Roscoe

by William Kennedy

  “Hiya, Roscoe,” he said. “What’s this with the wheelchair?”

  “The old bladder’s acting up, Win.”

  “I had a bladder stone once. You know how I got rid of it?”

  “Tell me.”

  “Like everything else, I pissed it away.”

  “Stay dry, Win.”

  Roscoe waved to Father Fearey, the assistant pastor at Sacred Heart and everybody’s favorite priest after Bing Crosby. Wally Kilmartin, the current Ninth Ward alderman, gave Roscoe the high sign, ready for a chat, but Dinny Rhatigan beat him to the wheelchair. Dinny was pushing eighty-five, and had been in on the election of Patsy in 1919. Patsy made him leader of the Ninth Ward when we took City Hall.

  “You ailin’, Roscoe?” Dinny asked.

  “I’m resting up for the football season,” Roscoe said.

  “I hear Patsy got chickenswoggled.”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “He called me.”

  “Well, if he says so.”

  “My God, is he pissed at Bindy.”

  “So I understand.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be Bindy.”

  “Bindy won’t want to be Bindy if Patsy catches up with him.”

  “The Mayor survived the war well.”

  “He did.”

  “It reminds me of 1919, Roscoe, after the war, and so many were against us.”

  “It does exactly, Dinny. It does exactly.”

  “But we’ll do fine this year.”

  “I think we will, Din.”

  “How long are they keeping you in that chair?”

  “Till I get out of it.”

  “I remember Felix in a chair like that. At the Phoenix Club.”

  “I remember it too,” Roscoe said.

  “It was 1919,” Dinny said. “That same year.”

  “That very same year,” said Roscoe. “A musical year.”

  “Musical?” Dinny said.

  “I always remember it that way,” Roscoe said.

  Opus One: Overture, 1919

  The Phoenix Club, a one-story brick building with a step-gabled roof, Dutch-style, was a leftover from the days when the North End was part of the demesne of the patroons of the Van Rensselaer family, a tract forty-eight miles long and twenty-four miles wide, seven hundred thousand acres on both sides of the river, with sixty to eighty thousand tenant farmers living on it under feudal conditions. The building had been an office of the patroon’s manor, but in the late nineteenth century it became the Phoenix, the sanctum sanctorum of North Albany Democracy. Dinny Rhatigan, who owned the ice house on Erie Street, and thirty or so other men—Black Jack McCall the saloonkeeper-sheriff; Judge Brady, a hero when he ruled against that damned cleric who tried to stop Sunday baseball; Jack Maloney, the paving contractor, whose son Bunter held the city speed record for laying red bricks, 5,545 in forty-five minutes; Iron Joe Farrell, who ran The Wheelbarrow, the little Main Street saloon with the cockpit out back where Patsy sometimes fought his chickens; Emmett Daugherty, the old Fenian and labor radical; Pat McDonald, leader of the Eighth Ward, who rode his bicycle with the North Albany Wheelmen—these good fellows, and more, were keepers of the covenant in the old club: two rooms, two card tables, a pool table, six spittoons, and two heavily curtained windows nobody could see into or out of. In the great blizzard of ’88, six of them were playing cards when it started to snow. They raised the curtains to watch it fall, saw it get so deep that they decided not to go out. It snowed four days, and those snowbound fellas would’ve starved to death if their wives hadn’t come down with baskets of food.

  It was a hot July day when Roscoe brought Felix to the Phoenix. Felix was sixty-seven and in the wheelchair with troubled lungs, wrapped in his blanket and trying to forestall pneumonia, the ailment that he feared would kill him and which, in three months, would. He had been coming to the club after the eleven o’clock mass every Sunday during all the twenty years the Republicans ran the town. It was a political haven, for, with Phoenix dominance, the ward had gone two-to-one Democrat, even in Republican landslides. For this reason also, Patsy had come along today with Roscoe and Felix to announce his candidacy for city assessor.

  Felix instantly responded to Patsy’s plan: “Yessir, that assessor’s a good choice, it’s their Achilles’ heel. Same as it was ours thirty years ago.”

  Assessment was a perpetual issue: high tax assessments on the property of political enemies, low assessments for loyalists and friendly corporations. Everybody did it if they were in, nobody liked it if they were out.

  “What makes you think you can win?” Dinny asked Patsy.

  “I’m up against Straney,” Patsy said, “and he wasn’t in the war. I’ll campaign in uniform, and I got a team ready to work with me, knockin’ on front doors till we drop. Elisha Fitzgibbon’s financing me, and Roscoe’ll manage me. They’re both smarter than me, so we can’t lose on brains.”

  “Don’t matter how many brains you got,” Dinny said. “The Barnes organization can steal more votes than you can count.”

  “I know that,” Patsy said. “Why the hell do you think I’m here?”

  And in the laughter and then the silence that followed that brash remark, Roscoe saw that Patsy had transformed himself in the eyes of these veterans: had become not the fresh, ambitious pup he might seem at first, but a young fellow with a savvy that came from early exposure to politics at Black Jack’s knee, and then as bartender at Jack’s saloon, where politics was as important as the ale. Patsy talked the lingo and was ready for anything, even speaking the unspoken. He had a sharp, squinty eye, and an aggressive chin, ready for an argument. People knew him as fullback for the Arbor Hill Spartans, the team nobody could beat. He tilted his chair back until it leaned against the wall, his legs dangling in his high shoes.

  “The Ninth Ward always goes two to one,” Patsy said. “Am I right?”

  “Usually,” said Dinny.

  “Can it go three to one? Four to one?”

  Heads shook. Four to one? The fellow is crazy.

  “It’s been done,” Patsy said. “Right, Felix?”

  “That was when we had total control. Now it’s not so easy.”

  “Can that control be organized? Can we buy it?”

  “We can price it out,” Dinny said, “if we know the money is there.”

  “It’s there,” said Patsy. “This is the year to move. We can win. McCabe is running Townsend Blair for mayor, and he’s definitely got a shot.” Packy McCabe was the longtime ineffectual boss of Albany Democrats.

  “Who said they’re running Blair?” Felix asked.

  “McCabe. I told him we had a candidate for mayor, and he laughed and said it was taken, that Blair had it. ‘Captain Blair of the 51st Pioneers,’ he says. ‘All right, Packy,’ I say to him, ‘then how about Roscoe Conway for district attorney?’ He says that’s taken too.”

  “You never told me this,” Roscoe said.

  “You don’t wanna run, but you could win. You got that medal. So I say to Packy, ‘Are you tellin’ me there’s no room on the ticket for anybody from the Eighth, Ninth, and Twelfth Wards? Are you sayin’ we’re outsiders, the lot of us, the gang of us that won the war?’ And Packy says, ‘No, no, my boy, not at all.’ ‘All right,’ I say, ‘then I’ll run for assessor.’ He says, ‘Let me think about that,’ and I say, ‘Don’t think too long or you’re gonna lose us. We’re big and gettin’ bigger, and it’s a new day. We got the vets and their families, and I got a whole lot of friends who won’t go your way if I don’t, and we’re ready to primary if we’re not on your ticket.’ ‘Let me think about that,’ he says again, and I say, ‘Okay, I’ll see you in church.’ That was yesterday, and I saw him at St. Joseph’s an hour ago, and he says he’ll back me for assessor.”

  “By the great goddamn, that’s splendid, Patsy,” Felix said. “You’ve assaulted the barricades single-handed.” And the Phoenixers nodded and grunted their approval of this fighting spirit suddenly made visible in their c
lubhouse.

  “Make no mistake,” Felix said. “Townsend Blair’s a hell of a candidate. And James Watt is not the most popular mayor this town ever had. He can be beat this year. Blair will get the soldier vote.”

  “He will and so will I,” said Patsy, “and I’ll get coattails from those that know him but don’t know me. You trust Blair, Dinny?”

  “He’s smart, and he’s honest,” Dinny said.

  “That’s always a problem,” Felix said.

  “The real problem,” Patsy said, “is he’s a captain. If he’s elected he’ll think he’s in charge.”

  The Phoenix Club members heard this wisdom and looked at the precocious Patsy as if he’d just been born out of the ashes of one of their old cigars. They then took the entire discussion under advisement and went home for their first Sunday dinner under the new political order they did not quite realize had just come into existence.

  The First Movement

  Captain Townsend Blair of the 51st Pioneers Regiment stepped out as grand marshal of the election-eve parade, two hundred of his fellow Pioneers and five thousand others behind him, plus thirty thousand watching from the stoops and sidewalks, recognizing him from photos in the newspapers, and in the paid ads always in his uniform, garrison cap, and captain’s bars. He wasn’t a half-bad speaker, had a pleasant look, and money: his family foundry had been Lyman Fitzgibbon’s chief competitor in the stove era. Also, he was a Protestant, and that, plus wealth, was deemed essential in a mayor—for you know what happens when they elect a Catholic. Remember Felix Conway? Kicked him out for vote fraud. Who’d ever kick out a Protestant?

  Blair also had the backing of Arthur T. Grogan, which was confounding as well as bad fiscal news for Patsy. Arthur Goddamn Grogan, Patsy called him. Grogan had begun his career as a teenage oyster-shucker at the Delavan House in Albany, graduated to bartender, bought a large shipment of tea on speculation from a traveling tea broker, and quadrupled his investment. He compounded that money as a politically connected contractor, first paving streets, then building sewers and bridges, then owning a gas company, trolley lines, electric-power companies, eventually building subways in Brooklyn, Queens, and Chicago, and it’s all done through politics, boys. That’s how he became the richest man in town, whenever he was in town, a Knight of Malta Catholic who had backed Felix Conway for mayor in 1890 and 1892.

  Grogan preferred incumbents, liked money, not struggle, and when the Republicans came in here in ’99 he stayed with them for twenty years. But he kept his eye on electables, and this year of potential change gave a quiet but sizable sop to Packy McCabe on behalf of Townsend Blair, who had won the support of both labor and half the Fort Orange Club, the social sanctuary of Grogan’s financial peers. This year of 1919 just might be yet another season for Democrats, like 1918, when we elected Al Smith Governor. Now Prohibition’s coming, and people don’t want it. They’re going to blame somebody, and the Republicans are in charge here. This town is changing. If Blair wins this year, and he can, Packy McCabe will be on horseback with an elected mayor and also with Grogan, his absurdly rich benefactor. And they’ll all settle down together for God knows how long in City Hall, which Patsy has his own eye on; and so Patsy has a special problem with this.

  Grogan was a problem of a different order for Roscoe and Elisha. They lived with the memory of his visit with David Morgan, Veronica’s father, who in 1914 had bought the mansion of a deceased dry-goods merchant on State Street, in an elite block facing Washington Park. Morgan bought the house when it came on the market, and moved his family out of the three-story South End brownstone they had outgrown. Roscoe was courting Veronica that year, and she told him the story of Arthur Grogan’s visit to the mansion. Grogan had pulled up in his Buick touring car and sent his chauffeur to bring David Morgan out to speak with him.

  “My father knew him, of course,” Veronica said. “Everybody knew him.”

  Grogan lived a block down State Street from the Morgans’ new house, in the city’s largest and most luxurious townhouse. David Morgan stood alongside the auto and Grogan said to him, “You know who lives in that house next door to you?”

  “No,” David Morgan said.

  “The Bishop’s family,” said Grogan. “The family of the Catholic Bishop.”

  “I look forward to meeting them,” Morgan said.

  “You can’t live here,” Grogan said. “You can’t live next to the Bishop’s family. You’re a Jew.”

  “Does the Bishop know you’re speaking on his behalf?”

  “Don’t get a fresh Jew mouth on you,” Grogan said. “Just get off this street. You don’t belong here. Go live where Jews live.”

  “We live everywhere.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  The next day, Grogan moved stealthily to buy up stock in David Morgan’s scouring-powder company with the aim of taking control. Elisha learned of the scheme from his broker and, moving more quickly through Morgan family access to records of the diverse holdings, he bought the stock in Veronica’s name, then gave it all to her father as a loan. Grogan’s threat evaporated, and David Morgan was ever grateful, his daughter even more so: to the point of ending her courtship by Roscoe and marrying Elisha. A spoiler at many levels, Mr. Grogan.

  The Morgans remained in their State Street mansion, and David Morgan gained a nodding acquaintance with the Bishop’s family next door.

  It smelled like victory to Roscoe, even a large plurality. They marched past cheering crowds, past dozens of bonfires that illuminated the night, along with the fires in all their bellies, and they moved through the length of downtown, from Arbor Hill toward the Farmers’ Market on Grand Street, to the tunes of the fife-and-drum corps of Christian Brothers Academy, Roscoe’s alma mater. And they chanted:

  Who ate the beans? Blair.

  Who brought home the bacon? Blair.

  Who took us over the top? Blair.

  Who gets the soldier vote? Blair.

  Elisha did not walk in the parade, but he helped pay for some of it. His steel mill had made a few million on war contracts, and out of guilt and friendship, and because he loved politics more than steel, he spent prodigally on Patsy’s campaign rallies, on election cards, on banners spanning half a dozen streets, plus ready cash for workers who wore out their shoes working the wards for Patsy. There’d be street money tomorrow to reward male voters for their vote, and silk stockings to reward the women. Bountiful newspaper ads, paid for by Elisha, had appeared with Patsy’s picture in uniform above his letter to the Women’s City Club promising assessment reform and agreeing with everything Captain Blair ever said.

  Roscoe marched alongside Patsy, half a step behind, leading the third division, a thousand in line behind them—Patsy’s own booster club, North Enders, Arbor Hillers, soldier pals—and the chant went up for “Patsy, Patsy, Patsy.” Hell, even women were coming out, and, for the first time in history, they would work alongside vets and goo-goos as poll-watchers to guard against peeping at ballots, mirrors on the ceiling, bullies in the Donnybrook wards who block the door and either drive you away or force you to fight your way to the ballot box. We’ll have none of that in this year of our heroes, Captain Blair and Corporal Patsy.

  Roscoe, walking at the head of this loyalist throng, felt the vibration of the marchers and spectators, their great numbers, the rumbling of their planetary music. Looking back at them as the parade stretched halfway up North Pearl Street, he wanted to dance that dance of love—show me that you love me—vote for me. Ah, the power of numbers. The power of all things and all people moving in their rightful place on the planet. You can hear the close harmony of their motion, the heavenly music of the spheres.

  “What do you think, Roscoe,” Patsy said as they stepped along, “are we going to win?”

  “I’ve got a bet on it,” said Roscoe.

  “You could be the new district attorney. Why the hell didn’t you run?”

  “Public office isn’t what I’m after.”

  “It’s
not public office, it’s politics.”

  “I don’t want to go like Felix.”

  “He had a good run of it. He built some schools, he made his fortune.”

  “He never got over the disgrace. I can’t live that way.”

  “What the hell do you mean? You don’t want to stay with us?”

  “I’m with you. I’ll just stay out of the limelight.”

  “The only way around McCabe is to get elected.”

  “I know, and you’ll do that,” Roscoe said.

  “I might. We did the work. I think they’re with me.”

  Patsy kept waving, calling dozens by name, passing out smiles. Men stepped out to shake his hand, women to kiss his cheek. “Patsy, Patsy, Patsy,” came the chant. We’d heard the same at football games when Patsy ran and passed but mostly bulled through center, the dominant strategy that kept the Spartans undefeated for eight years. Patsy, bored with winning, quit the team and it disbanded. Roscoe saw that same athletic energy in the man now as he marched, shaping the military-hero image he would abandon as soon as the parade ended, a public man with less love for the limelight than Roscoe, yet driving himself into it and beyond to beat those sonsabitches. Why?

  At the Farmers’ Market, Townsend Blair made his final campaign speech to what was supposed to be a block party. But rain clouds opened and he only managed to say, “Our plurality over Mayor Watt will exceed our wildest predictions. Our information now makes it a sure three thousand.” As he said this, someone hit him with a potato and his fedora fell off. His optimism drowned in laughter and a cloudburst as the crowd ran for shelter without the villain’s being caught. The next day, in the Albany Argus, Willie Ryan, the fruit-and-vegetable dealer, took an ad to say, “I didn’t know who threw the potato but I know where he bought it.”