Antrim, Donald - Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World

“Uh, I think we get the picture. In light of the fact that there are a number of children present, I suggest we forgo further itemization of specific cases.” Jerry’s gaze swept the room. What a smooth tactical move on the chairman’s part: by interrupting on behalf of childhood innocence, Henderson co-opted the hospital worker’s position, undermining it and making the petitioner seem strident.

Leave it to Meredith’s mother to take issue. “Point of order. Let the speaker finish. Put it to a vote,” Helen Mooney commanded from her post near the jukebox.

Jerry sighed theatrically. “We have a motion on the floor. Do I hear a second?”

“Second,” called a woman I couldn’t see. I leaned toward Barbara Nixon and whispered, “Who was that?” Barbara shrugged, “Beats me,” and Jerry blared, “All in favor of hearing, in the presence of minors, the speaker’s full catalogue of injury and impairment, say aye.”

“Aye,” muttered a few irresolute voices.

“Nays?”

The nays swamped the ayes by a large margin. Mary Brown clutched her legal pad tightly, pressed it to her breast, as Henderson said, “Please, do carry on.” There was nothing for the healthcare worker to do but flip yellow pages and forage for a new beginning: “Well, anyway, we have this petition and we’d like to see actions taken in the way of bylaws because clearly these pits are unsafe and who knows anyway why anyone needs them or why anybody in their right mind…” She ambled on awhile; she sounded, actually, near tears. I glanced toward Meredith and her mother. Both looked my way with disapproving faces. What did they want me to do? I just kept the minutes.

When the nurse was done Jerry wrapped up. “Thank you so much for that illuminating and thoughtful viewpoint. The floor will now hear an opinion from Mr. William Nixon.”

Chair legs scraped floorboards. I turned to see Bill towering above his plate of barren clamshells. Bill wasn’t much of an orator, but this didn’t matter because he embraced a solidly anti-intellectual style; his grass roots positions always won him a popular following. Today Bill kicked off, “The other night I was out sitting on the porch with my family, taking pleasure in the twilight sounds of birdsong. Well, what do you think we heard off there in the distance? High-caliber semiautomatic rifle fire is what. You know it’s that kind of a rapid cracking echo, like plinking but mixed with a coughing sound at the same time? My six-year-old Jeff said, ‘Daddy, are those AK-47s or M-16s?’”

He paused for a sip of water. What would it be like to be this guy’s kid? Dismal. Nixon was undoubtedly a stern disciplinarian. To be his child would be to endure intolerance in the guise of paternal charity. Bill cleared his throat and embarked on a protracted screed about target marksmanship, home ownership, the joys of gardening, and the Rule of Law. It wasn’t particularly coherent stuff. Or maybe it’s just my minutes that don’t make sense to me — Bill’s inflammatory town meeting speech is all but lost on one of those pages defaced by a water or soda glass. I guess I might’ve set my iced tea down on the notes without realizing it. After all I wasn’t, I’ll admit, paying especially close attention to Nixon. I was watching his wife, Barbara. I was, in fact, having a hard time keeping my eyes off her. I do not believe it was purely a sexual thing. Bill ranted, “I don’t want some animal lover telling me to put up a chain-link fence around my lawn-based defense cavity because he or she is afraid his or her dog or cat is going to run in there.” He chuckled at, I guess, this ironic image of a fenced-in trench or moat. Several men and women in the audience chuckled along. Bill puffed out his chest and finished, “Friends, little Jeff’s home with the sitter tonight, and let me tell you I feel a whole lot better knowing there’s a network of electronically triggered fragmentation bombs armed and ready in the nasturtiums outside his window.”

Thunderous applause, followed by Meredith’s mother’s reedy voice hollering to challenge Bill, red-faced and beaming and gesturing expansively with his hand in the air, gesturing to Claire smoking a cigarette at her waitress station adjacent to the service bar. It was a little drama: Bill waving at Claire, Claire exhaling smoke in a vertical stream past her upper lip, Bill waving again, Claire grinding her cigarette butt into one of Terry’s trademark clamshell ashtrays, and so on like that. Finally Claire gave in, grabbed her order pad, and ambled toward Nixon’s table, as, from the region of the jukebox, Helen Mooney’s voice trumpeted over the hooting of Bill’s supporters, “What exactly are you afraid of, Mr. Nixon?”

Well, you could hear a pin drop. I snuck a glance at Bill staring Helen’s way with his squinty eyes. It was a face-off. Nixon inhaled a wheezy breath. He leaned forward with his hands resting flatly on the tabletop, and said, “I’m not afraid of anything.”

“The hell.”

“Listen, I’m not sure what’s bugging you. If you have something to say I’m ready to hear it.”

“Are you?”

“Don’t be playing games here, we’re here to do town business, this is town business we’re doing here!” Bill’s face was a mask of red stress. You could see him struggling to contain his emotions. Meredith’s mother, on the other hand, retained her composure; she stood with arms crossed and head tilted to one side; she looked like the home economics teacher she had once been, thoughtfully appraising a child with an attitude problem. Meredith looked my way and rolled her eyes. How I loved her for that! — the bond of shared irony. I lowered my gaze and pretended to be busy scribbling minutes. Barbara Nixon peered down too, not acknowledging the antagonists; she dug around with her fork in her salad. After a moment she noticed me noticing her, and she put down her fork.

Then Claire was beside Bill’s table, flipping through her pea-green check pad. Claire held aloft her pencil and, in a voice kind and soft with waitressly forbearance, inquired, “Yes?”

It was Bob, not Bill, who answered. The anthropologist pointed to his open menu and said, “I’ll have the fish chowder dinner and a side order of hush puppies, please, and, um, a draft.”

Which gave Jerry an opportunity to move the meeting along by proclaiming to the room, “I think it might be wise to consider Tom Thompson’s earlier words about the interconnectedness of things, and in this spirit propose we move on to the problem of the library system. I now call on our volunteer librarian, Rita Henderson.”

“Thanks, hon. The situation is this. Current levels of funding prohibit comprehensive acquisition, and outreach programs like Story Time and the bookmobile will probably have to be discontinued. I’ve developed a plan to merge the neighborhood branches into our main, Southshore location. Redundant editions can be sold to raise money for one of those magnetic checkout devices, which I think we should have one of.”

“No doubt,” said Jerry, who proceeded to motion for a committee to assist his wife. Hands flew up and I scribbled down nominations: Barbara Nixon; Betsy Isaac; Simone, the art teacher (who’d get my vote any day); Ray Conover, obviously not present; and Chuck Webster, likewise absent; along with a host of other likely and unlikely candidates, including, of all people, Abraham de Leon, who nominated himself. Jerry grimaced when Abe raised his hand and said, “Me.” Was something up, after all, between Abe and Rita Henderson, and did Jerry maybe know or suspect? Or was the chairman merely appalled — and who could blame him? — by his buddy’s clear lack of diplomacy in throwing his own hat into the ring? Whatever the case, Abe wasn’t anyone you wanted overseeing any libraries.