The Boy Orator (20 page)

Men rushed out of the room in twos and threes, squeezing past each other in the doorway. Harry followed Warren Stargell into the alley; the blade wasn't far behind. He heard its whistle, the groan of the doorjamb.

The two women who'd been smoking huddled by an overturned trash can. Drunks scurried past them, scattering garbage, ash, and gravel. “Smoke and booze and hoity-toity girls!” Carry Nation screamed. She set off after the women.

A minute or two later, half a block down Hudson Street, Harry met his companions and they walked back to their hotel. Sawdust garnished J. T. Cumbie's beard like strings of tinsel in a Christmas tree. “Man wants a quiet drink,” he muttered, brushing off his sleeves. “Ends up with his head cut off.”

The night air was cool. Harry took it gratefully into his lungs. His knees were sore from crawling around on the floor. Steam rose from open grates in the streets, smelling of water and earth and of families forced too close together: the crowded wastes of the city's full life.

In the bright lobby of the St. Nicholas Hotel the men exchanged their good-byes. Up in the room he shared with Warren Stargell, Harry stood at the window savoring one last view of the avenues. He didn't know if he'd ever see Oklahoma City again. He stared intently, then closed his eyes, seeing the lights—memories already—etched against the slippery darkness of his lids.

The crowds, the dusty roads, the speeches of his heroes: the month had been blessed with excitement and event, but now that it was over, a thought he'd long been trying to ignore swamped his mind once more.

Warren Stargell told him good-night.

He mumbled, “Sleep well,” and turned to the window again. He'd be up for a while. With his little finger he scribbled on the glass a faint and smudgy “Mollie.”

H
e woke, and for a moment he didn't know when or how he'd got to bed. It was his
own
bed, with the faint lemon smell of his mother's homemade soap in the folds of the sheets. Halley slept at his feet. He remembered stumbling into a flat, ordered field at twilight—yesterday? the day before that?—unbuttoning his pants to relieve himself and being surrounded by bison; they rose all around him like mossy stones unearthed in a sudden upheaval. Warren Stargell shooed them away, whooping, waving his hat. After that, the journey home was a swell of dust in his mind. He vaguely recalled his father lifting him from the wagon; now here he was in his room.

He sat up and scratched Halley's ears. The dog sighed and burrowed deeper into the quilt. Harry didn't hear his father's snores. When was the last time his father had slept without snoring? He got out of bed, tiptoed to his bedroom door and, with the certainty learned from long familiarity with a place, knew he was alone in the house.

He pulled on his pants and shoes and stepped outside. The gate to the empty mule pen swung aimlessly on its hinges, creaking and rubbing the wood by the open latch. Starlight silvered the leaves of the trees, the distant fields' tight rows. Cotton season soon. He didn't want to think about it.

Clover, mint, and honey weighted the lazy air. The night's silence seemed loud and profound after the constant hammering of voices and noises in the city. The sounds of his own breathing seemed clamorous in the stillness.

His father stood next to the barn, hands in pockets, unmoving.

“Dad?”

“Harry. Thought you'd sleep at least a couple of days.” He laughed and held out his arm. Harry slipped under it, toward the warmth of his father's chest. Andrew squeezed his shoulder. “I was just thinking we got to ride into town tomorrow. Buy some boots and gloves. It's that time of year.”

“Dad?” Harry blinked sleep from his eyes. “Where's Ma?”

Andrew stepped away from him. He didn't have his cane but still he moved slowly and with care. “Your ma,” he said. “She's tending to some business in Walters.”

“What kind of business?” Harry had never associated this word with his mother.

“We'll talk about it in the morning. You need your rest now.” He patted Harry's back. “Before he left, Warren told me you'd brought a lot of converts into the fold. I'm real pleased.”

Harry nodded and yawned, gave up and said good-night when it was clear his father wasn't going to say any more just now. He jumped back into bed next to Halley, comforted by the dusty smell of his fur, the light flapping of the curtain in the midnight breeze. Home. But something was wrong. His mother had never been away before. Tired as he was, he lay awake all night, anxious for dawn and his father's explanation.

A
NDREW LOOKED LIKE HE
hadn't slept, either. His face was puffy and pale, his thin hair stiff. His eyebrows, bushy, seemed ready to spring into his eyes.

He set a bowl of oatmeal in front of Harry. A scorched smell hung in the kitchen. “I may have overcooked that a little,” he said. “Eat up. I'll get the wagon. We got some errands to run.” He limped toward the door.

Harry tongued the oatmeal; it was spongy. He set it aside. He brushed some baking soda over his teeth, dragged a hand through his hair. His mother usually cut it twice a month, but now it was long and tightly curled.

They were halfway to town before his father finally leaned back in the wagon's seat and looked at him. “Don't be alarmed now, Harry, but your mother's in jail.”

Harry sat up straight.
“Real
jail?”

“She didn't do a thing wrong, not as
I
see matters—”

“What happened?”

A bitter laugh. “Liquor, if you can believe it.” He told Harry that Annie Mae and three other women from the church had slipped five dollars to an Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad man so he'd deliver a barrel of sacramental wine to them Monday night, on the late run.

“I don't understand,” Harry said.

“While you were gone, the county tightened its prohibition laws. The new ‘bone-dry' statute says you can't bring out-of-state alcohol here unless you can prove it's for medicinal purposes.” He shook the reins; the horses speeded up. “For years now, St. Mary's wine has come from Kansas City. The county says no more.”

Harry thought for a minute. “But that makes the Mass illegal.”

“That's exactly what Annie said.”

“They can't do that!”

Andrew shrugged. “They got her on a bribery charge.”

The jailhouse in Walters was musty and small, flooded with cold gray light through grimy windows set in a patchwork of bars. When Harry and Andrew arrived, Annie Mae, in a tiny cell with three other women Harry didn't know, was complaining to the sheriff. “I know you know it's not right. You're a good Christian man, Sheriff Stephens.”

“That I am, ma'am, but—”

“Then you realize it's indecent to keep the four of us here without partitions or curtains of any kind. When we need to change clothes or tend to our toilet—”

The sheriff, a short, balding man with bowed legs, scratched his head. “We never had women in here before, Miz Shaughnessy. I didn't rightly know how to prepare—”

“Andrew! Harry!” Annie Mae reached between the bars in the door. She wore a pink blouse and a gray cotton skirt. “Harry, oh Harry, I'm so happy to see you, sweetheart!” But then she frowned and pulled her arms inside the cell before Harry could touch her hands. She dipped her head. “I'm ashamed for you to see me like this,” she said.

“No, Mama, no.” He whirled on the sheriff.
“You're
the one who should be ashamed,” he said. “Locking these fine ladies up …this is a direct violation of the Constitution of the United States, which, in case you didn't know it, Mr. Stephens sir, guarantees freedom of religion. I demand their immediate release or we'll have you in court!”

Annie Mae grinned.

“I don't make the laws, young man.”

“Don't you have a conscience? Can't you spot impropriety when you see it? This statute will never stand up—”

Andrew poked his arm. “That's enough now. We'll handle this the proper way, through the proper channels.” The smile on his lips reassured Harry. “Do you have everything you need?” he asked Annie Mae.

“Except my dignity.”

“As soon as they set bail, we'll get you out.”

“Don't worry, Mama,” Harry added. The haggard look on her face made him cry.

She smiled at him. “My little politician.”

Andrew kissed her through the bars then led Harry back outside. “Well,” he said quietly. “The road toughened you, son. You've got more authority now than ever. More presence.”

“Dad, isn't there something we can do?”

“You had a good argument in there, but Sheriff Stephens is the wrong man to make it to. We've got to go higher up, and we will, we will.”

They walked across the street to the hardware store. Andrew bought two new pairs of gloves for cotton-picking, and a thick set of boots, but later that day, when a county judge set bail for Annie Mae at twenty-five dollars, Andrew sold the items back to the store and went to the bank for the rest of the money. “Looks like we'll be picking bare-handed this year,” he said.

At home, in the kitchen, Annie Mae sponge-bathed over a tin tub for nearly an hour—“I've felt dirty for days”—closing her eyes and letting the warm water relax her, then set about baking cornbread and a peach cobbler, steaming red beans and rice, pouring sugar into giant tumblers of tangy iced tea. Except for the night in the arbor, when the Baptists chased them away, the family hadn't eaten a meal this abundant all year, and for the balance of the evening they laughed and forgot their troubles.

Later that night Harry was awakened by a glare beneath his bedroom door. He heard his father's snores. He got up, stirring Halley who sighed and turned on his back, dangling his legs in the air. The dog still had digestive problems; he smelled like the gas in Chester's balloon.

Harry got dressed and walked into the kitchen, where his mother sat at the table sorting bills. “I didn't mean to wake you,” she said.

“That's all right.” She brushed hair from her eyes. She looked so tired. “What is it, Mama?” He touched her wrist. “They won't send you back to jail, I promise.”

She shook her head, spilling tears. “Oh Harry. I don't know if we're going to make it.” She rattled the papers on the table. “Your father still can't work at full strength, and the chores around this place are just too much for you and me—”

He squeezed her fingers. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left,” he said.

“It's not that. But I don't know how we're going to pay our debts. Now, on top of everything else, the county won't let us worship, and foolishly,
foolishly
I've crossed the law …” She stiffened, and rubbed her back.

Harry hugged her tightly, whispering that everything would be all right. She patted his arm. “Well. These aren't your worries,” she said. “School'll be starting again soon, and it'll be cotton season …you'll have plenty on your plate. We'll all just do the best we can.”

She kissed him good-night. His room was hot and he slept badly. Each time he woke, he noticed the light still burning in the kitchen.

He wanted to find Mollie—she probably didn't even know he was back—but in the next few days he stuck close to home, gauging his mother's moods, helping her sweep and wash and cook. He fed the chickens and watered the horses. He avoided the mule pen. Andrew slept late each day, limped to the barn in the early afternoons and just stood there, gazing at the stark line where the sky capped the furrowed edge of the land. He didn't mention the coal mines. He wasn't planning any business trips.

One day they did go into Walters, all three of them, to talk to the county commissioners. Annie Mae pleaded with them to reconsider their position.
Squawking like turkeys
, Harry thought,
the only way to change a law
.

One of the officials, a big man named Boyd, bit the end off a fat black cigar, wiped his bottom lip, and said, “If we allow Catholic communion wine, we'll have to make special exemptions for all the other denominations, and that means our ‘bone-dry' law would spring a pretty big leak.”

“Surely you recognize the difference between a bunch of bootleggers in the hills and good people worshiping their Lord,” Harry said.

“And surely, young fellow, you recognize the need for tough measures in this area. Sometimes, for the greater good of the majority of the people, a minority is called upon to sacrifice. That's as good a working definition of democracy as you'll ever hear, and if you have any political ambitions—as I understand you might—you'd do well to heed it.”

Harry tugged his shirt to smooth the wrinkles, and stood as straight as he could. “Suppose for a moment that the majority of the citizens in this county were Catholic,” he said. “Would we even be standing here discussing this? I think not. You wouldn't have
thought
of passing such a careless, narrow law. It's one thing to speak of reasonable sacrifice, Commissioner Boyd. It's quite another to punish a group of people out of prejudice and ignorance of their beliefs.”

“Now hold on a minute—”

“The anti-Catholic sentiment in this county is quite well-known, and you'd better believe we'll make it an issue in fighting this preposterous legislation.”

Annie Mae and Andrew stared at him, stunned, as if the governor himself had just walked into the room. None of the other commissioners said a word. A young man with a press pass jammed into his hatband began scribbling hasty notes.

“Now then, Mr. Boyd, I think you'll agree the laws of God supersede the laws of man. With that in mind, if you don't want to be dodging lightning bolts anytime soon, I suggest you release that barrel of wine you impounded to Father McCartney over at St. Mary's, and let him say the Mass while this new law is being reevaluated. Because it
will
be reevaluated, I assure you.” He stepped closer to the man, in the foul haze of his cigar. “Democracy, Mr. Boyd? Absolutely. And that means freedom to worship as we please, a right accorded us by the wisdom and the law of this land.”