John Gardner - The Sunlight Dialogues

“Mmm,” Clumly said.

The Mayor cleared his throat and stepped to the window to the right of the pictures. (There were two windows, a wide window in the narrow wall behind his desk, a narrow window in the wide wall.) From the window where he stood he could look down on the jail or, scrooching down in his collar, up at the trees, old elms that dwarfed the City Hall.

“Well, we have a mutual problem, Fred. Speaking very frankly, I thought the best thing was to talk with you about it. I know you appreciate my position.”

“Certainly,” Clumly said.

He was moving again, crossing over to the Barcalounger, the coffee table, with its dusty artificial flowers and old copies of Sports Afield and Life and the National Geographic.

“It’s about the budget.” His face grew redder.

Clumly nodded, pursing his lips.

“Now I want to speak very frankly with you, man to man. As I mentioned in my letter of, I think, June fourteenth, your budget don’t make sense, Fred. Now I don’t know what’s happening over there, and I know you have your own troubles, that’s only natural, but this thing has got me, well, to speak frankly, perplexed.”

“What’s the problem?” Clumly said. But he knew. And it was true that the room was insufferably hot. The man’s forever dancing around made it hotter.

“The problem, frankly, is communications. Between our two offices, I mean.” His mouth tightened a little and he tipped his blazing head far to the left and squinted. “The problem is we don’t have no communications. You don’t answer my letters.”

“Ah,” Clumly said.

“Now I think you’ll admit I’m not merely being petty when I say I can’t win no budget for you from that skinflint council if you don’t tell me nothing. Now I ask you, what am I to say to them? ‘How much for the cops?’ they want to know. Imagine how I’ll look if I say to them, ‘Frankly, the Chief hasn’t told me nothing yet.’”

“We did submit a budget,” Clumly said. He felt cross, but he kept it out of his voice.

“Well yes. Sure you did. A botch of a budget, if I may speak very frankly. You want six new motorcycles, you say to me, and what do you put under ‘Justification’? ‘Necessary.’ Now I ask you. And BMW’s you want, when Firster’s been selling us Harleys for years and his brother’s the County Superintendent. And what’s your Justification? ‘ Necessary.’ It won’t do, Fred. It’s a little thing. I don’t begrudge you your fancy foreign-made motorcycles that you got to buy up in Buffalo and the local merchants be damned. But I’ll tell you frankly, it’s them little things that lose elections. Now listen. What am I asking you? Clumly, I’m asking you take a few minutes and write a few words about why a cop needs some motorcycle made off in Germany that’s got no distributor here in Batavia. Just explain it, justify it, that’s all I ask. Just answer your mail.” His face was nearly purple, though his voice was controlled. His fist was closed tight. He relaxed himself, smiling. “You see my side, don’t you, Fred,” he said. I wrote to you on June fourteenth, and again on the second of July, and again last week, if memory serves me right. What the devil you people doing over there with your mail?”

The coffee was boiling, and he went to it and poured two cups and brought one to Clumly whether he wanted it or not. “Sugar?” he said.

“No thanks,” Clumly said.

“Funny joke I heard,” the Mayor said. “It’s a little off-color.” He glanced at the door. “Fellow goes into a cafe and gets coffee and says to the waitress, you know how to sweeten your coffee when you ain’t got no sugar? No, how? she says. Get your sweetheart to put her finger in, he says. She looks shocked and she says—” He began to laugh. “And then put it in the coffee? she says.”

“Mmm,” Clumly said.

“Well,” Mullen said. He straightened up. “Well all right. Yes.” He laughed again, then stopped himself. “Little joke now and then,” Mayor Mullen said. He cocked his head. “Grin and bear it. Walk on the bright side. All work no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

Clumly recalled the cigar in his hand and raised it to his lips, patting his pocket with his left hand for matches.

“Well all right, then,” Mayor Mullen said. “I don’t know what you people are doing over there, but I thought we’d both benefit from a little talk about it. A little talk don’t hurt, I say.” His bright little eyes bored into Clumly’s nose.

“No, that’s right.”

“Of course the motorcycles aren’t all of it. Whole budget’s a problem. It runs the whole gambit. And then there’s other problems. You wrote me last winter about them parking meters, the new ones we put in on the lot behind Felton’s. You said they’re a problem, lot of difficulty one way or another — I forget the details: take a whole different schedule than the other meters, on account of the different size coin-boxes, throws you people off your synchronization, something like that. I asked you, if you saw my letter, should we put in all new meters, all the same kind, would that be justified, or would it be cheaper in the long run to reevaluate the whole parking system, what with urban renewal making havoc of what we got? Well I waited and waited. That was way last winter. So let me speak frankly about this. Because you see I’m on the spot as much as you are. What’s your explanation for all this? You see my problem.”

Clumly sucked in on the cigar and bowed his head a moment. It was not exactly that he had no explanation. It was as though they talked different languages. Where should he begin?

Mayor Mullen turned away and put his cup on the bookshelf. He looked at the books, rubbing his jaw and frowning. A strange batch of things — God knew where he’d picked it all up. Success in Business. The Robe. Two volumes of an encyclopedia, a book of business law, a world almanac old as the hills, some leatherbound Reader’s Digest condensations.

“God damn it, Fred, I’m going to level with you,” Mayor Mullen said. He went purple again. “You’re up to your ears and you know it. You know it and I know it and the town knows it. ‘What’s happened to Clumly?’ people say to me. I was over at the Rotary last Wednesday afternoon, and Phil Uphill said, ‘Walt, I want to ask you something? Chief Clumly been sick or something?’ ‘Why no, Phil, not that I know of,’ I says to him. ‘Well, I wondered,’ he says. ‘He acts funny lately. He don’t get the work out,’ Phil says. ‘That fire on Washington, we needed that street blocked off and the police was noplace to be seen. Off chasing cats or something, I don’t know what.’ ‘Well I don’t know, Phil,’ I says. ‘I’ll have a word with him.’ ‘You better, Walt,’ he says, ‘and that’s the truth.’ I says, ‘One thing, sure, they mean to cooperate, you can bet your boots on that,’ I says. ‘But they got troubles all right. Clumly’s working with a lot of new men. Big turnover there,’ I says, ‘and I can’t believe it’s Fred Clumly’s fault. Maybe he sent out one of those new men and the fellow got lost. Ha ha.’ Well listen now, Fred. Phil looks at me and says, ‘Ain’t the way I heard it. I heard Miller sent men and Clumly called ’em back. I heard Clumly said, if the people want to watch the place burn, let ’em watch.’”

Clumly folded his hands and said nothing. His clothes were sticking to him and his belt bit in at his shoulderblade.

“You say that, Fred?” Mayor Mullen asked.

“I may have,” Clumly said. He cleared his throat. “Acting according to your instructions, you know. Time Product Factor. I don’t remember the fire — what day it was — and I don’t know what we were doing right then. But it’s possible something more important came up. I don’t know.”