V
During the special session, Joe Steele fed bills to the leaders of the House and Senate one after another. After the brief pause at nationalizing the banks, those bills went through, lickety-split-the advantage of winning an election by a landslide, and the advantage of putting the fear of God (or at least of embarrassment) into Representatives and Senators. More new laws regulated Wall Street. They tried to make sure financiers’ foibles didn’t send the economy crashing down in ruins again. Bills regulating banks did their best to keep the bankers from lending money they didn’t have.
Charlie Sullivan got calluses on the tips of his index fingers banging out stories about the start of the President’s Four Year Plan. He had plenty to write about. Every day, Joe Steele seemed to sign a bill that would have been a good year’s work in ordinary times. On a lively day, he’d sign two or three bills like that.
The country’s never going to be the same seemed to be the theme of the special session. Bills regulated what management could do to labor. More bills set out how labor could and couldn’t dicker with management. There were massive public-works programs. Roads, canals, tunnels, airstrips. . Joe Steele had swarms of hungry men-and not a few hungry women-eager to dig in with a shovel or swing a pick in exchange for three square meals, a place to sleep, and a little cash in their pockets now and then.
Foreclosures and dust storms meant big stretches of farmland in the Midwest lay idle. Joe Steele’s bill set up community farms on abandoned land. People lived on the land together, worked it all together, and shared whatever they got from the crops they raised. The Republicans asked how that was any different from what was going on in Russia.
Joe Steele went on the radio to answer them. “Some people would rather keep the country hungry and farmers out of work,” he said. “If you want to see food on the table and men proud of what they do, let your Senators and Representatives know about it.” The people who listened to him must have done that, because the farm bill passed with all the others.
After it did, Charlie took a few days off so he could go back up to New York and marry Esther Polgar. Mike was his best man. At the reception, Mike asked him, “Do you really like that SOB so much? I swear to God, he murdered Roosevelt to get the nomination.”
“If you can prove it, I’ll worry about it then,” Charlie answered. “In the meantime, he’s doing the country good. People have hope again. When Hoover was sitting there twiddling his thumbs, everybody just wanted to lay down and die.”
“Lie down,” Mike said automatically.
Charlie thumbed his nose at him. “You didn’t put on that monkey suit to be my copy editor.”
Mike laughed, but not for long. “One of the reasons nobody can prove anything is that a lot of the paperwork’s gone and disappeared. That tells you something right there, or it does if you’re not a cheerleader for the bum in the White House.”
“I’m no cheerleader, dammit.” Charlie wasn’t kidding around any more, either. “I watched Mikoian on the convention floor when news came of the fire in Albany. He almost dropped dead. Nobody’s that good an actor.”
“And you heard Scriabin order it, too.”
“I heard Scriabin on the phone talking about something. I don’t know what any more than you do. They deserve the benefit of the doubt.”
Mike took a deep breath, blew it out, and then took another one. “Okay. It’s your wedding. I don’t want to fight with you on your big day. But it sure seems you’re banging Joe Steele’s drum for him with those stories you keep cranking out.”
“The bills are important. They’ll help clean up the mess we’re in. I don’t care if the Devil wrote them. They’re still good bills.”
“Who says the Devil didn’t?” Mike said. Charlie threw up his hands and went over to the bar for another bourbon. He didn’t want to fight with his brother, either, not on a day like this.
Esther had a fresh drink in her hand, too. “What were you and Mike going on about?” she asked.
“Nothing that has anything to do with you, babe,” he said, and kissed her. “Just dumb old politics.”
“He really can’t stand the President, can he? That’s so funny-it’s not like he’s a Republican or anything.”
“He doesn’t trust him,” Charlie said, which was putting it mildly. To his relief, the band Esther’s folks had hired started going through its paces. He gulped his bourbon and led Esther out onto the dance floor. “C’mon, Mrs. Sullivan. Let’s cut a rug.” If he was dancing, he didn’t have to think about his brother or Joe Steele or anything else.
“Mrs. Sullivan. I like that.” Esther smiled at him. She spread the fingers of her left hand so the tiny diamond in her wedding ring sparkled. “I’ve got to get used to it, but I like it.”
“You better get used to it. You’ll be wearing it the next fifty or sixty years.” He leaned close to whisper in her ear: “And tonight you won’t be wearing anything else.” She squeaked and made as if to hit him, but they were grinning at each other.
They honeymooned at Niagara Falls. It was not too far and not too expensive. Charlie didn’t much care where they went. He didn’t plan on seeing much besides the hotel room they’d rented any which way. He and Esther did finally go to the Falls the day before they were supposed to head back to New York City and Charlie to continue to Washington and to find a bigger apartment than the cramped place he’d had up till then.
The Falls were impressive. Damned if he’d admit it, Charlie spoke to his new wife in a mock-gruff growclass="underline" “I wouldn’t even know what this place looks like if you hadn’t worn me out.”
This time, Esther did hit him. No one around them paid any attention. A lot of the people gaping at the Falls were young couples too tired from honeymooning to do any more of it right that minute. One of these days before too long, Charlie figured, Mike and Stella would come here, too. He wondered how much of Niagara they’d see.
* * *
“Ladies and gentlemen, live from the White House in Washington, D.C., the President of the United States.” The radio announcer had the rich, slightly plummy tones of an actor who’d spent a lot of time in first-rate vaudeville and a few short stretches in Broadway flops.
Charlie noticed the hamminess but didn’t fuss about it. At least half the leading radio announcers sounded like this guy. Besides, Charlie wasn’t inclined to fuss about anything then. He liked the new apartment. He could walk through the living room with a good chance of evading the shin-eating coffee table. More space did make a difference. He could grab Esther and go to bed with her whenever he felt like it, too. That also made a difference, one much more pleasant than that which came from a larger front room.
“This is Joe Steele.” The President didn’t sound like a pretty good actor. He sounded like someone who should have been a tough guy but had somehow ended up with an education instead. His voice held a faint rasp. Some of that might have come from the pipe he smoked. The rest he would have had anyway. Anybody who didn’t hear the don’t-mess-with-me in his voice wasn’t listening hard enough. To Charlie, it was as unmistakable as the warning buzz of a rattlesnake’s tail.
“I want to talk to you tonight about my bill for electrifying the Tennessee Valley,” Joe Steele said. “It’s an important bill. It will build dams up and down the river. The dams will give thousands of people jobs for years. They will stop the floods that have drowned the lowlands in those parts every so often since only Indians lived there. And the electricity the dams generate will bring millions of people into the twentieth century.”
The President paused to cough. “Only when the farmer is surrounded by electrical wiring will he fully become an American citizen. The biggest hope and weapon for our country is industry, and making the farmer part of industry. It is impossible to base construction on two different foundations, on the foundation of large-scale and highly concentrated industry, and on the foundation of very fragmented and extremely backward agriculture. Systematically and persistently, we must place agriculture on a new technical basis, and raise it to the level of an industry.”