The Boy Orator (19 page)

The group walked five blocks to the Evermonde Café, a small place that Frank O'Hare recommended. It was on the first floor of a large brick building trimmed with a thin wooden sign: “Carver Kiro-practic College and Infirmary.” Several buggies blocked the curb.

“What's …
kiropractic?”
Harry asked.

“Chiropractic medicine. That's where they twist your spine into crazy knots,” J. T. Cumbie said. “Capitalist racket, like everything else in this town.”

The cafe's proprietor, a big brown-haired woman named Rose, hugged the O'Hares as they walked in the door. “Don't think you're gonna eat here for free,” she told them. “I don't share my food, I
sell
it!”

Frank O'Hare smiled. “You're forgiven, just for tonight.”

Harry didn't think he'd be hungry after the sandwich he'd eaten at lunch but he inhaled a bowl of chicken soup and a flank steak, medium rare, with peas and potatoes. He decided he liked city life—as long as the league was paying.

After dinner, walking off their meals, they passed pawnshops, furniture stores, manufacturers, and business schools, each window a glimpse of strange, different lives Harry had never imagined. All these possibilities! In Oklahoma!

He noticed a Catholic church he'd return to in the morning. He'd promised his mother he wouldn't forget his prayers.

On the way back to the hotel, he saw a pair of cops give them all a serious once-over before moving on down the street. The policemen wore tall, rounded helmets and knee-length coats like the British bobbies he'd seen in books. Their polished black shoes reflected the lights of the street. One of them touched the bill of his helmet with his billy club, greeting Harry as he passed. Harry shivered. “I'm a Red,” he almost told the man, just to see what he'd do. Just to see the real city.

H
E'D AGREED TO MEET
Kate O'Hare and the others in front of the Huckins Hotel at ten
A.M
. First he ran to the church.

The sanctuary was deserted, small and dark, brightened only by a series of candles near the altar. A large wooden cross hung in the nave, next to a painting of Mary looking pensive and sad. Harry saw a grimy alcove cut into one of the walls, big enough for a life-sized statue of a woman or a man. A statue
had
been there; he saw its outline in the wall, a blank where dust and soot had failed to collect: a robed figure with its right hand raised. Probably Christ. Where was He now?

Gears ground in the street outside. A newspaper boy screamed about scandals, robberies, bloody murder: “Authorities baffled! Latest details!”

Like every other laborer in this unforgiving city, Harry figured, Christ had probably packed His lunch and caught the streetcar to work.

He said a prayer for Chester's soul, and asked for the Holy Mother's help as he and his friends spread the truth. Lately God had sent them more trials than triumphs. It didn't seem fair to Harry. Oscar Ameringer, Patrick Nagle, Gene Debs—they all said God was on the movement's side. If so, His support was awfully subtle. “Faith,” Harry exhorted himself. “Don't lose faith.”

By the time he reached the Huckins, just after ten, Kate O'Hare was already wagging her finger at the passersby on the walks, and the legislators who hurried past her into the hotel. She wore a long linen dress, flaming red, with a cream-colored sash around her waist, and a white cotton bodice. Her lustrous hair was tucked into a yellow straw hat. Harry fell in love with her again, as he did each day. “Woman labor!” he heard her shout at a pair of dour congressmen. “Gentlemen, when will the laws on your books match the facts? Why, in your very own city, just a few blocks from here, women weave the nation's clothing. The matron at her loom has long been the theme for the painter's brush and the poet's songs. But today she no longer inspires picture or rhyme unless it's the verse of misery and the portrait of human suffering!”

The politicians shook their heads and looked away. Streetcars clanged and people called to one another. Some of them stared at Kate O'Hare, but refused to stop and listen, apparently frightened of being implicated in something strange, troublesome, dangerous, or illegal. J. T. Cumbie strolled along the street curb, restless, grim about the meager response, but Kate O'Hare kept talking. Harry looked around, expecting to spot, any minute now, a cop on the beat, and was shocked to see Jesus. So
this
is where He'd gone! He was barefooted and He wore a pair of tattered overalls. His long hair and beard were matted and moist and filmed with chalky dust. “Got a quarter, brother?” He said to Warren Stargell. Then Harry noticed the fellow wasn't alone. Three other thin men, toothless and pocked with sores, moved through the line of Socialists, begging change. “Share the wealth, sister?” said the man who looked like Jesus, thrusting his open palm toward Kate O'Hare.

“The shame of it,” she answered softly. “That a man can starve within a few steps of the state capitol. Tell me, if I give you money, will you buy yourself a meal or will it go for a bottle?”

He grinned. His weathered expression was both cocky and shy. His clothes smelled of urine and cigarettes.

“Socialism can cure your craving for drink, friend.”

He rolled his eyes. “Here it comes,” he said. “The sermon.”

“No no. I don't agree with the churches that drink is a question of morals or sin,” said Kate O'Hare. “Churches are built for the glory of God and not for the uses of man.”

Harry felt himself blush.

“Drunkenness is a disease,” she said. “I've seen miners afflicted with rheumatism and printers with consumption. Drunkenness, too, finds
its
proper culture in excess—of idleness or work, excessive cold or heat, too much speed or deadly monotony. Am I telling your story?”

Tears glistened in the young man's eyes. He stared, astonished, at Kate O'Hare.

“Here, friend. Take my hand. I won't judge you. Intemperance is the fruit of capitalism. I'm not concerned with material prosperity. It's the prosperity of the human spirit I cherish. Sit with me, relax, let me share with you—”

“No!” He pulled away. “I ain't joining no goddam cause!” Trembling, he brushed his salty cheeks. “I drink because I
like
it, lady, all right?” He laughed, a forced hack deep in his throat, and motioned his friends to follow him down the street. They lurched past buggies and shiny new wagons. Kate O'Hare closed her eyes for a moment, straightened her hat, and said, “I believe we've done all we can here for the time being. I think I'll go back to the room and lie down. Frank, can you take the kids to lunch?” She turned and, with great dignity, moved slowly beyond the shoppers and smiling storekeepers sweeping their walks.

A
FTER LUNCH
H
ARRY TAPPED
lightly on her door. She looked sleepy when she answered. Soft. Warm. Her red dress was wrinkled. “Harry. Come in, come in.”

“I'm sorry to bother you, but I guess Mr. Stargell and I are heading home tomorrow. I didn't know if I'd see you again.” He looked at the floor. “It's been a real privilege sharing the stage with you.”

“Likewise.” She sat on her unmade bed. “I've heard a lot of fine speakers in my time. Oscar, Eugene, Kate Barnard, Caroline Lowe, Mother Jones. But you, Harry … you're one of the best, and you've got a lot of years ahead of you. When I get home to Kansas City, I'll tell all my friends about you.”

“Thank you, ma'am.”

“When I first started barnstorming, I had a high, shrill voice,” she said. “Frank used to tell me to tone things down, but I didn't believe him until we visited the St. Louis World's Fair a few years ago. They had a pavilion there where you could make your own phonograph records. Lord, when I heard how I sounded! I had to do a lot of work. But you're a natural, Harry.”

He smiled. “Do you mind if I ask …?”

“What is it?” she said.

“This morning. When no one listens. When changes don't happen fast enough. How do you—” “Keep myself going?”

He nodded.

“I'll tell you, Harry, no matter what happens today, tomorrow, or the day after that, I'm content just knowing I've served. I've given the working class my girlhood, my young womanhood.” She shrugged. “And now my motherhood. It's true. Changes don't always happen quick enough to suit me. But all we can do is spread the word.”

Harry nodded again.

“Here. I've got something for you.” She knelt beside her bed. “It's not a doubloon or a gold ingot, but I'd call it a treasure just the same.” She pulled a thick, cream-colored book from a bag, turned to its flyleaf, and scribbled something in it with a pen. She handed it to Harry:
The Jungle
by Upton Sinclair. “A few years ago we serialized part of this novel in the
Appeal
. Words
can
change things, Harry. If you ever doubt that, remember this book. Did you ever hear of the Pure Food and Drug Act?”

“No ma'am.”

She smiled. “Well, it doesn't matter. Hold on to this. It might be important to you someday.”

Harry said, “I love you.”

She hugged him and told him she'd see him again down the road.

T
HAT NIGHT, SITTING IN
the steak house after dinner, J. T. Cumbie told Fred Warren and Warren Stargell it had been a grueling month, full of triumph and tragedy, a long day, and he could use a little nightcap, how about them? They agreed and asked a young waiter to recommend a quiet place where Mr. Cumbie wouldn't be recognized (it wouldn't do for a gubernatorial candidate to be caught guzzling “demon rum”; he'd managed to promote himself, publicly, as a teetotaler). The waiter pointed them toward Hudson Street. There they'd find a drab brick building attached to the rear of Swangaard's Waffle House. “Three rapid knocks on the door,” he said. Warren Stargell thanked him and gave him an extra tip.

Harry asked if he could tag along. “Certainly,” said J. T. Cumbie, buttoning his coat. “I'd say you've earned your stripes.”

The “gray horse” led the charge to Hudson Street. It was just a few blocks away. Across an alley from the waffle house, beneath a dim electric light, two young women in thin black dresses stood smoking and talking. Harry thought of Sherrie, the dancer he'd seen in the miner's dining hall, and the pregnant girl in the camp waiting in line for the outhouse. He felt a sudden sadness and missed his mother. These women looked lonely and cold. He wished he could invite them in to talk without awkwardness or misunderstanding.

He wished he could touch them.

The night smelled of coal and oil. Train cars clattered in the distance.

The tiny room was filled with smoke, low voices, and laughter. Fred Warren ordered a bottle of grain alcohol for Warren Stargell, J. T. Cumbie and himself, and a glass of beer for Harry, his first since Anadarko. The bartender didn't mention Harry's age; everyone knew that minors were the least of his problems if the law got wind of this place.

They found a round table in the middle of the room. Sawdust covered the floor. Kerosene lamps, hung on twisted nails in the walls, sputtered and hissed, casting more noise than light.

Warren Stargell raised his drink. “To fallen comrades,” he said.

“Dear Chester.” Fred Warren threw back his head and drained his glass. It was cracked and chipped and slightly discolored.

“To our next governor,” Harry said, nodding at J. T. Cumbie.

“Thank you, son.”

They toasted again. Warren Stargell reached into a pocket for his pouch of Bull Durham. Harry noticed a white-haired, black-clad figure enter the door in a flurry of commotion. The smoke made him dizzy. Then he heard a woman's voice: “There are just two crowds on Earth, God's and the devil's.”

Warren Stargell lighted a match. “What the hell?” he said.

The figure in the doorway tossed off her light cotton scarf and raised her arms. Her dress was as black as a judge's robe. She was chunky and small. “It's plain to see, the devil makes this his stopping place when he's not busy down in Texas!” She stalked to the center of the room, grabbed the whiskery jaw of a young man chewing tobacco. He swallowed hard, choked. “You remind me of an old billy goat gnawing his cud,” the woman said.

“My Lord,” whispered J. T. Cumbie. “You know who that is, don't you?” Before he could say the name, she whirled toward the table and slapped the cigarette out of Warren Stargell's mouth. “Sucking on a coffin nail!” she shouted. “Are you in a hurry to meet the devil, my friend?” She spotted Harry. “Dear Christ, this boy's losing his soul already. Run, boy, run!”

Harry sat, astonished. She had a wonderful speaking voice, he thought.

The bartender snagged her arm. “Listen here, lady, you can't just waltz in here—”

She leaped away from him, reached into the folds of her enormous skirt, and produced a smart little hatchet. She swung it over her head then brought it down, mightily, on the table in front of Harry, spilling the whiskey and beer, sending long blond splinters twisting into smoke in the air. “The wrath of God!” she screamed.

All the drinkers dove for cover.

“I thought she'd retired,” Warren Stargell said, scrambling under a table.

“I thought she was dead,” Fred Warren replied. Bottles crashed, wood snapped, arms and legs splayed, twitching, in sawdust and bubbles of ale.

“God is a righteous cyclone,” she yelled, “sweeping the Earth!” “Who
is
she?” Harry asked.

“Carry Nation,” answered J. T. Cumbie. “Saloon-buster and goddam pain in the ass.”

Harry remembered the sign in the hills near Zeke Cash's still, but he didn't have time to think about it. She was heading his way again with the hatchet. Swiftly, he crawled behind the bar. A chair-leg sailed above his head. “I strike this blow against the brewers and distillers, the Republicans and Democrats and all the city's businessmen who've conspired to pickle the masses!” she wheezed.