Roscoe by William Kennedy
“We never knew you were wounded,” Roscoe said.
“Very minor. They now give Purple Hearts for hangnails.”
“Tell me your war stories,” Roscoe said. “Cheer me up.”
“I did nothing. I went nowhere.”
“That’s why they gave you all those medals.”
“These aren’t medals, they’re souvenirs.”
“When were you wounded?”
“Late afternoon.”
“Where did they get you?”
“On a green hill partly covered with snow.”
“Did you get to keep the bullet?”
“I wasn’t shot. I was raked by the teeth of a flying dog.”
“Fascinating. When I get out of this bed we’ll have a party with Patsy and all your friends. Like the old days. People will want to hear your flying-dog story, and we’re long overdue for an all-nighter.”
“No, no all-nighters.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve given up drink.”
“Not at all.”
“But you’ve given up questing in saloons for the Holy Ghost.”
“I believe so.”
“The army ruined you.”
“The real question is, what ruined you, my corpulent friend?”
“Ah, me. I wasn’t aware I was ruined yet. Getting there, of course.”
“You’ve arrived, old fellow. Here you are on your back, your system breaking down from wretched excess. You’re a capital ruin, Roscoe. We should register you as a historic landmark, in need of shoring up.”
“Your tongue was viperized by the army. But I forgive your calumnies. All we want to do is re-elect you.”
“I’m for that. Let’s launch the campaign instead of a party. What are you cooking up for me?”
“You’ll have a press conference at City Hall in your uniform and praise everybody for how they carried on in your absence. You’ll tell them how we’re going to pave the streets and improve the water supply. You’ll praise Karl’s job as acting mayor in handling our coal crisis. You’ll dedicate the Honor Roll in the Ninth Ward, in memory of all the boys from the North End who served. Pop O’Rourke’s been after me for months to have you lay the wreath.”
“Pop is still alive?”
“He wouldn’t declare the Honor Roll finished until you came home.”
“What about my opposition, Jason Farley?”
“You don’t mention him. Let him get his own publicity. Now that we know you’ve been wounded we’ll drop a hint and let the press quiz you. You’ll be modest, won’t talk about it.”
“It’s not worth talking about.”
“Fine. The mystery will intensify your myth.”
“Is that it?”
“No, there’s Cutie LaRue. Remember Cutie? He doesn’t know it yet, but we plan to run him against you on an independent line, maybe the Flatulence ticket. Patsy wants a third candidate.”
“Why?”
“Dilute the opposition. The usual reason.”
“Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do? Who needs a third party anymore?”
“You’ve been away, boy. The Governor’s attacks on us got a lot of ink in the papers.”
“Turn me loose, I’ll get a lot of ink.”
“You will, but this is Patsy’s plan. He wants to humiliate the Governor with numbers. Troopers will be at every polling place, looking for violations. We’ve filed suit to stop them on grounds of voter intimidation, but if we don’t prevail they’ll cut into our control of the vote.”
“But Cutie LaRue—he’s a bad joke.”
“Yes. Patsy’s bad joke.” Roscoe’s voice stiffened. “Don’t you laugh at Patsy’s jokes anymore?”
“Since you put it that way.”
“That’s still the way it’s put in this town, Alex. Don’t stay away so long next time.”
Alex looked at his shoes and did not speak.
“Tell me about my father,” he said. “Joey only said it was sudden.”
“That’s the truth. He was more ill than anyone knew. His heart was twice its normal size. He told me he was retiring, but I couldn’t imagine it was for health reasons. He looked fine. He was in other trouble, but didn’t explain.”
“What trouble?”
Roscoe shut his eyes and rubbed both eyelids with thumb and forefinger, hiding. No way out of saying what has to be said. Say it, Roscoe.
“Listen, Alex. You have to know. Your father ended his own life. He took a huge dose of chloral hydrate.”
These facts did not register on Alex’s face. Behind a grim stare he seemed to be trying to process their logic.
“Why did he do it?” Roscoe said. “That’s the obvious question you’re asking. It seems like an act without purpose, but that wasn’t your father’s style. If there’s a key to this, we’ll find it. Your own loss, your mother’s loss, it’s very great. And I can’t remember when I’ve known such diminishment.”
“Was he depressed?”
“Not to the naked eye. We celebrated V-J night together and he was fine. We had a little car accident and he got a bump on his head, not serious.”
“You must have a theory.”
“He burned some papers but we don’t know why. It could be linked to the Governor’s investigation of the organization. Also, your Aunt Pamela is in the mix. She’s suing your mother for custody of Gilby. She went public for the first time that she’s his mother, and we’re already in court. Your father talked with her weeks ago about it. He saw it as a money scheme, but I don’t know how this affected his behavior.”
“Why in the hell is Pamela doing this?” Alex asked, his lips tight and white. “What’s wrong with her?”
“I’ll take a week off sometime and explain it to you.”
“But Gilby was adopted.”
“Yes, and from her, anonymously. I drew up the agreement, which wasn’t quite an adoption. Your mother and I went to San Juan to pick up Gilby and bring him home.”
“Such villainy. Goddamn her.”
“We can hope for that too,” Roscoe said. “You should talk to Gilby about the lawsuit. He told me you weren’t his brother anymore. It was a bad moment, but I think he’s over it.”
“What do you mean about Pamela looking for money?”
“She may really be blackmailing the family,” Roscoe said. “I don’t like to bring this up, but she may threaten to say that Elisha was Gilby’s father. Did that ever occur to you?”
Alex threw back his head and wheezed, “Jesus, what next?”
“Did it?”
“Never.”
“It occurred to your mother, and me. But I don’t believe it.”
“Good. Neither do I.”
“That won’t stop Pamela from threatening to go public with it.”
“The bitch. The lousy bitch.” The look of white fury was on him. Roscoe could not remember ever seeing it in his face before. A nurse came into the room to take Roscoe’s vital signs and Alex stood up. He untucked his overseas cap from under his belt and put it on.
“Welcome home, soldier,” Roscoe said.
“I may stay in the army,” Alex said.
After Alex a parade of visitors came to Roscoe’s room. Hattie brought him half a dozen sugar buns, buttered. Trish came and showed him her new brassiere, and offered to move into his hotel suite to take care of him. Roscoe said, Thank you, Trishie, that’s very sweet, but I’d rather be cared for by wolves. Joey Manucci came back after taking Alex home and brought Roscoe the New York tabloids, four Hershey bars, and the news that Bart was keeping Patsy current on the action at headquarters and would stop by later.
Roscoe also received a telegram from his maiden sister, Cress, who still lived alone in the Conway family brownstone on Ten Broeck Street. “Dear Roscoe,” she wrote, “I hear you are ill with chicken pox. Does your doctor know you had that in childhood? You can’t get it twice. You probably have something else. Do not let those doctors fool you.”
And then, at last, Veronica came, in a pi
“What did they do to you?” she asked him. “Nobody can get it straight.”
“They put a needle into the sac around my heart to draw out blood, and they may do it again. If that doesn’t work they’ll cut open my thorax and sew up the wound in my heart. If that doesn’t work I told them to cut my throat. I’m out of pain and, seeing you, I’m brimming with pleasure. But just trying to sit up in bed is like running two miles.”
“When will they let you leave?”
“When I feel better.”
“Who’ll take care of you? Who’ll feed you?”
“I’ll hire a nurse. And use room service.”
“That won’t do. You’ll come to Tivoli. The servants and I will take care of you until you’re well.”
“Tivoli,” Roscoe said.
“Don’t argue with me,” Veronica said.
“Who’s arguing?” said Roscoe.
When Roscoe’s pain was all but gone, and the catheter removed, the doctor said he could go home, but in a wheelchair, for he would be slow to regain his strength. Bart Merrigan drove him to the Ten Eyck to help him pack for his stay at Tivoli.
“How do you feel today?” Bart asked him.
“Better.”
“Is your heart all right now?”
“Fantastic. What’s your point?”
“Nobody wants to upset you, Roscoe, especially me.”
“You’re upsetting me with questions. What the hell is on your mind?”
“Patsy’s in a black mood. Bindy’s handler switched birds in that final match. Bindy had two Swigglers, marked like twins, both the same weight, so this had been planned for a while. One twin fought only once, but the other had been in five fights, and he’s the one did in Patsy’s chicken. Ruby was overmatched. Tommy Fogarty thought something was wrong during the fight, but he didn’t figure it out till after he’d paid Bindy Patsy’s forty grand. He and Jack Gray searched Emil’s truck and found the twin chicken in a sack. He also checked out Emil in New Orleans. He’d pulled the switch down there two or three times before they ran him out of town.”
“What’s Bindy say about this?”
“Nobody’s seen him. O.B. says he’s hiding.”
“The man is nuts. You do a thing like that, you can’t hide from Patsy. Forty grand plus all those side bets. Christ. Now we’ve got a goddamn blood feud to deal with.”
Veronica ordered Roscoe’s lunch from Keeler’s and had it delivered to Tivoli in a taxi: strawberries in cantaloupe, a dozen oysters on ice, lobster salad, petits pois, glazed carrots, potatoes au gratin, and the choice of blueberry pie or Keeler’s famous ladyfingers. She had the servants open a bottle of Sauternes for the oysters and Pouilly-Fuissé for the lobster, and had everything served in the former conservatory, with its hanging geraniums, Wandering Jews, potted banana trees, and electrified hurricane lamps.
He had never sat here with her before, and it seemed calculated to create intimacy. She wore a golden chiffon scarf as a choker, and her hair was pulled back behind her ears. He fixated on her beautiful left ear, which he wanted to nibble.
“Do you like your lunch?” she asked.
“This is a room of enchantment. I like much more than my lunch.”
“Don’t like too much more.”
“The more you like, the happier you are. Is it wrong to try to be happy?”
“Don’t try to be too happy,” she said.
“Elisha would want us to be happy. He knew how to be happy.”
“No, he didn’t. He killed himself.”
“He did that for other people,” Roscoe said.
“Which other people?”
“You. And the boys.”
“How can you say that?”
“I’m eliminating possibilities.”
“Killing himself for me. You’re crazy, Roscoe.”
“He also may have done it because he owed me.”
“What did he owe you?”
“You. He took you away from me. Maybe he’s trying to give you back. I’m not sure it’s working, but so far, so good. You’re saving my life, and we’re together in this beautiful place.”
“I don’t think it’s wise to talk about this. Elisha would want us to be wise.”
“You think that’s all he’d want us to be?”
As he watched her across the table he thought: This is the most sublime woman ever put on this earth; perhaps I exaggerate. But all Roscoe wanted from the world right now was to look at her, talk to her, love her, have lunch with her, right here, forever. Was that asking so much? Also, once in a while, he’d like to kiss her, fuck her, forever, here, anyplace, on the table, once in a while. Was that asking so much?
The Soldier Boys Campaign
Roscoe in his wheelchair looked like a wounded old soldier, which he was, as he stared out from under the umbrella he held to fend off the foglike drizzle. Beside him stood Veronica, with Gilby holding an umbrella over her. Gilby had decided that even if Alex was only his brother-cousin he was more brother than cousin.
“He looks wonderful,” Veronica said to Roscoe. “I see so much Elisha in him. His gauntness makes him more of a man. Don’t you think, Roscoe?”
“He’s very like his father was at that age.”
“We’ll leave after his speech,” she said. “Gilby has to be at the dentist.”
“I’ll see you for dinner,” Roscoe said. “It’s years since I’ve gotten emotional about dinner.”
The block had been closed to traffic, and on the lawn in front of School Twenty, with the army, navy, and Marine color guard behind him, the soldier-boy Mayor was on the platform dedicating the communion of names of sailors, soldiers, and Marines who spent their young years fighting Japs, Nazis, and Italian Fascists, as a crowd of four hundred in the middle of the street listened. The names on the Roll were a stark listing of alphabetical love, a scroll of blessedness. Several names were separated out, writ larger. The Mayor pointed to one.
“Charley Becker, a Marine private from Walter Street—I used to play tennis with him,” the Mayor said, “and I could never return his serve. He was cut down in the first wave at Saipan. Bobby (Shadow) Valentino, an army corporal from Mohawk Street who could outrun my dog, was killed in the battle for Salerno. Captain Ray Ergott from Bonheim Street, a bomber pilot who played real good banjo, was shot down by Nazi anti-aircraft fire over Berlin. I saw other men, some of my great pals, killed on the battlefields of France. I won’t forget them. Neither will you, my friends, and neither will this city. Their names here will be revered as long as we . . .”
He stopped speaking. He took off his overseas cap and looked up at the sky and let the rain hit his face.
“I hate talking about this,” he said. “I hate it that they’re dead. We live on and we leave them behind. How can we remember them? They fade. I already forget the name of the soldier who was shot a few yards away from me. I’m not sure I ever knew his name. Maybe it was Dave. He fell and the rest of us kept running until a shell hit Dave directly and the blast knocked me over. I was stunned, not hurt, but Dave’s blood was on my field jacket, my hands, my rifle. And that blood was all that was left of him. We couldn’t even find his dogtags. He died and I didn’t and I don’t know why I didn’t, but I know I consecrate his blood here today, and the blood of Charley Becker and Shadow Valentino and Ray Ergott. And I’m going to try to keep that blood of their short lives flowing in my memory until I’m not here anymore. That’s not very much to do for those fellows, and it sure won’t help them. But that’s all I can do. That’s all anybody can do. Now I’ll stop talking. I’m sick of words.”
Nobody moved, nobody applauded. It’d be like applauding a funeral mass. Alex stood the laurel wreath on its end on the Honor Roll’s pedestal. Then he put his cap on and
The crowd broke up and Roscoe spotted Townsend Blair, bent over and staring at the ground, looking for money, people said, but that wasn’t it. He carried a burden. He’d been the Democratic candidate for mayor in 1919, our breakout year. He raised his head and looked at Alex, then turned to face Roscoe. Their eyes met and Roscoe nodded, but Blair’s face was a frown, and then he walked off with his bent back, the old anger still there.
Pop O’Rourke, diabetic, florid, and spiffy as always, whispered to Roscoe, “How do you like this turnout, Roscoe? And on a dreadfully stormy day like this. I’m exceptionally happy how we got our people out.”
“The Mayor must be happy, too, Pop,” Roscoe said, smiling at the loyalty of it all. “I see Townsend came out for the ceremony.”
“A rarity, indeed,” said Pop. “I never see him. Poor fellow, he still talks about it, collars people at the ballpark and says, ‘You know what happened to me in 1919? You know what they did to me?”’
“He still does that?”
“He does.”
Win Clark stood in the rain behind Pop, waiting to greet Roscoe, thank him again for his job as sidewalk inspector: tell us which flagstones need fixing, Win, and stay off the sauce, the ruin of Win, who drank the inheritance from his wife’s death. Only the sidewalk job put him back on his feet. But why shouldn’t we help a loyal committeeman, a stalwart for twenty years till he tipped over sucking the bottle. Win would want to tell Roscoe his bladder joke.