Page 2 of At Midnight Comes the Cry
“He’s aNazi!” Terry protested.
“Then tell him Russ is trying to help him! Go! Now!” Whipped by her command voice, they ran toward the tractor. Clare could hear thewhoop-whoopof a squad car signaling pedestrians out of its way, but she couldn’t make out its light bar in the blaze and glitter of the floats behind her. Should she help Russ? No, another body would just increase the chance of an accident. Terry and Bill were hanging off the sides of the tractor now, reaching inside; hopefully, dear God, about to straighten its trajectory.
In the middle of the carnival of light and dark and movement, her eye was caught by one still figure. A woman with a large white candy bucket had stopped, staring, as her float arced past, riveted in place by the sight of the men tussling on the back of the tractor. Maybe, like Clare, she was concerned for her husband.
Clare ran toward her. The woman, startled, whirled and raised her bucket—whether an offense or a defense, Clare couldn’t tell, butshe stopped short and spread her open hands. “I’m not here to hurt you.” She gestured up the road, where the siren’s sound was more pronounced. “The police are going to be here very soon. If we can stop this fight now, nobody needs to get arrested. Is that your husband?” They both looked at the back of the float. The man in question managed to shove Ron Tucker out of striking distance, but the mechanic wound his fists in the sheet and wrenched it away, flinging it onto the pavement.
“Oh no!” the woman said. She lurched toward the fallen banner.
“Leave it.” Clare grabbed the woman’s coat. “The police are going to confiscate it anyway.”
“They can’t do that! We have a right to be heard! We have a First Amendment right!”
“Look at me.” Clare pointed to her eyes. “Look at me! You don’t have a First Amendment right to brawl, and the cops aren’t going to care who threw the first punch. My husband is trying to stop it.” She pointed to where Russ clawed at Tucker’s jacket. The banner carrier, now deprived of his prize, was in it with both hands, trading blow for blow with the mechanic. “Weneed to stop it.”
“How?”
Clare hadn’t realized how keyed up she was until she felt a downbeat of relief at the woman’s question. “If your husband jumps off the float, it’ll give mine the chance to grab his assailant.” The woman looked blank. “The other guy.”
“Okay.” The woman looked doubtful. “Okay.”
Without conscious effort, they had both been walking during their conversation, keeping level with the float. Clare made a shooing motion. “I’m staying clear until I’m needed. You go. Now. Get his attention and get him off that tractor.”
The woman nodded. Trotted close to the fight, then closer. Despite her intentions, Clare drew nearer as well. Above the churn of music and shouting she could hear Russ swearing at Tucker. “Goddammit, Ron, give over!”
The brouhaha was split with the most ear-shattering shriek she had ever imagined. The wife, close enough to touch the far tire, wailedlike the goddess of vengeance, shrill and booming at the same time. Her husband flinched and reared back, while Tucker, startled, half turned. That was enough. Russ surged up, wrapped his arms around the other man, and pulled him bodily off the tractor.
The two of them stumbled backward, Tucker flailing. “Stop it, Ron!” Russ shook the mechanic. “He’s not worth it. He’s not worth it!” Clare darted forward, flinging herself at Tucker’s chest. Some deeply embedded parental training compelled him to fling his hands in the air to avoid hitting a woman. Clare took advantage by crowding him backward, toward the sidewalk, Russ tugging him in concert until they were far enough away for distance and the icy air to cool the mechanic down.
Russ rubbed the back of Tucker’s head. “Okay? You okay now?”
Tucker wiped his bleeding mouth with his parka sleeve. “Goddammit.” He spat onto the withered grass next to the sidewalk, then glanced toward Clare. “Sorry, Reverend.”
“That’s fine, Ron.” She looked at Russ.
He heard the question she wasn’t asking. “Ron’s kids are Black.”
“Oh.Oh.”
“Shouldn’t matter,” Tucker mumbled. “Decent people shouldn’t put up with trash like that.”
The Greenwich police had finally made it through the logjam of floats. One cop got out of the car and directed the tractor to the side of the road, while the other pulled their unit behind. Clare jerked her chin toward the officer, now besieged by witnesses. “Do you need to talk to them?”
Russ hesitated. “No.” He put his arm around Tucker’s back. “Let’s get Ron back to PJ’s place.”
Clare looked back. The woman who had helped her stood near the knot of people surrounding the officers, the tractor driver, and the banner man. She still clutched her bucket against her midsection, and even from a distance, she seemed lost and defeated. “I need to talk to that woman. I’ll just be a moment.”
“Clare—”
She didn’t wait to hear what undoubtedly sensible advice Russ wasabout to give her. She strode down the sidewalk, paused while Girl Scout Troop 3099’s float, a hay wagon filled with sparkler-waving kids, rolled past, and then darted across the road toward the tangle of helpful citizens eager to tell the police everything they had witnessed. With a guilty start, she saw Terry and Bill being questioned by one of the officers. She ducked her head and walked faster, making sure she was in the woman’s eyeline. She didn’t want to startle anyone with a scream like that.
The woman noticed her, and shifted, as if she might flee. Clare held up one hand. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
Clare glanced over her shoulder. “Do you have kids here?”
“Yeah.” The woman pushed a hank of hair beneath her knit cap. “I’m not worried about ’em. The others will keep an eye out.”
