“Charlie's okay. He'll make out.”
“Yeah, Sal, that's what I'm afraid of. Anyhow, he finally admitted there was worse food in the world than his old lady's cooking.”
“That's a helluva grand thing to say. I suppose Etta loved that, being compared to theâ”
“Shit,” Vince laughed, “she bawled like a baby. And now she don't talk about nothing except Easter.”
Etta brought them out a couple beers and joked about them being loafers and they both ought to break their necks instead of only their arms. Sal kidded back it was anyways better than breaking the old universal digitary, wasn't it? and Etta went back in laughing her big laugh.
Then, over the beers, he and Sal started chewing over the old days, about how it was to be an immigrant kid in a place so loose and without any history, about the almost daily fights with the Polacks and hillbillies and Croats, nobody understanding anybody else, about how the old folks were always saving up to beat it back to the old country, how really it kind of scared them over here sometimes, and about how the Klan started up when they were just kids, he and Sal, and all that rum and Romanism crap and the stinkbombs they set off in the church.
Sal related again how his old man came out of a tavern one night and ran into a whole goddamn mob of hillbilly Americans fitted out like spooks, and how they took him out to a tree and said they were by God going to string him up, and they even tossed a rope over a branch before they finally let the poor guy go. The hillbillies stripped him and chased him bare-ass down Main Street with firecrackers and shotguns, a real goddamn party. And then Vince told Sal again how he and Angie Moroni and Bert Morani stood off seven goddamn sonsabitches out back of the high school one night after football practice, and how Bert got clobbered with a piece of lead pipe and died. “Jesus, Sal!” Vince said. “I'm the only one left!” The idea sent a windy chill through him and called up again the specter of the black hand.
Sal started in then on how it was down in the mines in the old days, about the crazy things he and Ange and Vince used to do down in those gassy deathtraps, not an ounce of goddamn sense, and so on. He and Sal had talked about these things hundreds of times, so now Vince just sort of tuned out. He sat there on the soft earth in front of his car, his back to the front fender, sipping the cool beer, smoking the cigar, feeling a little drowsy in the noonhigh sun, staring up at the front of his house. Bright yellow here on the front side, sun beating off it, ground out front turned over, the little picket fence, white and cheerful.
“You know, Sal,” Vince cut in suddenly. “I'm just for the first time in my goddamn useless life getting to feel like I live here!”
Sal stared up at the house too then. “It sure has took us a long time to come home, Vince.”
They sat there staring awhile, finishing the beer, and listening to the sparrows fussing over their heads. Finally, they stood, shook left hands on account of Sal's fractured right, and Sal walked off, both of them saying they sure were damned glad they had had this talk, and how things were bound to work out for them in the end.
But then, goddamn it, the next afternoon he stopped by the garage where Guido Mello and Lem Filbert were working, and he got depressed again! Lem had got out of the mine just in time, and the only occasion he'd gone back down was to help with rescue parties in January. He'd come on his brother Tuck pasted up against the roof by a buggy, split clean in two, and since then he couldn't talk enough about what a rotten job coalmining was, and how any man had to be a fucking idiot to go down in one of them fucking holes just so some fucking out-of-town rich bastard out in the East could live it up on fucking twenty-dollar dinners and hundred-dollar whores. Sure made a man feel pretty sick of being what he was, okay. Vince told Guido and Lem that he for one had seen his last of it, he was through. Lem said that at last he was getting some fucking sense, and Vince went away from there feeling just pretty miserable, because he knew it was all a goddamn lie. Lem and Guido were just young guys, hardly in their thirties, they didn't know what it meant.
He tried to explain it to Wanda that night, it being one of their Tuesdays, but it was useless. As always. It really burned Vince how he had felt such a tremendous goddamn sympathy for her after the disaster, helped her all he possibly could, even gave her a little money now and then that he couldn't afford, listened respectfully to her problemsâmainly that: at least he
listened
to herâand now, when
he
was having problems, all she could find to yap about was talking with spooks and having wienie roasts out on some goddamn hill and building up that nut Bruno like he was a goddamn saint or something. Vince was almost positive that bastard was getting into her now. Boy, it really pissed him off!
There he was, the whole stupid scene: stretched out chilly bare-ass on her lumpy bed in that drafty dusty shanty, still sweaty from just having made it with her, feeling so miserable he thought he was for Christ sake going to cryâand all she could find to say was, “Y'know, Vince hon, what if Lee's right here in the room with us now, lookin' on, whaddaya think he's thinkin'?”
“Oh Jesus GOD!”
Vince roared. He shoved her away, sat up abruptly on the edge of the bed, began pulling on his undershirt. “He's probably thinking what a goddamn idiot you are to be screwing around with those lunatics!” he cried.
That woke up the baby in the crib and it started raising a ruckus. âNow look whatcha went and done!” whined Wanda. She sat up and her poochy belly wrinkled up like a washboard. She sure had one baggy stomach for such a skinny little girl, Vince thought angrily. The brat's screams were getting on his goddamn nerves. He kept imagining neighbors busting in on them, subject of a number of nightmares he'd had since this thing got started. He stamped over, shook the crib. It howled worse. The three-year-old appeared in the doorway. “Now, Davey, you git back in bed, y'hear? It's late,” said Wanda, pulling the sheet over her belly, but letting her tits dangle. The kid stared hard at Vince's crotch. “Least ye could do,” Wanda complained, “is put your pants on.”
“Yeah, it sure is!” said Vince. He turned his ass to the kid's dogged stare and pulled on his shorts. This was it, man, he'd had enough.
“Now, Davey, I'm tellin' ya, git back tuh bed or Mommy's gonna paddle, y'hear?” She had to talk loud over the baby's squall. Jesus God, what am I
doing
here? Vince asked himself, buttoning up his shirt, confronted by his own utterly unreal image in the bureau mirror. He could see in the mirror that the boy hadn't moved, was still staring at him. The kid always had a lot of bruises lately, Vince noticed. Wanda probably really belted him around. “I dunno what I'm gonna do with that boy,” she complained, apparently to Vince. “He needs him a daddy to teach him some manners now, I declare.”
The next day being rocker weather, that was how Vince spent it. Out on the front porch, rocking slowly back and forth, thinking about that hand and feeling sorry for himself. Didn't even feel like going on with the painting. Sorry he had left Wanda in such a bluster. Sorry he was an old granddad with all his kids scattered. Sorry he was so fucking poor he couldn't even buy a bucket of paint without going into debtâ No matter how they tried to cover it up, by God, the big guys still made all the dough, the little bastards knocked themselves out to get enough to pay their taxes, it was the goddamn truth. The Constitution was okay, or the Declaration of Independence, whichever it was, but goddamn it, it just wasn't getting understood proper! That was it. If the people knew what was there and used it right, those big sonsabitches would get sat on mighty damn quick. Vince thought of becoming a congressman and changing a few things, by God, or a senator or governor or something, voice of the working-man, nothing for himself, just see to it for the first time in world history that everybody got a fair shake.
So that was what he was doing, rocking there in the spring, the twenty-fifth day of March, contemplating how he'd straighten things out once he was governor, how they'd cheer, when Ted Cavanaugh's big Lincoln swung up at the curb. Ted got out, waved. Vince returned it, said to come on up, and he stretched out of the rocker to greet him, remembering then that Ted had said he might drop by this week. Ted was a rich bastard, but a good guy. They'd played football together back in high school, Vince was left tackle, Ted the best goddamn fullback in all football history. They were a real team, Ted always ran his offtackle play, the play that made him famous, over Vince: helluva great combination. Even though Ted later became a big name up at State, while Vince went anonymously down into the mines, they had always stayed friendly, calling each other by first names and talking casually when they ran into each other on street corners. In bad times, Ted had always seen Vince through on house payments and the like. He was still a powerfully built man, though his hair was thin and white on his big skull now, and there was a kind of settling around the middle.
They shook hands, said something about the weather, laughed about nothing in particular. Etta brought beers out to them. Ted kidded with her a minute, then he and Vince sat down on the porch together, completely relaxed. A good guy. They talked, of course, about the fire and the black hand. Ted had got pretty shook up too. Vince told him how the missing finger had been pestering him ever since. Ted understood. He told him a little bit about what was going on between Bruno's group and Red Baxter's holy rollers. Vince didn't know about Baxter's part in it, but his chitchat in Wanda's bed had made him a mild authority on the inside workings of Bruno's gang, and he was able to impress Ted with a couple tidbits. The business about how they were meeting outside of town now, for example, and how there was apparently something kind of immoral going on over there.
They used that up and just started reminiscing about the old football team, about life in West Condon, all the ups and downs, wound up at the disaster. Vince asked if Ted had heard anything definite about whether or not No. 9 would reopen. Ted said, no, but he still had hopes. He went on to explain some of the plans he'd been working up, how he'd got the city to buy up some unused property out by the old mine road to offer rent free to industry, how they had drawn up a proposed bill to get another highway diverted through here, how he'd talked a university group into making an objective survey of the area's industrial potential, how he and some other fellows were working up a special brochure in their spare time, and so on. Vince even began to feel pretty good. But then they drifted back to the business about the fire and the hand and Bruno and all, and they got gloomy again.
Ted sighed. “Sure going to be hell trying to impress some bigwig at DuPont or Westinghouse if they get wind of all this.”
“Yeah, ain't it the truth?” Wow, that was pretty bigtime! “Seems like something oughta be done.” Vince stroked his chin thoughtfully. He was thinking about getting a few of the boys together and just booting Bruno's ass right out of town, but he didn't know if Ted would be too impressed by the idea.
“You know, I just had an idea,” said Ted, cracking his fistâsmack!âinto his palm. “Something occurred to me at the fire the other night when I saw you, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Maybe, by God, what we need here is some kind of third force, something to bring a little common sense into the community and some peace between Baxter and Bruno. You know what I mean?”
“Yeah, that might be a good idea,” said Vince, staring meditatively down at his beer glass. He wasn't sure Ted was including him in his idea, but he thought he ought to say he was available. “We could get the whole town in on it maybe, get some life here.”
“By God, you're right!” Ted beamed. Jesus, the guy really looked pleased. Vince drank off his beer. “Get up a kind of committee or something, and, like you say, the more people the better. I think if these people saw how the whole community felt, they might start showing a little, you know, a little commonâ”
“Common sense.”
“Exactly. Hey, wait! That's great! A Common Sense Committee!” Ted slapped the porch rail. “How does that sound?”
“Sounds great!” Vince suddenly felt very goddamn bright, very much on top of things. “When do we start?”
“Hell, why not right now?”
“I'm ready.”
“Let's see, today's Wednesday, what do you say about Friday night? How many people do you thinkâ?”
“How many do you want?”
Ted laughed. “That's the boy!” Vince grinned. “Where can we meet, do you think?”
Vince thought about that, stroking his chin. “How about the old auditorium at St. Stephen's?”
“Not a bad idea. How many does it hold?”
“Couple hundred, I guess.”
“I can probably round up a hundred or so. Think we can fill it?”
“Hell,” said Vince, “we'll have them standing outside.”
Cavanaugh laughed, slapped him on the shoulder. Over Bonali. “Good man, Vince! By God, I'm glad I stopped over!”
With Etta's help on the telephone, plus evening visits to the Eagles, the Legion and VFW halls, a couple key taverns and filling stations, and the Knights of Columbus, Vince managed to round up some hundred and twenty people who promised to show up. Ted called him a couple times to see how things were going, and Friday stopped by a few minutes to brief him on the meeting. He told him he'd got the support of the Rotarians and the Chamber board, the Protestant ministers, a couple women's groups, Father Baglione, the PTA, just about all right-minded West Condon groups. He reminded Vince again how things like this Bruno nonsense could get out of hand, produce mass hysteria, make West Condon an object of national ridicule, but Vince didn't need reminding, told Ted that was what he'd been telling the others. Ted asked him what he thought about making the mayor chairman of the committee. Vince said it sounded like a good idea. Made it plain this was an all-community affair. Exactly! Ted was really leaning on him.