by Ann Tatlock
I heard what Papa and Dick Mason were saying, but somehow it stirred up little concern on my part. Papa said there'd be no Communist takeover, and if Papa said it, then that was that. I was tired of worrying about the Communists--I was tired of worrying, period--and I just wasn't going to do it anymore. The worst was behind us now. Things were still bad in Soo City, but they were better for my family, and that was what mattered to me at this point. We'd done our bit for social injustice. The requisite number of males in my family had taken their lumps on the head, and now it was time for us to get back to enjoying life as much as possible. I admit I felt more than a little selfish, but all the anxious days beside the radio had left me worn out.
Of course, I was sorry the mission had closed and the people of Soo City had one less resource for food. That being the case, I wasn't so sure a hunger strike was a bad thing. Why shouldn't the men make a show on the steps of City Hall to let the government know they were hungry? Nothing was bound to happen otherwise, not if they just sat around here smoking cigarettes and reading yesterday's news. And just because the grain mill strike had failed didn't mean a hunger strike would fail. I wasn't on the side of the Reds, but obviously something needed to be done. If the men of Soo City chose to voice their complaints on the steps of City Hall, I'd hope for the best for them, but I didn't want to get emotionally involved. It had nothing to do with me.
Or so I thought.
Chapter Twenty-Two
For a moment I thought the sun had gone to my head and I was seeing things the way a nomad dying of thirst sees a mirage in the middle of the desert. After all, it was one of those unusually hot days in late September, and our class had already been out in the heat for more than half an hour. In another ten minutes the bell would ring to call us in from recess, but by then--if what I was seeing were in fact a figment of my own making--surely I'd be nearly prostrate with sunstroke.
I rubbed my eyes and looked again, but the vision didn't fade. Danny Dysinger, his hands in his pants pockets, was strolling purposefully across the school grounds, and he was heading in the direction of where I sat with Charlotte and two other girls. Tagging Danny like a shadow was Philip Messner, a scrawny, nasal kid who was forever trying to prove his manhood by following the bigger boys around and thrusting himself into the midst of whatever argument, debate, or fistfight they might happen to get into. Philip had been known to run half the length of the school to jump on top of two boys wrestling in the hall, just to pick up a few bruises he could wear like a medal of valor. He had a way of sniffing out the action, and if he was trailing Danny--if in fact Danny was really there--that meant something was up.
My friends and I sat on a patch of brittle grass discussing the movie Love is a Racket, with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (Even though I'd spent my allowance on the trolley to get to the grain mill, Papa later slipped me enough under the table so that I could go to the picture with Charlotte as planned.) We were debating about whether love really was a racket when Rosemary patted my knee and said, "Say, Danny Dysinger's headed this way. What do you suppose he wants?"
So it was true. Rosemary had seen it too, and now Charlotte and Jean both shielded their eyes from the sun and stared off in the direction from which came Danny Dysinger and his slightly asthmatic shadow.
Suddenly Charlotte swung around and looked at me with raised eyebrows. "He's actually going to say something to you, Virginia!" she whispered. "Maybe he's going to ask you out."
My resolve to no longer be sweet on Danny Dysinger was easier said than done. As he approached us, a sudden fear whirled in my chest, and I thought I might faint. The thought flashed through my mind that I'd never live it down if I fainted right there in front of everybody. I grabbed my skirt with both hands to ground myself in the conscious world and said in response to Charlotte's remark, "Oh, I don't think so...." But before I could say more, Danny was there, kicking at the dry grass with the toe of one leather shoe and smiling down at us with an insincere grin.
"Having a party?" he asked, pushing his hands farther down into his pockets. "I mean, with a capital P, that is."
Philip Messner snickered and snorted, though he probably had no more idea of what Danny was talking about than we did. He aped Danny by thrusting his hands into his pockets and kicking at the ground. A tuft of grass got caught between the sole and the toe of his shoe, but he didn't notice.
I looked up longingly into Danny's face. It was difficult to believe that this good-looking boy had come from the likes of Clem Dysinger. Not a hint of the father marred the son's appearance. Where the sheriff was overweight and doughy, Danny was slender and lithe. While the sheriff's face hung heavy as a hound dog's, Danny's was sleek and narrow like a greyhound's. The sheriff was a colorless fellow, with wishy-washy hair and nondescript eyes, but Danny's hair and brows and eyes were a deep brown, the color of maple wood that's been smoothed and polished. The features of his face were well-proportioned: wide-set eyes, narrow nose, a pleasant, inviting mouth that revealed perfect teeth when he smiled. I knew the face well; its portrait had hung on the wall of my mind for months. And now here it was in the flesh.
But the taunting look on the face that hovered above me was hardly in keeping with my dreams.
Charlotte narrowed her eyes. "What on earth are you talking about, Danny?" she asked sharply.
"Oh, don't you know?" he replied with mock politeness, the grin on his face melting into an undeniable sneer.
"Know what?" Rosemary put one small fist on her hip as a gesture of defiance.
Danny nodded down at me and stated flatly but accusingly, "Ginny's father is a Communist."
"Yeah, he's a Communist," Philip echoed. He snorted again.
My friends and I squawked in unison, I loudest of all. I jumped to my feet and clenched my hands into fists.
"What do you mean, calling my father a Communist?" I cried.
Charlotte jumped up beside me. "Start explaining!" she yelled. My best friend's face was nearly as red as my own.
Danny Dysinger was unperturbed. He shrugged nonchalantly. "My pa says yours is a Commie. Says your uncle is, too. And Dr. Bellamy, too. He says the whole lot of you are bloodsucking Reds."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. And coming from the boy I had spent all summer dreaming about!
"That's a lie!" I was so angry I was trembling.
Charlotte tapped on Danny's chest with two fingers. "You'd better take that back, Danny Dysinger, or you'll be sorry."
Danny laughed outright. "Whatcha gonna do, beat me up? I'm not gonna fight a girl!"
"Fight a girl!" Philip echoed. Spittle flew from his mouth as he laughed.
Rosemary and Jean were both on their feet by now, muttering threats about having older brothers who would gladly do them a favor. Danny Dysinger was only amused. "Whatcha mad at me for? I'm only telling it like it is."
"Yeah, he's just telling it like it is," Philip said.
Charlotte turned to the offensive follower. "Oh, you shut up, Philip Messner, you stinky little sewer rat."
"Hey--" Philip cried, but Danny quieted him with a wave of his hand.
"Don't let them bother you, Phil," Danny said. "They just can't face the truth."
"It's not the truth!" I countered. "My father is not a Communist!"
"Then why's he spending all his time down at that squatter's camp? He's not getting paid, is he?"
"No, but--"
"Then he's doing it because he's a Red."
"He's not! He's doing it because--" I paused, unable to continue. Why was Papa doing what he was doing? Why did he go to Soo City?
"Simply because," Papa had told me, "it makes me happy." Not for any noble reasons, he had said, but just because it made him happy.
But what would that mean to Danny Dysinger and his sewer rat sidekick? If I told them what Papa had said, the boys would only laugh all the harder. I finished lamely, "Just because my father goes down to the camp--well, it doesn't mean anything."
"My pa says it does," Dann
y continued. "He says those poor people ain't paying him, but maybe Moscow is."
Charlotte shrieked with feigned laughter. "Now, that's so stupid it's downright funny."
"Nobody's paying him," I threw in. "He's just doing it."
"Nobody does something for nothing," Danny said.
"Yeah," Philip added. "I bet Moscow's paying him."
"Aw, why don't you just crawl back to where you came from?" Charlotte suggested.
"Hey--"
"It's not just what he's been doing down at the camp," Danny said, ignoring Philip's attempt at self-defense. "My pa says he was down helping out at the strike hospital too. Everyone knows the strike was started by the Reds. It said so right in the newspaper. If your pa was on the side of the strikers, he was on the side of the Reds."
It was getting more and more difficult not to swing my already clenched fist at Danny. His rejection of me was bad enough, but his spreading lies about Papa was too much. It was the worst thing he could possibly do.
I found myself screaming at the top of my lungs. "Your father's a liar!" My outburst turned heads all over the school yard, but I didn't care. Everything within me wanted to defend my father, no matter the cost.
To my continued frustration, Danny remained complacent. "My pa only calls 'em like he sees 'em," he said mildly.
"Yeah?" Charlotte said. "Well, your father's calling this one wrong. Besides, he's a rotten sheriff, and my father said he wouldn't vote for your father next election if the only other person running was Al Capone."
"Hey!" Philip whined. "You gonna let her talk about your pa like that, Danny?"
Danny once again shrugged his shoulders annoyingly. "What do I care what she thinks about my pa?" Then, looking at me, he concluded, "At least my pa's not a Red."
That did it. Though I couldn't see straight for the tears that were blurring my vision, I nevertheless swung my fist in Danny's direction only to end up sweeping the air. Danny must have seen it coming because he stepped back and held up his hands.
"Whoa!" he said. "I didn't come here to start a fight."
"Well, what did you come here for?" Charlotte cried. "Why don't you both just go on and leave us alone?"
As Rosemary and Jean joined Charlotte in throwing out words to defend me, I willed the tears in my eyes not to spill over onto my cheeks. But my will wasn't enough to keep the teardrops from slipping out and trickling down the side of my nose. I hastily wiped away the evidence of my humiliation--and my broken heart--and as I did I glanced in Danny's direction to convince myself that he hadn't noticed my tears. To my surprise, the mask of smugness on his face had been replaced by something very similar to concern, and Danny started to say, "Aw, Ginny, I didn't think--"
But Charlotte cut him off with a shove to the chest and the warning, "Just leave her alone, you big bully, or I'll make you sorry you were ever born."
Good old Charlotte. I could always count on her to stand up for me, even if it meant threatening a member of the stronger sex. I had no idea how Charlotte would make Danny sorry he'd been born, but no doubt she could pull it off somehow.
Just as my friends and I turned away from the boys, the bell called us all in from recess. Charlotte saddled up beside me and put her arm around my shoulder. "Good thing you already picked someone else for number three," she said. "I wouldn't send my worst enemy on a honeymoon with that creep."
I sighed forlornly. All summer long I had wanted Danny to pay attention to me, to talk with me once school started up, and now when he did, it was only to insult my father. Again I was reminded--in the cruelest of ways, it seemed--how very different real life turns out to be than what we dreamed.
Sniffing loudly and wiping one last tear from my cheek, I asked, "Did your father really say that about Al Capone?"
"Naw," Charlotte said, shaking her head. "But you can be sure he won't vote for Sheriff Dysinger next election--not if I have any say about it."
I wanted to tell Charlotte she was a good friend, the best of friends, but I knew she'd only be embarrassed and shrug it off. Instead, I swung my arm up over her shoulder, and entwined like two vines of the ivy that climbed up the school's brick facade, we walked on to class.
But disappointment hadn't finished with us yet. After school I walked home with Charlotte where we found the latest issue of Life magazine on a table with the other mail in the hallway. Charlotte dropped her school books on the table, scooped up the magazine, and said, "The contest results should be in this issue. Come on!"
I followed her up the stairs, our shoes tapping out a hurried rhythm on the steps. From the kitchen Mrs. Besac wailed, "Try to be a little less noisy, will you? I've got a pounding headache." But, completely unsympathetic toward her ailment, we ignored her. All we could think about was the vast amount of money soon to cross our palms.
We threw ourselves onto Charlotte's bed, and my friend then licked one thumb and hurriedly flipped through the pages of the magazine. "Here it is!" she hollered excitedly. As her eyes moved down the page of contest winners, she muttered her father's name over and over, "Luther Besac, Luther Besac."
"Do you see it?" I asked. I held both hands in the air with fingers crossed.
"Not yet," she said. "Luther Besac, Luther Besac. Come on, you've got to be here somewhere."
She turned the page. Then she slowly lowered the magazine to the bed as her eyes moved up to my face. I gave her a questioning look, unwilling to uncross my fingers and drop my hands.
"Did you see his name?" I asked tentatively.
"It's not here." Charlotte spoke the words breathlessly, as though she couldn't quite believe it.
"You mean, we didn't win anything?"
"Not even five lousy dollars."
I let my hands drop to the bed. For a moment neither of us said anything.
"But it was a good slogan," I groaned. I felt like crying again. There would be no crisp greenbacks for me to present to Mother and no new patent leather shoes for me to show off at school. And I had been so sure....
Charlotte, muttering something about it being a stupid contest anyway, flung the magazine across the room. "Let's do the globe," she suggested, swinging her feet off the bed and grabbing the globe from the vanity table. Then pulling the jewelry box out of the drawer, she brought both it and the magic orb back to the bed.
Charlotte twirled one of her short curls around her index finger. "Go on, you spin first. But I just hope you don't land in the Dead Sea again this time," she said, referring to where I'd landed the day before. "It's really hard to be romantic when you're floating around the Dead Sea."
I spun, but without enthusiasm. I might as well end up in the Dead Sea, the way I felt. If not even Danny Dysinger was a part of my life, then what did Charles Lindbergh, Charlie Chaplin, and Buster Keaton have to do with me? Why should I dream of winging off to some exotic place to honeymoon with them? None of them even knew I was alive.
Suddenly spinning the globe seemed a ridiculous game, a childish game. I laid a hand across my stomach, moaned slightly, and mumbled that I wasn't feeling well. Charlotte, not wanting me to be sick all over her frilly pink-and-white bedspread, suggested that I go on home.
I did, but instead of entering the front door of our house, I entered the side door that led directly into Papa's waiting room. Fortunately, no one was there, and I sat down in one of the empty chairs. If anyone found me--like Mother--I decided I would say I was checking the blanket box for donations.
Of course, I wasn't really. I just wanted to be near Papa. He was in the inner office--perhaps checking the supplies in the medicine cabinet or reviewing some paper work. I didn't know. But he was there. I could hear him whistling Christmas carols beyond the adjoining door. I sat in the waiting room for about ten minutes, listening. That was all I needed to believe again that life was good and happiness possible.
Chapter Twenty-Three
We didn't know about the hunger march until the morning after it happened. We might have learned about it the previous evenin
g had we bothered to turn on the radio, but we were no longer so keen to listen to that bearer of bad news. Even with the strike over, we were wary of the Philco and kept our distance from it for a while. The march had taken place more than twelve hours earlier, and some of the men from Soo City had already spent their first night in jail before Papa read the news account in the morning paper over breakfast.
Papa and Dr. Hal sat at opposite ends of the kitchen table, each with a section of the newspaper spread open before him. I was the only other one at the table enjoying the pancakes and molasses. Mother and Aunt Sally both puttered about the kitchen, preparing for one of the last canning days of the season. Since it was Saturday, Claudia, Molly, and the boys hadn't bothered to get out of bed yet.
Dr. Hal was biding his time with the sports page until he could get his hands on the section Papa was reading. Before leaving the table, he would have to have his daily dose of Walter Lippmann. As I mentioned, Dr. Hal had a fondness for reading aloud from Lippmann's column, thereby punctuating our morning with news of how much deeper into the Depression our country had sunk. Whenever Dr. Hal blurted out, "Hey, listen to this--" I'd immediately try to set my mind on something else so as not to fall into a depression myself.
But this morning it wasn't Dr. Hal who read to us from the newspaper. It was Papa. He had just raised his coffee cup to his lips when his eyebrows rose above the rims of his glasses, and he said quietly, "So they've done it." He set the coffee cup back in the saucer without drinking.
Dr. Hal looked up from the sports section. "Done what?" he asked.
"Dick Mason said the Communists were trying to organize a hunger march at City Hall, and he was right. They marched yesterday afternoon. I can't believe we didn't get wind of it somehow."
"Should have listened to the news last night," Dr. Hal said. "I would have if I hadn't been called out. You get too busy and you start to lose track of what's going on."
