by John Sanford
“Here y’are! Sign your petition!”
A man came from the Vanderbilt Avenue exit of Grand Central Station, and approaching Danny, he clipped on a pair of eyeglasses, took the petition, and began to read aloud from its preamble: “‘ We, the undersigned, in the interest of justice, do hereby respectfully petition the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to reverse on appeal the convictions of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, as being against the weight of evidence, and, further.…’” The man removed his glasses.
“You can sign it with that pencil,” Danny said.
“The only thing I’d sign for Sacco and Vanzetti is a death-warrant,” the man said, and scaling the petition into the gutter, he walked on.
[Whenever you rushed copy, you ran into Mig DeLuca, and he always roughed up your hair, saying, “How’s the boy-anarchist?” He’d gotten his diploma in June, and he was through with Clinton and working full time now, not on the mimeos any more, but on the hand-press, and he was knocking down a cool twenty-five a week, nice dough for a guy of eighteen. That wop liked you, even after you’d told him about getting flunked for cheating, and you liked him, even after he’d told you, “And I had you spotted as another Lovejoy.”]
“Sign your petition here!”
On the little island made for the Maine Monument, Danny was approached by a man who looked neither to the right nor the left, nor up nor down, nor, indeed, in any direction at all: he seemed not to see, or even to feel, for two or three people in his path were jostled aside by his straight-line progress.
“Sign your petition!” Danny said.
The man fumbled for the pencil, scourged and goaded his signature across the page, and continued on his settled course toward some secret bourn.
“You didn’t read what it’s for,” Danny said.
“I sign anything,” the man said. “I’m against everything.”
[You were up on the roof with a bunch of the boys, and Tootsie was unlacing your gloves so that Harry Keogh could try his luck with the champ, Julie Pollard, who stood there grinning at you. You’d just sparred three rounds with him, mostly backwards, and you’d hit the deck in the first and third, but you grinned back as much as your numb jawbone would let you. Tootsie flipped the gloves to Harry, and then you leaned against the chimney to watch the next massacre.
[“Well, white-trash?” Tootsie said.
[“How’s biz?” you said. “You still call it the B. & W. Polishing Company?”
[“Sure do. I like that name.”
[“Save enough for college yet?”
[“Enough for the first two years.”
[“You ought to be glad we broke up.”
[“Why should I ought to be glad?”
[“Your partner turned out to be a crook.”
[“Who he been crooking from?”
[“Little ole Danny got nailed with a pony in an English exam,” you said.
[“What do you know?” he said. “Crooking from hisself!”
[You stared at him for a moment, and then you patted his cocoa face, wobbled his chocolate-drop of a nose, and hugged him tight, saying, “That’s right—crooking him hisself!” and you knew that at last you could get the hell up off your knees.]
“Sign here! Sign your petition!”
Danny’s stand was alongside the south lion of the Public Library. Passers-by had filled two pages with signatures, and a fresh sheet had just been snapped into place under a rubber band.
A voice said, “Whatcha got there?” The voice belonged to a policeman.
“A petition,” Danny said.
“A petition for what?”
“To free Sacco and Vanzetti.”
“Them bomb-throwing ginnies up in Boston! Keep moving!”
“What for? I can stand here as long as I like.”
“You’re blocking the sidewalk, and it’s against the law to collect a crowd.”
“I don’t see any crowd except us and the lion.”
“That petition is against the law.”
“Where does it say so in the Constitution?”
“How should I know? I don’t carry the Constitution around with me.”
“Well, I do,” Danny said, and he took a booklet from his pocket and opened it to an earmarked page. “‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,’” he read, “‘or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.’” Danny looked up, and the policeman turned away.“Wise guy,” he said to the broad blue back.
A woman’s face appeared above the paws of the lion. “I was just hoping he’d start something,” she said.
“I meet cops like that all over town,” Danny said. “I really know Article I by heart.”
“May I sign?”
[Pop took some of the petitions, and in no time at all he got to be the most quarrel some hack-driver in Manhattan. The minute a fare piled in, he’d open up about the Sacco-Vanzetti case, and if the guy saw eye-to-eye with him, it’d be a nice clean ride, but let the poor slob have doubts, and Pop’d finish the trip driving with his feet while he poured insults over the back seat at the rate of five cents for each additional quarter of a mile. All the same, he brought home a filled petition nearly every day—and he’d’ve done even better if he hadn’t been plugging for a couple of characters named Sacci and Vanzetto.]
Near the Information Booth in Pennsylvania Station, Danny accosted a man standing in a clump of luggage. “Would you like to sign this petition?” he said.
“Who’s it for?” the man said.
“Sacco and Vanzetti.”
“Not interested. Not in the least.”
Danny turned away to find himself blocked by a porter who had paused to arrange some parcel-checks. “How about signing this petition, mister?” he said.
The porter said, “What petition for who, boy?”
“There’s a couple of people in jail that ought to be out.”
“What they done to be in jail?”
“Nothing.”
“In jail for nothing? Sound like they colored.”
“They’re white. They’re Italians.”
“That’s colored enough. Where I supposed to sign?”
Danny addressed the older of two women in a line at a Lehigh Valley ticket-window. “Will you sign this petition, ma’am?” he said. “It’s for Sacco and Vanzetti.”
The younger one said, “I wouldn’t sign that, mother.”
“No?” the mother said. “Why not?”
“Sacco and Vanzetti are those murderers up in Boston.”
“Did you see them commit the crime, my dear?”
“They’re guilty. I read about it in the papers.”
“What do the papers know?” the mother said, and she reached for the pencil.
A man flicked a cigarette at an urn and missed it. “Bum shot,” Danny said. “Want to sign a petition?”
“Who for?” the man said.
“Sacco and Vanzetti.”
“What do they want?”
“Justice,” Danny said.
The man laughed. “They’re too late,” he said. “It just pulled out in a private car.”
A woman dropped her purse, and Danny helped her round up its fugitive trash. When she offered him a reward of a nickel, he said, “All I’d like is for you to sign this petition.”
The purse was snapped shut. “Do I look like a Jew?” she said, and then her mouth was snapped shut too.
A man tapped Danny on the shoulder, saying, “What’s this thing you’re asking people to sign?”
“A petition to save Sacco and Vanzetti.”
“I was standing right there. Why’d you pass me up?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I guess I didn’t think you’d go for it.”
“Why not?” the man said.
“To tell the truth, you looked too rich.”
“Don’t you like rich people?”
“Not when they don’t like Sacco and Vanzetti.”
“You sound like a dirty little anarchist yourself.”
Danny smiled. “I was right to give you the go-by,” he said.
“A dirty little anarchist son-of-a-bitch!”
“Say that again, mister, and you’re going to miss a train.”
Danny waited for a man who was bowing to a drinking-fountain. The man rose, wiping his mouth, and after a glance at the preamble of the petition, he caught up the pencil and carved his name across three of the ruled spaces, saying, “God damn it! God damn it to hell!”
[That was the kind! The ones that got sore, the ones that started fishing around for something to give away (pennies, even), the ones that shook hands with you, that had to touch you and sometimes kiss you, the ones that could only cry over their dirty fists and foreign names! They made up for the ones that called you a son-of-a-bitch.]
He stood at Miss Forrest’s window, looking down at the darkening park. “I asked you to sign before you went away on your vacation,” he said, “and I asked you again the day you got back. Now for the third and last time, I’m asking you to just write down your name—that’s all, to just write down your name on a piece of paper.”
The teacher said, “It’s much more than a piece of paper and much more than the two words of my name: I have to believe in what that petition is for, and I don’t. I’ve read all the things you’ve asked me to read, and I’ve studied the facts of the case as carefully as a juror, but I still believe those two men are guilty of murder. Believing that, I must also believe they should be punished. How can I sign a petition for the exact opposite?”
“Nobody has a right to be as sure as you are.”
“I have the same right to be sure that you have.”
“No, you haven’t, Miss Forrest. I’m sure that Sacco and Vanzetti are innocent, and you’re sure that they’re guilty, but I can be sure without costing them their life.”
“All the evidence—the identification, the torn cap, the rifling in the gun-barrel and the marks on the bullets, Vanzetti’s previous record in the Bridgewater holdup—all that makes it reasonable to believe the men are guilty.”
“Then your answer is no, and you won’t sign.”
“It isn’t that I won’t, Danny. I can’t.”
The boy turned, looked at her for a moment, and said, “I’m sorry to say this to a person that’s been such a good friend of mine, that’s been my best friend, but, Miss Forrest…,” and now his gaze was on the petition that he held in his hand, on the two-inch pencil and the soiled string and the worn cardboard backing, “… I'll never be able to think of you as a friend any more, not if you let me go away from here today without your signature.”
“You’re not being fair,” the teacher said. “Suppose things were turned around, and I told you we were finished being friends unless you signed a petition saying Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty.”
“Sacco and Vanzetti are innocent, and there’s no other way to look at it, not and still be a friend, and that goes even if the friend is you, Miss Forrest, and I wouldn’t wait for you in the street any more, and I wouldn’t walk you home, and I wouldn’t come up here and talk to you, and I wouldn’t write to you if you went away, and I wouldn’t think about you like I sometimes do when I’m alone. I’d hate you, the way that Judge hated my friends.”
“Let me have the petition, Danny. I’ll sign it.”
“I wouldn’t know you if I saw you anywheres! I wouldn’t answer if you spoke to me! I wouldn’t ever want to be here with you in the house, just the two of us! I’d hate you, Miss Forrest, and I’d hate all the time I’ve lived liking you …!”
“I’ll sign! I’ll sign!” the woman said. “What more do you want?”
THE TUESDAY AFTER LABOR DAY
A few moments before nine o’clock in the morning, Danny crossed Ninth Avenue under the tracks of the Elevated, heading west for the first day of his last year at De Witt Clinton, and as he passed between buildings so long known that they were no longer seen, he thought of the three years gone as if they were a composite day—a day compounded from a thousand, all different yet all similar, all separate yet all superimposed, and the one, like all, seemed strange. [You remembered the way the tiles were set in the front hall, the flabby footballs in the Trophy Room, the woven wire in the plate-glass of the stairways. You remembered the Auditorium, the Store, the Gym., and the Chem. Lab., and you remembered many boys, many teachers (Miss Forrest! Miss Forrest!), many books, many pictures in many rooms, many rainy mornings, and many afternoons when the sun bouncing up off the Fludson turned the ceilings to water.] At the end of the brick wall around the Roosevelt Hospital yard, he cut over on a diagonal toward the main entrance of the school. Waiting for a gap in traffic, he paused at the curb.
“What do you say, kid?” someone said.
Danny turned. “Mig!” he said. “What’re you doing here?”
“You know what? I did a funny thing when I left the house this morning. I forgot I was all through with Clinton, and by the time I woke up to what I was doing, here I was on the corner. Funny thing.”
“You’re a dirty wop liar, Mig.”
“Now, you know I wouldn’t lie to you, kid—but as long as I’m here, I might as well wish you good luck in your last year…, Mr. Lovejoy.”
“I love all the wops,” Danny said. “Good peoples.”
[When school broke that afternoon, you waited for Miss Forrest and walked her home, and then you kept on across town to the office of the Defense Committee, but the Boss was busy, and you couldn’t get to him till along about seven, and even then you had to waylay him as he was steamed for the subway.]
“Give you till I finish this butt,” he said.
Danny said, “You know, school started today.”
“Don’t tell me you want to be book-educated.”
“So I’ll have to work part time from now on.”
“How much time is part time?” the Boss said.
“I can report at four o’clock.”
“School only keeps till three.”
“I know,” Danny said, “but I can’t get to work till four.”
“It takes you an hour to walk ten blocks?”
“I always do something along the way.”
“It sounds like a dirty something.”
“No, sir,” Danny said. “It isn’t dirty.”
“Well, whatever it is,” the Boss said, “we can’t pay any nine bucks a week for a couple of hours a day. Where do you think our dough comes from—Beacon Street?”
“I’m not asking for nine bucks. I’ll work for anything you say is fair?”
“What do you say is fair?”
“Five, and I’ll give you all day Saturday.”
The Boss tossed his cigarette into the gutter. “You still think they’re innocent?” he said.
“Christ,” Danny said, “there’s more evidence against Judge Thayer!”
“Make it seven-fifty—but don’t forget the Saturdays.”
LET THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE BE HEARD
“What do you know about writing letters?” the Boss said.
“Same as everybody,” Danny said, “I’ve written a few.” “With a pony, or without? Don’t bother answering. Your first assignment is to compose a form letter about The Case. A statement of the facts, down-to-earth and snappy—and a snappy reminder that we’re broke. If the thing’s any good, we’ll run it off on the mimeos and send it to every Italian in the City Directory.”
“Suppose it stinks.”
“Don’t let it stink!
[You thought and thought, but when you finally fitted a sheet of paper into the typewriter, you had nothing that your own mother could’ve called an idea, but all at once, out of nowhere, a real good one seemed to clap you on the neck like a hand, and long after the lever had shot the sheet out, you sat there dreaming while you ticked the blank roller of the machine.]
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br /> “I guess you need a pony after all,” the Boss said.
“Boss,” Danny said, “don’t even breathe: I think I got an idea.”
“Spring it, kid,” the Boss said, and he boosted himself up onto Danny’s desk.
“This won’t be our first letter asking for money: it’ll be our hundredth, and if it’s like all the rest, it’ll bring in about forty bucks, mostly in stamps. You know why? Because we do the asking, us guys in the office. The asking ought to be done by the people that do the giving.”
“You lost me, kid.”
“Instead of the usual thing, how would it be if this letter started out with facts and wound up with opinions—not our opinions, but the opinions of teachers, waiters, cab-drivers, subway-guards? How would it be, for instance, if we got an Italian shoemaker to say his say about The Case? And how would it be if we got an Italian fish-peddler …?”
“How would it be?” the Boss said. “It’d be sweet as sugar!”
[You put in a lot of time collecting stuff for that letter, and one day you clipped it all together and turned it in to the Boss, but an hour later, when he came over to talk to you, you were staring up at two pictures on the wall, and you felt low.]
“It’s no good,” Danny said.
“What makes you think so?” the Boss said.
“It’s eight pages of words, single-spaced.”
“What’s the matter with words, kid?”
“They won’t get anybody out of jail.”
“What do you figure we ought to use?”
“Crowbars, battering-rams, and guns.”
“You think we ought to shoot it out?”
“I think we ought to do something that’ll work.”
“If words won’t, nothing will,” the Boss said. “There’s nothing in the world like words. The trick, though, is to pick the good ones.”
“Five years of good ones, and Nick and Bart’re still in jail. Ten years of good ones, and so is Tom Mooney. Did good words help Parsons, or Spies, or Fischer, or John Brown, or anybody else? There’s no such thing as good words!”
“If that was true, kid,” the Boss said, “you’d live and die without knowing that so many great men had lived and died before you. It was their words that they were lynched, shot, and beaten to death for, but you can’t kill words, kid, and if you try, they’ll turn around some day and kill you. You can get rid of an Albert Parsons easily enough, but not this: ‘O men of America, let the voice of the people be heard!’ And you can hang a John Brown any day of the week, especially if the hangman is a Captain Robert E. Lee, but these words are far more deadly than Brown ever was, and they’re still with us: ‘Had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends, either father, mother, brother, sister, wife or children, or any of that class, and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this interference, it would have been all right. Every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment.’”
