In the chap­ter “The Antes House,” we fol­low Gus Plitz­ka, the chair­man of the Pottstown city coun­cil, who dreads Memo­r­i­al Day due to its asso­ci­a­tion with the John Antes His­tor­i­cal Society’s Cor­net March­ing Band. The year­ly events include the coun­cil meet­ing fol­lowed by the band per­for­mance, break­fast with Ger­man sausages, and a parade fea­tur­ing coun­cil mem­bers dressed as Rev­o­lu­tion­ary sol­diers. This gath­er­ing hon­ors John Antes, Pottstown’s lit­tle-known com­pos­er whose con­tro­ver­sial life was a mix of achieve­ments and mis­con­duct.

The cel­e­bra­tion cul­mi­nates at the Antes House, a dilap­i­dat­ed his­tor­i­cal site that serves as a haven for the town’s more unsa­vory char­ac­ters. For the rest of the year, it hosts a diverse crowd—from run­aways to rev­el­ers, all who van­ish a week before Memo­r­i­al Day for prepa­ra­tions that include clean­ing and refur­bish­ing the house.

Plitz­ka reflects on his new role as the own­er of Clover Dairy but is secret­ly bur­dened by a debt to a mob­ster named Nig Rosen. Despite par­tic­i­pat­ing as a parade mar­shal, he is pre­oc­cu­pied with finan­cial woes relat­ed to his loan, which has become a crip­pling, anx­i­ety-filled oblig­a­tion instead of a step up in life.

As the chap­ter unfolds, Plitz­ka seeks assis­tance from Doc Roberts, a fel­low coun­cil mem­ber and mem­ber of the march­ing band, to address his phys­i­cal ail­ments, specif­i­cal­ly a painful toe. Their tense inter­ac­tions reveal mutu­al dis­dain, as both men have past griev­ances against each oth­er, stem­ming from class and polit­i­cal dif­fer­ences.

They dis­cuss the com­mu­ni­ty, includ­ing the grow­ing pres­ence of Black res­i­dents in Pottstown, bring­ing uncom­fort­able ten­sions and under­ly­ing racial dis­crim­i­na­tion to the fore­front. Plitz­ka makes dis­parag­ing remarks about the Black com­mu­ni­ty, while Doc express­es dis­con­tent with the con­di­tions they endure.

Amidst their exchanges, which reveal both their char­ac­ters and soci­etal issues, they explore the impli­ca­tions of their roles with­in the coun­cil and com­mu­ni­ty, high­light­ing divi­sions, polit­i­cal maneu­ver­ing, and eth­i­cal ques­tions sur­round­ing their lives and his­to­ries, fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing their already strained rela­tion­ship. The chap­ter cap­tures the essence of small-town pol­i­tics inter­wo­ven with per­son­al strug­gles and soci­etal atti­tudes, ulti­mate­ly set­ting the stage for larg­er themes to unfold.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

G
20
The Antes House
us Plitz­ka, chair­man of the Pottstown city coun­cil, hat­ed Memo­r­i­al
Day. Every year for as long as any­one could remem­ber, the annu­al
meet­ing of the John Antes His­tor­i­cal Society’s Cor­net March­ing Band was
held in con­junc­tion with the meet­ing of Pottstown’s city coun­cil. The
meet­ings were held five min­utes apart—one after the oth­er. First the city
coun­cil met. Then the entire his­tor­i­cal soci­ety assem­bled out front.
Dec­la­ra­tions were made, procla­ma­tions exclaimed. Then the John Antes
His­tor­i­cal Society’s Cor­net March­ing Band played. Next, every­one put
down their instru­ments and break­fast was served with Ger­man beer and
sausages because the Ger­mans had to be thrown in there some­where, since
they owned prac­ti­cal­ly every­thing in town. Then the band played again.
Then the fire engines from the Empire Fire Com­pa­ny showed up ring­ing
their bells, and final­ly, by after­noon, with lots of harumphs and yahoos and
boops and bangs and fits and starts and procla­ma­tions, the Memo­r­i­al Day
march began, with the city coun­cil mem­bers clad in Rev­o­lu­tion­ary-era
cos­tumes serv­ing as parade mar­shals.
It was a nod to his­to­ry, a sen­ti­men­tal bid to the great John Antes,
Pottstown’s great­est com­pos­er. Nobody out­side Pottstown had ever heard of
Antes, of course, in part because he wrote trum­pet sonatas that nobody
played, and in part because the John Antes His­tor­i­cal Society’s Cor­net
March­ing Band, which was com­posed of forty-five souls—numbskulls, pig
farm­ers, heavy smok­ers, bums, drunks, cheer­lead­ers, tomboys, bored
col­lege stu­dents, and any oth­er white Amer­i­can in Mont­gomery Coun­ty
who could purse their lips tight enough to blast a noise through a trum­pet—
sound­ed like a cross between a crank engine try­ing to start on a cold
Octo­ber morn­ing and a dying African sil­ver­back goril­la howl­ing out its last.
It was all a nod to Antes, the great com­pos­er, hus­band, father, rev­o­lu­tion­ary,
states­man, plun­der­er, iron mak­er, wife beat­er, cor­netist, Indi­an grave rob­ber,
and all-around great Amer­i­can who served as pres­i­dent of Pottstown
bor­ough and as a colonel under the great George Wash­ing­ton himself—and
still found time to write march­ing band sonatas for trum­pet, imag­ine that.
After the day­long par­ty and parade cel­e­brat­ing his life wound its way back
to the Antes House, more speech­es were deliv­ered, fol­lowed by a giant
out­door pig roast par­ty, fol­lowed by fire­works blast­ed into the night, at
which time every­one got drunk and for­got all about old John.
The entire cel­e­bra­tion began and end­ed every year at the great
composer’s Rev­o­lu­tion­ary-era home, an exhaust­ed, crum­bling, stone-and-
stuc­co struc­ture hunched at the cor­ner of High Street and Union guard­ing
Chick­en Hill like an old witch, the tat­tered neigh­bor­hood that rose up
behind it like a drunk male cousin hov­er­ing over lit­tle cousin Mary at
Christ­mas, who just turned eigh­teen and sud­den­ly evolved from a gap-
toothed tomboy into a flamethrow­er. The beloved Antes House was a
cher­ished trea­sure, admired and salut­ed, the cen­ter of the uni­verse for
Pottstown’s white cit­i­zens on Memo­r­i­al Day. It also faith­ful­ly hon­ored the
town’s Negro cit­i­zens the oth­er 364 days a year, serv­ing as a won­der­ful
shit­house, beer-guz­zling head­quar­ters, hide­out from the cops, playpen for
run­aways, tiedown spot for errant mules, and last-resort sex spot for
Chick­en Hill teenagers in lust and love, all of whom gra­cious­ly van­ished a
week before Memo­r­i­al Day when a truck bear­ing the words “Pottstown.
His­to­ry in IRONG” with the G crossed out—a painter’s mistake—clunked
to the curb. A crew of men tum­bled out and the annu­al trans­for­ma­tion
began. Amer­i­can flags were hoist­ed. Ply­wood cov­er­ings were removed
from the win­dows, sash­es paint­ed and repaired, the side­walk swept clean,
the brick walk­way hosed down, the house scrubbed from top to bot­tom, and
when they fin­ished, the exhaust­ed work­men did the same thing they did
every year: they stood back and gazed at the old house with their hands on
their hips, shak­ing their heads like a moth­er who had just washed her son’s
face ten times only to real­ize that he was just plain ugly in the first place.
But Amer­i­can his­to­ry is not meant to be pret­ty. It is plain. It is sim­ple. It is
strong and truth­ful. Full of blood. And guts. And war. “Iron,” the may­or
announced with his usu­al cheery blus­ter at the end of the 1936 annu­al city
coun­cil and Antes society’s meet­ings, “is what made this town great. We are
the can­non mak­ers. The gun mak­ers. The steel­mak­ers. The blood! The guts!
The glo­ry! God is on our side! Remem­ber: George Washington’s vic­to­ry
here at Pottstown was the pre­cur­sor to the great bat­tle of Val­ley Forge!
Nev­er for­get!”
Plitz­ka, seat­ed at a table inside the Antes House among the coun­cil
mem­bers, received this speech with a grum­ble and a wince. His big toe was
killing him. It was swollen to the size of a meat­ball. Plus, he had a headache
—two of them. The first was in his head. The sec­ond no aspirin could solve.
Plitz­ka was the new own­er of the Clover Dairy, employ­er of twen­ty-nine
people—the first in his fam­i­ly to do such a thing, which, if that wasn’t the
Amer­i­can dream, he told friends, what is? Imag­ine that. Of course, the
friends who knew him well liked to imag­ine him drown­ing, but that wasn’t
the point. He was the boss! The top dog. Own­er of the deck.
Prob­lem was, the deck dealt him from a bot­tom card. Not a month
before, just as the deal closed, he dis­cov­ered he hadn’t lined up his nick­els
prop­er­ly and was $1,400 short. In des­per­a­tion, he called on his cousin
Fer­die, who had a won­der­ful head on his shoul­ders for swin­dling suck­ers
and bank­ing hors­es at the near­by Sanato­ga Race­track. Fer­die declared
him­self short as well but rec­om­mend­ed Plitz­ka to a “good friend” in
Philadel­phia who hap­pi­ly loaned him the mon­ey. The friend turned out to
be a fright­en­ing mob­ster named Nig Rosen.
Every time Plitz­ka thought of Rosen, his insides felt like liq­ue­fy­ing Jell-
O. He was $1,400 plus inter­est in the red to a bona fide gang­ster and had
nowhere to find the mon­ey. Now, instead of spend­ing the day schem­ing up
ways to burn him­self out of that hole, he had to waste a pre­cious day
limp­ing around as a parade mar­shal while hop­ing Rosen’s palookas
wouldn’t make a pub­lic appear­ance. They had already shown up at his
office twice. It was a mess. Sit­ting at the table, with his toe throb­bing, he
want­ed to burst into tears.
When the meet­ing end­ed, he sat drum­ming his fin­gers on the table as the
oth­er coun­cil mem­bers head­ed for the door and band mem­bers clam­bered
into the room bear­ing all man­ner of cor­nets. Plitz­ka lin­gered, scan­ning the
new­com­ers for Doc Roberts. He was hop­ing that Doc, who was a mem­ber
of just about every his­tor­i­cal soci­ety in town and marched in every parade,
was a mem­ber of the John Antes His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety as well. He sighed in
relief when he spot­ted Doc’s rec­og­niz­able hob­ble at the far end of the room.
Doc was hold­ing, of all things, a tuba.
Plitz­ka rose from the table, his toe aching, and made his way past the
band mem­bers to Doc, who was busy fum­bling with the instru­ment. “Hey,
Doc, my toe is killing me,” he said.
Doc glanced at Plitz­ka and turned back to his instru­ment, fum­bling with
its valves. “Come by my office tomor­row,” he said.
“It’s bad. Can you take a look now?”
Doc turned and took a quick glance around the crowd­ed ante­room.
“Here?”
“Out­side.”
“I got­ta play.”
“It can’t wait,” Plitz­ka said.
Doc turned back to fid­dling with his tuba as Plitz­ka stood behind him,
help­less. He couldn’t stand Doc. Old-mon­ey club­foot snob. One of the
Mayflower chil­dren. Parade co-mar­shal because his fam­i­ly had been here
since the Indi­ans and all that. Got to blow a tuba in an all-trum­pet march­ing
band. The two had tan­gled years before on the city coun­cil back when Doc
had served. Plitz­ka want­ed to spend sev­en­ty dol­lars on a bronze plaque to
cel­e­brate the estab­lish­ment of the town’s first Pol­ish busi­ness. Doc had
object­ed, say­ing, “We can’t give a plaque to every fam­i­ly that baked bread
here. The Pol­ish have only been here since 1885—that’s after the Civ­il
War.” Plitz­ka nev­er for­got the insult and was hap­py to engi­neer Doc’s exit
from the coun­cil by mov­ing a few polit­i­cal odds and ends around and
get­ting him to resign.
Doc, for his part, bore equal dis­taste for Plitz­ka, whom he regard­ed as a
climber, a two-fist­ed polit­i­cal-club fight­er, and the “new” kind of Pottstown
res­i­dent: i.e., a man with­out hon­or. Plitz­ka sup­plied cas­es of bour­bon to
locals for their votes. He bul­lied local bankers into sub­mis­sion by
threat­en­ing to ban coal deliv­er­ies on streets where their busi­ness­es were.
Even the big boys at McClin­ton Iron and Beth­le­hem Steel answered his
calls. His house on the west side had a liv­ing room the size of a rug­by field
and a wel­come mat writ­ten in Old Eng­lish. How did a Pole, whose family’s
pis­s­hole of a farm atop Chick­en Hill couldn’t sprout fleas, get that kind of
mon­ey? But giv­en what hap­pened up at the Jew­ish store on the Hill, Doc
didn’t need any new ene­mies, espe­cial­ly now. Espe­cial­ly Plitz­ka, who was
dan­ger­ous.
“All right, Gus,” he grum­bled.
The two men moved toward the door. Nei­ther noticed the two Ital­ian
women pick­ing up papers and sweep­ing, mov­ing around like ghosts. Pia
Fabi­cel­li, the city council’s offi­cial jan­i­tor, was also reluc­tant­ly in
atten­dance, hav­ing been sum­moned away from her usu­al duties at city hall
to clean up behind the mas­ters at the Antes House. She’d brought Fio­r­ia to
help.
As the two swept through the room remov­ing cof­fee cups, cake crumbs,
and left­over papers that were the city council’s usu­al fare, they noticed Doc
and Plitz­ka hob­bling for the door, both limp­ing, with Plitz­ka lead­ing the
way.
Pia nudged Fio­r­ia and quipped in Ital­ian, “Look. Twins.”
Fio­r­ia chuck­led. “If you stick your fin­ger in the mouth of one, the oth­er
will bite.”
They laughed and went back to work as Doc fol­lowed Plitz­ka out­side.
Plitz­ka took a seat on the cracked brick front steps of the Antes House,
removed his shoe, peeled off his sock, and revealed the toe. It was ghast­ly:
bulging, red, and wrin­kled. “What do you think?” he asked.
Doc stared at the wrin­kled toe. “What­ev­er it is,” he said, “it needs
press­ing.”
“Ain’t you gonna check it out? It’s killing me.”
“I need my instru­ments. How did it get that way?”
“That’s what you’re here for.”
“I’m not a mind read­er, Gus. Did you hit it on some­thing? A desk? A
chair? Did some­thing fall on it?”
“No.”
“What have you done late­ly?”
“What’s that sup­posed to mean?”
“Maybe you went for a walk some­where and stepped on some­thing. Or
maybe some­thing fell on it, maybe in the plant, on the job?”
“This is my job,” Plitz­ka said dry­ly. “I don’t work in a plant, Doc. I’m
city coun­cil pres­i­dent.”
“Gus, give me a break. I’m try­ing to fig­ure it out.”
“I’m in pain!”
Doc sat on the stoop one step below Plitz­ka, gin­ger­ly pick­ing up the foot
by the heel but avoid­ing touch­ing the dis­gust­ing toe, hop­ing it didn’t smell
like mus­tard gas. He placed the foot down gen­tly. “When did it start? The
pain.”
“I’m not sure,” Gus said. “Last month me and the mis­sus went to John
Wanamaker’s depart­ment store in Philly. She want­ed to ride the ele­va­tor.
The thing got stuck on the fifth floor for twen­ty min­utes. I think it start­ed
then.”
That was part­ly true. He had done those things. But his foot had actu­al­ly
start­ed aching lat­er that after­noon when he had left his wife in Wanamaker’s
to shop and walked four blocks to the gang­ster Nig Rosen’s tav­ern on Broad
Street. It was all so inno­cent. His cousin Fer­die said Rosen was a straight
shoot­er. Clean. A good guy. And at first, Plitz­ka found him just as his
cousin described: down-to-earth, reas­sur­ing, as Plitz­ka explained the
sit­u­a­tion to him. “I’m a farmer’s boy,” Plitz­ka said. “Worked my way up.
Street sweep­er. Clerk. City coun­cil. Now I’m at the door. This close to
buy­ing the dairy that owns half the milk in town. I just need to get over this
last hump.” Rosen had been reas­sur­ing. “I’m a tav­ern own­er,” he said. “I
know a lit­tle about sup­ply and demand. Thank good­ness Pro­hi­bi­tion didn’t
kill us off.” He gave Plitz­ka the $1,400 with a smile and a 5 per­cent
month­ly inter­est rate on a hand­shake. Then, the next week, he arrived at
Plitzka’s office with two large goons, demand­ing 35 per­cent inter­est start­ing
that day, with that inter­est bring­ing the loan pay­off to $2,900. Plitz­ka
refused. “Do I look stu­pid? That’s more than dou­ble the amount,” he said.
“I won’t pay.” Rosen’s kind­ly fea­tures van­ished and he cool­ly pulled back
his jack­et to reveal a pis­tol and said, “How about I show up at your house
and jam this in your face?”
And just like that, the deal that was sup­posed to boost him into the
ech­e­lons of Pottstown roy­al­ty had closed up tight­ly around his neck,
stran­gling him. An extra $420 a month over his nor­mal expens­es, includ­ing
pay­roll, that were fig­ured to the pen­ny. Where would he get that from?
Sit­ting on the steps, his toe bristling with pain, think­ing of Rosen and
those goril­las stand­ing at the front door of his house, with his wife and kids
just inside, made Plitzka’s skin prick­le.
“So it’s from nerves?” Doc Roberts said.
“If it’s nerves, it’s work­ing over­time, Doc. This feels like a mouse­trap.”
“Soon as the rehearsal’s done, before we march, I’ll run by the office and
pick up a lit­tle some­thing,” Doc said.
Plitz­ka seemed relieved. He reached for his sock and gin­ger­ly placed it
on his foot. “Thanks, Doc. You might want to take some­thing, too. You look
a lit­tle peaked your­self.”
“I’m okay.” Doc shrugged, try­ing to seem non­cha­lant. The truth was,
since Chona died a week ago, his nerves were frayed to pieces. No one
ques­tioned his ver­sion of events. No one sus­pect­ed. The mat­ter died away
qui­et­ly. But in the con­fu­sion of the moment, he’d somehow—he nev­er did
fig­ure out how—snatched a pen­dant off Chona’s neck, a mezuzah bear­ing
an inscrip­tion in a for­eign lan­guage. He had no idea what it said or how it
land­ed in his fist. It couldn’t have been inten­tion­al, grab­bing the darn thing,
but the truth was he sim­ply couldn’t remem­ber. It was just a moment of
pas­sion, that’s all. He’d got­ten car­ried away. Women do that to men
some­times. Hap­pens every day. He want­ed to return the cursed thing, but to
whom? He could have thrown it out, but that made it feel like mur­der,
which it was not. He was a decent man. He decid­ed to mail it but was afraid
some­one might track it to him. Instead, he car­ried it in his pock­et to the
parade. His intent was to leave it some­where near Chick­en Hill, where it
might be found, know­ing that the Antes House was close to the Hill. Just
set it on the ground and walk away. But now Plitz­ka had shown up; plus his
stom­ach was both­er­ing him. It was ten­sion. Things sim­ply had not gone
well since the … acci­dent. There were rumors. He had heard plen­ty. Did
Plitz­ka know? Plitz­ka, of all peo­ple, a shady car­pet­bag­ger, a one-
gen­er­a­tion-removed immi­grant who would sell his grand­ma for a quar­ter.
Had some­one said some­thing? And now the parade, right at the foot of
Chick­en Hill, basi­cal­ly in the Negroes’ back­yard. I shouldn’t have come
here today, he thought.
Even as he said it to him­self, Doc noticed a Negro woman walk­ing
briskly past on the road glance at him, then move on, turn­ing up the dirt
road to Chick­en Hill. Two more Negroes fol­lowed, men in work clothes,
cut­ting sus­pi­cious glances, then hur­ry­ing on.
“A lot of new dark­ies in town,” Plitz­ka said.
“Yeah.” Doc shrugged. Had some­one said some­thing?
“There’s more nig­gers com­ing every year,” Gus said. “They’re like
roach­es.”
Doc sat up painful­ly and said, “I’ll be over after we rehearse a few
songs. Then we’ll run over to the office.”
He was about to push him­self to his feet when he heard Plitz­ka say, “Too
bad about the Jew­ess.”
Doc felt his heart rac­ing with pan­ic, and sud­den­ly felt too weak to stand.
Still seat­ed fac­ing the road, he man­aged to mur­mur, “Shame,” and rose to
his feet, anx­ious to leave.
Just then a Negro cou­ple walked past, and Doc, now stand­ing, froze with
his back to Plitz­ka. The Negro man didn’t look at him, but the woman
slowed to a halt, glar­ing straight at Doc. She wouldn’t stop star­ing. Doc’s
head felt light. He sud­den­ly felt thirsty. He need­ed a drink of water.
“You know her?” Plitz­ka asked.
“Huh?”
“I asked did you know her.”
“Who? Her?” Doc said, point­ing at the Negro woman who sud­den­ly
turned and moved up toward the Hill.
“Not her. The lady who died.”
Doc nod­ded, still fac­ing the road, his back to Plitz­ka. He placed his
hands in his pock­ets, try­ing to be non­cha­lant. “She was sick a long time.”
He heard Plitz­ka say some­thing else, but a blast of a trum­peter warm­ing
up inside the Antes House drowned out Plitzka’s utter­ance. Some­thing
about “let­ters.”
“What?” Doc asked.
“The let­ters. She was the one who used to write let­ters to the Mer­cury
com­plain­ing about our White Knights march. Not to speak evil of the dead
and all, but this is Amer­i­ca, Doc. Every­body got­ta play by the rules.”
Doc, his insides feel­ing like jel­ly, mere­ly nod­ded.
“What­ev­er hap­pened to the boy?” Plitz­ka asked.
Doc wasn’t sure whether to leave. He want­ed to. But do … guilty peo­ple
run? he thought to him­self. No. I did noth­ing wrong.
He decid­ed to sit back down on the steps just to show indif­fer­ence. He
low­ered him­self to the step just beneath Plitz­ka and cleared his throat. “The
kid?” He tried to sound non­cha­lant. “Oh, we got him some help. He’s up at
Pennhurst.”
“That’s good. He’ll get a good edu­ca­tion at least.”
Doc found his eyes search­ing the road again. Anoth­er Negro walked by,
this one a man. The Negro slowed, star­ing per­cep­tive­ly, then stopped,
open­ly star­ing now, fac­ing them, twen­ty feet off. He looked as if he were
about to shout some­thing. Then, to Doc’s relief, he waved. Doc did
some­thing he rarely did. He waved back.
Plitz­ka frowned. “Some of ’em are all right,” he said. “If they’d just
clean them­selves. Have you been up on the Hill late­ly? The filth up there,
the open sew­ers, gosh …”
Doc felt his throat tight­en­ing; he was afraid to move and afraid to stay.
How did he get in this fix? Sit­ting here, gab­bing with Plitz­ka, a low-life
cheat­ing farmer turned polit­i­cal thug. He had giv­en his whole life to the
town. His fam­i­ly had been in Pottstown more than one hun­dred years. And
now he had to sit here and lis­ten to this moron quip. He felt anger work­ing
its way into his throat. He couldn’t help him­self.
“Speak­ing of clean,” he said. “You know the base­ment bath­room in the
Antes House? The one you guys vot­ed to put in three years ago for the
pub­lic? I turned on the faucet today and mud­dy water came out.”
“It did?”
“Came right out the tap. I ran it a cou­ple of min­utes, but it didn’t clear
up. Is the city run­ning water from the reser­voir into Chick­en Hill?”
Now it was Plitzka’s turn to be ner­vous. “I don’t know where the water
comes from.”
“Doesn’t the new reser­voir near your old farm sup­ply water to the Hill?”
“I don’t read every city con­tract, Doc.”
“You guys got­ta look into that. Mud­dy water com­ing out of a tap on the
Hill will keep my office full of peo­ple from around here, Gus. And they
don’t pay.”
“We can’t keep track of every col­ored on the Hill, Doc. We got big
num­bers up there. How many, who knows? We got open sew­ers up there
run­ning down to Main Street. We close ’em up, they dig new ones. We got­ta
straight­en that out before we dig new water lines. Oth­er­wise, they’re
crap­ping and throw­ing slop in the open sew­ers all over.”
“Water and sew­ers are two dif­fer­ent things, Gus.”
“The Hill’s a zoo, Doc. Believe me. My old farm is up there.”
Doc nod­ded. He’d heard the sto­ries about the Plitz­ka farm. How they
had made a deal with the city in years past to sup­ply water to the town
before the new reser­voir was built. And how the city was still pay­ing the
farm for its well water. Now Plitz­ka, as head of the dairy com­pa­ny and
own­er of his family’s farm, was col­lect­ing on both ends—from the city for
sup­ply­ing water and get­ting free water from the city for his busi­ness to
boot. A real win­ner. Typ­i­cal immi­grant gang­ster. No hon­or. No sense of
his­to­ry.
Doc couldn’t help him­self. “You been up to the new reser­voir?” he
asked.
“Many times,” Plitz­ka said. “It was a pond when I was a kid.”
“Has some­one from the city ever gone up to look at those old pipes
around it? Maybe one of ’em’s cracked and mud’s get­ting in there.”
“If those pipes are cracked, I would have heard com­plaints from the
Hill,” Plitz­ka said.
“Why would the Negroes com­plain?” Doc said. “They still got wells, a
lot of ’em, don’t they?”
“If you want to draw a map of every house that has a well up there, go
ahead. It’s a maze up there.”
Doc’s anger boiled over. Why did Plitz­ka have to be such a jerk about
every­thing? He heard him­self say, “You could ask the Negroes, Gus. You’re
their city coun­cil­man. You ought to talk to your con­stituents.”
Plitzka’s face red­dened. “If I did, maybe they’d tell me what they heard
about you.”
“What about me?”
“You and that Jew­ess. I heard the rumors.”
“What rumors? The boy attacked me.”
“Not the rumors I heard.”
“Rumors don’t prove much.”
“They prove peo­ple can talk is all,” Gus said cool­ly. “You ever think of
talk­ing to Chief Markus about it?”
“I already talked to him. She had a seizure. I tried to help her. The boy
got antsy and attacked. He’s deaf and prob­a­bly dumb. I ran out and got the
cops. They wrote a report.”
“That they did,” Plitz­ka said sly­ly.
“She died of a stroke, Gus. That’s what the hos­pi­tal in Read­ing said, too,
by the way.”
“Too bad there wasn’t a white man in the store when it start­ed. That
would put an end to it.”
“To what?”
“The rumors.”
Doc rose, furi­ous now. “Look after your own foot,” he said.
“Don’t lose your shirt, Doc,” Gus said. “I didn’t mean noth­ing. We
cleared the air. Got to the truth of the mat­ter and all. C’mon, Doc. Let’s