration. His robe was a peculiar shade of green. Stitched into the robe were faces and pictures Robby couldn’t recognize, and the Arabic numbers 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 1,000.

  “Amen!” Robby always gave his best to every amen to make up for earlier transgressions with both words and music.

  The congregation rustled onto their seats, coughing and blowing their noses preemptively.

  Pastor Maple blessed the congregation by describing the letter S in the air with his hand, then slashing two vertical lines through it.

  “E Pluribus Unum,” he announced.

  The congregation hushed for the lesson.

  “Take stock!

  “‘Hearken: Behold there went out a sower to sow.

  “‘And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the wayside, and fowls of the air came and devoured it up.

  “‘And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth, and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth; but when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.

  “‘And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.

  “‘And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some a hundred.

  “‘And he said unto them, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear…’

  “…My fellow sowers—are we all reapers?

  “Or do we cast our seed upon less than fertile ground and thus cause the gnashing of Divine teeth?

  “Are we careful in our sowing?

  “Take stock! I say unto you: Take stock!

  “‘Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? And not to be set on a candlestick?’

  “Is your seed capital to be hidden away in the dark vaults of banks or in long-term bonds, yielding little interest?

  “‘For there is nothing hid,’ saith the Lord, ‘which shall not be manifested; neither was anything kept secret, but that it should come abroad.’

  “‘If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.’

  “How many times have you cast your seed upon rocks and thorns?

  “How many times have you taken your precious capital and tossed it carelessly into some investment without first thoroughly examining the prospectus?

  “One sower carelessly cast his seed into a business whose growth potential had already peaked, and thus lost his capital gains!

  “He sowed other seed among over-the-counter stock, and lost his dividends!

  “He cast other of his seed among blue-chips preferred and profited neither by capital gains nor high dividends!

  “‘If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.’

  “But he also cast his seed upon fertile ground: he investigated some companies in depth—he researched their profit margins, knew their price/earnings ratio; he inspected their real estate, visited their factories; he met with their executive staffs, enquired of their home lives, and he judged them. Thus he accurately gauged their potential growth. And on this ground he cast his seed.

  “And from these seeds, he brought forth some thirty, and some sixty, and some one hundred percent returns!

  “Take stock!

  “And the Lord saith, ‘It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth.

  “‘But when it is sown it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it.’

  “Take stock!

  “‘Take heed what ye hear. With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you.

  “‘And unto you that hear shall more be given!’

  “The Lord saith, ‘For he that hath, to him shall be given; and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath!’”

  Even though Robby had been intensely interested in this lesson, finding in it Good News indeed, and liked the way Pastor Maple spoke (he kept the cadence of his speech by jiggling coins in his pocket) Robby became aware of an increasing sensation of prickly heat at the back of his neck. Able to stand it no longer, Robby took a quick look behind him. There, only two pews away, sat Tony Savallo in his green windbreaker, expressionlessly listening to the sermon. The pillar of the church had not protected Robby at all! He was within clear view of Tony. Witnessing the mysterious ways of Tony Savallo made Robby very warm.

  “‘For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn of the ear!’”

  The lady with many chins beside Robby sat listening in rapture to the instructive Pastor Maple. Even with her face raised toward the pulpit she had more than her share of chins.

  Robby took the mouse out of his pocket, reached over, and put it in the lady’s lap.

  “‘Know ye not this parable? And how then will ye know all parables?’”

  Robby had not long to wait for a reaction. The lady, however enraptured by the words of Pastor Maple, ultimately became curious regarding what had been put in her lap and was moving about there. She looked down, then drew herself up to such an extent that for a moment she had but a single chin. “Aaaaaark!” she said loudly, and predictably, “a mouse!”

  She brushed it off her lap in an un-Christian manner. She cast it upon the back of the pew in front of her.

  The mouse bounced off the pew back and landed, momentarily stunned, on the kneeler. The woman’s feet were beating on the floor beneath the kneeler. In a flash the mouse was off the kneeler and scurrying around among neighboring feet with such energy that shortly a large number of people were taking up the cry, “Aaaaaark! A mouse!”

  People were scrambling without divine dignity. Some tripped over each other trying to get out of their pews. Others blocked the way by standing on the kneelers. Others—more tensile in joint—jumped up to stand on the seats.

  Robby, popping from floor to pew seat to kneeler back to pew seat again, went against the general trend of his pew-mates and came out in the middle aisle—half a church away from Tony Savallo.

  “Whup, whup.”

  Robby headed for the pulpit. Pastor Maple was peering through his grille, craning and straining to see what had so upset his congregation. What was the new panic? At the front of the auditorium, Robby crouched low, turned left and left again and scampered back down the aisle farthest from where he prayerfully hoped Tony Savallo was being stampeded to death by Christians thrown to a mouse.

  * * *

  In the church vestibule was a freckly boy Robby’s age.

  “Quick!” Robby demanded. “What newspapers do your parents read?”

  The boy turned his head toward the central door to the auditorium. “What’s going on in there?”

  “I said, what newspapers do your parents read?”

  Archly, the boy said, “The New York Times, of course, and The Wall Street Journal.”

  Robby didn’t know how he had fared in The Wall Street Journal, but he did know The New York Times considered him an item for page thirty-six—and without photograph.

  “Thank God,” Robby said. “You’re taking me to your house for lunch.”

  “Why should I do that?” the boy squeaked.

  From the auditorium came the noise of bangs and bumps
and shouts and shrieks. Someone even said “Jesus Christ!” prayerfully.

  “Because I want lunch!” Robby exclaimed.

  Something in the boy’s eyes indicated to Robby that he considered Robby fallow ground upon which to cast even a single caraway seed.

  Robby hissed into his freckles, “If you don’t take me to your house for lunch I’ll ram this”—he put his fist between the boy’s face and his own—“so far down your throat, takin’ your teeth with it, you’ll get a chance to chew your breakfast twice!”

  Such was the threat offered Robby at Wolsley School by an older boy who wanted the compass Robby’s family chauffeur had given him. Robby had found the threat entirely effective. Now he hoped the freckle-faced boy was similarly intimidated.

  He was.

  “Okay,” he said. “You stink.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Roger vanWankle,” the boy admitted, “the Third. You really stink.”

  “Okay, Roger. You tell your parents you know me from school, and that you invited me to your house for lunch. Or your last meal will be your own teeth.”

  “Okay, okay. But, you know, you really stink.”

  He tried to pick the smell out of his nose.

  The vestibule was beginning to fill with red-faced, perturbed people.

  “Tell your parents my name’s Robby. Uh—Robby Burnes.”

  “They’ll never believe it.”

  “Good.”

  “I won’t have to tell ’em you stink.”

  “Come on, Roger. Let’s wait for your parents in the car.”

  Robby took the boy by the elbow and headed for the front door of the church.

  “Kids in my school,” protested Roger vanWankle the Third, “don’t stink.”

  18

  The Odor of Sanctity

  “How come you smell of garbage?” Roger vanWankle enquired reasonably after he and Robby had attained the backseat of the vanWankle Cadillac.

  “I spent last night in a garbage barrel,” Robby admitted.

  Roger said, “Oh,” as if spending the night in a garbage barrel is the way anyone might be expected to spend an odd night or two of his life. “Are you running from the police or something?” he asked, as if that, too, were within his purview of normal existential experience.

  Robby reviewed his philological exercise of the night before: Thadeus Lowry, Will’um, Tony Savallo. That morning Robby had run through a surrealistic forest of his own photograph hanging from people’s hands, staring up at him from the street, even hanging from lamp posts. He said mildly, “I feel pressed.”

  “You don’t look pressed,” said Roger, casting a critical glance over Robby’s clothes.

  The chauffeur opened the door again and Mr. and Mrs. vW stepped in.

  “Why, Roger,” said Mrs. vW, looking at Robby.

  “This is Robby Burnes, Mummy,” Roger recited through clenched teeth. “A kid from school. I invited him home for lunch.”

  “How perfectly delightful,” said Mrs. vW, not sounding convinced. “But, Roger, darling, you know you should warn Cook before you invite anybody to lunch.”

  “I know,” was barely audible through teeth clasped so tightly Robby doubted Roger would ever be able to get them separated again.

  Mr. vW sat in a corner of the car and gathered his overcoat over his paunch. He had given Robby the merest glance, obviously consigning him quickly to that category of animate life to be seen little and not heard at all.

  Mrs. vW scanned Robby’s tailoring and smiled warmly.

  “I know you boys like the winter air.” Mrs. vW began to crank up the windows. “But we must think of Mummy’s coiffure.”

  “I really like the winter air, Mummy,” urged Roger, obviously thinking more of his mother’s nose than her hair.

  The long Cadillac embarked from the curb.

  Through the rear window Robby saw Tony Savallo writing something on the cuff of his windbreaker.

  “Really, Pastor Maple is such an inspiration,” proposed Mrs. vW. “Such a pity his service was interrupted by a Communist conspiracy.”

  In his corner of the car, Mr. vW snorted.

  “It was a Communist conspiracy, wasn’t it, Ralph?” asked Mrs. vW of her husband. “Letting all those rats free during his sermon?”

  “Of course it was,” stated Mr. vW with no uncertainty at all. “Who else would do a thing like that? Can’t let decent, law-abiding Americans have a moment’s peace even in their churches Sunday mornings.”

  “Still,” philosophied Mrs. vW, “I found the forces of good and evil, dear Pastor Maple and the Communists’ rats, battling it out for the hearts and the minds of the congregation even more inspiring. I do hope you boys took a lesson from it.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Roger, faithfully.

  Robby said nothing. It was his opinion that Pastor Maple’s entire logos had been routed by a mouse.

  “Unfortunately our favorite Congressman, Representative Jerry Bradshaw, took a lesson from it,” said Mr. vW bitterly. “It inspired Bradshaw to nick me for ten thousand dollars in the church aisle.”

  “Ralph! Whatever for?” Mrs. vW’s nose rose in surprise. It sniffed and rose higher in repugnance.

  “He’s got to block a bill in Congress for me. He’s made it a pretty expensive bill, I’ll tell you.”

  “What bill?” Mrs. vW was twisting in her seat, looking out all sides of the car.

  “A bill that stipulates that all blankets made for the United States military—Army, Navy, and Marines—must be manufactured in the United States of America.”

  “Seems reasonable,” commented Mrs. vW, clearly distracted.

  “Darling! You’re not thinking! The vanWankle blanket which we sell on contract to the United States military—the Army, Navy, and Marines—is manufactured at the vanWankle Mills in Canada!”

  “So they are,” noted Mrs. vW.

  “Such a bill would put our blanket operations out of business!”

  “I would think so, yes.”

  “It would mean we would be producing a half a million blankets a year without a market!”

  “A chilling thought,” she said.

  “We would have to shut down the Canadian mills,” said Mr. vW. “Or retool them to begin making commercial, competitive blankets. Good God!”

  “There must be lots of cold Canadians.”

  “They have their own blankets,” Mr. vW said with dismay.

  “Does something smell?” enquired Mrs. vW.

  “Everything smells,” offered Robby. “Roses smell nice, but noses smell better.”

  “Anton,” Mrs. vW addressed the chauffeur. “Speed up. There must be a garbage truck somewhere in the area—although, for the life of me, I don’t see it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “New York doesn’t collect garbage on Sunday,” said Mr. vW. “Or on any other day of the week.”

  “They don’t collect garbage on Sunday?”

  “I’m sure they don’t collect garbage on Sunday.”

  “But, Ralph, I distinctly smell garbage. Don’t you smell garbage?”

  “I think I smell New York,” said Mr. vW.

  “I don’t see a garbage truck anywhere,” she repeated, looking through the car windows north, east, south and west.

  “That’s why you smell garbage,” said Mr. vW. “Because you never see a garbage truck.”

  Mrs. vW relaxed against the Cadillac’s leather seat and petted her mink.

  “Ralph, that seems terribly unreasonable—introducing a bill in Congress the sole purpose of which is to put our blanket company out of business. Who would think of such a thing?”

  “Pecuchet.”

  “Who’s Pecuchet?”

  “Pecuchet makes blankets in Cleveland.”

  “Oh, I see. He stands to make a lot of money if this bill is passed?”

  “He does indeed. Which is why he got the bill introduced to Congress, through his friendly congressman.”

  “I’m
so awful at practical business matters,” said Mrs. vW.

  “Pecuchet has given his representative to Congress a fortune.” Mr. vW’s nose had begun to twitch. “Anton, drive a little faster, will you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The car was oozing up a lovely wide boulevard with a green mall. Robby was hoping to spot a pile of garbage somewhere.

  “The smell is getting worse, Ralph.”

  “We’ll be home soon.”

  “That’s what I mean. Do you think Park Avenue has seen its better days?”

  “If the smell of New York has gotten to Park Avenue, my dear, there’s no place in the world left to go.”

  “Could the smell be in the car? Anton, is there something rotting in the car?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Perhaps you left some groceries in the trunk.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Anton,” Mr. vW charged: “Something smells.”

  “The car looks clean enough,” said Mrs. vW.

  “Anton,” Mr. vW stated: “The car isn’t clean enough.”

  “It can’t be the car, Ralph. We didn’t smell it going down to church service.”

  “Anton,” Mr. vW questioned suspiciously: “Did you let something smelly into the car while we were at church service?”

  “No, sir.”

  From his corner Roger’s blue eyes glared at Robby. Roger’s head was tipped. The palm of his hand covered both his nose and his teeth.

  Mr. vW said: “Anton, did you watch the car every minute we were gone?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I bet you did. I’ll bet a Communist threw a pile of garbage or something in this car while we were at church service.”

  “Oh, Ralph!” Mrs. vW examined the area around her feet with distress. “Do you really think so?”

  “Just the sort of thing those damned anarchists would do—put a pile of garbage in the car of decent people while they’re at church. Anything to upset the fabric of society!”

  “A pile of garbage!” echoed Mrs. vW to Roger and Robby, her eyes brimming with the distress of the insulted.

  “I’ll bet they planted it under one of the seats.” Mr. vW bent down over his paunch and examined the floor between his feet.