At noon the church doors open in Runnymede and we buzz out like bees from various hives. Christ Lutheran, Mom’s and my church, reposes on the Emmitsburg Pike, immediately off the Square on the Maryland side of the line. Christ Lutheran is one of those Georgian gems found only along the Eastern Seaboard of our nation. The warm brick, offset by creamy white lintels, a gilded and white steeple, and the white of the marble steps glistened in the spring light. The gardening committee of the church planted thousands of daffodils and tulips. The daffs rolled like a yellow tide in the wind, and the tulips were breaking the surface of the earth. As Easter was next Sunday, they might open if the weather held, which would make it a perfect Easter.
As we did most Sundays unless it was brutally cold, Mother and I turned right after leaving church and walked past both city halls on the Emmitsburg corner only to plunge into the Square. Everyone else did the same, so Sundays became a grand promenade.
The doors of Saint Rose of Lima opened. We could see Louise, assisted by the statuesque Shirley McConnell, hobbling down the steps of the Gothic church. Mom and I called Shirley “Attila the Nun” because she had been a Dominican sister for years, finally renouncing her vows because she discovered love in the form of O. Logan McConnell. The “O” stood for Orion, but Logan sure wouldn’t stand for it.
Bruised and scraped from her ordeal yesterday, Aunt Wheeze flourished as the center of attention. Given the amount of bandages swathed about her person, she resembled a mummy. Aunt Wheeze had pitched a fit yesterday when the police wanted to take her to the Emmitsburg Hospital. A squad car dropped us off at Trixie Shellenberger’s. Aunt Louise encouraged the good doctor to exaggerate her injuries. Clear across the Square we observed the unusual attentions bestowed upon Wheeze. She lapped up the sympathy. I could have used some myself, because the police had quickly recovered my Jeep but found it totaled.
We strolled past Runnymede Bank and Trust; the drugstore, open for business now that church was out; Mutzi’s greengrocer stand; and Brown, Moon & Frost.
I knew God would forgive me for my adultery with Jackson Frost but I wondered if I would forgive myself. I guessed I loved Jack. No, I didn’t guess. I did love him but I saw no reason to burden him with this knowledge, since our affair was doomed. In a funny way I loved Regina more. I was never attracted to her, so my love was free from lust. Maybe because of that or in spite of it, I’d never know, I could open up and let the love grow. Everything that Mr. Pierre said preyed on my mind, especially after church. I saw Regina and Jack with their boys, Winston and Randolph, gracefully descend the steps of Saint Paul’s Episcopal, and seeing Louise, they hastened to her.
A crowd was gathering on the South part of the Square but Mom and I couldn’t see why. I wondered what Mother would say if I told her about Jackson. She’d probably be angry with me. I wasn’t in the mood for anger today. I rarely was. I’m one of those people who will avoid a fight if possible. If not, watch out.
The more I thought about Jackson and Regina the more I realized how much closer I was to her. This was a continuing theme of my life, my detachment on my deepest level from men. Jackson wasn’t my first long-term affair with a man. I lived with a man throughout college and for a year afterwards. I’d had a few crushes in between him and Jackson. Yet it never failed. I would reach a place emotionally with them, and I could go no further. I felt as though they shut a door on me, or maybe the door was closed to them as well. I was beginning to half-believe that men’s deepest emotions were inaccessible to them. I used to think I felt this way because I’m more gay than straight, but my women friends who are more straight than gay (and probably never thought of making love to another woman, silly girls) say the same thing. We feel much closer to women than to men. Even my friends in good marriages have confessed that there are things they’d tell their closest women friends that they wouldn’t dream of telling their husbands. Because he’s not interested? Because he doesn’t know how to handle it? Because he’d be threatened? I sure don’t know but I do know we do something terrible to men in our culture. We take them away from themselves and we substitute money, power, and toys.
Mother spoke up. “You’re quiet.”
“It’s not the company.”
A young woman walking along the Square with her family was in navy-blue. Mother sniffed, “People don’t know anything anymore. Look at her. Navy-blue and it’s not even Easter.”
“I think the dress code went the way of the whale-oil lamp.”
“A pity.”
“Well, Mom, what we’ve gained in informality and comfort we’ve lost in drama and beauty, so I guess I have to agree with you. If people don’t know what colors are appropriate, then they could at least learn to write a good thank-you note. Nowadays they pick up the phone instead. It’s tacky.”
“I’ll tell you what’s tacky. There’s Liz Rife shooting out of Saint Paul’s in chinchilla.”
“It might be tacky but I’d like to have it. I expect she’s got a fur coat for every day of the week. I’d settle for one,” I replied.
“What kind?”
“A full-length Russian sable with shawl collar—I guess that’s what you call those collars that aren’t really collars with no notches on them.”
“In cloth I think you call it a polo coat.”
“Well, that’s the one I want. In fact, I think I’d kill for sable.”
“I’ll help you bury the body.” Mother laughed. “Nickel, something’s really going on over there.”
We buzzed into the Square. The small crowd we had initially observed swelled until it must have included everyone leaving church. We squeezed our way into the mass and beheld David Wheeler, already deep in the grape. Mutzi Elliott, in no better condition, stood next to him and had a long artillery swab, the long pole used to jam down the cannonball. They must have been drinking throughout the night.
Mutzi waved the swab and David launched into a tirade about Bucky Nordness and the firing upon of Fort Sumter—which were intertwined. Not that it made any sense. I suddenly remembered that I was the dolt who suggested David celebrate April twelfth to spite Bucky. “Ready, Mutzi?”
“Ready.” Mutzi patted the Confederate cannon. David touched the wick, and boom. Except it wasn’t a can of gray paint that flew out of there. It was a real cannonball. Nor did it hit city hall, the intended target according to David’s garbled account. The ball whined across the Square, tore off a branch of a maple tree on the North side, and crashed into the front window of Falkenroth, Spangler & Finster.
A hush fell over us. Louise’s eyes bugged out of her head. Mr. Pierre’s mouth hung open. Regina’s hand flew to her face and David was coughing from the smoke.
As soon as he could breathe, his first words were “Jesus H. Christ on a raft.”
Mutzi giggled. The giggling turned into uncontrollable laughter.
Mr. Pierre dryly commented, “A little more to the left, David, and you can take out Rife’s offices too.”
Mutzi was now rolling on the ground. “You know that T-shirt: ‘First, we kill all the lawyers’?”
The law firm of Falkenroth, Spangler & Finster had suffered an eclipse on the South side of Runnymede. Those of us in Maryland used Brown, Moon & Frost, while those on the Pennsylvania side used Falkenroth, Spangler & Finster. You might say no love was lost on either side.
“Except it’s Sunday. Nobody’s in there,” Aunt Wheezie blurted out, then bumbled on. “I didn’t mean that the way it came out.”
David was fast sobering up. Jackson, our mayor, stepped forward. “David, I’m afraid there will be legal repercussions.”
In the distance we could hear Bucky’s siren. Father Christopolous, in his vestments, hurried down the steps of Saint Rose’s. He observed the situation and ran toward the offices to see if anyone was hurt. At the sight of him, Mr. Pierre started off to join him.
“Wait a goddamned minute, Pierre!” David growled at the fifty or so of us crowding around. “You all, every one of you, just stand still. Here’s the drill. Ain’t no one telling what happened. You tell and you will get parking tickets and speeding tickets until death do us part. Got it? Mutzi and I were cleaning the cannon and it went off.”
Jackson, perplexed, raised his hands for silence because the murmur of the crowd became a roar. “Ladies and gentlemen, let us review the facts.”
“No facts to review, Jack.”
“What you’re suggesting is a lie.”
“I’m not suggesting. I’m telling!” The veins bulged out on David’s neck.
“At the very least you are distorting evidence.”
“They do it in Washington all the time.” David’s belligerence was accelerating and so was the sound of the siren.
“If Oliver North can lie and get away with it, why can’t David?” Mother’s voice carried over the burst of chatter.
“Right.” Mutzi, still on the ground, agreed, but Mutzi would have agreed with anybody at that point.
“I’m defending my country by fair means or foul.” David had the bit in his teeth. “That asshole with the gift of speech, that jerk—and I refer to Bucky Nordness, who is so bad he could screw up a wet dream—that Yankee had the gall to celebrate our surrender at Appomattox this week. I won’t stand for it!”
“That was 1865.” Jackson wanted to get David out of there before Bucky and company pulled up in front of Falkenroth, Spangler & Finster.
“Tell that to Nordness. He’s rubbing our noses in it!” David shouted. Then he turned to me. “Nickel, you promise not to write the story?”
“You mean I can’t use my headline: ‘War Not Over’?” I smiled and it relaxed David a little. “I shall use discretion, David.” You bet I would or he’d beat my ass then and there.
“What about the rest of you?” David scanned the crowd.
“Oh, we won’t tell,” Aunt Wheezie vowed. “Why see David put through the wringer because he got sloshed?”
“I am not sloshed, Mrs. Trumbull,” David vigorously defended himself, referring to my aunt by her married name.
The crowd talked but a consensus was brewing. We wouldn’t give Bucky Nordness the satisfaction of a big stink and possibly lawsuits flying like confetti. David should not have gotten drunk and Mutzi should not have jammed down a real cannonball, but they did. Best for them quietly to pay the repair bill of Falkenroth, Spangler & Finster and be done with it. David’s dislike of Bucky exceeded that of the rest of us but it was felt that Bucky did become overzealous in his duties and it was also felt that his jubilation each and every April ninth was in poor taste. As the squad car careened around the Square, coming down from the Hanover Road, the crowd dispersed. Jackson had David firmly under the elbow. David shook his arm off but did leave. Regina and I pulled Mutzi out of there with the help of Randolph and Winston Frost. Mom, Louise, and Mrs. McConnell walked three abreast behind Regina and me so that no one on the other side of the Square could see exactly what we were doing. We dumped Mutzi in his shop and figured he could sober up by himself. His wife was out of town—a good thing, because she was more to be feared than Bucky Nordness when it came to Mutzi’s drinking.
Mr. Pierre offered an impromptu party, and Mother, Louise, and Mr. and Mrs. McConnell, about half of the BonBons, Jackson and Regina and David crammed into his house. No one would allow David any more alcohol but he was becoming good-natured. Mr. Pierre shot me hot stares every now and then. I weakly smiled and tried not to stand too close to Jackson because I’d want to touch him.
Mother came over. “Are you going to write about it?”
“I’ll use David’s story. I guess that makes me corrupt but Aunt Wheezie’s right. Speaking of which, I was surprised when you said what you did about Oliver North.”
“He’s lying and people think he’s a hero.”
“Wait until he testifies.”
“What difference will it make?”
I said. “Maybe we’ll get the truth.”
“If Oliver North were your friend and told you to write a false story to protect him and you believed in what he was doing—would you?”
“No.”
“You’re doing it for David.” Mother knew how to get me.
“Oh, come on! That’s such a little thing and David would get dragged through the mud. We’re not talking about violating the Constitution or lying to the American people about foreign policy.”
“The principle is the same.”
Mr. Pierre was now standing next to Mom, having overheard the conversation. “Integrity is built on many small things.”
“Thanks a lot!”
“Don’t get peevish, Nickie,” Mother warned. “You’re always ready to point out to me, God, and everybody what’s right and what’s wrong. Now you get a taste of your own medicine.”
“I do not go about telling people how to live their lives.”
“You do in your column,” Mother said.
I certainly didn’t think my column was as proscriptive as she was making it out to be, and furthermore this grilling was unfair even if they were right—in principle. To make matters worse, Mr. Pierre kept treating me, nonverbally, of course, as though my life were a heterosexual extravaganza. When Jackson came over to join the argument—excuse me, discussion—I wanted the floor to open so I could drop through it.
“What’s going on over here?” Regina came up behind Jackson.
“These two are giving me rat week.”
Mother pounced. “I am not and neither is Mr. Pierre. I asked her about Oliver North—”
“Actually, I heard the whole thing.” Jackson saved her her breath.
“So?” Now Mom was on guard.
Regina came to my side. “Why are you getting on Nickel’s case? We’re all complicit in this, as I see it.”
“But she represents the press. If the press doesn’t tell us the truth, how can we make sound judgments about our community?” Mr. Pierre didn’t sound hostile to me but I still didn’t like being under attack.
“Well, I’m the mayor and I’m covering up. What about me?”
“Jackson, we expect our politicians to lie. We don’t expect it of the press.” Mother cut to the bone—mine and Jackson’s.
Jackson’s face went white. “Julia, do you think I lie to you?”
“Not you. But you’re the only politician I do have faith in and maybe it’s because I can watch you. I can’t watch those slick toads in Washington. I don’t know them.”
“Somebody knows them. Their families. Their communities,” Regina said.
“Yes, and if they got in Dutch, I bet their families and their communities would cover up for them.” Mr. Pierre was on a tack.
Nobody said anything for a minute. We didn’t know what to say.
I finally broke the silence. “You’re right. I am violating my own ethics as a reporter. But David’s my friend and I have to balance the story with its effect on his life. Nobody was hurt, thank God. David used poor judgment but who hasn’t at one time or another? Maybe I’m using poor judgment now but if the story comes out in the paper there will be repercussions all the way to Baltimore and to Harrisburg. Then we won’t have the opportunity to correct this ourselves. The state legislators could conceivably get in the act, since this problem involves two elected public servants. What purpose does that serve? And I get to watch the team from Eyewitless News make an ass of my friend, of us in general? I guess if I have to pick between a professional code of honor and my friend, I’m going to pick my friend, at least this time, and I’m going to try and solve this mess among ourselves.”
“If everyone does that, then we haven’t evolved beyond tribal behavior.” Mr. Pierre handed around another tray of goodies.
“We haven’t.” Regina smiled, easing the tension. “The United States is a culture but not a civilization. We’re still too new.”
“Well, that’s what Charles Falkenroth says, in a way. He says the United States is an unfinished democracy.” Jackson was enjoying the discussion.
“So, I guess we keep trying,” Mother replied.
It should be noted that my mother has never missed voting, whether in a local, state, or national election. Being born in 1905, she remembered when women couldn’t vote, and a hurricane couldn’t keep her out of the voting booth.
Maybe Jackson was enjoying the discussion but I wasn’t. I was shown up as an unevolved tribal person—an unevolved tribal person standing next to her best friend and her best friend’s husband, with whom she was having an affair. Surely tribal people are smarter.