God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

A phone call interrupts Eliot as he reads Ulm’s book. The caller is a man who is having thoughts of suicide and found Eliot’s phone number on a sticker in a phone booth. The sticker says, “Don’t Kill Yourself. Call the Rosewater Foundation” (102). Eliot asks what it would cost for the man to live another week and invites him to visit the office.

Eliot has a ledger he calls the “Domesday Book,” in which he enters each client’s name, difficulty, and the foundation’s response. He prints the name “Sherman Wesley Little” for the man who just called. Eliot awards him a $300 fellowship. Eliot’s most common prescription is “AW,” meaning “aspirin and wine” (106). The letters “FH” stand for “fly hunt,” which is when Eliot distracts people from their pain by inviting them to help him get rid of the flies in his office.

The back of the ledger contains the beginning of an unfinished novel by Eliot. A deceased elderly man from 1587 narrates it in the first person. He is in a queue with other souls who wish to return to Earth because they are bored in Heaven. The narrator, however, does not wish to be reborn because his village burned him at the stake for witchcraft. He dissociates from his body, which he refers to as his “meat.” He explains that he “wanted out of that meat” (112) because he, like many others, lived a tortured life. He does not wish for a repeat experience. However, he resigns to return to Earth to understand the “horrible” state of human affairs.

A woman named Stella Wakeby calls Eliot and says she needs his help. He agrees to see her the following day. Next, his father calls and asks if Eliot has ever been a communist. Eliot admits that he has certain socialist tendencies and makes an analogy about what he calls the “Money River” (122-23). Everyone is born on the river’s banks, but only the rich know how to exploit it for inordinate gains. He tells his father that he loves him, and the Senator puts Sylvia on the phone. Eliot tells her that the following day, he will baptize the twins of a woman named Mary Moody. During the conversation, Eliot is unaware that Mushari is listening on another line. The discussion about the baptism excites the attorney. He thinks the ceremony will prove that Eliot has religious delusions and sees himself as a Messiah. Sylvia asks what Eliot will say at the baptism, and he offers:

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winters. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—: God damn it, you’ve got to be kind” (129).

On the telephone, Eliot and Sylvia arrange to meet at the Bluebird Room of the Marriott Hotel in Indianapolis for a final goodbye. Once again, Mushari is listening on the line. He is worried that Sylvia will get pregnant, producing a new heir to claim the foundation. Mushari wants Fred Rosewater, Eliot’s second cousin, to take over the foundation so that Mushari can represent him and make a large commission. Fred is an insurance salesman who does not even know he is related to the wealthy Rosewaters. He is well-educated—a graduate of Princeton University—but he and his wife, Caroline, are not financially well off.

Fred’s family is the Rhode Island branch of the Rosewaters, descended from Colonel George Rosewater. After an explosion in the Civil War blinded him, George returned home to nothing but remained cheerful. He began working in Rhode Island in a broom factory staffed completely by veterans with blindness. The owner was Castor Buntline, who went on to amass the Buntline fortune. He quickly made George a foreman.

George married an orphan named Faith Merrihue when she was 16 years old. One of their descendants, Merrihue, was Fred’s father, who wrote a family history and died by suicide after the 1929 stock market crash. Merrihue lost the fortune he made as a realtor as well as the fortune of his wife, heiress Cynthia Niles Rumfoord. His father’s death still affects Fred, and it inspired him to begin selling life insurance. Fred says that his greatest satisfaction is when a woman, having lost her husband, thanks him for selling life insurance to her and says, “God bless you, Mr. Rosewater” (145).

In a news store, Fred reads the personal advertisements in The American Investigator. He is tempted to write a personal ad of his own. Thirteen-year-old Lila Buntline walks by and looks at Fred on her way to the magazines. She finds him pitiable.

A pro fisherman named Harry Pena enters. He is also Chief of the Pisquontuit Volunteer Fire Department. Pena is a physically imposing man with a boisterous personality. Pena used to be an insurance salesman like Fred, but after an accident, he became a trap fisherman like his father. Pena ridicules Fred for being in the insurance industry, but Fred maintains that he finds value in his work and in helping others. Pena takes the paper from Fred, looks at the personal ads, and then writes a racy ad for Fred.

Caroline comes into the store to get money from Fred so that she can go to lunch with her wealthy friend Amanita Buntline. Caroline pities herself for marrying Fred, who is not affluent and who she considers a “bore.” She married him under the misguided assumption that everyone in Pisquontuit was affluent. The narration implies that Caroline feigns romantic interest in Amanita to “get ahead.” After the women leave, Fred browses the bookshelves and picks up a shocking book by Trout, Venus on the Half-shell. In the book is a picture of Trout, who Fred thinks looks like “a frightened, aging Jesus” (158).

Lila, Amanita’s daughter, is nearby, reading Tropic of Cancer. The narrator describes her as the town’s “leading dealer in smut” (157). She is entrepreneurial: She procures pornographic photos by answering ads from the Investigator and soliciting photos from those who respond. She sells “smut” and fireworks equally.

Lila pedals home and checks on her father to see if he is still alive. She does this every day. Stewart Buntline is the most handsome man in town, but his only passion is the Civil War. He inherited $14 million from his father, but he knows little about business. Reed McAllister represents him.

McAllister sends Stewart a pamphlet titled “A Rift Between Friends in the War of Ideas” (165), about the evils of socialism. McAllister wants to make sure that Stewart continues to approve of the capitalist system. Twenty years prior, Stewart became a conservative during a conversation with McAllister, who talked him out of philanthropy.

Lila watches Mary, a work boat that belongs to Pena, who is on his way to set fishing traps with his sons, Manny and Kenny. Meanwhile, Amanita Buntline and Caroline eat at a restaurant called The Weir, which houses the world’s biggest private collection of harpoons, all belonging to a man named Bunny Weeks. Guests of the restaurant enjoy watching Pena work outside as Bunny talks them through the fishing process. Bunny tells Caroline that Senator Rosewater is retiring.

Bunny then gives Amanita an “intelligence test.” It is a can covered in wallpaper that has a lace doily on one end. She cannot guess what the object is for, and Bunny tells her that it is a cover for a spare roll of toilet paper. Amanita buys it for Caroline for $17 since Caroline does not have enough money.

The Mary comes into view of the restaurant. As the diners watch, Pena and his sons haul fish into the boat with hooks and hit them with a mallet. Caroline watches them through opera glasses and says Pena is “like God.” Bunny tells them that, despite appearances, Pena is bankrupt. The women are appalled that such an attractive man could be impoverished. Bunny explains that laborers like Pena are obsolete.