Clarkton

by Howard Fast

  “He likes to see who he’s talking to,” Curzon grinned. “He’s my boy too. He likes to see who he’s talking to.”

  “I see you, Curzon,” Ryan said. “It ain’t no sight for sore eyes.”

  “I never seen a mick who didn’t talk too much. Go on talking, Ryan.”

  Gelb walked into the edge of the circle of light and stood there, staring seriously at Ryan. Then he asked him, “Are you an honest man, Ryan?”

  “I pinched pennies from my old lady. That’s how I got my start.” ‘

  “I ask a straight question, Ryan, I like a straight answer. If you’re too proud to make an odd buck, we’ll do it another way.”

  “I’m proud. The Ryans were kings in the old country.”

  “He’s got a sense of humor,” Curzon said.

  “I have seen reds that couldn’t be bought,” Gelb said slowly. “Are you one?”

  “I’m in this racket for what I get out of it. Moscow pays a grand a week. Can you do better?”

  “You’re a snotnose,” Gelb said deliberately. “You’re like all the rest of them. You don’t have to sing for us, Ryan. Everything there is to know about you and that nigger we picked up, we know. Everything—understand me? Now you can play ball or we can let Curzon here work over you a little.”

  “What kind of ball?”

  “I’ve got a statement here, just a short statement describing how you and your buddies fomented the strike in order to advance the political ends of your party. It names some names. The statement will not be used unless it’s necessary to use it, and I don’t foresee any necessity. You have my word for that. In any case, the strike will be over tomorrow. Mr. Lowell has agreed to meet the union’s demands tomorrow, and that’s the end of it. But I want this statement signed by you. Mr. Lowell is willing to pay two thousand dollars for it.”

  “It’s cheap at the price,” Ryan said. “I have known two-bit’ writers for the Daily Worker to go over the hill for Willie Hearst or one of his pals, and that put them on ice for the rest of their lives. But for a working stiff, two grand is plenty.”

  “You don’t have to make a speech,” Gelb told him quietly, the edge that Lowell had noted once before coming into his voice. “You just say yes or no, Ryan. That’s all I want—yes or no.”

  “The trouble is, Gelb, that you’re out of date. Lowell don’t know that. You’re from ’thirty-seven, but this ain’t ’thirty-seven. You don’t move in and smash strikes today. You don’t blow and expect labor to fall over. Everything changes except bastards like you, Gelb—”

  Curzon hit him in the face, a sound like an apple dropping from a tree onto a hard board, and he went over backward, chair and all. To Lowell, it appeared to happen very, very slowly, and he couldn’t understand why Ryan had not seen the blow coming, had not attempted to get out of its way. The hot, bitter acid in Lowell’s stomach rose, and he moved back, quite apart from his own volition, until his shoulders pressed against the door. Being a sensitive man, he felt the blow; it stung him even after the two officers had picked up both the chair and Ryan, and set them in place. In terms of the essence of brutality, it was quite the most horrible thing Lowell had ever seen; and though he was forty-four years old, and though he had traveled through most of the nations of Europe and seen a good deal beside that, he could recall nothing that was like this.

  Ryan shook his head and tried to spit out a broken tooth that dangled by shreds of flesh. His upper lip was broken and swelling already, and a thin black stream of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

  “He’s my boy,” Gelb said.

  “He’s my boy, too,” Curzon grinned. “He’s got guts. All micks got guts. Nothing he likes better than a little scrap.”

  “Maybe he wants peace and comfort,” Gelb said. “He’s a family man. Five children. A family man gets tired of scrapping. He wants peace and comfort. He thinks I’m out of date—but it could be that he is out of date. You hurt his face too much,” he said to Curzon. “The little man is not pretty to begin with, so why do you want to hurt his face so much, Jack?”

  “No more on the face,” Curzon smiled.

  “No more.” His tone toward Ryan was conciliatory and wheedling. “How about it, Danny? I don’t like this any better than you do.”

  “To hell with you!” Ryan said.

  Curzon hit him in the stomach this time, and again it seemed to Lowell that the police captain moved with agonizing slowness—even though all of Curzon’s body arched, with the blow, lifting Ryan again, hurling him and the chair outside the cone of light into the darkness. And both sounds were delayed, the sound of the fist in Ryan’s stomach, the smack and the burst of breath driven out, and then the crash of man and chair rolling over on the floor.

  The two officers brought back Ryan and the chair. They put Ryan in the chair, but he hung over, his hands grasping his stomach. The tooth hung out of his open mouth, dangling on one slender strand of pink gum.

  “He’s a daisy,” Gelb said. “He’s cute. He’s a daisy.”

  “He’s my boy,” smiled Curzon. “The shine is bigger, but he’s my boy.”

  Over his shoulder, Gelb said, “You note this, Frank. He’s a person of principle. I offer him two thousand dollars, but he’s proud. Very proud people, Communists. They know all the answers, but when I ask him a calm, polite question, he only says, the hell with it. That’s a lot of pride for cheap shanty Irish.”

  “He loves to be beat,” Curzon chuckled. “He loves to take it.

  “But he could stop taking it. He could get it into his head that when the mill opens, he and the comrades are going to be out of jobs. He could get it into his head that he has no future in Clarkton. He could get it into his head that there’s no future in his whole filthy racket. He could get it into his head and he could make it pay, too.”

  Ryan was breathing again. He shook the tooth loose, watching it as it fell to his knee and then slid down on the floor.

  “You have been a hero,” Gelb sighed. “I want to do business, Ryan. I deal in dollars and cents. What about it?” His voice changed again, “You have a wife and kids. Where does it get you, Ryan? Take it easy for a while. You got one life to live, and you screw it all to the devil. Take it easy. Maybe we can work out something with Mr. Lowell where you can really take it easy. He wants to be fair. I want to be fair. There’s no need for all this kind of thing, no need at all. Whatever you think of me, Ryan, whatever you heard, I can tell you truthfully that I hate brutality. I deplore the need for it. I admire efficiency. That’s why I admire you people. I am not taken in by what fools say about you. I sincerely admire you. That’s why I make it two thousand dollars; that’s why I set a fair price:”

  “You dirty son of a bitch,” Ryan said to him.

  This time Curzon hit him in the groin, the same kind of blow as before, sharp and sweeping, with his whole body behind it. Lowell found the doorknob, twisted it, and got out of the room. He felt drunk now, sick drunk, hopelessly drunk. He stumbled down the corridor until he saw a door marked WASHROOM, got inside, and hung over the bowl, vomiting.

  10.The morning papers that day, both in New York and in Boston, said there was every reason to expect skiing weather in the Berkshires and upstate, and there were feature articles on an expected postwar upsurge in the popularity of the sport. “There is no doubt,” one story said, “but that the ancient Norwegian sport of skiing will do much to fill the tame hole in the life of GI Joe. Soon, the white mantle of Jack Frost will festoon the smooth slopes of New England, and the simulated excitement of the wooden runners will replace memories of mine-throwers and high explosive. Professor Jackson Ely Lynn, of the Psychiatric Department of Columbia University Medical School, offered his opinion of the value of such therapy. ‘Skiing and mountain climbing,’ Professor Lynn said, ‘will do much to facilitate a normal and tranquil adjustment back to the values of civilian life.’ This correspondent, at least, will view the first ski-trains with added satisfaction.…”

  And as if t
o implement the wonder by which man can anticipate almost every mood and act of nature, tiny dry snow-flakes began to fall on Clarkton just about an hour before noon. The little white flakes drifted on the wind, whispered along the streets, and proceeded to festoon the evergreens, in accordance with all the gay predictions of the press. Evan Baxter, who owned the biggest hardware store in town, reacted to the snowfall by taking out a sign and tacking it up inside his window, informing Clarkton that the best non-skid, pavement-proof chains in New England were to be had at a most reasonable price.

  11.Lois also reacted to the snow; the first snowfall always achieved a melancholy effect in her, and now, watching the little flakes through the window, she was pervaded with a warm sadness—which was increased by Fern coming in from outside, all flushed and youthful and smiling. Lois couldn’t find it in her heart to set herself against Fern; she put an arm around her shoulders and said:

  “Ferney darling, do be nice.”

  “I feel nice,” Fern said. “There’s a boy working for Dad who’s just sweet. He’s out of the army a few months, and he’s nice and simple and straightforward.”

  “I’m glad,” Lois smiled. “What’s his name?”

  “His name’s Frank Norman—just a nice, plain name.”

  “I knew some Normans in New York. Is he from New York?”

  “I think so.”

  “They were very nice people.”

  “Well he’s nice. If it’s all snowy tonight, we’ll go sledding on Bird’s Hill.”

  It was partly that conversation with Fern that moved Lois to do what she did—because the conversation was so healthy and straightforward and decent. It made her realize that if you had something, it was worth fighting for and defending—not simply worth the patience of waiting. So before lunch, where Fern had promised to join her, she looked up Antonini in the phone book, found two families by that name, and called one on a chance. A voice half asleep, a drowsy, slow voice answered, and Lois asked her, gently and politely, was she Rose Antonini?

  “Yes.”

  “Well, this is Mrs. Lowell,” Lois said.

  A long silence, and then, “Yes?”

  “I know about last night,” Lois plunged on. “I know those things happen. I’m sure you must understand how they happen.…” There was just a long silence then, until Lois inquired, “Hello?”

  “What do you want?”

  “I know how people like you—need money,” Lois said painfully. “I could manage some money, but my husband must not know. I would want you to go away somewhere. I could manage enough money for that—for you to go away somewhere and even have a pleasant time.…”

  There was a long silence once more. “Hello?” Lois said.

  “Oh, go to hell, you old biddie,” the sleepy voice told her.

  12.Max Goldstein had been one of the heroes of the First World War, and the things he had done—forgotten, most of them, by now—had earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor. It was a great thing in Clarkton at the time, and when he came home, in June of 1919, there was a band waiting for him at the station, and he headed a triumphal march through the town. All of this he liked as well as the next person; he was a big, easygoing man, and memories of the war held no horrors for him; rather the reverse, for he was very proud of a scrapbook his father had started, filled mostly with clips from the Clarkton Minuteman, but also interspersed here and there with pieces from the Boston and New York papers.

  He had been born and brought up in Clarkton, where his parents had a small drygoods store, and his affection for the place was deep-seated and genuine; nor was he ambitious. He held the post of magistrate once and again he ran for and was elected to a term in the state legislature. But that was the extent of his political career; he preferred his commonplace practice and his office, which was in a loft building squarely in the center of town. In the course of the years, he married a tiny, very pretty Polish girl, had no children, lost his hair, and developed an enormous paunch. He was only a reasonably fat man, but he had the largest stomach of anyone in town, and since his needs were not many, he took only the cases he wanted and almost never pressed anyone for a bill. In the winter, there was usually a group of his cronies and a political argument or a checker game in his office; in the summer, he transferred this to the courthouse square. Actually, by now, in his fifty-first year, he was a relic, an old-fashioned courtroom lawyer who abided by principle and loved his art and took hopeless cases and prepared them himself and fought them himself and had only one substantial client, the local union.

  He was playing checkers with the dentist who occupied the suite next door, on this Saturday morning, when Maurice Renoir burst in and told him about what had happened at the plant. He listened calmly, nodding his head, and making his move in the middle of the account. The dentist jumped three of his men.

  “The hell with it,” Goldstein said. “Twenty years and I still can’t play the game.”

  “I got a patient in five minutes. One more?” the dentist asked.

  “Oh, the hell with it. How much you ahead—two-bits?”

  “Two-bits.”

  Goldstein paid, deliberately and judiciously, counting the change out of a leather snap-purse he kept in a drawer of his rolltop desk.

  “Sacred God,” Renoir cried, “you hear me, no? They’re in jail.”

  “If they’re there, they’re there. They ain’t going to run away, and nobody’ll move the jail.” The dentist left; Goldstein shifted his enormous bulk and began to place the checkers back in their box. “Did you see Noska?” he asked Renoir.

  “Where in hell is Noska? You tell me, Max.”

  “You tell me,” Goldstein said. “This is nothing. This is a cheap, dirty little stall—trespassing, oh, my hat.”

  “Danny said, you get him out.”

  “What’s eating Ryan? Didn’t he ever spend a few hours in jail before?” He swung back to his desk, picked up the phone, kidded the operator gently for a while, and then asked for his number. “Elliott,” he said, “is that you, Elliott? All right, this is Max. They just picked up Danny and Joey Raye on some damfool trespass charge. I don’t know what’s behind it—maybe just some more of Tom Wilson’s brilliance. No—no, it won’t stick. Even if Curtis does warm his pants in Lowell’s vest pocket, he’ll have to throw this out of court. But look, it seems they can’t locate Noska right now, and Danny’s got ants in his pants, so if you can pick up a few hundred of bail money, we’ll take it over to the court.”

  13.Abbott had to finish with his patients first, so he sent Ruth over to the bank and then called Max Goldstein back and asked why didn’t they all meet at his house and ride over to the court together? Goldstein said no reason why not, and it wouldn’t hurt Ryan to spend an extra hour in the can, but rather be good for his immortal soul. “There’s no chance they’ll push him around, is there?” Abbott wanted to know, and Goldstein said, “What for? This isn’t that kind of a situation.”

  But Abbott was not so sure, and he finished his office work mechanically. Max Goldstein could be wrong, he thought to himself. Max Goldstein had been wrong before. “You’re a somber, humorless, loveless, faithless New England man,” Goldstein had told Abbott only a week or so before, when Abbott said that the war and the war’s end was the beginning of something and by no means the end of it. “We have put fascism to death,” Goldstein said. “All of them?” Abbott asked him, looking at him and trying to fix in his mind that Max Goldstein was a Jew, one of the same people who had surrendered six million to the cold enfolding of the earth and part of a sorrow the world would not forget soon; but that was difficult with Goldstein, who was more New England and more of the valley and hills hereabouts than he himself. At that time, Goldstein had said, “I’m looking to trout in the spring. I want to get out in the sunshine with high boots and a pouch and forget that this beastliness ever was.” Now Elliott Abbott considered that forgetfulness was never to any purpose; memory sought you out, and you were better prepared if you knew that in advance.
Since 1939, he had lived the quiet life of a country and small-town doctor, here in the foothills of the Berkshires, and he had forgotten how to fight. His unease increased and became somber and melancholy, so that he had, perforce, to explain to his patients that it was his misery and not theirs that made for the look on his face.

  Ruth came back. “I got five hundred,” she said. “Will that be enough?”

  “I think so.”

  “What is it?” she asked, seeing his face.

  “Nothing. Why don’t you make a sandwich, Ruth? I’ve only Jackie Maurois and Mrs. Bailey, and then I’ll be through.”

  Mrs. Bailey had a nephew, out of the army, who wanted to study medicine. After he had prescribed for her back, Elliott had to listen for ten minutes to a recital of her family history, before he could shoo her out of the door and go back to the kitchen. Goldstein had not yet arrived, and it was already ten minutes past one. “Damn that walrus!” Abbott said. “The sky could fall on him, and he still wouldn’t hurry.”

  “Elliott, what’s eating you?” Ruth wanted to know.

  “Nothing.”

  “It’s not that thing with George this morning?”

  “I almost forgot about that,” Abbott said. He sat down at the table with a sandwich and a glass of milk. “I almost forgot about it—that’s funny, isn’t it? That’s damned funny. You know, I’m afraid,” he said. “That’s it—I’m afraid.”

  “Most of the time I am,” Ruth shrugged. “Do you want a piece of pound cake?”

  “Yes—sure.” He sat at the table, a huge man, his enormous hands dwarfing glass and sandwich; she had to smile. “I wish I could,” he said. “Give me another piece of the cake, Ruth. You’re not afraid, are you?”

  “Not any more—not the way you mean. I’m afraid in other ways.”

  “You get to feeling alone and helpless. You belong to a movement, and it’s your whole life, and the only thing decent and good and real in this land. But I need more than you, Ruth. I look around and I count on both hands the people who are Communists in a place like this. It’s different in the cities, I guess.”