The Boy Orator Read online

  “Nothing.” In a Socialist world, would he have to be everyone’s brother?

  “What’s that?”

  Showy bully. “Put me out of my misery.” Harry felt his cheeks burn and wondered if friendship was worth it.

  Or they got into rock fights, teams of six or seven squaring off on either side of the school wagon, parked behind the outhouse. The rocks raised welts on the boys’ bare arms, wounds they wore with pride. In these more active games Harry enjoyed himself, though he was always the last boy picked for a team. He wished summer vacation were months, not days, away. With a little more time the boys might start to like him.

  At home he did his chores distractedly. He walked around the mule pen with Patrick Nagle, imagining ways to approach Warren Stargell. Each dusk, to call him in, his mother tapped the kitchen window with her thimble, a brisk cracking that carried clear across the yard. He kissed the mule good-night, scattered chickens as he ran through orange evening light. Breezes stirred the loose steel bins of the grain elevators; they groaned in the growing dark like old Apache warriors back from the dead, Harry thought, howling in loss and pain. Crows veered above sweet-scented columns of wheat.

  Annie Mae lighted the coal-oil lamps, shading green the blond pine wood of the house. Over the stove she heated her curling iron. When it was hot enough to brown a page of newsprint she ran it slowly through her hair. Afterwards she figured the family’s finances. The local coal companies were calling for timber to prop up their mines, but Andrew was in no shape to accommodate them. Harry could see she was worried about the bills.

  He cleared dishes from the table, opened his books on the oilcloth mat, and finished figuring the sums his teacher had assigned. Andrew slumped in his chair, nodding at his son: their little secret.

  On Saturday morning Annie Mae set out on her weekly visits to the neighbors, to relax and gossip with her friends. She filled a basket with fresh brown bread. “Back this afternoon.” She kissed Harry’s cheek. “Watch your dad for me.”

  As soon as she left, Harry packed a turkey sandwich in a knapsack, promised his dad he’d hurry, and headed down the dirt-and-gravel highway to Walters.

  Grasshoppers ticked against the cuffs of Harry’s long denim pants. A violet sky, peppered with blue and gray clouds.

  A shouting man in a Model T nearly ran him off the road. “Damn clanky things,” Andrew always said of cars. “I swear, Model T’s have shook more hell out of people than all the preachers in the county.”

  Eight years ago, spring rains and river floods had wiped out most of the roads. Harry didn’t remember, but he’d heard his father’s stories. The Oklahoma Territory passed a “road tax,” requiring residents to spend four days a year grading and raising beds for proper drainage. “‘Course, we all squawked like Thanksgiving turkeys running from the ax,” Andrew said. “Fellows failed to show for work, the Territory fined ‘em five bucks. Finally, they changed the law but we all wound up on the road gangs, anyway, otherwise we’d never have had clear paths into town.”

  Harry had asked him once, when they’d first started practicing speeches, “If you want to change a law, you squawk like a turkey?”

  Andrew laughed so hard he popped a button. Since Anadarko, Harry missed his father’s laughter. “No. It’s better to sell a bunch of turkeys, then pass the jack along to your friendly congressman.”

  This was Harry’s first political lesson. Recalling it now, he ached for his father’s health. Maybe the whiskey would help.

  Two shirtless young men with shovels cleared packed mud and stones from ruts where the automobile had passed. They nodded hello.

  On the edge of town he saw other young men centering poles in a row in the ground, uncoiling rigid wire from giant wooden spools in a field. One of the workers winked at him. “What are you doing?” Harry asked.

  “Gonna set some houses ablaze,” the man said.

  Harry unwrapped his sandwich, sat and watched awhile, recalling Bob Cochran’s prediction: “Electric lights are just the beginning.”

  Shouldn’t dawdle, he thought, rousing himself, shaking crumbs from his shirt and rolling up his knapsack. His ma would be back in just a few hours. The men strung wires like webs, crosshatching a section of sky. Harry tried to imagine pulsing light inside the lines waiting to explode in someone’s home.

  Walters, just west of the Shaughnessy farm, was a little smaller than Anadarko. In its ongoing bid to become the county seat, it called itself the “New Jerusalem,” a farmers’ paradise in the center of fertile bottomland. Harry had heard his father discuss the governance issue with his friends at political gatherings—he even understood most of what they said—and he was eager to poke around the place on his own.

  This wasn’t a market day, but Walters stores were blocked by heavy plows, farmers buying tools for next fall’s harvest. Men with dark, rich soil on their hands sat talking in wagons or in shadows by the livery stable. Horseflies dived at the split carcass of a quail, shoved against the base of an empty water trough in front of the jail.

  A leathery man on a mule strummed a guitar and sang:

  Farmer said to the boll weevil,

  “I see you at my door.”

  “Yessir,” said the boll weevil,

  “I been here before.

  Gonna get your home, gonna get your home.”

  On a nearly vacant side street Harry noticed the Jew Peddler’s fiery red hack. The right front wheel had cratered, pitching the wagon forward at an abrupt and dangerous angle. Harry approached it cautiously, peering through the canvas curtain in back of the rolling store, inspecting the boxes and jars and paper-wrapped objects for sale. Red, yellow, and purple gleamed in a blade of sunlight through the narrow part in the curtain; he was dazzled by a blurry impression of crystals and soft, waxy edges. He knew these were simply the things his mother always bought—soaps and lotions and candles—but here in the dim wagon they appeared to be strange elixirs from a distant continent. An exotic scent—a mixture of greens and earth and musk—dizzied him. He turned aside to swallow air and ran into a looming black shirt. A huge hat hid the sun. Harry blinked. A fleshy animal rose in front of his face. Then he saw it was just a man’s hand. “Hello. My name is Avram,” said a low voice.

  Reluctantly, Harry shook the hand and introduced himself. He didn’t know why, but he was afraid to touch the man. Up close, Avram was younger than Harry would have guessed, probably in his late twenties or thirties, though it was hard to tell beneath the bramble of his thick black beard. Harry’s father had told him, many times, not to judge people by their appearances, but no one else hereabouts looked as strange as Avram did, and Harry flinched from him, involuntarily. Besides, though his mother seemed to like the peddler, she always complained about his prices, as though he couldn’t be wholly trusted.

  “Yes. Young Harry. Your mother’s told me all about you,” Avram said. “Your speeches. Her sleeplessness when you travel.”

  Harry’s face burned. He felt exposed. He wouldn’t look up. “I won’t be going anymore,” he mumbled.

  “Oh? I’m surprised. I thought you were much in demand.”

  “I don’t know.” Harry shrugged. “Accident?”

  Avram thumped the shattered wheel. He wore a big ruby ring. “A stone in the street. I didn’t see it until it was too late. Do you think you could help me move the wagon into that alley, out of the way? I’d appreciate it.”

  Harry really wanted to go, but no one else was coming by to help.

  “It won’t take a minute,” Avram said.

  The man’s heavy, hooded eyelids reminded Harry of looks he’d seen on the faces of lizards—a kind of cold and brooding amusement.

  Was that the peddler’s true manner? Harry fought his fear and revulsion; after all, Avram was what his father would call a “fellow worker.” “Okay,” he said.

  Avram unhooked his mule from the hack, secured it to a post. Then, while Harry pushed from behind, he steered the wagon into a shadow, carrying it on his bac
k where the wheel had disengaged. Afterwards, sweat trickled like dew through the rings of his beard. “Let me see,” he said, crawling through the curtain. “Perhaps I have—” He combed through fallen bottles. “Yes.” He popped back out and handed Harry a tall, curved flask. “Homemade lemonade,” Avram said. “For a job well done. Thank you. It’s a little warm, I’m afraid.” He grabbed the broken wheel and walked with Harry through town. A woman with a shady parasol, crossing the street, gave them a curious glance.

  “Tell me, are you leaving the road because of what happened in Anadarko?” Avram asked.

  “My mother told you?”

  “Yes.”

  Harry felt shy again, to be so revealed to a stranger, especially one as odd as Avram. “My dad was badly hurt. He may not get well.”

  “I heard. I’m sorry.” Avram studied the boy. “Forgive me, it’s none of my business,” he said, “but if you let those men silence you, you’re doing just what they want, you know? They’ve won. You realize that?” He grunted, shifted the wheel to his other arm.

  Harry blew into the flask. “So?” His voice sank, trapped in the glass.

  “So …don’t you believe in what you say?”

  “Of course.” He didn’t like being challenged this way.

  Avram laid a hand on his shoulder, stopped him too roughly in the street. “Then you must keep saying it.”

  Harry glanced up. The man wasn’t tall but the sunlight above and behind him swelled his frame.

  “You’re right,” Harry said. “It’s none of your business.”

  Avram nodded but wouldn’t let go. “I know you’re afraid. There’s reason to be.”

  “I’m not afraid,” Harry said. Who was this man to judge him, this funny-looking man? “They hate me at school. It’s getting better—” He caught himself. Now he was baring his secrets. He wanted to run away.

  “You’re special, that’s why.”

  Harry cocked his head.

  “Your mother’s convinced. I trust her. A smart, solid woman, your mother. A prudent buyer.”

  “She said that? About me?”

  “She says you have a gift.”

  “Really?” Pleased and embarrassed, he twisted the flask in his hands. They’d arrived at a blacksmith’s shop. Avram dropped the wheel. “Here we are,” he said. “I hope I haven’t overstepped my bounds. Thank you again for your help.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Will you pardon an old man’s concerns?”

  Harry smiled and looked away. How old was he? Who could tell?

  “My people,” Avram said, scratching his beard, “have been chased and silenced all over the world. But still we persist.” He offered his hand again, then disappeared inside the shop, which smelled of ashes and lye, a hot, stabbing odor, and clattered with the chilly pings of hammers.

  Avram was probably a decent sort, after all, Harry decided, but still he felt relieved to get away from the peculiar eyes and wiry beard. His distrust of the man shamed him.

  As he turned to go, he noticed a poster tacked to the blacksmith’s door. Kate O’Hare was speaking tomorrow in Waurika. His heart jumped. Kate O’Hare!

  Recently, his father had told him about this woman. She’d come from Kansas, the daughter of a farmer who’d lost his savings in the drought of ‘87. A former machinist, trade unionist, and now a committed Socialist, she was praised as one of the finest speakers of the cause. Harry longed to hear her, to learn her inflections and gestures. He could almost taste the road again, in the sweetness of the lemonade, the dust on his lips from the street.

  He stuffed Avram’s flask in a back pocket and ran for the barbershop where his dad said he’d find Warren Stargell. His mother said he had a gift!—the thought made him smile (she was so hard to read) but then he felt sorry, running off like this without her okay. All week he’d schemed without her knowing, practicing remarks in Patrick Nagle’s pen: “Sir, we need your help on a mission of mercy.” “Could I trouble you, sir, with an urgent request?” His mother thought he was doing his chores. His belly hurt when he imagined her face; maybe he should cancel his secret task.

  Just then, though, Warren Stargell glimpsed him through the barbershop window. “Well lookee here, if it ain’t the Boy Orator,” he yelled, stepping into the open doorway. He held a blank brown domino. “How’s your pappy, Harry?”

  Harry was startled. He’d forgotten the lines he’d perfected. “He needs …” He remembered his father’s words. “He needs a touch of medicine. From Zeke Cash.”

  Warren Stargell roared. His belly, big as a coal sack, swayed above his belt. “Good. Sounds like he’s getting his dander back up. You tell him no problem. I’m riding to Lawton on Monday. I’ll stop by early next week with the cure.” He ruffled Harry’s hair.

  The barber shook a bottle of tonic; it hiccuped. The man in the chair, waiting for a shave, chuckled over something. Dark curls sailed in the air. On the wall, the razor strap, twisting in a breeze from the door, bumped a coppery mirror. Harry felt bad about his mother again, standing here in this world of men. Like the boys at school who mocked his speeches, the brewers in the hills who kidded him when he drank, the men who beat his father, these fellows, trading sly-confidences over dominoes, were full of secrets that had nothing to do with home. Since Anadarko, Harry understood that awful laughter and danger often accompanied circles of men. Dark looks. Jokes. He wanted out of here, but Warren Stargell held his arm. “You see where Kate O’Hare’s testifying in Waurika?”

  “I just saw the poster,” Harry said.

  “When’re you gonna speak again? What does Andrew say?”

  “My ma doesn’t want me to.”

  “Your ma—hell, we need you, Harry, you’re good for business. Who can resist that baby face, eh?” He squeezed Harry’s cheeks. “The league’s arranging a circuit, three or four of our best speakers, make a little tour next month. What do you say?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “All right, we’ll work on her when I come out next week. Take care of your pappy, you hear? He’s a good man.”

  “I will.” My mother’s good too, he thought.

  ‘“Ataboy.”

  On the road home, remorseful, Harry passed the electric wires, hooked now to all the poles. He saw in a nice house a warm, orange glow, just visible in the midafternoon sunlight; the silhouette of a woman sweeping a kitchen.

  His mother wouldn’t let him see Kate O’Hare. “Once and for all, I want you to get this politicking out of your system. It’s no business for a little boy. Besides, you’ve got plenty to do around here.” He didn’t argue. He still felt guilty about his trip into town, and tried to atone with his chores. In the evenings, though, when all his work was done, he sat on the gate of the mule pen and raised both his arms. “You ask me why I’m a Socialist!” he shouted, choosing one of his father’s fervent themes, extemporizing on it, paraphrasing Oscar Ameringer.

  Patrick Nagle’s ears bobbed. He kicked up dirt. Halley panted, wagged his tail. “I’ll tell you, friends. Money-love and the two-party system are the roots of all evil, strangling the uninformed voter. The national banking system is the tree. The trusts are its branches, bearing poisoned fruit. Brothers!” Patrick Nagle raised his head and let out a squeal. “The sunlight of liberty is setting behind mountains of sin!” Halley ran deliriously around the pen, yapping, chasing bugs.

  Harry had forgotten his boredom on the road, his classmates’ taunts. All he remembered now was the excitement of the crowds. The applause. “Turkey in the Straw,” “The Arkansas Traveler”—songs of the fiddlers who sometimes played before he talked. He pictured skinny women dancing—“malnourished,” his father had said—stooped farmers shouting affirmation. The combination of music, stews on open fires, the beat of his own rushing words made him dizzy. Giddy with delight. How could he give up so much fun?

  Avram, Kate O’Hare, and Warren Stargell had turned him, like a weather vane, in the right direction again.

  His imprompt
u speeches restored Andrew a little, even as they worried Annie Mae. “That’s my boy,” Andrew mumbled, sitting on the porch. “God, don’t he make you want to lay down your life?”

  Annie Mae covered his shoulders with a heavy patchwork quilt. “I’m glad you’re home,” she whispered in his ear.

  He patted her hand. For the first time in days his gaze settled on her face. “Yes. It’s a nice home, isn’t it?”

  In spite of everything, she almost answered, aware of her daily chores in each gripping twinge in her back. “It ought to be. We crossed a mighty rough river to get here.”

  “Only because I made you. I was right, now wasn’t I?”

  She smiled. “I’ll never admit it.”

  “Things haven’t turned out so bad, have they?”

  “Not so bad.” She kissed his cheek. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better this evening,” Andrew said. “You? You look tired.”

  “A bit.”

  “Take a rest tonight, Annie.”

  “There’s a few more bills to pay before bed.” Her back screamed. She stood up straight.

  “Annie?”

  “It’ll pass.” Fiercely, she pressed her palms into her hips. Each week, she prayed for the torment to cease—the same misery she’d felt after Harry was born, recurring now month after month. She knew she shouldn’t pray selfishly; there were much bigger favors to ask of the Lord, said Father McCartney, than one’s own personal comfort. “Catholics are under attack here, daily,” he often reminded his congregation, “so it’s incumbent upon us to put the community first,” and she knew this was true.

  In ‘98, right after she and Andrew had crossed the river, a Baptist preacher stumped the countryside with seven “rescued nuns.” The incident proved to Annie Mae how welcome her faith was locally. The women testified to being tortured by evil priests in the convent, forced to learn “devil’s words” and curses. The preacher damned Rome’s growing influence. A day or two later, an enterprising journalist exposed the “nuns” as Oklahoma City prostitutes, and a mob with lighted torches ran the revivalists into Texas. Still, most folks here were willing to believe the worst of Irish immigrants. They carried a “European virus,” according to some of the papers, “harmful to our homegrown way of life.” Father McCartney said Catholic merchants frequently changed their names and hid their beliefs so sales wouldn’t suffer.