George Higgins - A change of gravity

"You aren't yet, are you?" Merrion said. "We haven't had this election. Nobody's beaten you yet."

Hilliard stared at him. "Yeah," he said, 'that's right, they haven't.

I'm just being groomed to lose. You got some idea, I might win?"

"I dunno," Merrion said. "I got this problem. My mind sometimes wanders. I don't always think about things that concern me. I think about whole bunches of other things, none of my business at all. Today I'm reading Dillinger and since I know you and I also know you're comm' in, don't have much on my mind…

"Well: two things. You're obviously getting' nowhere kickin' the shit out of Gilson. As you've mainly been doin'."

"It's like beatin' a pillow," Hilliard said. "You don't hurt your hands but you don't accomplish anything either. People don't even listen to me. It doesn't bother them that he's a dummy.

They're resigned to it. Maybe what this really is is a matter of equal representation: Gilson's the dummies' alderman."

"So what I would do then," Merrion said, 'is quit alienatin' the jerks.

Stop even tryin' to talk to them. He's theirs and they're satisfied with him. Tell 'em you hope they'll be very happy. Leave them have him and go somewhere else."

"Like where, maybe Hadley?" Hilliard said. "This's where I live.

Gilson's got the at-large seat that I'm running for."

"But why is that?" Merrion said. "Why does he have what you want?

He's got that seat because two years ago young Roy Carnes decided he didn't want to be an alderman any more. He wanted to be a state rep, like his uncle Arthur used to be, before he moved up. There wasn't any new Carnes ready to step into his place. Open field. So you stood up and said you want the job, and the voters said: "No, you're too young."

They voted for Gilson instead.

"We now know why they did it. It was not because he's smart. Anyone who voted for him thinking that now has to know he's not. He's proven that he's stupid. So Dillinger's got that part right. They thought you were too young, and he was the alternative and he was older."

"Okay, but how does that help me?" Hilliard said. "He still is, he's still older than I am, and now he's the incumbent."

"He's still older'n you are," Merrion said. "But you are no longer so young. What are you now, twenty-six? Four years out of the Cross, 'stead of only two? You're an experienced teacher. You're familiar with the problems that face our public schools, 'stead of what you were back then: still feeling your way along, only your second year on the job. Not exactly elderly, but still more mature. Dillinger also said that.

"What you don't like's what he put with it, that you're not impressing the voters with it. Not convincing them you're not too young for the job anymore, so they don't need Gilson anymore to keep the seat warm.

Now you're ready. Kick him out."

"I start saying that," Hilliard said, 'how do I avoid pissing off every voter over thirty? That'll make 'em elect him again."

"Well, if I were you," Merrion said, 'the first thing I'd do would be call up old Roy Carnes or Arthur and ask if you could come up to their office and discuss the next city election. Tell 'em young Roy can sit in too."

"Why would the Carneses talk to me?" Hilliard said. "I haven't got anything they want. They're through with the alderman seat, gone on to bigger and better things. I've got nothing to offer them."

"My father started selling Fords here after World War Two because his boss down at the Armory was a nice guy and he liked him and he gave him some good advice. He told him once Japan surrendered the country wasn't going to need quite as many rifles as it did during the war. So there were going to be a lot of layoffs and my father was probably going to lose his job. Guy tells him: "You wont be the only one." Said lots of people were going to be out on the street, looking for work.

Maybe for more work than there'd be for all of them right off. The ones who waited too long might wait a while before they found a new job 'til we got used to having peace again. Smart ones'd be the ones who looked for work before everyone else started looking for it.

"My father decided to be one of the smart ones. That's when he came to work here.

"Arthur Carnes before the war'd always driven a Chevrolet. But then he had two arms. After the war he only had one. He couldn't drive his old car anymore, because now he only had one hand, and in order to move the gear-shift lever he'd 've had to let go of the wheel. He was afraid to do that, so he had someone drive him down to Brel Chevrolet in Springfield in his car. He asked them if there was anything they could do so he could drive himself around again, th out risking killing people.

"When he came in here that same afternoon what he told my father was the people down at Brel didn't really seem interested in his problem, and he wondered if my father was. You bet he was. The first thing he did was see whether there was something Stuart Dean out in back could do to Arthur's Chevy, make it so that he could shift gears without letting go the wheel. Stuart said Yes, there was something. He could make a lever arrangement, like a bicycle hand brake that'd make it so all Arthur had to do to shift the gears was reach his hand between the spokes and squeeze and that'd do it. He wouldn't have complete control but he'd have some, and it wouldn't take him but a second to do it and then grab the wheel again, so it ought to be okay. Stuart said it might be kind of awkward, but it'd work.

"Arthur said if it'd work until his new Ford convertible came in, he'd be more'n satisfied. My father said that was his first inkling he'd sold Arthur Carnes a car. After that when Roy Senior's father's old DeSoto wore out, Herb bought a Ford from Dad. And when they got rich enough so Roy's mother and Arthur's wife could have cars of their own, both of them got Fords. Roy drives a Ford, as you may've noticed, and so does Arthur, still. The one Arthur's driving now's the last car my father sold. Arthur ordered it from him the day before he died. That made eight he'd sold to the family, even though if they wanted to, they could all be driving Cadillacs by now.

"My father said what he admired about the Carneses was that they weren't the kind of people who just grab ahold of what they need or what they want, squeeze all the juice right out of it and throw the pulp away. He said Arthur and his brother acted like they were in it for the long haul. Kind of people who take an interest in what's going on around them today and try to make it better, because they plan to be here tomorrow and the day after that as well.

"That alderman seat was theirs for as long as they wanted it. It's out of their hands now because there's no new Carnes available right now to sit in it. Maybe there will be, eight or ten years from now, when Roy Junior's son's grown up, but right now there isn't. The man who's in it's a fool, and he probably isn't ever going to get any smarter. But he probably wont leave, either. He'll never try for anything higher, because dumb as he is, even he knows he'd probably lose.

"So what happens when Roy's kid is ready? By then Gilson'll've been there too long to throw him out. The Carnes kid'll have a fight on his hands.

"So then, why not save him the trouble? Go to the Carneses now and ask them if they'd like to help you change that. You'll knock Gilson off for them now, and then because you'll want to move on before too long, you'll leave it open again. As long as it keeps changing hands, when Roy Junior's kid's ready he'll have a chance. I bet Roy and Arthur would see your point. I bet they could help you a lot."

"You old enough to have a beer?" Hilliard said.

"Have one, yeah," Merrion said. "Buy one? Not legally."

Hilliard began to see the need for change around the end of March of '66, but he waited until evening of the third Friday in April to see if Merrion would raise the subject. He did not do so. After they parted that evening outside the office, Merrion declining to have a beer on the ground that if he did he'd flunk a quarterly in advanced psychology, Hilliard took inventory on the way home.