Rally Round the Flag, Boys!

by Max Shulman

  “Of course.”

  “That’s a good girl. Just read ’em a story or something and put ’em to bed. Okay?”

  “Certainly.”

  “I appreciate that,” breathed Harry. “Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight.”

  Dashing perspiration from his brow, Harry joined Grace downstairs. “Listen,” he whispered urgently, “you can’t leave the kids with that girl. She’s cuckoo!”

  “Now, Harry—”

  “Don’t give the ‘Now Harry’ bit. I tell you this girl is a certifiable maniac!”

  “Yes, yes, I know,” said Grace calmly. “She gave me the statistics on arthritis and masturbation too.”

  “And you’re not afraid to leave the kids with her?”

  “Of course not.”

  “And tonight at the town meeting you’re making a speech to have her reinstated?”

  “Harry, listen to me,” said Grace, taking his arm and leading him outside to the car. “She’s a young girl, and her head is all full of half-digested information about child psychology.… But she is also a good girl. She is basically very intelligent, and she loves children. With a little time, a little seasoning, she’ll make a wonderful teacher. And in days like these, with such a terrible shortage of teachers, I’m not going to let this town throw away a prospect like Maggie Larkin!”

  They were at the car now. Harry opened the door for Grace, then went around and got behind the wheel. He backed out of the driveway and started down the street.

  Grace watched him shaking his head darkly as he drove. “It’s all right,” she smiled. “It’ll work out.”

  “Yeah,” he mumbled, unconvinced.

  “And one more thing—”

  “Yes?”

  “When we pick up Angela Hoffa, try to be nice to her, won’t you? I mean, don’t ignore her, the way you always do.”

  “Perhaps she could sit in my lap,” suggested Harry drily.

  “No cracks, Harry. I feel very sorry for Angela. What kind of life can she have—being married to Oscar?”

  “The mind trembles,” he replied.

  “So do be nice to her, won’t you, dear?”

  “Yes, Grace, I’ll be nice to her.”

  “That’s my Harry,” said Grace, kissing his cheek. “That’s my sweet Harry.”

  Harry picked up her near hand and licked each fingertip thoughtfully. “You sure we have to go to this meeting?” he asked.

  She took her hand back. “Yes, you old goat,” she said. “I’m sure.”

  8

  An American flag hung over the door. Three hundred folding chairs stood on the unslanting floor. Across the front of the room ran a low platform on which there was a lectern for the Moderator, as the chairman of the town meeting was called.

  The Moderator was not yet at the lectern—it was still five minutes to meeting time—but the room was already jam-packed. All three vertical social strata of Putnam’s Landing were represented. In the front rows were the commuters, tweedy and fervent, chock-full of civic virtue, prepared to give without stint of their talent, their articulateness, their yeasty imagination. Directly behind them sat the Yankees, waiting grimly for the onslaught of rhetoric and ready with plans to table, delay, sidetrack, and defeat. In the last rows were the Italians, who voted most of the time with the Yankees, but enjoyed the meetings a whale of a lot more. As Guido’s father, Vittorio di Maggio, had once pointed out, “Town meeting, itsa lika opera. First one fella singsa aria, then another fella sticksa knife in his back!”

  At the hub of the commuters’ sector, poised on the threshold of her shining hour, was Betty O’Sheel, head of the Study Committee on Garbage Disposal. Betty, a stolid, modest matron of 34, had never expected to reach such heights in politics, and she had worked prodigiously to deserve the honor. For weeks her husband and two infant daughters had lived on Spam and made their own beds while Betty had pored over United States Public Health Service Bulletins on the disposal of putrescible and non-putrescible wastes; had sent questionnaires to sanitation commissioners all over America; had made field trips to dumps and sewers throughout Fair-field County and Long Island. Her labors had been rewarded. Unlike several earlier garbage disposal plans which had been voted down as impractical or too expensive, the proposal that Betty held in her hand tonight was—her friends all agreed—a dead-sure winner.

  Grace Bannerman sat next to Betty, working over her as a second works over a fighter before a bout. She soothed Betty’s jumpy nerves, assured her that victory was in the bag, promised to deal personally with any cute parliamentary tactics the Yankees might try to spring. Grace had more than a normal interest in Betty’s success tonight, for it had been Grace’s idea to pull her out of obscurity and give her this major assignment. Other, more qualified ladies had been suggested for the job, but Grace had said, “No, girls, let’s give it to Betty O’Sheel because Betty O’Sheel is a fat girl and fat girls need lots of love and approval.” The others had, of course, seen the keen logic of Grace’s position. Now they could all congratulate themselves not only on making possible a splendid report on garbage disposal, but also on lifting a sagging psyche.

  Next to Grace was Harry Bannerman, who sat and wished glumly that he was at a PTA meeting instead of a town meeting. At the PTA meetings the seats had arms, and a man could safely fall asleep. Here, in these lousy folding chairs, you were liable to topple over and crack your skull.

  Seated beside Harry was Angela Hoffa. She looked at his clouded eyes, his slack jaw, and she thought, “Oh yes, this is indeed a discontented husband! Oh, yes, there is work for me here!” She shifted a bit upwind to give Harry the full benefit of her Bellodgia.

  The Bellodgia wafted back a couple of rows to where First Selectman Manning Thaw was sitting. His long white nose twitched barely perceptibly; otherwise no expression quickened his features. On either side of him sat Isaac Goodpasture and George Melvin, the real estate dealer. They stole frequent glances at Manning’s face, both wondering what secret lay locked there, why Manning had assured them so positively that tonight the Yankees had nothing to fear from the commuters. But Manning’s face told no tales.

  The Moderator mounted the platform, took his position behind the lectern, and gavelled for order. The Moderator, a tall, bespectacled man of sixty, was a sort of hybrid—a Yankee who commuted. Born and bred in Putnam’s Landing, he now practiced law in New York City. With one foot thus fixed in each camp, he was not too broad for the Yankees and not too narrow for the commuters, and he was currently serving his tenth consecutive term as Moderator.

  “Meeting will come to order,” he said. “First item on the agenda is a report from Mrs. O’Sheel of the Study Committee on Garbage Disposal … Mrs. O’Sheel.”

  But before Betty could rise, Manning Thaw was on his feet. “Mr. Moderator!” he called.

  “Yes, Mr. First Selectman?” said the Moderator.

  “Before we get talkin’ about anything else,” said Manning, “I’ve a very important announcement to make.”

  Isaac Goodpasture and George Melvin exchanged a knowing smile. Good old Manning! He sure wasn’t wasting any time springing his trap! Good old Manning! Shrewd old buzzard!

  Betty O’Sheel turned distraughtly to Grace Bannerman. “Oh, dear!” she cried, biting her knuckles. “He’s up to something! If he wrecks my garbage report, I’ll just die! Oh, stop him, Grace! Stop that terrible old man!”

  “Don’t you worry,” said Grace grimly. “I’ll fix him!”

  Grace sprang to her feet with a mighty bound, startling Harry considerably. He had always found her animated at meetings, but never what you would call physical. “Mr. Moderator!” she shouted in tones that rang like a gunshot through the chamber. Harry sat up straighter; this was a Grace he had not yet seen.

  “Yes, Mrs. Bannerman?” said the Moderator.

  “I don’t know what kind of trickery the first selectman is up to,” said Grace heatedly, “but I do know this: he’s dead-set against the new garbage disposal
plant and he’ll go to any lengths to stop it! Well, let him try! In fact, I dare him to try! But not now! I should like to remind you, Mr. Moderator, that this meeting is conducted according to parliamentary procedures, and the first item on the agenda is the report of the garbage disposal committee. Manning Thaw can talk later if he likes, but right now the floor belongs to Betty O’Sheel!”

  The commuters’ section broke into a great salvo of handclapping, with scattered cries of “Bravo!” from the more travelled members. Harry sat and looked at Grace in pop-eyed wonder. Was this his wife? Or was it some tigress, some firebrand, some wild, leaping thing? Whatever it was, he wanted it.

  Angela Hoffa looked at Harry. How wistful his eyes, she thought, how full of longing! “Oh, poignant yearner,” she thought, “cease from pining, for I shall soon fill the hole in your heart!”

  The Moderator addressed Manning Thaw. “Mrs. Bannerman is right, Mr. First Selectman. You’ll have to wait your turn.”

  Without a word Manning sat down. Isaac Goodpasture and George Melvin traded a nervous glance. The first selectman’s torpedo, whatever it was, had so far turned out to be nothing but a wet firecracker. “Well, Manning,” whispered Isaac, “do you still think we’re going to lick ’em?”

  “Yup!” snapped Manning. There was not a hint of doubt in his icy eyes. Isaac shrugged and turned his attention to the speaker.

  Betty O’Sheel stood on the platform, a sheaf of notes trembling in her hand. She took a deep breath, pressed her fat knees firmly together, and, unaccustomed as she was to public speaking, began to deliver her report loud and clear. “Garbage disposal methods,” said she, “can be divided into three broad classifications. First, there is the so-called sanitary landfill method, which is now being used in Putnam’s Landing. This method, as we all know, is unsatisfactory because it is not truly sanitary, it results in malodorous odors and it requires a constant search for new dumping grounds as old ones are exhausted.

  “Second, there is the incinerator method. This is a much more efficient method than the sanitary landfill method, but Putnam’s Landing has several times rejected proposals to build an incinerator because of the great cost and expense of construction.

  “The third method is what I like to call ‘The Garbage of Tomorrow Method.’ This is the conversion of garbage into fertilizer. This is not only highly efficient and very cheap, but it is also of vast benefit to the farmers and gardeners of America. There are now several large companies in the United States which are in the business of converting garbage into commercial fertilizer. One of the biggest of these companies is the Garba-Crunch Corporation of Great Neck, Long Island. I have had several meetings with Mr. Emil Wetkus, vice-president and general manager of Garba-Crunch, and I am pleased to report that he has surveyed our garbage problem in Putnam’s Landing and he feels confident that Garba-Crunch can handle it.

  “Mr. Wetkus has offered to build a plant here which will grind up our garbage and then convert it by means of bacterial action into fertilizer. He guarantees that there will be no unseemly noise or malodorous odors. Garba-Crunch will charge the town $3 a ton for processing garbage, which is a clear saving of 42% over our present cost of garbage disposal. Also—and mark this well—the Garba-Crunch Corporation will build their plant at their own expense! Putnam’s Landing will not have to provide a penny. All we have to do is give them the land on which to put the plant.

  “I’m further pleased to report that I have found a perfect site for the plant—the old Yarbro place, consisting of four acres on the Shore Road. I therefore move that we buy the old Yarbro place and turn it over to the Garba-Crunch Corporation and begin a new and brighter era in garbage disposal for Putnam’s Landing! Thank you.”

  Before Betty O’Sheel was seated, George Melvin was on his feet. “Hold on! Hold on there! Now hold on!” he cried in panic. For the Yarbro place belonged to George, and he had no intention in the world of turning it into a garbage disposal plant. This, by God, was shore-front property, as valuable as platinum, even if it did dwindle somewhat at high tide. You take a lot like the Yarbro place, give it an attractive name—Pilot’s Knob, for example—and you could get maybe $15,000 an acre!

  If the O’Sheel woman had to have some land for a garbage plant—and at the moment George could not think of a single way to stop her—then he had plenty of bogs and fens that would do just fine.

  “Now, Mrs. O’Sheel,” said George with his most ingratiating smile, “I’m going to be perfectly frank with you. The old Yarbro place is no good for a factory, what with tides and all. What you want is something high and dry—and I’ve got just the place for you.”

  “No, sir,” replied Betty. “It has to be the old Yarbro place.”

  “Why?” asked George nervously.

  “Because it’s on the shore and it’s got a good anchorage,” said Betty. “Mr. Wetkus and I looked at several places before we settled on this one. As I said before, the Garba-Crunch Corporation is in Great Neck, Long Island, which, as we all know, is on the north shore of Long Island. They are going to come across the Sound and pick up our fertilizer in barges, which means that they have to have a place on the shore with a good anchorage.”

  “For God’s love, do something!” hissed George at Manning Thaw. “You said we didn’t have a thing to worry about. Now look at the mess we’re in!”

  Manning rose. “Mr. Moderator!” he called.

  Grace Bannerman sprang to her feet “Mr. Moderator!” she cried. “Point of order!”

  “Yes, Mrs. Bannerman?” said the Moderator.

  “Mrs. O’Sheel has made a motion,” said Grace. “Does the first selectman rise to speak to the motion?”

  Harry looked with admiration on his wife. This keen, incisive, forceful creature—was she really his? And if so, was he ever going to get to prove it?

  “Your point is well taken, Mrs. Bannerman,” said the Moderator. “Mr. First Selectman, do you rise to speak to the motion?”

  “We’re talking about buyin’ land, ain’t we?” said Manning. “Well, that’s what I want to talk about—buyin’ land.”

  “Proceed, Mr. First Selectman,” said the Moderator.

  Manning walked to the front of the room, turned and faced his constituents, and said matter-of-factly, “The United States Army is buyin’ a hundred acres of land in Putnam’s Landing. They’re puttin’ in one of them guided missiles sites. Nike, it’s called.”

  A complete, absolute, stunned silence fell upon the assemblage. Mouths plopped open, eyes blinked. Not one word was uttered for a full minute.

  Great balls of fire! thought Isaac Goodpasture. No wonder Manning was so sure that nothing would get done at the meeting tonight! What a piece of news! What a staggering, crushing, stupefying piece of news!

  It was the Moderator who spoke first. “Mr. First Selectman,” he said, “did I understand you correctly? The Army is putting a guided missile site here in Putnam’s Landing?”

  “Yup,” said Manning.

  “Why?” asked Rodney O’Sheel, husband to Betty. “Why should they put a guided missile site in a quiet little village like this? We have no industry, no shipping, no targets of any military value.”

  “I know it,” said Manning. “But Bridgeport has. The way the Army fella explained it to me this afternoon, we’re part of a ring around Bridgeport. They’re puttin’ Nike bases in Westport and Fairfield too. An overlappin’ defense pattern, he called it, in case enemy planes try to bomb the factories in Bridgeport.”

  “Where’s the Army buying this hundred acres?” asked George Melvin.

  “Johnnycake Hill,” said Manning.

  “Eek!” said George Melvin and fell heavily into his seat. Johnnycake Hill was a two-hundred acre residential site owned by George. With the Army taking a hundred acres to shoot rockets, thought George, moaning aloud, who’d build houses on the other hundred?

  “But surely,” said Henry Steinberg, the harlequin great Dane breeder, “the Army can find someplace besides Putnam’s Landing
for a base. Why do they have to put rockets and gasoline and high explosives and maybe atomic warheads right smack in the middle of our town?”

  “The children!” cried Grace, bounding to her feet again. She turned and faced the entire audience. “Listen to me, my friends,” she said in a voice choked with emotion, “listen to me, all of you. We have our differences here, it’s true, but on one thing we are all agreed: we love our children. Are we going to sit by and let them be scorched and blasted and scared out of their wits by rockets zooming all over the place? No! We must fight this thing! We must close ranks and all work together to keep this terrible, dangerous weapon out of our town! We must protect the children we have brought into this world!”

  For the second time that evening Grace got a round of applause, but this time it came from all over the hall, not just from the commuters’ section. Grace stood erect through the ovation, her eyes bright with tears, her cheeks kindled, her head high, her shoulders back, her breasts jutting defiantly. A goddess! thought Harry, awestruck. A goddess of fire and passion and thrust!

  He took her hand and pulled her gently down beside him. “Listen,” he said in a low, urgent voice, “I know you’re in the Bloodmobile tomorrow, and Saturday is Bud’s birthday and Sunday is the birthday party and Monday Peter gets his bite-plate … How about Tuesday?”

  “What?” said Grace, not really hearing, her attention on the excited speeches now pouring from everywhere with no semblance of order.

  “How about Tuesday?” repeated Harry. “I mean for you and me to go up to the Concord Hotel. Okay?”

  “Harry, for Heaven’s sake—”

  “Okay?” he insisted. “Okay?”

  “Okay!” she replied impatiently. “Now, pay attention, will you?”

  George Melvin was making himself heard over the general roar. “What’s this going to do to real estate values?” he demanded. “I’ve got two hundred acres at Johnnycake Hill. The Army takes a hundred. Now who’s going to buy the rest of it? Who wants a house next to a rocket launcher? … And don’t think I’m the only one who’ll suffer. You’re all home owners here; you’ve all got investments to protect. What do you think your homes will be worth when the Army turns this town into a shooting gallery?”