Nathaniel Rich - The Mayor's Tongue

Rutherford glares back, in what Mr. Schmitz interprets as an expression of deep amusement and curiosity. Mr. Schmitz begins:

"In my capacity as vice president for Alliance Equity Insurance Corporation, for instance, I often had to travel to Hartford on the Amtrak — that is, a silver-sided train."

He pauses, trying to channel Rutherford's own storytelling style.

"I took a silver-sided train to a city of glass buildings, where men of many industries — though most of them insurance— gather for their annual meetings. This city, Hartford, is the Mecca of the American Insurance industry. It was there that, just over two hundred years ago, a wealthy textile merchant named Jeremiah Wadsworth opened the first insurance company, a fire insurance concern. The city's reputation was made when, during New York City's fire of 1835, Hartford companies were the only ones to pay out.

"Yet this reliability came at a cost. Take, for instance, the case of Henry Aetna Wadsworth, a descendant of Jeremiah's. Mr. Henry Wadsworth was known to rise every morning at six-fifteen, shower and shave by six forty-five, and at seven, feed the family cat — a Cheshire named Traveler. At a quarter-past he sat for breakfast with his wife, Agatha, and his two sons, Jeremiah and Henry Jr. At Mr. Wadsworth's insurance firm, his day was planned to a meticulous degree by two assistants — a primary and an alternate, in case the primary happened to fall ill. He left the office at five sharp, in time to be home for dinner with his family at six. After dinner Mr. Wadsworth set out at exactly seven with his wife and two sons for a thirty-minute walk around the neighborhood. Mr. Wadsworth was known to tell any interested parties that this constitutional, if repeated every day, was known to prolong the human life by 1.4 years. In a city in which everyone knew or was an actuary, this practice earned the Wadsworths a great measure of social prestige. As the family strolled about the city, their fellow citizens would wave spiritedly from their porches and remark, 'There go the Wadsworths again. A model Hartford family.'"

Mr. Schmitz glances at his friend. Rutherford's Halloween-mask face registers no change. The purple-black tongue on his jaw seems to have only grown darker, as if charred by some inner flame.

"Not all Hartforders could be model citizens, however. One John Browning, a recidivist house burglar, learned of the Wadsworths' nightly routine from a Hartford inmate in Somers State Prison, where Browning was serving his third consecutive jail sentence. When Browning was released, he took a bus to Hartford. For three days, Browning trailed Mr. Wadsworth around the city, marking in a notebook the insurance man's movements and the times at which they took place.

"And so it happened that Mr. Wadsworth and his family came home one night to find that his house was empty. All valuables, paintings, and furniture were gone, including an extremely dear family heirloom: a miniature model of America's first woolen mill, constructed by Mr. Wadsworth's great-grandfather. Most horribly, their cat Traveler was dead. He had attacked the intruder, and Browning had cut his throat.

"As you may have guessed, Mr. Wadsworth's house was covered by a comprehensive insurance policy. So the settlement allowed the family to repurchase everything that was stolen — with the exception of the miniature wooden mill, which was priceless. They even bought a new cat, which they named Traveler 2.

"Mr. Wadsworth refused to let such an unfortunate and random event deter him from leading his nightly walks, and the family was greeted with renewed esteem by their Hartford neighbors, who admired Wadsworth's unswerving reliability in the face of tragedy.

"John Browning admired Mr. Wadsworth's reliability as well. After three days of careful observations, Browning struck again. Between seven and seven-thirty he stole all the Wadsworth family's new possessions. This time Browning made an even greater profit on the black market, because the goods were all recently purchased."

Even though Rutherford's expression hasn't changed, Mr. Schmitz notices with satisfaction that his friend's eyes have dilated slightly. Mr. Schmitz presses a finger to Rutherford's wrist, and rejoices to find that his pulse rate has increased.

"The Wadsworths recouped their belongings in a second windfall settlement, but Mr. Wadsworth's insurance company took note. They refused to give him the same coverage, and sold him a plan with much higher premiums. After Wadsworth's house was robbed a third time, no insurance company would take his claim. Now when the Wadsworths took their fateful evening walk through the city, they were greeted not by waves, but frowns and saddened brows.

"As you've probably guessed, Mr. Wadsworth came under immense pressure from his business associates, his wife (who was sick of repurchasing their possessions), and his sons (who had been dramatically altered by the violent deaths of Travelers 1, 2, and 3) to change his routine. With great inner turmoil and regret, Mr. Wadsworth finally gave in. He decided that he would leave early from work, at four-thirty, so that he could have dinner with his family at five-thirty. This ended, for once and for all, the Wadsworth family's seven-o'clock walk. From now on they would walk at six-thirty.

"Sometime after the death of Traveler 6—or was it Traveler 7?—Mr. Wadsworth made one final alteration to his daily schedule. After work one evening, he came home for dinner at five-thirty, led his family on their walk at six-thirty sharp, tucked his boys into bed at eight, kissed his wife good night at nine, and at ten, the hour he normally went to bed himself, Mr. Wadsworth walked out through his home's backyard and down the street. He kept walking until he reached Keney Park Pond, at the edge of town. There, at approximately ten forty-eight, he tore out his throat with his fingernails. With the payout from Mr. Wadsworth's well-apportioned life insurance policy, his family moved to California."

Rutherford's face is haggard and unfamiliar.

"You probably don't remember this, but I first took Mrs. Schmitz on one of my annual trips to Hartford in 1947. I took her to Keney Park Pond, in fact, and we kissed under a tall elm tree. That was the first time she told me that she loved me. You never asked me about that. You never asked me about her at all, really. You were off in your world of doting women, culinary extravagance, and complimentary hotel rooms. Maybe that's where you are now."

Rutherford's eyelids have closed halfway. When Mr. Schmitz carefully lifts the lids with his forefinger, Rutherford's eyes seem to focus on a space somewhere in the middle distance, between the poker table and the splotchy mirror on the far wall.

"You'd be lucky," says Mr. Schmitz, "if that's the world you're in, floating about carefree in perpetuity. You won't have to suffer the insults of age, of broken organs and damaged spirits. You can just eat and eat and never get full. Me, I have to keep eating. And I keep coughing up dust."

After sundown Mr. Schmitz lays a sheet over the couch, so that he can sleep next to Rutherford. This way he can monitor any progress Rutherford might make over the course of the night, and can change his bedpan when necessary. He finds an extra blanket upstairs, which he pats tight around Rutherford's diminishing form. The night passes like this, with Mr. Schmitz rising each half-hour to check on his friend. Every once in a while, Mr. Schmitz paces around the room, his elbows bouncing, as if he is under the spell of some unseen spirit. Despite his anxiety, he's lost all desire to smoke. Instead he opens the front door to the house and goes outside, where the air is wet with cold drizzle. He can't see anything but cracked cobblestones, the dull brass of the door handle, and the pale blue striations in the building's slate walls. The fog blurs the night sky; the stars scoot around the heavens like water mites. He loses himself in memories of long Lancaster nights spent with Agnes before the war. When her parents fell asleep, he would appear on her porch and they would go walking through the cornfields behind her house. They didn't know anything about astronomy, so they'd point up at the sky and invent their own constellations.