The Difference Between You and Me Page 8

  “Move aside, move aside, let the old man out.” Margaret shuffles away from the van door and the lift repeats its performance, hoisting up and folding in, then lurching back down to the sidewalk, this time with a tall, stooped gentleman on it, hunched over his own walker. He’s wearing a long, beige trench coat over sweatpants, and dress shoes with white socks, and when he reaches the sidewalk he calls back over his shoulder to the driver: “A thousand thanks, Bert!” The driver waves to Charlie, smiling wanly behind his mirrored sunglasses. “Poor Bert,” Charlie comments to whoever might be listening. “That guy hates us. We torment that guy.” Charlie’s accent is more tart, more New England than Margaret’s—he sounds a little like the old guy from the Pepperidge Farm ads.

  “He doesn’t hate me,” Margaret objects. “Bert loves me. It’s you he hates.”

  “He only hates me because he knows I’m right.”

  “He hates you because he has a route full of people to get to and you hold him hostage in our driveway for forty minutes at a time lecturing him about social security!”

  Charlie leans in to Jesse. “He pretends to believe what they tell him on Fox News, but deep down inside he knows I’m right. That’s why he hates me. Charlie Magnuson.” Charlie extends his hand to Jesse, and she takes it.

  “Jesse Halberstam,” Jesse says. Charlie’s hand is big and dry and heavy, and it creaks a little in the wrist as she squeezes it.

  “Of the Chicago Halberstams?” Charlie peers at Jesse as if trying to place her. His face is long and droopy, his wispy hair more sandy yellow than white. “Are you related by any chance to Morty Halberstam, attorney-at-law?”

  Jesse shakes her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Find out,” Charlie instructs her. “That guy is one in a million. Kept a good friend of mine out of prison.”

  “If he asks you a question, don’t answer it,” Margaret warns Jesse. “If you think of a question for him, don’t ask it. Otherwise he’ll start talking and never let you go.” To Arlo, she says, “Hello, Arlo.”

  Arlo nods. “Margaret. Charlie.”

  “Chair, chair, chair,” Margaret commands, and Esther helps her over to the nearer of the two folding chairs. Margaret lowers herself excruciatingly slowly toward the seat, then collapses the last few inches into a sitting position. “Not so long ago I could stand on my own two feet for an hour on a Sunday,” she explains to Jesse. “But no longer. Now I sit down for peace. Ha! At least my ass is still on the line. Ha!” She laughs a big, loud laugh, and Charlie joins her. He’s headed down to the chair at the far end of the banner. It takes him a minute, but he gets there, and once he’s arranged himself in the chair he picks up his end of the banner and holds it upright. Esther hands Margaret the other end, and above them the big town clock begins to chime. Gong, gong, gong, gong…

  “Forty-two years,” Margaret says proudly. “Haven’t missed a noontime yet.”

  Esther and Arlo and Jesse all choose signs from the grass behind the banner (Jesse picks NO TO WAR, which seems basic, and a true enough statement about how she feels) and hold them up. Margaret and Charlie each hold an end of the banner. And then they all stand there.

  Cars pass. Across the street, a woman walks out of Jansen’s with two small blond children, holding each by one hand, and goes into Beverly Coffee next door without even glancing across the street. More cars pass. Nobody says anything. The five of them just stand there and do nothing.

  After a minute or so, Jesse starts to feel jumpy. She squeezes her toes and bounces a little inside her boots.

  “Shouldn’t we, like, chant or sing or something?” she asks Esther quietly.

  “It’s not a demonstration, gorgeous,” Margaret explains loudly, as if Jesse had posed the question to her directly. “It’s a vigil. You ever been to a vigil before?”

  Jesse shakes her head.

  “At a vigil, the point is not to make a bunch of noise and ruckus, the point is to stand up for what you believe in. Or in my case, sit down for what you believe in. Ha!”

  “But um, what if no one pays attention to us?” Jesse asks. She hopes it’s not a rude question. Across the street, shoppers are coming and going, and no one has stopped to acknowledge—even to look at—the little group with their placards only fifty feet away.

  “They see us,” Charlie says.

  “They see us,” Esther agrees vehemently.

  “And even if they don’t,” Margaret continues, “the point is just to be here. To stand up and be counted for what’s right.”

  As if on cue, a passing Ford Taurus honks its horn, and the driver waves out the window at them. Margaret, Charlie, and Esther wave back enthusiastically.

  “Hey.” Arlo has sidled over so he’s right next to Jesse, on the far side from Esther, and he pokes her in the sleeve to get her attention.

  “Hey.” Jesse edges a fraction of an inch away from him.

  “I get you,” Arlo says in a low voice. “Believe me. I get your problem.”

  “My problem?”

  “I hear what you’re trying to say. It feels purely symbolic, right? Like we’re not really doing anything? I hear you.”

  “I don’t know if I—”

  “Look, the first time someone dragged me here, I was like, this is the most pathetic thing I have ever seen. These people have been standing here on this corner for forty years begging, what, the air? and the sky? for peace? And is there peace? Did they make peace happen? The world’s in worse shape than ever, man! If they want peace so bad, why don’t they go chain themselves to a nuclear silo in Colorado or picket the White House or blow up the headquarters of Halliburton—like you could even find the real headquarters of Halliburton, right?” Arlo chuckles conspiratorially, and Jesse nods because she’s not sure what else to do.

  “‘By any means necessary,’ right? That’s more your style?”

  “I guess?”

  “Yeah, that was me, too. I get you. I was all about direct action. And I wasn’t afraid of violence. I was at the Battle in Seattle in ’99, see?” Arlo drops his sign to the ground and tugs up the sleeve of his army jacket, revealing a crisscrossed network of pale, wormy scars running up and down his bony forearm. “Friendly fire,” he says with unconcealed pride. “Bottle rocket, premature detonation. I was supposed to throw it at the limo carrying the head of the World Trade Organization, but I didn’t time the fuse right. Went off in my hand, man.”

  Jesse looks down at the arm Arlo is thrusting into her face and nods politely. “Nice.”

  “Nice?” Arlo echoes, clearly offended. “Nice?”

  “I just meant—”

  “Is he showing you his scars?” Esther interrupts, leaning over Jesse now to peer at Arlo. “Arlo, are you forcing Jesse to look at your mangled arm? Put that away, nobody wants to see that.”

  “I’m not forcing anyone to do anything, I’m talking to the new girl about direct political action!”

  “Stop trying to prove how tough you are and leave Jesse alone.”

  “It’s okay, really….” Sandwiched in between the hot intensity of Arlo and the cool intensity of Esther, Jesse starts to feel slightly claustrophobic.

  “For your information, Esther, I was about to tell her that I put all that in the past, thanks to Margaret and Charlie and this group. I was about to tell her that I’m all about pure presence now and just being here in a peaceful way to bring about the new world order.”

  “All right, so now you’ve told her. Put your arm back in your jacket.”

  “You guys, it’s cool, it’s cool.” Jesse just wants them to stop bickering. What is it with people getting into conflicts at peace rallies?

  In a huff, Arlo shrugs his sleeve back down over his arm, then turns away to check his BlackBerry with his back to the group.

  “He’s right, though,” Esther says to Jesse. “The point is just to be. You don’t have to do anything besides be right here.”

  ***

  By 12:55, Jesse has counted about twenty-five people w
ho have honked or waved in support of peace. First Jesse’s right hand, then her left cramped up stiffly around the ruler handle taped to her NO TO WAR sign. Her feet have grown tingly from standing still so long. But she feels a kind of contented calm that she almost never feels. She can’t remember the last time she just stood in one place and watched the world go by. It’s surprising how few people she’s seen that she knows, even in this town that always feels so small to her. A whole hour of standing in front of the Town Hall and she’s recognized only a few people: Ms. Arocho from the library; Dr. Paul Klang, her dentist; Brianna from her dad’s office. Other than that, it’s all been brief flashes of people she doesn’t know. Kids, babies, teenagers, parents. Couples, old ladies, college guys. People walking with shopping bags, people running in short-shorts and earphones, people feeding meters, people holding hands. Dogs, dogs, dogs. The sun is warm on Jesse’s skin; the clouds skid smoothly across the blue overhead.

  A low green hatchback covered in bumper stickers approaches and honks an enthusiastic rat-a-tattoo as it passes. Esther calls out, “Hi, Huckle!” and Huckle waves from the driver’s seat. Margaret and Charlie and Esther wave. Jesse waves. Twenty-six people.

  “Hard to believe this is all headed for the crapper, this beautiful little town,” Arlo says darkly.

  “That’s right,” Charlie grouses from the other end of the banner. He mutters: “Sonsofbitches.”

  “Why is it headed for the crapper?” Jesse asks. “Who are sons of bitches?”

  “Don’t ask him—” Margaret warns, but Charlie practically shouts over her, “Crooked town meeting members in the pocket of the big-box stores!”

  “Don’t start!” Margaret bosses him, then turns back to Jesse. “You can’t mention StarMart within earshot of that man or he loses his mind. It makes him crazy how they’re sleazeballing their way in.”

  “StarMart?” Jesse says. “But I thought they lost. I thought the Snope Christmas Tree Farm people said no.”

  StarMart, the mega-retailer, had recently attempted to buy up farmland out on Route 10 to convert into a giant one-stop discount store, a hot topic of conversation for months in the Halberstam house. Even though Fran and Arthur were in complete agreement about how terrible it would be for the town if a big-box store moved in, they managed to argue about who was more right about how awful the fallout would be, and who had the better points about the damage StarMart would do. It ended when the Snope family made the front page of the local paper by refusing to sell StarMart their land.

  “You haven’t heard?” Arlo says. “StarMart’s new plan is to try to force the Snopes into selling by putting pressure on every part of the town. Town meeting. The schools. I heard a couple of selectboard members have been offered bribes. Even the Francis Animal Shelter got a call from somebody over at NorthStar, promising a lifetime’s supply of Milk-Bones if NorthStar gets permission to build inside the town line. It’s a PR onslaught.”

  “It’s true,” Esther agrees. “Ms. Filarski told me they’re sponsoring a bunch of athletic teams at Vander and giving money to fund the dance that’s coming up at school.”

  “They figure if they make the deal irresistible enough to the town, people will put the screws to Frank and Jane Snope until they give in.” Charlie shakes his head in disgust.

  “That’s why Charlie and I are starting a grassroots anti-StarMart organization,” Arlo says. “Right, Charlie? What are we calling it again?”

  “People for the Preservation of Safe Small Towns. PPSST.”

  “Wait, no, I thought it was FASST: Fighting Against Sprawl in Small Towns.”

  “No, it was PPSST.”

  “I think it was definitely FASST, or possibly Americans Against Unrestrained Retailer Growth? AAURG?”

  “We haven’t come to consensus yet about a name, but we’re going to put the hurt to those sonsofbitches as soon as we decide on a name, you mark my words! If that store gets built it’ll be like all the other towns in America whose lifeblood has been drained out of them by bloodsucking multinational corporations!”

  “All right, all right,” Margaret shouts him down. “Pipe down, darling!” To Jesse, she remarks, “I told you, he can’t stay calm when he talks about it. His doctor says it’s a stroke risk, and he’s not supposed to discuss it.”

  “You like Main Street?” Charlie shouts, undeterred. “You like free trade and little stores and local business? Well, kiss it good-bye! Kiss it all good-bye if StarMart sinks their hooks into this town!”

  Charlie waves his hand dramatically over the street in front of him, gesturing to all that will be lost.

  Jesse turns to look at the doomed downtown, and just at that moment he rounds the corner and heads up the block: Mike McDade, ambling easy through the afternoon in his khakis, button-down shirt, and baseball cap. Mike McDade, the square-jawed. Mike McDade, the broad-shouldered. Mike McDade, the six-foot-one, all-American shortstop. Mike McDade, the love of Jesse’s love’s life.

  Jesse watches him, transfixed.

  The guy walks like nothing has ever stood in his way or fallen in his path, like his body has never encountered the slightest resistance in the world. He moves like someone who has never been anything but welcomed wherever he’s gone. His stride is long, his hands are loose and comfortable in his pockets, his chin is up, he seems to be… whistling? Mike McDade is freaking whistling. Because that’s just how zip-a-dee-doo-dah he feels.

  This is how he always looks. It’s how he looks when he’s walking Emily down the senior hall, his big, broad hand floating lightly over the small of her back. It’s how he looks when he’s leaning beside her locker looking down at her, or slinging his long arm over her shoulders, or fake-punching her affectionately on the shoulder, or bending down to kiss her in the door to her math class. He looks easy. Relaxed. Satisfied. Mike McDade is living his perfect life.

  Without noticing the posse of peaceniks across the street, Mike tugs open the door to Murray and Sons Hardware and disappears inside. Jesse hears the faint, distant tinkle of the bell as the door falls shut.

  “I mean, right? Hey, new girl, right?” Suddenly, Jesse is aware that Arlo is speaking to her, has been speaking to her for some time now.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I spaced for a second. What were you saying?”

  “Who were you watching over there?” Arlo asks, his voice low and confidential.

  “Nobody, I was just… zoning.”

  “Come on, you were watching someone. Who? You can tell me.”

  Jesse sighs. “My nemesis,” she admits.

  “You have a nemesis?” Arlo says. “Excellent.”

  ***

  Twenty minutes later, Jesse is sitting wedged into the backseat of her mother’s Camry with an uncomfortable heap of peace signs in her lap, and her cheek pressed against the gritty two-by-four of the Peace Now banner. The only way it would fit into the compact car was diagonally inside, so that Jesse is stuffed in on one side of it in the backseat, and Esther has the other end resting heavily on her shoulder in the front seat.

  Her mom had been pulling out of the parking lot with Jesse in the passenger seat beside her when they both simultaneously spotted Esther, trying to manage the heavy banner under one arm and keep ahold of the whole mess of signs under the other. When she told them she was heading for the bus stop to ride home, Fran told Jesse to get out of the car and help Esther in.

  “So how was it, you guys?” Jesse’s mom asks now, overeager. “You get a lot of important things accomplished?”

  “The point of a peace vigil isn’t to get things accomplished, it’s just to be there,” Jesse snaps. Even she’s aware of how obnoxious she sounds.

  “Pardonnez-moi,” Fran says mock-delicately. “Did you do a lot of good ‘being there’ then?”

  “Oh yes,” Esther says sincerely. “It was excellent. It’s excellent every week.”

  “You go to the vigil every week?” Fran inquires. Jesse can see her surveying Esther curiously out of the corner of her eye.<
br />
  “Yeah, for the past two years I’ve been going pretty much every week. I really like the people. Some of them I know from other places, like I work with Phyllis at the soup kitchen, and Louis runs the after-school program for kids where I volunteer tutor. Arlo keeps trying to get me to help out with his anarchist freegan cooperative over in Cold River, but I’m not so interested in what they do. He’s really nice, though, usually.” Esther cranes her neck around to address Jesse in the backseat. “He was just trying to show off for you by being tough because you were new.”

  “I didn’t mind him,” Jesse says truthfully.

  “And is it still basically Margaret and Charlie’s show over there?” Fran asks.

  Esther whips around to face Fran—as far around as she can turn beneath the two-by-fours—her face alive with anticipation and joy. “You know Margaret and Charlie?” Jesse has never seen Esther so openly filled with emotion.

  Jesse thinks, Mom, you knew about the vigil?

  “Sure, from the old days. I must have been on a hundred marches with those two. What are they, pushing eighty by now? They’re indefatigable. Fatiguing to others, perhaps, but indefatigable themselves.”

  “I know, aren’t they incredible?” Esther gushes. “I consider them my honorary grandparents. I wish I could move in with them.”

  “Wow.” Fran nods.

  “I’ve never met anyone more committed to social justice than Margaret and Charlie, have you?” Esther speaks fiercely.

  Fran raises her eyebrows. “I…”

  “I want to be just like them when I grow up. They never stop learning new things, they’re always figuring out what the next problem is they need to tackle. Like just today they were talking about trying to stop StarMart from moving into town. Do you know about that?”

  “Absolutely,” Fran says. “I was just reading in the paper that they haven’t gone away since Frank and Jane refused to sell, they’ve just adjusted their strategy. They’re bad bad bad, those guys. Major-league baddies. They ruin local economies and abuse their workers. And Jess, they give money to antigay political candidates; you of all people should hit the barricades for this one.”