by Max Shulman
And so it was. Guido won the ball game 1—0 with a daring triple steal in the sixth inning, and the parents not only shook his hand and thumped his back, but actually carried him twice around the field on their shoulders.
Only trouble was that the Colonel had still not arrived.
At 5:07 P.M. on the Fourth of July the second act of Sweet Land of Liberty, a three-act folk drama written, directed and produced by Laura Beauchamp, ended to tumultous applause before a capacity audience on Ram’s Head Beach.
The bleachers, which had been moved over from the Little League Field and set up in a semi-circle on the beach, were filled with appreciative theatre-lovers who clapped their hands wildly—except for two. These were Captain Walker Hoxie and Lieutenant Guido di Maggio. They sat in mopish silence, nursing their private sorrows.
Guido spoke first. “I wish the Colonel would get here already,” he said querulously.
“You wish he’d get here?” cried Walker. “If I’d known he was going to be this late, do you think I’d have spent the last three hours with these cruddy feather merchants?”
“Attention! Attention, please!” called Laura Beauchamp, perched in the high lifeguard’s chair with her megaphone. “In just a few moments, you will see the last act of Sweet Land of Liberty. But that, good people, is not the end of today’s festivities! Far from it! At six o’clock we will have our traditional Independence Day clambake, sponsored by the Men’s Auxiliary of the Women’s Club, and then, of course, at eight o’clock we will have our traditional fireworks display, sponsored by Volunteer Hose Company No. 4 … So don’t go ’way, anybody!”
Laura stepped down from the lifeguard’s chair and went into the bath-house to see whether her large cast was ready for Act Three.
On one side of the bath-house were Opie Dalrymple and the soldiers, feeling very foolish in Redcoat uniforms that fit them randomly and powdered wigs that kept sliding over their eyes. On the other side of the bathhouse were Grady Metcalf and his friends, looking like Early American hub-cap thieves in their linsey-woolsey and buckskin. The only lady in the cast, Comfort Good-pasture, somehow managing to look sexy in a Mother Hubbard, sat in front of an improvised dressing table and fiddled with her makeup.
Grady Metcalf came up behind Comfort.
“Go away,” she said promptly.
“Listen, hey,” said Grady, “I been thinkin’, see, and I’m willin’ to let bygones be bygones, know what I mean? So what do you say you and me hop on the Harley tonight and do a little cruisin’?”
“No,” said Comfort. “N-O-E. No.”
“I don’t care about the goin’ steady bit,” said Grady. “I mean, if you don’t wanna go steady, that’s okay with me. But I don’t see no reason why we can’t get together once in a while and buddy it up a little. How about it?”
“No.”
“Aw, why not, hey?”
“You really wanna know?”
“Yeh.”
“All right,” said Comfort. “Come closer. I’ll show you something.” She unbuttoned the three top buttons on her Mother Hubbard.
“Yeh?” cried Grady, leaning forward with alacrity.
But underneath the Mother Hubbard Comfort was wearing a baby-blue sweater and on the sweater was a jingly, shiny object.
“This,” she explained, “is Opie Dalrymple’s Marksman’s Medal. He pinned me last night. Now will you flake off?”
Grady’s face darkened with rage. His eyes narrowed, his lips drew back, his hands curled into fists. Without a word, he wheeled and walked away.
“Places, chaps!” called Laura Beauchamp. “Places for the last act!”
The actors filed out of the bath-house. Opie Dalrymple and the Redcoats went behind the dune where the longboats were moored. Grady Metcalf and the Minutemen took their positions in back of the rampart. The audience fell silent as a flourish of hautboys, played by Laura Beauchamp and her husband Willard, announced the beginning of Act Three.
Comfort entered and warned Grady of the Redcoats’ prowess with the long rifle. Grady replied that he was entirely willing to contribute his blood to the seed-time of the Republic. The longboats hove into view. Opie exhorted his men to show no fear before the rabble. The Redcoats beached their craft, formed a hollow square and advanced on the rampart. When the Redcoats were well within range, the Minutemen opened fire. The Redcoats started dropping like flies, but Opie, never breaking stride, continued to lead the survivors toward the rampart. The Minutemen loaded and fired, loaded and fired.
Except Grady. He stood silently—his neck corded, his temples throbbing, his eyes homicidal—and watched Opie Dalrymple move steadily closer. “A rumble!” rasped Grady. “Now!”
“What did you say, hey?” asked his friend Wally.
“I say we’re gonna have a rumble right now!” cried Grady, turning to his followers. “Who’s with me?”
“Aw, gee, Grady,” said Fred and Ed and Charlie.
“Chicken!” spat Grady. “That’s what you are—chicken!”
“I wouldn’t put it that way, hey,” said Wally.
“Chicken! Chicken! Chicken!” repeated Grady furiously. “Just stand there and take it while these Army crud steal your broads! Well, I ain’t chicken.”
“What you gonna do, Grady?” asked Fred.
“I’m goin’ after that bastard Dalrymple!” declared Grady.
“Yeh?” said Ed and Charlie and Wally.
“Whoever ain’t chicken can come along … But I’m goin’ anyhow. And,” said Grady with a sudden shout, “HERE I GO!”
With that he leaped over the rampart. Opie, still advancing, was only a few feet away. Grady drew back his fist, charged Opie, and gave him a tremendous smash in the jaw. Opie toppled to the ground like a felled redwood.
With a savage cry of triumph, Grady turned to his men. “Come on!” he yelled.
Courage came flooding into their narrow chests. They jumped over the rampart and descended upon the surprised soldiers like engines of destruction. In a twinkling, every soldier lay on the ground.
From the audience came a spontaneous burst of applause. “How realistic!” said one. “How authentic!” said another. “Best play-acting I ever saw!” said a third.
“Whatever are they doing?” said Laura Beauchamp to Willard.
Opie Dalrymple rose to his knees and shook his head to clear it. He looked around and saw the beach littered with his fallen comrades. “Up!” he cried, suddenly alert. “Git up and fight!”
He bounded to his feet and sailed into Grady Metcalf. He gave him a left to the belly, a right to the belly, another left to the belly, and then a right to the jaw that knocked him all the way over the rampart.
Inspirited by Opie’s example, the Redcoats scrambled to their feet and fell upon the Minutemen. Back surged the tide of battle, back to the rampart.
From the bleachers came mounting applause. “Marvelous!” said one. “Terrific!” said another. “That Laura Beauchamp is a regular Gadge Kazan!” said a third.
“What can they be thinking of?” said Laura Beauchamp to Willard.
Behind the rampart Grady Metcalf rallied his disordered forces. “Come on, hey!” he yelled. “Rack ’em back!”
The Minutemen charged over the rampart, fists churning. The line of Redcoats sagged; then stiffened and held. Toe to toe the opposing warriors stood, neither side giving, neither side relenting. Then slowly, inexorably, the Redcoats began to drive the Minutemen backward. Back to the rampart, over the rampart, behind the rampart, Opie Dalrymple’s men slugged and clobbered the foe. Opie was everywhere—deploying his forces, raising the fallen, felling the risen, ignoring all pleas for quarter, smiting the enemy with vigor, precision, and unholy glee.
Now the applause in the bleachers stopped. Smiles vanished from faces. Frowns appeared. “You know what?” said Guido di Maggio in a horrified whisper. “It’s a rumble!”
“Yup!” said Walker Hoxie, grinning with vast enjoyment.
“Our guys’ll kill those high
school kids,” said Guido frantically.
“I do believe they will,” agreed Walker, chuckling like old Saint Nick.
Guido leaped to his feet. “I’ve got to stop ’em!”
Walker grabbed his wrist and yanked him down. “You sit right here!” he snapped.
“Captain, it’s a slaughter!” cried Guido.
“It’s a tonic,” said Walker, beaming. “That’s what it is.”
“I heard that!” said Clement R. Metcalf, father to Grady, a large, beetling man who was sitting directly behind Walker Hoxie.
Walker turned and looked up at Mr. Metcalf. “Would you care to do anything about it?” he asked amiably.
“Yes, by God!” replied Mr. Metcalf and gave Walker a shot in the eye that sent him toppling over several rows of people in front of him.
“Now see here!” exclaimed Guido, rising.
“And you too!” yelled Mr. Metcalf. He threw a punch at Guido’s head. Guido automatically ducked and automatically countered. He caught Mr. Metcalf on the point of the chin, and Mr. Metcalf fell backward. Since Mr. Metcalf had been sitting in the top row of the bleachers, this was rather a long fall.
Then Mr. Metcalf’s brother, Robert Lewis Metcalf, hit Guido in the side of the head and sent him sprawling down into the crowd below.
Then Guido’s brothers, Pete, Bruno, Carmen, and Dominic, came scrambling up the bleachers and took hold of Robert Lewis Metcalf and threw him down on top of Clement R. Metcalf.
Then four brother Elks of Clement R. and Robert Lewis Metcalf proceeded to grapple with the di Maggios. This contest, unlike the others, lacked compactness. It surged and rolled in many directions, and a goodly number of bystanders were drawn into the fray, but on which side, no man could say.
And at the bottom of the bleachers, Walker Hoxie, having failed to push his way back to the top, selected the handiest target—the electronics tycoon, Mr. Arthur Waterford—and gave him a resounding clout in the ear. Mr. Waterford, a gentleman boxer, riposted with a series of smart combinations to Walker’s nose.
And Mr. Brooks Cathcart, a tiny, bald man with a goatee and gold-rimmed glasses, by profession an expert in rare books, who had purchased a house in 1948 from the real estate dealer George Melvin—a house which had started settling immediately and continued to settle at the rate of 14 inches every year—looked around him now, saw that the melee was general, and took this opportunity to walk up quietly behind George Melvin and hit him in the back of the neck with his little, pointy fist.
And Guido di Maggio ran back and forth crying “Peace! Peace!” but there was no peace. People kept belting him, and he was forced, regretfully, to deck quite a number of prominent citizens.
And women shrieked, men cursed, babies cried, girls squealed, gulls screamed, fish jumped, fists crunched, sleeves ripped, noses bled, teeth dropped, eyes blacked, ears rang, and the battle sputtered through the bleachers and burgeoned on the beach.
And Colonel Thorwald, who had been delayed on the Merritt Parkway by heavy holiday traffic, arrived to inspect the status of public relations in Putnam’s Landing.
21
Harry Bannerman, having been turned out of his hearth and home, went, of course, to look for a bar.
But it was not yet ten o’clock in the morning, and it was the Fourth of July to boot, and Harry could not find a bar open. Up and down the Post Road he went, a pathetic figure rattling doorknobs and peering in windows and plaintively calling, “Anybody here?”
Finally, on the very edge of town, he came upon an establishment named The Pilgrim’s Pride Bar and Grill. It was seedy, squalid, filthy, dismal, dank—but it was open. Gratefully Harry plunged inside.
The bartender, a man with a three-day beard and a copy of Confidential, looked up incuriously as Harry entered. “Whisky,” said Harry. Without conversation, the bartender poured a shot, placed a small glass of beer beside it, took fifty cents, and returned to his reading. Harry mounted a stool of red plastic and chromium, found a fairly dry place on the bar for his elbows, and had his first drink.
He was having his twenty-first—his twenty-fifth, if you count the four he spilled—when out of the gathering dusk three soldiers with split lips and blackened eyes came walking into the bar.
“I can’t serve you guys,” said the bartender to the soldiers. “I’m off limits.”
“There’s no other bar in town open,” said Guido di Maggio.
“I’m off limits, I tell you,” said the bartender. “You guys’ll get in trouble.”
“Hah!” said the three soldiers as one man. What more trouble could they get into, each one was thinking. Guido di Maggio was being shipped to Alaska first thing in the morning and thus losing any chance of ever squaring things with Maggie. Opie Dalrymple was up for court-martial on charges of violating several Articles of War, several local ordinances of Putnam’s Landing, and possibly the Kellogg-Briand Pact. And Walker Hoxie had been dealt the unkindest cut of all: Colonel Thorwald was busting him down to second lieutenant but making him stay in Putnam’s Landing!
“Aw, come on, give us a drink,” said Guido to the bartender.
“I can’t, hey,” he answered. “I’ll lose my license.”
“You’ll lose your eye, you cruddy feather merchant, if you don’t stop this crap,” said Walker, looming large over the bar.
The bartender took a good look at Walker, swallowed, and said, “What’ll you have?”
“Three whiskies,” said Walker.
“Ah’ll have three whiskies too, please, sir,” said Opie.
“What the hell,” said Guido, shrugging. “Make mine the same.”
“Aw, no, fellas!” begged the bartender. “I’m closin’ up in a little while. I’m goin’ down to the beach to see the fireworks.”
Walker leaned forward and grabbed the bartender by his leatherette bow-tie. “Okay, okay!” said the bartender. “Okay, okay, okay!”
Walker released the bartender. In front of each soldier he placed three shots of whisky and a schooner of beer. They fell to work with dispatch and in five minutes had ordered a second round.
From his stool at the end of the bar Harry Bannerman tried to get the three newcomers in focus—slow work. At last he succeeded. “Aha!” he said thickly. “Nike soldiers. Hadn’t been for you bastards, I’d still be married!”
He slid off his stool and weaved belligerently toward them. Guido was the closest. He threw a tremendous right uppercut, which Guido ducked without haste. Guido pinned Harry’s arms gently to his sides. “Please, Mr. Bannerman,” he said earnestly, “please don’t start up with us tonight. We got a lot of trouble!”
“Leggo, you professional killer!” mumbled Harry. “Leggo and fight.”
“Mr. Bannerman,” said Guido, holding firm, “you want to sit here nicely and drink with us? Huh, Mr. Bannerman?”
Harry thought it over. “All right,” he said. “I’ll drink with you … But not with him,” he added, pointing at Walker Hoxie. “You know why? ’Cause he represents the resurgence of the brute mind, is why.”
“All right,” said Guido, helping Harry up on the stool next to his. “You drink with me. Bartender, three whiskies.”
“All around,” said Opie.
The bartender groaned but complied.
The four men sat and drank in silence, the glasses in front of them emptying rapidly—Harry’s rather more rapidly than the others, because he kept missing his mouth.
“I got an idea,” said Harry after a while. “Let’s sing when Johnny comes marching home again hurrah hurrah we’ll give him a hearty welcome then hurrah hurrah the men will cheer the boys will shout the ladies they will all turn out and we’ll all feel gay when Johnny comes marching home.”
“How does it go?” said Opie.
“Shut up,” said Walker. “I don’t want any goddam singing.”
Guido looked thoughtfully at his whisky glasses. One was still full. He knocked it back. “Hoxie,” he said, “you know something? Bannerman’s right. You do repres
ent the resurgence of the brute mind.”
“That’s a fack, sir,” agreed Opie. “You got no refinement a tall.”
Walker gripped the edge of the bar and started to rise in anger. But halfway up he stopped. He settled back slowly. “You fellas really think so?” he asked in a small voice.
“Absolutely!” said Guido. “Why can’t you try to get along with people? I mean civilians. They’re people too, you know.”
“They’re people,” Walker admitted. “But they ain’t military people. They’re civilian people. That’s two entirely different things, like oil and water. They don’t mix.”
“I’ll tell you what don’t mix,” said Harry. “Men and women don’t mix. That’s what don’t mix.”
“Frinds,” said Opie, “the world is full of thangs that don’t mix, but somethin’ holds it together anyhow. That somethin’, frinds, is love. You got to do like the Book says: love thy neighbor. Open your horts, frinds, and chase away them scarey shadows with love and understandin’.”
“That’s beautiful!” breathed the bartender.
All fell into a pensive silence.
Walker spoke first. “I thought it over,” he said, “and I don’t believe it.”
“You ain’t drunk enough,” said Opie. “Bartender, three whiskies all around.”
“Aw, fellas,” he pleaded, “the fireworks are gonna start in a few minutes. I gotta close up!”
“Whisky!” roared Walker, banging on the bar with his big red fist.
“Tell you what,” said the bartender. “I ain’t supposed to do this, but I’ll sell you a couple of bottles to take out.”
Walker lunged for him. The bartender ducked. When he came up he had two bottles in his hands. “I’ll give you a couple of bottles!” he cried. “Okay, fellas, okay?”
“Thank you, frind,” said Opie. He relieved the bartender of the whisky and turned to Lieutenant di Maggio. “Guido, buddy, where shall we go?” he asked.
Guido scratched his head. “I’d invite you to my house,” he said, “but it’s full of people.”
