Snatch

by Gregory Mcdonald

  “Oh, Ralph,” protested Mrs. vW, looking increasingly uneasy. “They couldn’t have!”

  “Well, you don’t see any garbage trucks around, do you?” said his head from between his thighs.

  “No one would be so mean.”

  “That’s what they do,” said the red-faced but erect Mr. vW, resettling his hat upon his head. “Instead of working for a living, driving garbage trucks around, picking up garbage, they plant garbage in the cars of decent people while they’re at church!”

  Mr. vW was settling into this conviction nicely. He looked to his family for support.

  Roger knew his father was wrong, but said nothing. Mrs. vW already had said no one, not even Communists, could be that mean. Robby nodded with full assurance at Mr. vW and said, “I’m sure you’re right, sir.”

  Robby didn’t know what Communists were, but he had heard his father speak ill of them. If evil-doing could be attributed generally to Communists, Robby didn’t mind his odor specifically being laid at their door as well—especially so close to lunch.

  “Do hurry up, Anton!” ordered Mr. vW, his fingers pinching his nose.

  19

  Tempest in a Bathtub

  When the limousine arrived at the apartment house a uniformed, epauleted, mustachioed, white-gloved doorman stepped out from under the canopy and opened the door. And from out of the car rushed three members of the vanWankle family, pale, breathless, and quivering from a lack of oxygen. Robby Burnes left the car with the equanimity of a person who knew some problems were inescapable.

  “Give this car a cleaning!” Mr. vW shouted over the roof of the car to Anton, who had quickly escaped through his own door. “We’ll not have the Communists thinking they can sabotage the car of decent people on a Sunday morning!”

  A man dressed in formal clothes opened the apartment house’s lobby door for them. Another piloted them up in the elevator.

  “Ralph,” said Mrs. vW, twitching her nose in the elevator with renewed alarm. “The smell! It’s here, too!”

  First Mr. vW gave the elevator man a suspicious look. Then he sighed. “The Communists are everywhere.”

  In the vestibule of the vanWankles’ apartment was a statue twenty feet high of a naked lady. In her Venus mount was a clock. In time, Robby noticed it was twenty minutes to one.

  “You boys go play in your room, Roger,” said Mrs.vW as the butler helped her off with her coat. “Lunch at one-thirty. I’ll tell Cook we have a guest.”

  The butler turned to take Robby’s coat. The butler’s eyes popped. The butler blanched. The butler stared.

  Robby handed the butler his coat and gave the butler the smile Robby had long since learned to give servants, in which smile is acknowledged complicity in the universal conspiracy of servants and children against masters and mistresses, fathers and mothers, all adults and other guests. Only by so acknowledging and cultivating such a traditional conspiracy do children survive in well-run households.

  The butler said nothing.

  Robby followed Roger down a vast, tall and wide corridor to Roger’s room.

  Roger closed the door, about-faced on his heel, and pointed a finger at Robby. Two fingers of his other hand pinched his own nose.

  “You’re not coming to lunch smelling like a garbage truck,” he said forcefully albeit nasally. “My father will fire all the servants as Communists and I’ve just got this bunch broken in!”

  “I know, I know,” conceded Robby. “How do I get my shoes polished?”

  “Your shoes have nothing to do with it!” Roger insisted. “You stink! You’ve gotta have a bath!”

  “I had a bath Wednesday.”

  “This is Sunday!” exclaimed Roger.

  “At school we only get tubs once a week,” said Robby, thinking he was scoring a good defensive point.

  “Well, you don’t go to my school,” said Roger. He escaped through one of two matching doors.

  Robby heard a bath being drawn. He had spent the night in a rubbish barrel. The real problem was not in his person; it was in his clothes. Robby’s bathing wouldn’t make his clothes smell a bit better. They, too, had spent the night in a rubbish barrel.

  Roger’s room was comparable to Robby’s, at Pladroman House, except the furniture was newer and not at all broken. Robby’s grandfather, when a boy, had punched up Robby’s bed so unmercifully that ever after the occupant was inclined to tip out its left side. The grandfather had lived to sire an heir and numerous nasty rumors. The armchair by the fireplace in Robby’s room had been sprung by Robby’s father’s nurse, who, tradition had it below stairs, was fat enough to be often spoken of as a possible stand-in for the Inns at Lincoln Court. Robby’s own father, it was reported, had kicked a leg out from under the desk in the room upon receiving news he had flunked an examination in Greek. Ever after, that corner of the desk had been propped up by Volumes D through R of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Looking around the room, Robby thought either Roger’s ancestors had been far more careful with their furniture, or Roger hadn’t any ancestors at all, which struck Robby as a funny thought.

  Roger came through one door and the butler through the other simultaneously.

  “Yes, Cabot?” said Roger.

  Cabot said, “I thought your…guest…a friend from school, is he?…might be bathing before luncheon, and thought I might see what can be done about his clothes.”

  Robby smiled conspiratorially at the butler.

  “There isn’t time,” said Roger. “What his clothes need is a match.”

  “We English perhaps know a bit more about brushing up…” The butler winked at Robby, and picked Robby’s clothes up off the floor. “I’ll just take these along and see what can be done with them.”

  The butler exited with Robby’s clothes draped over his arm. He carried Robby’s shoes between thumb and forefinger.

  Roger sat on the closed toilet while Robby sat in the tub.

  “So why did you spend last night in a garbage barrel?” asked Roger.

  Robby said, “Because I was stuck in a backyard with fences all around it.”

  “Then how did you ever get out?”

  “Oh, it was all right once the sun came up and I could see.”

  “What were you doing stuck in a backyard?”

  “I got chased there. You see, I saw this man, Tony Savallo, shoot another man. Murder him. And Tony Savallo was chasing me. He wants to murder me, too. So I jumped over this high fence into a backyard, and then I couldn’t get out.”

  “Tell me another,” said Roger.

  “It’s true! I swear on a Bible! Last night I saw a murder.”

  “Yeah, sure,” said Roger. “Tell it to the Marines.”

  Robby shrugged. Even in his short life, Robby had had this experience with truth before. The last thing people are wont to believe, sometimes, is the truth. Once Robby had told his nanny his mitten had been eaten by a guardsman’s horse, when his mitten had been eaten by a guardsman’s horse. Robby had been denied tea, not for having lost a mitten, but for lying.

  Roger said, “It’s okay you’re coming to stink up my house instead of going home to face the music, but aren’t your parents worried about you?”

  Adhering strictly to the truth, Robby said, “They’re not in New York this weekend.”

  In his heart Robby was saddened that his truth had not been believed. He had been thinking he might appeal to the vanWankle seniors during luncheon, tell them his whole terrible story, hope they would lay it all out as a Communist conspiracy and grant him their sympathy and aid. From Roger’s reaction Robby knew now such a plan was hopeless. If a boy his own age wouldn’t believe the story, Robby could not expect adults to believe. After all boys believe in many things—exercise, honesty and friendship, to name three—to which adults give lip-service but seldom practice. Seldom does one adult get up from the playing field and honestly admit his own error to save his friend a penalty. Even to his own ears, now having said it, Robby’s story seemed more a nightmare than a
true history. Children sometimes believe in nightmares, but adults, never.

  “Are you a member of the Church of Jesus Christ Materialist?” Roger asked.

  Again Robby shrugged. If truth did not serve him, he might as well lie. “Life-long.”

  “Then why weren’t you at Sunday School? Why have I never seen you before?”

  “We’re new to this parish,” said Robby. “I’m enrolling next week.”

  “In midyear?”

  “Right after Christmas. Look for me.”

  “You’ll never catch up. It’s terribly hard.”

  “Is it?”

  “I’m having to take private tutorials Wednesday afternoons. With Pastor Maple.”

  “Oh,” Robby said, again observing American soap did not sink.

  “I’m having trouble reading the stock tables,” Roger continued. “The print’s awfully small, you know, and when you have to read the par value, the year’s high and low, as well as the asking and the bid prices, it gets damned confusing. And,” he said significantly, “you have to add zeroes to the number of stocks traded every day, to arrive at the volume.”

  “Oh,” Robby said. “I see.”

  “But, as Pastor Maple says, practical Christianity is worth it.” Roger sighed. “And we’re learning to read annual reports. I’ve read the car companies so far, airlines and the oils.”

  “Didn’t Jesus throw the money-changers out of the temple?” asked Robby.

  “Yeah,” said Roger. “Pastor Maple says he doesn’t want donations made to his church in change, either. He wants it in bills.”

  “Guess I’ll need tutoring,” said Robby.

  “You’re lucky. You’ll probably get Tuesday afternoons with Pastor Maple. That’s earlier in the financial week. Less to remember.”

  “Good.”

  “The thing that worries me,” said Roger, picking a fingernail, “is my soul.”

  “Your soul?”

  “Yeah. Whether I’m good enough, you know, as a person, to receive the Word of the Lord directly from Pastor Maple.”

  “Sure you are,” Robby said. “Didn’t you refuse me lunch until I threatened to shove your teeth down your throat?”

  “That reminds me,” said Roger. “How are you going to make it up to me? I mean, lunch. How are you going to pay me back?”

  “That’s easy,” said Robby, thinking quickly. “Before I leave I’ll give you a piece of advice.”

  “A stock tip?”

  “A piece of advice.”

  Chin on hands, Roger thought. “Pastor Maple says good advice is very valuable. Is your advice good?”

  “Is lunch?” Robby was beginning to get the hang of a life by trade.

  Roger considered the proposition and apparently decided to suspend negotiation, at least until he saw what lunch was.

  “But I keep having these impulses,” he said. “Like, you know, I see a beggar on the street and, you know, it actually crosses my mind to give him a dime.”

  “Have you confessed this to Pastor Maple?” Robby asked solemnly.

  “Yes,” said Roger. “He says I must harden my heart against those who vouchsafe nothing.”

  “There, then,” said Robby, meaning to console.

  Robby ducked his head below the surface of the warm, soapy water. When he came up he found himself in a freezing downpour.

  “We have a shower for that!” Roger shouted. He stood over Robby, his hands on a different set of knobs. The water was turning scalding.

  “I’ll fix the knobs!” Robby gasped. Instantly, he grasped the idea of a shower. He had never seen one before. Instantly he also concluded, finally, absolutely, irrevocably, after the collection of much evidence, that everything—absolutely everything about Americans, even their bath-taking—was violent. Only Americans, he decided in a flash, can turn a nice, warm leisurely bath into bad weather.

  “If you wanted a shower, why didn’t you say so?”

  “Right,” Robby said, fighting with the knobs while standing under the torrential spray. By the time he got the knobs set properly to provide a spray somewhat nearer his skin temperature, Roger had left the bathroom. “You’ll be a bloomin’ bishop!” shouted Robby, turning the squall off.

  From the bedroom Roger said, solemnly, “Thank you.”

  Cabot was standing in the bedroom with clothes for Robby. The blazer and short trousers and tie and cap and overcoat were Robby’s, beautifully brushed and pressed and smelling as if they had just come in from a walk in a greenhouse. The shoes were Robby’s, looking as if they had never trod the earth. But the shirt and the underclothes and the kneesocks weren’t Robby’s at all. They were identical to Robby’s but they were new.

  Cabot winked at Robby.

  He took the towel from Robby’s shoulders and gave him a vigorous rubdown. Finishing, he said, “There you are, Your Grace.”

  It did not surprise Robby too much that Cabot recognized him. From Robby’s experience with servants he knew they were apt to read more entertaining newspapers than were the householders. His father’s newspapers were unrelievedly gray. The servants’ newspapers had brightly colored comics, on Sundays, and big headlines about “love nests.” His father and mother never had anything to talk about except Churchill and Roosevelt and Hitler and Mussolini and Parliament and the Congress and the War. The servants were really up on the news of the world, and their conversation was much more interesting.

  While Cabot was dressing him and Roger was fiddling around his desk Robby considered trying out the truth on Cabot. Whenever he’d had a problem servants had solved it. But what could a butler do? Sundays were busy days for butlers. There were always people in and out for tea and drinks and dinner, and Saturdays always tarnish at least one set of silverware. It isn’t fair always to be running to servants with problems. Robby’s father had told him so the night he spent three hours looking for his favorite pipe. It’s not a servant’s job to locate missing pipes! he had expostulated over and over again during the hunt. (Robby finally found the pipe in the left pocket of his father’s smoking jacket.) Servants have their own work to do.

  Cabot handed Robby the gold sovereign. “I believe your father gave this to you, Your Grace?”

  Robby smiled. “Yes.”

  “I found it in your trousers. I think you’d better keep it, Your Grace.” He slipped the sovereign into the handkerchief pocket of the blazer. “People in this household will relieve you of it as proof of their generosity.”

  While helping Robby on with the blazer the butler whispered in Robby’s ear, “Is there anything I can do for you, Your Grace?”

  Robby considered again. It’s not a servant’s job to locate a missing…anything! “Yes, please,” he said. “Could you give me doubles for lunch?”

  20

  A Congressional Bill

  Robby sat with the vanWankle family at lunch.

  Roger, freshly inspired by Pastor Maple, ate greedily. The senior vanWankles, wanting nothing to go to waist, cast yearning glances at the food on their plates, and talked. Robby, having spent the previous night in a rubbish barrel and having other good reasons not to want food to go to waste, ate silently and heartily.

  “My, how you boys eat!” trilled Mrs. vW. “I don’t know where you put it all. Do you know where they put it all, Ralph?”

  Ralph looked from boy to plate, to plate and to boy. “No matter how much money you give the government”—he shook his head sadly—“you don’t know where it goes, either.” He tasted his mock turtle soup, replaced his spoon, and concluded: “The government isn’t a grown-up.”

  “Where do you live, Robby?” asked Mrs. vW.

  “Mayfair, ma’am.”

  “Oh, that’s nice. I think Clara Bow used to live at the Mayfair.”

  Even at his age Robby had learned that totally inadequate answers usually are grasped as entirely satisfactory—in polite conversation.

  Robby was saying as little as possible.

  He had a better use for his mouth,
at the moment. He had discovered in the few days he had resided in this land of milk and honey that full-blown meals were as infrequent as tea shops in the North Atlantic. When one came across a proper meal one was wise to triple up on it, to make up for yesterday, do right by today, and conserve for tomorrow.

  Cabot was most obliging. Like any well-trained butler he knew how to sidle food onto a plate (or off a plate—whichever was required, to avoid embarrassment) prestidigitatiously. As the main course was souffle, sausage and mustard pickle—each of which food is distinct in color and shape and therefore easily measureable—Cabot’s genius shone.

  Across the table from Robby, however, Roger noticed the frequency with which Robby was being served. Roger was not about to vouchsafe nothing. Each time Robby was served, Roger signalled Cabot, with his eyes or a wave of his hand, that he, too, would be served again. Cabot ignored half of Roger’s signals, but could not ignore Roger’s more blatant wavings with both hands. Roger, however, had been eating regularly and well. Competing with someone who had ceased to think of meals as a rightful and regular occurrence proved hard on Roger. During the courses of luncheon Roger’s face broke into a sweat, his skin reddened, his cheeks puffed, his eyes protruded. His fingers yanked at his shirt collar as if his neck had grown noticeably between one-thirty and two. Clearly Roger was miserable in this eating competition, but he stuck to it with great fortitude.

  Too, Robby spoke the minimum at luncheon because he did not want questions raised by what the vanWankles might think of as his accent. Robby knew he did not have an accent, but he had discovered so far in America that not only did everyone have an accent—everyone had an accent individual from that of every other American. Thadeus Lowry (Robby was to describe later) spoke Rhetorical-American. Words marched out of his mouth with huge strides as if the end of any sentence were The In Place for a word to be. His wife, his chérie, spoke a soft and sibilant Martini-American. Her words were pronounced deliberately through a spray which never reached beyond her gums. Marie Savallo spoke Devout-American. Every word lilted from her mouth reverentially as if aimed at only the ears of resting saints—even when that word might be kidnap, ransom or murder. Frankie Savallo spoke Exuberant-American. Words scrambled from his mouth in a great, loud hurry as if the right to speak freely were a new right, and one apt to be curtailed any moment. Pastor Maple spoke Pulpit, which Robby later would define as a universal language comprising two parts Divinity, one part Wonder, three parts Exhortation, three parts Pomposity, and five parts Collection Plate Indicative. Listening to them at luncheon Robby heard from the vanWankles an accent he would describe later as Business-American. Words sashayed from the vanWankles’ mouths with their eyelids fluttering and their hips wiggling, so eager to be heard without being loud, so eager to convince without argument that the listener might forget, or never realize at all, that the principle behind seduction is not entirely generous.