All Bedlam Courses Past (part fifteen)

All Bedlam Courses Past

Chapter One

The Peculiar Nature of Logical Science

(part fifteen)

“Well, Fannie says it.”

Gremot said it.

“You know, I don’t think it’s news at all. Almost emperor’s new clothes, allowing Rowan’s no emperor.”

“Well, no, you don’t want to print anything. Before time.”

“Rowan has kind of got himself in.”

“Well, Thacker, you get yourself known for an objector and an undercutter, and get yourself sitting in a chair where business is trying to be conducted, so no one can raise a peep without looking sideways…”

“Well,” Richard muttered. He was grateful, though, to have got the other speaker’s name. Now and again he earned one of Rowan’s fifty-cent pieces, telling of things overheard.

Gremot said: “Look at that. Goddamn.”

The crack of a pistol shot. A tremor of nervous response in Richard’s hands. He netted them calm in threadbare pockets, saying to himself, mouthing the words, “What in hell’s he carrying on about?”

The men passed a few remarks on Remingtons and rats.

Then, Gremot: “I can’t go against the Fellows. I don’t propose to break with Rutherford. But it’s getting hard to get by with. Thacker, if you look back just a few years, George would always say he served spirits at the hotel because a hotel gets comers of all kinds, because the town has to look forward and grow. By rights, teetotal’s got nothing to do with religion.”

“Well…” Thacker’s turn. “You’re a bigger man than you used to be, Senator. With Rowan it’s gonna be seventy-six for a long spell yet.”

“What if you talked to Ebrach?”

Gremot had taken a good pause, prior to this shame-voiced stab. Thacker seemed flummoxed.

“Talk about…Miss Gremot?”

“Thacker. What I’m saying is, I think we have to figure out…”

“Um hmm,” said Thacker, precipitately.

A silence passed, and Gremot found words. “Why those people listen to Rowan, what the hell…? What goddamn side are they on? I won’t have a shouting match with him. What I want is to make the ground fall away under his feet.”

For a dozy hour, Richard bided. Bored and hungry, but those troubles weighed slighter than coming afoul of Gremot, while trespassing on his land. One thing to Gremot’s credit…he was not a loiterer. His clandestine meeting hadn’t lasted past Thacker’s agreeing (in a flat and cautious voice) that Ebrach might be sounded for his intuitions.

17

Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part sixteen)

(2023, Stephanie Foster)