The Fall-Down Artist

by Thomas Lipinski

  “I’m okay,” Dorsey mumbled to himself.

  The tape whirled on. Two newspaper reporters and Sam Hickcock requested interviews. Ironbox Boyle told him his father was in Harrisburg but would be in touch on Monday. The last voice was Gretchen’s.

  She was taking a few days off, had arranged it with the ER chief. Just a little time to take stock of things. “I’ll be in Lancaster, at Mother’s. We’ll talk when I get back.”

  Dorsey had hoped to reach her quickly, before any bruise became too deep-seated. Now, he thought, she’ll run through it all with her family and maybe old girlfriends. With a mother who is bound to question her daughter’s relationship with a man ten years her senior, when she could be out trapping a fellow doctor. Friends will shudder when she tells them what he does for a living. Where, oh, where, is your father’s money? Dorsey asked himself simplistically, as if it resolved all issues.

  Not now, Dorsey, he reminded himself, not with a job to do. And a dead friend. Screw your courage, he thought, remembering an English class from long ago. Think only of the job, like you did two nights ago. When they killed Russie.

  Finishing the coffee, Dorsey switched to beer and took a can from the office refrigerator. He turned on the TV and returned to the swivel chair. The late-afternoon football game, the four o’clock game, was on with a score of twenty-four to six. It isn’t baseball, Dorsey thought, and it sure as hell isn’t basketball, which is an art form. Sweaty, but an art form just the same.

  Squaring himself in his seat, Dorsey opened the manila folder Corso had sent him. The first few pages of the media report contained articles taken from the Pittsburgh dailies, factual accounts of specific events. Father Jancek speaks to the workers at the Neville Island barge works. Father Jancek arrested as he and his followers attempt to force a debate at a church attended by corporate executives. The priest appears at a hearing for a proposed injunction against picket lines established at several factories. At the hearing, he tells the judge he does not accept the judge’s authority or jurisdiction in this matter and spends two days in jail for contempt.

  The information gathered from the Beaver County Times and the Greensburg-Westmoreland newspaper was similar, with the exception of several editorials, which were strongly in support of Movement Together. But when Dorsey reached articles taken from the Sunday Home Visitor, a local Catholic paper, and The New York Times, he began to take copious notes.

  The Sunday Home Visitor provided a brief sketch of Father Jancek’s activities after arriving in Pittsburgh in 1966. Assigned to one of the diocese’s black congregations in south Oakland, he immediately involved himself in civil rights demonstrations. The first publicity for Father Jancek came with attempts to open the construction trade unions to black membership. In the spring of 1967, Father Jancek stood in the front ranks of a protest march in which thousands of unemployed blacks and their families demonstrated at major construction jobs in the downtown business district. At the site of a partially completed office building, while giving a brief but thunderous speech, Father Jancek was struck in the cheek by a rivet dropped from several stories up. The writer suggested that the ensuing disfigurement led to Father Jancek’s allowing his goatee to spread into a full beard.

  The remainder of the article wrestled with the issue of Father Jancek’s status as a priest. In a brief interview, the bishop of the Pittsburgh diocese clearly indicated that in his opinion Father Jancek’s activities with Movement Together were inviting official censure.

  “The papal edict concerning the political activities of the clergy is not, as some Catholics seem to believe, directed only to the priests of Latin America,” the bishop said. “Without a doubt, it has universal application, and Father Jancek is running afoul of the Holy See. I am compelled to take action in this matter.”

  A week later, Father Jancek was relieved of his pastoral duties and provided with quarters at a monastery for retired priests in the city’s Lawrenceville section. This occurred despite the published opinion of a prominent intellectual monsignor who challenged the bishop’s decision.

  Rather than being purely political, with the objective of achieving a fundamental reformation in the country’s ruling regime, Father Jancek’s actions fall into a socioeconomic classification. He is involved only with a specific sector of society, attempting to promote and improve that sector’s economic standing in relation to the rest of society. I doubt that the Holy Father intended religious orders to curtail this type of activity.

  The feature article taken from a Sunday edition of The New York Times provided a much more detailed history of the priest, indicating that his ordination in 1964 had been placed in jeopardy by his political activism. In particular, there had been three warm-weather absences from the seminary when he filled a seat on a Freedom Riders bus bound for Mississippi. Several elderly priests, seminary instructors, petitioned for seminarian Jancek’s dismissal, citing a likely inability to commit to a vow of obedience. Seminarian Jancek was saved by a younger, more sympathetic priest who arranged for him to face his detractors in closed session. At this meeting, employing his already well-respected powers of oratory, Jancek presented an argument that explained away his absences and assured the priests of his acceptance of their authority. Several priests who had been present at that meeting were contacted in preparation for the Times article, and although none could remember the content of Father Jancek’s argument, all agreed they had been moved and reassured of Father Jancek’s faith by it.

  The last of Father Jancek’s accomplishments recorded by the Times, before the creation of Movement Together, was referred to as the “Shifting of the Ashes” speech. In April of 1968, following the assassination of Dr. King, the blacks of Pittsburgh, as in other northern cities, put sections of the city to the torch. For the most part, the damage was confined to black neighborhoods, but one incident, the burning of a lumberyard on Twenty-fifth Street, occurred in the Strip, which at the time was still populated by working-class whites who lived near their factory jobs. The burning of the lumberyard and the fiery death of its owner, who had been standing guard against looters with a deer rifle, became a rallying point for white backlash and a demand for the capture of the arsonists. When it became apparent that the identity of the arsonists would never be known, the demand was changed to a call for stiff sentences and fines for all arrested looters.

  In July of that year, the City Council held open hearings to determine the root causes of the riots. Early on, spokesmen for a number of white working-class neighborhoods made appearances, again calling for swift and sure punishment for the rioters. Dramatically waiting for the final day of the hearings, Father Jancek led a contingent of blacks and liberal whites to council chambers to present a response. In a stirring speech before radio microphones and TV cameras, he beseeched city residents to search their souls for the seeds of revenge, “just as workers now sift through the ashes of that lumberyard. And cast out those seeds just as those workmen clear away that structure’s charred remains.” In the spring of 1969, a playground was constructed on the lumberyard site.

  Dorsey remembered little of that day, other than his father’s jubilant response to the priest’s speech. Sipping at his beer, Dorsey recalled the dinner table that night and his father saying that the Democratic Party was off the hook. “The Democratic Party runs the city and the county,” Martin Dorsey explained to his son. “So the police and the DA are the Democrats. If the police don’t arrest the rioters and if the DA doesn’t convict them, the whites will think the Democrats let them down. And if the rioters get long sentences, the black pressure groups will be angry with the Democrats. But the priest has the whole city ashamed of itself. He fixed it for us. Reconciliation is on the way.”

  So when did he change? Dorsey asked himself as he crossed the room to turn off the lopsided football game. When did the priest switch from community advocate to political messiah? Or instead of changing, did he just come of age? Either way, he put into motion the wheels that ground up Russie
.

  Dorsey passed the desk, grabbed his beer, and moved on to the front windows. Peering out onto Wharton Street, bathed in the weak glow of mercury lights, he thought of the others in Movement Together, the rank and file. The people who ate at the soup kitchens and dressed in secondhand clothes provided by Movement Together. Old men and women who donated money at Father Jancek’s call in the hope that he could preserve their way of life, that families and communities could stay intact. Fuck ’em, Dorsey thought, Russie’s dead.

  You’ll find a way, Dorsey told himself. There’s a way to derail the priest and old Personal Injury himself. Just find it.

  Back at the desk, Dorsey pushed on to the last pages of the media search report. These were photos, with captions, taken of Father Jancek over the last nineteen years. None were of Father Jancek alone, and Dorsey became intrigued in trying to identify the people sharing the photos with the priest. My God, Dorsey thought, it’s a Who’s Who of liberal politicians. A 1967 photo of Father Jancek bestowing Holy Eucharist on the tongue of Bobby Kennedy at the communion rail. A 1968 shot of him shaking hands with Eugene McCarthy. The last photo on the first page was a 1972 group shot including Father Jancek and, of all people, County Commissioner Martin Dorsey.

  “Both ends to the middle,” Dorsey mumbled. “Both ends to the middle.”

  The second page held five photos. Dorsey breezed through them until he reached the fourth. It was a picture of Father Jancek, Jack Stockman, and a black man in what Dorsey guessed to be his forties, considering the gray at the temples. Smiling, the three men were grouped closely together, their right arms extended and their hands one on top of the other, as if in a prayer huddle before the big game.

  “Jesus Christ,” Dorsey said, reading the caption. “I’m fucking surrounded.”

  FATHER ANDREW JANCEK, JACK STOCKMAN, AND LOUIS PREACH AT THE NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE DINNER. PITTSBURGH HILTON, 1978.

  19

  The front page of the morning paper ran a picture of Dorsey taken several years earlier when he was with the DA’s office. Next to that was a photo of Russell Anthony Bartok. The closed eyes and squared jaw and grainy quality identified the photo as a release from the coroner. So that was his full name, Dorsey thought.

  The Fidelity Casualty claims office was like the hundreds of police squad rooms Dorsey had visited, only longer. Located on the fourth floor of a downtown office building, illuminated by fluorescent lighting, it consisted of a large open area with rows of desks manned by adjustors instead of police detectives. At the far end, away from the elevators, were glass partitions housing the claim manager’s office and an enclosed conference room. Dorsey set up shop in the conference room.

  Equipped with a large black coffee and two Danish, he had arrived at ten o’clock. He had a brief, perfunctory conversation with Ray Corso, who reminded Dorsey that it was he, Corso, who had saved him from the sharp edge of John Munt’s ax. Dorsey had mumbled his thanks and settled himself at the head of the conference table. Piled before him were the files of twenty-seven active workers’ compensation claims on Carlisle Steel employees.

  Dorsey began by reviewing the files of the fourteen men on Claudia Maynard’s list. The diagnosed conditions varied: back injuries being treated by Dr. Tang or one of several chiropractors; leg injuries; and several occupationally induced psychiatric conditions. But the profiles met the Movement Together mold: young, single, no dependents. More important, attached to each of the file folders was a Western Union Mailgram, its message similar to the one Dorsey had received concerning Claudia Maynard. Delivered earlier that morning, it indicated that the injured worker was now legally represented by one of several attorneys in the Johnstown area. Again, as in the case of Claudia Maynard, all communication was to be conducted through the attorney’s office.

  How far would you have to dig, Dorsey asked himself, to find the connection between these lawyers and P. I. Stockman? Maybe just through the topsoil. Stockman could have his name on each of these notices and it would mean nothing. What would it prove? A high-powered lawyer like Personal Injury can pick up fourteen new clients on a slow day. The man could use a turnstile for an office door. Stockman’s connection, without testimony, means nothing. Dorsey was reminded of how valuable Claudia Maynard could have been, and how, short of a subpoena, he would never speak to her again.

  Of the thirteen remaining files, Dorsey was easily able to eliminate nine: workers in their mid-fifties, some with children and grandchildren. And all nine had undergone a series of back surgeries: disc removals and fusions. None met the Movement Together stereotype.

  Unable to disregard any of the remaining four, Dorsey wondered if Claudia Maynard had helped eighteen workers to file fraudulent claims, not seventeen. The remaining claims were those of young single men with less than two years on the job. Two back strains, one cervical injury, and a worker claiming an acquired seizure disorder.

  “Just a little off,” Dorsey said, watching the door open. “You look a little off for most people. But considering your usual appearance, you look like hell. You sleep in the park last night?”

  Sam Hickcock slipped into the first chair to Dorsey’s left. His tie was slightly loose at the throat and his moustache was wet with hangover sweats. His hair, which normally showed the results of careful blow-drying, was slick and combed straight back, obscuring the usual neat part line. Slumped in his chair, Hickcock tried to rub away the redness from his eyes.

  “You came alone?” Dorsey searched the main floor for a cameraman. “How’d you know I was here? There was no tail on me this morning, I’m sure of it.”

  Hickcock pulled closer to the table. “I was told you were here. Don’t ask by whom. Privileged information.”

  “Really?” Dorsey knew he would get nowhere by pressing. “Then why are you here? Let’s try that one. Expecting a release for the media?”

  “No, nothing like that. Just want to talk.”

  It’s not just his appearance that lacks its usual flair, Dorsey decided as he studied Hickcock. There’s no command in his voice, none of his famous sense of urgency. And he has yet to try to startle me; he’s not trying to put me on the defensive. “So talk to me. And take some of this.” Dorsey pushed the Styrofoam coffee cup across the table to Hickcock.

  “I turned forty-five over the weekend.” Hickcock sipped at the coffee. “And I have reached the conclusion that life does not start at forty or forty-five. In fact, for me, it’s the kiss of death.”

  For a few moments, Dorsey allowed Hickcock’s words to hang in the air. “You know I have nothing to say. My work is confidential.”

  “I’ve been on your ass. I apologize.” Hickcock wiped his palms on a handkerchief. “Let me make it up to you.”

  “How and why?” Dorsey asked. “Begin with why. If it’s not good enough, you can ditch the how.”

  Hickcock played at his tie knot before speaking. “Turned forty-five on Sunday. That’s a milestone in my business. If you’re not with the networks by forty, forty-five on the outside, you don’t get in ever. So I’ll never get in, right?”

  “If you say so.”

  “And I’ve been trying,” Hickcock said. “About two months ago I got my last rejection. You send demo tapes to New York, that’s how it works. Most of the stuff I sent recently was coverage of Movement Together. I figured with the national interest, it was the way to play it. Figured I was in. But it was no good.”

  “I feel bad for you.” Dorsey skimmed through the file folder in front of him. “What’s this have to do with me? You’ll stay in Pittsburgh and be a big frog in a little pond.”

  “That’s not all of it.” Hickcock nervously went through his pants pockets, as if searching for something. “A demotion of sorts came my way last Friday. Father Jancek, even with competition from the other stations and the papers, has been my story. The public thinks of the two of us together.

  “Friday changed all that. I was pulled into the news director’s office, and in there with him was the station manage
r. They started telling me what a great job I was doing, which is always a bad sign. So, as a reward for hard work, they were giving me an assistant, someone to split the duties with. Then we watch a demo tape of this girl they’re bringing in from Cincinnati. Early twenties, blond and good-looking, with one of those tougher-than-a-guy stares they all have these days.”

  So he’s on his way out, Dorsey thought. Eased out of his job and soon out the door. No chance of getting anything better, and what he has is being pulled out from under him. You have the why, now see what he has to sell.

  “So you’re on thin ice. Tell me, how do you plan on saving your sweet ass, and how do I come out ahead?”

  “From what I see, Movement Together has crossed the line.” Hickcock’s words were pressured, showing signs of being rehearsed. “When your friend was killed, I mean. The other stuff they pulled, dead fish in bank vaults and stink bombs in department stores, those were attention-getting pranks. With the priest’s popular support, and the harmless nature of the pranks, I had to slant the news their way. Now something serious has happened, I can take a wider view of events, give both sides a little credit. And I can make you look good.”

  “You, criticize Movement Together?” Dorsey asked. “Jesus, Hickcock, you invented these people. You’re the one who first brought me to tears with all those poor folks out of work. You’re in the middle of the race. How in hell can you change horses now?”

  “Bit by bit. Until the new girl gets settled in, the priest is all mine. I’ll shift my outlook a little, each night, at six and eleven. Put a little distance between us. By the time the girl gets here she’ll have to fall in line.”

  Dorsey rose from his seat and walked to the partition. Drumming his fingers against the glass, he watched a young secretary as she walked from desk to desk distributing memos. She wore a tight black skirt. Did she make Corso chomp down that much harder on his pipestem?