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Book Eleven: Lions
and Lambs
87. The judge. . .
.
The
judge drummed with his gavel on the pad provided: Bang. Bang. Bang. The court settled down into some semblance of order,
with the tall white-haired bailiff, flanked by two policemen, frowning angrily
at the indecorous crowd. I sat apart from the rest of the defendants, of whom
Mattie Halliday was the only one to look my way. I had recently been drummed
out of the anti-war movement at a meeting especially set up for the purpose, to
which I was invited by none other than Selva Andersen. Toni McFerrin’s
photograph of Adrian and Selva had infuriated Adrian, who demanded to know the
source of the picture. Because I wouldn’t tell, I was suspected of
collaborating with the cops; I was informed I would be ejected from planning
meetings (I had never yet attended a planning meeting) and that my
participation in demonstrations would not be welcome, though as advocates of
free speech (free dope, free tuition, free lunch, free birth control clinics)
they’d do nothing to prevent it. Which was fine with me; the month of March had
been too cold for marches anyway.
I
will say this for Selva, that she seemed genuinely embarrassed at having led me
into the hands of their kangaroo court. She continued to sit beside me in Larry
Whiffe’s class, though our small talk grew even smaller after the incident. I
hadn’t yet forgiven her, but she was still in my eyes the prettiest woman who
walked the earth, and if she seemed to want to continue to be friends with me,
I would have required a brain transplant to refuse her. As for the others
(except for Mattie, also an outsider, and for L. D. Langdon, who didn’t give a
damn what anyone thought), they took visible satisfaction in having uncovered a
traitor. Gentle people of the most liberal and democratic principles would
cross the street to avoid me. I’d never in my adult life experienced anything
like it.
So
this was my second hearing, and by far the easiest. All I did when it came my
turn to plead was to stand up, look the judge in the eye, and say “No Contest.”
I was fined fifty dollars, given a ninety-day suspended sentence, and booed as
I left the courtroom. I paid my fine in cash (I’d had enough experience with
courts to know they don’t take checks) and walked out into the sunlight a free
man, with plenty of time to get ready to teach my Thursday night class.
Court
was held in a rented space in the Terminal Building, a downtown high-rise where
the draft board had its offices. I hadn’t gotten far down the sidewalk when I
heard somebody with long legs catching up. Soon a strong hand took my elbow:
Mattie Halliday. “I did it, too,” she said. “I pled ‘No Contest’ too.” When I
glanced at her, she smiled back, her blue eyes full of sparkle. “After he only
fined you fifty dollars, I thought, ‘Shoot, who needs to make another speech?
Let the rest of ‘em make speeches.’ I bet there are others who’ll do the same.”
“You’re
looking good,” I said. “I haven’t seen you in a while; how come?”
“Oh,
well,” she said. “I’ve been making plans. Say, there’s something I wanted to
ask you. How do you make napalm?”
“Gasoline
mixed with polystyrene to make it sticky. Also, you need a thickener, gear
grease or something like STP. I don’t know what they use for that. Originally
the Brits used palm oil. Naphtha plus palm oil equals napalm.”
“What’s
polystyrene?”
“You
know how, when you pour gas into a styrofoam cup, the cup just sort of
dissolves? That’s polystyrene. What’re you planning to do, bomb Weld’s
bookstore?”
“Jonas!”
She looked at me accusingly and laughed. “I only think like that when I’m
depressed.” Her rich mahogany hair, I noted, was bristling with fire. “Can I
buy you a cup of hot chocolate?” she asked.
“You
betcha.”
Mattie
took us to Barrymore’s, where the wealthily-dressed female bartender opened two
foil packages, poured the premixed powder into mugs, added hot water, and
charged a buck and a half apiece. At least the mugs weren’t plastic. Mattie was
undeterred from her sunny mood. “I’ve wanted to come here since it opened,” she
said, looking up past the lights into the theater loft. “They’ve done a nice
job with it, don’t you think?”
“They
have,” I said. “The music’s good, too. They play a lot of jazz, soul, blues. A
little bit of James Brown, some Aretha.”
“Oh,
you’ve been here, then,” she said. “I didn’t think it’d be your kind of place.”
“I’m
versatile when it comes to bars and food.”
“And
women,” she said, her eyes twinkling.
“Ah,
well,” I said, blushing. “I’m not one of your big-time Romeos. I leave that to
the poets and the—” I stopped.
“Philosphers?”
Mattie finished.
“Bite
my tongue,” I said. “So, what’s with you and Kemp these days, since we’re on
the subject?”
Mattie
smiled. “I’ve had some news,” she said. “Want to hear it?”
“I
asked, didn’t I?”
“I
work with a group called Amnesty U. S.; it’s named for Amnesty International,
though they’re not connected. Anyway, one case they’re involved in is Rad
Langdon’s, who is lawful husband to the bitch who has no name. Anyhow— I hear
by the grapevine there’s been progress. He might be released.”
“Wow!”
I said. “That’ll make L. D. happy. Does she know?”
“I’ve
no idea what she knows,” Mattie said. “You’re missing the point.”
“Kemp?”
“Bingo.”
“What
makes you think he’ll come back to you?” I asked.
“Ted
can’t live five minutes without a woman,” Mattie said bitterly. “He’s barely
able to wipe his own butt, if you want to know the truth.”
“I
still don’t see the attraction,” I said. “A high pale forehead and a big jaw,
but brains? I don’t think so.”
“There’s
more to a man than his brains,” Mattie said, “which is a damned good thing for
the likes of you.”
I
raised my cup to Mattie. “Hey there,” I sang teasingly, “you on that high
flying cloud. . . .”
She
lowered her eyes. “OK, OK,” she said. “Enough. It gives me something to think
about besides my job.”
“Uh
oh,” I said. “That, too?”
“They
asked me to resign,” she said. “They want me to ‘look for something else,’ is
how they put it. So I’m looking. I’ve got family connections back east, but I
don’t like to use them. I could probably get something in Kansas City or
Minneapolis. There’s not much demand for female ministers in Nebraska.”
“Good
luck,” I said. “I’ll miss you if you have to move. So will Ted, whether the
dumb ox knows it or not.”
“I’m
taking him with me,” she said. “In a body bag, if necessary.”
I
saw that, in ten minutes of quiet conversation, I’d just about managed to
destroy Mattie’s ebullience. “Hey,” I said. “I still have a mental picture of
you whopping my cousin Dale over the head. That was some demonstration, wasn’t
it? I wonder if Spiro Agnew knows it happened.”
“He
knows,” she said. “Someone should whop him, too. It’d do the country good.”
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