The Heavenly Table(42)
A year later, after a spring flood sent a hundred shithouses floating down Mulberry Street into the Scioto, and six people died of cholera after drinking water from a fountain in the city park, water suspected of being tainted by the nearby jakes, the city engineer, a man by the name of Rawlings, convinced the mayor to call an emergency meeting of the city council to discuss the raw sewage situation. The engineer, fresh out of Wabash College, was brimming with modern ideas, and though he didn’t come right out and say it, for fear of being pegged a crackpot or, even worse, a Socialist, his hope was that somehow they could start pressuring citizens to install indoor plumbing. The debate went on for several hours, but in the end the city leaders reluctantly voted 5 to 1, with one abstainer, that they should hire what Rawlings referred to as a “sanitation inspector.” He admitted it was a new concept, but one he felt was necessary if they wanted to avoid any more disasters like the one that had occurred in the spring. “Good,” he said after the votes were tallied. “I’ve got just the man in mind.”
“Who might that be?” Bus Davenport, the school superintendent, asked suspiciously. After being involved professionally with children for so many years, he found it difficult to trust anyone who might possibly have been one in the past.
“Jasper Cone.”
The howls of protest could be heard three blocks away. “At least hire someone who’s qualified!” Sandy Saunders, an insurance salesman and the one nay voter, yelled, banging the silver-headed cane he always carried on the varnished floor.
“There’s not a soul in this county who knows more about filth than that boy,” the engineer said.
“And could you remind us again exactly what he’d be doing?” queried Homer Hasbro, the mayor and sole abstainer, quietly, as he poured himself a drink of water from a pitcher on the table. Though Homer was inept in almost every way, he had still somehow learned that the single best thing a politician could do to survive was absolutely nothing, and he had won his last four elections by expertly riding the fence. Privately, he was in favor of any modern convenience, but he wasn’t about to sacrifice his cushy job by becoming actually involved in pushing for one. The majority of people hated change more than anything.
“Going around and checking privies.”
“That’s it?” Saunders said incredulously.
“Of course not. If he finds one that’s in danger of overflowing and polluting a well, either their own or their neighbors’,” Rawlings explained, “he’ll issue a warning ticket. Then they’ll have a few days to set things right before the city starts fining them three dollars a week. Gentlemen, I can’t stress enough the need for immediate action. Right now there are approximately nineteen hundred outhouses within the city limits.”
“Wait a minute,” Henry Tatman, the new owner of Lange’s Grocery, said. “Who’s going to be doing the emptying? Since Cone’s a scavenger, wouldn’t this be a…a…”
“Conflict of interest?” Biff Landers said. Twenty years ago, Landers had been a law student at the University of Michigan, but a hazing incident turned deadly had gotten him expelled and seemingly stuck forever in a low-level supervisory position in the boiler house at the paper mill. Now his lungs were full of coal dust and the closest he’d ever come to realizing his dream of arguing a case in a courtroom was when he was summoned as a material witness in a former friend’s divorce proceedings. There wasn’t a day went by when he didn’t regret tying the noose around that little freshman’s neck.
“Yeah,” Herman Matthews, the real estate agent, chimed in, “he’ll be making money hand over fist. Maybe we should think this over some more.” Though he’d just voted for the measure, he was already beginning to have a change of heart. As the owner of at least a dozen rental properties, none of which had indoor plumbing, it had just occurred to him that he might be held responsible if his tenants didn’t abide by the new law.
“No,” Rawlings said, “that won’t happen. I’ve already talked to him about it. He understands he’ll have to quit the honey-dipping if he takes the inspection job.”
“But calling him an inspector?” said Saunders. “Jesus Christ, Rawlings, we’re talking about Jasper Cone. Does he even know how to read? People will think we’ve lost our goddamn minds.”
“It’s just a job title,” the city engineer replied. “Call him what you want.”
“Well, then, who’s going to take over his business?” Edgar Blaine asked. A Presbyterian minister by trade, he had recently retired, and it had taken him most of the evening to figure out exactly what was being discussed. Up until just a few minutes ago, he thought they were planning some sort of celebration. He had told his wife again this morning that his brain wasn’t working right, that it would be better if he let someone else have his seat on the council, but she wouldn’t hear of it. For some reason, no matter how many times he came down to breakfast wearing nothing but socks on his hands, or tried to butter his bread with a coffee cup, she still refused to believe that his best years were behind him. Why couldn’t she see that he just wanted to spend his time in the garden with a blanket covering his cold legs, reading through his old sermons and reflecting on the number of souls his words might have saved before he forgot what words were actually used for?