Jerry crunched and swallowed a deep-fried morsel. He slurped some coffee, then rose to his feet and addressed the crowd: “Okay, people, let’s come to order.”
The room gradually got quiet. Jerry said, “We have many articles of interest before us. I suggest we skip the formalities and proceed straight to business.”
“Second,” called Tom.
“All in favor say aye.”
“Aye,” came the group response. “Nays?” queried Jerry. The floor was silent. Jerry continued, “The chair will now entertain motions,” at which point Tom Thompson rose from his seat at the bar and said, “I believe tonight’s topics are in many ways interrelated, and so propose that they be discussed concurrently, as one issue, rather than separately.”
“Hmn,” said Jerry. There was a period of thoughtful murmuring about this idea. It was a fine point requiring subtlety of mind to appreciate, and therefore surprising, coming from Tom. Jerry, apparently aiming to avoid complexity, declared, “The chair appreciates the speaker’s motion and takes it under advisement for future deliberation. Yes, in the back there?”—referring to a red-haired woman wearing a nurse’s uniform. She was Mary Brown, a staffer at the hospital emergency room, and a divorced mother of two. Mary Brown stood and read from a legal pad, “I represent a group of mothers who have signed a petition”—waving her pad—“calling for action in the matter of these moats and trenches and et cetera, so popular of late in the community. Not only are such additions to property unsightly, they pose certain danger to children and pets. Allow me to read a partial inventory of pit-related injuries treated during the last month at Anhinga Memorial. Harley Geer, aged seven, extensive cuts about the legs, arms, and face when he chased a ball into a neighboring lawn ringed by a ditch filled with broken window glass. Sheila Wells, aged fourteen, near loss of a foot after stumbling into a big hole full of steel animal traps, many rusted. Drew Smith, aged sixteen—”
“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.”