Russell nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, now listen. We have to go over some very important procedural points, and you have to pay careful attention. Remember, if you fuck this up, they won't let Peter speak."
"Have no fear," Clayton responded expansively. "The crystalline waters of the Beckskill River are in safe hands."
Russell grimaced. "Why doesn't that inspire me with confidence?"
"Because I'm a capitalist?" Clayton laughed. Russell laughed also. "An accident of birth. You couldn't help it."
"Aw, thanks, Russ." Clayton said, simpering.
"Now listen . . ." Russell began explaining the intricacies of parliamentary procedure. To his surprise, Clayton actually listened carefully.
What are those bums talking about? Alex wondered.
Outside on the sidewalk, Ashvarinda was shaking his head sadly as he walked briskly back toward the River Road. So much anger in that poor man; he sighed inwardly. So much hatred. And he does not know that the pain of such feelings is but the bite of the serpent's teeth as it devours its own tail.
He started slightly at the blast of a horn, and he turned to see a car pulling to the curb beside him. He peered in through the window and smiled. "Dorcas!"
"Hello, Mr. Patanjali." She smiled. "This is my sister Sarah."
"Namastay." He bowed. Sarah turned her face away pointedly and did not respond to his greeting, so he looked back to Dorcas. "I have been purchasing food."
"Oh, gee, we're just coming back from doing some grocery shopping over in Haddlyville," Dorcas said. "You should have let me know you needed things. I'd have been happy to pick them up for you."
"Oh, no." He laughed. "I would never trouble you in such a way. And it is not a far walk."
"Well, can I give you a lift back to the path?" she asked.
Before Ashvarinda could respond, Sarah snapped her head in Dorcas's direction and said, "I will not sit in the same car with that person!"
"Sarah!" Dorcas said quickly. "Please, you're embarrassing me."
"I don't care," she huffed. "Let him get an ox cart or something."
"Sarah!"
"I'll tell Daddy, I swear I will. You know how he feels about those two weirdos."
Ashvarinda coughed softly. "I enjoy walking, Dorcas. But thank you just the same."
"Well . . . okay. Will I be seeing you tomorrow?"
"Of course." He smiled, and then, bowing again, continued on his way.
Sarah frowned at her sister. "See him tomorrow where?" Dorcas shrugged as she drove away from the curb, and Sarah's eyes widened. "Dorcas, you didn't tell him about the meeting!"
She shrugged again. "They live in the town. It's a public meeting. They have their nights."
"Their rights!" Sarah exclaimed. "What on earth is wrong with you?"
Dorcas sighed. "Come on, Sarah, okay?"
"Well," Sarah said, her voice cattily imperious, "I suppose that this is what comes of spending so much time with those left-wingers. Their rights! He's a foreigner and the other one is retarded, and you want them to have their rights!"
Sarah continued to browbeat her sister all the way back to their house, and Dorcas accepted the assault in silence, thinking of all the things Lydia would be saying in response, if only Lydia were with them. But Lydia was with Clayton, and so Dorcas did not respond as her younger sister began to catalog her faults. She repressed a smile as she recalled something Clayton had once said about her sister Sarah. Some women, he had observed, are born to be mothers. And others are born to be mothers-in-law.
Chapter Five
November 23, 1968
Peter Geerson sat on one of the numerous wooden benches in the town hall and chewed the nails on his right hand nervously as he waited for the meeting to begin. His left hand was holding a pile of papers and a file folder, and at his feet rested a large plastic athletic bag. Dorcas Ostlich was sitting beside him, gazing at him adoringly, her hands clasping a stiff-bristled whisk broom, a metal dust shovel, and a thick burlap bag. Her expression went unnoticed as Peter turned to his right and asked Russell Phelps, "Where the hell is Clayton?"
"He'll be here, Pete. Don't worry. He knows how much this means to you."
"But it's almost two o'clock! He's the only one who has the right to speak at this meeting, not me. If he doesn't show up . . ."
"He'll show up, he'll show up," Russell insisted. "Calm down, will you? He can tell time, you know. He doesn't want the river fucked up any more than you do." He paused. "That's what he claims, anyway. I don't trust him. And besides, I still think you've got the wrong perspective on this."
"Russell, please." Peter sighed.
"The problem isn't just pollution, it's capitalism. If our economy were centralized and removed from market pressures, and if industry was nationalized—"
"Not now, not today, okay?" Peter heard the sound of more people entering the hall, and he turned to see Rebecca Saunders and Sean Brenner walking toward them. As they sat down beside Russell, Rebecca said, "Hiya, Pete, Russ. Hiya, Dork."
"Where is he?" Peter demanded.
"Billy the Bumpkin?" Sean replied. "He's outside talking to the locals about crop yields and rainfall and how we should all give the president a chance."
"Yeah"—Rebecca laughed—"and how we gotta stop the red menace even if it means bombing Vietnam back into the Stone Age."
"Oh, for Christ's sake," Peter muttered.
"He's just having a little fun," Rebecca said. "Don't get so upset."
Clayton ambled in a moment later and sat down to Peter's right. "Howdy."
"'Bout fucking time," Peter said reprovingly, though obviously relieved. "Where the hell have you been?"
"Pete, you gotta take things less seriously." Clayton grinned. "Ride with the tide and go with the flow, and all that shit."
"I think Peter's just a little nervous about standing up and speaking to all these people," Dorcas said. "I mean, who wouldn't be?"
"I wouldn't be," Clayton replied.
"Me neither," Rebecca and Sean said in unison.
"Clay, you know what you're supposed to do?" Russell asked.
"Sure. It ain't hard."
"Okay, but remember, I've got parliamentary procedure down pat—"
"Great," Clayton interrupted. "I'm glad that your two months of law school didn't go to waste."
Russell closed his eyes and forced himself to be patient. "If they throw something at you that you can't handle—"
"I'll duck."
"I'm serious, man. If that happens, let me tell you what to say. Don't just shoot your mouth off."
"Me? Shoot my mouth off? Russell, you've cut me to the quick!"
"Listen, Clay, it's very easy for the chairman of the meeting to deny someone the right to speak if they don't follow procedures. This is important to Peter, so don't mess it up."
"All right, all right," Clay replied. "Jeez!"
It seemed as though every landowning family in Beckskill was represented in the room, and the soft conversations of the nearly three hundred people present combined to make the town hall's general meeting room very noisy. But the sounds of voices hushed suddenly and all heads turned toward the door as Vernon Sweet and Ashvarinda Patanjali entered.
By now everyone in Beckskill had heard of the return of the deformed man, but this was the first opportunity most of them had actually had to see him. Ashvarinda had swathed himself in clean white linen, for he had never in all his decades in America purchased Western clothes, and he forced himself to ignore the insults and derogatory observations uttered sotto voice as he led Vernon to one of the benches in the rear. Vernon was wearing a pair of baggy trousers and an ill-fitting workshirt that had been found in an old bureau drawer in his house. Ashvarinda had seen to it that Vernon dressed for the occasion, after Dorcas informed them of the date and time of the meeting.
It had not occurred to Dr. Ostlich that his daughter would transmit this information to Vernon and Ashvarinda, and he had been furious at her when he found out a
bout it, almost as furious as he was at that very moment as he saw Dorcas sitting beside Peter Geerson and so close to Clayton Saunders. Lydia, of course, was nowhere to be seen. She knew her father, as town supervisor, was to chair the meeting, and so she made a point to be elsewhere.
Dr. Timothy Ostlich was the small town's sole physician, and as such was one of the few educated people living in Beckskill. (Clayton Saunders's three months of college attendance four years earlier did not count, of course.) Having been so valuable a community member for nearly a quarter of a century, it seemed only fitting that Ostlich should also be on the town council, and he had, in fact, been town supervisor for the past seven years.
He sat now behind the center of a long table that stood along the rear wall of the meeting room. To his left and right sat the other members of the town council: old Johann Schilder, who was staring angrily at Vernon Sweet's huge round head at the other end of the room; his son-in-law, Frank Bruno, local farmer; Walter Rihaczeck, ad hoc legal expert for the town; Mike Imhof, retired French teacher and Beckskill native who had returned to his hometown after thirty years in Albany; and Alex Brown, self proclaimed restaurateur, whose narrow eyes were fixed on Rebecca Saunders and Sean Brenner. He's no damn good for her, he was thinking. He's going to get that poor child in trouble someday, that bastard, that bum.
In front of the long table were the twenty rows of permanent benches and the folding chairs that had been fished out of the basement and dusted off for this occasion. Beckskill had town meetings so infrequently that a large turnout was both expected and encouraged. By the time Ostlich pounded his gavel and called the meeting to order, every seat was taken and dozens of people were standing along the wall near the door.
The gavel descended a few times, and the buzz of voices, which had subsided when Sweet and Ashvarinda had entered and then had risen again, settled into attentive silence. "This meeting will come to order," Ostlich intoned. "This is a public meeting of the town council of Beckskill, New York, November the twenty-third, the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-eight." He turned to Rihaczeck. "Mr. Secretary, I will hear a motion to dispense with the reading of the minutes from the last meeting."
"So moved," Rihaczeck said.
"Seconded," Alex Brown added.
"All in favor?" A multitude of hands were raised in the hall. "Opposed?" None. The gavel descended. "Motion is carried." Michael Imhof raised his hand. "The chair recognizes Mike Imhof."
Imhof cleared his throat. "Mr. Chairman, I want to open discussion on the subject of the Craigo factory."
"Seconded," Alex Brown said again.
"All in favor of opening discussion on the proposed construction of a factory in Beckskill by the Craigo Corporation?" Again the room was filled with raised hands. "All opposed?" Again none. "Motion is carried," Ostlich said. "Mr. Imhof, you may present your report."
Imhof was a husky man with silvery gray hair and a Napoleon III mustache and goatee, a vestigial image of his days as a French teacher. He cleared his throat once again, rose to his feet, and placed his right hand magisterially upon his stomach as he began to address the assembly. He had spent his entire professional life in front of a classroom, talking to groups of people, and he relished the opportunity to do so once again. Addressing the town meeting was all the more pleasurable because, unlike a classroom of teenagers, the people he was to speak to would actually be listening to him.
As Imhof moved from his opening remarks into an enthusiastic explanation of the benefits that would accrue to the town from the construction of the factory, Peter Geerson turned back to Russell Phelps and whispered, "Isn't there supposed to be a time limit on each speaker?"
"Only if the chairman imposes one at the outset of the meeting," he replied. "Right now a member of council is presenting a report to the community, so technically he isn't a speaker. We have to hope that Ostlich doesn't impose a time limit before you get the chance to speak."
"This isn't a report," Peter said angrily. "This is a goddamn pep talk. He isn't giving any specific information on anything. He sure isn't making any comments on the ecological impact."
"Hey, this is an example of low-level bourgeois democracy. What did you expect?"
Time passed with agonizing slowness as Imhof spoke on and on, at last concluding by saying, "And so, on behalf of the council, I make two recommendations: one, that we as a community vote in favor of the construction of the Craigo plant; and two, that the council be formally empowered to use community funds to acquire the proposed site of the factory for the purpose of ceding the land to the Craigo Corporation. We make these recommendations after much thought and research and discussion, and it is our belief that by doing so we will be ensuring the prosperity and security of ourselves and our children and our children's children as well." A smattering of applause followed as he resumed his seat.
Ostlich smiled and nodded, saying, "Thank you, Mr. Imhof. Now, if there is no more discussion to be held on the matter, I suggest we put it to a vote and then turn our attention to the problem of the location of the plant."
"So moved," Rihaczeck said. Alex Brown opened his mouth to second the motion, but another voice cut him off.
"Point of order, Mr. Chairman," Clayton Saunders said.
Ostlich's expression of surprise turned to an angry glower. He was silent for a few moments as he thought hard, trying to find some procedural excuse not to grant Clayton the floor. There was none, and he knew it, so at last he said, "The chair recognizes Clayton Saunders." His voice was low and obviously displeased.
Clayton rose to his feet. "Friends and neighbors, we've all enjoyed the speech we just heard. But there's a downside to this factory issue, and it's a real downer of a downside."
"Mr. Chairman," Rihaczeck broke in, "if there is to be further discussion on this, I move that we set a time limit."
"Point of order," Clayton said again. "I have not yielded the floor." Russell stood up behind Clayton and whispered in his ear, and Clayton added, "Nor can a time limit be set on a speaker who has already been recognized, as I'm sure the chairman knows."
Ostlich drummed his fingers on the table and then said, "Sorry, Walt. He's right."
"As I was saying," Clayton went on, arching his back and placing his hand on his outthrust stomach in obvious mimicry of Imhof, "the community has the right to have all the facts presented to it before voting." He waved his hand toward Peter with a melodramatic flourish. "I have called upon the services of an expert witness who has been researching the environmental impact of the proposed factory, and I wish to present his findings to the community at this time."
"Point of order, Mr. Chairman," Rihaczeck said.
Thank God, Ostlich thought. "Yes, Mr. Rihaczeck?"
"This person is not entitled to speak in these proceedings. He is not a town resident."
Russell whispered again into Clayton's ear. "Mr. Chairman, I am a town resident, and I have the right to present evidence at a town meeting. This is my presentation, made through the agency of my associate Mr. Geerson. As such, the point of order just raised is invalid."
Russell smiled and winked at Peter as Rebecca leaned to him and whispered, "Hey, that sounded pretty good!"
"I spent all day yesterday rehearsing him," Russell whispered back.
She nodded. "I didn't think he could have come up with all that by himself."
Russell looked at the town council as Rihaczeck huddled with Bruno and Ostlich. "I bet I know what they're saying," he whispered to Rebecca. "They're going to try to prevent Peter from talking by refusing to accept him as an expert."
"And what will Clayton say?"
"Just listen." Russell was smiling broadly, enjoying the battle.
"Mr. Saunders," Ostlich said as Bruno and Rihaczeck resumed their seats, "the council sees no reason to accept your description of . . ." He paused and raised his eyebrows quizzically.
You know damned well who he is, Clayton thought. Your daughter's nuts about him. "Mr. Peter Geerson," he sai
d helpfully.
"Yes, Mr. Geerson. Your reference to Mr., ah, Geerson as an expert witness cannot be accepted by the council without a full exploration of his credentials."
Peter handed Clayton a file folder and Clayton began to pull documents from it. "A copy of Mr. Geerson's diploma as bachelor of science from the State University College at New Paltz. A statement verifying his appointment as research assistant in biochemistry at Queens College of the City University of New York. Certified letters of reference from professors of chemistry at Queens College and New Paltz College, testifying to Mr. Geerson's ability to research the ecological impact of the proposed construction."
"We have no way of knowing at this point in time that the documents you have presented are legitimate," Ostlich said.
Russell stood up and whispered to Clayton, "Tell him that the council must accept the legitimacy of the documents in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, subject to later verification."
"The council must accept the legitimacy of the documents in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, subject to later verification," Clayton said, and then, after grinning at Russell, added, "And section 12, paragraph 36, subsection 17 of the Town Incorporation Code of New York State states that refusal to accept such evidence in clear violation of parliamentary procedure serves to invalidate any subsequent actions of the council at that particular council meeting."
Russell rested his elbows on his knees and covered his face with his hands. Rebecca leaned to him and whispered, "What's the matter? Didn't he say it right?"
"He made it up." Russell sighed miserably.
Ostlich leaned over to Rihaczeck and asked, "Is that true?"
"I have no idea," he whispered back.
"Do we have a copy of the Incorporation Code?" Ostlich had never heard of the Incorporation Code.
"Of course not. Why would we, in a town this size?" Rihaczeck had never heard of it either.
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