by Amor Towles
—We’re headed out tomorrow.
—All right then. After we get you cleaned up, I’ll take a ride over to the Snyders’ and make sure they keep out of your way in the interim. While I’m at it, are there any other people who’ve been giving you trouble?
Emmett rolled down his window and tossed out the cigarette.
—Mostly, he said, what people have been giving me is advice.
Duchess
Whenever I come to a new town, I like to get my bearings. I want to understand the layout of the streets and the layout of the people. In some cities this can take you days to accomplish. In Boston, it can take you weeks. In New York, years. The great thing about Morgen, Nebraska, is it only took a few minutes.
The town was laid out in a geometric grid with the courthouse right in the middle. According to the mechanic who’d given me a lift in his tow truck, back in the 1880s the town elders spent a whole week deliberating how best to christen the streets before deciding—with an eye to the future—that the east-west streets would be named for presidents and the north-south streets for trees. As it turned out, they could have settled on seasons and suits because seventy-five years later the town was still only four blocks square.
—Howdy, I said to the two ladies coming in the opposite direction, neither of whom said howdy back.
Now, don’t get me wrong. There’s a certain charm to a town like this. And there’s a certain kind of person who would rather live here than anywhere else—even in the twentieth century. Like a person who wants to make some sense of the world. Living in the big city, rushing around amid all that hammering and clamoring, the events of life can begin to seem random. But in a town this size, when a piano falls out of a window and lands on a fellow’s head, there’s a good chance you’ll know why he deserved it.
At any rate, Morgen was the sort of town where when something out of the ordinary happens, a crowd is likely to gather. And sure enough, when I came around the courthouse, there was a semicircle of citizens ready to prove the point. From fifty feet away I could tell they were a representative sample of the local electorate. There were hayseeds in hats, dowagers with handbags, and lads in dungarees. Fast approaching was even a mother with a stroller and a toddler at her side.
Tossing the rest of my ice cream cone in the trash, I walked over to get a closer look. And who did I find at center stage? None other than Emmett Watson—being taunted by some corn-fed kid with a corn-fed grievance.
The people who had gathered to watch seemed excited, at least in a midwestern sort of way. They weren’t shouting or grinning, but they were glad to have happened along at just the right moment. It would be something they could talk about in the barbershop and hair salon for weeks to come.
For his part, Emmett looked fantastic. He was standing with his eyes open and his arms at his sides, neither eager to be there nor in a hurry to leave. It was the taunter who looked anxious. He was shifting back and forth and sweating through his shirt, despite the fact that he’d brought along two cronies to back him up.
—Jake, I don’t want any trouble, Emmett was saying. I just want to get in my car and go home.
—I can’t let you do that, replied Jake, though it looked like that’s exactly what he wanted Emmett to do.
Then one of the wingmen—the tall one in the cowboy hat—tossed in his two cents.
—Seems like Jake here’s got some unfinished business with you, Watson.
I had never seen this cowboy before, but from the tilt of his hat and the smile on his face, I knew exactly who he was. He was the guy who’s started a thousand fights without ever throwing a punch.
So what did Emmett do? Did he let the cowboy unsettle him? Did he tell him to shut up and mind his own business? He didn’t even deign to respond. He just turned to Jake and said:
—If we’ve got unfinished business, let’s finish it.
Pow!
If we’ve got unfinished business, let’s finish it.
You could wait your whole life to say a sentence like that and not have the presence of mind to say it when the time comes. That sort of level-headedness isn’t the product of upbringing or practice. You’re either born with it or you’re not. And mostly, you’re not.
But here comes the best part.
It turned out that this Jake was the brother of the Snyder kid whom Emmett put out of commission back in 1952. I could tell because he started talking some nonsense about how Jimmy had been sucker-punched, as if Emmett Watson would ever stoop to hitting a man with his guard down.
When the prodding didn’t work, Mr. Fair Fight here looked off in the distance as if he were lost in thought, then, without any warning, hit Emmett in the face. After stumbling to his right, Emmett shook off the blow, straightened up, and started moving back in Jake’s direction.
Here we go is what everybody in the crowd was thinking. Because Emmett could clearly beat this guy to a pulp, even if he was ten pounds lighter and two inches shorter. But much to the crowd’s dismay, Emmett didn’t keep coming. He stopped on the very spot where he’d been standing the moment before.
Which really got to Jake. His face turned as red as his union suit, and he started yelling that Emmett should raise his fists. So Emmett raised them, more or less, and Jake took another crack at it. This time, he hit Emmett right in the kisser. Emmett stumbled again, but didn’t topple. Bleeding from the lip, he regained his footing and came back for another helping.
Meanwhile, the cowboy—who was still leaning dismissively on the door of Emmett’s car—shouted, You show him, Jake, as if Jake were about to teach Emmett a lesson. But the cowboy had it upside down. It was Emmett who was teaching the lesson.
Alan Ladd in Shane.
Frank Sinatra in From Here to Eternity.
Lee Marvin in The Wild One.
You know what these three have in common? They all took a beating. I don’t mean getting a pop in the nose or having the wind knocked out of them. I mean a beating. Where their ears rang, and their eyes watered, and they could taste the blood on their teeth. Ladd took his at Grafton’s Saloon from Ryker’s boys. Sinatra took his in the stockade from Sergeant Fatso. And Marvin, he took his at the hands of Marlon Brando in the street of a little American town just like this one, with another crowd of honest citizens gathered around to watch.
The willingness to take a beating: That’s how you can tell you’re dealing with a man of substance. A man like that doesn’t linger on the sidelines throwing gasoline on someone else’s fire; and he doesn’t go home unscathed. He presents himself front and center, undaunted, prepared to stand his ground until he can’t stand at all.
It was Emmett who was teaching the lesson, all right. And he wasn’t just teaching it to Jake. He was teaching it to the whole goddamn town.
Not that they understood what they were looking at. You could tell by the expressions on their faces that the whole point of the instruction was going right over their heads.
Jake, who was beginning to tremble, was probably thinking that he couldn’t keep it up much longer. So this time, he tried to make it count. Finally getting his aim and his anger into alignment, he let one loose that knocked Emmett clear off his feet.
The whole crowd gave a little gasp, Jake breathed a sigh of relief, and the cowboy let out a snicker of satisfaction, like he was the one who’d thrown the punch. Then Emmett started getting up again.
Man, I wish I’d had a camera. I could’ve taken a picture and sent it to Life magazine. They would’ve put it on the cover.
It was beautiful, I tell you. But it was too much for Jake. Looking like he might burst into tears, he stepped forward and began shouting at Emmett that he should not get up. That he should not get up, so help him God.
I don’t know if Emmett even heard him, given that his senses were probably rattled. Though whether he heard Jake or not didn’t make much difference. He was going to do
the same thing either way. Stepping a little uncertainly, he moved back within range, stood to his full height, and raised his fists. Then the blood must have rushed from his head because he staggered and fell to the ground.
Seeing Emmett on his knees was an unwelcome sight, but it didn’t worry me. He just needed a moment to gather his wits so he could get up and return to the hitting spot. That he would do so was as certain as sunrise. But before he got the chance, the sheriff spoiled the show.
—That’s enough, he said, pushing his way through the gawkers. That’s enough.
At the sheriff’s instruction, a deputy began dispersing the crowd, waving his arms and telling everyone it was time to move along. But there was no need for the deputy to disperse the cowboy. Because the cowboy had dispersed himself. The second the authorities appeared on the scene, he had lowered the brim of his hat and started ambling around the courthouse like he was headed to the hardware store for a can of paint.
I ambled after him.
When the cowboy reached the other side of the building, he crossed one of the presidents and headed up a tree. So eager was he to put some distance between himself and his handiwork, he walked right past an old lady with a cane who was trying to put a grocery bag in the back of her Model T.
—Here you go, ma’am, I said.
—Thank you, young man.
By the time granny was climbing behind the wheel, the cowboy was half a block ahead of me. When he took a right down the alley beyond the movie theater, I actually had to run to catch up, despite the fact that running is something I generally avoid on principle.
* * *
• • •
Now, before I tell you what happened next, I think I should give you a little context by taking you back to when I was about nine and living in Lewis.
When my old man dropped me off at St. Nicholas’s Home for Boys, the nun in charge was a woman of certain opinions and uncertain age named Sister Agnes. It stands to reason that a strong-minded woman who finds herself in an evangelical profession with a captive audience would be likely to avail herself of every opportunity to share her point of view. But not Sister Agnes. Like a seasoned performer, she knew how to choose her moments. She could make an unobtrusive entrance, remain at the back of the stage, wait until everyone had delivered their lines, then steal the show with five minutes in the spotlight.
Her favorite time to impart her wisdom was just before bed. Coming into the dormitory, she would quietly watch as the other sisters scurried about in their habits instructing one kid to fold his clothes, another to wash his face, and everyone to say their prayers. Then when we had all climbed under the covers, Sister Agnes would pull up a chair and deliver her lesson. As you might imagine, Sister Agnes was partial to a biblical grammar, but she spoke with such a sympathetic inflection that her words would silence the intermittent chatter and linger in our ears long after the lights were out.
One of her favorite lessons was something she referred to as the Chains of Wrongdoing. Boys, she would begin in her motherly way, in your time you shall do wrong unto others and others shall do wrong unto you. And these opposing wrongs will become your chains. The wrongs you have done unto others will be bound to you in the form of guilt, and the wrongs that others have done unto you in the form of indignation. The teachings of Jesus Christ Our Savior are there to free you from both. To free you from your guilt through atonement and from your indignation through forgiveness. Only once you have freed yourself from both of these chains may you begin to live your life with love in your heart and serenity in your step.
At the time, I didn’t understand what she was talking about. I didn’t understand how your movements could be hampered by a little wrongdoing, since in my experience those who were prone to wrongdoing were always the first ones out the door. I didn’t understand why when someone had done wrong unto you, you had to carry a burden on their behalf. And I certainly didn’t understand what it meant to have serenity in your step. But as Sister Agnes also liked to say: What wisdom the Lord does not see fit to endow us with at birth, He provides through the gift of experience. And sure enough, as I grew older, experience began to make some sense of Sister Agnes’s sermon.
Like when I first arrived at Salina.
It was the month of August, when the air was warm, the days were long, and the first crop of potatoes had to be dug from the earth. Old Testament Ackerly would have us working from dawn till dusk, such that when dinner was over, the only thing we wanted was a good night’s sleep. And yet, once the lights were out, I would often find myself stewing over how I’d come to be at Salina in the first place, reviewing every bitter detail until the rooster crowed. On other nights, I would imagine being called to the warden’s office, where he would solemnly deliver the news of a car crash or a hotel fire in which my old man had lost his life. And while such visions would appease for the moment, they would badger me for the rest of the night with a sense of shameful remorse. So there they were: indignation and guilt. Two contradictory forces so sure to confound, I resigned myself to the possibility I might never sleep soundly again.
But when Warden Williams took over for Ackerly and initiated his era of reform, he instituted a program of afternoon classes designed to prepare us for lives of upright citizenship. To that end, he had a civics teacher come talk about the three branches of government. He had a selectman instruct us on the scourge of Communism and the importance of every man’s vote. Pretty soon, we were all wishing we could get back to the potato fields.
Then a few months ago, he arranged to have a certified public accountant explain the basics of personal finance. After describing the interplay between assets and liabilities, this CPA approached the chalkboard and in a few quick strokes demonstrated the balancing of accounts. And right then, while sitting in the back row of that hot little classroom, I finally understood what Sister Agnes had been talking about.
In the course of our lives, she had said, we may do wrong unto others and others may do wrong unto us, resulting in the aforementioned chains. But another way to express the same idea was that through our misdeeds we put ourselves in another person’s debt, just as through their misdeeds they put themselves in ours. And since it’s these debts—those we’ve incurred and those we’re owed—that keep us stirring and stewing in the early hours, the only way to get a good night’s sleep is to balance the accounts.
Emmett wasn’t much better than me at listening in class, but he didn’t need to pay heed to this particular lesson. He had learned it long before coming to Salina. He had learned it firsthand by growing up under the shadow of his father’s failure. That’s why he signed those foreclosure papers without a second thought. That’s why he wouldn’t accept the loan from Mr. Ransom or the china from the bottom of the cabinet. And that’s why he was perfectly happy to take the beating.
Just like the cowboy said, Jake and Emmett had some unfinished business. Regardless of who had been provoked by who, or whom by whom, when Emmett hit the Snyder kid at the county fair, he took on a debt just as surely as his father had when he had mortgaged the family farm. And from that day forward, it hung over Emmett’s head—keeping him up at night—until he satisfied the debt at the hands of his creditor and before the eyes of his fellow men.
But if Emmett had a debt to repay to Jake Snyder, he didn’t owe a goddamn thing to the cowboy. Not a shekel, not a drachma, not one red cent.
—Hey, Tex, I called as I jogged after him. Hold up!
The cowboy turned and looked me over.
—Do I know you?
—You know me not, sir.
—Then what do you want?
I held up my hand to catch my breath before I replied.
—Back there at the courthouse, you suggested that your friend Jake had some unfinished business with my friend Emmett. For what it’s worth, I think I could just as easily argue that it was Emmett who had unfinished business with Jake. But ei
ther way, whether Jake had the business with Emmett or Emmett had the business with Jake, I think we can both agree it was no business of yours.
—Buddy, I don’t know what you’re talking about.
I tried to be more clear.
—What I’m saying is that even though Jake may have had good reason to give Emmett a beating, and Emmett may have had good reason to take one, you had no cause for all that goading and gloating. Given time, I suspect you’ll come to regret the role you played in today’s events, and you’ll find yourself wishing you could make amends—for your own peace of mind. But since Emmett’s leaving town tomorrow, by then it’ll be too late.
—You know what I suspect, said the cowboy. I suspect you can go fuck yourself.
Then he turned and began walking away. Just like that. Without even saying goodbye.
I admit, I felt a little deflated. I mean, here I was trying to help a stranger understand a burden of his own making, and he gives me the back of his shirt. It’s the sort of reception that could turn you off charitable acts forever. But another of Sister Agnes’s lessons was that when one is doing the work of the Lord, one should be willing to have patience. For just as surely as the righteous will meet setbacks on the road to justice, the Lord will provide them the means to prevail.
And lo and behold, what suddenly appeareth before me but the movie theater’s dumpster filled to the brim with the previous night’s trash. And poking out from among the Coca-Cola bottles and popcorn boxes was a two-foot length of two-by-four.
—Hey! I called once more while skipping down the alley. Hold on a second!
The cowboy turned on his heels and from the look on his face I could tell that he had something priceless to say, something that was likely to bring smiles to the faces of all the boys at the bar. But I guess we’ll never know, because I hit him before he could speak.
The blow was a good crack along the left side of his head. His hat, which went lofting in the air, did a somersault before alighting on the other side of the alley. He dropped right where he’d been standing like a marionette whose strings have been cut.
