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).
A delicious odor reached Cincinnatus' nose. 'What smells good?' he asked.
'I'm stewing giblets with potatoes and tomatoes and onions,' Elizabeth answered. 'Butcher shop had 'em cheap.'
'Cheap?' Cincinnatus said, thumping himself on the forehead with the heel of his hand. He hurried down to the truck and returned with the butcher-paper package he'd left on the front seat. 'Soup bones. Oscar Marlowe gave 'em to me for nothin'. Reckon I'd forget my head if it wasn't on tight.'
'Soup bones? That's wonderful! I'll do 'em up tomorrow.' Elizabeth hurried to put the package in the icebox.
'Giblets. Soup bones.' Achilles made a face that looked remarkably like the one his little sister had just made. 'Not many people eat that kind of stuff.'
Cincinnatus had grown up eating chicken gizzards and beef tongues and lungs and other cuts richer people thought of as offal. He took them for granted, as he always had. When times here in Des Moines were good, Elizabeth hadn't bought them so often, so Achilles noticed them more now than he would have otherwise. But Cincinnatus wagged a finger at his son. 'Happens that ain't so,' he said. 'Plenty of people who was eatin' roast beef's eatin' giblets now, and glad to have 'em. I ain't just talkin' 'bout colored folks, neither. It's the same way with whites. I seen enough to know that for a fact. Reckon it's the same with the Chinaman upstairs, too. When times are hard, you're smart to be glad o' what you've got, not sorry for what you ain't.'
Achilles said, 'Somebody at school told me Chinamen cut up dogs and cats and use them for meat. Is that true, Dad?'
'I don't know,' Cincinnatus answered. 'I never heard it before, I'll tell you. Tell you somethin' else, too-don't you go asking the Changs about it, neither. They're nice folks, and I don't want you embarrassing 'em none, you hear?'
'I wouldn't do that!' Achilles sounded uncommonly sincere. A moment later, he explained why: 'Grace Chang is in a couple of my classes. I think she's a cute girl.'
That made Cincinnatus and Elizabeth exchange glances. Even if Cincinnatus had felt such a thing about a white woman in Kentucky, he never would have said so. But the Drivers weren't in Kentucky any more, and Grace wasn't white. What were the rules for Negroes and Chinese? Were there any?
Of course, just because Achilles thought Grace was cute, that didn't mean he was going to ask her to marry him, or even to ask her to go to a film with him. Just the same, a sensible father-a father who didn't want his boy beaten up or lynched-started worrying about these things as far ahead of time as he could. By Elizabeth's expression, she was worrying about them, too.
Before Cincinnatus could say anything about any of that, Achilles changed the subject: 'Who are you going to vote for for president, Dad?'
'Whoever the Democrats run-looks like Coolidge now,' Cincinnatus answered. Elizabeth nodded agreement. 'Got to keep an eye on them Confederates.' His wife nodded again.
Not Achilles. 'If I could vote, I'd vote for the Socialists,' he declared. 'They don't care if you're black or white or yellow or red. They just want to know what you can do.' And that declaration of political independence started a whole new argument, one that made Cincinnatus forget Grace Chang for the rest of the night.
'P ass the salt, Ma,' Edna Grimes said, and Nellie Jacobs did. Her daughter sprinkled it on a drumstick. 'This is awful good fried chicken.' She took a big bite.
'Sure is, Mother Jacobs,' Merle Grimes agreed. He turned to Edna. 'You all right, honey? Everything staying down?'
Edna nodded. 'Couldn't be better, Merle. Stomach isn't bothering me at all this time around.' She yawned. 'I still get sleepy a lot, though.' She was three months pregnant; the baby would be born somewhere around New Year's Day, 1933. Suddenly, she pointed at her son. 'For God's sake, Armstrong, I'm not too sleepy to miss you stuffing half a pound of mashed potatoes into your face all at once. Show some manners, or you'll find out you're not too big to paddle. Ten years old, and you eat like that? Jesus!'
'Sorry, Ma,' Armstrong said, most indistinctly-maybe it hadn't been half a pound of mashed potatoes, but it hadn't missed by much. Across the table from him, Clara smirked. Aunt and nephew (which seemed silly, when only two years separated them) had never got along, not even when they were tiny.
Merle Grimes raised his glass of beer. 'Here's hoping Cal sweeps the Socialists out of Powel House,' he said. The Democrats wouldn't hold their convention for another month-they'd scheduled it for the Fourth of July-but Governor Coolidge's nomination now looked like a foregone conclusion.
'Amen,' Nellie said, and drank. So did Edna. So did Hal Jacobs. Armstrong Grimes raised his glass of milk in imitation of the grownups. Clara made a face at him.
'That will be enough of that, young lady,' Nellie said. Clara subsided. Armstrong laughed.
