Fade (17 page)

When we reached the shop, we took up a vigil at the far side of the yard, crouched behind low piles of lumber, our eyes riveted on the clusters of men in the yard. Spotlights had been erected by the shop owners at the start of the strike and they caught the men in their stark, merciless light, casting their skin in a pale yellow glow. They paced the yard sullenly, heads down, puffs of steam issuing from their mouths. I searched for my father and did not see him. Two policemen patrolled the sidewalk, guns in their holsters and billy clubs dangling from their belts.

“Do you really think there'll be a fight?” I asked Armand.

“Of course,” he said. “There's no way around it. Look close. See the bulges in their jackets? Those are weapons.”

“Weapons?” The word ugly as I spoke it.

‘Oh, not guns,” Armand reassured me. “Billy clubs, like the cops use.”

I spotted my father in the crowd, arms at his sides, looking vulnerable and defenseless. I would have bet a million dollars that he carried no billy club in his mackinaw.

The policemen chatted with the strikers occasionally, their voices carrying across the yard to us. Then everyone turned to the street as a car pulled up, the motor purring softly as it came to a stop. Rudolphe Toubert's gray Packard like a jungle beast breathing heavily in the night. Exhaust curled out of its tailpipe. The car moved off into the night.

“Bastard,” Armand muttered.

A moment later, he said: “Listen.”

I lifted my head, cocking my ear, heard the murmur of the men, the hiss of flames in the barrels. Listened more closely and then heard, yes, something beyond these sounds, almost out of reach but more distinct even as I strained to hear. The faint rumble and coughing of old trucks moving in the night, the grinding of engines, growing louder by the moment.

The policemen came instantly alert, hands on their hips, legs spread apart. Several strikers slipped their hands inside their jackets and I knew they were gripping the clubs hidden next to their bodies. I searched for my father, saw his face as a blur until he became lost in the crowd.

Then silence, so sudden that it was itself a sound in the air, everyone caught by surprise, the men in the yard motionless, the cops as still as the statues in Monument Park.

“Have they gone away?” I whispered to Armand, the question a wish more than a question. They had not come all this way from Maine only to turn back within shouting distance of the shop.

“They're gonna sneak up on us,” Armand said.
Us.
His spirit out there in the yard with the workers.

I sat back, waiting, remembered the last time I had spied like this, when the men of Monument had charged into the hooded Klansmen at Moccasin Pond. But that clash had been a battle of good and evil, an attack on people who set fire to churches and wanted to rid the world of Catholics and Negroes and Jews. The fight that was imminent now was different, a sad kind of fight, workers against workers, men like my own father who must fight men like himself who had probably left their own wives and children behind in Maine.

When I looked up again, the scabs appeared, like grim ghosts lumbering out of the half darkness, marchers in a disorderly parade, seven or eight abreast, unseen columns behind them. They crossed the street, out of step, one man stumbling, their faces unknowable in the dark, as if their features had not been formed.

The strikers formed a line of defense at the mouth of the yard while the two policemen stationed themselves on the sidewalk.

“Halt,” one of the cops called. “Don't come any closer.”

But the scabs kept coming, their steps heavy on the pavement. Now that they were in the periphery of the spotlights, I could see them clearly, their faces gleaming blue and grizzly in the harsh glare.

The fighting erupted without warning. One moment, the men faced each other in grim silence, hesitant, tentative, massive in their stillness. Then, the lines broke and they rushed at each other as if a signal had sounded that only they could hear. They clashed and grappled each other awkwardly, amateurs at combat, performers in a grotesque ballet.

The silence of the fight was eerie, not like the battle of Moccasin Pond, which had been loud and furious with screams and yells and horns blowing and automobiles being pounded like giant drums. In the shopyard as daylight began to invade the darkness, the sounds of their brawling were muted and subdued except for sudden gasps and groans and muffled cries, as if the participants had pledged themselves to a battle that would not disturb the rest of the world.

Armand leapt to his feet, impatient, bobbing and weaving as he screamed: “Give ‘em hell. Kill the bastards …” And he ran off to join the fighters.

“Come back, Armand,” I screamed. “Come back.”

But he disappeared into the battle.

I looked for the cops. Surely they'd spot Armand and pull him from the skirmish. The policemen, however, were rushing around ineffectually, trying to drag or pull men from each other, tugging at jackets, dodging blows, imploring the men to
stop, stop, give up, somebody
ï
going to get hurt
…

As the fighting continued, the white light of morning overcame the yellow glow of the spotlights. I tried to spot my father and Armand and realized that I could not tell the strikers from the scabs as they swarmed and struggled. They were all strangers.

Suddenly, the weapons appeared, the way magicians plucked rabbits and scarves from hats or hidden places. These were not stage props but clubs and hammers and sawed-off bats. I saw the first blood splash from the cheek of Rubberman Robillard. And at the same time, a knife blade glinted iethally in the morning light.

I finally spotted my father, who was tugging at a giant of a man holding someone in a headlock, the knees of his victim buckling, his body sagging. Unable to make the giant loosen his grip, my father leapt on his back, looking ridiculous for a moment, as if he were playing a parody of piggyback. The giant loosened his hold—his victim fell in a heap to the ground—and swiveled around, trying to shake my father loose. My father held on for dear life, his knees scissoring the giant's waist. Turning furiously now, the giant shook himself free of my father and sent him hurtling into the crowd as if he were a ball aimed at pins in a bowling alley.

I saw the flash of the knife again.

A moment later my father staggered from the crowd, clutching his chest, blood cascading through his fingers. His face was lifted to the sky in the awful anguish of pain, his knees wobbling. He did not cry or scream but seemed to have gathered the pain within himself. As I watched, stricken, paralyzed, he looked down to see the blood on his hands, dark, spreading, spurting now the way water bursts from a spring.

“No,” I cried.

A small space appeared around my father as men fell away, realizing what had happened. My father halted in his tracks, face bone-white in the morning light, eyes wide with disbelief. He began to fall slowly, by degrees, one part of his body following another, legs buckling beneath him, knees sagging, the upper part of his body pitching forward. He finally crumpled completely to the ground, his hands reaching into emptiness, his head striking the gravel.

As I began to run toward him, I heard the wail of sirens and the roaring of engines in the distance and then saw crowds arriving, running toward the scene and my father there on the ground, surrounded by a forest of legs. I could see him no longer, my eyes blinded by tears.

The next few minutes were a blur. Cops arriving in black cruisers, sirens screaming. A stretcher appeared, not a real stretcher but poles and a blanket improvised to serve as a stretcher. My father was carried to a pickup truck, policemen and workers clearing a place for him in the rear, tossing equipment to the ground.

Where was Armand?

An arm went around my shoulder and I drew away and looked up into the eyes of Rubberman Robillard. He held a bloody handkerchief to his cheek. His
eyes
were filled with tears and I knew they were tears for my father and not his own wound.

Armand appeared at my side, white-faced, in a state of shock. “We've got to tell Ma,” he said. “We've got to tell her.”

I tore myself away. “You tell her,” I cried, from the depths of my pain and sorrow.

And I ran.

Always ran when something bad happened.

Ran the streets, chased and chasing.

And now I ran again.

Behind the garage, I invited the fade. Prayed for it.
Do not fail me this time.
And I was not failed. I was caught breathless in the pause and then withstood the flash of pain. As the cold swept me, my breath came back, the pain disappeared and I was free. I looked down and did not see my body. Held my hands before me and did not see them.

I walked around the corner of the garage. Saw the sleek Packard. Squinted through the window. Rudolphe Toubert was inside, holding the black telephone receiver to his ear, the small moustache dainty above his lip. I studied him, watched his lips moving, his eyes darting here and there around his office.

I walked to the front of the garage. Paused, glanced to my right then my left, shivered with the cold of the fade, but ignored the cold, offered it up for my father, who must have arrived at the hospital by now, who also might be dead by now.

I opened the door, careful with the knob. Closed it quickly as a wave of cold accompanied me into the room. Rudolphe Toubert glanced up, phone still at his ear, puzzled as he arranged some sheets of paper that the air had disturbed.

“Wait a minute,” he said into the receiver. He lowered the phone and glanced through me. Said into the mouthpiece again, “Funny, I could swear the door opened and somebody came in. But nothing …”

I advanced a step or two as he continued speaking: “Two thousand dollars, I don't think that's unreasonable …”

The office had not changed from the days of my delivery routes. His desk at the center, covered with papers and ledgers. Counters to his left where the newspapers were stacked and arranged in bundles for the delivery boys. The odor of newspaper ink in the air. As I drew closer I smelled Rudolphe Toubert's cologne, sweet and cloying. His long fingers gripped the telephone, the nails polished and buffered. His eyes were slits as he listened.

“Yes, somebody has to get hurt,” he said into the phone. “Somebody always gets hurt. That's the way the ball bounces. But two thousand is the price. Cash on delivery.”

What was he delivering? Another wounded person like my father to the hospital?

He hung up. He patted his moustache, smiling, seemed pleased with himself. His white shirt was crisp, the collars pointed. A red tie spotted with small white flowers. A blue handkerchief spilling out of his lapel pocket. Striped red-and-white shirt and red suspenders.

He shuffled papers on his desk. Glanced up suspiciously, eyes almost meeting mine. The smile gone now.

I had become accustomed to how people reacted to the fade and I smiled maliciously.

Frowning, perplexed, he glanced around the office cautiously, eyes sweeping the place slowly, searching the far corners, peering into the shadows.

A touch of fear in his eyes?

He reached for the telephone, lifted the receiver to his ear, spoke into the mouthpiece. “Operator,” he said, “get me 3648-R.”

Waited, phone to his ear, tapping his finger on the desk, whistling tunelessly, forehead damp with perspiration. He loosened his collar.

I did not move closer, remained six or seven feet in front of his desk.

“Herve,” he said into the phone. “I want you to come over.” Listened, shaking his head. “I don't care what time it is.” Listened again. “Tell me, Herve, who's more important —your wife or me?” Smiling without warmth or joy. “The hell with her.” A pause, then: “Get your ass over here.” The words crackling with command.

With Herve Boissoneau, his right-hand man, on the way, I had to act quickly. Knew what I had to do. But how? I glanced around the office, moved to the counter, saw in my peripheral vision Rudolphe Toubert still at the desk, still whistling a tune that wasn't a song, the way I hummed a small tune of terror whenever I walked by St. Jude's Cemetery.

Rudolphe Toubert had turned to his right, almost as if he had followed my progress. Perhaps I had been careless. His moustache glistened with moisture and he pulled the gaudy handkerchief from his lapel and dabbed at his forehead.

I looked at him, hating him.

I thought of my aunt Rosanna in his bed. The paper routes, Bernard and all the other kids at his mercy. The men beaten up in alleys. The scabs he had brought to French-town, turning workers into fighters, men into monsters. I thought of my father, wounded and bleeding, and maybe dead by now.

Turning away from him, I searched the counter and among lengths of rope and old newspapers found the weapon I needed, the long knife used to cut the ropes that held the bundles of newspaper together.

I picked it up.

When I turned into Sixth Street, I saw the crowd gathered in front of our three-decker, huddled together in that weary attitude of prolonged waiting. They allowed me room to pass among them, looking at me with big eyes, the look people reserve for accident victims. I saw Pete in the crowd, arms folded across his chest. He raised his hand in a salute, a brief gesture of sympathy.

My uncle Victor stood at the bottom of the outside stairs, his cigar unlit in his mouth, a dab of brown juice dripping from the corner of his lips. Armand sat on the banister, head down, disconsolate.

“My father,” I said, trying to control my voice.

“He's at the hospital,” my uncle Victor said. “They're operating. They sent us home. Dr. Goldstein said he'd let us know when it's over.”

Armand leapt from the banister and confronted me. “Where have you been?”

I shrugged, could not find words to answer, could not answer even if I found the words.

My mother called from the piazza upstairs. “Come up, Paul, come up. You must be freezing …”

I was suddenly aware of the cold, and my teeth began to chatter. Frost covered the terrain and glimmered white on the windows. I had never known the sun to be cold before. Looking closely at Uncle Victor, I saw the weariness in his face, lines raking his cheeks, his eyes dull and lusterless.