Fifty Degrees Below

‘Sorry. I’ll calm down.’

Joe rolled his head on Charlie’s neck. ‘No,’ he said.

‘Ha,’ Phil said, grinning. ‘Caught in another one.’

Charlie could just glimpse the boy’s red cheek and furrowed brow. He could feel Joe’s agitation; clearly he was once more locked into one of his mighty dreams, which from his sleeping scowls and jerks appeared to be fierce struggles, filled with heartfelt Nos. Joe awakened from them with big sighs of relief, as if escaping to a quieter, lesser reality, a kind of vacation cosmos. It worried Charlie.

Phil noticed Joe’s distress, patted his damp head. Step by broad step they ascended the Memorial.

To Phil this place was sacred ground. He loved Lincoln, had studied his life, often read in the nine volumes of his collected works. ‘This is a good place,’ he said as he always did when visiting the memorial. ‘Solid. Foursquare. Like a dolmen. Like the Parthenon.’

‘Especially now, with all the scaffolding.’

Phil looked in at the big statue, still stained to the knees, a sight that made him grimace. ‘You know, this city and the Federal government are synonymous. They stand for each other, like when people call the administration “the White House”. What is that, metonymy?’

‘Metonymy or synecdoche, I can never remember which.’

‘No one can.’ Phil walked inside, stopped short at the sight of the stained inner walls. ‘Damn it. They are going to let this city sink back into the swamp it came out of.’

‘That’s synecdoche I think. Or the pathetic fallacy.’

‘Pathetic for sure, but how is it patriotic? How do they sell that?’

‘Please Phil, you’re gonna wake him up. They have it both ways, you know. They use code phrases that mean something different to the Christian right than to anyone else.’

‘Like the beast will be slain or whatnot?’

‘Yes, and sometimes even more subtle than that.’

‘Ha ha. Clerics, everywhere you look. Ours are as bad as the foreign ones. Make people hate their government at the same time you’re scaring them with terrorists, what kind of program is that?’ Phil drifted through the subdued crowd toward the left wall, into which was incised the Gettysburg Address. The final lines were obscured by the flood’s high water mark, a sight which made him scowl. ‘They had better clean this up.’

‘Oh they will. He was a Republican, after all.’

‘Abraham Lincoln was no Republican.’

‘Hello?’

‘The Republicans in Congress hated him like poison. The goddammed Copperheads did everything they could to sabotage him. They cheered when he was killed, because then they could claim him as a martyr and rip off the South in his name.’

‘Limited value in hitting them with that now.’

‘But it’s still happening! I mean whatever happened to government of the people by the people and for the people not perishing from this earth?’ Pointing at the marred lines on the wall, looking as heavily symbolic as an image in a Cocteau film.

‘An idea that lost?’ Charlie said, spurring him on.

‘Democracy can’t lose. It has to succeed.’

‘“Democracy will never succeed, it takes up too many evenings.”’

‘Ha. Who said that?’

‘Oscar Wilde.’

‘Please. I mean, I see his point, but don’t quote Oscar Wilde to me when I’m trying to think like Abraham Lincoln.’

‘Wilde may be more your level.’

‘Ha ha.’

‘Wilde was witty just like that.’

‘Ha ha ha.’

Charlie gave up tweaking Phil in favor of contemplating the mud-stained statue of the sixteenth president. It was a great work: massive, brooding, uneasy. The big square-toed boots and obviously handmade broadcoat somehow evoked the whole world of the nineteenth century frontier. This was the spirit that America had given to the world – its best gesture, its exemplary figure.

His oversized hands were dirty. The great bearded head looked sadly over them. The whole interior space of the building had a greatness about it – the uncanny statue, the high square ceiling, the monumental lettering of the speeches on the side walls, the subdued people visiting it. Even the kids there were quiet and watchful.

Perhaps it was this that woke Joe. He yawned, arched back in his seat, whacked Charlie on the head. ‘Down! Down!’

‘Okay okay.’

Charlie went back outside to let him down. Phil came along, and they sat on the top step and let Joe stretch his legs behind them.

A TV crew was working at the bottom of the steps, filming what looked to be a story on the memorial’s reattachment to land. When the reporter spotted them, he came up to ask Phil if he would make a comment for the program.

‘My pleasure,’ Phil said. The reporter waved his crew over, and soon Phil was standing before the camera in a spot where Lincoln loomed over his left shoulder, launching into one of his characteristic improvs. ‘I’m sick of people putting Washington down,’ he said, waving a hand at the city. ‘What makes America special is our constitution, and the laws based on it – it’s our government that makes America something to be proud of, and that government is based here. So I don’t like to see people wrapping themselves in the flag while they trash the very country they pretend to love. Abraham Lincoln would not stand for it –’

‘Thanks, Senator! I’m sure we can use that. Some of it, anyway.’

‘I should hope so.’

Then a shout of alarm came from inside the building, causing Charlie to shoot to his feet and spin around, looking for Joe – no luck. ‘Joe!’ he cried, rushing inside.

Past the pillars he skidded to a halt, Phil and the TV crew crashing in behind him. Joe was sitting up on Lincoln’s knee, far above them, looking around curiously, seemingly unaware of the long drop to the marble floor.

‘Joe!’ Charlie tried to catch his attention without causing him to topple off. ‘Joe! Don’t move! Joe! Stay there!’

How the hell did you get up there, he didn’t add. Because Lincoln’s marble chair was smooth and vertical on all sides; there was no way up it even for an adult. It almost seemed like someone had to have lifted him up there. Of course he was an agile guy, a real monkey, very happy on the climbing structures at Gymboree. If there was a way, he had the will.

Charlie hustled around the statue, hoping to find Joe’s route up and follow it himself. There was no way. ‘Joe! Stay right there! Stay right there till we get you!’

A group was gathering at Lincoln’s feet, ready to catch Joe if he fell off. He sat there looking down at them with an imperial serenity, completely at ease. The TV cameraman was filming everything.

The best Charlie could think to do was to request a boost from two willing young men, and clamber onto their shoulders as they stood on Lincoln’s right boot and wrapped their arms around his calf. From there Charlie could reach up with his arms and almost reach Joe, although at that point it was a balancing act, and things were precarious. He had to talk Joe into toppling over into his hands, which of course took a while, as Joe was clearly happy where he was. Eventually, however, he tipped forward and Charlie caught him, and let him down between his legs onto the two young men and a nest of hands, before falling back himself into the arms of the crowd.

The crowd cheered briefly, then gave them a little round of applause. Charlie thanked the two young men as he collected the squirming Joe from other strangers.

‘Jesus, Joe! Why do you do these things?’