guy and he liked him and he gave him some good advice. He told him once Japan surrendered the country wasn't going to need quite as many rifles as it did during the war. So there were going to be a lot of layoffs and my father was probably going to lose his job. Guy tells him: 'You wont be the only one.' Said lots of people were going to be out on the street, looking for work.
Maybe for more work than there'd be for all of them right off. The ones who waited too long might wait a while before they found a new job 'til we got used to having peace again. Smart ones'd be the ones who looked for work before everyone else started looking for it.
'My father decided to be one of the smart ones. That's when he came to work here.
'Arthur Carnes before the war'd always driven a Chevrolet. But then he had two arms. After the war he only had one. He couldn't drive his old car anymore, because now he only had one hand, and in order to move the gear- shift lever he'd 've had to let go of the wheel. He was afraid to do that, so he had someone drive him down to Brel Chevrolet in Springfield in his car. He asked them if there was anything they could do so he could drive himself around again, th out risking killing people.
'When he came in here that same afternoon what he told my father was the people down at Brel didn't really seem interested in his problem, and he wondered if my father was. You bet he was. The first thing he did was see whether there was something Stuart Dean out in back could do to Arthur's Chevy, make it so that he could shift gears without letting go the wheel. Stuart said Yes, there was something. He could make a lever arrangement, like a bicycle hand brake that'd make it so all Arthur had to do to shift the gears was reach his hand between the spokes and squeeze and that'd do it. He wouldn't have complete control but he'd have some, and it wouldn't take him but a second to do it and then grab the wheel again, so it ought to be okay. Stuart said it might be kind of awkward, but it'd work.
'Arthur said if it'd work until his new Ford convertible came in, he'd be more'n satisfied. My father said that was his first inkling he'd sold Arthur Carnes a car. After that when Roy Senior's father's old DeSoto wore out, Herb bought a Ford from Dad. And when they got rich enough so Roy's mother and Arthur's wife could have cars of their own, both of them got Fords. Roy drives a Ford, as you may've noticed, and so does Arthur, still. The one Arthur's driving now's the last car my father sold. Arthur ordered it from him the day before he died. That made eight he'd sold to the family, even though if they wanted to, they could all be driving Cadillacs by now.
'My father said what he admired about the Carneses was that they weren't the kind of people who just grab ahold of what they need or what they want, squeeze all the juice right out of it and throw the pulp away. He said Arthur and his brother acted like they were in it for the long haul. Kind of people who take an interest in what's going on around them today and try to make it better, because they plan to be here tomorrow and the day after that as well.
'That alderman seat was theirs for as long as they wanted it. It's out of their hands now because there's no new Carnes available right now to sit in it. Maybe there will be, eight or ten years from now, when Roy Junior's son's grown up, but right now there isn't. The man who's in it's a fool, and he probably isn't ever going to get any smarter. But he probably wont leave, either. He'll never try for anything higher, because dumb as he is, even he knows he'd probably lose.
'So what happens when Roy's kid is ready? By then Gilson'll've been there too long to throw him out. The Carnes kid'll have a fight on his hands.
'So then, why not save him the trouble? Go to the Carneses now and ask them if they'd like to help you change that. You'll knock Gilson off for them now, and then because you'll want to move on before too long, you'll leave it open again. As long as it keeps changing hands, when Roy Junior's kid's ready he'll have a chance. I bet Roy and Arthur would see your point. I bet they could help you a lot.'
'You old enough to have a beer?' Hilliard said.
'Have one, yeah,' Merrion said. 'Buy one? Not legally.'
Hilliard began to see the need for change around the end of March of '66, but he waited until evening of the third Friday in April to see if Merrion would raise the subject. He did not do so. After they parted that evening outside the office, Merrion declining to have a beer on the ground that if he did he'd flunk a quarterly in advanced psychology, Hilliard took inventory on the way home.
Things were unquestionably good. The black '65 Ford Falcon convertible with the red vinyl interior was hocked, but still nearly brand-new.
Mercy's Country Squire wagon was only four years old. The pale-blue three-bedroom half-brick raised-ranch house, two-car garage under, where he lived with his family on the north slope of Ridge Street in Holyoke, was a better one than his parents owned. There was no primary opponent in sight and the few Republicans in the district the southeastern part of Holyoke, Canterbury, Hampton Pond, parts of Cumberland and Hampton Falls as usual were snarling at each other. His grip on the middle rungs of the House leadership ladder was secure enough to permit a swift lunge in the next term for the chairmanship of Ways and Means. 'Too good,' he thought. 'Must be time to fuck something up.'
Over dinner of fried filet of sole with Mercy and their three young children, Hilliard tried out his decision to address the subject when he and Merrion had their customary week-ending meeting at the office the next morning. 'Do something about it. Get it over with once and for all.'
'Suspense getting to you?' she said. Marcia Hackett Hilliard had natural ash-blonde hair and blue eyes spaced wide apart, and she was a cheerful person. Even when she was obviously getting angry she looked like she still might laugh instead. She knew this and regretted it.
She didn't like fights 'unlike my dear husband, who goes around looking for them.' She was convinced that she had more of them than she would have had if people believed her when she said she was getting mad.
Timmy Hilliard, who was five, thrust out his lower lip and used his fork to push his fish around his plate. Mercy, not looking at him but at her husband, put her right hand out and took hold of Timmy's wrist.
'But I don't like fish,' he said, whining, trying to pull away. 'You know I don't like fish.'
'Tough darts, kid,' his mother said. 'I'm talking to your father.
That's what the meal is tonight. Either you eat it or you go hungry.'
'Oh, partly the suspense, yeah,' Dan Hilliard said. 'Not wanting him to stew about it until Labor Day and then decide some crisp cool morning couple months before election he can't stay another year, doing what he's been doing since he was a teenager he's got to do something grown-up. So then he tells me, and what shape am I in? No election fight, no, but I'll still have my hands full, back in session after the summer. All kinds of things I want to do there, but now I am distracted.
'Suddenly I'll now also have to do something for Amby, right off. And it'll really have to be good, owing the guy like I do. While I'm making plans at the same time to find somebody else to put in his place and then get him or her trained while of course the new person trains me. Everybody who's good will've already signed up to run somebody else's operation. I'll have to settle for whoever's left.
'I'll be standing there sucking my thumb, marking time getting acquainted. Before I can even think about actually revving up what Amby and I've been planning to do since last Memorial Day. And anything that Amby'd like will've been filled since July Fourth, or promised anyway, people lining up support for the election. No, the time's come to deal with it; the time to do it is now.'
Timmy's sister Emily, nearly seven, ostentatiously used both hands, fork and spoon at the same time, to eat all of her fish, her mixed peas and carrots and her mashed potatoes too. The baby, Donna, eighteen months, sat in her high-chair with a small bowl of dry miniature shredded-wheat biscuits in front of her, staring vacantly at an invisible point midway between her father's left shoulder and the top of her brother's chair. Timmy sat far back in it, his shoulders hunched, and scowled at Emily, angry at himself now for giving her the brown-nosing opportunity she was exploiting. 'You're gonna be hungry later on, Tim,' Dan Hilliard said.
'1 ate all my fish, daddy,' Emily said.
'I know you did, sweetie,' he said.
Timmy stuck out his tongue and said: 'Poop.'
'I mean it, Tim, really,' Hilliard said. 'You know we both want you to be healthy and strong.'
Timmy shook his head. 'Don't care,' he said. 'Don't like fish. Don't care.'
'Future office-holder,' Mercy said. 'Got the hang of it already.
Rather be mad and go hungry 'n eat something he didn't think of to ask for.'
Her husband laughed. 'Uh uh,' he said, 'not quite right. Future office-seeker.'
'You're sure that's where Amby is now,' Mercy said. 'At the point where he has to move on?'
