Worthy Of This Great City

by Mike Miller

  Bob offered a supportive neutrality; even Jenny was vaguely warm. Clearly some cosmic consciousness was monitoring them, compelling this simulation of concern. “But it’s right,” Ruth said. “It’s about respect for our common humanity. And it buys me time, because I absolutely can’t stay here. I’m just waiting for the right door to open. I know it’ll happen.”

  Perhaps she was right, because although Stanley was let go not many months later I think Jenny’s still at PHA. And there were signs Ruth was recovering that perilous snarky edge. For example, an on-air call from a young woman, probably in her thirties and nearly sobbing in empathy: “It’s so inspiring that you still believe in God. I don’t think I could.”

  That silence went on so dangerously long it made me look towards the radio, until finally: “Maybe you should get a better grasp of life on this planet.”

  Even so, there was noticeably less of that outlandish wildness and defiance and originality: she was too busy scrambling around for some idea of who she was supposed to be now.

  And she was obviously still a fortunate woman with plentiful options and connections. She accepted an email invitation to a dinner for supporters of Children’s Hospital, another institution where she’d extolled the munificence of PhillyCares. This was up at the Crystal Tea Room at the Wanamaker Building, a lovely venue, all chandeliers and pink and gilding, although with trashed odds and ends stashed in convenient unlovely corners and a bit of wearing on the chairs. The shabby-genteel ambience adds a comforting element, so it’s a popular site for ladies’ lunches and moderately high-profile non-profit events.

  Ruth picked up her folded name card from the maitre d’s podium, scouting the tables for a friendly face, wandering critically through the seated scattering of quiet but influential supporters and pragmatic physicians and realistic administrators. No familiar face looked up at her, no welcoming glance invited her to join any table she lingered near. Probably these stalwarts identified her with the PhillyCares fiasco, or maybe they intuitively recognized the ignorant, untried soul beneath the shoddy braggadocio, the personality never satisfied to be one among equals but forever aiming to surpass. Maybe coming was a stupid mistake. She identified an elderly female with untidy gray hair and an agreeable demeanor, an oncologist she’d worked with on several occasions; memory evoked the face of a hairless teenager infused with that infinitely optimistic expression they all have, his nearly translucent fingers unwrapping the present they’d brought for a boy his age.

  So she insinuated herself into the woman’s party, bestowing slight indiscriminate smiles and nods to the company, reaching out to gently stroke one of the silky leaves in the centerpiece. One bearded middle-aged man gave her a fleeting and mistakenly familiar smile before abruptly turning back to his conversation. No recognition anywhere despite all the recent press; these people had better things to do.

  Ruth tapped her card around to make her name visible and fixed the older woman with a meaningful gaze, forcing the poor woman to give an obviously spurious start of surprise and wrap her in a brief, belated hug. To Ruth, always overly sensitive, it felt like a slap.

  Certainly she evoked no real interest from this congregation of the truly experienced and proficient, these clubby casuists making Ruth’s irrelevance clear. Or so she felt, stuck there swallowing indifferent house chardonnay for courage, barely masticating course after course of unremarkable food, enviously monitoring the spoken and tacit praise being passed among these estimable individuals. Seventy dollars worth of mortification.

  She said, “People rejoicing in their ability to help others. I was jealous and humiliated. Sometimes I’m so ashamed of myself it’s like a sickness of the soul.”

  This was during one of our final real conversations, Ruth purporting to view this unfortunate dinner as a gift, a shove along the road to greater authenticity. Today I know her next move was already well underway, the critical decisions made.

  Also from this conversation, another troubling dream or vision: “I saw Kate dancing. She was about twenty, and she was radiant with this wonderful open smile, and she was dancing sort of side to side like a marionette. And I was scared to death. I can’t lose her yet. I can’t.” Even while she dreaded being with her aunt, with having to endure the endless, vicious praise of Pat the Perfect and his wondrous offspring, those recipients of all the Dougherty energy and hugs and support as opposed to Ruth, so justly discounted and ignored. Everything was moving away though, and taking her outrage with it. The problem with the dead is they’re so easy to forgive, but to forgive and let go is to confer absolution, demonstrate that they never hurt you all that much too begin with. You lose your righteous edge.

  When there we were in Center City one beautiful Fourth of July morning: Ruth, most members of Council, sufficient press, and the mayor along with the surviving remnants of his administration. Representatives of the Mural Arts Program sat up front with the other dignitaries, accompanied by a covey of proud volunteers from the immediate neighborhood, everyone facing the side of an art house movie theatre a short walk up from Penn’s Landing at Walnut Street. The mural itself was still shrouded beneath two stories of blue tarp crisscrossed with a nylon line of diminutive American flags that flattened and flipped in an incessant breeze, and the tarp likewise billowed and fell, everything intricately alive, the invitees constantly pushing their hair out of their faces and holding tight to their programs. Usually the Fourth brings us scorching heat with the threat of thunderstorms, but that day was temperate, and the interfering wind - an insistent horsefly, an uninvited ghost – made the light unreliable, shifting everything erratically from industrial gray to a bright glare and back again to reproachful shadow.

  They’d arranged the audience in a semicircle that completely blocked the sidewalk, with a flimsy podium sprouting multiple microphones the focal point. Curious pedestrians, forced to walk in the street, kept rudely close to the protective municipal sawhorses, some lingering to become spectators themselves, curious to see what kind of memorable experience they’d lucked into.

  Ruth was in an off-white silk suit; with a nice bouquet it would have made a fine mature wedding costume. A modest bride, she was sitting remarkably still, her hands crossed neatly over the tiny purse in her lap. And she gazed straight forward, betraying neither expectation nor agitation, merely occupying the moment.

  Our mayor looked around at all of us, bestowing his prim smile. “We are here to celebrate a life.” He settled into a lecturer’s quiet authority, ignoring conversing passers-by and the staccato midtown traffic. “A life worthy of this great city.” Margery sat squarely in front of the podium, serious and sure. June’s bowed head was just visible far off to my right, near the street, that cap of golden brown hair politely tilted. And David sat skewed sideways in his chair in the second row, critically alert.

  “I know we often disparage this city and we have reason too, in fact we must redeem our shameful history of unchecked greed and ingrained corruption and deliberate callousness towards our fellow citizens. But I do not despair,” the mayor continued in that soft voice, standing there with both hands on the podium. “Indeed, I take heart every time I look out at a gathering such as this one and see so many individuals who work to make things better. Selflessly and consistently, year after year, exhibiting a truly humbling dedication. But out of even that incredibly impressive group, some extraordinary individuals rise far above the rest.”

  Ruth was seriously listening to this crap; a random remark in the audience caught her ear and she turned, affronted, where I knew Thom would have relished decimating this show. From my position leaning against a protruding corner of the wall I saw her lean over to exchange a word with Gerry Bright, sitting next to her; Bright responded with a bland, avuncular smile, a politician’s smile, practically patting her knee.

  “These are people who are intrinsically fine. We all recognize them. We all treasure them. We all secretly wish we were them, born with their great grace and their wisdom and their cha
rm. Their inherent nobility. They demand our attention and our respect. In today’s world where the media creates instant but temporary fame, we who have the trust of the people must remember and honor those we recognize as great.” Here he paused to scan the assembled members of the press in a rather accusatory manner. And finally he turned to the covered wall.

  June had her jaw thrust forward to show devotion. We’d met earlier; actually she’d practically pounced on me as I arrived, her hand immediately at my sleeve. Moving up close, meeting my automatic smile with unwarranted intimacy. “How’re you doing?” Not waiting for a reply. “I still can’t really deal with this.”

  It took me a minute to unravel her expression, and then I was startled into a rude laugh. She shook her head and then placed her other hand on my other arm as if we were about to dance.

  “You didn’t know? Seriously, you never suspected?” And she certainly seemed surprised. “Well, you see what it is, guilt all mixed up with grief.”

  With those anxious eyes emanating wary tragedy, anxious to appropriate the widow’s privilege. I broke away, muttering something or other, shocking her a little with my churlish behavior.

  And the worst of that is, even though it’s crazy and it turns the whole world upside down, I still have to wonder. So she wins.

  “I don’t have to tell you about the wonderful work done by the Mural Arts Program. Wherever they place one of their magnificent works, they incorporate members of the neighborhood into their designs, and they insure that the themes they depict have significance to the people who will see them every day. They utilize the willing hands of the community to manifest those paintings, those visions of hope and mutual support that everywhere redeem the otherwise blank or graffiti-infested walls of our city. I don’t have to point out to you how appropriate the choice of subject matter is in the particular example of their art we are met to unveil today, this holiday of all days, in this city of all cities.”

  Margery, still apparently delighted to be through with me, had Harry Ciccarelli up front next to her, with Spivak and Murphy right behind, all four leaning confidentially towards each other but not speaking. There was some kind of energy around them. They were up to something. Shit.

  The workmen up on the scaffolding were waiting, as were the two on the sidewalk, one at each side of the shroud. At the mayor’s signal they gave a couple of surprisingly gentle tugs, expertly allowing the cloth to collapse into a blue puddle on the cement.

  And there was Thom, huge and irrepressible, all fulsome ugly grin, slouching just as usual behind a desk that skewed out towards the viewer. Both the immediate foreground and panoramic background surrounded him with images lauding his public concerns - street vendors and capped university graduates, the elderly in wheelchairs, construction workers, police and firefighters, businessmen with briefcases - all this colorful array painted in varied disproportion against the idea of an active office or the milky Philadelphia sky. And there was City Hall in the background, too, with Billy Penn peering over Thom’s shoulder. When unexpectedly if discreetly I started to cry.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Back in my real life, an existence entirely unrelated to most of this narrative, I went and bought my first house. Invested in a false image of stability, and me a forty-year-old with a teenager and no future. It was a single in an established neighborhood in East Falls, which is a decent kind of place despite being technically in the city, with just enough grass and sidewalk trees and flower beds and squirrels to make it feel like a happy cliché. Obviously this was partly about Sophie, but it was equally about my search for permanence. Or maybe I was nesting, pregnant with whatever new self I was turning into for the next time being. There was an outside, a tiny front patio with a wrought iron railing, and a narrow backyard for some patio furniture and a barbecue. The kitchen has sufficient space for a table to sit around and converse like a suppressed intellectual, and I bought a new television to properly consecrate the family hearth.

  The neighborhood isn’t exactly city or suburb; it’s more like an idealized small town with porches and bicycles and front doors with lace curtains. Residents care about their gardens: their flowering magnolias and cherry trees, their summer tomatoes and herbs. They care about their neighborhood, their world, their pets, their climate, their schools, and their bowels. It’s fairly pleasant, and I think I’ll be reasonably content.

  Now that we’d actually selected one of those tiny Realtor’s offerings my daughter found it way too modest and common; that’s her age, but I had to agree, it was anyone’s unremarkable house as opposed to our reputedly hip city digs. That was kind of the point, but normalcy is an insult to her these days. She’s morphing into a surface radical, all clothes and attitude, which I guess is inevitable. I don’t mind because we both know her sensible inner compass keeps her pointing towards the conventional. She is no dreamer. When I suggested she use her excellent math skills for aviation, even space exploration, she said, “Fuck you, Dad,” and turned back to her phone. I can see her becoming a corporate executive or some other dull success like that.

  The paper moved too, fatalistically abandoning its venerable tower, its spiritual as well as material body. What remained of its tattered soul flitted to offices in an old department store building on lower Market Street, a regulation cubicle farm with happy designer touches in primary colors, kind of a cross between temporary garage quarters and clown college.

  I knew I wouldn’t linger, not that this is entirely by choice. Our newsroom was merged with that of our sister tabloid, and there were cutbacks, lots of them, including Megan. We hugged; she cried a little, and now I have a new, competitive cohort. I miss Megan’s grudging support.

  And then, unbelievably, the entire business was simply gifted away to a non-profit created solely for the purpose of preserving a traditional newspaper for the city. We’ve become an admitted artifact, a museum exhibit. So I’ve decided to deal more directly with the universe. Truth and justice! Because what choice do I have? So this book first of all, not to be obvious, and I think I’ll be free of all this extra weight once it’s finished and out there. Arguably I’ve been tending this way my whole life. Plus my truth actually is better than yours. And wouldn’t it be wonderfully ironic if I ended up in radio? Again, seriously, what’s the alternative? Trusting in something else? What did you have in mind? The world is splitting into irreconcilable pieces and reforming in some unimaginable way. People think they’ve got it figured out but they’re wrong, it’s a cataclysm, even the rules of change are changing.

  My conversations with Ruth, always sporadic, died out completely at that time; neither of us had any more interest in that misbegotten profile. But I recall one last phone call where she shared an anecdote from before her marriage. She’s riding in a car with another woman when her friend started talking about angels, claiming she once narrowly avoided being hit by a swerving truck only because of this young man in a brown coat who came out of nowhere. Ruth said, “I knew it was true because I’ve known angels wear brown coats since I was little. Once one came and sat on our front steps.” I have no idea what that was about, but she wanted to share it with me.

  And then with no discernable break: “You know I only stopped being afraid once I realized I was a victim s there was nothing wrong with me, it was them. That was the most valuable insight I’ve ever experienced in my life, that vindication. It dissolved all my confusion. I can’t even remember what I thought about myself before then. Even my dad totally agreed in the end; it was in his eyes. It was how I won.

  Which brings us around to August again with fall edging in, a swallowtail butterfly slitting over skittering brown leaves. I’d been to the Askew house in Chestnut Hill a few times for formal holiday gatherings, nothing personal. The vicinity mimics an upscale suburb but it’s actually located within city limits, making it a convenient situation for those affluent officials required to maintain a primary residence within Philadelphia. There’s some rather attractive architecture, ve
nerable landscaping, and a lot of quaint retail and faux Colonial crap.

  Chestnut Hill was incorporated into the city in the mid-18th century after the Nativist Riots, an anti-Catholic movement reacting to complaints about Catholic children having to read from the Protestant bible in school. Rumors spread, churches and homes were burned, people died.

  Back in 1844, if you needed law enforcement in an outlying area you asked a constable to get the county sheriff to collect a posse, so it wasn’t easy keeping the peace. Rioting exploded again around July 4th that year, and somebody got hold of a cannon and fired it. The clear need for adequate peacekeeping culminated in the Act of 1854, which made the city and county coterminous and incidentally condemned the Philadelphia County Sheriff’s Office to such vestigial duties as shuttling prisoners to court and auctioning off foreclosed property. Any number of regional small towns with their own industries and ethnicities were abruptly combined in name but nothing approximating fact, evolving over the decades into our current city of distinct neighborhoods. So if colonial Philadelphia was born of Quaker tolerance, today’s larger city is the legacy of religious bigotry.

  Anyway, Chestnut Hill is on the whole a lovely place, with gray fieldstone houses shining silver, much wrought iron, generous shade trees, and gardens bordered with humungous azalea hedges, a springtime explosion of pink and white. The precious pseudo-Colonial shopping blocks gleam with the plate glass of familiar chain emporiums, trendy eateries, and that upscale cutesy element of gift shops, boutiques, and art galleries.