The Side of the Angels (20 page)

The next morning's
Winsack Eagle-Gazette
made no pretense at neutrality. Their lead editorial was titled “Why we're rooting for our nurses.” I was dismayed, though, to see a full-page ad taken out by the “Winsack Concerned Citizens for Quality Care.” The ad showed a photo of a nurse, in a cap and uniform-dress of the kind nurses hadn't worn in years, bending tenderly over the bedside of a wizened old man in an oxygen mask. The headline beneath the picture asked, in seventy two-point type, “Who will be there for him now?” It went on to bemoan the fact that the nurses of St. Francis, “misled by higher-ups at union headquarters,” had deserted their patients to tell experienced hospital administrators how to do their jobs.

The Concerned Citizens were a front group for the hospital. It wasn't an uncommon trick in labor disputes for the employer to invent a phony community group to feature in ads and direct mail, but how many other people would know that? The ad played up the one point on which we were vulnerable, and we had yet to get more than a reserved mention on the Boston stations. Still, it was a decent beginning.

“Great job so far, Nicky,” Ron said when he called me at 6
A.M.
“Weingould's hearing about our initial coverage and he's very happy.”

“I'm glad he's happy, Ron, but a little local hostility isn't going to faze Coventry. They want to make an example of our crowd for the other facilities in their chain.”

“Always so doom and gloom.”

“I'm being realistic.”

“You haven't asked about the Campsters.”

“Damn. How could I forget them? You know what deep meaning that assignment has for me.”

“Well, you'll be glad to know that Wendy's really dazzling Janet. They're best girlfriends all of a sudden.”

I was sure Wendy made that clear to Ron several times a day.

“Janet's even having Wendy dog-sit when she goes to Bermuda next month.”

I didn't envy Wendy that. I had met Jantsy's three German shepherds—Conrad, Heinrich, and Wolly by name—one ill-fated day when Janet had me drop by her miniature English manor in Potomac with a program layout for a benefit concert for Appalachian folk musicians. I like dogs, but these were big enough to saddle and ride, with expressions so ill-tempered that you wondered if they'd been trained with kicks and blows to hate every representative of the human species. Jantsy did not seem particularly fond of her slobbering pets. Perhaps she kept them on the assumption that they'd protect her from thieves and rapists who might somehow make it out of the city on the bus, coming straight for her house from the T9 stop down the street in order to attack her in her cozy kitchen, which had the approximate square footage of a major pharmaceutical lab.

I didn't want to compete with Wendy for Ron's approval. I didn't respect Ron enough for his approval to be anything but a matter of moral concern should I win it. So I said airily, “Wendy never lets us down. Did you get my message about the mammogram ad concept?”

“Yes, and you're overreacting. People understand that advertising is exaggerated.”

“Ron, have you seen any of those TV ads about male impotence? They're as soft and evasive as feminine hygiene commercials.”

“Sometimes you have to shock people into listening to you.”

“If you're talking about gun control or drunk driving. Not if you want them to do something that's already scary.”

“If you don't scare them, they won't show up for the, er, physicals.”

“Mammograms, Ron. You were at the focus group. When the facilitator listed possible reasons for not participating in the program, what was it that three-quarters of the women there said they agreed with?”

“I can't remember. You know how many focus groups I go to in a month?”

“It was ‘fear of finding out I have cancer,' Ron. So why would you think the best approach is to slap that fear six feet high on the side of their local bus stop shelter?”

“The graphic was great. Really eye-catching, with the red and black.”

“Use it for something else. You and I both know it was clip-art you had someone doctor up. And Helvetica Bold isn't a typeface, it's an anachronism. Why do you
always
ask for Helvetica Bold?”

“It's a nice clean typeface. I like it.”

“Like it on some other campaign.”

He gave an exaggerated sigh.

“Fine, Nicky. I guess I was phoning it in a little. We're up to our necks in work here.”

“What's the deadline?”

“We have a little time to play with. They liked our initial proposal. Thanks for that, by the way.”

By the way. I'd given up three weekends for that proposal, just because I thought the project had such merit.

“Let me come up with another concept.”

“How are you going to do that, Nicky? You'll be lucky to get five hours' sleep a night as it is.”

“I want to do this. And no offense, but I get this one better than you do, Ron. Who's the woman here? Who has to stand in the shower feeling herself up every four weeks?”

“Okay, okay,” he said hurriedly. When push came to shove, I could
always embarrass Ron into capitulating. He pretended to be such a smooth, sophisticated operator, but underneath he had the shrinking sensibilities of a Tennyson heroine.

I told Ron that the construction trades and the Teamsters had pledged their guys to turn out. The firefighters were all lined up—and the public likes firemen almost as much as they like nurses. Tony had mentioned, in a brief moment of cordiality to me, that most of the lab techs, secretaries, and accountants on the hospital staff would likely come picket with us on their lunch hours. They knew that if nurses were being targeted today, it would be their turn tomorrow.

“Couldn't be going better,” said Ron.

“Don't get Weingould too excited yet. This is not going to be a walkover.”

“Did I say I'd promise him an easy victory? He knows what we're up against. But any good news will calm him down.”

I could picture Weingould pacing his office, barking incoherent questions to Ron and wiping his forehead. He had reason to sweat. If this strike failed, Jerry Goreman would be the first to point out that St. Francis was the sort of expensive disaster that the union could expect if it persisted in the risky venture of hospital organizing. And with Hamner on site feeding Goreman all the dirty details, there was no chance that any mistakes on our end would be missed.

“The scab nurses are going to be arriving any second. Tell Wendy I'm going to need more background on Jet-a-Nurse. Anything and everything she can find. Tell her to try that strike in Seattle three years ago. There was something about a scab there giving a triple dose of morphine after an appendectomy.”

“You've got it. By the way, how are you and Boltanski making out?”

“Only slightly better than expected.”

“I heard Hamner is on the scene, too. Are you controlling yourself?”

“For now, but if he gives me any trouble, don't count on me not to rip him a new one.”

“I wouldn't blame you, but try not to give him and Goreman any ammunition.”

“They won't need me for that. Doug's probably on the phone right now, making St. Francis sound like potentially the biggest labor disaster since the Haymarket Massacre.”

“You're a pro, Nicky. I know you can handle this.”

Ron was happy with me. For now. Of course, if this strike didn't end in a blaze of glory, he'd blame me for everything in a mournful, I-expected-better-of-you voice.

T
HE FIRST DAYS
of a strike are always exhilarating. There are lots of people on the picket line chanting and shouting, and it seems the whole town has come out to support you. For the people on the ground, who've put in months of waiting, it's exciting to be taking action of any kind, at last.

I went down to picket every noontime, to do my bit and soak up motivation for what promised to be a long haul. The bright bobbing signs and camera lights gave the place a carnival atmosphere. There was a constant invigorating din of beeping cars past the hospital entrance, since a union member named Lester Sinclair had insisted on standing on the traffic island just opposite with a large fluorescent-green sign that read, “Honk LOUD if you support the striking nurses.” The resulting cacophony was cheering, although Kate questioned the wisdom of letting Lester stand where he could startle drivers.

Lester's strike uniform was a brown corduroy coat, a hat of Russian fur that made it seem as if a chipmunk were nestled on his head, trousers in electric-blue polyester, and work boots that looked as close to hobnailed boots as any modern footwear I've ever seen. Someone—his mother?—had appliquéd “Proud to be union” in gold satin letters on the back of his jacket. He was a fearful sight.

That first week everyone came: the Gray Panthers, the St. Jude's choir, the firefighters and police unions, the faculty of Winsack Community College, and dozens of public school teachers, some of whom remembered the big teachers strike of 1978 when it was their jobs on the line and the nurses pitched in. Whole families came. While the sunny dry weather held, we had babies on every shift. Margaret decorated their strollers with huge helium balloons in blue and white.

A police cruiser and an officer or two were there every day, but they didn't interfere, even when a Mrs. Margot Lemura complained to the
Eagle-Gazette
that her elderly mother couldn't sleep in her hospital room because of the noise. A day later the
Gazette
discovered that her mother was in for a face-lift, which shut that story down fast. The cops stood by casually, leaning against the cruiser and telling jokes, warming their hands on the coffee we brought them and eating more than their share of muffins.

The other representative of the law was the hospital's daytime security guard, a big, jovial fellow named Bill Fitzgerald, who hung around on the periphery of the picket line with his guard dog, a husky named Punch. Punch's companion husky, Judy, sometimes appeared with him, but most days Punch was solo. Apparently Judy was a bit of a diva who left the grunt work to her long-suffering mate.

We all liked Bill, who was visibly sympathetic, and Punch was a big favorite too. He was lavished with our best scraps and amenable to petting. Only not in front of Mr. Winslow, Bill requested, since it might have perturbed Winslow to see Punch frisking around our team, trading his virtue for dog biscuits and tummy rubs. The only striker to whom Punch took an aversion was the demon-child Eric. Eric teased the dog endlessly, trying to “coochee-coo” Punch under the chin, attempting to make Punch beg for snacks or learn to play dead. By the third day the poor animal would turn skittish and growly at the very sight of Eric.

Winslow entered and exited the hospital through a side entrance, though sometimes he nodded at the picketers as if to say, “I'm pained that I cannot acknowledge you, but I remain the cordial, mannerly fellow you've all come to know.” Other Coventry suits came and went, shadowy figures behind the tinted windows of airport limos. The replacement nurses arrived en masse the day after the strike was announced. With frightened faces, they scuttled out of vans and eventually reappeared in the windows of the hospital, peering out from behind the curtains of patients' rooms as if they expected rocks to be thrown at them.

Tony did stints on the picket line, too, but never when I was there. He'd review drafts of my flyers and strike newsletters and leave his
changes in writing on my desk. Sometimes I'd see him joking with Suzanne, who seemed to me to be always underfoot. Didn't they need her at her big consulting firm in Boston? Every morning I had to steel myself to look unconcerned when I saw Suzanne consulting Tony about his daily whereabouts, barely pretending that she needed to know for reasons of business. Every afternoon she'd be perched on the edge of his desk for the duration of any short break he could spare, calmly appropriating his time, her low laugh sometimes audible through the din of the strike office.

It's not that I wanted Tony, I told myself. I just wanted to … even the score. When you meet an old lover, you should be on top of the world. At your goal weight, better dressed than in the days you were with him, more sure of your direction, and nourished by some hidden sustenance. Another man, perhaps, or great professional success, or the simple knowledge that you are lucky as hell to be quit of him.

Instead I was tired and overworked, limping with disillusionment over Jeremy's betrayal, living out of a suitcase. Suzanne was living out of a suitcase, too, of course, but it must have been a different sort of suitcase than mine. She remained beautifully groomed, with a varied wardrobe that it must have taken six bellboys to haul up to her hotel room.

If I'd been an objective observer, I'd have admitted that Suzanne and Tony made a good-looking pair. Suzanne stood about five foot five, and had those finely drawn features, that effortless slimness. She made Tony's stocky build and blunt nose and chin look rugged and muscular.

He'd never been so nicely set off when next to me. I was too tall to gaze up at him admiringly, as Suzanne did. And while I was no Brunhilde, I was definitely too sturdy to lay my hand on his arm very, very lightly when asking a question, as if it were a rose leaf that had just drifted there.

I'd have liked to tell Suzanne that Tony might seem like Secret Agent Man now, but she should see him when he had a cold. A sniveling baby, that's what he was, lying on the couch and sipping ginger ale through a curly glass child's straw. His wandering life might look glamorous and daredevil now, but wait until she had a family christening to
attend and Tony was off in Gadsden, Alabama, busy searching through trash bins for the employee list of some chicken processing plant so that he and his crew could start approaching them on their off hours about joining the union.