Deep in the Heart of Me (15 page)

"Tonio," she says squeezing my hand.

"What happened to your mom?" I say. I don't want to know. I don't like stories of mothers…taken away.

She runs her teeth over her bottom lip. "You can't ask me any more questions Tonio. If you're my friend, you won't."

"If you have to leave…how will I find you? Would you come back to me Sobe? Would you ever come back?"

She shakes her head, so quickly. "It won't happen. It's over now. We've only to be normal. You can't talk about this Tonio. If you stop…it goes away. Dad says it's gone away. We're just being careful now. It's better. It's fine. Please. I want to think about the party. I want to be happy."

The rest of the week leading up to Sobe's Halloween party is the most saintly and devilish of my life so far.

I turn into the scholar Maman has long prayed I would become. Albeit it's the topic of gangsters that leads me on this path.

But I have also moved into the realm of actually being a gangster though I don't have a Tommy Gun. And that's pretty much the whole thing--I get into debate over whether or not the federal government should have a say in the buying and selling of weapons with Miss Pat and several students.

Miss Pat says to save my opinions. We will debate several positions surrounding the topic of gangsters starting on Thursday. I am assigned to debate the newly passed National Firearms Act.

I don't want to debate for the Act, but against it. And I get lucky, and Miss Pat puts me on the side I want although unfortunately with Utz and Tillo, but against Sobe and my sister. Sobe raises her hand and asks not to be put in this debate, but Miss Pat says no one can change what she has decided and how do we like having a dictator?

Everything is a lesson with Miss Pat.

I do my best to ignore the Smiths. I assign them the presentation and say I'll do the talking.

And I don't mind being opposite Elsie. That's just like life pretty much, but the problem is she's heard all of my good arguments because they come from Dad as he reads the paper at the table at night and orates with the pounding finger, so Elsie is well prepared to meet my onslaught.

Or so she thinks.

But I do not favor being against Sobe. I'm still trying to walk in her good grace without falling out of it like I did Monday morning. And she pulls in quiet once she's assigned her role against me and it puts me in a pickle.

But Wednesday and Thursday I prepare my points for the debate. I have given Tillo and Utz the job of finding pictures of the weapons in question. I figure they can stand mutely behind me holding their pictures. With me doing the actual debating we will have some slight hope of victory.

What I know from Dad's tirades is that this Firearms Act is the first national law regulating firearms. It is meant to lay a heavy tax on the sale of certain kinds of weapons like sawed-off shotguns or machine guns. It's no secret why legislators need to do something to curb the easy sale of particular types of guns. Gangsters have been running all over this country stealing and shooting.

Just this year some of the most famous outlaws have been shot down. Some of my very favorites truth be told—Pretty Boy Floyd in May, and he once robbed a bank in St. Louis when I was four years old, John Dillinger in July, and Clyde Barrow and a woman he ran with, Bonnie Parker, just last week have met their bitter ends.

Dad has read us the articles from the paper. And Elsie has heard him same as me, and all he thinks. But what I have that Elsie does not is Dad's picture in his Army uniform taken before he shipped over to fight in the Great War.

This picture is one of the things I'm most proud of in my life.

Miss Pat asked if I agreed with the hero that is my dad. I couldn't think of all it inspired in me when she said that.

Lately, a most confusing thing has begun to happen where I feel angry at him. It's for one reason or another. I have never felt angry at Dad. But now, I do. The confusing thing is how ashamed I feel. But that doesn't stop me. When I steal the mule, I'm going against him. And I know I'll do it, go through with it. And even last year, or a month ago I could not have lived if I went against him. But now I can. Live. See? It's very confusing.

But I look at him in that uniform with the high collar and the cap set on the side of his head at an angle that makes him look cocky and proud. And I know he asked no one's permission to do what he thought was right.

Maman loves him already when this is taken. He is sixteen and has gone in and lied about his age he is so eager to lick the Krauts. That's what he said. And they put him in a machine-gun battalion. And he did his job.

He gets out in nineteen-eighteen, marries Maman in twenty, and I come along in twenty-one.

I look at this picture, and his face is young, like mine. I see it in him even then, a calmness. And humor. He's strong.

He doesn't talk about the war. If you ask he will laugh or smile but he only gives one sentence, and it's closed. But he stands in church on July Fourth when they ask the veterans to come forward, and he holds out his hand to the flag when we say the Pledge of Allegiance before service, and he speaks in the loudest voice, and he wipes at tears when it's done.

I think I need to make my debate with Dad's face before them. That's one thing Elsie won't see coming—Dad. I add his picture to my papers.

The day of the debate, the day before the party and the day before my theft of Otto's mule, I am practicing on the walk to school, talking out loud. I get to the schoolhouse, get inside, and Sobe is in her seat, her big eyes on me as I near her desk.

"Good morning Sobe," I say, my heart always happy when I see her.

"Good morning Tonio." She is looking at me. Upset already and I've not done a thing to earn it. Not yet.

I get everything on my desk, stacked nice and neat, and she turns around, eying everything. "Well this is the day," she says.

"What day?" I ask.

"The debate."

"Oh. That." There are other things I'm thinking of.

"Are you ready?" she says.

I know Elsie talks about me. I can just imagine some of what's said. "Sure."

"Oh? You are so confident."

And you are so pretty, I think, but I shrug.

"Aren't you…confident?" I say. I can see she is troubled.

"I hate guns."

"Hate guns?" I say. It's ridiculous to say that. Her father is a lawman. She lives with guns so how can she be so narrow?

How does she think we protect ourselves, or hunt? Does she want to go back to rocks and sticks next time we face the Kaiser or his like?

If those bad guys come…she should have a gun. She should own one and shoot one.

"Do you have a gun?" I say.

"No," she says like I'm crazy.

"You should."

"Not me," she says, her chin lifting and I know what that means.

But I must save my arguments. If this is what I'm up against, they are the ones with rocks and sticks.

Utz and Tillo come in then, the sound of their big boots resembling the sound of our team pulling the wagon in the mill.

They each hold a piece of folded paper. They come over to me, and I turn so I face both. I never let a Smith get behind me.

They each have drawn a weapon on butcher's paper. The drawings are crude
,
and the paper looks used from holding the blood sausage these types love. They will add nothing to our presentation but embarrassment. I will keep them far enough to the wall that they won't dilute my speech.

It's weird to see them eager for my approval. I nod at the drawings, and they nod back like I'm the teacher. They awkwardly fold the drawings, and I dismiss them.

Sobe looks at me. She smiles, but I see her wary and peaked. Perhaps the party is proving too daunting. Well, I never voted for it, that's for sure.

I lick my lips. I want to say that she shouldn't get mad over what I'm about to do—dismantle her argument in front of the teacher and class. But I don't want to say that. So I smile.

"You look like you're up to something," she says.

I keep the smile.

"This is my father," I begin, holding up the picture of Dad in his Army uniform. "He fought in The Great War, and it helped form his ideas about the right to bear arms."

I'm standing in front of the class, and I can see the confused look on Elsie's face, but it quickly becomes a smirk. She realizes I'm pulling out the most powerful thing we have. Dad.

Sobe is rapt with attention. Too serious.

Miss Pat asks if I can pass the photograph so they can all look. Since it's under glass, I don't mind. But Elsie seems to.

She raises her hand. Miss Pat gives her permission to speak.

"They should be careful," she says.

She means they shouldn't break the frame holding Dad's picture. I just wait for her to shut-up and let me talk. They know we're blood, and God forbid they forget my best argument is her dad, too. No use to belabor it.

So I start my speech. "James Madison said, Americans have, 'the advantage of being armed' - unlike the citizens of other countries where 'the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.'

"Patrick Henry said, 'The great objective is that every man be armed. . . . Everyone who is able may have a gun.'

"George Mason said, 'To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.'

"Samuel Adams said, 'The Constitution shall never be construed . . . to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.'

"Alexander Hamilton said, 'The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.'

"Richard Henry Lee said, 'To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.'

"I got these quotes out of the St. Louis paper. The passing of The National Firearms Act this year caused some good deal of debate and my dad read us all of that after supper, and he would tell us what he thought about the issue of bearing arms. Well, we have grown up on that.

"Originally the Act was going to lay down some new rules about a person's right to bear arms. But there was some outcry so they narrowed it down to set a pretty heavy tax on selling machine guns and sawed-off shotguns mostly.

"Dad agrees with our founding fathers. He says the first step to losing freedom comes when people lose the right to bear arms. The Second Amendment states that the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed. Infringed means something is creeping around the edges, trespassing on the thing not to be trespassed upon. The National Firearms Act is an infringement on our right to bear arms.

"The kinds of weapons they have taxed beyond the common fellow's ability to pay are the very ones superior enough to withstand an enemy in the event of our need to militarily protect ourselves."

I can see Miss Pat mouthing, 'militarily,' as if she questions whether or not it's a word, but I don't worry about it I am sticking to my…guns.

"Well, that's all I've got to say," I say.

I move to my desk and Tillo and Utz move behind me, all crinkling paper and heavy boots.

Miss Pat leads some clapping and others clap, especially some boys who laugh at what the Smiths have drawn, but they get a little loud for me, they say "Tonio!" And it feels kind of good.

Next Elsie and Sobe get up. Elsie is going to speak first as she holds her papers and glares at everyone for they are still rowdy for me.

Sobe stands with her hands behind her back. She is pale and solemn as if she's about to announce she has a serious disease. I want to stand beside her, but of course, I can't.

Everyone quiets down, and Elsie begins.

"Remember the Valentine's Day Massacre?" She eyes the class boldly.

It starts everyone talking at once. Do we remember the massacre? It's all we talked about for a year after it happened. A bunch of Irish gangsters were lined along a wall and shot to death by other gangsters, two of which were dressed to look like cops.

"This is the result of the right to bear arms without control," Elsie says in that bossy voice I hate while she shakes her speech at us.

"People are tired of gangsters using these powerful weapons to rob banks and enforce gambling and sell bawdy women," and here the boys laugh because that postcard is still in their minds probably, "…and up until a year ago making alcohol to drink and selling it too. Something had to be done so they passed the National Firearms Act to try and curb this violence!"

Everyone claps and Sobe does not speak, rather she sits down with my sister. I think their argument is weak.

"Mr. Clannan," Miss Pat says looking so satisfied like she agrees with Elsie. Well, that is just fine.

I get up and walk forward. I won't use my paper this time because I've run out of speech.

So I say, "When the Great War was over, not everyone was as lucky as my dad who returned to his parent's poor farm to try and make a living for him and the woman who is my mother.

"But it wasn't like that for everyone coming home. Lots didn't have jobs, see? So selling alcohol was illegal. They called it Prohibition and the gangs were making money off of black-market booze.

"So some guys returning from the war went to work for these gangsters—people who belonged to gangs. And they needed powerful weapons because they fought each other, the Italians and the Irish and the Jews and whoever else had a gang.

"So we're going to give up a right that keeps us free because people can't find jobs? I say no way. We don't create a bigger problem—a loss of freedom to protect ourselves- to solve another problem—people being poor and out of work and doing crime. FDR is making the jobs for people so what's the problem? The government can get off our backs."

The boys in class understand me apparently. They clap like thunder.

Miss Pat stands and quiets them down as I sit with the biggest smile on my puss that I probably ever had.

Sobe and Elsie have their heads together, and they confer. Elsie straightens in her desk, and Sobe walks forward. She stands before us, her face so serious once more it worries me.

"My dad has been a lawman for a long time," she says.

"Speak up," someone in back says, and the teacher says, "Louder Sobe."

Sobe takes in a big breath. She's about so pretty it breaks my proud, happy heart.

"Like Tonio, my opinions come from my dad. He's been a lawman for a lot of years. He's seen all kinds of goings on that have to do with guns. Like Tonio's father, he supports the Second Amendment and a citizen's right to bear arms."

She strides to where Corrine sits holding the picture of my father because it somehow got stuck there. Sobe takes the frame from Corrine and goes back to the front. She holds the picture up so all can see.

I'm thinking, 'wait a minute. That's my deal.' But it's Sobe, so I stay quiet.

"But freedom of any kind," she says, "is only as good as the frame that surrounds it." She steps to me then, third desk down in row four, behind where she sits and she gives me the picture of my father. She does not smile at me.

I take the picture with relief that she hasn't thrown it. I don't think she's mad, but she's not friendly either. Again she goes to the front of the room and pulls a small piece of paper from her pocket. Her hand is shaking.

"The Thompson Machine gun," she reads, "uses pistol instead of rifle ammunition and can be fired on the run. It weighs ten pounds, and fires standard .45-caliber automatic Colt pistol cartridge at a rate of eight hundred per minute from twenty-shot straight magazines or circular drums holding fifty or one hundred rounds," Sobe says.

Well, I have to admit you can hear a pin drop now.

She looks at us and says, "It's no secret that at the Valentine's Day Massacre bodies were ripped into pieces from a number of rounds fired into them."

I notice her voice is not shaking.

"That is the freedom to bear arms without a frame of good sense and prudent determination," she says.

Sobe walks to her desk, looks briefly at me, then turns with a kind of confident flourish and sits.

The girls clap with one driving sound.

Well, it looks like Sobe's confidence is back.

This is my third and final time up. I look at Utz and Tillo, and their mouths are still hanging open, and they are looking at me like I might as well say, "Pass."

I am Antonio Clannan. I stand and right the collar of my shirt and stride forward. I can't wait to hear what I'm going to come up with. It's not that far of a jaunt to the front. I stand up there, and they are silent, frozen almost as they wait for me to do something great.

"If as many desperate criminals have the type of weapons my opponents claim," it hurts a little to call Sobe my opponent, but I'm out to win this, "then all the more reason to allow good men everywhere to have weapons that are up to the fray." I let that sink in for a second while I try to figure out where to go next.

Oh yeah. "That is the freedom men like my father carried the red, white, and blue into battle to protect, and not so some soft-handed dry bones could sit up in Washington and slowly take away my liberty…," and I point now, slowly, to each and every, "and yours.”

That is about a direct quote from Dad. Elsie sits back hard in her desk and folds her arms.

I continue, "We are not armed so we can hunt. We are armed so, if the need presents itself, we can defend ourselves."

They get that. They are clapping and stomping even.

So I'm full gallop now, "As long as there are gangsters and killers and anarchists and fascists and dictators and tyrants we shall stand up for our Second Amendment right to bear arms."

They are still clapping, but that's all right, I've gotten louder.

"Or…," wait, wait, wait, "…we shall be overcome and suffer the fate of those in graves which can no longer stand and protect their right to liberty."

It takes them a few seconds. My mind seems to be quicker than most…in here. But it hits them then, and they go wild.

"Tonio," they say. "Tonio."

I guess that's enough. Even Miss Pat is smiling. I run my hands around my belt and try to catch Sobe's eye, but she looks at her desk and smiles this smile that is less friendly than her other look where she didn't smile at all. I pass her and sit in my desk.

Elsie is looking at Sobe for direction, but Sobe does not look across the aisle, she springs to her feet instead and clasps her hands behind her back again and takes her place up front.

They quiet down again. I quiet down. If she can best me now, she deserves to be carried on their shoulders.

"Is liberty the right to be just as hard and cruel and unfair and evil as the gangster or the killer or the anarchists or…the rest?"

No one dares answer because no one knows.

"Is liberty my right to be equal in horror? My right to shoot people on the street, innocent people who happen to be in the wrong bank at the wrong time?"

Again we stare. What bank?

"Like the little girl in Chicago who was in the drugstore when one gang leader tried to kill another. She sat near the big picture window and the outlaw sprayed the building with rounds from his Tommy gun, hundreds of bullets, raining glass on a little girl just trying to drink a milkshake."

"Oh," the girls say.

"Should her mother have pulled a Tommy gun from her purse so she could return fire?"

The girls gasp.

"Afterall, the police had failed to protect her and her little girl. And it is her Second Amendment right to bear arms for self-protection. And she could shoot hundreds of rounds to match the rounds that tore up the drugstore and could have…should have killed her little girl."

The girls are saying, "No. No," at the thought of that little girl dying with a milkshake mustache.

"And if she then accidentally killed someone else's daughter who just happened to be walking down the street, then that person would also have the right to open fire with her gun and fire hundreds of rounds into…say a passing automobile with a family inside who are riding to their grandmother's house. Whoops, she didn't mean to kill their grandma and little Johnny."

The girls are saying whole sentences now. They are outraged.

"If you can shoot me in two," Sobe says, "then I can shoot you in two. It's only fair."

"Is it fair?" Utz asks Tillo.

"Shut up and listen," Tillo says back.

Good Lord.

"But where does it end?" Sobe says. "And who says when it is enough? Who says when enough have died or been maimed? Who says when enough windows have shattered, and enough children have been cut by enough glass. Who says when the madness is over?"

She stops, looking fiercely at each of us. She gets to me, and I stare back. Then I wink.

She quickly walks back to her desk and sits down, and Elsie claps fiercely, and she looks around, and another one or two girls are intimidated enough to clap also, then more, then all of the geese flap their wings.

Miss Pat is on her feet, also clapping for Sobe. Miss Pat walks to the front of the room, but I bend closer to Sobe, and I look at the back of her head, like I do, and today she wears her hair up, in a bun, and she is looking down, and the back of her neck is very sweet and very troubled. But I've always known.