“Yeah,” said the mayor somberly. “But what about the money for my campaign? I suppose, Father, you’ve got a lot of money hidden away somewhere, and so has that minister and that rabbi? Well, none of you look it. That old car you’ve got—”
“You can present me with a new one, next year, when you’re state Senator,” said the priest. The mayor had shaken his head, more sorrowfully and dejectedly than ever. “I think,” said the priest, with a look of deep pleasure, “that I’d like a Buick. I’ll wait until you’re Governor for a Cadillac. And, by the way, there is the matter of the statues of the Holy Family. They’re falling apart. A contribution campaign, through the Holy Name Society, begun very soon, would be very helpful. I’ll remember you particularly,” said the priest, “in my prayers.”
“Aren’t priests supposed to keep out of these matters?” the mayor had demanded. “Like the smog?”
The priest had answered virtuously, “Am I interfering in worldly matters? Walter, eight old people and three children of my parish died in that smog. It is a priest’s duty to keep silent when his people are afflicted? Anyway, I’m not influencing you at all in your political affairs. Prove it.”
The mayor was no man for a discussion of the niceties of dialectic. But as he prayed today he felt resentment about the Buick. And the campaign he had begun through the Holy Name Society for new statues. Then he said inwardly, “Holy Mother, if you’ll just intercede for me, and not get my name made mud, and if you’ll help me be state Senator, I’ll get that priest his Buick and a fine new statue of you.”
He was a big man, in his early forties, with a broad face, almost whitish hair, and pale-blue eyes. He smiled, and his smile was charming. The crowd, staring at him, smiled back with sudden warmth, and the warmth went all through him, giving him a sense of surety. Maybe “that priest” was right. Maybe the people wouldn’t forget.
A school band struck up “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and everyone rose in one rumbling mass, looking at the flag on the platform. Now everyone joined in fervently, and so did the mayor. What did the “big guys” say? Patriotism went as far as a man’s purse, and no further. The mayor, all at once, did not believe it. He almost, in spite of his political knowledge, believed in the virtue of the people.
Everyone sat down, except the mayor. On the table before him were heaped the thousands of petitions. He put his calloused hand on them. He had never been able to rid himself of the calluses, after all these years, for they were now part of his flesh. All at once, he was proud of them, for the first time.
“My dear friends and fellow citizens,” he said, in his strong, accented voice. “You’ve asked for this meeting today, and I am here to serve you.” He kept his glance away from the first two rows, from which he felt strong animosity and cool disdain. “I’m a workingman myself, though you made me your mayor. I’ve still got the calluses on my hands,” and he lifted them up and showed them. One of the men in the first row whispered something to his attorney, and they both smiled with derision.
“Well, anyway,” said the mayor, with simplicity, for this time no one had prepared a ringing speech for him, and he was lost. “Here you are, and here I am too, and we’re just people and we’ve got a—a grievance. A terrible grievance. I don’t live up in the hills; I live right down here in the valley, and my wife’s got asthma and the smog didn’t help her at all. And it killed a lot of poor old folks and children, and maybe the next time it’ll kill more. A real massacre. We don’t want to wait for that.”
There was mad applause, except for the front rows. Men shouted hoarsely; women cried out incoherently. The mayor listened, with swelling joy. He waited until the applause died away, and resumed bluntly. “Well, ladies and gentlemen, I’ve been told that if I stand with you, and enforce—things—about the smog, I’m finished, done, out. No more Walter Slavak for mayor. No more Walter Slavak running for the state Senate. Just back to the mills for Walter—if I can get a job. They tell me you’re not very bright, you voters. They tell me they’ll put up another man, and smear me so you won’t vote for me. All right. I’m going to chance it. If you forget, maybe I’ll be bitter, tossing away my future to help all of us. But maybe you won’t forget.”
He hoped for applause, but he had never expected the thunderous volume of it, the shouts of support, the screamed vows, the stamping of feet. The walls trembled; the lights trembled. The men in the front rows listened in consternation. “We won’t forget!” shouted a man. Then, spontaneously, the crowd took up a chorus, “We want Walter! We want Walter!” The demonstration lasted for more than five minutes. The clergy on the platform glanced at each other and smiled.
The mayor held up his hand, bashfully. “All right, folks, I believe you. But let’s get down to business. I hope,” he said, blandly ignoring the first two rows, “that there’s some people here who heard you just now. I sure hope so. I’ve tried to be a good mayor; sometimes it wasn’t possible. I leave it to you people to guess why. Now, let’s get down to business.” His good-natured face became hard. “It won’t take long. I’ve looked at all these petitions. Lots of you men say you won’t go back to the mills and the factories if the smog doesn’t go. I think you mean it. I’m sure you do. So,” and now his eyes kindled with fire, “it’s up to those responsible, who aren’t here today, I see, to take on the responsibility of making our town safe for our mothers and fathers and babies. It’s their responsibility. Maybe it’ll cost a lot of money, a lot more than ninety-six funerals and ninety-six graves still raw down in the cemeteries. I’ve talked with representatives of your employers before I came here. They say it would take almost too much money, and at least six months, to eliminate the smog. Well, I always figured people’s lives and happiness are more than money.”
Again the hall erupted in a volcano of enthusiastic cries and shouts and applause. The mayor listened, not smiling now. He leaned his arms on the table, now letting the demonstration take its course. He waited for a long time.
“All right, folks,” said the mayor eventually. “Just go home and do a lot of thinking.”
He looked only at the men in the first two rows. “This is all I’ve got to say now. I give the owners of the factories and the mills just six months to clear up this smog. If the smog isn’t gone by then, I’ll order the closing of any mill still polluting our air, and I don’t care if they carry it to the Supreme Court! That smog’s got to go—in six months. I’ve got the health authorities on my side.”
Again the hall erupted. Men tried to push their way to the platform, holding out their hands. The police restrained them. The mayor held up his hand. He looked at Johnny and beckoned to him, and Johnny joined him.
“Here’s a minister who lost a little girl,” said the mayor. “And he’s responsible for this drive against the smog. He’s the one you should applaud, not me. Here’s Mr. John Fletcher, minister of the Church of the Good Shepherd.”
Now the police could not restrain the people. They surged in swirling masses toward the platform. Hundreds of hands were held up to Johnny, hundreds of smiling faces confronted him. He bent down and shook as many hands as possible, and he could not speak for emotion.
The Press did not mention the meeting at all, except for two lines on a back page in the morning newspaper, near the classified advertisements. But it did have a feature article about Johnny in the Saturday paper.
“A few months ago Mr. Fletcher was forced to appear before the Children’s Court to answer to alleged accusations that the children were being neglected. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Children’s Aid Society had become interested because of several complaints lodged with them. Mr. Fletcher was “cleared” of charges by Judge Foster Bridges.
“Mr. Fletcher arrived last August with the children, to take up pastoral duties at the church. Almost from the beginning he was the center of controversy and curious events, which included the assault of an unnamed juvenile on one of the children, an assault on himself by another unnamed juvenile,
and the mobbing of himself and the parsonage by an indignant gathering of citizens who had been aroused by a certain sermon he had given during which he defended the rights of property and intimated that progressivism, materialism, and Communism were one and the same things. Apparently Mr. Fletcher believes that public housing and other social advances, and the campaign to spread the wealth of the country over all citizens, is Communism, instead of progressive democracy.
“It is believed that his parish upholds him in all his public controversies, with the assistance, it is alleged, of unknown persons. It is alleged that he induced the mayor of this city, Mr. Walter Slavak, who was elected on a progressive platform, to attack our institutions, and to attempt to inflict undue hardship on certain members of this community who employ large numbers of men, and who are known for their patriotic contributions to various national and local organizations.”
Dr. McManus, beside himself, immediately sent a copy of this article to Lorry in New York, with no comment.
32
There is nothing so depressing as a last snowfall, Johnny thought one morning, seeing the gray March blizzard at his windows. One expects spring, the yellow explosion of forsythia, the deep blush of the crab apples, the red and golden cups of tulips, the frail and unearthly beauty of the narcissus. The unseen sap of the trees was running like eager blood to the last tip and pale bud, and the blood of men was quickening too, in anticipation. But men saw the snow, and their hopes diminished. Only the trees had faith in spring, which neither spectral cloud nor blizzard could cause to languish.
Johnny had taken the children out into Dr. McManus’s wide grounds to show them the crocuses a few days ago, and the green little daggers of tulips thrusting themselves through the dark breast of the earth. “Soon,” he said, “it will be spring, and the sun will be warm, and one morning you’ll get up and see all these shrubs bursting in color against the blue sky.” The silent hosanna of the earth to God, thought Johnny. He pointed out a few adventurous robins pecking in the gardens. It was as if these children had never known spring before, they were so excited at the prospect. Yet, in truth, they had never known a spring before. They waited for it, as men wait for a miracle. Then—today there was a blizzard.
“It will never be spring,” said Pietro, the eternal skeptic. He spoke in the calm voice of authority.
Johnny was irritable this morning. He was afraid he was coming down with a cold, and as an exuberantly healthy man, he detested illness in himself. Besides, he had too much to do. Spring inevitably brought heart attacks and pneumonia to the old, and his calls were heavy. He said, looking at the children’s gloomy faces and at Pietro’s serene bland eye fixed on him, “You know better, Pietro. Of course there will be spring. Never mind pointing at the snow! I can see it too. What do you want me to do? Go out and ask God to stop it from falling?”
Pietro said, his eyes dancing now with mischief, “There was the saint who prayed to God for rain on the fields—there was no wheat—and God sent the rain.”
Johnny almost shouted, “I’m not a saint, dammit! Never claimed to be one! Debby, stop fooling around with that syrup; pour it on your pancakes, but don’t make designs on them with the syrup. No, not pretty at all. I used to lecture parents on getting impatient with kids, and clobbering them, God forgive me! Now I know what they were up against. Kathy, I’m not going to apologize for swearing; I wasn’t really swearing, so stop looking cold and superior. Jean, you are positively not going to get more eggs; those on your plate are not too soft! Max, stop skimming off your hot cocoa; that skin is congealed cream and is good for you. Debby, you’re spilling your milk!”
Dr. McManus, in hat and rough coat, came into the great, dusky dining room. “What’s the uproar, now?” he asked. “Could hear you out in the hall.”
Johnny said, “Sometimes these kids get in my hair. Look at Kathy now, moving off with dignity with an extra-heavy load of plates. That’s to show me that she’s offended. What a prig. No, go away,” he said to Debby, who was now trying to climb onto his lap. “I think I’m getting a cold.” He pushed her down, turned her about, lifted her bright curls, and kissed her on the nape of her neck. She giggled joyously, and ran after Kathy. “She’s like a fresh breeze in this house,” said Dr. McManus. “A real hardy American brat, full of brass and fun.”
Kathy returned and surveyed Dr. McManus critically. “You are not going out without your rubbers, Uncle Al,” she said in a formidable voice.
“You’re not my mother, fat-face!” he exclaimed. “And I’m not”—but Kathy, moving with determination, went into the hall closet, and returned with the rubbers and laid them at the doctor’s feet. Grumbling, he got into them. “I see what you mean,” he said to Johnny, and winked. “By the way, you don’t have a cold. It’s an allergy.”
“Everything’s an allergy,” said Johnny. “What are you doctors trying to do? Get rid of the germ theory?”
Miss Coogan arrived, the children joined her in the library, and Johnny prepared to take Debby to kindergarten. She stood beside him, rosy and gay, like a small brown bear in her snowsuit. She had decided not to make a fuss this morning about the suit and the rubber boots. Femininely perceptive, she knew this might be dangerous. Dr. McManus pinched the firm pink cheek, and her blue eyes twinkled at him. “I think Uncle Al will take me to school,” she said, and dropped Johnny’s hand and snuggled against the doctor’s coat. “There, you see,” said Johnny, smiling; “she’s punishing me for not appreciating her artistic efforts with the syrup.”
“You just don’t know anything about women,” said the doctor. “Me, I’m an expert. I don’t fall for their flattery.” He took Debby’s mittened hand and said, “All right, I’ll take you to school. And don’t you kids forget I’m taking all of you to the zoo this afternoon. Unless somebody decides to have an operation or something. Hell of a life, a doctor’s life. Snatch an hour when you can.”
He went off with Debby, muttering. Johnny went up to his large bedroom, which he also used for a study these days, stamped into the bathroom adjoining and grimly gargled. Then he sat at his desk, to prepare his Sunday sermon. The snow came down, and now a gale accompanied it, shouting at the windows. Johnny put down his pen and picked up the large, silver-framed photograph of Lorry which she had given him. He smiled at the slender, faintly smiling face, the gently cynical eyes, and then was filled with longing. If only he could spare a day or two to go to see her in Philadelphia; if only he could forget, as in a breathing space, for only a few hours, that he was a minister! He thought of Pietro’s teasing about the saint, and smiled again. As this was supposed to be a special saint’s day—which Johnny doubted very much—Pietro and Jean had not gone to catechism this morning. It was a holiday, Pietro had informed Johnny loftily. Johnny suspected it was the promised treat of the zoo. Jean had looked too solemn for verity.
At eleven a maid came in to inform him that “some lady, who is crying” was on the telephone, and wanted to talk to “the minister.” Johnny picked up his extension, with a sigh. “Mr. Fletcher!” cried a young woman’s voice hysterically, “we’re in your parish, though we don’t go to church much—Mr. Fletcher! My husband’s going to kill himself! He’s locked in his room. Please, Mr. Fletcher, come right away!”
Johnny knew too much about human nature to try falsely to soothe her. “I’ll be there at once,” he said quickly. “But don’t tell him I’m coming; just talk to him through the door, as quietly as you can. Never mind about frightening the children; kids don’t frighten easy. And you can’t spare them from living, you know, Mrs. Thorne. Let them talk to their father through the door, too. Anything.”
He ran out into the blizzard to the garage and started his old car. The smooth tires skidded and churned in the snow, then finally the roaring and spitting car was out in the street, and Johnny was off on one of those emergenices known only too well to doctors and priests.
He could not place the Thornes. They were probably young “floaters” who occasionally attended a ch
urch in their immediate neighborhood, dropped a few silver coins, even less occasionally, in the collection plate, and sent their children intermittently to Sunday school. That entitled them, in their opinion, to say “we’re in your parish.” Then Johnny was ashamed of himself; it was just that sore throat of his, he thought, in excuse. No, he added, it’s just that I’m normally peevish this morning, and human, and I’ve forgotten that all men are in a Parish, and all priests are their shepherds.
The snow clung to his windshield, and the wipers groaned in protest. Fortunately, Boone Street was not too far away. It was a small, quiet little street, filled with crowded and quiet little houses, most of them single, clapboarded one-family homes, with short lawns and long rear yards. A respectable, lower-middle-class street, with white curtains at the windows and miniature verandas. He found number ninety-eight, stopped his car abruptly, and ran up the snow-covered steps of the house. He shook off his hat and brushed off his shoulders while waiting for the old-fashioned bellpull to be answered. The door opened on a gush of clean warmth, and there stood a weeping, neat young woman with smooth black hair, wearing a print dress and clean, fluted apron. She had a pretty, undistinguished face, now blotched with tears. Mutely she stood aside and let Johnny into the smallest, most crowded, but most cosy of parlors. Nice people, he commented automatically, nice, self-respecting young people. Hard-working people, too. Now, what would make a man of this kind want to kill himself?
He threw his coat and hat on a chair, but Mrs. Thorne, for all her tears and incoherent murmurings, picked them up, straightened them out, and hung them in a tiny closet. Johnny’s good opinion of her increased. “Quick, tell me, Mrs. Thorne,” he said, rubbing his cold hands together.
A Tender Victory Page 48