Day of the Bomb (15 page)

“Wonder if he’s going to say Happy New Year?” Darryl
spoke loud enough that half the workers heard him. “He didn’t even
say Merry Christmas to me on Christmas Eve.”

“Who can blame him? You’re just a Scrooge.” The
retort made Darryl flush with rage.

Monroe raised his hands for quiet. “No use in my
beating around the bush. You all know that the union boys are back
in town to get you to vote on whether to join. But now that our
contracts with the Army have all ended I can’t pay what they’ll put
into a union contract for even higher wages. I’d like to shift our
products and get them into stores all around the country. But we
can’t compete with the bigger factories if I have to pay you all
top dollar. My factory is just too small. So you’re going to have
to decide what you want. If you vote to go union I’m going to sell
out to the first buyer who makes a decent offer. If you vote the
union down, I’ll make Monroe Furniture into an employee-owned
company. It’s up to you.”

***

“It’s a trick.” Darryl kept mumbling his warning
until the lunch whistle blew. Then he stood in line to use the pay
phone at the edge of the factory’s parking lot.

“Hello?”

“It’s me. Darryl.”

“Yeah? You got enough votes lined up for us yet? The
vote is next week.”

“We got trouble. Meet at Joe’s Bar at 5:30.”

“Okay.”

***

Half honky-tonk and half lounge, Joe’s Bar drew
three sets of clientele. From Sunday to Thursday, lonely hearts
looking for companionship trolled its dark booths. After high
school football and basketball games, boys old enough to buy 3.2
per cent beer or those with fake IDs celebrated wins or bemoaned
losses. Friday and Saturday nights a small band, either local boys
or some traveling outfit, mounted the bar’s small stage and sang
about fighting, dancing, romancing, living, and dying. The bar’s
dark interior made it an excellent place for politicians and their
supporters to transact deals. So Darryl deemed it adequate for the
likes of Big Ben.

Ben was a union boss of the old school. He had cut
his teeth organizing for his union in and around Chicago for the
last thirty years. Now he was tasked with cracking the toughest
nuts of all, factories in small cities, a job proving especially
tiresome in Madisin.

“We got trouble.” Darryl slid into the booth that
served as Ben’s office.

“The trouble is you. You’ve already taken a month too
long to line up the votes for an election to set up a local.” Ben’s
eyes narrowed.

“It’s not me. Old man Monroe wants to make his
factory employee owned.”

Most of the beer in Ben’s mouth sprayed outward and
hit Darryl’s face. The rest entered the pathway to Ben’s lungs and
choked him. Darryl wiped the saliva and foam from his hair,
forehead, cheeks, and nose.

“I knew you were going to be upset. But just say it
don’t spray it.”

“Upset? Not me.” He stood and threw a quarter on the
table. “The vote is next week. That gives you plenty of time to
shake hands, grease some palms, break some legs, or whatever it is
you do around this Palookaville to get people on the
bandwagon.”

“You’re still going to help me out, right?”

“I got other fish to fry.” He glanced at his
diamond-studded watch. “I’m due in Saint Joseph tomorrow morning.
I’ll just barely make it if I leave right now. I’ll be back here if
we win the election to help you set up local 582. If you lose…” He
shrugged and gestured a thumb down.

Darryl stared at the quarter, empty beer bottle, and
wet tabletop. Every other time they had met Ben had bought him a
beer and talked about the Cubs, Bears, and White Sox. To bolster
his swagger before he left he ordered one of his own and drained it
in two gulps. Copying his mentor, he tossed a quarter onto the
table and strode out into the twilight. He did not notice the car
that followed him from the bar’s parking lot to his home until it
pulled in behind him in his driveway.

“Who’s there?” Shielding his eyes from the car’s high
beam headlights, he walked to the driver’s side. “Oh, it’s only
you.”

“Didn’t think this day would ever dome, did you?”
Jason stepped from his car and leveled a .45 on Darryl’s
midsection. “Come on over here, Fred.” He handed the gun to his
sweating friend. “If he goes for a gun or knife while I search him,
shoot him. Fred here is none too happy with your chasing after
Sally while he was away during the war.” He pulled a .22 pistol
from Darryl’s waistband. “Ooo…look at this little pea shooter of
yours. What Fred’s holding shoots a slug twice as big as this thing
does.” He handed it to Fred. “Okay, Fred. Just in case I didn’t
find some other weapon Darryl might still be hiding, now you can
shoot him with both guns if he pulls anything out.”

“What are you going to do? I was only joking around
with Sally. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Yeah, sure. Just like you didn’t mean anything when
you starting acting sweet with Thelma.”

Darryl held out his hands as if he were pushing
against a wall of glass between him and his captors. “Now that’s a
whole different ball game, Jason. You two weren’t even married yet
so Thelma was fair game.”

“You skunk. You were married.” Jason shook his head.
“To poor little Nancy. She’s a saint and you’re a devil. She’s at
choir practice tonight, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Now let’s mosey on into your garage. Can’t be
having the neighbors calling the cops to come and break up the
match.”

“Match?”

“You and me. Fred here is the referee just to be sure
you don’t hit me below the belt or kick me, you snake.”

They shuffled through the side door of the garage.
Darryl pulled the string attached to its lone source of lighting, a
fifty-watt bulb.

“Okay. Here’s the rules.” Jason backed into a corner
of the dusty concrete floor. “Ten rounds but no bells in between
rounds. Two minutes per round times ten means twenty minutes of
nonstop beating, punching, and dodging each other’s fists. No
kicking, scratching, clawing, or biting allowed. Any
questions?”

“Just one. Are you crazy? You still look like a
shrimp from being stranded on that island. I outweigh you by a good
fifty pounds at least. I’ll clobber you. It’s like a heavyweight
versus a welterweight.”

“So what? It’ll be my 144 pounds of pure muscle
versus your 200 pounds of pure fat. The bigger they are, the harder
they fall.” Jason turned to Fred. “Okay, ref. Start timing us at
the sound of the bell.”

Fred stared at his watch. “Ah… three, two, one, clang
clang.”

Seventeen minutes later the bare knuckled pugilists
had retreated to their corners where Darryl was vomiting up the
remnants of his dinner and Jason was rubbing two broken knuckles on
his hand, injured during the first round when he landed a right
hook to his opponent’s jaw. For the remainder of the fight, he had
punched away at Darryl’s sagging belly. Its thick layers of fat
cushioned every blow but sickened him enough to lose the hot dog,
milk shake, and onion rings he had devoured before his meeting with
Big Ben. Darryl had landed twenty-nine blows to Jason’s head, which
most of Madisin knew to be the hardest part of his body. Six of the
punches had sent Jason to the concrete mat. But each time he arose
before Fred’s count reached ten. Neither fighter claimed victory.
Hoping to settle the hostilities, Referee Fred proclaimed the match
a draw.

“Well, have a good night, Darryl.” Jason pulled on
his shirt and left it unbuttoned. He took the .22 pistol and
pointed it at Darryl’s left temple. “I’m going to keep this puny
little pea shooter of yours. If you go out tom catting around
either Thelma or Sally ever again, I’m going to shoot you in the
head right there with it, wipe off my fingerprints from it, and
then put it in your cold dead left hand. The police will figure out
that you shot yourself.”

Darryl reached for a soda from the half empty
six-pack carton on his tool bench. He popped its cap off with the
bottle opener nailed to a stud. After using two mouthfuls to rinse
the vomit from his mouth and throat, he sat on a stack of used
tires. “Whatever you say, boss.” He saluted. “You give more orders
than old man Monroe and Big Ben put together.”

“That’s a good boy. Fred and me are going home to our
wives now. We’ll take showers to wash this little nasty incident
off of us. I bet old Fred will hop into the sack and have some fun
with Sally. Me? You whooped me so bad that I won’t be having fun
with Thelma for two or three days most likely. But you’re still in
good enough shape to get real friendly with that pretty woman of
yours. So go and take a shower and treat Nancy like she deserves to
be treated when she gets on back home from choir practice.”

Darryl stared at the bantam rooster who did not know
when to stay down or shut up.

“Keep it in your pants when you’re away from home
from now on. Some other man might shoot you if you don’t. Not
everyone is as forgiving as me and Fred are.”

Jason asked Fred to drive down Shady Lane and to stop
at the bridge built in 1908. At its rusty iron rail he dropped the
.22 pistol into the river below. After making a slight splash, the
weapon sank through eight feet of water and made a plume as it
rested in the riverbed’s soft mud.

“Let’s go.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“So I never do what I said to Darryl. He’s one of
those all or nothing types. If he can’t get a union in at work
he’ll keep on badmouthing Mr. Monroe. Just because he didn’t get to
marry Thelma, he spends his nights chasing after other women. His
type is never satisfied, no matter what.” He pointed at the river.
“This is our little secret.”

“Okay.”

“Good. Well that was number five on my list. Now
maybe I can finally get back to normal living for a change.”

***

The spring of 1947 came early to Madisin. Both Fred
and Jason rejoiced as the days without snow on the ground
outnumbered those with a white landscape. Their wives had a
hallelujah breakdown as they celebrated the end of their husbands’
months long cabin fever.

“I was beginning to think I wouldn’t last the winter
with Fred.” Sally sighed. “All he did on days he couldn’t hit the
road was pace around the house like some tiger caged up at the zoo.
Am I ever glad he’s gone for three weeks. I was beginning to lose
my marbles.”

“Where’s he off to?”

“Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Alabama,
Tennessee, and Arkansas. I’ll give Fred this much. He sure knows
how to line up speeches with VFW chapters. Afterwards he always
sells at least one policy.”

“You think you have it bad?” Thelma reached across
the red checkerboard tablecloth and clutched her hand. “Jason is
totally crazy.”

Sally slowly pulled her hand free from her best
friend. When Thelma winced, Sally patted her forearm. “Oh come on,
Thelma. Anybody that calls Fred the Professor can’t be all that
nuts.” She blinked as tears rolled down Thelma’s cheeks. “Can
he?”

“You have no idea what it’s like living with him.
Most nights he talks in his sleep to Kong.”

“Kong? Who’s that?”

“Didn’t Fred tell you?”

“No. He never talks about the war. He keeps it all
bottled up inside.”

“Kong was Jason’s one and only friend on Monkey
Island. That’s where I might as well be the way Jason pays me no
attention all the time.”

“I know he loves you. Look at how hard he works to
take good care of you.”

“That’s just it. All winter long he was gone by seven
every morning looking for sidewalks and driveways to clear the snow
off of. Then he always went to Tom’s Diner to eat dinner. He said
the daily specials are just too good to pass up. Then he looked for
odd jobs all over downtown. He got home for supper about 4:30 only
because by then it was getting dark.”

“At least he’s not lazy. He reminds me of my daddy,
the way he’s willing to work any job that comes his way.”

Thelma wiped her tears with her embroidered apron and
sighed. “I guess you’re right. I’d plumb go off the deep end if it
weren’t for you being my friend.”

“Truth be told, I need you just as much as you need
me. For some reason you’re the only one I trust enough to talk
about family. All my neighbors and the ladies at church gossip like
a bunch of hens pecking some weak chicken to death. I’m not going
to be pecked by them.”

“It’s no different for me. Old Mrs. Thorndike was
wagging her tongue so hard after church last Sunday that I thought
it might break off.”

When the life inside of her moved Thelma grabbed
Sally’s hand and placed it on her womb. “Feel that? Mom says it’s a
boy for sure the way he kicks all the time.”

Sally smiled as the tiny legs thumped against her
hand. “I guess that means maybe mine is a boy, too.” She patted her
round abdomen with her other hand. “But all he does so far is make
me throw up every morning.”

***

Jason’s daily habits appeared strange to more than
just Thelma. No matter which job he worked – demolition,
remodeling, new construction – he brought home every scrap of
building material. His quarter-acre lot, which lay just outside of
the city limits, now resembled a junkyard. Lumber of every size and
length, shingles, bricks, and pipes and fixtures were all stacked
in separate piles, which Jason considered adequate storage of
salvage. Some citizens of Madisin did not. One such grievance was
aired at a monthly city council meeting.

“Now that the snow has melted off all of Jason
Dalrumple’s trash is exposed.” Mrs. Walengrad waged a forefinger.
“You simply must cite him.”

Mayor Chet Flingler, a voting member of the city
council, grimaced and turned to the four seated beside him but none
came to his rescue. “We’ve told you before, Mattie. The Dalrumples
live outside the city limits. Madisin has no jurisdiction over
their property. You have to take your gripe to the county.”