"It's my job, Mr. Marlowe," said Cincinnatus, who knew he would feel it in his back and shoulders tonight. Work that had seemed effortlessly easy in his twenties didn't now that he'd passed forty. He added, "Way things are these days, I got to do everything I can."
''Oh, yes." Marlowe nodded. He ran a pink tongue over that scrawny little excuse for a mustache. "I understand you completely-and agree with you completely, I might add. Even now, though, too many people don't seem to have figured that out. I'm always glad to see someone who has. Let me have your paperwork. The sooner I sign off, the sooner you can be on your way. I don't want to waste your time."
"Got it right here." Scipio handed him the clipboard.
"I expected you would." Marlowe scribbled his name on the forms, making sure he signed in all four necessary spaces. He and Cincinnatus leaned toward each other in mutual sympathy as he wrote. Their both being hardworking men counted for more than one's being white, the other black. The storekeeper said, "Here you are," and returned the clipboard to Cincinnatus.
"Thank you kindly, suh." Cincinnatus turned to leave.
He'd taken only a step or two before Marlowe said, "Here, wait a second." He went behind the counter where he kept his meat on ice, wrapped a package in butcher paper, and thrust it at Cincinnatus. "Take this home to your missus, why don't you? Marrow bones and a little meat-make you a good soup or a stew."
Cincinnatus wanted to say he couldn't possibly, but common sense won over pride. "Thank you kindly," he repeated, and touched the brim of his hap. "You didn't have to do nothin' like that, Mr. Marlowe."
"I didn't do it because I had to. I did it because I wanted to." The storekeeper sounded impatient. "If you work hard, you ought to know other people notice. And I do. I'm always glad to see you bringing me loads from the docks and the railroad yard."
"Much obliged." Cincinnatus touched his brim again, then took the package-it was nice and heavy-out to the truck and set it on the front seat beside him. He had one more delivery to make before he could go home with it.
His last stop wasn't at a grocery store, but at the offices of the Des Moines Register and Remembrance. The crates he unloaded there were large and heavy. "What is this thing?" he asked the man who took delivery.
"New typesetting machine," the fellow answered. "We'll get the paper out faster than ever."
"That's nice," Cincinnatus said obligingly.
"And we won't need so many compositors," the newspaperman added. Seeing that the word meant nothing to Cincinnatus, he chose a simpler one: "Typesetters."
"Oh." Cincinnatus hesitated, then asked, "What happens to the ones you don't need no- any — more? They lose their jobs?"
"That isn't settled yet." The newspaperman sounded uncomfortable now. He sounded so uncomfortable, Cincinnatus was sure he was lying. He went on, "Even if we do let some people go, we'll try to make sure they latch on somewhere else."
"Uh- huh," Cincinnatus said. How were they supposed to manage that, with jobs so hard to come by? He figured it for another lie, right up there with old favorites like The check is in the mail.
His skepticism must have shown in his voice; the man from the Register and Remembrance turned red. He said, "We'll try, goddammit. We will. What else can we do? We've got to save money wherever we can, because we sure as hell aren't making much."
For that, Cincinnatus had no good answer. He got his paperwork signed and went back to the truck. Outside the Register and Remembrance building, a couple of men were hanging a banner over the doorway. WIN WITH COOLIDGE IN '32! it said, and then, in smaller letters, A RETURN TO PROSPERITY! The Register and Remembrance was the Democratic paper in Des Moines. Its Socialist counterpart, the Workers' Gazette, had its offices across the street and down the block. Even though this was a presidential-election year, the Workers' Gazette displayed no banners extolling the virtues of Hosea Blackford. The paper seemed to want to forget about him.
It was only May. There was, as yet, no guarantee Calvin Coolidge would be nominated for a second run at the Powel House. It certainly looked likely, though; no other Democratic hopeful roused much excitement. Cincinnatus snorted when that thought crossed his mind. Coolidge was about as exciting as a pitcher of warm spit. But everyone thought he could win when November rolled around. To the Democrats, locked out of Powel House the past twelve years, that was plenty to make the governor of Massachusetts seem exciting.
Nobody, by all the signs, thought President Blackford had much chance to win a second term. But the Socialists had made no move to dump him from their ticket. For one thing, not even they were radical enough to jettison a sitting president. For another, no one else from the Socialist Party looked like a winner this year, either. Blackford wouldn't run again, win or lose. If things went as they looked like going, he could perform one last duty for the Party by serving as sacrificial lamb. That way, defeat would taint no one else.
Cincinnatus shrugged. Whom the Socialists ran was all one to him. He intended to vote Democratic; the Democrats took a harder line about the Confederate States than the Socialists did. He couldn't imagine any Negro in the United States voting any other way-which didn't mean some wouldn't.
When he got back to the family apartment, Elizabeth greeted him with, "How did it go today?" How much money did you make? was what she meant, of course.
Some of the tension slid out of her face when he answered, "Pretty well, thanks. How about you, sweetheart?"
"Ordinary kind o' day," his wife said with a weary shrug. "Got me two dollars and a quarter. Every little bit helps, I reckon."
Achilles looked up from the kitchen table, where he was writing a high-school composition. He said, "Classes let out next month. Then I'll be able to look for work without you pitching fits, Dad."
He itched to do more than he was doing. Cincinnatus knew as much. He said, "Workin' summers is one thing. Workin' instead o' schoolin' is somethin' else. You're sixteen-you got two years to go 'fore you get your diploma. I want you to have it, by God. It's somethin' nobody can't never taken away from you."
By Achilles' expression, he'd made a mess of his grammar. But then, at sixteen (and where had the years since he was born gone?) Achilles wore that look of scorn around him a lot of the time. Cincinnatus remembered wearing it around his own father when he was that age. Boys turning into young men banged heads with their fathers. That was the way things worked.
"If we need the money-" Achilles began.
"We don't need it that bad," Cincinnatus said. "This is the rest of your life we're talkin' about, remember." To his relief, his son didn't choose to push it tonight. Cincinnatus knew he'd be smart not to push the boy too hard about staying in school. Achilles liked school, and did pretty well. But if his father urged him to stay in and do well, that might be enough to turn him against it.
Amanda came in and gave Cincinnatus a hug. She was still young enough to love without reservation. She said, "I got all my words right on my spelling test today."
"That's good, sweetheart. That's mighty fine," Cincinnatus said enthusiastically. "Can't hardly do no better than perfect."
"How can you do better than perfect at all?" Amanda asked.
"You can't. I was just jokin' a little," Cincinnatus answered.
"Oh." Amanda wrinkled her nose. "That's silly, Daddy." Her accent held even more Midwest, even less Kentucky, than Achilles'. She'd been born here, after all. Everyone she'd ever heard, except for her parents, had that harsh, precise way of talking, with sharp vowels and every letter of every word pronounced. It still sounded strange and ugly to Cincinnatus, although he'd been here for going on ten years (not counting time in Luther Bliss' jail).