Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry

CHAPTER TWO

Hugh Lanigan, chief of police of Barnard’s Crossing, pulled back his chair and, plumping himself down on its leather seat, swiveled around to face his visitor. He was a stocky man with a pleasant Irish face and snow-white hair. “What can I do for you, Padre?” he said genially.

The man in the visitor’s chair was young-not more than thirty-five. He was tall with broad shoulders and a deep chest. A pillar of neck supported a handsome, craggy face surmounted by blond, curly hair that was just beginning to thin out in two peaks above the forehead. In spite of the clerical collar and black silk rabat, he looked more like a football player than an Anglican minister. And indeed, Peter Dodge had been an All-American guard on the Wabash varsity and played professionally for several seasons before the call to enter the ministry.

“I am Peter Dodge, assistant to Dr. Sturgis at St. Andrew’s,” he said in a deep baritone.

Lanigan nodded.

“I’ve come to lodge a complaint against a couple of your men.”

“Oh? Who are they?”

“I don’t know their names-”

“Badge numbers?”

“I don’t know those either, but they were the two men riding the patrol car Wednesday night.”

Lanigan glanced at a chart on the wall. “That would be Loomis and Derry. They’re both good men. What did they do?”

“There was a fracas of some sort at Bill’s Cafe over near the Salem line-”

“I know where it is.”

“Of course. Well, there was some sort of trouble and Bill, er-the proprietor-asked some of the participants to leave. They did so without argument, but I gather they hung around outside and when customers drove up urged them not to go in. They made nuisances of themselves, but I’m sure there was nothing vicious in it. It was all quite good-natured, without animosity.”

“Even though they were urging customers to stay away?”

“I spoke to the proprietor and he assured me he did not take the matter seriously-”

“Oh, then you weren’t there at the time.”

“No, I came along some time afterward.”

“In the course of your regular evening walk?”

The younger man showed his surprise. “You know that I take a walk every evening? Don’t tell me I’m under police surveillance?”

The chief smiled. “This is a small town, Padre, but we’ve got a lot of territory to cover and not enough men to do a thorough job. Other towns are the same way. If you want to cover the area with foot patrolmen, you need a lot more men than the town is willing to pay for. And cruising cars or motorcycles miss a lot. So we use a combination of the two, and take up the slack by trying to know things before they happen. You’re new here-couple of months?”

Dodge nodded.

“And I suppose you come from a big city”-he hesitated-“from the Midwest judging by your accent-”

“ South Bend.”

“Well, that’s a pretty big city. People who live in cities usually aren’t aware of their police until they actually need them. The police are a service they expect will function when they need them the same way they expect water when they turn on the tap or electricity when they flip a switch. But in small towns like this, police are still people. They’re neighbors and friends and you know them the way you do any other neighbor. It’s part of our job to know what’s going on. We see a man walking along the street after dark, and the patrolman on the beat will make a point of speaking to him.” He looked at the young minister quizzically. “Weren’t you ever approached by a policeman?”

“Oh, shortly after I came, but he only asked if he could help me. I suppose he thought I was looking for a street number.”

“And you explained that you always take a walk after dinner?”

“Oh-”

“You start out from Mrs. Oliphant’s where you board, and you go up Oak Street just beyond Colonial Village, and then you swing down Main Street over to the Salem line, and then along the waterfront and home.”

“So that’s how it’s done?”

“That’s how it’s done.”

“And if instead of this collar, I had been wearing-well, ordinary clothes?”

“Then he would have been just as polite, but probably he would have asked a few more questions. And maybe if you had explained you were just walking to the bus station, he might have suggested you wait for the cruising car to give you a lift.”

“I see.”

“Now my guess is that you came by Bill’s place about half-past eight and found the boys standing around, full of indignation, and asked them-”

“One of them goes to our church. And according to him, and the others agreed, your two policemen were abusive and unnecessarily rough. There were two Negro lads in the group. You men were especially abusive to them.”

It crossed Lanigan’s mind idly that his own pastor, Father O’Shaughnessy, would have referred to them as “colored boys” but doubted Dodge would understand no offense was intended. “Your complaint then is that my men were unnecessarily rough? Did they hit them? Did they use their clubs?”

“I want to make it clear, first of all, that the cruising car was not called; it just happened by.”

“Yeah, we check Bill’s place two or three times a night.”

“Which would indicate that nothing very serious had happened there.”

“All right.”

“I’m mostly concerned about the particular abuse that was meted out to the Negro lads. This isn’t Alabama, I hope.”

“So that’s it. You’re connected with the Civil Rights movement, aren’t you?”

“I certainly am.”

“All right. Now what happened to the colored boys that upset you?”

“Well, for one thing, I protest their having been singled out. They were pushed and one of them fell. Your men were vituperative, and as public servants I don’t think-”

“Maybe that’s the point, Padre, I mean that they are public servants. But they think of themselves as servants of the Barnard’s Crossing public rather than the public in general, and those two boys were not from our town.”

“How do you know?”

“Because we have no colored families in Barnard’s Crossing. And before you go jumping to conclusions, let me assure you that it isn’t because we don’t want them or because we have some sort of gentlemen’s agreement to keep them out. It’s just that real estate prices around here are high and most Negroes can’t afford it.”

He wondered whether it was worthwhile trying to explain to this outlander how things were in Barnard’s Crossing. “You’ve got to understand the situation here, Padre. Ed Loomis, and I guess it must have been Ed, has no prejudice against blacks, or against any other ethnic group. We don’t have much of that kind of thing in this town. The spirit of the town is live and let live, and after you’ve been here a while, you’ll realize it. It was settled by people who left Salem because they didn’t want the theocracy there telling them what they could do and couldn’t do. And for a long time we had neither church nor minister here. They were a rough lot, but they were tolerant, and I’m inclined to believe that both traditions have carried down some to the present. The fact that my people, Irish Catholic, could settle here during colonial times will give you some idea of the spirit of tolerance that prevailed. Those two boys were from Salem, and I suppose there is a kind of prejudice against outsiders, and that would include anyone not born here. They call them foreigners. But I assure you that Ed Loomis meant nothing personal. If it’s wrong for Barnard’s Crossing police to shoo out-of-towners a little more forcefully than they would local youngsters, at least it’s understandable.”

“So you condone it?”

“I don’t condone it, but I understand it.”

“I don’t think it’s enough. Mr. Braddock, the chairman of the Board of Selectmen, is a member of our church and I intend to speak to him about it.”

Lanigan pursed his lips. Then he glanced at the clock on the wall and leaned back in his swivel chair far enough to see down the connecting corridor to the sergeant’s desk. “Will you contact the patrol car, Joe?” he called out. “See that they get right down to the temple to help with the traffic. I spoke to the rabbi, and he said they’d start arriving around half-past six and that traffic would be heaviest between a quarter of and a quarter past seven. They can leave after that and Lem’l can stay on for another half hour. Then they can circle back and pick him up.”

He straightened up in his chair and smiled at his visitor. “You go right ahead and talk to Alf Braddock about Ed, Padre. He knows Ed Loomis pretty well. Ed crews for him during Race Week.”