God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater Read online

  Poor old Fred simply could not believe this, that he should have connection with anyone so glorious. As it happened, he was wearing Argyll socks, and he hitched up his trousers some to look at them. Argyll had a new meaning for him now. One of his ancestors, he told himself, had whipped the Earl of Argyll six times. Fred noticed, too, that he had banged his shins on a table more severely than he'd thought, for there was blood running down to the tops of his Argylls.

  He read on:

  John Graham, rechristened John Rosewater in the Scilly Islands, apparently found the mild climate and the new name congenial, for he remained there for the rest of his life, fathering seven sons and six daughters. He, too, is said to have been a poet, though none of his work survives. If we had some of his poems, they might explain to us what must remain a mystery, why a nobleman would give up his good name and all the privileges it could mean, and be content to live as a simple farmer on an island far from the centers of wealth and power. I can make a guess, and it can never be more than a guess, that he was perhaps sickened by all the bloody things he saw when he fought at his brother's side. At any rate, he made no effort to tell his family where he was, nor to reveal himself as Graham when royalty was restored. In the history of the Grahams, he is said to have been lost at sea while guarding Prince Charles.

  Fred heard Caroline throwing up now upstairs.

  John Rosewater's third son, Frederick, was the direct ancestor of the Rhode Island Rosewaters. We know little else about him, except that he had a son named George, who was the first Rosewater to leave the islands. George went to London in 1700, became a florist. George had two sons, the younger of which, John, was imprisoned for debt in 1731. He was freed in 1732 by James E. Oglethorpe, who paid his debts on the condition that John accompany Oglethorpe on an expedition to Georgia. John was to serve as chief horticulturalist for the expedition, which planned to plant mulberry trees and raise silk. John Rosewater would also become the chief architect, laying out what was to become the city of Savannah. In 1742, John was badly wounded in the Battle of Bloody Marsh against the Spanish.

  At this point, Fred was so elated over the resourcefulness and bravery of his own flesh and blood in the past, that he had to tell his wife about it at once. And he didn't think for a moment of bringing the sacred book to his wife. It had to stay in the holy cellar, and she had to come down to it.

  So he stripped the bedspread away from her, certainly the most audacious, most blatantly sexual act of their marriage, told her his real name was Graham, said an ancestor of his had designed Savannah, told her she had to come down into the cellar with him.

  She tramped blearily down the stairs after Fred, and he pointed to the manuscript, gave her a strident synopsis of the history of the Rhode Island Rosewaters up to the Battle of Bloody Marsh.

  "The point I'm trying to make," he said, "is-- we are somebody. I am sick and I am tired of pretending that we just aren't anybody."

  "I never pretended we weren't anybody."

  "You've pretended I wasn't anybody." This was daringly true, and said almost accidentally. The truth of it stunned them both. "You know what I mean," said Fred. He pressed on, did so gropingly, since he was in the unfamiliar condition of having poignant things to say, of being by no means at the end of them.

  "These phony bastards you think are so wonderful, compared to us--compared to me--I'd like to see how many ancestors they could turn up that could compare with mine. I've always thought people were silly who bragged about their family trees-- but, by God, if anybody wants do any comparing, I'd be glad to show 'em mine! Let's quit apologizing!"

  "I don't know what you mean."

  "Other people say, 'Hello' or 'Goodbye!' We always say, 'Excuse me,' no matter what we're doing." He threw up his hands. "No more apologies! So we're poor! All right, we're poor! This is America! And America is one place in this sorry world where people shouldn't have to apologize for being poor. The question in America should be, 'Is this guy a good citizen? Is he honest? Does he pull his own weight?' "

  Fred hoisted the manuscript in his two plump hands, threatened poor Caroline with it. "The Rhode Island Rosewaters have been active, creative people in the past, and will continue to be in the future," he told her. "Some have had money, and some have not, but, by God, they've played their parts in history! No more apologies!"

  He had won Caroline to his way of thinking. It was a simple thing for any passionate person to do. She was ga-ga with terrified respect.

  "You know what it says over the door of the National Archives in Washington?"

  "No," she admitted.

  " 'The past is prologue!' "

  "Oh."

  "All right," said Fred, "now let's read this story of the Rhode Island Rosewaters together, and try to pull our marriage together with a little mutual pride and faith."

  She nodded dumbly.

  The tale of John Rosewater at the Battle of Bloody Marsh ended the second page of the manuscript. So Fred now gripped the corner of that page between his thumb and forefinger, and dramatically peeled it from wonders lying below.

  The manuscript was hollow. Termites had eaten the heart out of the history. They were still there, maggotty blue-grey, eating away.

  When Caroline had clumped back up the cellar stairs, tremulous with disgust, Fred calmly advised himself that the time had come to really die. Fred could tie a hangman's knot blindfolded, and he tied one now in clothesline. He climbed onto a stool, tied the other end to a water pipe with a two-half hitch, which he tested.

  He was putting the noose over his head, when little Franklin called down the stairway that a man wanted to see him. And the man, who was Norman Mushari, came down the stairs uninvited, lugging a fat, cross-gartered, slack-jawed briefcase.

  Fred moved quickly, barely escaped being caught in the embarrassing act of destroying himself

  "Yes--?" he said to Mushari.

  "Mr. Rosewater--?"

  "Yes--?"

  "Sir--at this very moment, your Indiana relatives are swindling you and yours out of your birth-right, out of millions upon millions of dollars. I am here to tell you about a relatively cheap and simple court action that will make those millions yours."

  Fred fainted.

  12

  TWO DAYS LATER, it was nearly time for Eliot to get on a Greyhound Bus at the Saw City Kandy Kitchen, to go to Indianapolis to meet Sylvia in the Bluebird Room. It was noon. He was still asleep. He had had one hell of a night, not only with telephone calls, but with people coming in person at all hours, more than half of them drunk. There was panic in Rosewater. No matter how often Eliot had denied it, his clients were sure he was leaving them forever.

  Eliot had cleared off the top of his desk. Laid out on it were a new blue suit, a new white shirt, a new blue tie, a new pair of black nylon socks, a new pair of Jockey shorts, a new toothbrush and a bottle of Lavoris. He had used the new toothbrush once. His mouth was a bloody wreck.

  Dogs barked outside. They crossed the street from the firehouse to greet a great favorite of theirs, Delbert Peach, a town drunk. They were cheering him in his efforts to stop being a human being and become a dog. "Git! Git! Git!" he cried ineffectually. "God damn, I ain't in heat."

  He tumbled in through Eliot's street-level door, slammed the door on his best friends, climbed the stairs singing. This is what he sang:

  I've got the clap, and the blueballs, too. The clap don't hurt, but the blueballs do.

  Delbert Peach, all bristles and stink, ran out of that song halfway up the stairs, for his progress was slow. He switched to The Star Spangled Banner, and he was gasping and burping and humming that when he entered Eliot's office proper.

  "Mr. Rosewater? Mr. Rosewater?" Eliot's head was under his blanket, and his hands, though he was sound asleep, gripped the shroud tightly. So Peach, in order to see Eliot's beloved face, had to overcome the strength of those hands. "Mr. Rosewater--are you alive? Are you all right?"

  Eliot's face was contorted by the struggle for the blan
ket. "What? What? What?" His eyes opened wide.

  "Thank the good Lord! I dreamed you was dead!"

  "Not that I know of."

  "I dreamed the angels had come down from the sky, and carried you up, and set you down next to Sweet Jesus Himself."

  "No," said Eliot fuzzily. "Nothing like that happened."

  "It'll happen sometime. And the weeping and wailing in this town, you'll hear it up there."

  Eliot hoped he wouldn't hear the weeping and wailing up there, but he didn't say so.

  "Even though you're not dying, Mr. Rosewater, I know you'll never come back here. You'll get up there to Indianapolis, with all the excitement and lights and beautiful buildings, and you'll get a taste of the high life again, and you'll hunger for more of it, which is only natural for anybody who's ever tasted the high life the way you have, and the next thing you know you'll be in New York, living the very highest life there is. And why shouldn't you?"

  "Mr. Peach--" and Eliot rubbed his eyes, "if I were to somehow wind up in New York, and start living the highest of all possible lives again, you know what would happen to me? The minute I got near any navigable body of water, a bolt of lightning would knock me into the water, a whale would swallow me up, and the whale would swim down to the Gulf of Mexico and up the Mississippi, up the Ohio, up the Wabash, up the White, up Lost River, up Rosewater Creek. And that whale would jump from the creek into the Rosewater Inter-State Ship Canal, and it would swim down the canal to this city, and spit me out in the Parthenon. And there I'd be."

  "Whether you're coming back or not, Mr. Rosewater, I want to make you a present of some good news to take with you."

  "And what news is that, Mr. Peach?"

  "As of ten minutes ago, I swore off liquor forever. That's my present to you."

  Eliot's red telephone rang. He lunged at it, for it was the fire department's hot line. "Hello!" He folded all the fingers of his left hand, except for the middle one. The gesture was not obscene. He was readying the finger that would punch the red button, that would make the doomsday horn on top of the firehouse bawl.

  "Mr. Rosewater?" It was a woman's voice, and it was so coy.

  "Yes! Yes!" Eliot was hopping up and down. "Where's the fire?"

  "It's in my heart, Mr. Rosewater."

  Eliot was enraged, and no one would have been surprised to see him so. He was famous for his hatred of skylarking where the fire department was concerned. It was the only thing he hated. He recognized the caller, who was Mary Moody, the slut whose twins he had baptized the day before. She was a suspected arsonist, a convicted shoplifter, and a five-dollar whore. Eliot blasted her for using the hot line.

  "God damn you for calling this number! You should go to jail and rot! Stupid sons of bitches who make personal calls on a fire department line should go to hell and fry forever!" He slammed the receiver down.

  A few seconds later, the black telephone rang. "This is the Rosewater Foundation," said Eliot sweetly. "How can we help you?"

  "Mr. Rosewater--this is Mary Moody again." She was sobbing.

  "What on earth is the trouble, dear?" He honestly didn't know. He was ready to kill whoever had made her cry.

  A chauffeur-driven black Chrysler Imperial pulled to the curb below Eliot's two windows. The chauffeur opened the back door. His old joints giving him pain, out came Senator Lister Ames Rosewater of Indiana. He was not expected.

  He went creakingly upstairs. This abject mode of progress had not been his style in times past. He had aged shockingly, wished to demonstrate that he had aged shockingly. He did what few visitors ever did, knocked on Eliot's office door, asked if it would be all right if he came in. Eliot, who was still in his fragrant war-surplus long Johns, hurried to his father, embraced him.

  "Father, Father, Father--what a wonderful surprise. "

  "It isn't easy for me to come here."

  "I hope that isn't because you think you're not welcome."

  "I can't stand the sight of this mess."

  "It's certainly a lot better than it was a week ago. "

  "It is?"

  "We had a top-to-bottom house cleaning a week ago."

  The Senator winced, nudged a beer can with his toe. "Not on my account, I hope. Just because I fear an outbreak of cholera is no reason you should, too." This was said quietly.

  "You know Delbert Peach, I believe?"

  "I know of him." The Senator nodded. "How do you do, Mr. Peach. I'm certainly familiar with your war record. Deserted twice, didn't you? Or was it three times?"

  Peach, cowering and sullen in the presence of such a majestic person, mumbled that he had never served in the armed forces.

  "It was your father, then. I apologize. It's hard to tell how old people are, if they seldom wash or shave. "

  Peach admitted with his silence that it probably had been his father who had deserted three times.

  "I wonder if we might not be alone for a few moments," the Senator said to Eliot, "or would that run counter to your concept of how open and friendly our society should be?"

  "I'm leaving," said Peach. "I know when I'm not wanted."

  "I imagine you've had plenty of opportunities to learn," said the Senator.

  Peach, who was shuffling out the door, turned at this insult, surprised even himself by understanding that he had been insulted. "For a man who depends on the votes of the ordinary common people, Senator, you certainly can say mean things to them."

  "As a drunk, Mr. Peach, you must surely know that drunks are not allowed in polling places."

  "I've voted." This was a transparent lie.

  "If you have, you've probably voted for me. Most people do, even though I never flattered the people of Indiana in my life, not even in time of war. And do you know why they vote for me? Inside of every American, I don't care how decayed, is a scrawny, twanging old futz like me, who hates crooks and weaklings even more than I do."

  "Gee, Father--I certainly didn't expect to see you. What a pleasant surprise. You look wonderful."

  "I feel rotten. I have rotten news for you, too. I thought I'd better deliver it in person."

  Eliot frowned slightly. "When was the last time your bowels moved?"

  "None of your business!"

  "Sorry."

  "I'm not here for a cathartic. The C.I.O. says my bowels haven't moved since the National Recovery Act was declared unconstitutional, but that's not why I'm here."

  "You said everything was so rotten."

  "So?"

  "Usually, when somebody comes in here and says that, nine times out of ten, it's a case of constipation."

  "I'll tell you what the news is, boy, and then let's see if you can cheer up with Ex-Lax. A young lawyer working for McAllister, Robjent, Reed and McGee, with full access to all the confidential files about you, has quit. He's hired out to the Rhode Island Rosewaters. They're going to get you in court. They're going to prove you're insane."

  The buzzer of Eliot's alarm clock went off. Eliot picked up the clock, went to the red button on the wall. He watched the sweep secondhand of the clock intently, his lips working, counting off the seconds. He aimed the blunt middle finger of his left hand at the button, suddenly stabbed, thus activating the loudest fire alarm in the Western Hemisphere.

  The awful shout of the horn hurled the Senator against a wall, curled him up with his hands over his ears. A dog in New Ambrosia, seven miles away, ran in circles, bit his tail. A stranger in the Saw City Kandy Kitchen threw coffee all over himself and the proprietor. In Bella's Beauty Nook in the basement of the Court House, three-hundred-pound Bella had a mild heart attack. And wits throughout the county poised themselves to tell a tired and untruthful joke about Fire Chief Charley Warmergran, who had an insurance office next to the firehouse: "Must have scared Charley Warmergram half out of his secretary."

  Eliot released the button. The great alarm began to swallow its own voice, speaking gutturally and interminably of "bubblegum, bubblegum, bubblegum."

  There was no fire. It was
simply high noon in Rosewater.

  "What a racket!" the Senator mourned, straightening up slowly. "I've forgotten everything I ever knew."

  "That might be nice."

  "Did you hear what I said about the Rhode Island people?"

  "Yes."

  "And how does it make you feel?"

  "Sad and frightened." Eliot sighed, tried a wistful smile, couldn't manage one. "I had hoped it would never have to be proved, that it would never matter one way or another--whether I was sane or not."

  "You have some doubts as to your own sanity?"

  "Certainly."

  "And how long has this been going on?"

  Eliot's eyes widened as he sought an honest answer. "Since I was ten, maybe."

  "I'm sure you're joking."

  "That's a comfort."

  "You were a sturdy, sane little boy."

  "I was?" Eliot was ingenuously charmed by the little boy he had been, was glad to think about him rather than about the spooks that were closing in on him.

  "I'm only sorry we brought you out here."

  "I loved it out here. I still do," Eliot confessed dreamily.

  The Senator moved his feet slightly apart, making a firmer base for the blow he was about to deliver. "That may be, boy, but it's time to go now--and never come back."

  "Never come back?" Eliot echoed marvelingly.

  "This part of your life is over. It had to end sometime. I'll thank the Rhode Island vermin for this much: They're forcing you to leave, and to leave right now."

  "How can they do that?"

  "How do you expect to defend your sanity with a backdrop like this?"

  Eliot looked about himself, saw nothing remarkable. "This looks--this looks--peculiar?"

  "You know damn well it does."

  Eliot shook his head slowly. "You'd be surprised what I don't know, Father."

  "There's no institution like this anywhere else in the world. If this were a set on a stage, and the script called for the curtain to go up with no one on stage, when the curtain went up, the audience would be on pins and needles, eager to see the incredible nut who could live this way."