Memories of Another Day

by Harold Robbins

  “It’s not quite the same thing,” Daniel said.

  “Maybe. But in our case, a share in the mutual fund is our merchandise. And you know as well as I do that the average man will think twice about shelling out a hundred dollars at one clip, but two dollars a week doesn’t sound so bad.”

  Jack spoke quickly. “I think D.J. has a good point there.”

  “We’re not set up to do business like that,” Daniel said.

  “We can handle it,” Moses said. “They can make their payments directly to their union, which can then forward it to us each month.”

  “That’s right.” Jack nodded. “And if we draw up the right kind of purchase contract I’m sure we can find a bank to discount it.”

  Daniel finally held a match to his cigar. He was nodding to himself. It could just work. “I’ve got the bank. The UMW is the major shareholder of the National Bank of Washington. I’m sure John L. will tell Barney Colton, who’s running the bank for them, to give us the money.”

  He looked up at D.J. “You’ve come up with a very good idea, son.”

  D.J. flushed. “We don’t know yet, Father. It might not work.”

  “We have to make it work,” Daniel said. He turned to Jack. “How come the television and radio people are covering this meeting?”

  “They think it’s an interesting story. First time it’s ever happened that union members are beginning a mutual fund to invest their money in capitalism.”

  Daniel looked at him. Suddenly he smiled; his voice boomed again with confidence. “It’s going to work. Everything’s falling into place. They don’t know, but they’re giving us an opportunity to organize the whole country.”

  ***

  “You’re nervous,” Margaret said as she watched him pack the small valise he was taking to Detroit.

  He took a deep breath. “If this doesn’t work, we have to put away the whole idea and we’re right back where we started.”

  “Is that really too bad?” she asked. “We’re getting along.”

  He turned to her. “You don’t understand. Once you begin to stand still in the labor movement, you might as well quit. All you can do is go backward.”

  “There’s enough money coming in from the regular memberships, isn’t there? We can live comfortably on that.”

  “Now there is,” he said. “But how long do you think it will last? Sooner or later we’ll run out of jobs to do for the unions we have. Then unless we get others to join us, we’re out of business. It’s a vicious circle, but success breeds on success. The moment our people begin to realize we’re not attracting new members, they begin to wonder why they need us. The minute they start thinking that, we’re finished.”

  She was silent as he closed the valise. “Is it that important to you, Daniel?”

  “Yes,” he said. “All my life I’d dreamed of doing something important in the labor movement, and every time I tried I wound up with shit thrown in my face. The name of the game was politics. I needed a union local of my own for a base, and they would never let me have it because I had a mind of my own and they were afraid I wouldn’t play ball with them. This is a chance to go around all of them and force them to listen to me. In the only language they understand. Money and power.”

  He picked up the valise, and she followed him downstairs. He left the bag in the hall and went into the living room. He took the bottle of whiskey from the sideboard and poured himself a drink.

  “Have you finished your speech yet?” she asked.

  “No. I’ll work more on it. I’ll have it finished by the time I have to deliver it tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I wish I were going with you,” she said.

  “I wish you were too.” He took a sip of his drink. “But we won’t have to wait long now. Two more weeks.”

  “It seems like forever.”

  He smiled. “It will pass quicker than you think.” He put down the glass. “You know where to get me if you need me?”

  She nodded. “I have the hotel number written next to the telephone.”

  “I’ll call and let you know how we’re doing.”

  “I’ll be watching you on television,” she said. “Jack told me the evening news will be carrying a clip from your speech.”

  “I hope it will be all right. TV does funny things to people.”

  “You’ll be okay,” she said.

  “You’re prejudiced,” he said, smiling.

  “Maybe. But you’ll still be okay. I worry enough now about the way women come on to you. After this I’m going to have to worry double.”

  He laughed. “Don’t double your trouble, double your pleasure.”

  She laughed with him. “I can’t wait. I feel like a virgin again. I think the first time we make love after this I won’t be able to stop coming.”

  “Promises, promises. I’ll remember that.”

  “Daniel.”

  He looked at her. Her voice had suddenly become serious. “Even if it doesn’t work, it’s not that important. We still have each other. I don’t need very much.”

  He kissed her cheek. “I know that, baby. That’s one of the reasons I love you.”

  She smiled gently. “I’m glad to hear that. Until just a little while ago I thought all you cared about was my beautiful body.”

  “That too.” He laughed. An automobile horn sounded from outside. “The car is here. I’ve got to get going.”

  She followed him to the door, where he picked up his valise. “Give my best to D.J. and the others.”

  “I will.” He looked down at her. “I forgot to tell you. If there’s anything you need, Jack Haney is staying in town. Don’t hesitate to call him. He’ll be at home or at the office.”

  “I thought he was going with you too,” she said.

  “We had to change our plans at the last minute. He’s waiting for the new purchase contracts to come back from the printer so that he can check them and get them out to us in time for the meeting.”

  “Then only D.J. and Moses will be with you?”

  “I don’t need any more from here. Hoffa has placed some of his office staff at my disposal.” He bent over and kissed her cheek. “Take care of yourself. I’ll be back the day after tomorrow.”

  “Good luck.” She kissed him. “And stay away from them bad women. I love you.”

  “I love you too,” he said, laughing.

  She stood in the doorway and watched him get into the car. He leaned out the window and waved to her. She waved back, and the car started from the curb. She watched until it had turned the corner and gone out of sight. The telephone began to ring. She closed the door and went to it.

  It was Jack Haney. “Big Dan gone already?”

  “He’s just left.”

  “Okay. I’ll call him when he gets to Detroit.”

  “Are there any problems?”

  “No. I just wanted to check some agreement language with him.” He hesitated a moment. “Will you be home tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll give you a call to see how you are. Big Dan asked me to check in with you.”

  “He told me,” she said. It was her turn to hesitate. “Look, if you’re not doing anything tomorrow, why don’t you come over and have supper here and we can watch him on television together?”

  “I don’t want you to go to any trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble,” she said. “Mamie takes care of everything. And I won’t feel as alone as I usually do when he’s away.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll check with you tomorrow in case you should change your mind.”

  “I won’t change my mind.”

  He hesitated again. “Okay. What time do you want me?”

  “Seven o’clock all right?”

  “I’ll be there,” he answered. “Thanks.”

  She put down the telephone and went upstairs to the bedroom. Slowly she got out of her dress and picked up her robe. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her belly looked so big. She could
n’t be sure, but she thought it was beginning to drop slightly. She slipped into the robe and went to the bed.

  She leaned back against the pillows. She was glad she had asked Jack to dinner. It was the first time she had ever spoken with him without many people around. He seemed like a nice young man—a little shy perhaps, but maybe that was because she was the boss’s wife. But he had always been very nice and polite to her. Not like so many of the others, whose very attitudes made her feel that they thought she was nothing but a clever young girl who had used her youth and sex in order to trap Daniel into marriage.

  She let out a deep breath. To hell with them. After the baby was born she would show them all how wrong they were.

  Chapter 14

  Daniel stood in the wings of the stage at the end of the convention hall. The pressure of the mass filling the hall beyond weighed heavily in the air. The U.A.W. and the Teamsters had done their job well. They had turned out the members. Now it was all up to him. If he couldn’t sell the new purchase concept, it was his failure.

  He looked down at the notes he held in his hand. They were typed in capital letters on medium-sized index cards. Each card made a point. Security. Saving for retirement. Increase in capital. Additional current income. All the pluses. Plus an easy payment plan. Two dollars a week for a unit.

  It was all there. If he bombed, there was no one to blame it on. The failure had to be his and his alone. He took a deep breath.

  For the last half-hour, various speakers had been talking about and explaining the mutual fund to the audience. The last speaker was the head of one of the U.A.W. locals. His voice carried through the loudspeakers to Daniel.

  “And now, to tell you more about this great opportunity for all of us to participate in the growth and increasing wealth of our country, here is the man whose genius thought up the plan, a man whose lifelong dedication to union labor is known to everyone, a man I am proud to call my friend: the president of the Confederated Alliance of Living Labor, Big Dan Huggins.”

  Daniel walked onto the stage. The speaker came toward him, a big smile on his face. They shook hands while the speaker whispered. “Go get ’em, Big Dan. We softened them up for you.”

  Daniel smiled and went to the lectern. He placed his speech cards on the lectern in front of him. He held up his hand, waving and smiling to the applause. Then he turned his hand palm out, and slowly the applause died down and the hall became quiet.

  Daniel stood there silently for a moment as his eyes surveyed the audience. A good fifty percent of the men were still in their work clothes. They had probably come directly from their shift. The other men were in their shirt sleeves. It was over eighty degrees outside, and there were very few jackets in evidence. Between the very first row of seats and the stage, the television cameras began to move into position in front of him.

  Daniel looked at the audience again. The working man. He almost could feel and touch every one of them. He had grown up with them, eaten and drunk and slept with them. He felt himself all of them and each of them.

  He looked down at his speech cards again. Something was wrong. He was the same man sitting out there in the audience; he was not a securities salesman. No matter how valid the idea was, those men had not come here to listen to a sales pitch. They had come to see him. They had come to hear him and renew their faith in labor and the union. They had come to hear him say just one thing. That he still cared, that he still believed.

  Slowly he picked up his speech cards from the lectern and held them out so that the audience could see them. “My brothers, my friends. These cards I hold in my hand are the speech I’m supposed to make. I’m supposed to tell you how important it is for each and every one of you to join with us. I’m supposed to tell you how much money you will make with it and about the comforts that money will buy for you.”

  He paused for a moment. “But I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going to make that speech. Others can do that far better than I. Besides, each of you has been given a sheet of paper when you entered the room which tells you everything you need to know about it. So that speech I’m not going to make at all.”

  He opened his hand and let the cards drop to the floor. He looked at them for a moment, then back at the audience. “The little time we have together is much too important to waste on that. Instead, I want to talk to you about something I feel is much more important, about something so important that it affects our lives each and every day of our existence. I want to speak to you about the way we live—something I call The Challenge to Democracy.”

  He paused and searched the faces in the audience. They were his people. He began to speak very slowly, very clearly.

  “A man is born, he works, he dies. Then there is nothing… This has been the life of all of us who have been born into the society of those who labor. We have accepted it. Because traditionally this is the way it has always been.

  “But one day, some time ago, a group of men gathered to set down the principles of something they called democracy under which all men would be created equal. In race, in opportunity. And these goals became the challenge of democracy. Because it is always easier to state the ideal than to achieve it.

  “The achievement becomes the struggle, and the struggle is ours. Because we are the people who labor, and we are the people who must accept the challenge of democracy and make it work.”

  He paused and gazed slowly around the audience again. “My brothers, we have accepted that challenge. We have created unions to help us better our living conditions. And we must continue to improve our unions and create others to help those who need them. But there is more to the challenge than just unionism. The real challenge is life. We deserve more than just birth, work and death. We deserve more than being nothing. Because the world in which we live is our world too. And each and every one of us by his actions must leave his mark on it. So that each and every man here will be remembered forever. Not forgotten.”

  He reached for the glass of water on the lectern. For a moment the silence in the hall made him feel as if they did not know what he was trying to tell them. Then the applause began to roll over him and he knew that he had reached them. He held up his hand and the applause died down.

  “We are warriors in the battle. We must create as well as meet the challenge to democracy. Because only by searching in ourselves for our aims will we be able to help others to achieve theirs.”

  The applause came up again. He held up his hand. “And that is exactly what we must do. Care for one another as we care for ourselves…”

  He stood on the platform for more than an hour. He spoke of youth gone by and dreams that had been lost and faiths that had vanished, and then he shared with them his dream of the future. His dream of the world, which they and they alone could make come true because it was their dream too. And he said that the only way they could make it happen was to accept the challenge. And if they did not accept that challenge, they were placing in other hands the responsibility for their lives, and in time they would go backward until all the newfound gains would be irretrievably lost.

  When he finished, the audience was silent. He turned and started from the stage. Then the roar broke over him. The applause. The audience began to chant. “Big Dan! Big Dan! Big Dan!”

  He turned back to them. They could see the tears running down his cheeks. He could hardly speak anymore. “Thank you.”

  There was a strange silence backstage as he came off. None of the usual handshaking or backslapping of enthusiasm. Instead there was a strangeness, a kind of watchfulness, among the men who just before his speech had so exuberantly predicted that he would easily collect a half million dollars’ worth of subscriptions from this rally alone. He could read the expression on their faces. He had blown it.

  Even Moses and D.J. were strangely silent in the car on their way back to the large suite they had reserved in the hotel for a post-meeting reception for the local union officials who had cooperated in the planning. Silently they went up in the e
levator. They opened the door to the empty suite.

  Daniel stood in the center of the large living room and stared at the preparations they had made for the reception. The large bar set up, the tables filled with sandwiches for those men who would be hungry.

  He turned to Moses. “I guess you better make arrangements for the hotel to take this stuff back. I’m going to start packing. There’s no use hanging around. I’m going to see if I can make a plane home tonight.”

  Moses nodded silently.

  “D.J., you better start gathering up the papers. Don’t bother sorting them out. Just dump them into a box and leave ’em here. Doesn’t look as if we’re going to need them now.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  The telephone began to ring as he went into his bedroom. He closed the door behind him and the sound of the ringing was blocked out. He walked to the bed and sat down heavily. Why the hell had he done it? He had had it all in his hands and he had thrown it away. And for nothing. Merely to tell them how he really felt, something they would forget by the time they sat down for dinner that evening. How the hell could he have been so blinded by his own vision that he could have deluded himself into believing what he said was really important? Ideals were pretty words. They no longer moved people. Nor did people really believe in them. Power and money was the only faith that moved them.

  The bedroom door opened and Moses stuck his head into the room. “The President wants to talk to you,” he said in a hushed voice.

  “The President?” Daniel asked stupidly.

  “The President of the United States,” Moses said.

  Daniel stared at him, then turned and picked up the telephone at the side of the bed. “Hello.”

  A woman’s voice came through the line. “Mr. Huggins?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just one moment for the President of the United States.”

  There was a click on the line, then the familiar sound of Eisenhower’s voice. “Mr. Huggins, I called to congratulate you on your magnificent speech. I just saw it on television.”