Dewey Defeats Truman

www.thomasmallon.com

Fiction

Arts and Sciences
Aurora 7
Henry and Clara
Dewey Defeats Truman
Two Moons Bandbox
Fellow Travelers
Watergate

Nonfiction

Edmund Blunden
A Book of One’s Own
Stolen Words
Rockets and Rodeos
In Fact
Mrs. Paine’s Garage
Yours Ever

I
T WAS AT MOMENTS LIKE THESE THAT
B
ILLY
G
RIMES FELT
humiliated to be riding his old Columbia instead of one of the English racers he’d coveted for years, ever since they showed up in magazines during the war. At seventeen, what he really required was a car, but that was another story, and right now his only course of action was to press the button on the metal box beneath the crossbar and sound the bell—somebody’s cornball idea of a built-in horn. Jeez, he might as well have one of those jinglers on a kid’s tricycle.

“Yeah, yeah,” said the guy in the hat with the press card, who was in the way, crossing the street and trying to keep his cup of lemonade from spilling. “I see ya, kid. I see ya.” He could also see the folded newspapers in the Columbia’s big wire basket, the Owosso
Argus-Press
for June 24, 1948.
OUR TOM
’
S NIGHT IN PHILLY
, proclaimed the rubber-banded stalks.

Billy wanted to ask him how much Eddie Regan’s kid sister had charged for the drink: more than the six cents she
was getting last week before the reporters showed up, and would be getting again once they left town? This was the sort of situation Billy watched. No business was too small, so long as it was your own and had a good idea behind it. This paper route could never belong to anyone but the Campbell brothers at the
Argus
, and Billy still made two cents a paper, same as he had four long years ago at the age of thirteen, the first time reporters camped out in front of old Mrs. Dewey’s house a block back, the first time “Owosso’s favorite son” got the Republican nomination for President. The guy in the hat (who, if he were anybody important, would be attached to a radio microphone instead of a pad and pencil) had probably come out to Michigan then, too. He didn’t look all that pleased about returning. Probably a Democrat. All the reporters were, according to Billy’s father, and they weren’t happy about Dewey, a sure loser last time (had anybody expected him to knock off FDR?) being a sure winner this one.

Billy threw an
Argus
onto the second step of 403 West Oliver, a perfect hit, and rounded the corner to Adams. As nice as the sound of folded newsprint hitting painted wood might be, and despite its meaning two more cents toward a used Ford, Billy had to wonder if anything in his world would ever really change, or if four years from now he’d be twenty-one and still pitching papers from his seat on the Columbia as Owosso’s favorite son started running for his second term. How much had changed in the
past
four years, after all? Each morning Mrs. Hazel Grimes still sent Mr. Robert Grimes off with a sandwich and a kiss to his desk at Cadwallader-Lord Insurance; and Billy was still living on Pine Street with two older sisters who’d never gone off to the war the way everybody else’s brothers had.

One more year. Then he would be out of Owosso High and
not
on his way to Ann Arbor or MSC. All his friends were now deciding to be college men, as if the world offered no other choice. Billy only needed to get out of school and launch the right scheme, something that would work better than the ones he’d already tried. Each summer he found a new one, whether it was peddling weed killer he’d made in the basement or running a raft up and down the Shiawassee River, its painted sail advertising Christian’s department store. Last summer he’d tried to get Gus Farnham, an old barnstormer who had flown in the First World War, to split the profits on fifteen-minute joy rides they could give local kids in Gus’s old biplane. Gus would do the flying while Billy spread the word and sold the tickets. His father’s colleague Max Barber would have provided the insurance, if old Gus hadn’t shown up drunk at Cadwallader-Lord the morning they all met to discuss the plan.

Billy sometimes wondered if he wasn’t jinxed—which was why he held on to the paper route year after year. But his faith in himself (what Dale Carnegie preached in his amazing book) always reasserted itself and made him believe that one day he would be another Charlie Wilson running General Motors. Or at least enough of a success to carry Margaret Feller over the town line like it was a threshold. Before he was through he’d set the two of them up in some place on Park Avenue in New York City. He had known Margaret forever, and been “seeing her” (his mother’s phrase) since ’46, contenting himself with a date every other Saturday night and kisses that were directed to her cheek (roughly 75 percent of the time), her lips (most of the remaining 25 percent) and twice—only twice—to her luscious neck. About
everything else, he had been dreaming almost since Dewey had run for President the first time.

Maybe tonight, as the town got all worked up, and Our Tom had his night in Philly, Billy Grimes would have
his
dream of Margaret Feller. He was hoping for cymbals and confetti and dancing down Main Street, the kind of stuff that would whip everyone, including Margaret, into a frenzy—even if all of it was over some New York governor nobody but the old-timers could remember. After all, Tom Dewey had gotten out of Owosso thirty years ago. He might have done it by way of Ann Arbor, but Billy was still happy to feel his fortunes connected to this rackets-busting Man of Destiny. The point was
he had gotten out
.