Onyx (63 page)

“Sweet, sweet …” His whisper filled the universe.

Oh now
, she thought,
now, now
.

They clung together several minutes, and when they moved apart, she gave him a shy, mischievous smile. “Fast work, Prof,” she said as she retrieved her step-ins.

“I don't exist without you,” he said.

She kissed him lightly, tenderly. “Don't worry. You're stuck with me.”

Decorously apart, they walked on scrubbed floors to the main entry. “I'll go partway with you,” he said, opening the metal door.

“It's easier to say good-bye here.”

Outside, he watched her make her light, swift way, a small figure dwarfed between immensely long walls, turning at the end of the tire shop so he could no longer see her. He looked up at the wheeling gulls. Their
craa, craa, craa
was the mournful, grieving sound of loss.

V

Closing Onyx, though not the reflex of Tom's temper that he regretted most—he had the ruined desolation of his heart to prove that—was the most iniquitously far-reaching. A headache constricted his skull just above his eyes, his disjointed sleep was nightmare-wracked, he felt constant quivers of shamed disbelief at what he had done. He wanted to back down. He could not back down. He isolated himself as if he suffered from the Black Death, keeping to his rooms except at mealtime or when Caryll dropped over to visit.

Together the two of them would silently follow the pine-needle-carpeted trails through the Farm's primeval acreage. That freezing, overcast morning of December 16 they took the pond trail.

A stag burst from the undergrowth, bounding in front of them, his white tail erect, his hind legs raising up together. Caryll jumped. “Jesus,” he muttered shakily as the animal crashed away.

Tom turned, seeing Caryll's white lips and twitchy eye muscles. “A deer, that's all,” he said.

“I know, I know.”

“We frightened him more than he frightened you.” He was still examining his son. His eyebrow went up. “It's not the buck, is it? You're sweating because of me. Christ, Caryll. Me?”

Caryll exhaled sharply, his breath a visible cloud. He reached into his overcoat pocket for a folded blue paper that Tom recognized as a departmental discharge form. “If you w-won't read it, I'll read it to you.”

“Some choice.”

“Dad?”

Tom took the paper from his son's gloved fingers, shaking it open. Unprepared for the blow of seeing the familiar writing, his wrist went hot as if he had broken it. He leaned against a tree trunk, turning away from Caryll. Squiggles floated in front of the words and he blinked fiercely.

Dear Tom
,

Too much time has elapsed and too many deeds to make this easy to write. My sincere hope is that you retain a little of the regard you once bore me, as I retain all of my admiration and affection for you
.

Uppermost in my mind are the men who worked for you at Onyx. I cannot believe that you would put a final end to your life's work any more than I can believe that you would refuse to hear their honest grievances. This strike is not a weapon aimed at you
.

Tom, is it unreasonable that the men should wish to discuss with their employer the ways this Depression has affected them? I am president of the Amalgamated Automobile Workers, but if that distresses you, I will gladly step down. I beg you, though, meet with a negotiator. This catastrophic situation must end
.

Yours as always
,

Justin

The slight formality was typical of Justin, and so was the resolute wording, only the
beg
was out of character. Tom stared at the blue sheet, seeing the form printing on the other side. There were no oblique referrals to that final devastating argument, not a hint of tangled bloodlines, and this, Tom decided, relief expanding through his chest, meant that Justin no longer believed them father and son.

These long, dry years he had been parched for such a letter, the excuse to see his son without any incriminatory exposures; this letter was nearly analogous to the cherished though impossible dream, holding his Antonia again. Tom blinked away the tears. Leaning against a sycamore to regain his composure, he stared at the magnificent beige and fawn patterns of the bark. “How did you come by this?”

“Elisse Hutchinson.”

“Looked at it?”

Caryll shook his head. “But I can guess what he says. He wants you to reopen. Everybody does.”

“Including you?”

“If I didn't think you should,” Caryll said with a pretense at humorous intonation, “would I have played postman?”

Tom gave his short, barking laugh. They were opposites, his sons, yet they shared one trait. Decency. Once again, thank God, they had joined forces, they were pushing him where he longed to be. On the paths of righteousness.

Caryll misunderstood the laughter, hearing it as denial of the letter and of himself. “Dad, there's been enormous pressure,” he said earnestly. “It's a mess out there. Monty's cabled he's coming over. He shouldn't be traveling yet. I hear from President Roosevelt nearly every day. And Mayor Murphy twice a day—the city's in a worse panic than '33 when the banks closed.”

Carefully Tom refolded the paper in its creases, slipping it in his coat pocket. “Tell Justin's wife I'll talk to him.”

“You will? You mean that, Dad?”

“Did I ever bullshit you?”

“You'll negotiate with the union?”

“I'll negotiate with Justin.” The few sere remnants of leaves danced above his excited, shining face. “I'll talk with Justin.”

VI

Contrary to the devoutly sincere beliefs within the large, oil-heated homes of Grosse Pointe and Bloomfield Hills, no trail of dynamite led from Communist headquarters in New York to the factory complex in Detroit. Elisse and Mitch had firmly refused telephone offers to send Party strike advisers, Elisse because of Justin's antipathy to what he called “the Soviet experiment,” and Mitch—a lukewarm comrade at best—because he had dedicated the years of his life to building industrial unions powerful enough to protect their own membership.

The AAW ran this incendiary new form of strike on its own. Therefore, no matter what later would be said and written, it was without any political motivation whatsoever that the six men the AAW had elected as their strike board made their decision that noon.

Downstairs, the Hutchinsons' little house was crowded with strikers and their families lunching on sandwiches of thinly smeared peanut butter dribbled with Karo syrup (the stale bread was donated by the bakers' union), so the meeting was held upstairs in the slant-roofed bedroom. Elisse, the secretary, waited quietly at her maple vanity, notepad in front of her, while jubilant men perched gingerly on her chenille spread or sat crossing and recrossing their long legs on her rag rug as they talked in loud, excited voices about Tom Bridger's thunderbolt offer.

“We done it!”

“Glory hallelujah!”

“The strike's not over,” Mitch pointed out. “We haven't won a single concession yet.”

“Old Tom agreeing to talk to us, ain't that a victory?”

“I've seen a lot of strikes lost because our side's too eager.” Mitch's broad, welterweight face was somber.

Zawitsky nodded. “We're so hot to get back to work we forget the issues.”

Elisse gazed into her oval maple mirror, watching the reflection of the suddenly bleak faces. Everybody in this crowded bedroom understood too well the effect of crying, hungry children in a heatless house with an eviction notice nailed to the front door, they knew how most of the AAW's tenuously loyal membership would react to Woodland's reopening. Solidarity would shatter, and as individuals they would storm Employment at Gate Four, begging for any job at any condition and any wage. Only by holding together now could they move forward, not backward.

“We gotta do something to show we're on second base.”

“Yeah, but what?”

They hashed over ideas that would encourage the desperate strikers to hang on.

“How about if when Prof comes out, old Tom's there to shake his hand?”

One by one the men nodded their home-barbered heads.

“Yeah.”

“That should prove we're getting there.”

“What about making it on an overpass, so everyone can see 'em?”

It was a brilliant yet simple way of showing the strikers the power of their side in the struggle.

The AAW strike board's first resolution, voted unanimously, was that the negotiating sessions commence on the Archibald Avenue overpass with a public meeting of their president and Tom Bridger.

Elisse began to write.

VII

Caryll read the list of demands to Tom, who stared through a window at the dusk-lapped terrace. His head was bent, his hands thrust deep in his pockets. Caryll saw this as a pose of defeat, and his throat ached for his proud, intractable father. That he must obey rules laid down by his own workers!

Finishing, Caryll wet his lips nervously. “Dad, I don't think you should agree to that meeting on the overpass.”

“Weren't you panting to get this settled?”

“There'll be a mob, a huge one.”

Tom did not turn. “Wouldn't surprise me.”

“Everybody knows there's packs of Communists in town. Their tactic is to provoke incidents.”

“Pour yourself a drink.”

“What?”

“A little Scotch'll calm your nerves.”

“I never dreamed they'd make demands.”

“An idealist,” Tom said dryly. “Are they waiting for my answer?”

“I'm supposed to call Elisse.”

“What's the number?”

“You shouldn't go out there. Hold firm. They'll back down, there's no other choice for them.”

“Give me the number.”

“Dad, you mustn't expose yourself that way. It's humiliating, it could be danger—”

“The number, Caryll.”

“She's expecting
me
to call.”

“To repeat my words? Who are you, Charlie McCarthy?” Tom turned.

To Caryll's amazement his father was smiling without a trace of cynicism, an oddly vulnerable eagerness lifting his upper lip; Caryll decided this must be how he had looked as a boy.

“Dad, remember that hunger march on the Rouge a couple of years ago? People were killed.”

“Get that drink. It'll cheer you up.” Tom held out his hand, wiggling the long fingers. “Give.”

Caryll fished out his little black alligator book. To him the sound of his father dialing was preternaturally loud.

“Is this Mrs. Hutchinson? … Tom Bridger here.… Yes, I know you were expecting him, but things are rough all over. You'll have to settle for me.” There was a lilt to the flat voice. “I'll be on the Archibald overpass at noon tomorrow if Ju—if your husband should be passing by. Maybe I'll talk him into introducing us. Until then, so long.”

Caryll snatched the telephone. “Elisse, Dad'll have three men with him.”

He did not realize that she had already hung up.

VIII

The family roundly cheered Tom's decision to reopen. Later in the day, though, when they heard of the intended meeting, they raised figurative fists. To meet with Justin—that Bolshie renegade!—was to display weakness. Why crawfish now? Who among the automotive manufacturers would not simply open their employment offices? To deal with labor was unthinkable. There was a glut. Now was the time to teach the sit-downers that these outside agitators brought only hunger and lower wages. Among themselves they denounced Tom's unpredictable behavior.

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.”