‘What an experience.’
‘Do you think so? I want to do a lot while I’m here. Besides the man-on-the-street stuff, I want to interview General Curtis, I want to talk to some survivors of the Cuban invasion, and I want to visit Manhattan.’
‘Why not fly to the moon while you’re at it?’
‘If the Germans let me, I will.’ She moved closer again, and he could tell that she was trembling slightly. ‘Don’t underestimate me, Carl Landry of the Boston Globe. Many people have, and their underestimations have appeared in my paper the next day. You’ll see, I won’t leave here until I get what I want.’
~ * ~
Then it got cooler and Sandy offered to buy him a drink as they went inside. Before joining her, Carl excused himself and went down a side hallway, to a very small men’s room. There was one stall and two urinals, and both urinals were being used by consulate officials who were giggling about something and unsteady on their feet. He went into the empty stall, closed the door and sat down. The urinals flushed and the bathroom’s door opened and closed. The two men were replaced by two others. More murmurs of voices, and then a brief conversation began. One of the voices was high-pitched and sounded almost feminine. Carl lifted his feet and leaned against the stall, to hear better.
‘. . . from Ottawa.’
‘How did it go?’
‘... bloody Canucks are fearful of reprisals, just for a change. Even with our air defense help, they think…’
‘... can’t really blame ‘em, can you ... living with these gangsters on your border ...’
‘. .. they should remember their duty as a member of the Commonwealth…’
‘... well, once the Yanks get taken care of, then we can turn our attention to our Canuck cousins...’
There was some laughter, and then the urinals flushed and Carl was alone. When he lowered his feet to the floor, he found that they were trembling.
~ * ~
He came back to the party and Sandy was talking to two well-dressed men. When she noticed him approaching, she said something he couldn’t catch and the men—the ones in the bathroom?—blended into the crowd and he lost sight of them. Sandy took care of the beer, and with a shout of ‘Sandy, darling, there you are!’ Carl found himself with the intense young man who was the press attaché—Douglas Harris—and the three of them moved to an end of the bar. The music had stopped so at least they didn’t have to raise their voices. Sandy made the introductions and Douglas said. ‘Well, Carl, what did you think of our little get-together tonight?’
‘It was fine, very nice,’ he said, sipping at me dark, warm brew. American beers were still weak and watery—the majority of the grain crop still going to bread and cereals—and he knew if he had more than one of these English beers he‘d end up sleeping under one of the serving tables. He looked around the crowd, wondering which two of these proper British gentlemen had spoken so lightly about ‘taking care’ of the Yanks. Something was up, something bad, and every instinct in his reporter’s blood and his soldier’s history told him to leave.
But then what to do? Call up General Curtis and sav the British are coming, the British are coming? And had Sandy been talking to those two particular men, or just two other consulate officials? Take it easy, he thought. Enjoy the beer and the presence of this woman, and don’t spoil it.
‘This is my fourth time for this ceremony, y’know.’ Douglas said. ‘Four years I’ve been in the States, stationed in Boston. It’s a beautiful city.’
Sandy said, ‘Douglas fancies he’s a native, don’t you?’
Douglas raised his beer glass. ‘Hardly, but I do enjoy your country, what little I’ve seen of it. The White Mountains up in New Hampshire are wonderful, and I can’t get enough of Maine lobster, they’re so much larger than ours.’ He patted his stomach. ‘Unfortunately, it all seems to have ended up here.’
‘The rigors of a foreign posting,’ Carl said. ‘Be thankful you’re not stationed in Paris. All those frog legs.’
They all laughed and Douglas said, ‘Do you cover politics at all, Carl?’
‘Nope. Strictly city beat. I’m here tonight’—he looked at Sandy’s interested face and found himself liking the look -’on a special assignment. Filling in for someone who couldn’t come.’
‘Oh. Quite.’ The music started up again, a softer Beatles tune—‘Penny Lane’—that still made talking easy. ‘I’ve always been interested in your politics. Last week Governor McGovern was in town for a rally. Were you there?’
‘I don’t follow politics that much.’
‘And why’s that?’ Sandy asked.
He shrugged. ‘Foregone conclusion. In a few weeks’ time McGovern is going to be whipped by Rockefeller, and the Democrats will do poorly in Congress. In four years’ time, the next Democratic candidate will get whipped, and so forth and so on, probably until the end of this century. That’s why most people in this country still don’t vote. What’s the point?’
‘Sounds like a fairly grim prediction,’ Douglas said.
He kept talking, in spite of himself. Maybe it was the beer or the warm room or the fact that Sandy was watching his every move. He had a desire to show her that he was more than just a newspaper hound, that there was more to him than just a byline. Somehow, what Sandy thought of him seemed quite important.
‘Does the phrase “waving the bloody shirt” mean anything to you?’ he asked. He got blank looks from both of them and continued, feeling fine at knowing something these two Brits didn’t. ‘It comes from right after the Civil War, the second-bloodiest on American soil and following the assassination of a beloved president. The Democrats were mostly from the South and every time there was an election, some Republican candidate would wave a bloody shirt and point to it, saying, “here is the bullet hole put in here by a Democratic traitor.” People had long memories about the Civil War and they voted with those memories. It was twenty years before a Democrat took office, Grover Cleveland in 1555.’
Sandy played with a paper napkin that had been left on the bar. ‘So you think the bloody shirt’s still effective.’
‘Oh, of course it is, but it’s not bloody,’ Carl, said. ‘It’s charred black and radioactive. Most people still believe that it was a Democratic president and a Democratic congress that got us into the Cuban War, and they still believe that, ten years later, and will keep on believing it for a long time. Oh, the Republicans aren’t crass enough to be that direct. They use code words and phrases. They say that the Democrats are internationalists, that they want to get back into the UN and sign the disarmament treaties, give away our sovereignty, that sort of thing. Most people want to leave the world the hell alone, and they vote Republican. They promise continued recovery, more food on the tables, more ways of extorting aid from our British friends.’
Sandy asked, her eyes slightly downturned, ‘And why won’t the U.S. sign the disarmament treaties? You’re the only nation in the world that still has nuclear weapons, those that weren’t used during the Cuban War. The world is still afraid of America, Carl. Signing those treaties could go a long way to mending relations with the rest of us.’
He took another sip of the beer, enjoying the smoky taste and being asked questions that counted, questions that hardly came up in the newsroom. ‘Because even with gasoline rationing and food shortages and martial law, with nuclear weapons we’re still a nation to be reckoned with. Get rid of the nukes and allow UN inspection teams to crawl around our military bases ... well, then we don’t count. We’d just be Albania, with better roads.’
Douglas made to say something but he was interrupted by a shout of, ‘Ah, here we go, then!’ from a rumpled, older man with a red face and a gentle, slurred accent who joined them at the bar. ‘Farley James, at your service,’ he said, weaving slightly. ‘The Sun of London, a real newspaper, not like that establishment toady that Sandy works for.’
Sandy introduced Carl and said, ‘Farley, you old goat, at least I get paid well, and my stories don’t r
un next to adverts for breast creams or sex aids.’
‘Hah!’ Harris said, punching the older man slightly on the shoulder. ‘She’s got you there, Farley. Don’t pick a fight with a bigger newspaper. Your kind will always lose.’
Farley grinned good-naturedly, took a large swallow of his beer, and said, ‘Landry, eh? Scribbler for the Globe?‘
‘That’s what it says on the paycheck.’
‘Globe. Not a bad paper compared to the rest, but then again, all of your papers are just so much trash, y’know.’
‘Now, Farley,’ Sandy started, and Douglas’s smile had frozen on his face, like he wished he was back onstage a couple of hours before, worrying only about introducing the consul.
‘No, I don’t know,’ Carl said, taking his time as he sipped from the warm beer, wondering how it would feel to punch this self-satisfied man in the nose. ‘Care to elaborate?’
The older man leaned back against the bar, acting almost like he was on the bow of a ship that was rising up and down, and was afraid he was going to lose his balance. ‘Look at the facts, ole man. Your newspapers used to be something, in this country and around the world, but now you’ve got a censor’s nose in everything you write, which is mostly pap.’
He quietly belched. ‘Fact is, everything here’s trash. Can hardly wait to get out of this godforsaken hole and go back home. This place is falling apart, hurts one’s eyes to see it, day after day. How can your country be great again if you’re still under the thumb of a homegrown Napoleon, even if he is retired? How can you expect to be admired as an equal among nations? Christ alive, America used to be something. People looked up to you. They admired your government, your Bill of Rights, hell, your Coca-Cola. You have to be great again!’
Douglas tried to step in. ‘Some would say their greatness is in their recovery, Farley. After all the damage they suffered—’
‘Bah,’ he said, waving a hand dismissive. ‘Look at the Nips and the Krauts, what we did to them last time round. Flattened those bastards from one end to the other and look who’s nipping at John Bull’s heels, not more than twenty or so years later. This place is still falling apart, and I don’t mean buildings or streets. I mean politics, governance. Carl, you Yanks can’t afford to put your head in the sand. You have to go out there, take back your role as world leader. You should be strong. You shouldn’t be an object of pin: You’ve got to lead again.’
He found his hand was shaking as he finished his beer and gingerly put the empty glass back on the bar, afraid that he might slam the glass down. ‘Last time we did that, about ten million of us died,’ Carl said, staring right into the face of the reporter. ‘You might excuse us if we sit this one out. Douglas, nice meeting you. Sandy, thanks for the beer.’
And he turned and left, hearing the older reporter sputter as his countrymen started arguing with him.
~ * ~
Outside, the cold air cleared his head, but he still fumed as he strode up the sidewalk, heading back to his car. The streets were empty except for a couple of lumbering taxi cabs, and most of the streetlights were broken. The shadows were black and deep. He knew that he shouldn’t have been upset about the old man’s words, but still, they stung. And so what if they did? Who elected you, Carl Landry, Boston Globe reporter and former sergeant, U.S. Army, as defender of the faith and soil?
He kicked at a crumpled newspaper. It was their damn smug arrogance that got to him, from the way they talked to the way they acted. Then there was the food spread that could feed a half dozen families for a month. The check—in pounds sterling—given to the grateful descendants of the people who fought to toss the British out two hundred years ago. And that muttered conversation in the bathroom. Something was going to happen, something involving taking care of the Yank problem.
He passed a lump wrapped in blankets, underneath a park bench, and someone hidden in the blankets moaned. It didn’t look like he had any legs. Carl kept going, crossing over to the next block. He could make out his car, parked on the side of the street, next to a wrecked hulk that had been stripped. He put his right hand into his coat pocket, feeling for his keys, still thinking about what he should have said in reply to Farley.
He was about fifty feet away from the Coronet when he realized there wasn’t much he could say. Truth was a hell of a defense.
And he was about twenty feet away from the Coronet when they jumped him.
~ * ~
They boiled out from an alleyway, past overflowing garbage cans and boxes, like bats streaming out from a cave, about five or six boys and girls, though their ages could have been anything from late teens to early twenties. Each one of them carried a brick or a wooden stick, which, if dropped when a cop came by, would blend into the background as a piece of trash and not a deadly weapon. The leader was a tall one with a gaunt look on his face, and he said, ‘There he be! Let’s get to ‘im.’
There was laughter as they came closer, and in his mind’s eye he filed it all away: the tight jeans, heavy boots, short leather jackets with chains and fake Soviet military epaulets on the shoulders, and the same close-cut haircuts for both the boys and the girls. Orfie gang on the prowl, out on a Saturday night for some fun and crushing, and he was in their sights. He knew the statistics. He knew the gangs didn’t like live witnesses. He knew what they had planned for him, and he knew he should be terrified.
But instead, he remembered an old sergeant’s words, from the dusty training fields of Fort Bragg over a decade ago: ‘Landry, unless they’re well trained and well armed, any group coming at you is just a mob, and a scared mob at that.’
The leader turned again, saying, ‘C’mon, kiddos, it’s time to—’
Carl leapt at him, car and house keys firm in his fist, with one sticking out between his knuckles, jamming the key hard against the young man’s exposed cheek. He howled and fell to his knees. Carl pivoted on his weak leg, letting his strong leg lash out and catch another young man in his crotch. Another yelp of agony. The grogginess from the beer had evaporated and he was moving, he was now on the prowl. He grabbed a chunk of lumber from the trash cans and spun around, knocking a brick free from a girl’s hand. Then he rapped another boy across the shoulders. In a matter of seconds, they had retreated back into the alleyway, cursing and tossing bricks and bottles in his direction, but still he moved, heading over to his Coronet and this time—praise God from whom all blessings flow!—the engine started on the first try. He made it out of there, yelling his own curses as he raced away from the gang. He felt alive and well. He said a loud thanks into the cold night, to that drill sergeant who had taught him self-defense.
Still, he went three blocks before turning on his headlights, and he took twice as long to get home, choosing a roundabout route.
~ * ~
He lay on his couch, breathing heavily, still trembling. His right hand was wrapped in ice and a dish towel, and he was watching the end of the Ronald Reagan Variety Hour on television, trying to ignore his hand throbbing with pain. He had gone home and locked all the doors and pulled out his Colt .45 Army service automatic, one of the few souvenirs he had taken with him when he was discharged. He wasted only a second thinking about calling the cops. The orfie gang was probably on the other side of the city right now, and even if the cops found them, then what? In fact, the orfies probably could have had a case against him. They had not assaulted him. They hadn’t really threatened him. If anything, they could argue, Carl was the one who should be arrested. Another crazy vet who lost his mind and snapped. Happens all the time.
The news came on. After a brief piece showing General Ramsey Curtis giving an award to some Air Force colonel, there was a segment that showed Governor Rockefeller speaking to the chamber of commerce in Philadelphia, looking well fed and happy, the tables full of white males in dark suits, applauding and cheering him on. He was smiling widely as he tore into his opponent: ‘His election as president would mean the adoption of an internationalist foreign policy. His election as president would
mean a slap to the face of the one country that has helped us since the end of the Tsar. His election as president would mean a unilateral disarmament. We learned—to all our great sorrow in 1962—that we cannot afford to rely on paper treaties for our defense. It is a different world, a different time, a time for us to focus on our own affairs, our own challenges. Through the help of our British friends, we will continue to meet these challenges.’
‘Some happy warrior,’ Carl muttered, as he went into the kitchen for a fresh set of ice cubes. When he came back the news had switched, and there was Governor McGovern, speaking at a rally in Albany. Had to give the man credit, at least he was bringing his message to the enemy’s camp. It was raining and he had on a soaked tan raincoat. A few of his young aides were holding umbrellas over him as he spoke, his flat midwestern twang cutting through the downpour. Carl half listened as the man talked, rearranging the ice and dish towel around his hand, and then he stopped moving for a moment. There was something about what the man was saying. It was like he was talking to him, Carl Landry, and everyone else who had once worn the uniform. He sat back on the couch.
Resurrection Day Page 9
