But what I'm saying is that Midge got all mixed up in her head about the baby Chingo had accidentally killed, and the baby the adoption agency had taken away from her in November, and she started nagging Johnny to raise it in the council - not that I know what he expected to accomplish. The baby was already dead, no? And then, when he went back to her and told her I'd put him down, told him to take a walk and cool off, well, the thing kept stewing inside her until finally she decided to call the cops. Two of the guys were up this other chick's house - Ellie, her name is. They felt like having some pizza, so Ellie and the two of them went downstairs to get it, and they left Midge alone with the telephone. She can't resist a telephone. She sees one sitting there, man, she gets the itch to pick it up and dial it, and start shooting off her big mouth. So the minute she was alone she called the cops and was reeling off the names of the people in the ditch when The Bullet come back in because he forgot his cigarettes, and he heard what she was doing, and he pulled the phone out of the wall.
We made her stand before the inner council. It was tough on Johnny, because this was his chick, and she done something real wrong, and he was one of the guys who had to decide what the punishment would be. We could've done whatever we wanted with her. Her mother is dead, you know, and her father's a wino who raped her when she was eleven, and who she was scared to even be in the same building with. Most of the time she slept in the clubhouse, even though the only heat there is from these kerosene burners we put around. It's an abandoned building, did I tell you that? I guess I told you that. So we could've done whatever we wanted, there was nobody to know, and nobody to care - except maybe Johnny. We could've had her killed. She was threatening the security.
The council voted to cut out her tongue.
Johnny asked for clemency, and I granted it. The council didn't like my veto, but if the council's wrong, I don't care how they vote. Around Christmas time they voted that the money in our treasury should be turned over to this neighborhood group that was trying to fix up one of the empty lots as a park. Paint the walls of the buildings around it, you know, and put in benches and maybe even plant some grass. There was two hundred and sixty dollars in the treasury, and I couldn't see wasting it on an empty lot when we still needed more guns and ammunition for the clique's defense. So I said no. I'm the president, and I got the power of veto. But the council overroded my veto, and voted the money again, so you know what I did? I told Big Anthony, who's the treasurer and who's in charge of the clique's bankbook, to go to the bank and take out the money, just leaving a couple of bucks in it to keep the account active. And he brung me two hundred and fifty-five dollars, and I impounded the funds. I still got the money. It's in a safe place and I won't touch a dime of it, because it belongs to the clique. But I ain't turning it over to those neighborhood do-gooders, neither, no matter what the council voted.
Why I vetoed their wanting to cut out Midge's tongue had nothing to do with Johnny's pitch for clemency. What I figured was that she already done the damage, she already talked to the cops. Which meant that they'd be coming around looking for her, trying to get the rest of the story from her. So either we had to kill her to shut her up completely, or we had to get her out of sight. In matters of security, I usually show no mercy, I mean it. And this was a matter of security, no question about it. But I guess I was feeling generous that day. I could've said 'Get rid of her,' and Chingo or The Bullet would've dumped her in the river without batting an eyelash. But instead, there's this place that Big Anthony's aunt has in the next state, just over the Hamilton Bridge, and she goes there in the summertime, she grows corn there, it's a nice little place. In the winter, though, it's closed up, but Big Anthony has a key and we sometimes go out there with the chicks and make a fire and sit around. I told Big Anthony to pick another member, anyone he wanted, and take Midge out there and keep her there for a week or so, till things cooled down. I also told him twenty lashes on her back every morning and every night, and she better not scream. If she screamed - and Midge was standing there through all this - I wanted to know about it, and then I'd forget how decent I was being and I'd tell the council to go ahead and do to her what they wanted.
She got the message. Or at least it looked that way. But even in spite of what we were forced to do later, I think I done the correct thing at the time. I could just as easy have lost my cool and told the council to go ahead, do what they wanted. But I didn't. Which is why I'm the leader, and they're the council. When you're the leader, you got to know when to use the power you got, and when not to. You got to be absolutely hard sometimes, and sometimes you got to be moderate. It's a balance you achieve, you know what I mean? When I got re-elected I made a little speech up the clubhouse. I told the members I wanted them to pray that I'd have God's help in making decisions that were right for them.
I myself pray to God every night that I'll always do the right thing. And I think my people must pray for me, too, like I asked them to. Because I did do the right thing about Midge, even though I never could stand her, and even though later on, it might have looked like the wrong decision.
Chapter Four
There were five sections to the city, and Riverhead was one of them. It was separated from Isola by the Diamondback River, which flowed from the River Harb, snaked southward and then westward, and then emptied into the River Dix on the southern side of the island. There were no rivers in Riverhead itself. There were several reservoirs, and two lakes, and a brook called Five Mile Pond. The brook was not five miles long, nor was it five miles wide, nor was it five miles from any significant landmark. The origin and evolution of the name were obscure. It was probably called Five Mile Pond for much the same reason that Riverhead, which did not have a river in it, was called Riverhead.
Once upon a time, when the world was young and the Dutch were snugly settled in the city, the land adjacent to Isola was owned by a patroon named Pieter Ryerhert. Ryerhert was a farmer who at the age of sixty-eight grew tired of rising with the chickens and going to bed with the cows. As the metropolis grew, and the need for housing beyond Isola's limited boundaries increased, Ryerhert sold or donated most of his land to the expanding city, and then moved down to Isola, where he lived the gay life of a fat, rich burgher. Ryerhert's Farms became simply Ryerhert, but this was not a particularly easy name to pronounce. By the time World War I rolled around, and despite the fact that Ryerhert was Dutch and not German, the name really began to rankle, and petitions were circulated to change it because it sounded too Teutonic, and therefore probably had Huns running around up there cutting off the hands of Belgian babies. It became Riverhead in 1919. It was still Riverhead - but not the Riverhead it had been then.