The Boy Orator Read online

  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.”

  He turned and walked out the door with his parents in tow. The reporter followed, checking the spelling of “Shaughnessy,” grilling Harry about his next plan of attack.

  “Mother, what’s the name of the Chancellor for the Diocese of Oklahoma?”

  Annie Mae nearly tripped in the street, running to keep up with her son. Andrew, favoring his bad leg, straggled far behind. “Father Urban de Hasque,” she said breathlessly.

  “And our bishop? Theo—?”

  “Theophile Meerschaert.”

  “A friend of the governor’s, as I recall,” Harry said. “I saw a picture of them together in the paper one day. They’ll be notified. And we’ll publicize our plight in the Catholic press. Once we’re all mobilized, we’ll just see who’s a majority.”

  The reporter asked, amused, “Is this your first big campaign, ah …Mr. Shaughnessy?”

  “Not at all. I just came off the road with J. T. Cumbie, the next governor of this fine state of ours. Mark my word, the people’s revolution will soon sweep bigoted bureaucrats like Mr. Boyd out of office …and when you quote me, you can call me the Boy Orator.”

  HIS MOTHER WANTED TO know where he’d learned such words as “supersede” and “impropriety” but he really couldn’t tell her; he’d picked them up, traveling. At the end of the week, the Walters New Herald published the journalist’s account of Harry’s showdown with Boyd. It concluded: “At twelve, Mr. Shaughnessy is already a stirring speaker, a promising young statesman, perhaps the best native politician our infant state has produced. We will certainly keep an eye—no, both eyes—on this budding new leader.”

  THE KIOWA COMMUNITY EAST of Cookietown, several hundred acres of hardscrabble leveled by harsh plains winds, sudden floods, merciless velocity and force, was virtually unreachable by wagon or car. The paths into and out of the region were rocky, winding and narrow, poor even by the low standards of the rest of the county’s roads. Walking, switching a stick to keep flies off his face, Harry remembered the smooth paved streets surrounding the Huckins Hotel. The farther you got from the city, from the congressmen’s haunts, he thought, the sorrier the highways got, the schools, the working conditions of women and men. The life of a congressman: that was the way to go.

  A thunderstorm the night before had stirred up pollen and dust. A scent of rank water clung like skin to the shimmering heat in the air. Plants, scorched, closed up; mosquitoes circled their drooping stems.

  He left the road when he saw four or five whitewashed shacks and a tepee made of canvas and oak. He didn’t know where Mollie lived; he’d have to ask.

  As he tramped through brittle brown weeds, huffing and sweating, he began to sneeze. By the time he reached the first shack, and a group of small children playing with straw dolls and sticks, he figured he looked to them like a hideous animal from deep in thickest Texas, with his red, watering eyes, puffy nose, and twisted mouth. Thin white moths rose from tangled vines at his feet. He said, “Hello.” The children stared at him as if they’d just witnessed an accident.

  “Weryavah,” he croaked, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “Mollie Weryavah. You know her?”

  One of the girls pointed downhill, toward a swirling, muddy river. Harry thanked her and set off across the field. Pheasants and doves and wild turkeys roamed the banks of the river; Harry had been there once, years ago, with his father hunting Thanksgiving dinner. Past brambles and bees he ran. Shouts rose from a dogwood and mulberry thicket. Cedar waxwings lifted in a big spooked bunch above the water. Among the trees Harry glimpsed a soft flash. “Mollie?” he called, sneezing.

  The white figure stopped abruptly. Her dark face peered through the leaves. “Socialist?” she said.

  He beamed.

  “Damn you,” she shouted, turned away, and trudged across the wet, waving grass.

  “Mollie! Mollie, wait!” The mud by the river’s high bank slowed his steps, but he ran and caught her arm. Just then a growl burst from the shadows on the other side of the water. “Oh no!” Mollie said. She covered her face with her hands. A gold shape rushed from the bushes followed by three tall teenaged boys. Harry could see it was Lil they were chasing, but the d
og looked broken, mad. Foam-strands hung like folded wings from the corners of her mouth. “My God,” Harry whispered. Mollie knelt in the grass. Her hair was longer than he’d seen it last, wavy and fine. The summer sun had reddened her skin. She smelled of coming rain, of river stones, of sunflowers and ivy.

  Harry dropped beside her, held her shoulders. “How did it happen?” he asked.

  The boys had lost sight of Lil and were standing now, tired and uncertain, by a fallen limb jutting several feet into the water.

  Mollie wiped tears from her face. “A rabid wolf, down from the hills …” She twisted out of his arms and looked at him. “You bastard, you didn’t tell me good-bye!”

  “I know, Mollie, I—”

  “Too late,” she said, rising. “It’s too late now.” The tallest of the boys had splashed across the river and stood behind her, muddy and wet. He didn’t have a shirt; his chest was as flat and glistening as the prehistoric glaciers Harry had studied in school, that had smoothed America’s plains. With his long fingers he flicked soggy hair off his shoulders. “This is my cousin Anko,” Mollie said. “Anko, this is Harry.”

  Anko grabbed Mollie’s arm. He kissed her mouth. Then he stepped away from her and glared at Harry. “She can’t get far,” he said. “We’ll track her. In the meantime, we’d better find a madstone.”

  Mollie nodded. Harry looked at her, questioning. She shook her head. “You should go,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Anko.

  “Can’t we talk?” Harry asked. “For a minute?”

  Anko stepped forward and tugged his shirt. The sudden movement made Harry’s nose run again. “Go,” Anko hissed. “Go now.” His heavy breath smelled of fresh fish and dill.

  Angry, humiliated, Harry started upriver, glancing back at Mollie. Katydids popped against his pants. The mud smelled like something old and dying. Suddenly Mollie was behind him, panting. She kissed him quickly. “Socialist, do you love me still?”

  He plunged his face into her hair, felt the curve of her hip through her dress. “Yes,” he said. “Yes. That’s why I came to find you.”

  She looked around. Anko had disappeared downstream. “Then come tonight, here by the river. At eight. That’s when the Elder wakes. We’ll go to her for a madstone.”

  “What are madstones?”

  “Shhh. Just meet me here, all right?”

  “What about Anko?”

  She shrugged. “I’ll slip away from him.”

  Father McCartney had planned a special Mass tonight, to rally the Catholic community. Somehow, Harry would have to sneak off. You’ve got more authority now, his father had said. More presence. But standing here with Mollie he didn’t feel any different at all.

  The craziness was blossoming again.

  ST. MARY’S, ON THE south side of Walters, was a small, clean chapel with a red carpet inside, and a coat of lime green paint on its square oak walls. Candles and kerosene lanterns lighted the altar. Men unknotted their collars and ties in the stifling heat, women fanned themselves with hymnals. Harry watched a clear drop of sweat roll down the lovely long neck of a woman beside him in the pew and disappear above the top button of her dress, where the rise of her breasts began in earnest.

  The priest placed the chasuble over his white linen alb and led the congregation in a recitation of the Angelus: “The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary—”

  “And she conceived of the Holy Ghost. Hail Mary—”

  “Behold the handmaid of the Lord—”

  “Be it done to me according to Thy word—”

  Once the prayers were finished, Father McCartney raised the chalice, but instead of offering the blood and body of Christ, he paused. Then he said, “Friends, as you know, some local men of power have tried to separate us from our Savior, from our Almighty Lord’s supreme sacrifice on our behalf.” The sacramental wine the sheriff’s men had impounded had mysteriously disappeared; Father McCartney had accused them, the mayor, and the county commissioners of drinking it all. “So we cannot receive the blessing of Christ tonight.” He urged his fellows to pressure the town leaders so that Righteousness and the Spirit of Forgiveness would once again grace “this parched and sinful land.”

  The Baptists had printed an open letter in the Herald, commending the commissioners for “banning liquor from our lives” and warning them not to be fooled by the “pagan rituals” of those who “call themselves Christians, but who will surely be cast into Hell for their wanton ways come the glory of Judgment Day.”

  At home, before the Mass, Andrew had grumbled about the Baptists’ “shoddy Christ.” “You know what they use at communion? Grape juice and pie crust. I mean, what kind of Savior is that?”

  “Depends on what kind of pie,” Harry had said, grinning. Andrew swatted his rear.

  When Father McCartney ended his service, the parishioners stood in the chapel discussing their missing wine, wondering what in Sam Hill the world had come to. The priest slipped into the confessional; Annie Mae insisted Harry take his turn. He hadn’t done penance since before the summer encampments.

  The wood inside the booth was cool and dark. The seat was hard. He heard the priest slide back the little door in the wall between himself and Harry, and shafts of light, thin as pencils, filled the tiny space where Harry waited. He could see the vague outline of Father McCartney’s head through the wire grating in the wall. The priest was young—thirty, maybe, more like an older brother than a father, which made it hard for Harry to confess to him, or to take their exchanges seriously.

  He coughed. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.” Oh Lord. Cigarettes and beer. Concealing the truth from his folks. Yelling at those who opposed him. And Mollie. Sweet Mollie. The heat of her skin. Her soft, moist lips. He squirmed, then knelt on the hard, gritty wood.

  He told it all but the priest seemed not to listen. He said distractedly, “Say a hundred Hail Marys and fifteen Our Fathers. I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Harry rose to leave, relieved and a little confused. “Harry,” said the priest. “Stay a moment longer.”

  Startled and afraid, Harry sat back down. Never had Father McCartney broken the spell of anonymity inside the confessional. What could this mean?

  “I saw your name in the paper,” the priest began.

  “Yessir,” Harry mumbled.

  “It seems you’re well on your way to a certain … celebrity.”

  “I don’t know, Father.”

  “No need to be modest. You’ve confessed your sins and Pride was not among them. Harry?”

  “Yes, Father?”

  “I appreciate your efforts on behalf of St. Mary’s. It was very brave of you to stand up to the county commissioners and say the things you did. But Harry?”

  “Yessir?”

  “You and your family—you’re Socialists, aren’t you?”

  “That’s right, Father.”

  The priest paused. “You’re aware of the strong prejudice against Catholics in this state.” He cleared his throat. “It could damage perceptions of us even further if the press associates us with radical politics. Therefore, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to step into the background.”

  “But—”

  “Surely you see the problem.”

  Harry sighed. Faith, he told himself. Don’t lose faith. “I think I should go now, Father.”

  “Harry, listen to me. We both want what’s best for the Church, isn’t that right?”

  He remembered the small mob on the road to Ada, the men who beat his father. “Yes, but I don’t believe silence advances any cause,” he said softly.

  “I’m asking you. As a favor to your Lord.”

  Now he pictured Jesus throwing stones. He burst through the door of the booth. His mother was standing on the church’s front steps with several other women in silk dresses and big round hats. Smiling, Harry tried to look calm, unburdened by sin. Annie Mae told him that Mrs. Riordan and Mrs. McIlhenny had prepa
red a few dishes and were inviting people to dinner. “Find your dad for me,” she said.

  He didn’t know when or how he’d escape to see Mollie. Father McCartney, stepping from the confessional, nodded gravely at him from several yards away.

  Crammed with Catholic bodies, the Riordans’ small home sweltered and seemed to roar with the heat. Harry looked for the woman he’d sat beside in church, but didn’t see her. He nearly choked on the smell of aftershave. Squash and okra steamed in dishes on a long walnut table draped in pink linen. He stuck his finger into the chocolate icing on a cake and licked it clean.

  At one point he looked around the house, unable to locate any men. In the absence of sacramental wine, he figured, they’d found another “blessing.” Mr. Riordan probably had a healthy stash. In the parlor someone began to play a tinny piano. Women’s laughter rang in his ears. He told his mother he was dizzy and a little sick to his stomach. “I think I’d like to walk home,” he said.

  She placed a hand on his forehead.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “I need some air.”

  “It’s a long walk, Harry.”

  “It’ll do me good, Ma.” He kissed her cheek. “I’ll see you later.”

  Before she could say anything else he’d bolted out the door. He ran under gnarly apple trees throbbing with cicadas. Sweetness filled the night, tinged with a whiff of decay: late summer, soon to be gone.

  This time, when he left the road near Cookietown to cut across the fields, he pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and covered his face to keep from sneezing. He was early. Mollie wasn’t here yet. He sat and watched the moon rise above the water, whitening the trembling reeds and muscular ripples in the shallows. In the morning he’d tell his parents he’d gotten sleepy walking home, and crawled into a neighbor’s barn to nap. He’d need to do penance again, but he didn’t want to talk further with Father McCartney.

  He waited half an hour. The water’s smooth sounds relaxed him but he grew suddenly alert when something rustled in the bushes behind him. He turned and Mollie fell into his arms. Her hands explored his face, his hair, the curve of his ears; her tongue circled his, surprising him. “Mollie, Mollie,” he whispered. “You’re not still mad at me, are you?”