Clarkton

by Howard Fast

  The sun rose with an icy and metallic glory, and the bells at the Protestant Episcopal church, which was all the way over eastward, on the other side of town, began to toll out the sweet notes of The Bells of Saint Mary’s. It was a strange and unusual Sunday morning for Clarkton, with so many people on the streets, so many clumps of them here and there, more people than it would have seemed that the town could hold, and through them and among them the townsfolk who did not work at the plant, and some that did too, going to church in their Sunday clothes, and not a policeman in sight but the one radįo car Jack Curzon had cruising slowly back and forth through the streets. There were hundreds of children who had turned out to see the sight, and they were making a great holiday thing of it. A whole contingent of young workers who were veterans were got out in uniform, carrying their own flag and a big banner which said, OK—if it takes more than Anzio, Tarawa, and Normandy!

  At a quarter to nine, Danny Ryan, driving Renoir’s 1931 Ford sedan, pulled up at Saropoles’ kitchen, pushed his way in, and told the Greek, “The whole thing’s screwed up for the march up the street. We got more than a thousand at Oak and Fourth, so why don’t you send your gang up there, and we’ll start out from there instead, and give Curzon less of a chance to tear into us.”

  “I don’t see any cops,” Saropoles said. “I don’t think they make a damn bit of trouble for us, Danny.”

  “Well, don’t think too hard, Sam. There’s sure as hell a lot of them up at the plant.”

  Meanwhile, Noska was handling the press at the union’s executive offices. Young Jimmy Campbell was there from the Clarkton Minuteman, as well as two reporters from Worcester who had come in on the morning train, one from the Times, and the other the AP man, both of them taking a chance on a telephone call Betty Sullivan, the local’s promotion person, had put through. David Broom, a local accountant who worked for two wire services on space rates, was also there. The little office was crowded, and the reporters kept firing questions at Noska, a practice they believed, by scripture of film and book, to be a necessary one. Bill Noska said, again and again:

  “Nothing’s going to happen. It’s an interference with our simple, legal right to picket. We intend to picket, that’s all.”

  “But what about that crowd outside?”

  “We have the right to assemble in mass,” Noska said slowly and stubbornly, biting each word.

  “What do you think of Tom Wilson’s charge that the whole thing is being engineered by Communists?”

  Still biting the words, Noska said, “If Tom Wiļson thinks I ain’t president of the union, or I run it crooked, or I’m pushed around by a lot of reds, and if he says that, then he’s a dirty liar.”

  4.There was a tone of quiet formality in the Lowell home on this Sunday morning. After Lowell had shaved and showered and dressed himself, he felt better and cleaner, and in at least some condition to face the problems that would have to be faced, and he was even able to accept the cold aloofness of Fern’s manner. To a degree, he felt better than he had for a number of days, rather tired, but better too. When he came down to the gun room, his wife and daughter were already there, and he was able to say:

  “Good morning, Fern. Good morning, Lois.”

  Fern didn’t answer, but Lois said, “Hello, George,” matter-of-factly, and he was relieved to see that Lois was all right, that there was not going to be a scene, and that they could react like civilized human beings again. He had just a slight headache, but he had taken some aspirin for it and it would go away soon. He drank his orańge juice, poured his coffee; and said something about the weather.

  “I know how you feel about church,” Lois said, “but they’re having the memorial services for Pearl Harbor, and I sponsored them—”

  “If you want me to go, I’ll go,” he nodded.

  “They’re going to unveil several plaques, and Clark’s is one of them.”

  “I’m not going,” Fern said.

  Lowell felt aloof and wise and slightly sorry for both of them, and he told himself that he didn’t want to see Lois hurt any more. Actually, he was beginning to accept the fact that there would be a resolution of this without a divorce or a separation; separated from it by a day, he realized it was not so different from other incidents that had happened, and there was always a resolution, and there would be one now too. “You must go, Fern,” he told her kindly. “I know how you feel about it.”

  “You don’t know.” But beyond that, she didn’t argue. A certain mood settled, over them, and they finished their breakfast with hardly more than a few words spoken. After breakfast, Lois stepped into the living room, and when Lowell followed her there, he saw that she had been crying a little. She dabbed at her eyes as he took her around the waist, and when he kissed her, feeling that each movement of his body, arms, and lips must be consciously and carefully directed, she whispered, “What rotten things you can do, George.” “I know.” “I don’t want to think about it, George.” “I know,” he said.

  Fern was waiting for them after all; they got into the car, Lois driving, and Lowell looking at her with a numb and hopeless sense of being back, being within himself again, but knowing too that it couldn’t be any other way. Lois avoided the town, swinging in a circle along the old turnpike. When they came to the church, the parking space was already full, and inside the Reverend Ellis Whitford had just begun his sermon. Abashed, they slid into their pew, and almost immediately Lowell’s face assumed the tight, expressionless, somewhat stupid look that he reserved for those not-too-frequent occasions when he sat in the House of God. He had a hatred for church that he never fully formulated, never completely allowed into those upper and conscious spaces of his mind. It was compounded out of childhood, birth and death, formless fears and musty odors, the shape of the flower-banked coffin in funeral services, the great space of the stained-glass window above the pulpit, the huge ladies’ hats that blocked his vision in childhood days, and the idea of God, the stately, bearded, masculine, heavy-muscled God, depicted in such bright colors in the Sunday-school slides of his boyhood. In the quiet of common sense, he could reject this, substituting for it an amorphous and timid concept of benignity that produced immortality, a sexless, brooding, shapeless immortality which took the edge off extinction and no more; but here in church, no matter how many years passed, the God of Israel, the God of Moses, Michelangelo, Oliver Cromwell, Governor Winthrop, the God of justice and stern passion returned to plague and cauterize him. His antidote was to lapse into a stately and dignified daze, a coma that was almost completely thoughtless, recording words without recording meaning. Ladies seeing him that way, bolt upright, so intent and handsome and lean, envied Lois and pitied him for the loss of Clark and the ápostasy of Fern. The Reverend Whitford, a small, pudgy, earnest, and deep-voiced gentleman, who had noticed the entrance of the Lowells—the church was a small one—felt very much the same, and dwelt on the question of sacrifice.

  “The Great Emancipator,” he was saying, “was a singular example and a divine manifestation of man in God’s image, a face graven with the sorrows of all mankind, a soul sweet with the implications of life unending. We should inquire into the full meaning of his words when he spoke of those honored dead who do not die in vain. Is it not considered by so many—those who in New York are called the sophisticated—a cliche, a homily, to remind ourselves that the smallest sparrow does not fall to earth and falling elude the blessed sight of God and of his gentle Son, Jesus Christ, our Redeemer? It is a fact, but I, for one, am not afraid of cliches, of homilies, of the good words that my grandmother and my great-grandmother spoke on this old and hallowed New England soil; I am not sophisticated, and I say, thank God for that. I have not yet lost faith in my God and in His omnipresence and His omnipotence. Those are mighty words for a mighty concept. In the ancient days, when men were pagan and unredeemed, bloody sacrifices were offered up on idolatrous altars, but a sacrifice can be sweet as honey in the eyes of the Lord our God. What of those honored dead, who gave
the ultimate of man’s ability to give? Are they to be unrewarded? Are we to believe the cold-and so-called scientific observations of today?” The Reverend Whitford paused and looked from face to face, earnestly and searchingly; he found George Lowell’s eyes, fixed on them a moment, studied them, and then passed on, recalling in passing the old wives’ tale of the time George Washington went to church, soon after his inauguration, and was so soundly ticked off by the pastor that he never went again. So the Reverend Whitford allowed only a moment for effect and continued, a heavy note of scorn entering his voice:

  “I do recall, however, one of my flock who came to me—no, I will not embarrass him by speaking his name; that is a matter for him and his God—he came to me and said of one who had passed on, How will he be raised, Reverend? As a child, as a youth, as a man worn and thin with sickness, naked or clothed? No, it was not a sincere question, but it deserves an answer. How cheap and how childish is such cynicism, and how typical of the worst elements of this modern age! A simple child would understand and accept the fact that He who created us out of dust and water can take from the dust again those who have faith. It is faith that makes a sacrifice and it is faith that redeems a sacrifice. When the planes, of the yellow hordes came over Pearl Harbor, it was faith that saved mankind. And it was faith …”

  Lowell had stopped listening. If you had asked him suddenly, he would have been able to repeat the last ten words, but it would have taken longer for him to reassemble their meaning. Sitting at the end of the pew, his eyes cast down, he watched the clever play and interplay of his fingers as he moved them, noticing how the stretched tendons raised the veins.

  5.He awoke to reality and the world he lived in to find Tom Wilson pushing into the pew next to him, a red-faced, breathless Wilson, who whispered hoarsely:

  “George, there’s trouble. We had a blowup at the plant.”

  “Plant?”

  “I got to talk to you outside, George.”

  “When it’s over,” Lowell said. “Don’t be a damn fool!”

  There was shushing, a rustle in the row ahead and the row behind. “George,” Lois pleaded.

  “I have to talk to you,” Wilson whispered.

  “It can wait.”

  “It can’t wait. I tell you, there’s hell to pay, George.”

  “I can’t leave now. Don’t be such a damn fool, Wilson. Can’t you understand that I can’t just get up and walk out of here now?”

  “George, I tell you this is a life-and-death thing. Would I come into church like this?” Wilson pleaded. “I’m a church-going man myself. Would I come into church like this?” Wilson took out a handkerchief and wiped his red, perspiring face. He still wore his coat, and he kept kneading the crown of his hat, pushing it gradually out of shape, attacking it with all the fierce nervous energy he could not express in speech. And meanwhile, the sermon went on, the deep, rising, falling cadence of sound. Lowell looked helplessly at his wife, then rose abruptly, pressing Wilson ahead of him, following the plant manager down the nave, through the big oak door, and then down a flight of steps to the men’s room. There, in the spotless white-tile purity, which Lowell himself had installed through a princely gift of ten thousand dollars for fund and repairs and improvements, his anger burst forth:

  “Of all the stupid damn things, Tom, this tops everything!”

  “Please—please, George. Please listen to me, George.”

  “I’m listening. Go ahead.”

  “We had trouble up at the plant. Two people are dead.”

  “What!”

  “That’s right, George,” Wilson nodded miserably, leaning his heavy bulk against a sink. “That’s right, George,” he repeated.

  “How? What happened? Who’s dead—can’t you talk?”

  Wilson shook his head plaintively. “I haven’t stopped, George. I been up half the night, and I just haven’t stopped.”

  “Who’s dead?”

  “A fellow by the name of Jack Lamar—works at the plant, and the lawyer, Max Goldstein.”

  “And this happened at the plant? How, in God’s name—”

  “That’s right. It happened at the plant, George. George, I got to take a leak. You got to forgive me, George, I got to take a leak. I can’t help it, George.…” He shuffled over to the urinal and stood there, while Lowell’s world turned over and over.

  “What happened?” Lowell demanded. “Just tell me what happened.”

  “There was nothing you could do about it, George, it just happened. They got together about two thousand of the workers and people from town and they marched up to the meadow. We knew they were going to do it, and Gelb had our men and Curzon’s men there waiting. Gelb told them to stop short of the trespass signs, but they just kept on coming and pushing back our men, and then about halfway across the meadow some damn fool shoots off his gun and hell breaks loose and the guards went crazy, I guess. Two of Curzon’s men were beat pretty badly and about twenty of the crowd were cut up and shot and—well, two of them died.”

  “What was Goldstein doing there?”

  “He was one of the commies,” Wilson said, his voice strengthening as he turned around and buttoned his fly. “He had no damn business there, George. That fat fool had no damn business there at all, George.”

  Lowell felt sick, tired and weak and outside of the pale of logic. He sat down on a white enamel stool, supporting his head with his hands, trying to understand what happened to him, to his wife, family, possessions, hopes, past and future and dreams when something like this took place. He asked Wilson weakly:

  “Did you see Burton? What does he think? What is the legal side of this?”

  “The first thing I did was to call Burton,” Wilson nodded, gaining assurance from Lowell’s collapse. “I talked to Burton myself on the phone. He says not to worry. He says there isn’t a court in the country that would decide against us. I knew you’d be worried about that, and I pressed him. He said he’ll stake his reputation on it. He said he was going to get through to the governor immediately and let him have the facts firsthand.”

  “I don’t understand about Goldstein—”

  “It happens,” Wilson said. “You got to get a grip on yourself, George. Either we take the offensive and see this thing through, or it’s going to backfire.”

  “This other man?”

  “Lamar’s a k’nuck, worked in the shipping loft. A dirty-tongue troublemaker—”

  “Are any of the others … badly …?”

  “No, no, not at all,” Wilson assured him.

  “Was it Gelb that—?”

  “You can’t blame Gelb,” Wilson said. “So help me, George, I saw the whole thing. Gelb wanted to handle it clean and neat, but those crazy bastards Curzon’s got working for him, they just went crazy.”

  “What do we do now?” Lowell asked dully.

  “Get it in hand. The way Gelb feels, now is the time to get it in hand and pull the loose ends together. That’s one thing you don’t want with something like this—loose ends.”

  “I can’t talk to reporters,” Lowell said hopelessly. “Tom, I want you to see to that. I didn’t even see the thing. I didn’t know. My God, Tom, how in hell could you and Gelb let a thing like that happen? How in God’s name?”

  6.Elliott Abbott had forgotten violence; the nature of violence, like pain, is that transitory, the human system throwing it out of the memory. He had forgotten how it feels to work on one person, with the knifelike and impatient schedule of another and still another prodding him, urging on his fingers. He had forgotten how efficient and quick and anticipatory his wife Ruth could be, moving always one step ahead of his direction, so that if he were to think, forceps, they would be in his hand before the word was fully out, or if he were to mutter, sponge, it was after he had it in his hand and in the wound. In all his life, he had never operated without fear, without the necessity of overcoming fear, yet he had never recognized a companion to that feeling in his wife.

  This time, it was like the fir
st time in Spain, in 1937. The particular thing he had worked out then was the idea of the truck, a big, moving-van type of White truck, fitted out with an operating table, batteries, lights, sterilizing equipment, and all the rest, a rolling, fantastic conglomeration of stuff. He drove it up to the front himself, Ruth sitting next to him and checking a list of supplies, both of them obsessed by the idea that they had forgotten something of essential importance, but he himself aware of a growing fear, a fear that culminated when he began to operate with shells dropping all around the truck. He always felt afterward that only a decent self-respect for what his wife would think of him had carried him through that day, a sensation he had now. But at least he could work and not think and not mourn Max Goldstein, whom he had known all his life, just as he had known Lowell all his life in these quiet and peaceful foothills that had bred them and given them sustenance.

  The most seriously injured, they had put in the union hall, where Abbott did for them until Noska’s fight for the ambulance, which shared the police garage with Curzon’s car, had been won, and they could be transferred to the Clarkton Dispensary. Brady, another of the town’s medical men, finally turned up, but that was not until most of the immediate necessity had been handled. The union hall was bedlam and madness, packed with workers, spectators, newspaper people, hysterical members of the families of the injured, and only Ryan and Renoir and big Sam Saropoles and a handful of others to fight for order and a sense of organization. Ryan and Tony Antonini and a huge Swede called Jorgensson blocked off the main meeting hall and made beds out of the planked picnic tables. Mike Sawyer had driven back in Ryan’s little Ford for supplies, and somehow he had turned up Bitterman, the pharmacist, so that there was no shortage of bandages or drugs. So by the time Brady arrived, almost an hour after the thing happened, Abbott had the worst wounds dressed and those who were in pain made comfortable, and a little while later Noska pushed through, followed by the stretcher-bearers from the ambulance, and they took out Lance Fragetti, who was shot in the groin, and Martha Bruckman, who had a bad compound fracture of the arm.