The Child Buyer

by John Hersey

  Senator MANSFIELD. I see. So the Rudd boy—

  Senator SKYPACK. What I want to know, miss. Just one thing. Are you for this boy or against him?

  Miss HENLEY. In cases where the need reduction—

  Senator SKYPACK. For or against?

  Miss HENLEY. I was getting to that. . . . To oversimplify, the purpose of my lecture was to give a dire warning to all the teachers present on maladjustment on the part of these extreme deviates at the upper end of the bell curve.

  Senator SKYPACK. I still want to know—

  Mr. BROADBENT. Excuse me, Senator, could I have the witness a minute? Can you tell us quite simply, madam, what happened —how your lecture was interrupted?

  Miss HENLEY. I certainly can. I was standing here, behind the lectern. The edge of the stage was here. Mr. Owing and Mr. Cleary were sitting back here. Everything was going along very smoothly when I heard this curious pop, I couldn't tell exactly where the sound came from, I was concentrating on my train of thought, and then—here, just in front of the lip of the stage—I

  Monday, October 28

  saw billowing up a curious yellow cloud. I thought at first—I have a thing about electricity, thunderstorms, defective wiring— I thought at first it was a short circuit of some kind, and I'm afraid I uttered a rather piercing summons to the fire department. Shortly thereafter a response to an extcroceptive stimulus on the part of my olfactory apparatus—

  Senator MANSFIELD. You mean you smelled the stink bomb.

  Miss HENLEY. I certainly did. Putrefaction such as you have never—like that of one of those horrible ditches in the Inferno, where the sinners lay in a river of excrement: were they the Flatterers? If there's anything I hate, it's a saccharine compliment.

  Mr. BROADDF.NT. Have you any theory as to who may have thrown the bomb? We understand it probably came in one of the auditorium windows, so that would rule out any of the audience. Have you any theory? Know anyone who might want—?

  Miss HENLEY. I can't imagine that it was anyone but the subject of our meeting. Who else could feel that way about me? It was obviously a small boy's kind of trick. I feel so badly about that youngster, because we school people have failed him somehow.

  Senator SKYPACK. All right. That's all I wanted to know. Let's have the next witness.

  Senator MANSFIELD. Just a minute, Jack. Anything else you'd like to say, ma'am?

  Miss HENLEY. Well, yes. I'd just like to say that where you run into trouble with these children is in singling them out. Hie kind of thing Dr. Gozar has done in the lab work with this boy. I came right out and said this in my lecture. We talk about the defense of democracy—how undemocratic can you get? Why shouldn't the next child get the extra help—the slow learner? The extremely gifted child should not be removed from the common-learning situation. He's the last one who needs extra

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  attention. And don't think, just because I'm a specialist on your deviates—

  Senator MANSFIELD. I must say, ma'am, you make them sound like little sex fiends.

  Miss HENLEY. I may specialize in deviates, but I don't forget the norm. The norm is the bedrock of our society. You can't neglect the median child in favor of the exceptions. You remember K.D.R.'s great declaration: 'This is the era of the common man.' That's democracy, gentlemen! Not a society where you have an elite telling the rest of us how to live.

  Senator SKYPACK. I agree with you, miss. We can't have these double-domes getting in there and—

  Senator MANSFIELD. All right, ma'am, I think we have the drift of it. Thank you for coming here and helping us out.

  Senator SKYPACK. You heard what she said about who threw it, Aaron.

  Senator MANSFIELD. Your next witness, please, Mr. Broad-bent.

  Mr. BROADBENT. Word has just been sent in to me, sir, that the librarian has arrived. I will call Miss Elizabeth Cloud.

  Senator MANSFIELD. Well, that was quick. It isn't often that I give myself occasion to congratulate you, Mr. Broadbent. . . . Over there, please, Miss Cloud. Just stand there to be sworn.

  Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you arc about to give this committee on its present business will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

  Miss CLOUD. I do.

  TESTIMONY OF Miss ELIZABETH CLOUD, LIBRARIAN, TOWN OF PEQUOT

  Mr. BROADBENT. Please identify yourself for the record, madam, as to name, address, and occupation.

  Monday, October 28

  Miss CLOUD. Elizabeth B. Cloud, 27 Maple Street, Pcquot, Chief Librarian of the Town Free Library.

  Mr. BROADBENT. You are acquainted with a school child named Barry Rudd?

  Miss CLOUD. Acquainted! Jchoscphat, I should say I am acquainted with Barry. I've been nourishing him since he was knee-high to a grasshopper—or, as I guess he'd put it, as tall, or perhaps as short, as the ginglymus joint between the femur and tibia of Melanoplvs spretus. You may have gathered, Barry's a great one for saying things the accurate way, even if it's the hard way. And so, for that matter, am I. He may have caught a bit of that from me—or I from him. We've been making a game of it together for years.

  Mr. BROADBENT. Would you give a little background of your relationship?

  Miss CLOUD. There isn't much background. Mrs. Rudd brought Barry all the way over from Treehampstcad when he was barely five. Treehampstead is a regular city, but as is so often the case they have a blah library, stacks and stacks of Victorian pablum and rental-library trash; and I guess Mrs. Rudd had heard about me and the child-heaven I keep—my story-telling hours, the space I give the kids' books; they come first with me. I don't have a Children's Corner; I have an Adults' Corner in my library. And besides, my humpback, there's something about the luck of my back: the tykes think of me as a gnome or a magic thing—a living apple stump, something like that. We get along. Anyway, here came Mrs. Rudd shaking and fretting because some school idiot had made her think that Barry's being able to read so early was a form of sickness. So I took him over. We had an afternoon together each week till the Rudds moved to Pequot, and from then on—well, we're just pals.

  Mr. BROADBENT. Would you say that your, ahem, misfortune, madam, has made the boy Barry Rudd feel specially close to

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  you, with his, ahem, exaggerated mentality?

  Miss CLOUD. Why don't you come out from behind those euphemisms, Mr. District Attorney, or whatever you arc? 'Misfortune?' You mean my hunchback? You mean that Barry's brilliant mind is like a crooked back, and that's why we're pals? Deformity is our bond? More like it that you have a twisted mind, sir.

  Mr. BROADBENT. I was only trying—exceptional—

  Miss CLOUD. This is one of the reasons I like children better than adults: they haven't learned yet that honesty between human beings is a form of social blooper, like belching, to be apologized for if it accidentally bursts out.

  Senator MANSFIELD. I'm sure he meant no offense, Miss Cloud.

  Miss CLOUD. I like it better when the offense is intended, sir. I know then where I stand. Perhaps I'm like a child myself in that particular respect.

  Senator MANSFIELD. If we could go on with our questioning.

  Mr. BROADBENT. Would you tell us, please, madam, about the boy Barry Rudd's reading interests?

  Miss CLOUD. Well, like many of my young ones, he started in with I^ewis Carroll and Kenneth Grahame and Robert Louis Stevenson—difference being that he read the books himself, mcmori/cd them, improvised from them. I'll skip the feeling-out period. Recent years he began to get into geology, zoology. Before the Ddwn of History by Charles R. Knight. Monsters of Old Los Angeles by Charles M. Martin, about the prehistoric creatures of the La Brea tar pits. Then, suddenly, Mofey Dick, on account of the stuff on whales. Insects, their origin. Then he had a period of Robert Frost—he has a strong lyrical urge, loves to talk about natural things. Thurber by the measured mile. He has a persistent mind. When he gets on a track, he traces it down and gets what he wants— all o
f what he wants.

  Mr. BROADBENT. Dr. Gozar told us—

  Monday, October 28

  Miss CLOUD. I know: biographies. Dr. Gozar has been a wonderful prod to that boy. She goes along behind him with a pitchfork aimed at his seat—and how he runs! He's read biographies by the dozen. Boswcll's Johnson twice. He doesn't like the Maurois-type popular biography; he prefers your tartar-steak kind of thing. Facts, original sources, lean meat. He roots around in footnotes like a boar going after truffles. The last year, year and a half, he has been reading the biographies of 'the biggest brains who ever lived'—I've had to send off for a lot of them through our library exchange system. Newton, Goethe, Pascal, Leopard i, Voltaire, Conite, Michelangelo, Arnnuld, Wol-sey, Laplace, the younger Pitt, Schelling, Grotius.

  Senator SKYPACK. I don't sec we're getting anyplace. When Mr. Jones told us to talk to this person, Mr. Chairman, he must have . . . Look, miss, this boy been coining to you for sex books?

  Miss CLOUD. Matter of fact, he has. Indirectly anyway. Just recently.

  Senator SKYPACK. I thought so! And you dished them up to him?

  Miss CLOUD. I dish up whatever a young mind wants and needs, sir. Barry became interested first in courting rituals between mammals, fishes, birds—you know, the drumming of ruffed grouse, bill-clapping of nesting storks, the throaty chant and spiral climb of the woodcock.

  Mr, BROADBENT. A fish called the stickleback?

  Miss CLOUD. You know about that? He told you about that? I found him that one!

  Senator SKYPACK. So you're the one's been feeding him this stuff. . . . Is that a public library down there, miss?

  Miss CLOUD. Town Free Library. Supported by local taxes and a State allotment. You're welcome any time, sir. Anyhow, I was telling you. After a certain amount of this courtship ma-

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  terial, Barry suddenly wanted some technical stuff on human beings.

  Senator SKYPACK. I knew it. I knew it.

  Miss CLOUD. He wanted a couple of gynecological texts, and I gave him—

  Senator SKYPACK. By gorry, Aaron, it's time we got after these public libraries. Openly handing out this smut to minors.

  Miss CLOUD. Senator, if you call Transactions of the American Gynecological Society 'smut/ then you've set some kind of record in bibliographic classification. And the basic works by Curtis, Wharton, Novak—they're about as smutty as the Rosetta stone. And about as easy to read.

  Senator SKYPACK. I'm serious, Mr. Chairman. We've got to get in there and root this dirty stuff and filth out of these libraries, if it's getting to the minors.

  Senator MANSFIELD. The boy is a bit young for that sort of book, Miss Cloud. What do you suppose his purpose was in wanting them?

  Miss CLOUD. I hold back nothing from a child's mind— within reason. I can smell a bad smell as well as the next person, but where there's curiosity, healthy curiosity, I believe in satisfying it. If you thwart and withhold—then's when the prurience and sneaking and perversion begin.

  Senator MANSFIELD. But you haven't answered my question. Why did the boy want those books?

  Miss CLOUD. At the time I had no idea. It wasn't until the P.-T.A. protest meeting on the Rudd-Renzulli case—

  Senator MANSFIELD. Why did the P.-T.A. hold a—?

  Mr. BROADBENT. We have Mrs. Sloat, sir, the President of the Lincoln P.-T.A., waiting outside. I intend to call her before long. We'll get the full story.

  Senator MANSFIELD. After that you knew why he had wanted! the books?

  Monday, October 28

  Miss CLOUD. It was only a guess.

  Senator SKYPACK. You don't have to do much guessing, Mr. Chairman. It's bad enough on the newsstands, but I say that when the librarians of our public libraries start dealing out sex and sadism to our children!

  Miss CLOUD. If you come down to the Town Free Library in Pequot with the intent of pulling out books and making a bonfire of them, sir, I'll be there to welcome you—with a fourteen-gauge shotgun. Please be warned.

  Senator MANSFIELD. We'll have order, please. Resume your seat, Jack. Miss Cloud! That is the subject for another set of hearings, perhaps—not this one, anyway. I think we can excuse Miss Cloud now. Thank you for coming up here.

  Miss CLOUD. Thank me for coming up? I was practically kidnapped!

  Senator SKYPACK. Imagine a crippled virgin like that handing out sex and sadism!

  Senator VOYOLKO. Before you go, lady.

  Miss CLOUD. Yes, sir?

  Senator VOYOLKO. Could I touch your hump?

  Miss CLOUD. You certainly may, my dear Senator. I hope it brings you great good luck.

  Senator VOYOLKO. Thank you, thank you. Real obliging. Sky-pack, ain't you gonta—?

  Senator SKYPACK. Not with a ten-foot pole.

  Senator MANSFIELD. All right, Mr. Broadbent, who's next? . . . Thank you, Miss Cloud, very forthright. ... If I may just . . . No, I can reach right across here. . . . Thank you.

  Mr. BROADBENT. Mr. Paul Rudd. Please have him brought in.

  Senator MANSFIELD. You're already sworn, Mr. Rudd. Take your place.

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  TESTIMONY OF MR. PAUL RUDD, MACHINIST, TOWN OF PEQUOT

  Mr. BROADBENT. Mr. Rudd, I've asked you to come back here to tell the committee about what happened, the chat you had with Mrs. Sloat and your subsequent futile conversation with your son, that took place on Thursday afternoon, the twenty-fourth. The afternoon before the P.-T.A. meeting took place that night.

  Senator MANSFIELD. Now, just a minute, please, Mr. Broad-bent. We'll want to get the timing straight on this. This was after the stink bombing?

  Mr. BROADBENT. After the stink bombing—that was Tuesday afternoon. After the attack on the Rudds' house—Tuesday evening, or night. After the boy was caught with the Renzulli girl—Wednesday in broad daylight at school. It was after all those things. In fact, the P.-T.A. was going to meet because of these happenings, to discuss—

  Senator MANSFIELD. Why do you jump around in this way, Mr. Broadbent?

  Mr. BROADBENT. I have to catch my witnesses when I can, Mr. Chairman. This Mrs. Sloat is a busy woman. Two, three committee meetings a day, seems to me. This happened to be the only chance I could snag her this whole week, and Mr. Rudd's testimony is germane to hers, and I'm going to ask Miss Pcrrin some questions, too. . . .

  Senator MANSFIELD. Well, it's very aggravating. For weeks I've been trying to get you to unfold your material for us in a straightforward, orderly way, Mr. Broadbent. All right. Go ahead, now.

  Mr. BROADBENT. Mr. Rudd, I'll ask you to tell us what you were doing last Thursday afternoon, the twenty-fourth.

  Mr. RUDD. In the afternoon I was fixing the windows. That bunch of hoods.

  Monday, October 28

  Mr. BROADBENT. You were replacing the glass panes?

  Mr. RUDD. Throughout. Every single one.

  Mr. BROADBENT. You know the glazing trade?

  Mr. RUDD. Learnt it thirty years ago. I picked up carpentering, fancy masonry stonework, I can do surveying, pump out septic tanks, any kind of machine press. Twenty kinds of work. Like I was saying here the other day: Why can't the boy earn his keep? Do you suppose Mr. Brain-child would stoop to learn something useful, something that would maybe bring in a living, part of a living even?

  Mr. BROADBENT. You were replacing the windows one by one. Would you tell us what happened, please?

  Mr. RUDD. By the way, somebody ought to pay for those windows. Everybody's offered plenty free advice, interference, you people, but I'm the one who's out of pocket on this deal. Here's the buyer with a big fat check in his pocket, all kinds of luxury items Maud and me've been wanting all our lives, and so far I'm the only one that's had to put out. I wonder if you gentlemen realize what a full set of glass costs for a person's home, putty, sprigs, some primer, sash tool, putty knife—it don't come to scratch feed. You people sit up here. Who looks out for the ordinary citizen like me?

  Mr. BROADBENT. Please just tell us what was happe
ning.

  Mr. RUDD. I come home there the night before and find every blasted window smashed to smithereens. . . .

  Senator MANSFIELD. Couldn't Mr. Rudd give us the details of the attack on the house while he's at it? I mean, to clarify—

  Mr. BROADBENT. He wasn't there when it happened. You'd want—

  Mr. RUDD. I wasn't there. I was down the bowling lanes. . . . So I came home and found all this broken glass, it was kind of a chill in the weather that night, too. So as soon as I could I got them to give me the afternoon off at Trucco, and, like I say,

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  I was putting in these new panes, I was working on the kitchen, on the front, I was just trimming up and beveling the putty, when this brand-new Buick drives up, and this lady gets out and comes right acrost the sidewalk.

  Mr. BROADBENT. Had you known Mrs. Sloat before? Did you recognize her?

  Mr. RUDD. I vaguely seen her, they have this covered-dish supper over at the school every year. Maud drags me.

  Mr. BROADBENT. And what did Mrs. Sloat want?

  Mr. RUDD. All right, see how you'd feel about it. This woman is one of those ones that's into everything. She has this fox thing around her neck, a complete fox head looking at you with these bossy little brown glass eyes, it's like the lady's looking at you like a President, and the fox is looking at you like a Vice-President. The two of them.

  Mr. BROADBENT. She has a child in Barry's school?

  Mr. RUDD. You sec, our school district cuts across the Intervale and runs up onto the west hill, so you have a mixed group, you have the tenement-block people and some of the wealthy two-car-garage split-level people. And I don't know, this lady is one of your up-the-hill heart-bleeders. She's an improver. I say wealthy. I mean, like this new Buick and probably a secondhand Pontiac for the husband.

  Mr. BROADBENT. What did she want?

  Mr. RUDD. She lit into me. I was working on the windows, I wasn't in a mood for it.

  Mr. BROADBENT. What did she say?

  Mr. RUDD. She said juvenile delinquency was the parents* fault, The parents ought to go to jail. I hadn't even heard about this Florence Renzulli thing yet. I'm just the handyman around there, general repairman to fix the breakage all about my son that's so advanced. So she demanded I come to the meeting that night, this meeting about what are we going to do with the