'You know who I think really convicted them, even more than that bastard judge Thayer? It was the jury foreman, Ripley. He hated Italians. He was a cop who wanted more than anything to 'get the dagos.' Can you imagine allowing ga jury like that? They should've had some Jews on that jury. It never would have happened.'
'Why?'
'Simple. Of all the people who have suffered from prejudice and persecution, we've suffered the most. But we're not like the other groups, who then can't wait to dish out hatred to the next bunch of unfortunates. The Jews don't do that. We've never done that and never will; we stay with the underdog. Listen Doc, more than anyone else it was two Jewish men who tried to get Sacco and Vanzetti off the hook: Felix Frankfurter and Herbert Ehrmann. Wanta see my new tank?'
'No.'
'Get in here this instant.' He held his office door open and I followed reluctantly. I stayed two feet behind him and got ready to shield my eyes. The new tank was high and narrow and filled with bright coral fans. Several brilliantly colored fish wafted about. Surprise, surprise; Moe's taste was improving.
'Salt water,' he said. 'Those are tangs. Nice, eh?'
'Great. I'm surprised that you-'
But I stopped short, speechless with revulsion at what I saw at the bottom of the tank. The sand there came alive in a flapping, rolling, undulating mass of writhing flesh.
'Good God!' I groaned.
'What? The skate? He belongs there, Doc. Part of the scheme of things.'
The horrid bulbous eyes darted about as if on stalks. Four vents behind each eye opened and shut rhythmically. The scaly tail twitched. I spun about-face and departed.
' 'Bye, Moe. We'll resume our chess game when you get rid of the tank.'
'Remember, Doc,' he yelled after me, leaning out of his doorway, 'every creature deserves a home, even ugly ones.'
'Don't be a sap,' I said.
I went home at five-thirty, went for a run, took a sauna and shower, sat with a cold mug on the porch, and started to read the first book about Sacco and Vanzetti. After twenty pages I was disturbed. After eighty I was distraught. Surely this was some kind of joke. Certainly the author did not know what he was saying… So I put it down and tried another. Worse. Okay, I told myself, the third time's the charm. So I picked up tome number three. Disastrous. I put the books down and gave the far wall a thousand-yard stare. I felt bludgeoned. If it weren't so sad it would be almost humorous. The proceedings of the case, and the various assumptions, allegations, denials, and refusals, had all the earmarks of a vaudeville skit.
Mary came home. I heard her high heels clicking and snapping around the kitchen linoleum. I heard a shopping bag rustle, the refrigerator door open and shut.
'Charlie?'
'Mmmmph.'
'What are you doing home? What's the matter?'
I explained the reading material. She replied that of course they were innocent men. Of course they'd been railroaded to the chair. Where had I been?
'Our folks talked about that case all the time when we were kids in Schenectady. Didn't Joe tell you?'
'Joe just left here. He ate the biggest submarine sandwich ever constructed. He just ate a Trident-class sub. He's taking us to dinner tonight at Joe Tecce's. Now let me be; I want to reread key parts of these books again to make sure there's no mistake.'
I did. Then I read them again., Mary came in and said it was time to get ready. She asked me why I was reading and rereading the books. .
'Because I'm hoping that I've overlooked something; that something will change if I keep reading it over.'
But it didn't. It was with a weary heart that I donned the fancy duds. Even the sight of Mary prancing around in her undies didn't cheer me up, and she looks nice in 'em. We got in the Audi and got on to Route 2 for Boston. I had a tape of Mozart's Concerto No. 2 for Horn playing, and it helped a bit, but not much. By mistake Mary first popped in the cassette of Jeannie Redpath singing Scottish ballads. That can have you bawling in five minutes even if you're in a good mood. We drove along and I puffed on my pipe in silence. Mary turned off the tape.
'Okay, Charlie. Tell me about it. What's gotten you so depressed? We've got the time now. Spill.'
'Everything I read about Sacco and Vanzetti points not only to a trial that was unfair but to an inexorable machine of destruction pointed straight at them.'
'So what's new about that?'
'I've got to read the stuff more carefully, but getting into it fast, I saw the sweep and size of the monster. Most people have now acknowledged the unfair-trial part. After all, Sacco and Vanzetti, while never even accused of any crime whatsoever prior to their arrest, were radical anarchists. Anarchists killed President McKinley in 1901, and started the First World War by killing Archduke Ferdinand in 1914. So they were unpopular. This is old. What's new to me is the sense of orchestration behind the events of the trial and subsequent appeals. I keep seeing in my mind's eye a smoke-filled room somewhere with a small group of very rich and well-dressed men puffing on cigars, planning the whole thing. And this cabal could set the machinery in motion, Mary. Ah, yes… just as easy as throwing a switch in one of the textile mills, setting all those flywheels spinning, those loom arms thumping, those bobbins twirling…'
'Well hasn't that been said before?'
'Kind of. It was alleged vaguely. It surfaced during the seven years of the trial and appeals-'
'Seven years!'
'Oh yeah. During the ordeal some of the undercurrents were visible. But when you look through seven books all at once you see the entire thing, as if from a space satellite. I can't help seeing a great mechanized thing, fueled by power and wealth, running down those two steerage-class troublemakers without even missing a beat.'
'You sound like Jack London.'
'Don't mean to. And, of course, they could have even been guilty. But guilty or not, they had that machine set after them like the Hound of Hell. As sure as we're sitting in this car.'
'What happened? The crime, I mean.'
'On April fifteenth, nineteen twenty, there was an armed robbery of a shoe factory in South Braintree. It was the Slater and Morrill factory on Pearl Street. The spot is probably less than a mile from where the South Shore mall is now. In the robbery the two payroll guards were shot dead. They didn't try to go for their guns or anything; they were just shot down in cold blood. Murdered. About fifteen grand was taken by five holdup men, who escaped in a large touring car.'
'They stole money, not shoes?'
'They robbed the payroll. It was payday. In those days workers weren't paid by check; they got cash in pay envelopes which were toted around in strongboxes and armored cars like Brinks trucks. It was like the old Westerns, in which gold was carried on trains and stagecoaches. But your point about stealing shoes is interesting, because only people with a great familiarity with the factory and its procedures could have pulled off the heist, which went like clockwork. They even dribbled out a stream of tacks behind the car so pursuing vehicles would rupture their tires. They got clean away.'
Mary sat in silence for a second before asking the obvious sequitur: 'If they got clean away, then when were Sacco and Vanzetti arrested?'
'Twenty days later, on a streetcar in Brockton. It was about ten at night. Both men were armed with handguns. They had spare ammunition too. When asked about their business that night, and where they were on the day of the robbery, they lied.'
'Huh? I never heard it that way.'
'Probably not. Not in an Italian-American family you wouldn't. But it's true. So you see they weren't off to a good start. Add these circumstances to the fact that they had both gone to Mexico as draft dodgers during the Great War, and the fact that Sacco was not at work on April fifteenth- he missed that day and only that day- and the fact that Vanzetti, a fish peddler, had no regular job or employer who could vouch for him, and you can see how their troubles multiplied pretty quickly.'
