William Kennedy - Roscoe

Roscoe parted his gut. “With this padding it takes quite a whack to do me any damage.”

“If Elisha has a concussion,” Veronica said, “they’ll keep him overnight.”

A nurse came to wheel Elisha out.

“Are you all right?” Elisha asked Roscoe.

“Better than you,” Roscoe said. “Artie Flinn’s daughter, Arlene, is here with a toothache. She’s a nun.”

“Is that Artie Flinn from the baseball pool?” Veronica asked.

“It is.”

“Artie was not one of our finest hours,” Elisha said. “What’s he doing?”

“He died in Poughkeepsie six months ago,” Roscoe said.

“Tragic,” Elisha said. “We couldn’t protect him. I never knew his daughter.”

“I had a crush on her in school,” Roscoe said. “My behavior drove her into the nunnery.”

“He’s bragging again,” Veronica said.

“I’ll catch up with you two after your stitches,” Roscoe said.

In the waiting room Arlene was walking in circles, waving Roscoe’s flask, still singing her hymn, very loud: “ . Quae coeli pandis ostium; Bella premunt hostilia. ” She was off balance from the drink, and a nurse was about to take her in hand when she whirled away and backhanded the nurse’s jaw with Roscoe’s flask. “Where are you, Jesus?” she called out. “I’m in pain. Quae coeli pandis ostium. ..”

An intern moved to help the nurse subdue the wild nun, but Roscoe stepped in and said, “I’ll take care of her, Doctor. I’m her cousin, and my brother is a dentist. Tell your dentist to go to hell for his next patient.”

“God bless you, Roscoe,” Arlene said. “The pain is awful and the gin is gone.”

She wobbled and almost fell, Roscoe’s first gin-soaked nun. He swept her into his arms, a feather, the pain from his trauma twisting a small knife in his belly as he carried her to the parking lot.

“This is the date we never had, Arlene,” he said. “I dearly love the way you turned out.”

“Don’t you dare be nice to me, Roscoe. I don’t want it. I’m going to stay a virgin till I die.” She resumed her hymn—“. Bella premunt hostilia. ..” —as he drove her uptown in his car with the dented bumper.

“I’ve never known a woman like you, Arlene.”

“Doesn’t surprise me.”

“Let’s take a boat to Bermuda.”

“I’ve still got a toothache.”

Roscoe found Doc Reardon, who did free dental work for select Democrats, and he promptly eliminated her pain and fixed the blessed tooth. Arlene then promised Roscoe and the doc a place among the lesser angels.

“God bless you, too, Arlene,” Roscoe said. “God bless all nuns and all women.” Then he thought of Trish and added, “Most women.”

He drove Arlene back to the Academy of the Sacred Heart at Kenwood, hoping her time with him would incite a convent-wide scandal, then went back to the hospital to check on Elisha. But he’d been sent home, no concussion after all. It was ten-thirty, too late to visit, a missed opportunity to be with Veronica. Roscoe went back to his car in the emergency-room parking lot. Where to go now? He watched ambulances and cars come and go with the dying and the wounded from the peaceful home front. He dwelled on Artie Flinn, casualty of the political wars, a man who’d been making a fortune but ran out of luck. What other disasters will unfold for Roscoe on this night of radical developments? He could go to Trish’s apartment and retrieve his clothes out of her closet. She might be there with four sailors. Go home and get some sleep, Ros. But who can sleep on V-J night? Go find a woman, then. Shouldn’t be difficult tonight. But if you don’t score, don’t even think of buying one, they’re watching you. You should have kidnapped Arlene, your prototype of ideal beauty. You could’ve talked about the good old days of young sin. They don’t make sin like they used to. Also, your stomach is rumbling. You never finished your dinner. Forget women and celebrate the Jap surrender with a steak. Or three hamburgers. Or a hot beef sandwich at the Morris Lunch, two hot beefs with double home fries and a wedge of apple pie with a custard-pie chaser. He drove to the Miss Albany Diner on Central Avenue, open all night, found it dark. A sign in the window reported, “No Food.” The Boulevard Cafeteria, never closes, was open but no steaks, no roast beef, no ham, no hamburgers, no eggs. All they had was bread, coffee, and no cream. The whole town ate out tonight. Roscoe had two orders of buttered toast, a plate of pickle slices, black coffee, and went back to his car. The streets were busy but no more traffic jams. The frenzy wanes. Who’ll be at the bar in the Elks Club? Who cares? Roscoe did not want to talk about war or peace or politics, not even the Cutie Diversion. What do you want, Ros? How about Hattie? Yes, a very good idea. Hattie Wilson, his perennial love. He did love her, always would. He wouldn’t lay a hand on her. That’s not what Roscoe is looking for right now. What’s more, isn’t Hattie married to O.B., Roscoe’s brother? Yes, she is. Roscoe wants only straight talk, smart talk, maybe a little sweet talk with Hattie, who is wise, who is a comfort. Six husbands and still nubile. Get your mind off nubility, for chrissake. He drove to Lancaster Street east of Dove Street and parked across from Hattie’s house. All four floors were dark. She could be awake in the back of the house, probably asleep. Roscoe did not want to get her out of bed to carry on a conversation — about what? Why are you waking me up in the middle of the night, Rosky? I wish I knew, old Hat. Never mind waking up. Some other time, Hat. Roscoe drove back to the hotel and told the doorman to send his car back to the garage. He decided to go upstairs, order room service, and go to bed, but the saboteurs had preceded him. No more room service tonight. So Roscoe settled into his suite on the tenth floor, ordered ice for his ice bag from the bellman, ate a Hershey bar out of the drawer, poured himself a double gin, hold the quinine, swallowed his blood-pressure pills with the gin, toasted peace in the world and freedom from politics, then went to bed hungry.

A Flagrant Departure

V-J Day-plus-one was a holiday for much of the city, a day of prayer, thanksgiving, and patriotism, the main speech of the day given on the Capitol steps by Marcus Gorman, the noted criminal lawyer who had become Albany’s Demosthenes. Bart Merrigan, in his role as Albany’s commander of the American Legion, was master of ceremonies and introduced Marcus, who thanked God in his mercy for restoring justice and honor to the world, two commodities Marcus had spent his career subverting. Roscoe sent Joey Manucci up to Patsy’s summer house on the mountain with news of Cutie LaRue as a possible candidate. Patsy loved the idea and sent word back to Roscoe to hire Eddie Brodie as Cutie’s speechwriter, the man who would help Cutie lose. Brodie, an ex-newspaperman, had helped Jimmy McCoy lose in 1937 by coining his campaign remark: “I never met a woman I liked as much as my dog.”

At late morning Veronica called Roscoe to say Elisha woke with a headache but was feeling better, and talking about going to the office in the afternoon. Roscoe spent half the day in bed with his ice bag, ate supper alone in the hotel dining room, then went back to bed. A phone call woke him and he sat up in the darkness to answer it: 4 a.m. on the luminous face of his alarm clock. He heard Gladys Meehan say, “It’s Elisha, Roscoe.” He switched on the bed-table light, and there was Elisha on the wall in that famous photo with Roscoe and Patsy, election night, 1921, when those three young rebels, their smiles exuding power and joy at taking City Hall back from the Republicans, were about to found the new city of war and love.