The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up (9 page)

“No big deal,” Arnold answered. “Just a misunderstanding.”

His entire existence felt like an enormous misunderstanding, a colossal failure to make himself understood. He was fifty-five. Far past the halfway mark. Far too late to hope for a breakthrough.

He said goodbye quickly and hung up the phone.

That evening, Arnold stayed late at the nursery. He ambled around the greenhouses, pinching chrysanthemum shoots and peeling dead leaves off dieffenbachia stems. The botanist was no stranger to the Plant Centre at night: At the height of his experiments with flower recipes, he’d often crashed on a cot in his office. But in those years, he’d felt so alive among his blossoms, sheltered in his little botanical oasis and yet simultaneously a part of the city. Iron gratings kept out vandals without dampening the sounds of Village nightlife. In contrast, the plate glass windows, now boarded over with plywood, kept the outside world entirely at bay. Arnold felt as though he’d been sealed in a tomb. He assured himself that he was staying late to think matters through—that he wanted to avoid making any rash decisions—but he knew what he was actually doing was giving Gilbert time to leave his house. He didn’t want to stumble upon the two of them in some obscene state of undress, to listen to the lawyer quote George Bernard Shaw on adultery. Better to hide among his rose bushes until he was certain the coast was clear. It was nearly ten o’clock when he finally arrived home.

The protesters had packed up for the night, so there was no need to climb over the fence on the ladders. It was a pleasure to walk up his own street and climb his own front steps without being compared to Saddam Hussein. He said good evening to the police guards, but they remained as stock-still as cigar-store Indians. No matter. As Bonnie
Card said:
Why did he care what a bunch of total strangers thought about him?
It was
his
home and
his
garden—his private space inside that stockade fence—and no amount of public scorn could take that away from him.

Arnold’s key was only halfway in the lock when Judith pulled open the door. His wife wore a threadbare bathrobe and a pair of pink socks. Her face was pallid as a bed sheet. Her eyes were bloodshot. For the first time ever, she didn’t look stunning to Arnold—merely worn out. “Something happened,” she said.

So it was true
. Even though he’d expected it, it didn’t seem possible.

“I don’t want to know,” said Arnold. “Let’s just put it behind us.”

Judith didn’t seem to register his words. “I don’t know how to say this,” she continued. “I sent Ray out with Gil Card for the afternoon—to get him away from all this madness—and I was taking a nap…and then I came outside…there were the ladders…and…and…” She raked her fingers through her hair. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“What are you talking about?”

Arnold’s heart quickened. He could hear his pulse in his temple, could sense the perspiration seeping through his palms. Judith’s expression told him that no amount of anxiety would prove sufficient for what came next.

His wife didn’t answer him. Instead, she stepped aside—and instinctively, Arnold crossed through the
kitchen into the yard. “What have they done?” Arnold appealed to the cool night air. “Good God! What have they done?”

The garden hadn’t been vandalized. It had been razed.

The perpetrators had lopped the heads off every tea rose and gladiolus, torn the lilacs from the arbour, sheared apart the rhododendrons with the chainsaw. They’d done even more damage with the annuals, scooping pansies and phlox from the soil as though they were weeds. An uprooted forget-me-not hung from the Japanese maple like an epiphyte. They’d also raided Judith’s studio, arming themselves with enamels and varnishes that they’d sprinkled liberally across the grass. Whole swaths of lawn had been stained the colour of mahogany. The air that yesterday smelled of fragrant pollen now stank pungently of oil paint and turpentine. Not even the lily pads in the birdbath had been spared—the innocent leaves had been plucked from the water and ground up under the tires of the wheelbarrow. What it had taken Arnold three decades to build had required only several minutes for a stranger to destroy. To Arnold, it was a holocaust—the scorching of the very earth beneath his feet. The Romans sowing salt in the fields of Carthage had done no worse.

Judith came up behind him. She placed her hand on his elbow to comfort him, but he could feel her fingers trembling. “I know there’s nothing I can say,” she said.

“I’ve had enough,” said Arnold. “It’s over.”

“Please don’t do anything rash, darling.” Judith tightened her grip on his arm. “Let’s call the police. They’ll take care of it.”

“
Like hell
they’ll take care of it.” Arnold wrested free of his wife’s grasp. “I’m going to take care of it.”

Arnold charged up the steps into the kitchen. “Where the fuck do we keep the phone books?”

“Please, Arnold. I’m begging you….”

He searched the magazine rack, then inside the utility cabinet behind the toaster. Rolls of duct tape and industrial-strength twine toppled onto the counter. A light bulb fell to the linoleum and shattered. “Goddammit,” cursed Arnold. He finally found the white pages on the floor of the pantry.

“What are you going to do, Arnold? Talk to me.”

He sat on the un-swept spruce floorboards of the storeroom, the musty air lit only by a low-watt hanging bulb, and turned over the brittle pages.
Spitelli, Spitfire, Spitfish, SPITFORD!
“Spitford,” Arnold said aloud. “Spottsylvania Otis.”

“You don’t know it was Spitford.”

“I
know
it was Spitford.”

“Take a few seconds to think about what you’re going to do,” pleaded Judith. “It’s a lot easier to do things than to undo things.”

“I’m done thinking. I’ve been thinking too
much already.”

“You’re not going to do something violent, are you? You wouldn’t hurt anyone?”

“Of course not. Nothing violent,” said Arnold. “But I think it’s about time to beat Mr. Spitford at his own goddam game.” The botanist tore the page out of the phone book and stuffed it into his pocket. “He’s going to protest outside my house, is he? We’ll I’m not the only one with a house.”

The quiet Upper Manhattan cul-de-sac that housed both Spotty Spitford’s home and his church was located on a rise overlooking the Hudson River. Ornamental wrought-iron gates guarded the block’s entrance, where one sign warned
PRIVATE WAY, WALK YOUR HORSES
and another marked the site of General Washington’s headquarters during the retreat from the Battle of Harlem Heights. The street was still cobblestone, shaded by an avenue of venerable beech trees. Most of the row houses displayed carefully-tended, if unimaginative, window-box gardens: geraniums, columbines, hosta. Spitford’s own residence, a three-story structure in the renaissance revival style, was sheltered by a hedge of Queen Anne’s lace. The hedge wanted trimming. Arnold recalled the lines from
Richard II: Noisome weeds which without profit suck the soil’s fertility from wholesome flowers.
Yes, Spitford was one of those. But seeing his dishevelled shrubbery, his overgrown pachysandra, Arnold fought the urge to lecture the agitator about the need for periodic pruning.

Spitford’s neighbourhood was only a twenty-five minute subway ride from Arnold’s townhouse, but it had taken the botanist nearly three hours to get uptown. He didn’t dare ride public transportation, and two cabbies had refused to drive him, before he’d found a third, a
white-bearded
Sikh, who clearly had no idea who he was. But then the taxi had been pulled over for a broken taillight, and he’d had to negotiate the final fifteen blocks up Broadway on foot. Luckily, it was well past midnight, so the streets were nearly deserted. Anyone who was still awake had sidewalks to hose down, or Chinese food to deliver, or prostitutes to manage—in short, business to attend to that left little time for recognizing or harassing Arnold. When he finally reached Spitford’s street, nearly all of the homes were already dark. A solitary lamppost illuminated a small corner of sidewalk, where an obese raccoon rummaged among aluminium trashcans. Farther up the block, although it was mid-spring, one file of second story windows remained framed by multi-coloured Christmas bulbs. Beyond that stood the gargoyled church, its imposing gothic silhouette rising above the river. The night was overcast and muggy, punctuated by gusts of warm wind. In Spitford’s residence, a light glowed in an upstairs window. Arnold double-checked the address from the phonebook against the brass numbers posted on Spitford’s front door. He mounted the steps and pressed the buzzer.

Arnold’s temper hadn’t calmed since discovering the garden massacre—if anything, his anger had increased on the trip uptown. But now, listening to the groan of distant stairs, he second-guessed himself. Why did challenging Spitford at the man’s own residence suddenly seem
unreasonable to Arnold? Wasn’t that what the minister had been doing
to him
all week? But it
was
nearly one o’clock in the morning. Something about the hot, stagnant spring night reminded Arnold of the Klansmen who used to waylay black ministers outside their homes. Then another concern struck Arnold: What if
Spitford
turned violent? For all he knew, the man might keep a shotgun at his bedside. He scanned the stoop for anything he might use as a makeshift weapon, but except for the welcome mat and the milk bin, the area was bare. And then it was too late. The door opened—not a crack, but all the way, and swiftly, as though in defiance of any lurking danger. Spitford loomed in the doorway. The minister was fully attired in his double-breasted black suit, with the gold chain of his watch poking out of his pocket. His reading glasses sat perched on his flat nose and he held a book under his arm. Without his sunglasses, he looked much older.

“Yes?” demanded the minister.

“It’s Arnold Brinkman,” retorted Arnold. “The man you’ve been harassing.”

Spitford tucked his glasses into his breast pocket. “So?”

“So this has to stop,” said Arnold. “You’re going to pay for my garden and you’re going to get your goddam goons away from my house.”

The minister raised his eyebrows. “I’m afraid that’s not going to happen, Mr. Brinkman,” he said. He spoke
politely, almost sympathetically, as though the matter were well beyond his control. Nothing in his tone suggested the least displeasure at having been summoned to the door in the middle of the night. He’d probably have displayed the same mildly intrigued expression if he’d been purchasing Girl Scout cookies.
But it was one o’clock in the morning!
The man had no right to equanimity—his very reasonableness seemed unreasonable to Arnold.

“Don’t you ‘Mr. Brinkman’ me,” shouted Arnold. “It took me thirty years to build that goddam garden.”

Arnold’s voice was far too loud for the street; his words echoed in his ears. At the same time, a door creaked behind Spitford. The minister ducked his head inside and said, in the gentlest voice, “It’s nothing, Mother. Just business. Please go back to bed.” When his gaze returned to Arnold, it was not nearly as friendly.

“This is neither the time,” said Spitford, “nor the place—”

“—You leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone.”

“As I was saying, Mr. Brinkman, this is neither the time nor the place. However, since you’ve come all this way, I can spare you a few moments. But why don’t we step over to the church? You possess a very loud voice, Mr. Brinkman, and my mother is not a heavy sleeper.”

The minister drew the door shut behind him and led Arnold twenty yards down the sidewalk. They stood directly in front of the Church of the Crusader, where
a black and white sign read: “God Hates Sin.” Another banner, proclaiming
IT’S NOT A CHOICE, IT’S A HOLOCAUST
, hung above the towering stained glass windows.

Spitford flipped open his watch and noted the time. Then he stuffed his fleshy hands into his trouser pockets. “Here’s how it is, Mr. Brinkman,” he said. “You’ve made some terrible mistakes and the only thing to be done is to ask for forgiveness. That’s what the Lord wants. That’s what
I
want. Too many men have died for America to let you mock their courage. If you don’t make amends, I’m afraid you’re going to have to face the consequences.”

That’s what it was all about to Spitford: consequences, a simple matter of cause and effect. As though the universe were an enormous billiard table under the supervision of a Newtonian deity, some celestial engineer who managed the human drama with mathematical precision. The minister’s confidence irked Arnold. “Don’t you have anything better to do with your time?”

“The truth is, Mr. Brinkman, I
do
have better things to do with my time.” Spitford’s voice was deep and resonant. “We live in a culture of death, where radical homosexuals are corrupting our children and bloodthirsty abortionists are committing a genocide that makes the African slave trade pale by comparison. Every day that I’m compelled to squander outside your house, waiting for an apology, is one more day lost to unnecessary distraction. But what am I to do? This is what the Lord has asked of me and I have no
choice but to obey.”

Arnold tried to keep his cool. “The Lord wants you to ruin my life?”

“The Lord wants you to apologize.”

“Well He’s going to have a long wait,” snapped Arnold. “Next time you speak to Him, tell Him to go screw himself with a chainsaw.”

Spitford remained unflappable. “You’re a very angry man, Mr. Brinkman.”

That was
too
much. “Wouldn’t you be angry if a pack of Black Nazis—that’s right, the goddam Black Gestapo—tore up your garden?”

The minister shook his head. “I want to give you fair warning,” he said softly. “It has come to my attention that you did far more than insult
the flag
at that baseball game. I have four witnesses willing to swear that you were teaching racial epithets to a child. I doubted these young men as first—quite honestly, you didn’t strike me as the type. But what I’ve heard tonight confirms my fears, rather than my hopes. Tomorrow morning, Mr. Brinkman, I’m going to have no choice but to expose your views. All I can say is that I hope you’ll take this as an opportunity to get right with God.”

“The kid asked a question,” objected Arnold. “I was just trying to explain….”

He looked up into Spitford’s hard glare and stopped speaking. What could he possibly say? Spitford was far
too certain, far too persuasive, to be outmanoeuvred verbally. A few more exchanges and he’d probably have Arnold convinced that his actions were indeed clouded by prejudice—that the botanist had discriminated in hiring, or locked his car doors unnecessarily, or masterminded the assassination of Malcolm X. People who professed to know everything were always perpetrating that sort of “instant brainwash” on people like Arnold. He thought of what Spitford’s goons had done to his garden—the decapitated dianthus, the mangled viburnum branches—and, for the first time in his adult life, he truly hated another human being.

“Do you own a copy of the scriptures, Mr. Brinkman?” asked Spitford. “If you don’t, why not take mine? Maybe it will soothe some of your bitterness.” The minister clasped Arnold’s hands and folded them around the Bible, his own fingers warm against the botanist’s clammy flesh. “Even the most hardened racist can mend his ways.”

This last accusation jolted Arnold alert. How dare this priggish homophobic Neanderthal—this Uncle Tom—call him a bigot? “I was trying to explain to my nephew what a nigger was,” shouted the botanist. “Well, you’re a goddam nigger. And I don’t mean the colour of your skin. I mean the content of your character.”

Spitford stepped backwards, apparently nonplussed. His eyes bulged; a vein in his forehead pulsed ominously. He started to speak several times, but all he managed to
produce was a short choking sound. When he reached into his jacket pocket, Arnold feared the man might draw a pistol—but instead he produced a paisley handkerchief and dabbed at his temples. “Good evening, Mr. Brinkman,” he said.

“The evening’s not over yet,” responded Arnold. “Not by a long-shot.”

He raised the book above his shoulder and hurled it across the churchyard. It slammed into the decorative window, shattering the stained glass.

“You show up at my house again tomorrow,” shouted Arnold, “and I’ll cut you in half with my chainsaw.”

The botanist turned on his heels and walked swiftly into the darkness.

Once he’d left Spitford’s, Arnold wasn’t sure why he’d ever gone. To threaten the minister? To annoy him? If so, he recognized he’d failed on both counts. It was now apparent to him that the minister was one of those fatalistic men who could
never
be annoyed, not by anything, because every inconvenience and aggravation was part of a divine scheme to draw him closer to Jesus on the cross. If that meant martyrdom, so much the better. Just as the followers of Calvin had once measured their heavenly value in earthly goods, the Spitfords of the world used pain as a benchmark for human worth. The more they suffered, the happier they
were. Which made Arnold’s threats utterly futile. Not that he was actually going to attack the minister with a chainsaw—but even if he did, Spitford would count each missing limb as a special gift from God.
Or would he?
In his gut, Arnold still harboured doubts. He sensed a certain shrewdness, even guile, behind Spitford’s indignation. A servant of the Lord, maybe, but not one above cutting corners. The man would certainly crack a few innocent eggs to make an omelette for Christ. For whatever reason, he’d apparently decided to make Arnold into one of those eggs.

But what troubled Arnold the most about the encounter—even more than the minister’s intransigence—was his own anger. He had levelled a racial slur at the man and tossed a Bible through a church window. Neither of these were capital offenses, and both had been provoked, but now he understood how otherwise decent people could explode on occasion and gun down their co-workers or their in-laws in cold blood. If
he’d
had a gun, he could easily have lost his temper enough to take a shot at Spitford. Which meant what? That hot-headed people shouldn’t be issued gun licenses? Or that the enemies of hot-tempered people ought to be issued bullet-proof vests? Maybe that anybody accused of a violent crime should be sent to an anger management course and given a second chance. That sounded like good social policy—but it didn’t excuse Arnold’s outburst. On the other hand, there was no
epithet too harsh for a man like Spitford. Even if Arnold had thrown a thousand Bibles through a thousand church windows, or burned Notre Dame to its foundations, it wouldn’t have squared the score with the Bible-thumpers after what those Black Nazis had done to Arnold’s garden. In other words, what he’d done to Spitford had been both highly justified and utterly inexcusable.

Arnold braved the subway ride to the Village. It was nearly four o’clock on a Friday morning and the odds of extensive human contact were low. The only other person on the platform was a shirtless, disfigured
African-American
wino strumming a broken ukulele. It sounded like the guy was attempting to sing
O Susannah!
but he had few teeth and his mouth was far too misshapen to articulate the words. Arnold generally didn’t give to the homeless individually—he preferred to send his donations to reputable, high-profile organizations of the sort that offered complimentary return-address labels—but a sudden yearning to demonstrate that he wasn’t a racist, maybe even to prove that he was a decent human being, took hold of him. He fished in his pockets and handed the man a ten dollar bill. The man growled what might have been a “thank you.” So far, so good. But then a gleam appeared in the guy’s eyes, a burst of sudden lucidity, as though the universe had been clarified for him or his crooning had conjured up a private vision of the Virgin Mary. The man opened his engorged mouth and stuck
out a large diseased tongue. “God bless!” he cried. “God bless!” After that, he chased Arnold across the platform as though he might lick him, his tongue hanging from his foaming mouth like that of a rabid hound. Fortunately, the train arrived a moment later and the botanist darted into the final car as the doors closed. Unfortunately, he’d been so aggravated by the episode that he’d boarded an uptown train by mistake. At the next station, he’d had to get off and switch directions.