The Lunatic Fringe: A Novel Wherein Theodore Roosevelt Meets the Pink Angel

by William L. DeAndrea

  Mr. Roosevelt was known as a bit of a dandy, but Muldoon had never suspected just how dandy. Right now, the Commissioner was wearing a fine grey silk suit, with the jacket unbuttoned to reveal a shirt nearly as pink as the missing girl’s birthmark. Instead of a vest, Roosevelt had a white sash of tasseled silk wound around his middle. The only thing plain about his wardrobe was his spectacles, two wire-frame ovals of glass that did nothing to conceal the energy in his eyes.

  “I reached for my knife,” the Commissioner said, groping blindly across the top of the rostrum until his fingers found a lead pencil. “I knew I’d have only one chance, so I waited, the bear’s breath rank in my face, for the proper moment.”

  The boys were silent, caught up in the suspense. “Then, at the last possible second, when I could fairly count the bear’s teeth, I struck!” The pencil was swept violently upward.

  There was a collective gasp.

  “With all my strength, and with a prayer to guide my arm, I used my knife. The blade pierced the grizzly’s throat, and killed him in the instant. I barely had time to roll out of the way, before the beast would have fallen on my body and crushed me!”

  The Commissioner rolled off the rostrum and finished by facing his audience. He accepted their enthusiastic applause with a wide, toothy grin.

  There was no doubt he enjoyed it, but after a few seconds he held up a hand to stop the applause. “Boys! Harumph. I mean gentlemen!”

  Just like a vaudeville turn, Muldoon thought. The boys were spinning their heads around, trying to catch sight of a gentleman.

  “Gentlemen!” the Commissioner said again, this time gaining the crowd’s attention. “Now, I didn’t tell you this story just to boast.

  “You may hear it, and envy me my adventure. Adventure it was, but it was also terrifying. I thought I had seen my last second as a living man. That is not an uncommon feeling, in the wilderness.

  “But the city of New York is not a wilderness! Any citizen of this city is entitled to go anywhere within the city he chooses, so long as he behaves himself, and that will be the case for as long a time as I am given anything to say about it. If you harass persons wandering into your neighborhoods, or if you go into a neighborhood with the idea of causing trouble, from this night on, it will go hard with you. This is your only warning.

  “Secondly, the very idea of ‘Irish’ neighborhoods, of ‘Italian’ neighborhoods, or ‘Jew’ neighborhoods, or ‘German’ neighborhoods is un-American! We must all cherish our heritages, but we must give our only loyalty to America. I say now, and will continue to say, there is no room in this country for ‘hyphenated’ Americans!

  “There are times of trouble ahead. Many of you are newsboys, are you not? Wasn’t the fight I broke up this evening about who would sell newspapers where? Well read them, the truthful ones at any rate. Spain is acting like a hungry grizzly bear, set to devour the helpless people of Cuba and the Philippine Islands. And there are the filthy jackals of Anarchy, who belong to no country, who want to destroy the nations of the world, this one included.

  “We must be ready to face them. We must stand together. You may take my word for it that when that bear was set to devour me, I would have welcomed the aid of a comrade, no matter where his parents had been born.

  “This is not to say we must be soft. A man must know how to fight, or he is no man at all. But we—all of us now, Americans—must not fight among ourselves!”

  Muldoon wanted to cheer. The boys took it quietly, thoughtfully. They knew that if they happened to be spotted in the wrong neighborhood at the wrong time, their heads were still likely to be cracked open.

  But Muldoon mused, if each kid in the room could manage to avoid or prevent just one fight in the coming week, it would be like a holiday for cops all over the city.

  There is, however, always the skeptic. The scoffer in this crowd was a red-headed Irish—Muldoon made that formerly Irish—lad who was just about ready for long pants. Doubtless he was the leader of his gang. He turned to the boy next to him and said, not quietly, “Ahhhh, what’s a four-eyes like him know about fightin’?”

  VI.

  Muldoon saw red. He grabbed the loudmouth by the scruff of his grimy neck and lifted him off the bench. “You want to be havin’ a little respect for your betters, whelp. If you had the wit God gave a lamp post, you’d be on your knees thankin’ Mr. Roosevelt for not runnin’ in the lot of you.”

  The boy’s mouth and eyes were open wide. His head was still filled with grizzly bears, and Muldoon suited the part pretty well.

  “P—put me down,” the boy stammered. Muldoon looked at the Commissioner, who was trying, without much success, to hide a grin behind his moustache.

  “By all means, Officer,” he said. “Put the boy down.”

  Muldoon was reluctant. “I ought to box his ears for him, at least, sir,” he said. “It’ll do him good.”

  “Perhaps, but he has offered me a challenge, and I prefer to accept it than to punish him. I will show him what a ‘four-eyes’ like me knows about fighting.”

  The Commissioner started to doff his coat. Muldoon felt the boy tremble under his hand. Roosevelt removed his gold cufflinks, and rolled up his sleeves to reveal forearms bronzed by the sun and knotted with muscles.

  “Now,” he said.

  “This is—is loony” the red-headed boy said. “I ain’t gonna fight him!”

  The Commissioner folded his arms. “Afraid, eh?”

  The word was as good as the first blow. To be branded yellow was the worst thing that could befall a boy. It was to be hated, held in contempt. He was like a carrier of plague to his former comrades, except that they might hold some pity for the carrier of plague.

  “Well?” Roosevelt demanded. He took a hissing breath through clenched teeth.

  The boy looked at the Commissioner’s arms again. He had to raise his hand to his chin to stop it from trembling in order to speak, but he said, “I—I ain’t afraid,” and began rolling up his ragged sleeves.

  The Commissioner threw back his head, held his stomach, and laughed in a series of high pitched explosions of mirth. He ruffled the boy’s hair, and gave him a firm clap on the shoulder. “What’s your name, son?” he asked.

  The boy was too stunned with relief to do anything but answer. “Brian O’Leary.”

  “Brian O’Leary, sir” Muldoon corrected.

  “Sir” the boy echoed.

  “Where do you live?” the Commissioner asked.

  “Avenoo C, at Eleventh Street. Sir.”

  Mackerelville. Muldoon knew it well—he’d grown up there.

  “Well, Mr. O’Leary,” Roosevelt said, “I’d be dee-lighted to shake your hand.”

  Numbly, Brian put his hand in the Commissioner’s. “Oh, come,” Roosevelt scolded gently, “a boy with your spirit and grit should have a grip firmer than that. That’s better; much better. Now, you take your seat, Brian, and the officer and I will show you what a four-eyes knows about fighting.”

  He looked at Muldoon, who wore a quizzical expression., “If duty permits,” the Commissioner added. “Have we time? Is it another of the Mansion Burglaries?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Is it something that can wait a few minutes?”

  Muldoon was still deciding when Roosevelt said, “No? Bully. Now, off with that tunic. That’s it, hurry.”

  Muldoon was cursed, that’s all there was to it. You could hardly ask for a man’s help after you’ve beaten him up, even if he ordered you to do it. He was more than half a foot taller than the Commissioner, and a good fifty pounds heavier. He thought of pointing these things out to Mr. Roosevelt, but before he could say anything, he was astonished to hear the man himself calling the attention of the audience to that very contrast. The boys responded with a collective “Oooh.”

  “I would not ordinarily do this, of course, but simply for demonstration, I shall not remove my spectacles.” He turned to Muldoon, who by this time had removed his tunic, however reluctantly.


  “All set, Officer ... ?”

  “Muldoon, sir. Dennis P. F.-X. Muldoon.”

  The Commissioner beamed and extended his hand. “Dee-lighted. I am Theodore Roosevelt,” he said, exactly as though he believed Muldoon needed to be told. “Shaking hands with you would be a breach of decorum, but since we might as opponents instead of as officer and superior, I believe it will be permissible.”

  Muldoon took the hand. He had hesitated because he thought he was being tested.

  “Shall we begin?” Roosevelt suggested.

  Muldoon could only shrug and put up his dukes. He resolved to go easy on the fellow. That resolution was shaken scant seconds later when the Commissioner ducked under Muldoon’s guard and planted a short left jab squarely on the patrolman’s nose. The boys cheered.

  Muldoon’s reaction was automatic. While he was still counting the stars dancing in front of his eyes, his right fist shot out and sank into Roosevelt’s stomach.

  “Fine punch!” Muldoon heard him croak, over a roar of disapproval that was led by young Master O’Leary.

  The match continued for some minutes, but no further damage of a serious nature was done. Once Muldoon discovered that Mr. Roosevelt was by no means a pudding, he became a much more wary fighter.

  They ended it by mutual consent (disappointing the boys, who wanted to see blood, preferably Muldoon’s), and broke decorum once more by shaking hands. Muldoon got back into his uniform while the Commissioner addressed the boys.

  “So you see, I trust, that the wearing of spectacles in no way makes a man less manly. I count the day I first received my spectacles as one of the great events in my life. I may now and forever be a ‘four-eyes’—a term, by the way, I expect none of you to use, or allow to be used in your presence, to taunt someone; it is mean spirited and unworthy of a man—but before, I was so short sighted as to be almost a ‘no-eyes’ which is far worse.” He adjusted his spectacles while the boys laughed.

  “Now, all of you, go home. I fear I have kept you out far too late.” There were sounds of disappointment. “However,” the Commissioner went on, “if any of you ever feels the need to speak to me, my office is in Police Headquarters on Mulberry Street. I shall be delighted to see you. So long,” he added, “as you walk in and are not hauled in by Officer Muldoon or one of his brother officers.”

  The boys agreed happily, and scurried out, shooed along by the desk clerk, who had been standing in the doorway the whole time.

  The clerk was troubled. He approached the Commissioner and said, “Mr. Roosevelt, I was pleased when you happened upon these ruffians and broke up their fighting, and I made no objection to your use of the assembly room to lecture them, but this exhibition of—of pugilism—”

  “Ha!” said Roosevelt happily, shooting a pink cuff as punctuation. “Bully idea! Glad I thought of it, Reverend. In fact, I think it will be a fine idea to make a regular thing of it.”

  “A regular—” The rest of the Reverend’s sentence was swallowed up in a horrified gasp.

  “Oh, I won’t box a policeman every Saturday night, that would be silly.”

  The Reverend showed a degree of relief.

  “It would serve no purpose,” Roosevelt went on. “To really help the boys, we must give them lessons!”

  Now even Muldoon was shocked. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but you ain’t aimin’ to teach them little hellions how to fight, are you?”

  “Ha! That is exactly what I purpose to do. Let them prove their mettle in a ring, with gloves, or bare fists, instead of in the streets with whiskey bottles and cobble rocks. This should be done in every neighborhood in this city!”

  He turned to the minister. “I know just the man for you.”

  “For me?” the clergyman squeaked.

  “Yes, indeed. Fellow who used to help me keep in trim when I was in the Assembly in Albany. He has just recently left prison and is looking for honest work. He is doing a small chore for me at present, but he will call you in two or three days.”

  “Prison?”

  “Burglary. But Roscoe has paid his debt, Reverend.” The Commissioner was suddenly grave. “And he has reformed, or I am no judge of character. It is our Christian duty—”

  “But that’s just my point,” the clergyman protested. “Do you honestly believe it proper to offer instruction in fist-fighting at the New Christian Fellowship?”

  “I have never seen anything un-Christian in healthful recreation and exercise. Conversely, I have never thought it particularly desirable for young Christian men to face the world with pale skins and shoulders that slope like champagne bottles.”

  That convinced the Reverend. Either that, Muldoon thought, or he had simply decided that arguing in the face of one of Mr. Theodore Roosevelt’s enthusiasms was like trying to tie a knot in a nightstick. In any case, the clergyman mumbled something about expecting the Commissioner’s man to call, and withdrew to his desk.

  Roosevelt took in air through his strong white teeth. “And now, Officer Muldoon, I shall rub my stomach, and you shall rub your nose, if you wish, now that no one is watching us.” Both men laughed.

  Muldoon gently touched his nose. It was bright red, too, he’d wager. It was a good thing Captain Herkimer wasn’t here to smell him now.

  Muldoon stopped laughing. “Mr. Roosevelt, sir ...”

  “Yes, Muldoon?”

  Muldoon told him his story, leaving nothing out from the time he brought Mr. Harvey home—to the current moment. Roosevelt listened without comment, but he’d stroke his moustache, and once or twice, his eyes popped open from their habitual squint, and he’d blow out a breath that would flutter the black ribbon of his spectacles.

  “... So there it is, sir. I don’t know if I’m doin’ right to be here or not. I’ll leave it this way: If I haven’t lost me mind—and I’m first to be admittin’ the story sounds daft—then there’s a killer and a naked woman runnin’ around this city. Runnin’ around my beat.”

  “Hmph,” Roosevelt said. “You say Captain Herkimer said you’d been drinking. There is the smell about you, you know.”

  Muldoon tightened his lips. “It’s the spillin’s of drunks, period. You can smell me blasted breath, if you like.”

  To his surprise, the Commissioner took him up on it. “Ha!” he said. “No beer. And more important, no cloves or anything else that might disguise the smell of beer.” Roosevelt slapped his hands together, as though dusting that part of the problem off them. “Your breath proves you an honest man, Muldoon, so far as your tunic is concerned, at least. The rest, I must say, is the rummest story I ever heard in my life.”

  Muldoon’s heart sank. “Yes, sir,” he said sadly.

  The Commissioner was mumbling to himself, and took no notice of Muldoon’s despondency. “Herkimer” and “blasted crook Byrnes” were among things he whispered. Muldoon had to wonder what Byrnes had to do with anything—he’d been pried away from the Force (but not from his grafted fortune) back in ’94.

  “I guess I’ll have to take whatever’s coming to me,” Muldoon said but didn’t exactly mean.

  “Well,” Roosevelt said, “rum story or not, all my men will be dealt with squarely. You will come with me immediately, Muldoon, to the scene of the alleged crime.”

  “You’re comin’ personally? Now?”

  “Naturally. What good is a promise of square dealing if the words are not turned into action?” He motioned for Muldoon to start moving. “Besides, your record speaks in your favor.”

  “My record?”

  Roosevelt’s laugh reminded Muldoon of someone triple-tonguing a cornet. “I fought for those competitive examinations, Muldoon. You may wager I shall keep a close eye on those who score the highest grades. I have kept track of your progress, from the waterfront, and now to your current beat. I am pleased to find crime is significantly reduced there.”

  Muldoon felt the best he had all day. He’d heard of Mr. Roosevelt’s prodigious memory, but it never occurred to him that he was important
enough in the workings of the Department to have come to the attention of the Police Board, let alone be filed in the mind of the President.

  “Thank you, sir,” he said. “I do me best. I don’t allow the mugs and grifters to go crowdin’ the decent citizens off the street. I don’t go in swingin’ me billy, mind, but I make sure they know I’ve got it tucked in me belt. You might say I walk softly, but I carry a big stick.”

  Muldoon was surprised at the Commissioner’s reaction; you might have thought he’d said something clever. Roosevelt laughed and laughed. He slapped Muldoon on the back and said, “That’s good, I must remember that one.” He removed his spectacles and wiped his eyes, repeating under his breath, “Speak softly but carry a big stick.”

  “‘Walk softly,’ sir,” Muldoon corrected.

  “Eh? Ha! ‘Walk softly,’ then. It’s a bully remark all the same. Blast, but I hope you’re telling me the truth, Muldoon.”

  Muldoon did too; by now he was beginning to doubt his story himself. Well, he thought, as he followed the Commissioner from the Fellowship building into the heavy air of the August night, he’d find out soon enough.

  VII.

  It was a small mark of Theodore Roosevelt’s boundless energy that he usually walked everywhere in Manhattan he wanted to go. In the early days of the Strong administration, reporters used to gather around the steps of Police Headquarters to see the Commissioner end his daily eighty-odd-block walk from his sister’s house on Madison Avenue and Sixty-second Street to his office at 300 Mulberry Street by sprinting up those steps. On the first day of Roosevelt’s tenure, the reporters were invited to run up with him—not many ever tried it again.

  Lately, though, the Commissioner had taken to riding in cabs. It wasn’t that he still didn’t prefer walking; it was that he saw the cab-riding as a part of his job.

  Crime in hansoms was a chronic problem. A hansom cab was a perfect trap for an unsuspecting swell with a bulging wallet, with its lockable doors, and its trap door to the driver’s seat. It was almost proverbial wisdom that one should never get into a hansom with two men on the trap, but people, especially out-of-towners, continued to do it all the same.