In the chap­ter titled “Wait­ing for the Future” from *The Heav­en & Earth Gro­cery Store*, the unfold­ing events dur­ing a delayed parade in Pottstown cre­ate a tense atmos­phere filled with frus­tra­tion and under­ly­ing ten­sions. Parade direc­tor Hal Leopold is irate over the state of the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary-era cos­tumes, espe­cial­ly as a break­down of the Empire Fire Company’s lad­der truck blocks the parade route. He chas­tis­es his mar­shals, Gus Plitz­ka and Doc Roberts, for wear­ing the incor­rect uni­forms, an indi­ca­tion of deep­er issues regard­ing pride and iden­ti­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly with­in the con­text of the Con­ti­nen­tal Army’s his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance.

As they scram­ble to rec­ti­fy the cos­tume dis­as­ter, the men reflect on com­mu­ni­ty con­tri­bu­tions that often go unac­knowl­edged, specif­i­cal­ly the Jews of the town who typ­i­cal­ly take care of the uni­forms. How­ev­er, their absence speaks vol­umes about divi­sions in the com­mu­ni­ty, hint­ing at racial and eth­nic ten­sions. Under­neath their ban­ter, there are also hints of vio­lence, espe­cial­ly when Gus encoun­ters one of Nig Rosen’s enforcers, Hen­ry Lit, whose pres­ence instills fear relat­ed to a debt he owes. This exchange is fraught with intim­i­da­tion and fore­shad­ow­ing of impend­ing con­flict.

Mean­while, Doc con­tem­plates his deci­sion about wear­ing a coat. The chap­ter illus­trates his inter­nal dia­logue about the sig­nif­i­cance of the col­or of the coat, reveal­ing an iron­ic sense of detach­ment toward iden­ti­ty and alle­giance. Even­tu­al­ly, after a chaot­ic day, Doc decides to keep a red British coat instead of opt­ing for the blue Con­ti­nen­tal uni­form, a choice that seizes the moments and sym­bol­izes the larg­er themes of iden­ti­ty, belong­ing, and the dis­cord with­in the town.

The chap­ter inten­si­fies as the parade con­cludes, lead­ing to the back­drop of fire­works where indi­vid­ual nar­ra­tives of fear, des­per­a­tion, and com­mu­ni­ty col­lide, set­ting the stage for a cli­mac­tic con­fronta­tion amid cel­e­bra­tions. This tur­bu­lent inter­lude cap­tures the char­ac­ters’ com­plex emo­tion­al land­scapes as they nav­i­gate their cir­cum­stances, ulti­mate­ly bound togeth­er yet divid­ed by the socioe­co­nom­ic and cul­tur­al tapes­tries of Pottstown.

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.

T
29
Wait­ing for the Future
he parade start was delayed for two rea­sons. First, the Empire Fire
Company’s hook-and-lad­der truck broke down inex­plic­a­bly right in
front of the Antes House, block­ing the parade route. Sec­ond, the cos­tumes
were a mess, which drove Hal Leopold, the parade direc­tor, near­ly mad.
Leopold was a stick­ler for detail. He served as tea mas­ter for the ladies’
aux­il­iary and was head dog for all things cel­e­bra­to­ry in Pottstown. He also
baked the best cof­fee cake in town and ran his own cater­ing out­fit. The
sor­ry state of the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary-era cos­tumes drove him into fits. He
stalked around inspect­ing the milling parade marchers and was out­raged to
find that four of his ten parade mar­shals, includ­ing Gus Plitz­ka and Doc
Roberts, were wear­ing red British coats with red fac­ings and white lin­ings
and white but­tons on their uni­forms instead of buff fac­ings with white
lin­ings and blue but­tons.
“You two are a mess,” he scoffed, tap­ping Plitzka’s coat with his fin­ger.
“Gus, you’re in a British coat with red fac­ings and white lin­ings and white
but­tons. That means a British jack­et with Penn­syl­va­nia trim. And Doc, why
are you British? We’re the Con­ti­nen­tal Army, peo­ple. We wear blue coats.
Not red. The Con­ti­nen­tal Army wears blue tri­cornered hats, too, not red
British pri­vate hats. Whose side are you on?”
“I put on what they gave me,” Doc said. He was exhaust­ed. He and
Plitz­ka had rushed over to his office so he could admin­is­ter a shot to
Plitzka’s toe to numb the pain, then rushed back to find that the uni­forms
had already been doled out. What’s more, the uni­forms, nor­mal­ly pressed,
cleaned, and repaired, were a mess. The leather sash­es and belts, nor­mal­ly
pris­tine, were ragged and torn. Moths had eat­en away at the edges of the
coats. The mus­ket rifles, always shiny and the wood pol­ished, were rust­ed
and the wood moldy. “Who takes care of this stuff?” Plitz­ka asked Leopold.
Leopold frowned. “The Jew­ish tai­lor, what’s his name, Druk­er? He does
the uni­forms.”
“Does he do our hol­sters and buck­les and rifles?” Doc said. “Look at
this,” he said, not­ing the rough leather and the dull mus­ket. “This is a
mess.”
Leopold shook his head. “No, that’s … the crazy ones. The Skrup
broth­ers, they do the leather, the sash­es, the but­tons, shoes, rifles, all that.
They didn’t do it this year.”
It didn’t occur to any of the three men that every stitch of the cos­tumes
and para­pher­na­lia was cared for, stored, tai­lored, and repaired by the town’s
Jews for free. Nor did it occur to any­one that the small con­tin­gent of butt-
kiss­ing Eng­lish-speak­ing Ger­man Jews who nor­mal­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed as
mem­bers of the John Antes His­tor­i­cal Society’s Cor­net March­ing Band
were not present today, nei­ther was Avram Gaisin­sky, the Russ­ian Jew who
was actu­al­ly an excel­lent cor­net play­er and who always brought along his
four sons, Todr­ish, Zus­man, Zeke, and Elia, all of whom could play cor­net
as well. They were a remark­ably musi­cal fam­i­ly.
“At least the instru­ments are in good shape,” Doc said.
“Moshe keeps them,” Leopold said. “He’s good about that.”
“Who’s he?” Plitz­ka asked.
“You know Moshe,” Leopold said. “He’s the the­ater guy. His wife
passed a cou­ple of months ago? She got attacked by the crazy col­ored boy
they sent out to Pennhurst.”
There was an uncom­fort­able pause as Doc looked away.
“You guys look like crap,” Leopold said. “You got­ta fix your­selves up.
You’re parade mar­shals. Get rid of the red jack­ets. And Doc”—he shook his
head—“you can’t wear a pur­ple Con­ti­nen­tal Army major general’s sash and
a red British private’s hat and coat. Ditch the coat. Get a new hat. Trade
with one of the kids. You got­ta be in blue, fel­las. You’re parade mar­shals.
No red.”
“Can you round up a kid to switch?” Doc asked.
“Doc, if you wan­na be famous or impor­tant, die at the right time.
Oth­er­wise, car­ry your own load. Find your own kid. I got a mil­lion things
going on. We got­ta get the fire truck start­ed.” And with that, he was off.
Gus watched Doc lean against a near­by tele­phone pole to take the weight
off his bad foot. The ride in Doc’s car to his office and Leopold’s dress­ing
down had uni­fied them some­what, along with Gus’s bad toe, which, thanks
to Doc, no longer throbbed but sim­ply ached. Gus felt sor­ry for him.
“Sit tight, Doc,” he said. “Gimme your coat. I’ll find us blue ones.”
Doc took off his red coat and sat down on the bench behind the Antes
House, relieved. “Find me a hat, too, if you don’t mind.”
Plitz­ka limped off, head­ing toward the fire truck, where sev­er­al men
were gath­ered around the hood, fran­ti­cal­ly work­ing. He noticed sev­er­al
high school kids stand­ing in a knot wear­ing Con­ti­nen­tal Army blue
uni­forms, but their coats were at least two sizes too small for him or Doc.
He spot­ted anoth­er clump of big­ger teenagers ten yards away and was
about to head toward them when a man in a gray suit appeared out of
nowhere and put his arm around his shoul­der. “Hey, Gus, you’re on the
wrong team. Why you wear­ing red?”
The man was big, and the weight of the arm felt heavy, the bicep stiff
and hard against Plitzka’s neck. He spoke with a for­eign accent. Plitz­ka
guessed Russ­ian. Prob­a­bly Jew­ish. Damn Jews. Hood­lums. He felt rage and
fear in his gut.
“Get your arm off me.”
The man’s arm felt like a block of wood. The heavy arm lift­ed slow­ly.
“Mr. Rosen said to tell you he’s lone­ly,” he said.
“Tell him to get a dog.”
“He’s already got one. Me. Wan­na see my teeth?”
Gus glanced around ner­vous­ly. No one seemed to notice them. The flur­ry
of men near the fire truck down the hill sud­den­ly backed away as the engine
roared to life and burped a cloud of black smoke from its tailpipe. This was
fol­lowed by a cheer and a hasty scram­bling to col­lect instru­ments,
cos­tumes, hats, and ban­ners.
“I’ll have his mon­ey next week,” Gus said.
“You said that last week. And the week before.”
“What do you want? I’m tapped out.”
“Me, too. What a coin­ci­dence.”
“You can’t get water from a stone,” Gus said.
The man nod­ded and clapped Plitz­ka good-natured­ly on the shoul­der.
His hand was so big, it felt like an anvil strik­ing him. “Speak­ing of water,”
the man said, “I’m thirsty.” His gaze danced over to Chick­en Hill above
them. “Where does the drink­ing water around here come from any­way?”
Gus felt rage work­ing its way into his chest. “You wouldn’t dare.”
The man shrugged. “You’re out of time, Gus.”
“The hell with you.”
“You ain’t gonna get many gold stars talk­ing that way.”
“I said I ain’t got it!”
The man’s expres­sion, one of calm con­sid­er­a­tion, nev­er changed. He
nod­ded slow­ly, sad­ly. He was not an evil-look­ing fel­low. He appeared, Gus
thought, rather sor­row­ful. “We’ll talk lat­er, Gus. Maybe at home. Tonight.
After the parade.”
“I’ll call the cops.”
“How do you know I ain’t the cops?” the man asked, and with that, he
pushed down his hat brim and slipped past the Empire Fire Company’s
truck, turned down High Street, and melt­ed into the crowd.
Plitz­ka felt bile rise in this throat. He heard Hal Leopold call­ing him.
“Gus! Line up!”
He drift­ed toward the front of the parade, rub­bing his fore­head, flus­tered.
I have to find a way, he thought. He was near­ly at the front of the gath­er­ing
marchers when he remem­bered that Doc was wait­ing for him behind the
Antes House.
As he passed the side of the Antes House, he saw sev­er­al high school
kids mov­ing into line wear­ing Con­ti­nen­tal Army uni­forms. He made one
last effort to fina­gle a blue coat out of one of the taller ones by offer­ing him
fifty cents and his red coat in exchange, and he final­ly suc­ceed­ed.
He walked to the back of the Antes House, where Doc was stand­ing
impa­tient­ly, still hold­ing his red coat.
“You couldn’t find a blue coat for me?” Doc asked.
Gus was dis­tract­ed. Who cared about the blue coat? What if the guy
real­ly did come to his house? His wife! His kids! “Here,” Gus said, peel­ing
off his blue coat. “Take mine. You can be Amer­i­can. I don’t mind being
British.” He held out his blue coat.
Doc took the blue coat. Then in a deci­sion that would alter for­ev­er his
already fraught, twist­ed, small-town Amer­i­can life, he changed his mind
and hand­ed it back to Plitz­ka.
“Hell with it,” he said. “I’ll be British. Your coat is too small for me
any­way.”
“You sure, Doc? You don’t wan­na wear the blue coat?”
“Blue coat, red coat, who cares?” Doc said. “It’s just a damn parade.
What dif­fer­ence does it make?”
It turned out to make a big dif­fer­ence. All the dif­fer­ence in the world.
—
THE GOON WHO worked for Nig Rosen didn’t wait for Gus to get a long look
at him. He turned right on Wash­ing­ton Street and dou­bled back up into
Chick­en Hill as the front of the long flow of parade marchers passed on
High Street behind him. He was dis­tract­ed. It was near­ly 5 p.m. and not yet
dark. Now he had to wait for hours for the parade to fin­ish and then find a
safe place to plant brass knuck­les in poor Gus Plitzka’s face. It could be
done. But he had to rest. He was tired. He’d tak­en the train from Read­ing,
and there was a pinochle game tonight back in Read­ing with some big
dol­lars in play, which he’d have to miss now.
He strolled up the street lost in thought. His name was Hen­ry Lit. He was
thir­ty-four, a Russ­ian Jew from Kiev, a for­mer box­er, and a hope­less
gam­bler. Like many in that world, Lit was nor­mal­ly a gen­tle man who did
not like vio­lence, large­ly because he knew how much dam­age it could do
and the cost, finan­cial and oth­er­wise, involved in get­ting what­ev­er was
bro­ken fixed. He couldn’t under­stand why any­one would be so stu­pid as to
bor­row mon­ey from Nig Rosen. But those were his march­ing orders, and
when Nig deliv­ered them, they were iron.
At the cor­ner of Wash­ing­ton and Beech, Hen­ry removed his jack­et and
placed it over his shoul­der. He was, in fact, quite thirsty. He noticed a
heavy­set Negro fol­lowed by a huge, bar­rel-chest­ed white man bear­ing a
hand­ful of tools and pipes. The man looked like a Sephardic Jew, with dark
hair and brood­ing looks, so Lit called out in Yid­dish as the man passed, “Is
there a water foun­tain around?”
Big Soap stopped, puz­zled, then answered in Ital­ian. “I don’t
under­stand.”
Lit quick­ly recov­ered and asked the same ques­tion in Eng­lish. Big Soap
nev­er stopped mov­ing. “Over there.” He nod­ded to what looked like an
emp­ty lot full of weeds down the street. “In the mid­dle, there’s an out­door
faucet.”
“Thanks. Does the parade come back this way?” Lit asked.
“There’s a fire­works dis­play and a pig roast after,” Big Soap said over
his shoul­der, “and free beer. Stick around.”
Lit nod­ded and moved on while Big Soap hus­tled to catch up to Fat­ty,
who had turned up the hill and was mov­ing toward the Clover Dairy.
“What’s he want?” Fat­ty asked.
“He thought I was Jew­ish.”
Fat­ty was irri­tat­ed. “I ough­ta col­lect from Mr. Moshe for let­ting Nate use
my wag­on and mule. This crap is heavy.”
“How would you know? I’m car­ry­ing it.”
“I’m look­ing out for you. Did you talk to Rusty?”
“He’s com­ing by the jook at sev­en. You wan­na car­ry some­thing?” Big
Soap said.
Fat­ty ignored that. “We might have to go back and help him haul that
mor­tar down here—without my dang cart, which Nate took.”
The two had come to take one more look in the day­light at the out­door
faucet and the man­hole cov­er over the well, and hide some tools and
sup­plies for the job. They chose for their hid­ing place a back cor­ner of the
emp­ty lot, for no one ven­tured to the lot’s edges, which were lined with
junk. The two strolled past the dairy, not­ing that it was, as Fat­ty pre­dict­ed,
closed for the day, then moved on up the hill to the lot behind it, which was
full of weeds and dis­card­ed crates and garbage. They walked past it as if
they were mov­ing to the next block; then at the last minute, they cut into the
high weeds of the lot and hid the shov­el, wrench­es, drill, pipe thread­er,
short pipes, and two valves under an old crate. They then reemerged onto
the street, walked down the long block, and dou­bled back to the well-worn
path that led to the cen­ter of the lot where the well and the out­door faucet
were locat­ed, join­ing five peo­ple who stood patient­ly in line wait­ing with
bar­rels and pails to draw water.
“I hadn’t count­ed on that,” Fat­ty said, glanc­ing at the line and at the sun
above. “It’s hot.”
The two wait­ed their turn, and when they reached the foun­tain, Fat­ty
leaned over with his hands cupped while Big Soap turned on the spig­ot.
While lean­ing over, his eyes probed the top of the well, and he saw what he
need­ed to see.
A cement man­hole cov­er. And along the edges, an old pry hole. Per­fect.
The two reversed places, with Fat­ty pump­ing. He took a long look
around again, this time at the base of the foun­tain and the cement man­hole
that cov­ered the well, chat­ting and jok­ing with folks in line as he did so, for
Fat­ty knew just about every­one on the Hill. From there, they walked to the
cor­ner and turned up the Hill toward Fatty’s jook.
“That’s a lot of eyes,” Big Soap said.
“Don’t wor­ry. Nobody hauls water at night,” Fat­ty said. “By nine
o’clock, this place will be desert­ed. There won’t be a Negro fool in sight.”
—
HE WAS RIGHT. By 9 p.m., there were no Negroes around. But there were
plen­ty of white peo­ple. The John Antes His­tor­i­cal Society’s Cor­net
March­ing Band, hav­ing been two hours late to start, was delayed anoth­er
hour when they got to the far end of town, for the Empire Fire Company’s
truck coughed a few times, back­fired, and stalled again. This time there was
room for the marchers to move around it, but the back­fire fright­ened the
horse of a near­by Men­non­ite fam­i­ly who had come to town by bug­gy to
enjoy the parade. The poor crea­ture was tied loose­ly to a park­ing meter, and
the back­fire caused him to bolt, snap­ping his line and allow­ing him to
gal­lop off—with the fam­i­ly bug­gy in tow. The parade was halt­ed by cries of
“Wild horse!” while the farmer and sev­er­al men cor­ralled the ter­ri­fied
crea­ture, which gal­loped from one crowd­ed street to the next. That took
forty min­utes. When the parade final­ly got mov­ing again and returned to the
Antes House, it was eight o’clock. Most of the cheer­ful women vol­un­teers
who had been up since dawn prepar­ing the pig roast had depart­ed to watch
the fire­works from home. It took anoth­er hour to cram the cor­nets,
cos­tumes, and drums back into the Antes House under the ever-watch­ful
eye of Leopold, who was exhaust­ed and went full-blown Ger­man on
every­one, yelling that every­thing must be neat­ly lined up inside the Antes
House hall­way for morn­ing pick­up, tick­ing off the few good-natured souls
who tried to show good faith by stick­ing around, so they depart­ed as well. It
was the beer that the paraders want­ed most, and after the parade, it was beer
they need­ed.
Plitz­ka quit the moment they arrived. “I got­ta get home,” he told Doc.
“The mis­sus wants me there when the fire­works start.” Actu­al­ly, his wife
was the last thing on his mind. He was in a state of pan­ic, con­vinced that
Rosen’s man was head­ed to his home. For a moment, he con­sid­ered call­ing
the police as he depart­ed, then decid­ed against it. He decid­ed to call his
cousin Fer­die instead. If he was going to end up in an urn, at least Fer­die
should know that it was his fault.
Gus left his coat inside the Antes House neat­ly fold­ed in place in the
exact man­ner that Leopold demand­ed and hasti­ly with­drew.
Doc, on the oth­er hand, decid­ed to stay. He want­ed a beer. He’d earned
it. He worked hard to get on the good side of that creep Plitz­ka, and the
parade had left him in a bet­ter mood. There was no need to rush home. His
wife would only yam­mer at him about some finan­cial prob­lem or oth­er.
Plus, his moth­er-in-law had come to town to see the fire­works. No rush to
see her. Still dressed in the red British army out­fit, he grabbed a glass from
a near­by pic­nic table, filled it, and took a seat on the bench behind the
Antes House along with sev­er­al oth­er left­over vol­un­teers, most­ly fire­men,
who were already hold­ing beers. “Here’s to America’s fire engines and wild
hors­es,” he said, rais­ing his glass as sev­er­al vol­un­teers laughed. “God bless
this damn town.” He drank deeply. He was so hap­py. He loved Pottstown.
—
FATTY, STANDING IN the emp­ty lot two blocks away, heard the sound of men
laugh­ing in the back­yard of the Antes House and didn’t like it. There was
no more time to delay. He’d tak­en the man’s mon­ey from his sis­ter—
who­ev­er that man was. When you take a man’s mon­ey, you do the job. It
was time to move. He could see the shim­mer­ing lights from the lanterns of
the Antes House and hear the laugh­ter, but the lot was black, as was the
dairy across the street, and the dairy watchman—Reverend Spriggs—was,
as he’d sus­pect­ed, not in sight. He was prob­a­bly down at the pig roast
jok­ing with the white folks and sop­ping up free beer.
Fat­ty and Big Soap made their way to the out­door faucet, which stood
about four feet high and was con­nect­ed to a pipe pro­trud­ing from below.
Big Soap held the pry bar. In the dark, Fat­ty lay on the ground and blind­ly
groped around the manhole’s cement perime­ter for the notch. He found it
and guid­ed the end of the pry bar into it.
“Go ’head, Soap,” he said. “Pry it off. Easy now. The cover’s old.”
Big Soap moved slow­ly. The cement cov­er rose an inch, then two inch­es,
then, as it came out of the hole, it snapped in two and clat­tered to the
bot­tom of the well with a splash.
“Christ, Soap!”
“What do you want, mag­ic? I did it slow like you said.”
They stood at the top of the well, star­ing down into the black­ness.
Fat­ty lit a lantern, lay down flat, and stuck the light in the hole. The well
was cir­cu­lar, with sides of stone that were moss-cov­ered and drip­ping water.
It was, he guessed, maybe fif­teen feet to the bot­tom. A crude lad­der was
attached to the side of the well. At the bot­tom, an old pump could be seen,
as well as the pieces of con­crete.
“Lucky that con­crete didn’t fall into the spring below,” he said.
“What do we do?” Big Soap said.
“We got­ta make anoth­er cov­er,” Fat­ty said.
“Now?”
“One thing at a time. Let’s do the job. We’ll wor­ry about cov­er­ing it up
after. Maybe Rusty’ll show up.”
The two climbed down, Fat­ty hold­ing a lantern. Two pipes pro­trud­ed
from a con­nec­tion at the bot­tom of the pump. Fat­ty could see where the
orig­i­nal pipe that fed the faucet above ran down to the pump, came back up,
and had been run to both the dairy and the shul pipes. He could see also
where the out­door faucet’s and the dairy’s pipes had been cut off and
capped and run to a new six-inch pipe com­ing from the city’s reser­voir,
leav­ing only the shul’s pipe attached to the old well pump.
“Some­body at the dairy’s been play­ing games,” Fat­ty said. “Look at this
con­nec­tion. This ain’t sup­posed to be here. The dairy’s sup­posed to be
get­ting their water from the old Plitz­ka well, not the city. They’re get­ting
free water from the city, Soap. A lot of it.”
He knelt at the bot­tom of the well and reached his hand around the well
pump to feel the aquifer below.
“I can’t feel noth­ing, Soap. The aquifer’s run out. This well’s dry as a
bone.”
“Maybe when it rains the water comes up.”
“Don’t ask for the dev­il to show up. Let’s get to it.”
They got busy quick­ly, drag­ging their wrench­es, drill, hand saws, and
pipes into the hole. It was peace­ful, and with the lantern, they could see
fair­ly well. Short­ly after they began, the booms and sud­den lights from the
fire­works over­head lit mat­ters even more for sec­onds at a time. Because
they were in the cen­ter of the lot, sur­round­ed by high weeds, they were out
of sight of passers­by. The boom­ing thun­der from the fire­works pushed
adren­a­line into their sys­tems and they worked fast.
First, they had to draw water from the big reser­voir pipe. Shut­ting it off
was impos­si­ble. They’d have to impale it. Fat­ty grabbed a short pipe with a
closed shut valve on it and hand­ed Big Soap a hand-cranked drill with a
brazen bit.
“Once you start crank­ing on that pipe, water’s gonna come bust­ing out,”
he said. “I don’t know how much pressure’s behind it exact­ly, but it’s a six-
inch pipe. That’s a lot of pipe, Soap, and a lot of pres­sure, so it’s a lot of
water. You keep crank­ing with that drill and don’t stop. Crank till the bit
goes in and threads through all the way. Once you’re through, don’t pull it
out. Back it out. Reverse it, okay? Oth­er­wise you’ll strip the threads. Then
I’ll screw this pipe in with the valve and stop the water.”
“Okay.”
“You got­ta do it fast. It’s gonna be some water now.”
“Okay.”
Big Soap took the hand drill and tapped the pipe twice for good mea­sure,
like a base­ball play­er prep­ping him­self for a hit, brac­ing him­self, lean­ing in
to crank. But Fat­ty stopped him.
“Don’t stop crank­ing, Soap, once you start. Or we’ll drown in here.”
Big Soap nod­ded. He cranked for fif­teen sec­onds, twen­ty sec­onds, then
they both heard an odd thunk, fol­lowed by a small trick­le, then a pow­er­ful
burst of water, which knocked Fat­ty off his feet.
The water surged out with the pow­er of a fire-engine hose, ping­ing
against the stone walls and fly­ing in all direc­tions, but only Fat­ty fell. Big
Soap some­how man­aged to remain stand­ing, his feet plant­ed on sol­id earth,
strad­dling the pump, albeit under two feet of water now and ris­ing fast, for
the water came hard, the water pour­ing in up to their waists.
“Hur­ry up, Soap!”
Big Soap, still strad­dling the hole in the floor where the well pump lay,
leaned against the drill, grit his teeth, and turned the hand drill as the spray
blast­ed his face. He drilled with his head down, his huge arms strain­ing, the
water gor­ing into the top of his skull, burn­ing his head and gush­ing into his
nose and mouth.
“C’mon, Soap!”
Big Soap leaned in. The big man’s hair splayed back in a straight line as
the water blast­ed him. Fat­ty stood behind him, shield­ed some­what, his head
against the big man’s shoul­der blade, the force of the water so strong that he
had to brace him­self against the wall with his oth­er hand to keep from
falling. He had to pro­tect the pipe hold­ing the valve fit­ting and the wrench.
The water was up to his armpits when he felt Big Soap’s back relax and
heard him yell above the hiss­ing water, “Got it.”
“Get out the way then!”
Fat­ty reached up to screw the fit­ting in, but the water pres­sure was so
great that it took both of them to mash the fit­ting into the pipe and screw it
in. But once they did, the closed valve on the pipe fit­ting held, and instant­ly
the water stopped and once again the well was calm and qui­et.
Fat­ty found him­self stand­ing in water up to his neck hold­ing Big Soap by
the shoul­ders. But they were both, grate­ful­ly, alive.
“You’re a man, Soap. You’re much of a man.”
“Fat­ty, don’t ask me to do that again. Not for a measly thir­ty dol­lars. Not
for a hun­dred dol­lars.”
“Okay, okay, let’s fin­ish.”
They slopped in the high water to fin­ish the job, but the rest was easy. In
half an hour, they cut the shul pipe from the well pump and, using a three-
quar­ter exten­sion, fas­tened it to the reser­voir pipe that fed both the out­door
faucet and the dairy—and just like that, they were done. The shul had fresh
water. From the reser­voir. Free.
They climbed back up the lad­der and sat at the edge of the well, soaked
through and exhaust­ed. Only then did Big Soap utter the obvi­ous.
“We got to get that thing cov­ered. Where’s Rusty?” Big Soap asked.
Fat­ty was think­ing the same thing but afraid to say it.
“He must’a not found the mor­tar. I told him where it was.”
“I recall he said yes­ter­day he was think­ing about stop­ping by the creek
up near the reser­voir to get sand,” Big Soap said.
“What for?”
“He said it’d be good to use sand from the creek to col­or the con­crete to
match just in case we broke the well cov­er.”
“Well, we broke it, god­damnit. Now where is he?”
Fat­ty thought a moment. He reached down into the mouth of the well
where the lantern hung and killed the light. The well went dark.
“All right. We got­ta hur­ry. I’ll go to the jook and fetch some mor­tar mix
and some planks. You go on down to the the­ater and fetch the wheel­bar­row
to mix it in. It’s like­ly in the wag­on where Nate left it. Don’t go round
Antes House. Take Hale Street or Wash­ing­ton. Bet­ter still, go by the old
John Reich­n­er mill. That’s the fastest back way. If you see Rusty, tell him to
get his ass up here quick, creek sand or no creek sand. We’ll just mix the
mor­tar we got. We ain’t going to jail ’cause Rusty’s stu­pid.”
They took off in dif­fer­ent direc­tions as the last fire­crack­er from the
Antes House soared over­head and boomed its last glow.
—
AS THE LAST fire­crack­er broke across the sky, Doc, ful­ly drunk, howled out
his joy. “It’s all a dream!” he shout­ed. “This great Amer­i­ca. This great land
of oppor­tu­ni­ty. Give us your poor. Your tired. Your weak. And we will give
them jobs. And homes. And busi­ness­es! We will make them men. And
women. And they will”—he burped loudly—“replace us!”
The men of the Empire Fire Com­pa­ny, who along with a few strag­glers
were the only ones left, laughed. They were not used to see­ing Doc Roberts
drunk. This was good.
He was seat­ed at a pic­nic table, and hear­ing the laugh­ter, he looked
around at the fire­men wink­ing at one anoth­er. He knew many of them,
many of whom he had treat­ed. Some he liked, a few he despised. They were
large­ly Irish, uneducated—good for cer­tain things, he thought, but most­ly
good-for-noth­ings. The new peo­ple in town. Immi­grants. Sul­ly­ing up
mat­ters. They didn’t go to the opera or horse events. They didn’t know
his­to­ry. They went to movies and box­ing match­es and drank all day.
Peas­ants. No under­stand­ing of books or med­i­cine or poet­ry or women.
Wine stains on the white Amer­i­can table­cloth is what they were, for­eign
duds amid the bright glow of places like Lon­don and Paris that he should
have, would have, could have known if he’d want­ed. Europe. Land of
artists and music and women. Beau­ti­ful women.
And then the vis­age of Chona, the beau­ti­ful teenag­er, the sight of her
stand­ing at her lock­er, her bare white wrist reach­ing inside it, her love­ly
eyes that near­ly drove him mad. Chona, whose excep­tion­al dark hair and
gor­geous limp that made his horse­like can­ter and grub­by shoes seem clunky
by com­par­i­son. Chona, who mar­ried a frumpy the­ater own­er, a flow­er­ing
beau­ty wrapped in the dim­ness of grub­by store life. Who was she to turn
him down all those years ago? And then to turn him down again, years lat­er,
when she was noth­ing but a clerk in a store serv­ing nig­gers? A Jew!
“Didn’t she know who I was?” he roared.
There was a short silence as the guf­faw­ing Irish­men stopped laugh­ing
and looked at one anoth­er.
“Go home, Doc,” one of them said.
“Easy, Doc …”
Doc snapped out of his rever­ie long enough to real­ize it was time to
leave.
“This coun­try,” he declared, “is going down.” He downed his beer.
“Good night, Amer­i­ca.”
And with that, he saun­tered off up toward the Hill instead of down High
Street.
His house was only nine blocks away, but he decid­ed he’d cut through
the Hill. There was an emp­ty lot up there where the out­door faucet stood
across from the Clover Dairy where that Pol­ish thief Plitz­ka made his
pen­nies, and if he cut through that, he’d elim­i­nate four blocks off his walk.
He knew the Hill like the back of his hand.
“Ain’t you going the wrong way, Doc?” he heard one of the fire­men call
out.
Doc kept walk­ing, stag­ger­ing a bit, wav­ing away the ques­tion in dis­gust,
not even look­ing back. “Son, I knew this town when you were a glint in
your mother’s eye.”
He marched for­ward with their laugh­ter ring­ing in his ears. As he did, he
felt some­thing small and hard in his pock­et and reached in. The mezuzah
pen­dant. The one that had some­how made it into his hand dur­ing the … the
event … at the Heav­en & Earth Gro­cery Store. He’d brought it to the Antes
House to dis­card it on the Hill. Per­fect. He’d toss it in the lot when he was
out of sight of the Antes House. He with­drew the fist clasp­ing the mezuzah
and marched for­ward. Up the Hill he went. Up, up, up, to Chick­en Hill.
—
NIG ROSEN’S GOON, Hen­ry Lit, woke up at the last boom of the fire­works.
He’d fall­en asleep behind a tiny Bap­tist church a few blocks from the Antes
House. At first, he thought he’d missed every­thing. But when he made his
walk back down the Hill, stop­ping at the cor­ner so he could see the plaza
behind the Antes House from above, what he saw made him sigh in relief.
In the dim light of the lanterns at the table, there was Plitz­ka, stone drunk,
still wear­ing the red jack­et, hold­ing up a beer and yelling some­thing.
Per­fect.
He watched in amaze­ment as Plitz­ka made his way up into the Hill
toward him. As the red coat neared, Lit turned and leaned against the wall
of an old shed, duck­ing out of sight as Plitz­ka tromped past, made his way
down the grav­el road, and stag­gered into the emp­ty lot where the out­door
faucet was that Lit had sat­is­fied his thirst from ear­li­er. He was sure it was
Plitz­ka because Plitz­ka had the red coat, and he had some kind of limp,
which he’d not­ed ear­li­er. Lit wait­ed until he saw the red jack­et move into
the lot, then removed his shoes and car­ried them as he walked soft­ly on the
path behind Plitz­ka, hop­ing not to step on bro­ken glass.
There was no need to be qui­et as he approached Plitz­ka, for the man was
hum­ming soft­ly to him­self. Lit took two or three steps and then decid­ed not
to wait. Tough jobs need to be done fast. No sense think­ing it through. Get
it over with, he told him­self. It’s just part of the job. In Amer­i­ca, every­one
works.
He was four steps into the lot and could see Plitzka’s red coat clear­ly in
the moon­light now, ten feet off. It was a bea­con, a light.
Give me your tired, your poor, your hud­dled mass­es yearn­ing to be
free …
As Lit trot­ted, hold­ing his shoes in his left hand, his right hand reached
into his pock­et and his fin­gers thread­ed through a pair of brass knuck­les. He
did it in one motion.
The man did not even hear him until Lit was two steps away. He turned
his head just in time to meet Lit’s fist—wham!—which smacked his jaw
once.
Lit heard the crack and felt the bone break, and as an old box­er, he knew
the jaw was bro­ken. He’d done dam­age. He knew what it felt like. There
was no need to do more. He saw the red coat fall back, but that was all, as
he spun off.
It was time to leave.
Lit turned and trot­ted away quick­ly, and for the life of him, and for as
long as he would live—which would not be that long—he always won­dered
why he heard a big splash after Plitz­ka fell. For there was a faucet back
there. There was no pond. He had seen the faucet.
Lat­er, when Nig Rosen said to him, “How did you get Plitz­ka to fork
over the dough so fast?” Lit said, “I whacked him and broke his jaw, and he
fell in some kind of pond.”
Rosen said, “You got some kind of imag­i­na­tion, Hen­ry. I saw him. He
came here and he didn’t have no wired jaw. He talked my ear off, beg­ging.
And he didn’t say noth­ing about no pond.”
—
FOUR INCHES.
If Fat­ty had both­ered to shine his lantern down four inch­es low­er, he
would’ve seen the odd shoe that stuck up in the water at the bot­tom of the
well and the glit­ter­ing mezuzah pen­dant that shone next to it, still on its
chain, hang­ing from a rock pro­trud­ing from the stone sides, the mezuzah
now clear of the fist that had clenched it and then released it as the body
fell. He would have seen the pants and tail end of the red British coat­tails
that float­ed in rough­ly five feet of water that stood over the now use­less old
pump and bro­ken man­hole cov­er at the bot­tom of the well. The pump was
con­nect­ed to noth­ing. And sad­ly, nei­ther was the man. For his wife did not
love him. His chil­dren did not miss him. The town did not erect a stat­ue in
his hon­or. All the myths he believed in would crys­tal­lize into even greater
mythol­o­gy in future years and become weapons of war used by politi­cians
and evil­do­ers to kill defense­less school­child­ren by the dozens so that a few
rich men spout­ing the same mythol­o­gy that Doc spout­ed could buy islands
that held more rich­es than the town of Pottstown had or would ever have.
Gigan­tic yachts that would sail the world and pol­lute the waters and skies,
owned by men cre­at­ing great com­pa­nies that made weapons of great pow­er
in fac­to­ries that employed the poor, weapons that were sold cheap­ly enough
so that the poor could pur­chase them and kill one anoth­er. Any man could
buy one and walk into schools and bring death to dozens of chil­dren and
teach­ers and any­one else stu­pid enough to believe in all that Amer­i­can
mythol­o­gy of hope, free­dom, equal­i­ty, and jus­tice. The prob­lem was
always, and would always be, the nig­gers and the poor—and the fool­ish
white peo­ple who felt sor­ry for them.
So it was appro­pri­ate that a nig­ger and a fool­ish white man buried him.
Fat­ty had no idea of what was in the well when he and Big Soap
con­vened back there that night to make a new man­hole cov­er. That was the
least of his wor­ries any­way.
“How do we make a man­hole cov­er?” Big Soap had asked.
“We just put the planks in across the top of the well. We wedge them
between the stones and pour the mor­tar. Let the grass make it round. It’s
already there. The cir­cle. It’s a mold.”
“It’s like a hock­ey puck,” Big Soap said.
“A what?”
“They play it in the Olympics. Hock­ey.”
“You ever seen hock­ey?”
“No, but I’m gonna some­day.”
“Soap, can we just get the planks in place?”
Big Soap climbed down the lad­der until his head was even with the
well’s open­ing, and they wedged in sev­er­al planks, using the pry bar on the
last one to make the floor­ing tight. Then they mixed the con­crete using the
wheel­bar­row and water from the water foun­tain and poured it.