by Gary Amdahl
“You’re not a Kolessina, are you?” he asked, coming closer. “Family down around Muscatine, Iowa?”
“No,” said the woman incredulously. “Why?”
“You look like my associate here, don’t you agree?”
Charles tugged gently on Vera’s arm, and she came into the cone of light.
“I don’t see it,” said the woman.
“Nor do I,” said Vera.
Charles chose that moment to try a character. “We’re subcontracting with Pinkerton’s.”
The woman looked at him as if to say, I do not look like you or your associate, and you know I do not. But this was not necessarily a hostile or even a guarded look—rather a recognition that a gamble had been taken the stakes of which would not be completely and immediately reckoned, much less lost.
“Miss Kolessina is a Russian,” said Charles. “Allow me to pause provocatively here, and then put quote marks around that ‘Russian,’ for even more emphasis. She’s a RUSSIAN,” he shouted, “and she works for Pinkerton’s! What do you think about that?”
“Darkness,” said the woman, “is on the face of the waters.”
Because he was an actor, and only because he was an actor, Charles did not flinch, or in any way betray the salience of her phrase. “What,” he asked, “have you got something against Pinkerton subcontractors?”
“What,” countered the woman, “you got something for ’em?”
“Last time I checked,” drawled Charles, “they were tracking down the godless animals who are throwing bombs into crowds of innocent people.”
The woman laughed derisively.
“Into crowds of innocent people I happened to know!” Charles was all but laughing back at the woman—or rather, with her.
“I suppose it never occurred to you that the Pinkerton gang was doing the actual throwing . . .?”
Now Charles laughed out loud. “Oh, it occurred to me, all right!”
He and the woman engaged in what seemed to be genuine mirth.
The man cleared his throat and returned to the subject of weights. “Better get rid of ’em all. They’re all bad, Charles.”
“Call me Chick.”
“Take my word for it, Chick. Save yourself a lot of time and money and effort and I know all about time and money and effort going down the drain. Just go down to the foundry and say, ‘Hey, I need new accurate weights for every elevator in the state of Minnesota! It’s either that or every farmer in the whole goddamned Midwest dries up and blows away!’”
“Well, sir, that’s the way we heard it too,” said Charles.
“Only way there is to hear it.”
“Can I get a drink? Big glass of water and a shot, and for—”
“Fraid not. As a representative of the state government, you ought to know better than to ask.”
“I hear you. But if I could convince you that there’s more to me than meets the eye, and that the part of me you can’t see is 100 percent in favor of your running your business twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week or however it is you feel like running it, what would you say then?”
“I would say no soap, stranger. But in the friendliest way possible.”
“Not even a glass of water and—”
The woman poured four glasses of water from a bucket and set two of them on the bar. Charles and Vera drank thirstily, even noisily. The woman took the other two into the darkness for the Wobblies. Passing Ray, she asked if he wanted one too. He said he did, and thanked her. When everybody was done, the woman filled their glasses again, spilling water from each glass onto the bar, laughing and saying “ooops” each time, picking the glass up, mopping the bar, setting the glass back down.
“Good water up here,” said Charles.
“We don’t have any trouble with it,” said the man.
“Can you direct me,” Charles continued briskly, “to the sheriff’s office and to a doctor?”
“The sheriff’s office and a doctor,” repeated the man. “That kinda sounds like trouble, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“I’ve got a prescription for the latter and some questions for the former,” Charles said. “I must, as per the outline of my duties, visit the sheriff, and I want, more than anything else, to find morphine for Vera here, who is in a great deal of pain from a recent bombing. I fear she will go to pieces on us, and we need her rather desperately to stay together.”
The woman laughed, as if anticipating something the man was about to say. “No, the prescription should be for our poor old sheriff and it would read, ‘Get out of town before they tar and feather you,’ and the question would be for the good doctor: ‘Doc, how much you charge to set the broken bones I aim to come to you with when I suggest those darned old weights aren’t quite what they seem to be—or I should say, there’s more to ’em than meets the eye!’”
The man and the woman laughed privately and lengthily.
“Not exactly sure what you’re saying,” Charles said with a polite smile, “but I guess it won’t take long, is that right? For me to get it?”
“BIG DOINGS IN TOWN!” shouted the man.
Charles clapped his hands, feeling altogether upstaged, and said, “HOT DAMN!”
“You’re not the first guy,” said the man, shooting an amused look at Vera but speaking to Charles, “that I’ve ever seen before to come in here wanting a drink to start the day out right. How do I know you’re a Pinkerton? How do you know I’m not? How do I know you’re not from the NPL pretending to be a Pinkerton for God knows what nasty-ass reason—to decoy another goon from the Justice Department who’s actually a militant prohibitionist striking a deal with the Chicago Wobblies to thwart the, uh, the, uh . . .”
“Detroit,” said the woman.
“Detroit Wobblies. How do I know that’s true or not true? How do you know that? And while we’re at it, who are these other men here? Do you know? Do I know?”
“We’re Chicago Wobblies,” said the older man at the table.
“How ’bout you, buddy?” The man at the bar lifted his face to Ray.
“My name is Rejean Houle. I am a hired gun.”
This was inspired stagecraft and Charles brightened.
“Who hired you?”
“Mr. Minot.”
Charles applauded.
“YOU’RE UNDER ARREST!” the woman hollered at the top of her lungs. Then she and the man collapsed in laughter. It was now clear that they were both quite drunk. Charles stepped down the bar to an open bottle of whiskey, picked it up and saluted the two of them with it, then took a long drink.
“Jesus Christ,” said Vera. “Mr. Minot? You’re gonna make yourself sick.” He took another long drink. “Charles? Chick?” Vera tried. “You look hypnotized. Come on, let’s go. Yes, these people are comrades and they are charming, but let’s go.”
“Yes indeedy-do!” said the woman. “Mr. Minot, aka Charles, aka Chick, wants to find that darn doctor and the sheriff before he tips over, which will be in a second or two, because whatever I don’t know, I do know who can’t hold liquor!”
“Good luck to ya!” the man sputtered.
Charles had begun to make his way to the door, following Vera, but came back to shake the hands of the man and the woman, as he was evidently not going to stop swilling whiskey. Vera let him tug him a step, still drinking, then stopped with a jerk that threw him a little off balance. He reached out and slammed the bottle down on the bar and to the saloonkeepers said, “The blonde is with the NPL, and was with the Wobblies in Paterson and Lawrence. It’s possible she met the old man and the young man at the table over there in Paterson, or possibly had a hand in some goings-on in Los Angeles and later in San Francisco, where we all met. I am an heir to one of that city’s biggest fortunes. Family owned a theater and it was bombed—by somebody trying to look like somebody else. Then there was this parade. We all left when it got bombed. Some of our friends have been framed for the bombing and some of our friends have been killed in the course of
the frame-up. Because I have connections in DC, I’m working way up high, the high wire, don’t you know, with the MCPS. And yes, you heard right: I’m a Minot. That’s my little town they got out there somewhere in the Dakotas. We’re riding along together up here in the dynamic northland, kind of on a little picnic, because we were in the right place at the right time. I don’t know why we weren’t put in the same all-purpose frame in San Francisco, and I don’t know if anybody here knows exactly who we are, if we’re on a tether or just the lucky recipients of high-speed bureaucratic incompetence, or if nobody really gives a shit. My father is—was, sorry, just died, hasn’t sunk in—an important enough man for the railroad folks in San Francisco to have tried to kill him. In court! So maybe I’m just a pawn. Maybe I’m a target. Maybe I am being used. Maybe I am being used up. I don’t know, and I don’t care.”
The man and the woman ceased their nearly hysterical laughter and watched neutrally as Charles made his speech. Vera looked thoroughly disoriented. The old Wobbly took her by the hand and started to lead her out the door. The man behind the bar repeated his wish for generalized good luck, this time without the irony and snickering. The woman looked at Charles, because he had picked the bottle up again and was drinking from it as if it were a teacup, pinky extended. He told her she was right, he wasn’t finished, that the main thing for an actor to do was be clear in his action. The audience had to know why he was doing what he was doing.
He said, “It’s really true that I am a rich young man from San Francisco who is doing special work for the government because it seems like that’s what a guy whose Father once thought he might be president someday ought to be doing—until a proper outfit is located for me . . . over there.”
He sang the last words and repeated them. “And it’s also true that Ray John works with me, for a group you know very well, the Minnesota Commission of Public Safety. It’s true that Daisy, who isn’t here, is on a speaking tour on behalf of the Nonpartisan League, and that Vera, over there—where’d she go, is she gone . . .?—is going along with her because it appears the NPL was just going to, you know, let Daisy do her thing and hope for the best. And it’s true that the IWW is aiding and abetting her because she’s kinda like the only card they got to play right now, up in this game anyway, if I understand correctly—and please understand that I myself am not a Wobbly. No ma’am. No sir. My brother is chief of staff for the governor of California, and my other brother ran the goddamn Bull Moose campaign in that state. My father was nicknamed “The Regenerator” when he and some likeminded fellows tried to clean up the graft in San Francisco. He ran afoul, as we all do eventually, of the railroad people—And here now is where it gets complicated because I can no longer speak of things I know to be true, only things I suspect to be true: I think the MCPS gang knows that I have been living with Vera. I’m not sure if they think it’s because I’m in love with her or because I’m in league with her. I can tell you folks it because I’m in love with her,” he whispered. “I also think they know that Ray John here is an old specialist in dirty work who has come out of his narcotics-addicted retirement in Chicago at the behest of old friends in the IWW, the Chicago Wobblies now, not the Detroit Wobblies. At their behest because they know he is a tried-and-true daredevil who will gladly sacrifice his life to keep Vera safe. They thought they were slipping me into the MCPS via the usual kind of ridiculous deal-making that goes on all the time, the Socialist mayor of Minneapolis demanding that the MCPS, you know, open itself up and be a real governmental operation, not a secret one. But the MCPS boys didn’t believe that for a second. They suddenly, and without really planning such a thing or even dreaming of it, had me and Vera riding in the same train together, regrouping after the San Francisco Preparedness Day Parade and Minot Theater bombings, knowing there would be fireworks and hoping, thinking on their feet, that they could do a very great favor for some real friends of theirs, railroad men out west. Fellow by the name of Durwood Keogh: My father caused his uncle—to whom he was devotedly close! Never were uncle and nephew so spiritually matched!—to flee the country. My father was so hated by the United Railroad men that they tried to kill him in court. And yet here in what they persist in calling the Great Northwest but which they’re going to have to start calling the Great Midwest a Minot is a railroad man! I’m repeating myself, I’m so excited. The Western railroad men hired some idiot to waltz into court with a six-gun and fire a few rounds! And they so loathe and detest the spirit of progressive reform, of Christian soldiers, of honest devotion to the commonwealth, of temperate and wise men of business—of the principles of an enlightened and democratic—excuse me, a Platonic republic, of higher good, of common good, of decency, of compassion—that the idea of a Minot running not just a railroad but the country drives them to murder. Relentless, remorseless murder. Smart thing for me to do would be to take my beloved Vera and get the hell out of Dodge, wait for things to blow over, and then be a decent chap and citizen, or say to hell with it all and move to Alexandria. Not the one here! The one in Egypt! But I’m not smart. I’m a daredevil. I’m an anarchist. Not like you hear about in the news, but like this: if no one is ruling, all are ruling. I can’t obey and I can’t command. I see things as they are, too clearly, for any of that.”
Once they got Charles outside, he wrenched himself free of Joe the Young Wobbly’s grip and said, “Forgot to pay.” He went back inside and slammed a dollar on the bar, took the bottle, and stalked out.
A letter from Alexander was waiting for him at the Detroit Lakes Hotel.
“Dearest brother, this is the saddest moment of my life. I am sobbing my eyes out every time I try to write another word. I was able to speak by telephone to Andrew and Amelia and Tom and Gus and Tony. Or rather, spoke to Andrew, who spoke to the others, as I was unable to speak once I told him what had happened. The telephone is such a strange machine: I spoke calmly and coolly, like the diplomat I truly am, not believing it was Andrew on the other end, not believing, somehow, that anyone was really there, that it was some kind of trick. But when he started to talk, I could hear his confusion and anguish, I could hear my brother, and I broke down. Couldn’t go on. Mother does not know, as everyone agrees that a telegram will not do in these wretched circumstances.”
Mother, thought Charles, most certainly knows. What in the world is Al going on about?
“Everywhere I go,” Alexander’s letter continued, “everything I do, I think of him. I see him. I don’t mean I see a ghost. I see with something other than my eyes. But I see. It’s not memory, and it’s not imagination, and it’s not a ghost. I don’t understand, dear brother, I just do not understand. I have lived a good life. I am a strong, capable, intelligent, resourceful, sympathetic man. And I became that man largely because that was the kind of man Father was. I never lose my temper but everyone knows that the metaphorical revolvers I wear strapped to my hips are loaded and if I draw them I shoot them and if I shoot them I hit what I’m aiming at. I learned that from Father—and there! I managed that highly ironic statement not with tears but with laughter! Ha! I feel nearly as hysterical as Amelia! And let me tell you, Chick, I understand all that so-called hysteria that we heaped at poor Amelia’s feet. She just saw all this sooner than we did. In your way too: you saw this coming. I spent a lot of time being angry at you and embarrassed by Amelia because you, I don’t know, you didn’t seem to think we had any right to be who we were, as a family, as people, as a particularly powerful and interesting group of people and as solid individuals. We are—we were—cool-headed and clean-handed people. We loved beauty and we understood the ugliness of politics. We loved God and worked to make the world a better place! We were Ideal Citizens! Why do I feel so ashamed when I write those words now? Why couldn’t we take some pride in how handsome we looked in the trappings of wealth and power that God gave us and of which we were, merely and happily and always, the modest stewards? Why did we have to renounce ordinary human friendships—all of us, even you! Surely we had the right to the cons
ciousness of our gifts, our capacities, our skills, our wills? You will forgive me, Chick old man, for going on like this, because this is something like the conversation Father and I were having the day before he was to get on the train to come to you—the night, rather. It was a conversation that went deep into the night, long after men like he and I should have been in bed, sleeping soundly. He was uncharacteristically ironic about his role as a Regenerator: I shoveled Chinatown into the bay because the Chinese were nothing but garbage to me. I put a Jew in prison because Jews aren’t Christians. When TR was shot in Michigan I gave not a thought to murder and the insanity that drives people to it but condemned labor unions instead. I imagined that if he’d been in California, Andrew would have been standing next to him and might have taken the bullet for him and I am the basest of hypocrites not simply because I blamed labor unions for this danger but because I knew, I have known all along, that Andrew could not have been easily and swiftly replaced. And if I make it to Minnesota I am going to beg Charles to do anything but go to the front because a war is no place for a Christian and I want him to live a long and happy life.”
It was Wisconsin, thought Charles, not Michigan. Milwaukee. Noting that he had neither initiated the thought nor welcomed it, and did not approve of its appearance in his mind once it had endured sufficiently to make a kind of stamp, a mere nitpicking correction in the middle of what was clearly the cry of a rent heart, he wondered if one’s thoughts were ever truly one’s own. If not, who’s were they? What were they? And of what possible use to him when one fine day a thought might not just be tracer fire of action passed and action to come, but somehow truly matter?
“I of course,” continued Alexander’s letter, “asked him why he said ‘if I make it to Minnesota,’ and he said he was not feeling well. We had only one lamp burning in the little room so it was hard to see his face. He spoke of the Spring Park disaster and I couldn’t see his face. He sounded as if that burden was lying very heavily on him—and of course you know that he never felt a burden to be heavy. Never. But I couldn’t see his face. The lamplight was so weak and flickering that the shadows played tricks with me. He was uncharacteristically cold as well, all wrapped up in his chair with a blanket. He began to go on and uncharacteristically on about how guilty and wretched he felt about his ‘profligacy’ during the hey-day of the Poodle Dog. He laughed loudly and bitterly about how he had thought that a man of power actually deserved that kind of pleasure, that kind of relief. After a while, a long while, he seemed to have emptied himself out. He sounded calm, maybe resigned to something he didn’t like, but calm, empty in a good way. I said I would go get some fresh air. I wanted a very big drink, which I had, and went for a walk to the park. When I came back he was still sitting in his chair in the darkness but I could smell the gun smoke. I don’t understand how it could have happened, in that place at that time. I left him very much himself, if exhausted, and returned to . . . nothing. He was gone. It doesn’t seem real. His absence doesn’t seem real. The world doesn’t seem real without him. I disbelieve the world that doesn’t have him in it. Even if I accept the facts—even if I hear Father saying what he always said and which I had no trouble ‘believing’ or using as a creed—I don’t believe it, I don’t profess it. I don’t know how I could ever have been so deluded as that.”
