Sweet Thunder

by Ivan Doig

  My mood spoke for me. “I should simply leave. The Thunder and Butte and Montana, maybe even America. Take passage for Tasmania. Trouble finds me too easily here.”

  Shifting in the high bed with a mighty groan—from the tone of it, caused as much by me as the pain of his wound—Sandison dismissed my plaint. “Don’t talk nonsense. Running away won’t make up for that pistol-packing moron.”

  “Maybe not, but—”

  “Besides, you can’t leave. I need you to pitch in so the Butte Public Library doesn’t fall to pieces while I’m out of commission.”

  “You do? I mean, do you?”

  “Use your head, man. You’re the only one besides me who knows the ins and outs of the whole place. All you have to do is duck in there now and then and say I told you to tell the staff thus and such. They’re a good bunch, they’ll follow orders.” Flat on his back, he still managed to give me a lofty look. “While you’re at it, you might pack home the ledger that has the payroll and the book budget and so on in it. We could just as well tend to that at our own convenience.”

  “Mmm.” To make sure what I was in for, I dropped my voice and inquired: “By any chance, does that ledger perhaps need some mending? From the inside?”

  The hospital bed shook. “Damn it, it hurts when I laugh.” The fierce white eyebrows doing their work, he confronted my question. “I knew you were a ring-tailed wonder when I first hired you. Call it instinct. Or dumb luck.”

  Right then a nun appeared in the doorway, holding a bedpan. “The call of nature will have to wait,” he impatiently instructed her. “I’m doing other business.”

  She vanished, and he resumed on me. “Anyhow, handling numbers like hot potatoes isn’t my strong suit, never has been, and you’ve got a trick mind for it, so why not put it to use, eh?” He must have seen my own eyebrows hoisting. “Yes, of course, thickhead. If the idiot board of trustees happened to snoop into the ledger, they could get the wrong idea. You know how it is.”

  Did I ever. In my time as his assistant when one of my countless assignments was to balance the bookkeeping, I had no choice but to unravel the Samuel Sandison approach to library administration. The madness to his method, it might jocularly be called, if shunting funds from where they belonged to where he wanted them could be considered a joke. For it had become clear to me back then, bit by bit, that there never seemed to be quite as much library staff as was budgeted for, the shortfall ingeniously made up by shuttling someone from task to task—namely, me—so the unspent wages could gravitate down the ledger columns to entries labeled Miscellaneous book purchases. The migration did not stop there, I realized when I undertook an inventory of his trove on loan to the institution, those magnificent books that would still be around a century and more from now, that were the heart of the Butte Public Library’s “finest collection west of Chicago.” The old rogue was slipping “miscellaneous” purchases into his SSS-bookplated holdings; there was a paste pot on his office desk just as there was at home, after all.

  Well, how severely can you judge a person whose crime is a passion for the very best that literature has to offer? And who like a generous Midas sets out the timeless volumes on open shelves for the reading public to share? In my previous incarnation as the Butte Public Library’s jack-of-all-trades, I had kept a wise silence about its librarian juggling the books, so to speak. But now I hesitated.

  “Sandy, I already have a job. One that is perfectly aboveboard,” I said pointedly, “and which keeps me so busy I meet myself coming and going. On top of that, there’s the house threatening to fall down on our heads, and—” I broke off at the huge sigh heaved by the patient flat on his back. “None of which counts, does it. You saved my life.”

  “In bad fiction, this is the point at which the one who saved the life says, ‘Pshaw, it was nothing,’” Sandison drawled. “That’s twaddle. Dime-novel stuff. Undying gratitude from you will suit me fine, Morgan. Now, get over there to the library. And don’t forget the ledger.”

  • • •

  I must concede, spending whatever time I could afford at the familiar old granite grandiosity with BUTTE PUBLIC LIBRARY proudly incised over one of its twin arches of entrance and LUX EX LIBRIS over the other was gratifying. The staff enthusiastically welcomed me back—always with the exception of Miss Runyon, the Medusa of the main desk—and never questioned my grant of authority from Sandison. With my experience, whatever knotty matter of scheduling or personnel presented itself, I could resolve. And if I may say so, more quickly and decisively than Sandison customarily did, with his habit of tugging at his beard and muttering, “I’ll let you know before doomsday.” Still, adding that to my editorial exertions at the Thunder, plus regularly visiting Sandison in the hospital, where he now kept the ledger in a bedside drawer the way other people keep a Bible, lent credence to Grace’s analogy of a chameleon on a barber pole. More often than not, I reached home late at night, ignored whatever complaint the manse had developed that day, and dropped straight to bed, too exhausted even to crack open a book.

  Then came the morning when I was awakened by loud knocking, which I assumed was the furnace or a water boiler signaling disaster, and I moaned and turned over under the covers. As the commotion mounted, I realized the front door knocker was to blame.

  Groggily checking at the window—there was just enough daylight to see—I looked down on the unmistakable heads of Hoop and Griff. Spotting me, one of them called out, “Don’t worry none, Morrie. We’re unarmed.” The other one cackled.

  Still in my pajamas and wondering what their reappearance portended, I met them at the door. Griff lost no time enlightening me, Hoop nodding along. “Mrs. Morgan figured you could stand a little help with the shack now and again.” They had with them the bulging tool bag that showed hard use in the mines, much like themselves.

  With alacrity I showed them in and told them to start anywhere. They shrugged off my gratitude as they clanked down the hallway, one of them saying over his shoulder, “We got nothing better to do anyway. Giorgio can take care of things at the boardinghouse.” The other one cackled again.

  How I burned to ask just what the extent of his caretaking was.

  • • •

  As usual, later that day I made time to go by St. Jude’s and look in on Sandison. A visitor already stood posted by his bedside. Grace.

  “Ah. Hello.”

  “The same to you, man of many names.” In visiting clothes, she looked as fetching as she had on our honeymoon promenade around the world.

  “Heh. Don’t make me call in the sisters of mercy to form a cordon between you two.” Sandison was sitting up in bed by now, still bandaged around his middle like a mummy. “Madam, this husband of yours—as I understand he still is—at least is not dull to be around, you have to grant him that.”

  “Nice try, Samuel.” Grace gave him a chilly smile, and to me simply the chill. “His thrilling approach to life includes marrying a woman under a false name. That kind of excitement I can do without.”

  “Grace, I have explained the extenuating circumstance.”

  “It didn’t extenuate by itself, Morrie.”

  Heaving himself higher on his stack of pillows, sultan holding court, Sandison mournfully came out with, “I wish Dora were here. She’d sort this out so quick your heads would swim.”

  The specter of Dora Sandison regulating our lives did give both of us pause. Grace recovered quicker than I. “I simply came to pay my respects,” she turned to the patient, “I hope you’re well soon. The wrong one of you is in for repairs.” So saying, she marched out of the hospital room.

  With just his eyes, Sandison told me to quit standing there like a fool and follow her.

  “Grace, one minute, please.” I caught up with her in the waiting room. “I wanted to thank you for the loan of Hoop and Griff.”

  “Charity begins at home.” Halting, she took the opportunity
to confront me again. Even the dimple that ordinarily was a beauty mark looked fierce. “Don’t think that was any kind of a favor to you. The less upkeep you have to do, the faster you can finish the job at the newspaper and I can be rid of you as a husband, understand?”

  “Implicitly. But—”

  A nurse wearing a majestic wimple, evidently a senior nun, sailed past us like a resolute angel. In her wake, Grace unexpectedly giggled. “You and him among the holy. Life is too funny sometimes.”

  “There, see? We can agree on that much. And if you will just give me another chance—”

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” she bristled again, enough that I backed up a step. This was like trying to pet a lioness. “With your record,” she blazed, “what does another chance amount to but another headache? Ever since we came back to Butte, you’ve been up to your neck in fix after fix. Thrown in jail because you look like some other disreputable character. Then that stupid trunk of yours. Now it’s gunplay, is it. What will you get yourself into next, Morrie?”

  “A maniac brandishing a revolver wasn’t my idea,” I couldn’t help pointing out.

  “Fine, but it’s just one more proof that trouble finds you like rain goes in a barrel, isn’t it. No, stop, please, don’t make sad eyes at me.” Her own were blinking back something. “If you’re worried I’m going to divorce you sooner than later, you needn’t get yourself worked up like this.” How could I help it, with a Giorgio tending the home fires that had been the hearth of my happiness? “I gave you my word,” Grace flung at me as she stalked toward the hospital exit, “which is better than some I could mention.”

  • • •

  Wifeless and without even the grumpy company of Sandison until the hospital ever discharged him, I had only the silent, empty manse to see me off each gray morning and to come home to each long night. Something had changed in me; something in the weight of life. For more of my years than I cared to count, solitude seemed to be my full measure spooned out by fate. Ever since Casper. Ever since Rose. It was hard, alone, but I thought I had myself resolutely sorted out, reconciled to my own company in the experience of living, independence strapped firmly on me. Now, though, I longed for Grace as if part of myself were missing. I even yearned for Hoop and Griff making a racket in the precincts of the house. One’s own footsteps, the only parlance in the emptiness between hyphens of carpet, are a sad stutter of existence hour upon hour.

  The newspaper office saved me from myself, the rescue vessel moored within reach of the isle of Ajax, thanks be. What was it about being met daily by Armbrister’s brisk number of column inches of editorial space I had to fill; hearing the staccato of typewriters start up, each as distinctive as a telegrapher’s rhythm, as rewrite men and headline writers set to work on the nightside’s stories; answering shouted queries such as “Morgie, is it Freud or Jung they call ‘the mechanic of dreams’?”—what did I find in the din of deadlines and wisecracks and calamities and trivia and pronounced personalities on the page and off that captured me so?

  Chapters of the earthly saga, I suppose, old as the alphabet. Humanity’s never-ending tale of who did what to whom, when and where, and if told right, how and why. The Thunder, with Armbrister’s bloodhound knowledge of Butte and Jared’s foxy tactics against Anaconda, was set up as well as a newspaper could be to pursue that hallowed goal of journalism, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. If I live into eternity, I shall still think daily news and opinion set in type for all to read is honorable work. Although that belief was severely tested by the example of Cutthroat Cartwright.

  16

  Ever wondered where schemers come from? Do they breed in stagnant pools as mosquitoes do? That would explain the pestilential cloud of political agitation, reckless charges, and editorial sophistry hanging over the Thunder. Underneath all the buzz, the scheme is the same old one of stealthy attack on the American system of productivity, the envy of the world—at least those parts of it not colored in pink or red.

  —CUTLASS

  “HOO HOO. CARTWRIGHT HAS A TOUCH, you have to admit.”

  “You bet. So does a skinning knife.”

  “Sophistry, I don’t think we had that in school. Hey, Morgie! What’s this sophistry guff your opposite number is so worked up about?”

  “Mmm, a style of argumentation that goes back to the Greeks. The root—”

  “Yeah, yeah, always look to the root, we know.”

  “—is the verb that means playing subtle tricks.”

  “About like bluffing in poker, huh? Keep up the sophus-pocus, champ, you’ve got Cartwright looking at his hole card.”

  If our high-spirited staff had a taste for no-holds-barred editorial brawling, our grimacing editor sometimes had a bellyful of being slandered.

  “Damn it, can’t you come up with something that will shut that windbag’s yap for a while?” Armbrister demanded of me, flinging Cutlass’s latest into the wastebasket. “I’m sick of us being called every name under the sun.”

  Taking up the challenge at my typewriter, I soon placed on Armbrister’s desk a sheet of paper he snatched up for a look, then put down as if it might bite him.

  The Post having descended to entomological depths in its latest diatribe—if anyone’s head is buzzing with buggy ideas, it is that of the Anaconda-paid prattler who calls himself Cutlass—all that needs be said is consider the source and beware the frass.

  —PLUVIUS

  “Frass?” Armbrister reluctantly tried out the word. “Never heard of it. What monkey language is that in?”

  “English.” He gave me a sour look. “By way of German, naturally.”

  “Naturally. What the hell does it mean?”

  “Insect excrement.”

  For a space of several seconds, Armbrister found nothing to say. At length, he let out: “I had a hunch it was something like that.” He ground his teeth, the way editors will, picked up the sheet of paper in a gingerly fashion that had it hovering over the wastebasket where Cutlass’s invective ended up, then thrust it at me. “Run it.”

  • • •

  Thank heavens, my barbs could drive Cartwright into wounded silence for short periods, while he and his invisible bosses on the top floor of the Hennessy Building contrived some new attack. More than a few of my Thunder colleagues celebrated each such absence of Cutlass’s slash and thrust—“Guess who’s gone fishing today”—in tried-and-true journalistic fashion, by going out for a drink after work. “C’mon, Morgie, join us,” Cavaretta all but took me by the arm on one such occasion, while Sibley of the city hall beat and several others, including Mary Margaret Houlihan beckoning in a frisky way, as they formed up at the doorway. I was half out of my typing chair before I remembered. For me to show up in a speakeasy, dead ringer for the Highliner that I seemed forever doomed, destined, fated to be, was to invite complications not even I could imagine. “Really, I . . . I can’t,” I said lamely. “I’m expected at the house.”

  “Okey-doke, pal.” Cavaretta slapped my shoulder and went to join the others. “But the invitation stands, anytime.”

  The happy mob of them went out, while I did meaningless things such as squaring paper and pencils on my desk until they were clear of the building. Quiet descended so completely I could feel it on my skin, the newspaper office deserted except for the night editor and a couple of rewrite men silently editing copy at the far end of the room. In my trance of solitude, I hadn’t seen the overcoated figure standing against the wall by Armbrister’s glass cage of office.

  “You have a lonesome cat these days, Professor?”

  Sharply coming to, I told Jared I didn’t know what he meant, although I did. What business was it of anybody, if the human race and for that matter the feline held nothing for me these nights?

  Keeping his voice low, the publisher here strangely after hours came over to me, purpose in his gaze. “I saw that kind of stare on men in
the trenches, my friend. Come on, get your things on. I’ll walk you at least partway to that house that’s expecting you so wonderfully much.”

  Side by side, the two of us joined the downtown flock of other home-goers, secretaries from the tall buildings and clerks from the storefronts, Welsh miners coming off shift and singing the way to their neighborhood near Grace’s boardinghouse, messengers and delivery boys hopping trolleys now that their day on foot was done. Summer had found Butte at last, but there was still a mild nip in the air on clear evenings such as this, a new moon free of clouds standing over the work-lit Hill. Walking with Jared Evans was just short of a march, this man who had led other men under killing conditions and since had added the political weight of the state. Was the ghost of Teddy Roosevelt watching from somewhere? We had not gone a block before the soldier-senator beside me spoke his mind.

  “You and the missus are on the outs, I gather.”

  I suppressed a groan. “Does it show on me that much?”

  He tapped the side of his nose significantly. “Rab smelled it in the air. Don’t ask me how, I’m only a male.”

  “As am I, so all I can tell you is, Grace has moved out.”

  “And Sandison’s not healed up yet, so you’re all by your lonesome in that moose of a house.”

  “That is the case,” I conceded.

  We waited for a spate of Model Ts to putt-putt through the next intersection, then as we crossed, he brought out: “It’s not much of a guess you have time on your hands these evenings, so I wondered—”

  “Jared, no.” This time I did groan; I could not face day and night jeopardy, even for him. “I dare not get involved any more deeply in union matters. One lead-coated message from Anaconda”—at that, he winced as if dodging a bullet himself—“if that’s what it was, is enough.”