Nobody Bats a Thousand (13 page)

“I guess.”

“But to be truthful, you can’t beat the Japanese or the Koreans for firing up a good protest. They bring their own helmets and riot gear. They know how to do it right.”

The professor went on with a story about a recent paid sabbatical to the Orient which MJ barely listened to as she looked past Professor Christian at Maggie w
ho had shuffled over
into the crowd of students
behind the theater
. Dennis Christian talked on, but MJ became even more interested in Maggie who was now
waving her arms, pointing, and presenting some type of theory in her most animated style.

Heads turned as words were whispered. Energy was spread, and suddenly the crowd began to break apart sprinting past Maggie and toward the street in a full-tilt charge not seen this side of the opening moments of an after-Xmas sale at the local mall. Just as the first swarm of bodies hit the corner of the theater in route to the front of the building, the dozen or so SWAT cops were leisurely heading to take up their position to do something or other to earn their pay, and the two groups collided in surprise and folly right there on the sidewalk where the two sides of the building met.

Bodies and equipment flew. People hit the sidewalk, and were thrown out into the street amid screams of confusion and terror. Some of the cops quickly recovered, then stood around trying to figure out what to do, but a few lapsed into violent instinctual behavior not unlike their older brethren lucky enough to stumble upon
Abbie
Hoffman or Tom Hayden on a warm Chicago night in the summer of ’68. The crowd kept coming and people from both sides of the confrontation continued colliding and falling, and scrambling back up to their feet as they all seemed at a loss as to which direction to flee.

The shirtless kid in the fake handcuffs spit in a cop’s face, and was last seen racing down Wilson with the angry officer in pursuit. This caused the sudden halt of traffic that in turn caused one loud collision, three quick fender-benders and several near misses.

Dr. Christian, suddenly forsaking his ogling of Mary Jean, shouldered his camera and began filming as he raced to the action thrusting his free arm into the air as he yelled, “Bravo! Bravo!” then something in either Chinese or Japanese.

Mary Jean looked over at Maggie at the back of the building, now alone with the hardhats
who
were enjoying the show from the other side of the fence. Maggie walked over to MJ, and the two escaped the furor of the moment by entering the pizza parlor through a side door. Maggie stopped at the counter and made a big
production of asking for a takeout
menu, then the two slipped out the front door, and they were again out on Wilson Street thirty yards from the rattling confusion still in bloom
,
but
they were now in a sense
detached, like they were a million miles away from the action.

MJ spotted her Rambler one hundred feet away and figured they were now home free, but Maggie wasn’t finished. She approached a uniformed cop standing away from the action shouting things into a walkie-talkie.

“Excuse me, sir.”

The cop was startled but looked and began to listen.

“My niece and I have to get to her car over there. Could you please help us across the street? It’s tough for her to help me, and this is all very upsetting to someone my age.”

“Sure thing,
maam
.”
T
he cop gently took Maggie’s arm as he escorted the two women through the confusion until they were safely at MJ’s car where Maggie carefully noted the officer’s name and assured him of a praiseworthy call to his superior just as soon as she could get to a phone.

“Ah, civil disobedience, I almost forgot how good it could feel. It’s in my blood,
dearie
. Did I ever tell you my parents met at a
Wobblies
meeting?”  Maggie settled into the seat of MJ’s car. “Sorry about that last bit, that police escort, but I just couldn’t resist.”

As Mary Jean cut down an alley behind the coffee shop, in her rear view mirror she could still see human remnants from the protest racing in different directions.

“Just a wild guess,” Mary Jean said, “but did you tell those kids something to fire them up?”

“Let’s face
it,
those lazy shits needed something to get ‘em going. We had Vietnam, Civil Rights,
heck,
I go back farther than that.
I was with Dr. Pauling at Ban the Bomb rallies when these kids’
parents
were kids. These little shits think all their freedoms fell from the sky.  I thought a little kick in the butt might get them going in the right direction.”

“So, what exactly did you say to them?”

“I told ‘em all three local news stations were out in front of the theater with their cameras rolling, and if they wanted to get their pretty f
aces on TV they better act fast.
” Maggie smiled. “It seemed to fit into
agendas.” S
he fought with her seatbelt for a few seconds until she finally gave up.  “Do you know where the
Bomb Shelter
is?  A little beer bar on Jensen? That’s where we’re
supposed
to
meet
Bill.”

“Gotcha.”

“And I don’t want to throw you off or scare you, but I’m going to be upfront and let you know, if you haven’t figured it out already, that he is a little unusual,” Maggie said.

Mary Jean looked at Maggie, thought about her last remark, considered the source and was suddenly afraid. She trusted Maggie, but realized it was probably faith born more from curiosity than anything else, a motivation she knew from experience to be, more often than not, stupid and reckless. But at this point fear and faith, and love and hate, and every other emotion she could imagine had no bearing, because nothing else really mattered to her but her clock.
Her clock, her clock, her clock.
The one vision that had been clinging to the mainframe of her brain for more than a
week
and it was her clock she was thinking about as she parked in front of the
Bomb Shelter
, and they went inside.

The place was dark and smoky with four or five seedy-looking types at the bar making note of the ladies’ arrival. Maggie smiled at the crowd, looked around, then headed straight for the back of the room near the jukebox where her friend was alone at a table.

He was a big man with a bushy gray mustache and a large shaved head.
Indifferent to the room and the crowd, he was wearing a dark blue, three-piece, pinstriped suit, and listening to jazz on the jukebox.
The glass of beer in front of him was as bl
ack as a lump of coal. He stood.
“Maggie, I can see you are tardy as always. Luckily I’ve had Chet Baker and Sonny Rollins to keep me company or I might have left a while ago.”

“Sorry, things took longer than I expected. This is Mary Jean.”

Bill nodded. “So how did things work out? Did you save the Pyramid for the good of mankind?”

“Actually we stirred things up a bit. I’m sure there will be a few arrests and I wouldn’t doubt we’ll hit the evening news, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we make the paper tomorrow.”

“And you walk away scot-free?  Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe all the biggies from Gandhi to Martin Luther King preached the Socratic theory that civil disobedience must be accompanied by punishment or the act isn’t truly pure or worthwhile.”

“Screw that, why go to jail if you are smart enough to avoid it?”

“Well, I must admit I’ve always felt Socrates was either misinterpreted if not downright full of shit on that one. Can I get you ladies something from the bar?”

Mary Jean took a beer, Maggie a coke, and seconds after Bill delivered the drinks he got right down to business.

“I’ve had the item you’re seeking isolated, enlarged and computer enhanced from th
e photo you gave me.” H
e opened a large manila envelope and pulled out a large color photo of MJ’s clock. “It’s very interesting.  At first glance it might appear to be from the Renaissance era since it only has the one hand. I don’t believe clocks had two hands until the late seventeenth century, but what immediately throws that theory off is faux wooden-grain plastic used for its construction, and the cheap model airplane
paint on the face of the clock.” H
e looked at the photo and shook his head.  “Man that thing is ugly,” he said, handing the photo to Maggie.

“Yeah, yeah, right.
Look, I don’t need a collectable critique. Can you find it or not?” Mary Jean felt no need to be pleasant.

“That depends.”

“I’m sure it does.”

“It depends on how straight you want to be with me about why you want to find it.”

Mary Jean looked at Bill, then Maggie, then again at Bill.  “What exactly are you getting at?”

“I’ve come to the conclusion that no one would go to the time and trouble you have to recover such a worthless-looking piece of crap unless there was something of value hidden inside it. Tell me what’s inside the clock, and I’ll find it for you.”

“Your conclusion’s wrong. The thing has great sentimental value to me and that’s it.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Well that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”

Bill used his right hand to brush back both sides of his mustache. He flexed that hand, used it to adjust his tie,
and then
pushed his chair away from the table as he stood. “I’m going to use the facilities. It shouldn’t take me long, and when I return if you want to be straight with me and tell me the truth we’ll continue on the quest for this unique item.  Otherwise, we’ll take it off the docket, change the subject and make this purely a social visit. You decide.”

Bill walked away and entered a thin hallway that led to the bathroom. After watching him disappear into the room, Mary Jean turned to Maggie. “I don’t like him, couldn’t we get someone else?”

“He’s good at what he does and the price is right.”

“He works cheap?”

“For free for me, he’s an old friend who owes me.”

Bill returned to the table but did not sit. 
“Another round ladies?”
  Taking total indifference as a yes, he went to the bar and shortly completed the round trip with a bowl of popcorn carefully balanced on top of three drinks.

“Okay,” Mary Jean forced out the word.  “There’s something inside it, but it’s not money or jewels, or anything of value to anyone but
me
and that’s the truth.”

“Something inside, such as?”

“If you find it, I’ll tell you what is inside.”

“When I find it I won’t need you to tell me, now will I?” Bill took a sip of Newcastle.  “But since I got you to admit to something you didn’t want to, I’ll call it a deal.”

“How did you know I had something hidden inside?”

“I’m a trained detective. I know these things.”

“What do we do now?”

“You?
  You wait for me to be in touch.  Me?  I’m going to slowl
y finish this fine English beer.” He looked to Maggie. “O
f which I
allow myself three every Friday.” He looked back at Mary Jean. “T
hen I’m going to begin looking for an elusive woman known to wear red hats,” Bill said. He finished another sip, and then launched into diatribes about recent reviews by Mailer and Updike in which they called Tom Wolfe a sellout, (“Maybe those two old windbags should backup and take a good long look in the mirror.”), and a radical theory connecting society’s decline in morals and discipline to the latest generation’s lack of early toilet training, speculation to which Maggie, of course, had to throw in her two cents. 

As a disinterested third party, Mary Jean sat drinking and wondering if she were really any closer to solving her life’s main challenge. “Maybe,” she interrupted,
“I
could use this picture to make up some posters, and you know, offer a reward?”

“Not a good idea, not just yet.”

“Why?”

“Young lady, I don’t expect you to understand my every action, nor do I feel compelled to explain them all. Like I said, your job right now is to wait for me to do my job, all right?”

“All right,” MJ said grudgingly, almost as if she really meant it.

On the ride home she was enjoying the sunshine and an Elvis song on the radio until the song ended and she killed the sound.  “Maggie, if I haven’t thanked you already, I really want to thank you for all of your help. Most people would think this is all pretty stupid.”

“Well
dearie
, I know you’re bright enough to realize by now that I’m not
most
people
.
” Maggie laughed. “But this is no big deal, I mean, by gosh, I’ve
actually saved people’s lives,
on more than one occasion, so this really is nothing by comp
arison.” S
he grinned wick
edly.  “But you do still owe me.” S
he laughed again.