shirt with a stiff collar, and a brown cravat. He added a mother-of-pearl stickpin and sat to button his brown, high-topped shoes. A final look in the full-length door mirror revealed a six-foot, two-inch dark-haired man from the mid-eighteen hundreds looking back at him. He opened the door and handed out his damp shoes, socks and overcoat to Matt and after thanking him for his service, Bill walked down the mahogany-paneled hallway to another door and pressed a button. A humming sound announced the arriving elevator. The door opened, and a young man in a dark brown uniform topped off with a flat cap greeted him.
“Good evening, Mr. Scott.”
“Evening, Drew. Nice size crowd tonight?”
“Not bad, sir. Especially for a rainy evening.”
“Good, good.”
The door opened on the main floor, and Bill stepped out. He heard the mumble of indistinct voices as he headed to the spacious room filled with other club members. He saw a stack of newspapers on a small, mahogany table just outside the doorway and picked one up and looked at it.
I love it! No e-mail here, he thought as he folded the newspaper, no Charlene Greene either. Then again, no Charlene Greene out there anymore, either, except of course when I go to work. Boy, I really have to change jobs. He winced, Got to stop thinking about her . . . got to, but four years is a long time to hear her suddenly say, “It’s not you, it’s me.” Then asking if I could get a different apartment. He shook his head; she seems to have forgotten that she moved in with me four years ago!
He stood straight and looked in a long mirror. “It’s a new life,” he said to his reflection. “Each day is a new day and I’m going to have fun doing things I’ve always wanted to do.” He smiled at himself- “Like coming to my club and indulging in my favorite pastime; pretending that I’m back in the mid-eighteen hundreds.”
He entered the room and noticed the cigar smoke that clung close to the ceiling. A waiter approached him with glasses of white and red wine. “Wine, sir?”
“Thanks,” Bill said, lifting a glass of the red.
He walked over to a window covered by heavy, red, floor-to-ceiling drapes, which were always kept closed. No sense in making believe that we are back in the mid-eighteen hundreds if we see the present-day New York skyline. He put down his wineglass and picked up a cigar from one of the silver trays strategically placed around the room and lit it. He blew a large, round oval of smoke and watched it join the haze close to the ceiling.
“Bravo! I tell you, Bill, we should have a smoke-ring contest. I do believe you are the only person who can get close to matching my orbs.”
Bill smiled at Philip Corouso, a heavyset, gray-bearded man in his mid-fifties. “Well, Philip,” he retorted, “I do believe that you take lessons from those smoke-belching cannons of your artillery unit.”
The big man laughed and the medals on the breast of his blue uniform tinkled against each other. The crossed-cannons on his collar denoted that he was a colonel in the Union Army’s artillery unit. “You also have the fastest retort in the club.”
Bill nodded graciously.
The colonel continued, “I’m serious. And I don’t think I’ve ever heard you speak out of ‘club time.’”
“It’s easy for me not to drift out of it, sir, as I’ve always been happy in ‘club time.’ And I do believe we are walking a fine line even acknowledging the term ‘club time.’ Agree?”
“Yep! Right you are,” answered the colonel taking a long pull on his cigar.
“I do not wish to be another Stan Walker,” Bill said looking around. “I understand he’s attending tonight’s dinner.”
Philip nodded as he exhaled. “Yes. He’s still a member. But . . . the word is he’s on probation, and nobody will talk to him. Nobody wants to take a chance and slip up if he starts speaking of . . . of . . . err . . . speaking of other things.”
Bill winked. “Right.”
Phil took a final swig of his drink. “Got to excuse me, Bill. Have to use the facilities, and it’s hell with these buttons.” He grinned and walked off.
Bill looked around the room at the other members, but he was content to lean against the windowsill and enjoy his cigar, sip his wine and glance at the Harper’s Weekly headlines; LINCOLN FIRES GENERAL MCCLELLAN, WAR DRAGS ON!
It’s easy, he thought, for me to stay in ‘club time’ because I’m happy in ‘club time.’
He had long felt that the 1860s must have been a wonderful period, except for the war. But it seemed as though there was a war almost every twenty or thirty years and it came with the territory.
Bill glanced up to see a thin man approaching him. Darn! It’s Stan Walker.
Too late to escape, Bill smiled and started a conversation along the correct lines.
“Evening, Mister Walker. It seems as though Mister Lincoln fired another general. Pretty soon we’ll have no one left to lead our boys to victory. What say you of this latest turn of events, sir?”
Walker fidgeted with his cravat, obviously uneasy with it. “Uh . . . yes . . . I . . . err . . . I haven’t seen tonight’s paper. He fired McClennon you say?”
“McClellan, Mr. Walker, not McClennon. General George McClellan. They say he was inept. Kept letting the Johnny Rebs slip away.”
“Oh McClellan. Yes, I remember now. He lost a few battles, didn’t he?”
“More than a few, sir.”
“So, Mister Scott. How do you think the war will turn out?”
“Hard to tell, Mr. Walker. We northerners have the railroads and that’s a big thing in our favor.”
“Yes, and if I remember my history correctly, the rails are what won the war for-“
Bill abruptly turned to leave as he shook his head. “Mr. Walker, I do not mean to be rude, but you speak as though you know the end result of this turmoil, and we both know that’s not possible. Am I correct, sir?”
Walker knew he had slipped up . . . again. He had spoken out of ‘club time.’ He looked around to see if he had been overheard.
Bill leaned closer and said softly, “Walker, for your own good and mine, I’m ending this conversation. I truly enjoy this club. No hassle, no hustle and bustle. It’s my few hours each week that I can escape reality. Some people drink to escape, this club is my refuge, and you keep breaking its only rule by speaking out of ‘club time.’”
Walker looked embarrassed. “I . . . I try. I just slip up now and then.”
“Maybe you’re not as at ease as the others, Mr. Walker. You wouldn’t be the first person to quit.”
“No, no, I really like the club. It’s just that I seem to forget and –“
A waiter approached Walker and said, “Mr. Walker, would you be so kind as to accompany me to the President’s office?”
Walker looked lost. “The President’s office? Why would he want to see me?”
Walker was escorted away. Bill shook his head, sank into one of the overstuffed, leather chair and started to read again as thunder rumbled in the background.
“Dinner is served,” Matt announced.
Bill checked his pocket watch and noted to himself, “Eight sharp.”
He followed the small group into the club’s lavish dining room. Looking around, he saw that Stan Walker was missing. Then Bill noticed that club president, Prescott Stevens’ seat at the head of the table was empty.
As he chose a chair next to Miss Alexander, a thirtyish blonde with an oversized bustle, she turned and said, “Hello, Mr. Scott. Terrible weather, isn’t it?”
“Certainly is, Miss Alexander.”
“Please, call me Jane.”
Bill nodded. “And call me Bill,” thinking; Charlene never understood my love of this period. Too bad she couldn’t be more like Jane . . . oh well.
She inclined her head, and then turned her attention to Phil Corouso across the table.
“Colonel, please enlighten us as to the reason our great President fired General McClellan?”
The colonel furrowed his brow and, sensing that h
e had just become the center of the table’s conversation, pushed back his chair and pronounced, “Well, ma’am, General McClellan was in way over his head, so to speak. He sat still so long that General Lee just built up his resources and struck first. He forced the President’s hand.”
“Tell me, sir, what would you have done in the general’s position?” came a question from Andrew Giddons, an “old money” member whose fortune came from the railroads.
The colonel shifted his chair to face Giddons. “I’d have attacked two months ago. The weather was perfect, and he had plenty of manpower and supplies available to him.”
Giddons’ nod acknowledged his agreement. “And the rails to move them, I might add.”
The colonel nodded vigorously, “Absolutely, sir, absolutely. The rails will take the war to a decision on our side, I dare say.”
Giddons smiled and raised his glass of wine, saying, “To the railroads of the north!”
The colonel raised his glass in agreement as the diners heard a new voice say, “I see the war is the topic of the evening, ladies and gentlemen.”
Chairs scraped as all turned to see President Prescott Stevens being seated at the head of the table. The guests smiled at him. He signaled a waiter, and dinner was served.
The conversation continued, with the weather and the war being the subjects most discussed. After-dinner cigars were offered along with brandy. Most of the women demurely declined the cigars, the exception being Jane Alexander who easily joined the dozen men at the great, roaring fireplace in the club’s den.
President Stevens turned and with