by Joan Dempsey
“I’m going to take off. Call you later?”
Ludka nodded. Stanley stood up. Ludka took hold of his wrist. Stanley smiled and bent down, his ear close to her mouth.
“Why does your gallery have no phone, Stanley?”
The shifting light from the TV roamed over his face as he drew back and squinted at her in bewilderment. Flames filled the screen as the narrator explained that thousands of purged artworks had simply been burned. Stanley flicked his eyes toward the TV, frowned, and rubbed a hand down over his mouth. He leaned close again.
“I’m embarrassed to say the phone company cut me off for non-payment. I’ve got someone working on it. In the meantime …”
He fished his cell phone out of his pocket and waggled it at her. He smiled, and she made an effort to smile back. She released his wrist. She glared at his sunglasses, nodded, and when he stepped away, she closed her eyes, blocking out the roiling blaze.
17
Peaceably to Assemble
Despite the fine, icy snow that had fallen overnight, and the frigid wind that blasted across Boston Harbor and rushed through the meandering canyons of the building-flanked streets to tear out onto the Boston Common, the counterdemonstrators arrived just as Meck had prayed they would, en masse and on time, shortly before the rally’s first scheduled presenter. The crowd had tripled in the last fifteen minutes. The initial group—roughly two hundred in support of the ousted teachers—was at first overjoyed about the sudden influx of newcomers, but soon became wary. Every one of the new additions wore or carried something red: hats, coats, scarves, ear muffs, extra-large T-shirts and aprons pulled over parkas, Halloween capes, choir robes, armbands, long skirts, jeans, high boots, umbrellas, flags, pom-poms. Throngs emerged from the Park Street T station and marched across the Common, up to the foot of Beacon Hill. Another crowd spilled out the exits from the underground parking area down near Charles Street and flowed up the wide plowed footpaths. A convoy of buses pulled to a stop and idled in a long line on Beacon Street in front of the State House, spitting out one passenger after another, all of whom proceeded quickly through the stone and iron gates and down the stairs onto the Common. The new group rapidly encircled the increasingly alarmed and now sorry-looking original crowd, which, later on the news, in video footage from Channel 7’s helicopter, would resemble the ragged eye of a Katrina-force hurricane.
On the icy bottom step of the wide flight of stone stairs leading down from the State House to the Common, Meck stood out of foot traffic’s way, the crowd fanning out below him. As people noticed him, they lifted their hands in greeting, and he nodded his thanks and waved back. There must have been five or six hundred people wearing red, and the mood was festive and noisy. Jill had brought the boys on one of the buses, deciding it was a good opportunity for a civics lesson. John ran repeatedly around a bench while Jill, nose and cheeks rosy with the cold, tried to settle him down. Ben stood apart with a group of his friends, and Andrew solemnly held Jill’s hand, his eyes wide. They wore matching red ski hats. Young Brandon Braddock stood with members of his basketball team and his sister Sophie and her friend Ashley; the three of them had organized the buses. Red-faced and stamping his feet, Arnie Dengler was there with his wife, Helen. Scores of committee volunteers had also turned out. Meck couldn’t stop smiling, but also couldn’t stop scanning the crowd, wondering if anyone among them had assaulted Tommy Zeilonka and made a deal with Eric Barton.
The TV cameras rolled, and reporters affixed their microphones and recorders to the podium. Meck’s own recorder was already in place. Four high school students, three girls and a boy, dress clothes sticking out below the hems of their bright ski jackets, stood a few paces behind the podium with their parents and a small group of other speakers, all of them waiting for the senate president and the former attorney general, who were just now making their way down the stairs, the golden dome of the State House behind them, blinding in the sharp, midafternoon sun. Despite the bitter cold, Lolek wasn’t wearing a hat or gloves. Izaac, however, was bundled up in a gray overcoat, herringbone Harris Tweed with matching cap, midnight blue angora scarf, and black leather gloves. His eyes were leaking at the outer corners. Aggie, unfortunately, wore a red wool hip-length coat. Behind them trailed Eric Barton, and a handful of elected officials who wanted to be seen standing in solidarity behind the senate president. On nearly every step, the group halted when someone greeted either Lolek or Izaac or both, their progression as laborious as that of Governor Patrick entering the House of Representatives just last month to deliver his State of the Commonwealth address.
Meck checked his watch. Wouldn’t be long now. Whit suddenly emerged from the crowd, stepped up next to him, and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said.
Meck lifted his head toward the sky and smiled.
“I expect you’re right on time.”
Just then Meck caught the senator’s eye, and Lolek stepped past Aggie, glanced at Whit, and shook Meck’s gloved hand. The cameras rolled and clicked.
“Warren.”
“Mr. President.”
“Thank you for condemning the violence on your show last week. And please thank your pastor for me, too. It means a lot to my family that you both spoke out against the assault.”
Meck inclined his head. Lolek gestured to the crowd.
“I hope your people heed your message today.”
“I hope they do, too, Mr. President. I pray your son is doing well?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Lolek released Meck’s hand and moved past him. Aggie and Eric nodded cordially as they went by.
“Damn it,” muttered Lolek as Aggie caught up to him. “We did it, didn’t we? We underestimated him.”
Aggie nodded, her face grim.
“Look who’s skulking around in the crowd,” she said.
Lolek followed her gaze. Carey Best, Gauch’s top aide, who sported a woven red scarf over his black parka, was speaking to a hearty man with a white mane of hair.
“Who’s he with?”
Aggie shrugged and shook her head.
As Lolek greeted the students behind the podium, the crowd stirred with new energy, sensing that the rally was about to begin. It was then Meck spotted Pastor Royce, talking with Carey Best. At yesterday’s Sunday morning service, the pastor had spoken not of deception and dishonesty, as Meck thought he might in the wake of the assault and Eric’s revelation, but of righteousness. Meck and Whit had both been impressed by his focus on the positive, by the way he’d turned to Job and held him up as a model of honesty; they hoped his sermon would be castigation enough for attacking the senator’s son and approaching Eric—if, that is, the people responsible were in the congregation. Neither Meck, Whit, nor Pastor Royce had known for sure who might have been involved, although a week ago, the morning after Eric’s visit, they’d tossed around a dozen unsupported theories; Arnie Dengler had been high on the list. Pastor Royce had spoken to him, though, and believed him to be out of the running.
Now Pastor Royce lifted his hand in greeting, then wrapped his arms around himself and exaggerated a shiver. Meck smiled and waved back. Carey, who’d been extraordinarily helpful when Meck was preparing the legislation, saluted and grinned.
One of the high school girls stepped up to the bevy of microphones. Her purse strap was slung across her chest like an ammunition belt, and her straight blonde bangs blew up and back against the hem of her pale blue knitted hat. The crowd slowly fell silent, some taking longer than others to understand it was time to begin. She adjusted the microphone.
“Now,” whispered Meck.
At the back of the crowd a man in a red plaid hunting jacket stepped up onto a park bench, lifted a gold trumpet and sounded a loud, high note, which swelled and grew and caused people inside their State House offices to pause and listen and wonder. The note faded and was then punctuated with a series of five blaring, staccato blasts: tell-it-like-it-is. On the fifth note, each and every p
erson in red stood a little taller and struck the same pose: fingers closed into fists, wrists crossed in an X over their hearts. As one, the TV cameras swung around to the crowd. The inner group of protesters looked around uncertainly, wondering if this was something they were supposed to do, too, and a few of them hesitantly crossed and then uncrossed their wrists. Meck wanted to shout with gratitude and fling out his arms, but instead gave one sharp, satisfied nod and a quick pump of his fists where they hung by his sides. Whit pounded Meck’s back and gave a low whistle. The hair on Meck’s arms prickled. Lone photographers and reporters rushed around the perimeter to get to the trumpeter. Several cameras focused on Meck. Tomorrow’s papers would capture his radiant smile, Whit towering next to him, head inclined toward Meck. Both wore red scarves.
The people in red were utterly silent, while the others all began to murmur. Near the center of the crowd, a ruddy-faced woman, heavy with bulky winter clothing, began to call out in a loud but as yet indecipherable voice. She started to clamber up onto a stack of snow piled at the intersection of two wide paths, while her husband grabbed at her coat. She slapped his hand away. Next to him stood their daughter, arms wrapped tightly around her waist, head hanging low. Attaining the top, the woman unsteadily surveyed the crowd and tried to position her feet for a solid footing, stamping each one in turn. She pointed across the crowd at the trumpeter, who, despite the harangue of reporters peppering him with questions, stood silently on the bench with his wrists crossed, trumpet jutting out of one hand.
“Go ahead and blow your horn, you Jesus freak!” yelled the woman. “Like that will make a difference!”
She staggered suddenly and then regained her footing.
“Why can’t you people just live and let live? Pack up your Christian hate and go home! Let us have our rally.”
A few people began to shout out in agreement. Someone started a rhythmic clapping, which quickly caught on. The woman matched its meter, shouting “Pack up your hate, pack up your hate, pack up your hate!”
Meck watched with admiration and gratitude as the people in red maintained their silence and their positions, many turning to Pastor Royce, who beamed around at them, the wind tossing his hair this way and that. Many closest to the center had to break their pose to fend off the jostling. The woman’s daughter suddenly lifted her head and barked one sharp word.
“Mom!”
The woman, startled, ceased her chanting, and as she met her daughter’s disgusted gaze, her ruddy complexion flushed with deeper color. After a moment, she reached down, took the hand her husband had offered, and awkwardly made her way down to the ground.
At the podium, the girl who’d been waiting to speak looked behind her uncertainly. Lolek stepped forward and told her he would set the stage. She nodded with relief and moved away to stand with the other students. Lolek gazed out at the crowd.
“Good people,” he said.
He waited a moment and then repeated himself, his hands cupped loosely together on the podium. The flat lapels of his black Brioni overcoat framed his white shirt and yellow tie. He stood calmly, smiled slightly, and repeated himself a third time. With sudden regret at a missed opportunity, he recalled the aide at Mercy: We’ll come out of the woodwork for you, Senator. Lolek wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. The crowd finally quieted.
“Good people, my name is Lolek Zeilonka. Welcome. If you know me at all, you probably know me as the Democratic senator from Hampshire County. Today, however, I stand before you not only as a senator, but also as a father. Thank you to so many of you who have reached out to support my wife, Marta, and me and the rest of our family as we come to terms with last week’s brutal attack on my son Tommy. My wife is with him right now. His injuries prevented him from being here, but they both asked me to pass along their warmest regards and gratitude.”
Tommy had wanted nothing more than to address the rally instead of his father. Abe had finally convinced him to listen to the doctors; plus, he’d said, strategically it was better right now to let others speak on his behalf.
Izaac was suddenly beside Lolek at the podium. He calmly placed a hand on Lolek’s forearm, and Lolek understood he was to step aside. Another man as influential as Lolek might have been annoyed with this intrusion, but Lolek didn’t think twice; he utterly trusted his father’s political judgment. Without moving his mouth away from the microphone, he turned his head for a moment and held out an arm to the group behind him.
“With me here are students from Adams River Regional High School, representatives from the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders and Mass Equality, as well as a dozen of my esteemed colleagues from the state legislature. And here, of course, is my own father, Tommy’s grandfather, the Honorable Izaac Rosenberg, former attorney general of this great commonwealth.”
Lolek placed a hand on Izaac’s back and ushered him to the center of the podium, then stepped back and stood next to Aggie. She cocked her head inquiringly, and he smiled.
“Watch this.”
Izaac lifted a gloved hand against the applause. It had been some time since he had made a spontaneous speech. As a new immigrant, he had worked hard to perfect his English, and it had served him well throughout his long civil rights career. He’d officially withdrawn from public life two years ago when he turned seventy-eight, and the only appearance he’d made since then was to accept the Anti-Defamation League’s lifetime achievement award, an honor that had touched him deeply. Today, he was glad to feel invigorated by the prospect of a speech, a feeling that helped quell his uneasiness about the zeal of this crowd. The people in red kept their wrists crossed. He wondered if the person who’d assaulted Tommy was out there, or the one who’d left the warning note on their porch. Unconsciously, he began to silently incant his name: My name is Izaac Szymon Rosenberg, Izaac Szymon Rosenberg.
“My friends.”
He turned his head and cleared his throat into his fist, not because it was necessary, but because he’d long ago learned that a pause at the start of a speech had a way of drawing people closer.
“My friends. In my life … and a rather long life it has been …”
People chuckled as Izaac lifted his beetling eyebrows and smiled.
“… I have never once witnessed such a gathering as this without a sense of pride and gratitude for the founding fathers of both our nation and our commonwealth. Thanks to their foresight, and their brilliant, enduring words, no one today can abridge ‘the right of the people peaceably to assemble.’”
He lifted his hands toward the crowd and smiled again.
“And here we all are, two hundred and twenty years after the Bill of Rights was enacted, peaceably assembling. Isn’t that incredible? This basic freedom, granted to each of us to ensure our voices are heard, guarantees that the spirit of the First Amendment not only survives, but thrives. And you know what? I love that!”
With the word love, he crossed his wrists and bumped his fists a few times against his chest.
“I trust you all know that this means love in American Sign Language?”
He paused and scanned the crowd. Some nodded, others appeared confused.
Whit bent down and whispered to Meck.
“He just co-opted our salute.”
“Beautifully. Admirable move. I’m going to talk to him as soon as this is over. Invite him on the show. He’ll be the consummate guest.”
It had been Meck’s idea to focus on loving the sinner. The inevitable public images of the former attorney general assuming the stance would provide Meck with the perfect entrée for explaining the crucial difference between objecting to sin and opposing the sinner.
“Well, I love”—Izaac bumped his chest again—“that our right peaceably to assemble remains true even if the majority of citizens would rather not hear what others have to profess. But I’ll tell you something, friends. I have always wanted to hear what others have to profess. Even if—maybe especially if—I find their words offensive. Because listening to diverse voices�
�voices that are guaranteed a public forum by our Constitution—is inherently American. It is our right. It is our privilege. It is—dare I say it—our duty! I, for one, never take that for granted. As a young boy in Poland, this kind of freedom was impossible, an impossibility most of you have thankfully never known. I trust that each of you gathered here will respect the rights of your fellow citizens who are here assembled. And that you will listen with respect to these young people. With an open mind. Without interruption. I assume other forums will be organized at which we can hear countervailing opinions. I look forward to that.”
Izaac held on to the sides of the podium. With one gloved forefinger, he wiped the outside corner of each eye.
Whit leaned down again toward Meck.
“You sure you want to give him a platform?”
“Think about it,” said Meck in a low voice. “I agree with everything he just said. Everything! I start the interview by engaging in a discussion about the First Amendment, do what he’s doing right here: establish common ground. Then I implore him to understand that our rights are being abridged, that our own kids simply want to voice their opinions.”
Whit nodded thoughtfully.
“Brilliant. Appropriate his argument and use it to reason with him. I like it. Wonder if he’ll agree to come on?”