Free Storm Tide by Marge Piercy, Ira Wood Page A

spines. Judith had referred to this as the Big House. Through an archway and three steps down, a baby grand stood in front of a truly fantastical hearth. As much a sculpture as a fireplace, the bricks flowed and changed directions like brush strokes in an Impressionist landscape.
    “Gordon calls it his wailing wall.” Judith caught me running my fingers along the grooves between the brick. “Because he groaned and complained the whole time it took him to build it.”
    She had to call him several times. When he appeared, he was older than the man I had met outside. His skin was gray and his chest looked hollow. Gordon felt stronger or weaker during the day, sometimes energetic, sometimes enervated to near exhaustion. Mornings were good (I was to find out), while by late afternoon his strength ebbed. Judith served a beet and cabbage soup with bread and salad. Gordon stared into his bowl, chewing without interest.
    I imagined the man’s shame in my presence, the rage he must feel. Although I found the silence intolerable, I couldn’t think of a thing to break it. “How’s the campaign going?” Judith said finally.
    “What campaign?” Only after I spoke did I realize that I’d probably blown the only thing we all had in common. “Well, I was asked to speak to the Saltash Friendship Association.”
    Gordon lifted his eyes from his bowl. “The old Johnny Lynch clubhouse.”
    I’d never heard that one before. “I thought it used to be a church.”
    Gordon seemed livelier. “A church, and then a grange hall and fishermen’s co-op and a social club. Used to be a dance there every Saturday night.” His eyes narrowed mischievously, “That’s where Stumpy’smother was spied in the arms of another man. But for years and years, Johnny’s group met there for cocktails before the Board of Selectmen meetings. Johnny used to get to Town Hall so drunk that the minutes of the meetings made no sense. The secretary couldn’t understand half what he said, and when she asked him, he couldn’t remember.”
    “Did people know?”
    “Everybody knew. But they didn’t care. Because he was the nicest, funniest, friendliest guy in the world. They loved Johnny Lynch. Hell, I loved Johnny Lynch. He handled all my mortgages and wrote my wills and never charged me a dime—until I spoke against him one night at town meeting. Then I got a bill for fifteen years’ worth of work! Johnny never made his money from the law. It was my vote he wanted, and my loyalty. He had to be a town official, you see, that was his access to government contracts, to the pot of gold.” Gordon looked at the table as if a mistake had been made. “Judith, where’s the wine? Don’t we have some cold white wine?”
    “For lunch?” she asked, but was quickly on her feet, searching the refrigerator.
    “Understand,” Gordon said, “and I should never tell this to a politician, but people don’t care what you do. It’s what you do for them . Johnny Lynch took care of people. He saw that every nitwit who couldn’t find a trade drove a truck for the town. If you couldn’t make your taxes, Johnny had a word with the tax collector. He intervened when you were in trouble with the bank.”
    “He was Chairman of the Board,” I said.
    Gordon seemed impressed that I knew. “He took care of your wife if you went to the army.”
    “That’s never been proven.” Judith set the glasses and the bottle on the table.
    Gordon winked. “Johnny had friends on the Selective Service Board. One of his girlfriends was married to a boy who’d left her. Summer of ’sixty-nine. ’Seventy?” he asked Judith, who shrugged, working on the cork. “When the boy showed up in Saltash again and started making trouble, what do you think happened?”
    “He got drafted?”
    “Johnny Lynch was King David in this town. And do you know why? Because people wanted a king.”
    When the wine was gone and the sun filled the space between the clouds like a pink neon fire, Gordon led