Chap­ter 29: Wait­ing for the Future begins with dis­ar­ray, a hall­mark of small-town cel­e­bra­tions where prepa­ra­tion often fal­ters beneath the weight of tra­di­tion. The parade, sym­bol­ic of uni­ty and pride, was iron­i­cal­ly stalled by chaos—the break­down of a fire truck and mis­matched Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War cos­tumes. At the cen­ter of this unrav­el­ing was Hal Leopold, a man obsessed with order, rep­u­ta­tion, and cer­e­mo­ni­al per­fec­tion. His frus­tra­tion over incor­rect coats and tar­nished props revealed more than his stan­dards; it high­light­ed how super­fi­cial details often mask deep­er frac­tures in a community’s his­to­ry and rela­tion­ships.

Amidst this spec­ta­cle, men like Gus Plitz­ka and Doc Roberts attempt­ed to cor­rect mis­takes not of their mak­ing. A red British coat, a painful foot, and a poor­ly orga­nized sys­tem forced impro­vi­sa­tion, which fore­shad­owed the unrav­el­ing to come. Yet the dis­or­der ran deep­er than uni­forms. The miss­ing Jew­ish vol­un­teers, nor­mal­ly the back­bone of such events, under­scored a grow­ing absence of cohe­sion in a town frac­tured by sus­pi­cion, debt, and prej­u­dice. The Skrup broth­ers’ silence on leather repairs was not negligence—it was qui­et protest. These lay­ers of ten­sion foamed just beneath the sur­face, ready to boil over.

Back­stage, debts came due. Gus, entan­gled with gang-relat­ed threats from the likes of Hen­ry Lit—an ex-box­er turned enforcer—found him­self cor­nered. His attempt to switch uni­forms was not just about wardrobe; it was sym­bol­ic of an urgent desire to deflect atten­tion, to cam­ou­flage him­self in a parade he once proud­ly marched in. Mean­while, Doc, a man once seen as respectable, let alco­hol unlock a bit­ter­ness root­ed in clas­sism, racism, and unful­filled long­ing. His ram­blings weren’t iso­lat­ed thoughts but mir­rored the tox­ic ideals that, if left unchecked, would bleed into poli­cies and pol­i­tics beyond Pottstown’s bor­ders.

In a dark­er cor­ner of town, Fat­ty and Big Soap—two Black men famil­iar with survival—carried out a hid­den mis­sion: redi­rect­ing a water sup­ply to the syn­a­gogue using makeshift tools and brute strength. Their knowl­edge, their coop­er­a­tion, and their sheer grit con­trast­ed sharply with the dis­or­der of the offi­cial cel­e­bra­tion. While the parade stum­bled under mis­man­age­ment and ego, these men worked effi­cient­ly, their task born from neces­si­ty and loy­al­ty. Beneath the town’s sur­face ran not just water but a net­work of qui­et resis­tance and mutu­al aid.

As the fire­works lit the sky, it became clear who the town real­ly cel­e­brat­ed. While Doc toast­ed America’s myths in slurred speech, Fat­ty and Big Soap toiled to cre­ate some­thing tangible—a work­ing water source. Their effort was­n’t rec­og­nized pub­licly, but it ensured sur­vival. In a land obsessed with spec­ta­cle, real change was being forged under­ground, lit­er­al­ly and fig­u­ra­tive­ly. And as Fat­ty cov­ered the well—unaware of the body within—it became a grave not just for a man but for an idea: that blus­ter could pro­tect you from con­se­quences.

That body, still dressed in the red coat meant to rep­re­sent the British, became a cau­tion­ary tale. The red uni­form, once a parade detail, turned into a sym­bol of arro­gance and fail­ure. The mezuzah pen­dant found near the corpse whis­pered of ironies too pro­found for Doc to have under­stood in life. The object he scorned, dis­missed as mean­ing­less, marked the end of his journey—one not toward redemp­tion but obliv­ion. It wasn’t polit­i­cal ene­mies or for­eign foes who end­ed him, but his own rot, his own refusal to see oth­ers as human.

In the end, Pottstown moved on. The next day brought cleanup, rou­tine, and con­ver­sa­tions about the parade’s mishaps—not its unseen casu­al­ties. The com­mu­ni­ty would remem­ber the wild horse, the bro­ken fire truck, and the free beer before they recalled any whis­pers of what went wrong. Fat­ty and Big Soap, the unwit­ting pall­bear­ers, buried more than water pipes that night. They sealed away a his­to­ry that would nev­er make the town’s com­mem­o­ra­tive plaques. But that’s often how his­to­ry works—its loud­est chap­ters aren’t always its most hon­est.

What remains is the ques­tion: who gets remem­bered, and how? The town’s myths about patri­o­tism, hon­or, and her­itage lived on in parades and speech­es, but their truest lessons were etched into cracked cement beneath their feet. Some cel­e­brat­ed free­dom while oth­ers labored in secret to pre­serve dig­ni­ty. The irony, of course, is that those for­got­ten efforts are what sus­tained the very com­mu­ni­ty that failed to rec­og­nize them. In Amer­i­ca, myth too often drowns out memory—and some­times, the truth lies six feet below the sur­face, encased in silence and stone.