Promises to Keep - Ann Tatlock [57]
“Oh no, Wally. I won’t have you doing that. You need to eat here with the rest of us.”
“Yeah, well, no thanks.” He gave Tom Barrows a grumpy look, served himself up a plate of pork chops and potatoes, and headed for the stairs.
“Wally!” Mom called.
“Let him go,” Tillie said. “He’ll poison the atmosphere if he stays, and then we’ll all lose our appetites. These pork chops cost fifty-nine cents a pound, and I won’t have them wasted.”
Mom cast apologetic eyes at our visitor. “I’m sorry, Tom.”
“It’s all right, Janis. I was a teenaged boy myself once. I know how it is.”
Tillie snorted out a laugh as she untied her apron and laid it over the back of her chair. “You were a teenager twenty years ago, Tom. Today’s young men would make the worst of your lot look like a bunch of altar boys, hair all slicked down and shoes all spit-polished to a shine.”
“What do you mean, Tillie?” Mom asked, looking stricken.
“You know exactly what I mean, Janis. Look at the world these kids are facing. What with the war and the hippies and all the drugs and this . . . this . . . this so-called sexual revolution,” Tillie sputtered. “ ‘Make love, not war,’ they say, when heaven knows they’re far too young to be making either one – ”
“Tillie,” Mom interrupted, casting a glance at me.
“Something’s happening to this country, and it isn’t good,” Tillie went on, undeterred. “Something’s happening, and it’s happening fast.”
The five of us were seated now, with warm serving dishes being passed from hand to hand. Tom Barrows spooned a mountain of mashed potatoes onto his plate with a swift flick of his wrist. “People have lost their civility,” he said.
“Oh, they’ve lost a whole lot more than that,” Tillie argued. “They’ve lost their faith, and that’s the problem right there.”
“Their faith in what?” Mom asked.
“Why, their faith in everything, Janis. Everything. It’s like an anchor’s been cut, and the whole country’s drifting, just drifting without any clear direction. It’s as though no one knows where to go or even whether there is anywhere to go or if we’re all just sailing along for no apparent reason. So our young men, who are supposed to be our up-and-coming leaders, mind you, they’re all tuning themselves out like Timothy Leary and getting high on that marijuana tobacco and singing about some answer that’s blowing in the wind. Blowing in the wind, my foot! The answer’s plain as day, and it’s blowing right over their long-haired heads.” To demonstrate, she drew an arc in the air from her chin to the back of her head.
“I’m not sure I’m following – ”
“And everybody’s angry, in case you haven’t noticed,” Tillie said, cutting Mom off. “The feminists are angry and the Negro folks are angry and the young folks are angry – with Wally a case in point – and the intellectuals are angry – ”
“Tillie – ”
“And the artists and the musicians are angry and the politicians are angry, especially the liberals, those fine folks who love all of humanity but can’t stand individual people – ”
“Well, surely, Tillie – ”
“And meanwhile everyone’s going around carrying peace signs and calling for peace and singing about peace and being angry about the fact that there’s no peace to be had, while all the while they’re mocking the very one, the only one, mind you, who can give them peace, and that’s the Lord.” By now Tillie was viciously buttering a piece of bread, and when she finished, she slammed the knife down on the table. “They mock Him by denying His very existence, but instead of feeling free, they just feel angry because suddenly life doesn’t make sense anymore. They want to be rid of God, and they want life to have meaning anyway, and it just doesn’t work and it makes them angry. And anger kills. I’ve lived long enough to know, and I can see it coming. Anger is going to be right at the heart of the demise of this country. America is going to fall, and when we do, we’re not getting back up again.” She paused and looked at each of us – Mom, wide-eyed and perplexed; Tom, blinking heavily behind his glasses; me, who didn’t have a clue what