They’ve both kept the argument civil. They’ve both showed how smooth they can play conflict without rolling over. They’ve sounded intelligent and savvy at the same time. Informed but colloquial and always sure of themselves. Sylvia wonders how people end up this way.
“What do I do?” Candice says. “I endorse the check and say Praise the Lord to the comptroller. Every one of us would do what the old boys did. That wasn’t my point, Earl, and you know it. I’m saying let’s admit we’re hypocrites—”
“Pragmatists,” Perry says and Sylvia sees Ratzinger nod to him.
“Whatever,” Candice says, now looking at Perry. “We’ve cashed their check. So we’re in bed with the Families United for Decency. But that doesn’t mean we’re married to them. Does it, Earl?”
She scores with a not-so-subtle shot about the mistress. Sylvia would call it suicide, but Candice is a smart woman and she must know Ratzinger gets off on the clash, gets some juice from a little rough sparring.
Ratzinger raises his champagne toward Candice, lowers his voice and says, “A First Amendment fetish.” He gives a put-on, too-loud sigh and adds, “I guess some of us will never get over our years at Berkeley.”
Sylvia would give a night in the darkroom to hear Candice’s comeback, but the gallery fills with that awful microphone whine and everyone turns to see this crew-cut, squinty-eyed guy in a tux craning his neck and looking impatient behind a heavy wooden lectern. He’s positioned in front of a massive medieval tapestry that hangs from an upper balcony. The tapestry depicts what might be a Grail scene, some crude-looking knights and horses about to enter a dense forest.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” the guy says, “If I might have your attention.”
The crowd converges and forms into a loose semicircle and gradually voices start to lower.
“As some of you know, my name is Raymond Todd and I am a broadcast journalist at Quinsigamond Radio WQSG.”
“Jesus,” Sylvia says into Perry’s ear, “I thought the voice was familiar.”
“He’s just doing the intro,” Perry whispers.
Todd waits for everyone’s full attention, gives an annoyed glance to a waiter still taking a drink order, then begins. “It is my great honor tonight to have been asked down to the museum to introduce you to some new friends of ours. Some very brave, very hard-working people who have decided to lend a hand in the struggle of a lifetime. Now it may be apparent to you that Raymond Todd is in an extraordinarily fine mood this evening. And it may occur to you that this is not the demeanor you’ve come to expect from Raymond Todd. My friends, I will not argue with you. I yield to your incisive judgment. I agree with the verdict. Because, my friends, Raymond Todd has been waging a very lonely crusade that began to appear less and less winnable with each passing dark day.”
He does his trademark pause, goes into the rubbing of the sore neck and the slow, daunted shaking of the head without ever breaking eye contact.
“I, like you, have watched this, my native land, my native city, the place of my birth on this planet, plummeting downward, racing brakeless toward the bowels of damnation. You know, people, you don’t have to be some historian, some insulated, book-touting academic, to know that at some point in the past few decades, every value and moral and treasured teaching that our chosen nation has embraced has been uprooted and cast to the ground, trampled under the feet of everything from progress to good intentions. You’ve heard me speak before. I’m not going to run down the whole litany for you.”
“Wanna bet,” Sylvia whispers, but Ratzinger hears her and gives a patronizing smile.
“Simply put, we have lost track of what is important. We have, through ignorance or willful pride, turned our backs on the only things that should matter during our time on this earth. Now I’m as guilty as the next man of losing heart, people. You’ve all heard it. You’ve heard me throwing in the towel, ready to forsake the good fight. Seems I’d forgotten one small truth that should have lit the way.”
And he closes his eyes and delivers the patented slap on the lectern that echoes through the gallery and causes at least one gin and tonic to crash to the marble floor.
Then Todd opens his eyes, points a finger into the thick of the crowd, lets a greasy smile spread across his lips and intones, “The wheels of God grind slowly, but they grind surely.”
A pocket of listeners down near the front breaks into applause. When they die down, Todd takes a good breath and speeds up, loudens up, gets wildly dramatic. “The wheels are in motion, my friends. That’s why we’re all here tonight. We’re here to turn the key together. We’re here to watch the mighty wheels of judgment begin their trip through the city of Quinsigamond.”
He spread out the last word with this weird, pseudo-Southern drawl and widens each syllable. There’s a wave of murmuring throughout the hall but Sylvia can’t tell whether people are spurred on by this misplaced evangelical sermon or just plain confused. Todd claps his hands together and raises his arms over his head like some uncoordinated boxer. Sylvia looks around to see if anyone else is finding this pretty bizarre entertainment for a museum reception sponsored by a WASP law firm.
“Without any further delay,” Todd bellows, “I give you the national coordinating director of Families United for Decency, Reverend Garland Boetell.”
The gallery floods with applause and whistles and hidden speakers somewhere play “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Sylvia changes her position to get a look at Reverend Boetell as he walks in under an exhibit banner that reads Goya: Moralist Amid Chaos. He’s a little battleship of a character, a short, pink bull, all permanently rouged cheeks and a spray-cemented cover of silky, golden-white hair. He’s got on a navy blue double-breasted suit that clamps in his girth and he takes the lectern holding a leathery, bendable Bible that he uses to wave to the crowd. On his heels is a small, reed-thin Hispanic kid of about eighteen years, dressed in a plain white robe and hemp belt, leather sandals on his feet, stooped forward and looking extremely uncomfortable.
The applause seems excessive, verging on the raspy kind of hum you’d get at a small rock concert. Perry leans into Ratzinger and whispers something in his ear. Ratzinger continues clapping his hands together, but turns his head and whispers back and they both give guilty smiles.
Sylvia puts her hand on Perry’s back and he looks at her and shakes his head, rolls his eyes and says, “The crowd up front, they’re all shills. The radio guy, Todd, he brought them with him.”
Sylvia nods, but somehow this information isn’t as funny to her. She wants to ask Perry when they can leave, but Reverend Boetell raises his hands up like an Olympic high-diver and the crowd starts to quiet down.