Virtual Fire

by Mendy Sobol

  November 18, 1968

  My Dear Meg,

  I might as well spit it out. Dan Reynolds and I were lovers. He wanted to get married, but I said no. I didn’t want to be known for the rest of my life as the black professor who married the white man. I never wanted anyone to know we were together. Well, I don’t have to worry about that now.

  That’s not the only reason I left Wellston. I love teaching you white kids, but I need to teach some black kids, too. And that’s not happening, not at Wellston, not fast enough for me. At faculty meetings I can count the brothers and sisters on one hand. And no one on that ivy-covered, lily-white faculty is interested in recruiting more dashiki-wearing troublemakers like me.

  You have eyes, Meg, but you couldn’t see. When you told me about all your man problems, you didn’t notice I never told you mine. When you visited my office, all you saw was the big-time English professor—and sometimes when I looked in the mirror that’s what I saw, too. But look again. Look at the bare-bulbed basement hole-in-the-wall they called my office. Look at the paper index card on my door that read, “ASSISTANT Professor Ruger.” Six years at Wellston and I was still in the basement, still without tenure, still at the back of the bus.

  When Dan died, I had to face facts. There’s nothing at Wellston for me except you. And at your age, you don’t need me crying on your shoulder.

  There’s one other thing I’ve got to tell you. When you find yourself a man, a REAL man, forget about whether he’s black or white, blind or crippled, Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist. Forget about what your parents will think or friends will say. Forget about all that shit. Just grab him and hold on. Hold on like your life depends on it.

  I’m sorry for not telling you all this before I left. I hope you understand. But please, don’t come looking for me. Write if you want, but please don’t come looking. We’ll see each other again some day, I know it.

  If none of this makes sense to you, well, in the words of the old spiritual, “We’ll understand it by and by.”

  Love,

  Evelyn Ruger (as in “sugar”)

  Chapter Forty-Two: Meg

  Evelyn was right about me. At nineteen, I didn’t need her crying on my shoulder. But at nineteen, I wasn’t old enough to know that.

  So I blamed myself.

  If only I’d stayed with Evelyn in her office. If only I’d asked her what was wrong. If only I knew how to listen. If only I’d hugged her. Then maybe I could have been there for her, helped her through the grief, helped her keep fighting. Then maybe she would have stayed at Wellston until a student sit-in not long after she resigned turned the tide for minority admissions and faculty recruitment. Then maybe she would have been there for me, for things to come. Then maybe everything would have been different.

  If only, then maybe.

  My most vivid memories of the months following Evelyn’s resignation aren’t about school, or Nick, or the war. My most vivid memories are of those four phantom words drifting through daydreams, stalking nightmares—If only, then maybe.

  It turned out Evelyn was right about holding on to a good man, too, right about everything. Except she never did get to see me again.

  I wrote her every month from Butler, and every month Evelyn wrote me from her new home, Jackson, Mississippi.

  March 3, 1969

  Dear Evelyn,

  I’m so excited you’re teaching again! You should never NOT be teaching!

  So many things have happened at Wellston since you left. It seems like only yesterday we were together at Grant’s Womb, but Wellston’s been through a decade of change.

  The sit-in was a complete success. Next year’s entering class will include 11% minorities, and increased recruitment of Afro-American faculty members has begun. An ad hoc committee on curricular reform drafted a proposal for a new Wellston curriculum including optional pass/no pass alternatives to letter grades in all courses, detailed written comments from teachers about students’ class performance, elimination of all distribution requirements, and increased emphasis on multidisciplinary studies. And Evelyn, the faculty adopted the entire report! In September the “New Curriculum” takes effect.

  Can you stand to hear any more? Well get this—next term Wellston will open its first coed dorm. Maybe the revolution has arrived after all!

  I know better than to ask you to think about coming back to Wellston. But PLEASE write me everything you can about J.S.U. I’m serious—it’s not too late for me to transfer there for senior year! I’d love any college you love. Besides, Wellston’s becoming WAY too radical for me!

  1968 was a hell of a year. Reverend King and Bobby Kennedy, the Czech Invasion and Chicago Convention police riot, and for me, your losing Dan Reynolds and leaving Wellston. But it’s like you wrote me when you left—“we’ll understand it by and by.” Because, at last, everything seems to be changing. Our new President, Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon of all people (!) says he’s going to end the war. I think 1969 is really going to be something!

  Love,

  Meg

  April 1, 1969

  Dear Meg,

  Don’t get any ideas, this is no April Fools letter!

  J.S.U. is wonderful. My students are smart young men and women, and unlike many Wellston students, they don’t take anything about their college educations for granted. Most of them work. God only knows when they find time to study. The administration can be a pain (lots of rules to follow), but the English faculty is friendly, supportive, and genuinely glad to have me here. Winter was wet but mild, and spring is here early—not like Butler’s nine months of “The Gray Miseries.” Last but not least, the party music is a LOT better than at Wellston.

  But Meg, don’t even think about coming down here. You show up at the Greyhound station with your Yankee accent asking directions to J.S.U., and those crackers down there will string you up quicker than you can say, “Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner.” It may be 1969 in Butler, but here in the land of Dixie it’s more like 1869. And I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I’m not sure our student body would take to a well-meaning white girl matriculating, either. The way they see it, you’d be taking one of their spots. I guess both sides in this race thing got a whole lot of work to do.

  Your daddy paid for that Wellston degree, and you earned it. So finish up first, then we’ll talk about the future and what you can do with that high-class sheepskin to change the world. I have to admit though, I would like to be there to see the expression on your daddy’s face when he showed up for your J.S.U. graduation, or when word about you at an all-black college got around Grosse Pointe and they revoked his country club membership! (April Fools!)

  Love,

  Evelyn Ruger (as in “sugar”)

  VERY EARLY August 16, 1969

  Dear Evelyn,

  I’m writing you from Bethel, New York, and the Woodstock Art and Music Festival. Nick and I have been here for less than a day, and it’s awful. Freezing rain, hot sun, and mud—lots of mud. Hours pass between performances and the rumor is the bands are refusing to leave the Holiday Inn they’re holed up in until they get paid—in cash! Meanwhile, we sit in the mud and wait.

  Nick came hoping to meet up with his friends from Yale and do some ‘Mobe recruiting. I admit, I came for the art and music. After spending sixteen hours Friday getting here from Butler (I’m sure pictures of the traffic jams are making the news), we’re both disappointed. It’s impossible to find anyone, there’s lots more waiting than music, and I haven’t seen any art.

  (Continued, Monday morning, August 18, 1969)

  I guess I was a little cranky when I began this letter two days ago. Waking up Saturday morning on our soggy blankets, stretching out the kinks from a cold, miserable night trying to sleep in the mud only twenty feet from the stage, looking up at the sunrise over the hill, seeing what looked like my whole generation arrayed on that hillside as far as the eye could see, arrayed in all their wild hair and bright colors, well, that was worth all the hassles. />
  So Nick gave up on organizing, and I gave up on music and art, and we hiked off and volunteered at the Hog Farm tent, helping out with bad trips and injured feet, even the birth of a healthy baby boy!

  I didn’t like it when Nick slipped off with one of the women from the Hog Farm, but he thinks that’s Grosse Pointe talking and I need to get over it. Meanwhile, I smiled at a guy whose hand I was bandaging, and Nick accused me of flirting just to get back at him. Anyway, everything’s been fine between us since, so I’m not going to bug him about it.

  Isn’t it wonderful, though, that half a million of us spent three days in these awful conditions, and there’s been no violence or crime? Not always peace, not always love, but enough of both to keep everyone busy helping each other get through this. I came for the art and music, but I’m glad I got to be part of the helping. I hope they’re showing that on TV too, and not just all the acid and grass. I want our parents to see we can do something they could never do, want them to imagine what this would be like if they were here with their beer and martinis.

  It’s Monday morning, and I just finished bathing in a muddy pond. But a marble tub filled with bubble bath couldn’t have felt as good. Almost everyone’s gone, and Nick’s saying, “C’mon, hurry up, finish the letter when we get home.” And though the thought of crashing in my warm, soft, clean sheets back in Butler seems like a vision of heaven, I’m sorry it’s over, sorry it’s time to leave.

  Love,

  Meg

  P.S. Save this letter. The mud splotches from Yasgur’s farm may be worth a fortune some day!

  August 30, 1969

  Dear Meg,

  Yes, I saw lots of Woodstock on TV. The freedom, the peace, the love looked beautiful. But your whole generation? I have to ask—in that sea of faces, where were the soul brothers and sisters? On that stage, where were the soul bands?

  All right, I don’t want to get all self-righteous black woman on you. I love you, and I’m proud of how you helped in a tough situation. But next summer, can we PLEASE invite James Brown?

  Love,

  Evelyn Ruger (as in “sugar”)

  P.S. It is time to give Mr. Nick his walking papers!!!

  November 30, 1969

  Dear Evelyn,

  I just returned from Washington and the Moratorium Against the War. You should have been there, Evelyn. This time it really was our whole generation—and our parents and their parents, black, white, rich, poor, a half million of us. You should have been there, Evelyn, because it was the beginning of the end. Nixon’s got to stop this war. He has no choice.

  Love,

  Meg

  December 15, 1969

  Dear Meg,

  It’s a long road to freedom.

  Love,

  Evelyn Ruger (as in “sugar”)

  4:00 a.m., January 10, 1970

  Dear Evelyn,

  Greetings from Butler and happy New Year! If it’s supposed to be the dawn of the new decade, why does it still feel like 1969?

  Right after winter break, a huge ice storm greeted returning students. Trees, power lines, streets, and sidewalks all coated with thick, shimmering ice. Everything looked so beautiful, I decided to go outside and take some pictures. After falling three times and nearly breaking my camera and my neck, I retreated inside and settled for taking pictures from my bedroom window. My favorite is enclosed, a close-up of the finches I’ve been feeding on my windowsill. With the ground frozen solid under half an inch of ice, the Butler birds were starving, literally screaming for human help.

  Now that the ice has melted, the temperature soaring to a balmy 36 degrees, Nick, the other SMC leaders, and I spend every night training demonstration marshals. Marching down Hope Street at 2:00 a.m. might have looked crazy a year or two ago, and may again a year or two from now, but in 1970 it seems pretty ordinary.

  Something special did happen tonight, and Evelyn, that’s the big news! It wasn’t the fight Nick and I had before our new trainees arrived—I can’t even recall what we argued about, though it was The Big One, definitely and finally our relationship ender (you saw that coming months ago, and I wish I’d followed your advice sooner). And it certainly wasn’t the night’s cold, dark, black-and-whiteness. Every night in Butler feels like that, more magical than dreary. (Am I building enough suspense?)

  So here’s the news: tonight, real magic entered my life.

  Most mornings I can’t recall faces from the previous night’s training. But if I live to a hundred, forgetting everything else I ever experienced, I’ll always remember training Paul and Toby, two geeks straight from the College of Science. They didn’t say much, but their body language, their eyes, their every gesture, communicated the ease of their friendship, the depth of its comfort, a closeness I’ve never seen before, let alone experienced. That’s what attracted me—their closeness.

  I have no idea what will happen next. All I can say is, I can’t remember ever feeling so good!

  Stay tuned!

  Meg

  February 6, 1970

  Dear Meg,

  I’m THRILLED to hear all the news! Nick’s a good boy, and he’ll be a good man, too—when he grows up. As for the new man who brought all this magic into your life, you left out one little detail. Which one is it, girl—Paul, or Toby?

  Love,

  Evelyn Ruger (as in “sugar”)

  March 4, 1970

  Dear Evelyn,

  As usual, you cut through all my flowery prose and got right to the point: “Which one is it girl—Paul or Toby?”

  Since my last letter I moved out of Hope Street and into Paul and Toby’s Bowen Street apartment (please note my new address). After today’s SMC meeting, Nick pulled me aside and asked—with more than a hint of hurt feelings—whose bedroom I settled in. I told him I have my own bedroom (which is more like a very large walk-in closet), teasing that my relationship with him spoiled me so much I could never consider being with another man.

  Asking myself the same question you and Nick asked, I do wonder why no romance blossoms between me and one or the other of these two guys I spend all my time with.

  Today we went to Narragansett Racetrack together and won a bunch of money using a computer program they wrote to pick winners! Weird, I know, but the most fun I’ve ever had. I gave Paul a kiss after our horse won the last race, and I kind of thought something might happen between us tonight. But now he’s in his room sleeping, and I’m up writing you this letter. It would be easy enough for me to go knock on his bedroom door, but I can’t do it.

  So why is that? Of course I did just break up with Nick, and I can’t handle another failed relationship. I also realize I might jeopardize Paul and Toby’s closeness, the warmth I share, the very thing attracting me to them in the first place. Besides, I can’t imagine falling for any guy whose idea of great literature is the latest edition of Popular Mechanics! But the real reason is simpler. Paul and Toby are my friends.

  I guess that’s not much of an answer, but it’s the only one I’ve got.

  In the meantime, something else happened, something more important. It also helps explain how the three of us became so close, so quickly.

  The same day I last wrote to you, the day after I met Paul and Toby, a Vietnam Vet named Ian Marley had a flashback and a seizure during a party at Hope Street. Kevin McCabe, the local Vets Against the War chairman and Ian’s best friend, told us if we called the Veterans Administration Hospital, they’d drug Ian, lock him up, and throw away the key. So I got Paul and Toby, and together we took care of him. Four days watching over him, feeding him, cleaning him, but we did it! He’s okay—thank God!—and back living with Kevin.

  What happened was terrible, seeing Ian convulsing and in so much pain. But something wonderful happened, too. Together, we saved him. And I feel like I found my gift. Evelyn, I can save people!

  Love,

  Meg

  P.S. Toby, Paul, and I marshaled together at a peace rally a few hours after I met them at their training se
ssion. The turnout was great, more than 5,000, and Pete McCloskey, a Congressman from California (and former Marine!) gave a terrific speech. I’ve enclosed a picture from the Federal Courthouse steps. Paul’s the one with the Mets Cap, Toby’s wearing the beret and kind of towering over us. What do you think?

  March 14, 1970

  Dearest Meg,

  Please don’t misunderstand me, honey, what you and your friends did was wonderful. But like Reverend Franklin used to say in his sermons at the New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, only God has the power to save someone. Maybe your gift is the power to give God a little more time to decide.

  As for Paul, Toby, and your picture, the answer’s simple—I’d take both those good looking young men in a heartbeat! Can they dance? But you, girl—do you need me to come back up there and start feeding you again? Or should I write to your new friends and tell them to get you out to Grant’s Womb on Fridays?

  Love,

  Evelyn Ruger (as in “sugar”)

  March 22, 1970

  Dear Evelyn,

  I’m sitting in my room at Bowen Street. Two days ago Ian killed himself. I’ve never felt so bad.

  You were right, Evelyn, you were so right. I can’t save anyone. Every day people are dying in this war and I can’t save any of them.

  I’m not like you, Evelyn. I don’t have your faith that God will do the saving. Because of you, because of all you’ve done for me, because of all you taught me, I have faith in myself, faith I can do something.

  I wish you were here, know you can’t be. But thanks to you, I’m ready to stand on my own two feet, ready to act.

  Ian went through college on a ROTC scholarship. That’s how he wound up in Vietnam. Evelyn, one way or another, Dr. King’s way or Malcolm’s way, I’m getting ROTC off this campus.

  Love,

  Meg

  March 31, 1970

  Dear Meg,

  I’m thinking back on all my letters to you, feeling more like my Aunt Martha than your friend Evelyn. No matter what I did when I was a kid, Aunt Martha always let me know it wasn’t good enough.