Onyx

by Briskin, Jacqueline;

  Hugh had no time for outrage. Only fear for his brother. He called the Farm but Tom continued to refuse his calls, so it was into Maud’s large, flat ear that he poured his dreads.

  “Maud, you can’t let him go into that mob.”

  “I’ve warned him, don’t think I haven’t.” Maud’s frank voice was loud. “But you know Tom when his mind’s made up.”

  “He’s been secluded on the Farm. He doesn’t know how things are. The men have turned into animals. Who can tell what will happen up there tomorrow?”

  Maud sighed. “Sometimes I don’t understand him. Here all along he’s taken a firm hand, and now to give in? I don’t understand.”

  “You’re full of good common sense, Maud. Try to make him listen.”

  At the dinner table Maud catalogued her own honest qualms as well as Hugh’s alarums. Tom, leaving his pecan pie untouched, escaped to his bedroom.

  How strange it was that nobody recognized his happiness. What was the matter with Caryll, usually so perceptive, that he didn’t see that he had snapped out of the antipodean desolation of the past years and the acute misery of the last two weeks, into joy so crazy that he wanted to dance? Shaking his head and laughing aloud, Tom did exactly that on the bedside rug, springing from side to side in a wild little jig.

  IX

  At this same evening hour Hugh was pacing up and down the length of his office, his breath wheezing through his lips. When he had told Maud that the strikers were animals, he had meant it quite literally: in his isolation he had formed distorted images of humanity, and he indeed visualized the strikers as dark, Neanderthal creatures with vulpine teeth. Tomorrow this subhuman horde would surround the one person on this earth whom he truly loved.

  That Bolshie bastard, he thought, raging at his once equally beloved nephew as he cudgeled his brain for further means of protecting Tom. Already he had called his due bills from Mayor Murphy and Police Chief Arden so that the entire force would be out. He was paying hundreds of off-duty officers from his own pocket. He had hired Captain Nugent, owner of the Nugent Chemical Company, the Midwest’s largest manufacturer of gas bombs, to keep watch on Archibald Avenue.

  A loud rap sounded on the door. “It’s me, Keeley.”

  Hugh dived for his Elizabethan desk, opening its single narrow drawer and removing his white china asthma pipe. He sucked once, hastily replaced the inhaler, then called, “You’re a little early, but come on in.” And as Dickson Keeley entered he said, “Well, what about tomorrow? Tell me the arrangements.”

  The Security chief explained his deployments, then outlined his selection of his two most trusted hirelings to accompany Tom—he himself would be the third man.

  “The main thing is to avoid disturbances while my brother’s on the overpass,” Hugh said.

  “They’re an ugly crew, the strikers.”

  “Get enough men in the crowd to prevent trouble,” Hugh said, his voice high.

  “I’ll have over four thousand.”

  “With the police and gas squad, that should do it,” Hugh said uncertainly.

  “If they came up with this new kind of strike, who knows what else they have up their sleeves? There are no guarantees. What’s eating the Boss? There’s no reason for him to throw in the towel.”

  “You have one concern, to see that nothing happens to him.”

  “He should stick to his guns. A couple more weeks and this lousy union’d be starved out for good.”

  Hugh’s sentiments exactly. “I’m counting on you tomorrow,” he said, standing. A dismissal.

  Dickson Keeley remained in his chair. He straightened his heavily exercised shoulders. “The strikers hate my guts. When Hutchinson hammers out the clauses, my department’ll take every rap. And so will I.”

  “Whatever’s negotiated, you’ll still have a job.”

  “At Woodland?”

  “I don’t honestly know. Maybe not.”

  “Then I’m about to be dumped?”

  “We’ll still need you.”

  “Doing what? Nursemaiding the wives and kiddies? Listening at keyholes for you?”

  Hugh, in his anxiety, was not politic. “If that’s how you want to put it, yes. But your salary’ll stay the same. And if my brother’s safe tomorrow, there’ll be a big bonus.” Hugh went to the door, opening it. “Have your men at the Farm by ten tomorrow morning.”

  Dickson Keeley, having just been informed his wide-reaching power had in all probability ended, raised his square chin. His face seemed thicker. He had never been subservient, but his exit was worthy of a deposed Nero.

  Hugh was too worried about Tom to notice that his hound had slipped the traces. He went back to pacing.

  CHAPTER 30

  Before it was light Mitch and the bear-shaped Zawitsky emerged from the house—they were on their way to hire the sound truck. Mitch paused on the top step. “Security has its hands full today, Elisse, but take care.”

  “Not to worry. Nobody gets in.”

  “You’ll be at the overpass steps before twelve, right?”

  “I just might be passing by.”

  The laconic remark that Tom Bridger had made over the telephone to Elisse had overnight become a victorious catchphrase to the AAW. Mitch gave one of his deep, rare laughs. “See you there,” he said. “Bye, now.”

  There seemed to be a natural conspiracy to make her late.

  An operator rang to tell her that a call had been placed from Los Angeles. As Elisse vacuumed and polished for the well-wishers, strike captains, and committee chairmen who would most certainly stream by this afternoon to see Justin, she was dreaming up casually offhanded ways to inform her parents, Ben, even the baby, that soon, soon, they would be home. Her felicitous mood was a fusion of victory, Justin’s homecoming and yesterday’s unexpected bolt of silken joy. Of course she was delirious! Hadn’t she halfmaddened herself with agonizing prognostications about the permanent loss of passion? And now her fears were ended. Yesterday the old sexy E. Hutchinson had returned. The morning fled on a high tide of happy woolgathering, and then suddenly it was fifteen after eleven. She had originally planned to leave at eleven. She dialed O. The long distance lines, the operator told her, were still tied up.

  Impatience attacked her.

  Pulling on her blue felt hat without so much as a glance at the mirror, yanking on her coat—the rayon lining was shredded by yesterday’s pins—forgetting to lock the front door, she dashed the four long blocks to the trolley stop.

  It was a chill, still morning with an odd white sky, high cirrus clouds sifting the sun’s rays so that no shadows fell on the meanness of Woodland Park. When at last the trolley clattered along, there were no seats. Standing, Elisse drummed her fingers restlessly on the pole as they inched through heavy traffic, and as the jam-up halted the tram altogether she jumped out.

  Police manned barricades at Jefferson.

  The pedestrians on the broad street, empty of traffic, moved toward Woodland with a holiday effervescence. Families with skipping children, a line of YCL kids laughing arm in arm, the boys with red kerchiefs instead of ties, the girls sporting red berets, a vendor pushing a hot-dog cart, groups of Brothers proudly, openly wearing AAW badges—some waved to her. She circled three bulky women shouldering homemade placards: LADIES HATMAKERS LOCAL 168 SALUTES AAW.

  Damn, damn, she thought, regretting that she hadn’t allowed herself more time, that she had stood around waiting for that call.

  Racing along, she charged herself with gross and consistent foolishness. Oh, sure, she was bookishly clever, she had a Phi Beta Kappa key to prove that, but when it came to making decisions, minor or major, logic deserted her and she became a morass of pure emotion. She raised her eyes. Dimensionless against the queer, uncolored sky rose the blackened spires of Tom Bridger’s kingdom. Yesterday the flat voice she had heard often on the radio had been traced with wit and deviltry, and she had succumbed to a sort of comradeship. Her emotions so ruled her, her brain was so soggy that she couldn’t
even maintain a rational hatred of the father who had denied Justin!

  A rumbling filled her ears, a sound like the Pacific surf, and at first she assumed it the result of running so hard, but then she realized she was hearing the roar of a multitude. Holding a hand to her coat over her prancing heart, she galloped faster.

  II

  They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn.

  But without our brawn and muscle, not a single wheel would turn.

  Caryll could not make out the words, but he recognized the distorted notes of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” above the multithroated roar that seeped through the closed windows of the inching Swallow. Plainclothes Security were jammed into the two long cars behind, and a cordon of police insulated all three cars. Ahead, a squad of mounted police formed a path through the mob.

  Caryll’s neck tendons showed like cables. He resented his fear and could not control it.

  “The gang’s all here,” Tom said.

  His father’s good humor boggled Caryll. “I never guessed it’d be this thick.”

  “Lieutenant Eastlake estimates over half a million.” Tom craned around, looking out the windows with that childlike, innocent eagerness he exhibited at an auto show.

  “Looks like more.”

  “Probably less,” Tom retorted. “The law counts in large numbers. The bigger the mob, the more indispensable the cops prove they are.”

  “How did so many people hear? It wasn’t in the early editions.”

  “Papers, hell. When you’re poor, you don’t take a paper. It was on the radio.”

  “How did they get here? Most of the poor devils look like they don’t have tram fare.”

  Laughing, Tom slapped his calf. “Shanks’ mare.”

  Caryll frowned fiercely. “Dad. I’m coming on the overpass with you.”

  “That’s not according to plan.”

  “Justin’s my brother-in-law. You’ll be safer with me there.”

  “Hugh’s got everything set. Public Relations is his department.” Tom was grinning. “Ours not to reason why, ours but to do or die.”

  Caryll winced.

  “Relax, relax. All I’m going to do is shake hands with Justin.”

  “Don’t stay up there a second longer than you have to.”

  The police were wheeling back a cotton-candy wagon, and the swarm of kids peered into the car. Tom waved. “Quit stewing, Caryll. It’s carnival day. How’s that time?”

  Caryll glanced at his gold Patek Philippe wristwatch. “Ten to.”

  Tom slapped his son’s kneecap lightly. “Smile,” he said.

  III

  We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn

  That the union makes us strong.

  The labor hymn crested above the crowd-roar that swept through the empty yards to where Justin and Coleman waited out of sight.

  “Will you listen to that singin’,” Coleman said. The mountain boy’s large ears were red.

  “There’s a sound truck,” Justin said, staring at his old Bulova.

  “You don’t think it’ll set them boilin’ mad, me taggin’ along?”

  Last night two warmly dressed members of the National Labor Relations Board had been admitted to Woodland: they had informed the sit-downers of Tom Bridger’s agreement to the preliminary demands of the AAW strike board. After the bundled Washingtonians departed and the cheering stopped, the strikers voted that another man accompany Justin to the foot of the overpass: the sit-down would continue until the negotiating ended, but Justin would remain outside to be at the sessions, so Coleman was needed to bring back the straight dope on the meeting with Tom Bridger—what union man in his right mind would trust the radio news?

  “Not at all,” Justin said automatically. About to be thrust into Tom’s presence for the first time since that disownment, he was in turmoil. Through his distraught brain, over and over droned lines from Byron that he had memorized his last term at Eddington: Yet in my lineaments they trace/ Some features of my father’s face.

  “Sure I won’t make no problems?”

  “Positive. Come along. It’s time.”

  They traversed the windowed half mile of the Main Assembly, arriving at the broad yard where the dusty new Sevens had been deserted alongside half-loaded freight cars. From this point they were visible to some of the multitude on Archibald Avenue. Heads pressed expectantly against the chain link fence, and at their appearance several boys clambered up, violently waving small American flags. Police, whistles in their mouths, tussled to pull down the boys, good-natured rather than angered.

  “Prof, will you look at that mob, will you just look at it!”

  Justin scanned the empty overpass, then the rooftops of gimcrack diners and beer joints. He saw the khaki forage caps of Security behind the glint of machine-gun muzzles.

  “Come on,” he said grimly.

  The two tall men fell into step, marching in time to the deliriously shrilling voices:

  Solidarity forever,

  Solidarity forever,

  Solidarity forever,

  And the union makes us strong.

  They halted at the foot of the metal steps, and Justin again stared at his watch, waiting for its two hands to be joined. I’ll be facing Tom in three minutes, he thought. His heart pounded erratically. Closing his eyes, he calmed himself by conjuring up Elisse, her pretty and mocking smile, her small, trim body and good legs.

  Precisely at noon he planted his foot on a metal step, and as he climbed he took in the magnitude of the tight-packed throng with its wildly waving hats, flags, placards. From the mighty river of people rose a near visible spume of energy. He had been on leave in Paris on Armistice Day, and the crush around the Arc de Triomphe had nothing on Archibald Avenue, Detroit, Michigan. He spotted news photographers balanced on the top of a stranded streetcar or clinging to lampposts.

  Reaching the first landing, he saw Tom.

  Tom, trotting up the steps closely trailed by three men. The muscular one in a navy suit and homburg was Dickson Keeley.

  Justin’s eyes went a little out of focus, and a rush of bewilderment dizzied him. He felt this juvenile shock each time anyone breached his code of honor. Grow up, grow up, he thought. Turning, he bent his head, cupping both hands to shout, “Coleman. Come on up!”

  Coleman held out his earlobes to indicate that he had not heard.

  Justin commanded with a sweeping incurve of his arm.

  Coleman started upward. Seeing the men on the landing, he lunged up to Justin. “Them damn scalawags! And me afret about watchin’ from the bottom!”

  Both parties reached the top step at the same time.

  With a barring gesture to his three companions, Tom continued alone across the overpass. Coleman, too, hung back, his blond-fuzzed face stern as he gazed straight ahead, a sentry on duty.

  Tom saw Justin’s thick-soled boots, plaid lumber jacket. Workmen’s clothes. Gray hair, premature like mine. Then he was drinking in the arched, narrow nose, the finely delineated mouth, haunting reminders of his dead love. The years had broadened Justin and enhanced the strong, calm presence.

  Justin saw Tom’s lithe, lean body, the windblown white hair. The gray eyes were darker because the lids were hooded, and new lines grooved the cheeks. He looks so much older … had that heart attack taken a huge toll or was it simply the normal erosion of a decade?

  Neither man could gauge how the thumb of time had modeled their resemblance.

  Taking a breath, Tom called, “Justin.”

  Justin, having never anticipated this shambles of pity and love, was flung into a momentary vacuum. He took another step so that they were close enough to feel the warmth of each other’s breath. Swallowing thickly, he said, “Tom, how have you been? I heard you weren’t well.”

  “The old ticker acted up years ago. But since then”—Tom patted the general area of his heart—“fit as a fiddle. And you?”

  Justin nodded gravely, unwilling to
trust his voice.

  “You look fine,” Tom said. “The rewards of a happily married life. I spoke to your wife last night.”

  At the mention of Elisse, Justin was drained of loving compassion. He was remembering the general rottenness of their last meeting, the barefaced lying denial, that vituperative bigotry. He said tersely, “What are they doing here? We were meant to be alone.”

  “What are you talking about, Justin? Caryll told your wife there’d be others, I heard him.” He added something, from his grin a jocular aside.

  Justin could not comprehend the words, partly because of the roaring, screaming crowd, and also because of the blood thundering in his ears. His legs were trembling. “Elisse doesn’t lie.”

  “I didn’t mean that. Listen, I want to meet her—”

  “That’s a detail she’d hardly neglect to mention.”

  “What the hell difference do they make?”

  “If you’d worked on the line, you wouldn’t ask. Since I came back to Woodland, Security’s put a couple of hundred union men in the hospital. Four so badly roughed up that they died. Keeley’s a murderer. He belongs in jail. He’s the last man you should have invited along if it’s goodwill you’re after.”

  “It was your union’s idea that we shake in public,” Tom said dryly.

  Justin drew a breath against the blackness heaving up inside him. How was it that either he was overwhelmed by that old awed love or in an ungovernable rage? Why couldn’t he face Tom—particularly on this mission—with the semblance of calm that he would have displayed to any other man? “Right,” he said.

  “Word is you have two kids.” A loud cheering drowned out the rest of Tom’s remark. “… swell gal, your wife, Caryll says.”

  “Tom, you have me in a bind, but I’d prefer we keep this impersonal.”

  The gray eyes glinted. “You’re Zoe’s brother,” he said. “One of the family.”