Mohawk (22 page)

Long after he had quietly surrendered his personal dream, Mather Grouse continued to dream for his daughter. At the risk of turning her into a snob, he began to suggest to Anne that there was more to life than Mohawk had to offer. This message was not easily conveyed, however, especially with Mrs. Grouse undercutting her husband’s efforts with her own brand of stoic resignation. But Anne was bright and very beautiful, even as a child, her skin radiant and slightly darker than either parent’s, her eyes darker still, her hair so black it threw off an almost blue sheen. To her father she was so lovely, so true, that he convinced himself that she existed on a plane that transcended ordinary destiny. She was one of the lucky ones exempted from fate, a child with unearthly defenses all her own. One such defense was a stubborness of will equal, if not superior, to her mother’s. Anne also possessed uncompromising honesty and a hatred of injustice that made her eyes leap with fire. Mather Grouse loved her so deeply that he was almost beside himself with pride and hope.

But his cherished faith that Anne would somehow
prove exempt from common fate was tested during her junior year, when it occurred to Mather Grouse that what he had viewed as her natural defenses against the crudeness of Mohawk County might under different circumstances become tragic flaws. And he suspected that she might be more cruelly vulnerable than he himself had ever been. Her recklessness, which would have terrified many a father, gave him little cause for alarm. Mather Grouse understood that such spirit would frighten the sons of Mohawk who, while as ready and willing as their fathers to plant their seed in any convenient place, would blanch at the notion of approaching Mather Grouse’s daughter. Whatever stoked the fire in her eyes made them timid, as her beauty made them unsure of themselves. They would slink up the back stairs of dark three-family houses to relieve themselves in the loins of some lonely, middle-aged woman of reputation, but like their fathers they lacked courage and will, not to mention intelligence.

No, Mather Grouse’s fears were of an entirely different cast. Anne was far too intelligent to be lastingly intrigued by these Mohawk boys. Her mind was not the problem—but what of the heart? Beneath her almost cruel beauty, she had little of the innate haughtiness that might’ve served as a shield, leaving her heart all too approachable. Instead of revulsion, she often felt sympathy, and unfairness always melted her. Her father’s fear on this score came to be personified in young Billy Gaffney.

The other men in the shop knew nothing of what had taken place between Rory Gaffney and Mather Grouse. The latter sometimes wondered what side they would’ve taken had they known, or even if they would’ve believed. Only the shrewdest saw what finally
was plain—that Rory Gaffney prospered out of all proportion to his co-workers. Somehow he always got the best leather to cut, while the other men spent more time concealing the flaws in theirs. They might’ve resented Rory Gaffney had he ever given any indication he considered himself superior in any way, for democratic assurances counted a good deal among men with very little. For a man with money to put on airs was all right, but not a workingman. Gaffney wasn’t that way. He’d tell a joke and shake a hand and, if it so happened that he prospered, he’d buy a round at Greenie’s. It was Mather Grouse, who prospered as little as anyone, who suffered on this charge.

If they’d given the matter some thought, these men would’ve been surprised at the animosity they had collectively harbored against a man who had never wronged a single one of them. But when the opportunity arose for them to retaliate—as they saw it—not a single man abstained. It happened one warm spring afternoon, and the huge, ceiling-high windows had been pushed out to allow air to circulate in the stifling, smoke-filled shop. As they worked, the men closest to the open windows peered out wistfully into the bright sunshine. When the high school let out, pretty girls with armloads of books began to pass by below. Occasionally someone in the shop would whistle, but for the most part the men were circumspect, since they were, after all, their own daughters passing below. With older women, of course, it was a different story, and the men hooted enthusiastically, especially if they recognized the woman as the wife of a fellow worker.

They all knew Mather Grouse’s daughter on sight—the prettiest of all the girls, with the most womanly figure. When they saw her coming, they always nudged
one another and exchanged knowing glances. Mather Grouse, though he worked at a window table, never indulged this afternoon pastime, never encouraged his daughter to stop in to see him. Perhaps this, too, was held against him, because he made the men feel unclean in their desire.

Though it was rare for any boy to find the courage to walk with Anne Grouse, some followed her progress in cars, circling the blocks, slowing down along the curb, talking to Anne and her girlfriends, hanging out the windows. Usually, she walked with a girlfriend, or alone. No one had ever seen her in the company of a boy whose father cut leather with Mather Grouse, until the afternoon she was spied in the company of young Billy Gaffney, who shuffled along beside her stoically, trying in vain to think of something to say. They walked in awkward silence, Billy scowling at himself yet very happy.

The men in the shop were also happy. At first there were only a few random hoots, but before long these were accompanied by explicit suggestions, and soon the men were hanging out the third floor window, each offering lewd encouragement to Rory Gaffney’s son, who showed signs of lapsing into neurotic lunacy as the advice rained down upon him. Embarrassed and confused, he didn’t realize that many of the anatomical suggestions were facetious. The more he was jeered and encouraged, the more confused he became, for the advice was varied and he seemed expected to carry it all out at once, despite the fact that none of these suggestions were on his agenda and some required more expertise than he possessed. He had never been in the company of a girl before, and the only advice his father had given him was never to be around one without a
Trojan, advice Billy had neglected—and with disastrous consequences, just as his father had predicted, if he had followed the instructions of the men hanging from the windows.

Anne herself added to his confusion. If she had shown signs of being offended, he would’ve known how to react. Instead, she ignored the men as if they didn’t exist, never so much as glancing upward in their direction. This left the boy utterly confounded. Did she as well expect him to behave in such a way? The horror proved too much. So he ran. With her books, until she called after him, and then without, having dropped them unceremoniously in the grass. Later, when his father taught him to forget, he was grateful.

In the shop the festive atmosphere was slow to dissipate, but when it finally did the men were conscious of having misbehaved, though no one was prepared to admit it. One man asked when Mather Grouse expected to announce the banns, and everyone laughed nervously. During the entire episode, Mather Grouse, after looking out the window only once, had returned to his work. The skin along the back of his neck glowed bright red, but he had not uttered a word.

Nor did he say anything at dinner that night, still too full of powerful emotion to react wisely. Strangely equidistant between grief and rage, he trusted neither. To put this humiliation behind him was not impossible, nor even that difficult in the long run. What he was unable to shake off was the new sense of his daughter, seated across the table from him, suddenly a vulnerable young woman. She had changed so quickly he had somehow failed to notice. Her girlishness had been so self-sufficient that he hadn’t worried, as if girlishness itself were a potent charm. Now the angular, little girl
had become softer, lovelier, weaker. She no longer seemed the equal of anything she was likely to encounter, and seeing her today, in the company of the son of the man who most embodied everything he wished his daughter to escape, had cut him adrift. What if, despite her great gifts, she also ended up trapped? Would she pity some poor boy and marry him, set up house in some rundown second floor flat to wait patiently for him to come home from Greenie’s, their meager meal sitting idly on the back burner? In another year would she be pregnant beneath her flowing graduation robes? In ten years would he, Mather Grouse, himself older, too old, climb the stairs to this rancid flat only to discover her finally gone, perhaps with the children, perhaps not?

This particular evening, such a scenario did not seem melodramatic. For such was the basic plot of the Mohawk tragicomedy, staged again and again. Rory Gaffney’s own wife had tolerated him as long as she could, then one cold winter afternoon, with no luggage, had walked downtown to the Four Corners and climbed aboard the Greyhound to Syracuse and points unknown. Mather Grouse had never met the woman, but felt sure that he knew her. And as he studied his now mature daughter across the table, the other woman’s story became hers.

To make matters worse, that night Mather Grouse dreamt about his daughter in a way that left him so angry and ashamed that he got up from bed and went into the bathroom where he cried quietly in the dark until he regained his composure. So it is me, too, he thought. In spirit I was among them today. Hanging out the window, shouting lewd, indecent things. I
am
no different. Neither beauty nor innocence nor the
best of intentions can alter that which has always been.

So Mather Grouse thought in the dark. And then he thought, Maybe it isn’t true. She still is the same. Still innocent. And if I were to go into her room, I would find the same girl that I have tucked in every night since she was an infant. And if I were to do it now, I could banish for good the ugliness of my thoughts. Mather Grouse went to the door of his daughter’s bedroom, but did not enter. What if she were awake? he thought. What if she suspected his dream? It was as if father and daughter had grown up at the same moment.

At two in the morning Mohawk is chilled and asleep. In the whole town not one person is abroad in the brittle night air. If anyone were awake indoors, he might detect the first snow of the winter gently dusting the town. By morning it will have disappeared, or remain only as frozen ice crystals on the sidewalks, and the small boys hoping to make a dollar before Christmas will be disappointed.

The traffic light at the Four Corners clicks green, then yellow, then red. No car has passed beneath it in half an hour, and no one would be inconvenienced if the light didn’t change until five-thirty when the milk trucks begin their rounds. On weekdays no policemen are on duty once the bars close, though one sleeps at the switchboard in the station in case there’s a call. In Mohawk there is no all-night diner or all-night anything. Harry tried to keep the Grill open for a while, but it was more trouble than it was worth. The nightman treated the business as if it were his own—which is to say, he kept the profits. In midweek there isn’t even a poker game upstairs.

In front of the Grouse home on Mountain sits a large moving van. The driver had pulled in late that afternoon and left it parked there so they could get an
early start in the morning. To load the furniture and boxes from the upstairs flat won’t take long. The truck is already three-quarters full with the belongings of a Rochester family moving into a four-bedroom in the Stamford area. Anne Grouse can see the top of the truck from where she sits, surrounded by boxes, on the sofa. Her bed and frame are disassembled, and if she sleeps tonight, it will be right where she’s sitting. Her intention was to work through the night, but Mrs. Grouse and Randall have pitched in and everything’s ahead of schedule, leaving her with nothing to do but battle the vague presentiment that going away amounts to running away. Still, she is as committed as a person can be, having signed agreements, made promises, paid money.

The house is so still that when the refrigerator clicks on, she’s startled. She decides to look in on Randall, not because he needs looking in on but because she needs to look in. The move will be good for him, at least, especially now that he has been formally elevated to hero status with his picture in the
Mohawk Republican
and three civic groups fighting over dates to honor him in official ceremonies. He has dealt with all of this better than she herself has. But then Randall has always been contemptuous of the opinions of others, even when that opinion happened to be flattering. He is a strange boy. Just when she’s convinced that he’s going to pass through life aloof, a wry critic, he risks his life for a perfect stranger. And Billy Gaffney, of all people. The symmetry is so perfect as to suggest there might be a Supreme Architect after all, or something.

Billy Gaffney—she hadn’t thought of him in years. For the longest time after her father had put his foot down about him, Billy had followed her home from
school, pretending he had some legitimate reason for standing on the corner, watching the house. Perhaps he was awaiting another surge of courage, or for the sense of humiliation to diminish, or to explain or apologize for the men in the shop. He continued to haunt the neighborhood even after she and Dallas started dating. Then, suddenly, he wasn’t around any more. She had known that he was in love with her, but she was discovering some things about love herself at the time—like the fact that it was just as easy to fall out of it as into it, and with as little reason. Dallas didn’t require much time to teach her that. She assumed that Billy Gaffney had made a parallel discovery.

According to the newspaper, he’d been living in the abandoned hospital. Well, he wouldn’t have to any more. After Randall told his story about what had really happened in the alley the day the boy was injured, charges against Wild Bill were dropped. Unfortunately public sentiment still ran against him, and he was packed off to Utica for observation until his fate, which had already been decided, could be formally ratified. The fact that a good boy had very nearly been injured on Wild Bill’s behalf proved, if further proof was needed, that Wild Bill was at the very least a public nuisance. When she heard, Anne was furious. If unfortunates like Billy Gaffney were summarily institutionalized, she told her father, then half of Mohawk County could well end up behind bars. Mather Grouse agreed, having always believed that half of Mohawk County belonged behind bars.