A Negro lady came up, took one of the leaflets, read it carefully, and then said: “They look like Communists to me!” Edward Asher commented that no matter how clearly things were explained to the people, the people always wanted to believe you were a Communist. He said that when he demonstrated once in Miami against vivisection of helpless animals he was accused of being a Nazi Communist which was, he explained, a contradiction in terms. He said ladies were usually the worst.
By then the large crowd that had gathered when the television men came had drifted away. The pickets therefore shifted the site of the demonstration to Rockefeller Plaza in Rockefeller Center via Edward Asher’s car. Here were many people loafing, digesting lunch etc. and we used the spare signs which had new messages including
WHY ARE YOU STANDING
WHERE ARE YOU STANDING?
THE SOUL IS NOT!
NO MORE
ART
CULTURE
LOVE
REMEMBER YOU ARE DUST!
The rain had stopped and the flowers smelled marvelously fine. The pickets took up positions near a restaurant (I wish you’d been there, Marie, because it reminded me of something, something you said that night we went to Bloomingdale’s and bought your new cerise-colored bathing suit: “The color a new baby has,” you said, and the flowers were like that, some of them). People with cameras hanging around their necks took pictures of us as if they had never seen a demonstration before. The pickets remarked among themselves that it was funny to think of the tourists with pictures of us demonstrating in their scrapbooks in California, Iowa, Michigan, people we didn’t know and who didn’t know us or care anything about the demonstration or, for that matter, the human condition itself, in which they were so steeped that they couldn’t stand off, and look at it, and know it for what it was. “It’s a paradigmatic situation,” Henry Mackie said, “exemplifying the distance between the potential knowers holding a commonsense view of the world and what is to be known, which escapes them as they pursue existences.”
At this time (2:45 P.M.) the demonstrators were approached by a group of youths between the ages I would say of sixteen and twenty-one. They were dressed in hood jackets, T-shirts, tight pants etc., and were very obviously delinquents from bad environments and broken homes where they had received no love. They ringed the pickets in a threatening manner. There were about seven of them. The leader (and Marie, he wasn’t the oldest; he was younger than some of them, tall, with a peculiar face, blank and intelligent at the same time) walked around looking at our signs with exaggerated curiosity. “What are you guys,” he said finally, “some kind of creeps or something?”
Henry Mackie replied quietly that the pickets were American citizens pursuing their right to demonstrate peaceably under the Constitution.
The leader looked at Henry Mackie. “You’re flits, you guys, huh?” he said. He then snatched a handful of leaflets out of Edward Asher’s hands, and when Edward Asher attempted to recover them, danced away out of reach while two others stood in Asher’s way. “What do you flits think you’re doin’?” he said. “What is this shit?”
“You haven’t got any right . . .” Henry Mackie started to say, but the leader of the youths moved very close to him then.
“What do you mean, you don’t believe in God?” he said. The other ones moved in closer too.
“That is not the question,” Henry Mackie said. “Belief or non-belief is not at issue. The situation remains the same whether you believe or not. The human condition is . . .”
“Listen,” the leader said, “I thought all you guys went to church every day. Now you tell me that flits don’t believe in God. You putting me on?”
Henry Mackie repeated that belief was not involved, and said that it was, rather, a question of man helpless in the grip of a definition of himself that he had not drawn, that could not be altered by human action, and that was in fundamental conflict with every human notion of what should obtain. The pickets were simply subjecting this state of affairs to a radical questioning, he said.
“You’re putting me on,” the youth said, and attempted to kick Henry Mackie in the groin, but Mackie turned away in time. However the other youths then jumped the pickets, right in the middle of Rockefeller Center. Henry Mackie was thrown to the pavement and kicked repeatedly in the head, Edward Asher’s coat was ripped off his back and he sustained many blows in the kidneys and elsewhere, and Howard Ettle was given a broken rib by a youth called “Cutter” who shoved him against a wall and smashed him viciously even though bystanders tried to interfere (a few of them). All this happened in a very short space of time. The pickets’ signs were broken and smashed, and their leaflets scattered everywhere. A policeman summoned by bystanders tried to catch the youths but they got away through the lobby of the Associated Press building and he returned empty-handed. Medical aid was summoned for the pickets. Photos were taken.
“Senseless violence,” Edward Asher said later. “They didn’t understand that . . .”
“On the contrary,” Henry Mackie said, “they understand everything better than anybody.”
The next evening, at 8 P.M. Henry Mackie delivered his lecture in the upstairs meeting room at the Playmor Lanes, as had been announced in the leaflet. The crowd was very small but attentive and interested. Henry Mackie had his head bandaged in a white bandage. He delivered his lecture titled “What Is To Be Done?” with good diction and enunciation, and in a strong voice. He was very eloquent. And eloquence, Henry Mackie says, is really all any of us can hope for.
Pages from the Annual Report
William Elderly Baskerville posed with the ink bottle in his hand. A lovely robust drop trembled on the lip; with a smooth slight movement of the wrist, he heaved it over the edge. It made a satisfying smash on the letterhead between his feet. Reaching, he picked the paper up and folded it in half. “Mislike me not for my complexion,” he murmured, and looked around the room. De Vinne was watching him. William Elderly Baskerville blinked twice. “Voyeur!” he spat. He ran his thumb up the edge of the paper. What terrors, monsters, troglodytes, and conflagrations lay inside? He threw the paper away; it lay curling in his wastebasket.
From their window one could see the dismal underside of an identical building, sometimes with faces pressed against the glass. William Elderly Baskerville spent a good deal of his time looking out the window, making faces for the people in the other building. De Vinne did not approve. He refused to look out the window at all. “Why?” William Elderly Baskerville asked suddenly. De Vinne pretended to start. “Why what?” Baskerville played with his paperknife; for a moment, he was a Borgia. “Why have they cast us here, and left us?”
De Vinne reached for his own paperknife, defensively. He was younger, heavy, and worried. He also refused to take off his coat in the office. Executives wore their jackets at all times; his was a light green tweed. “Be damned if I know,” he said.
Baskerville dangled the knife like a jewel before his own bedazzled eyes. “I was pleased, once. I saw a horse burn to the ground.”
“A horse?”
“The eyes lit up with an interior light.”
“Did he scream?”
“It was a chocolate horse in my mother’s skillet. We had hot chocolate.”
“You aim to shock.”
“I only like things a little more exciting than they are.”
De Vinne was . . . tolerable. On occasion, he showed real promise. And after thirteen years, why not? Or had it been that long? Perhaps only since January. William Elderly Baskerville ran a hand through what he firmly believed was full white hair. The gray of the sky outside their window never changed; it was difficult to tell the time. Was he thirty-one or fifty? On the wall behind him a sign said BLINK.
The girl from the mimeograph room barged through the door backward trailing a supermarket basket filled with paper. She looked uneasily from one to the other, then smiled at Baskerville: he was the handsomer. De Vinne, enraged, stood up and hurled his knife acr
oss the room. It clattered to the floor a foot from the wire basket: the girl screamed with real terror. “Put it over there, Cynthia,” De Vinne said kindly. He helped her empty the basket onto a long table where stacks and stacks of identical paper already sat. She shrank from him as much as possible. One of the stacks began to teeter and slip off the edge; they piled the rest on the floor. Other piles drifted against the walls on three sides of the room, some of them four feet tall.
“Cynthia,” Baskerville said. He employed his best Harvard Business manner. “Before you go, one thing. Are you ready to divulge the whereabouts of your headquarters?”
“Mr. Baskerville, I can’t. I told you a hundred times. They’ll kill me if I tell.”
“But Cynthia,” he said kindly, reasonably. “Look at it from our point of view. Look at this room. DID YOU EVER SEE ANYTHING LIKE IT?” he shouted. “What in the name of God do you expect us to do?”
De Vinne interposed a soothing hand. “You know we have to consider everything carefully. These things take time. Meanwhile, we’re being pressed to death by your people. By the people you represent.”
“Let her go,” William Elderly Baskerville said suddenly. “What is she? A transient, just passing through. Get yourself out of here, scab,” he said. “Get back to headquarters. And you can tell them from us . . .” He paused, looking at De Vinne. “What can she tell them from us?”
“Let’s just send them the knife. A declaration of war.” He formally tendered the paperknife, as if surrendering a sword.
The girl fled, bumping and clanging down the hall. “We probably shouldn’t have done that,” Baskerville said. “There’ll be repercussions.” He moved to the window. “What kind of day is it?” De Vinne asked. He sat slumped in his chair, toying with a rubber stamp that printed his initials H.D.V. He printed them several times on the telephone book. Baskerville pressed his face to the glass and squinted upward, to the bit of sky between the two buildings. “The same kind,” he said moodily. “Look for yourself.”
“You know I have a fear of heights.”
“Have you got any paper clips?”
“More than I can possibly use. Have a thousand.”
“Two will do. What time is it?”
“Almost lunch.”
A rat appeared on one of the piles of paper on the floor, looked at them, and scuttled along the wall. “Game!” De Vinne cried, and ran delightedly to the supply closet, where he pulled an ancient crossbow from an upper shelf. Winding it with difficulty, he laid a feathered bolt in place. “Where is it?” His face was flushed with unnatural exertion.
“I think it’s under the watercooler. Here, give me the bow. Let me shoot.”
“No,” De Vinne held the weapon high above his head, “no, no, no.” He danced out of reach. “It’s mine, I found it.” The thing went off with a shivering clang, shattering the great globe of the watercooler. Dank green growths cascaded over the floor. De Vinne quietly put the crossbow back on its shelf.
“It’s an outmoded weapon,” Baskerville said. “Don’t reproach yourself.”
“There was something in my eye,” De Vinne said, rubbing.
“Usually you’re better.”
“Usually IT stands still.”
“I hope it didn’t drown.”
William Elderly Baskerville sat with his feet on the desk, watching the telephone. Sooner or later it would ring. He was not discouraged by the fact that it never had, in all the years or months he had been watching it. In the meantime, there were diversions. De Vinne wasn’t a bad fellow, really, although he was young and a Christian Scientist. Baskerville stared at his collection of Rorschachs, taped on the wall behind him. There were hundreds of them: bats and shattered golfballs, broken butterflies and carnivorous leemings and amphibious bandicoots, falling angels and whirling circus tents. With practice he could look at them and see nothing at all.
Palatino the office boy looked in the door. He was an old man of retirement age, or close to it, with a twisted foot. “Do you want to know what I heard about your guys?” he said, leering. “Do you want to know? What’s it worth to you?”
“A thousand paper clips,” De Vinne said.
“Skin of a drowned rat,” Baskerville countered.
“A genuine antique crossbow in excellent condition.”
“A cloot on the snoot.”
“William, don’t be unkind.” De Vinne turned. “He’s only trying to be helpful. Aren’t you, you filthy mother?” He grabbed the old man by the shoulders and shook him furiously, then pushed him back out the door.
Palatino jumped. There was someone behind him. It was Miss Angel Craw, a beautiful Negress who was the floor maid. She was singing “Bringing In The Sheaves” in a lovely dark contralto. “They’re going to flood this place and wash you all away,” the old man shrilled. “They’re going to hook the fire hoses up to the transoms. You’ll be drowned! You’ll be drowned!” He laughed insanely and pinched Miss Angel Craw; with a quick gesture, she shoved the end of her mop up under his chin. He howled and ran.
“Did he mean it?” De Vinne looked worried. “Does he know something?
“A born turncoat. He might.”
“Do you think maybe they’re not satisfied? With our work?”
“How would they know? We never send anything out. Everything comes in. How could they possibly know?”
“Maybe we haven’t complained enough.”
“Maybe we haven’t complained in the right way.”
“We’d better cover ourselves. First we’ll draw up formal complaint. Then we’ll seal the transoms.”
“After all these years,” Baskerville mused. “Not satisfied with our work.” Miss Angel Craw mopped the floor in the background, singing softly. Her mop swished through little puddles of water and broken glass. “When I retired, they said I was the best man they ever had on this job. The best.”
“We’re not so young anymore.” De Vinne answered. “We’re thirty-one. But alert for our age.”
“It’s a flagrant example of . . . What shall I say in the complaint?”
“Let me think.” De Vinne began pacing, lifting his feet delicately to avoid the waves from Miss Angel Craw’s mop. “Say: When in the course of human events it becomes necessary . . . No, that won’t do. We don’t want to petition. We want to demand.”
“You can’t demand if you have nothing to bargain with. Use your head. We need hostages.” They both looked at Miss Angel Craw, who gave them a seductive smile. William Elderly Baskerville took her by the hand. She posed prettily as Pocahontas. “Won’t do,” Baskerville said, shaking his head, “she’s under age.” Miss Angel Craw looked hurt. She returned to her mopping.
“I never had any children,” De Vinne said.
“I don’t see the relevance.”
“I didn’t expect you to.”
“You’re not helping.”
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“You don’t.”
“I do. You’re ready to give them me.”
“It never occurred . . .”
“It’s written all over your face.”
“Not even for a moment.”
“After all these years.”
“Would you mind?”
“Judas!”
There was a crash in the supply closet. Miss Angel Craw had locked herself in. They rushed to the door, pulling and jerking on it. It refused to move. “Are you all right?” De Vinne called. Miss Angel Craw could be heard singing behind the door. “She’s all right,” Baskerville said testily. “Concentrate on the problem.” They both sat down at their desks in a businesslike way. “We forgot lunch,” De Vinne said.
“It’s dull here,” he went on. “I think I’ll look out the window.”
“Be careful. Remember your affliction.”
“I’m tired. I’m tired and I’m overworked.” He was working himself into a rage; Baskerville knew the signs. The strain of their assignment was telling on him. He was, after all, a young man, c
omparatively inexperienced. You had to make allowances. William Elderly Baskerville felt tolerant and fatherly. From the abundant supply on the floor he chose several pieces of paper and fashioned an elaborate Valentine heart, inscribing it, with many flourishes, with the words “Thirty-Five Years, In Grateful Memory.” He placed it wordlessly on his partner’s desk. De Vinne began to cry.
“You never answered my question,” Baskerville said gently.
“What question?” De Vinne’s face was hidden behind his hands.
“Why have we been thrown here, and abandoned?”
“It was a rhetorical question.”
“Then I didn’t answer it. But you try, first.”
“To do our work.”
“But what precisely is our work?”
“It has something to do with all this.” De Vinne indicated the paper strewn all over the room. His interest was reviving; he wiped his tear-streaked face. “There is an organization, somewhere,” he began, patiently. “and it sends us the, uh, material, and we . . .”
“And we?”
“We act on it.
“When?”
“I thought you knew.”
“Maybe I do. But aren’t you getting impatient?”
“I bloody well am.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“I was rabid the first couple of months. Or years. But you said to wait. You seemed to know what you were doing.”
“You’re very kind.”
“Do you?”
“It’s well you ask.”
“I’m trying to be efficient. God knows.” De Vinne brushed some lint from his green tweed jacket. “But it’s trying, with you being mysterious and Lord knows what going on outside . . .” He began to look tearful again.
“Henry,” Baskerville said quietly.
“Yes?”
“You’ve noticed the paper?”
“Noticed it! My God, we’re drowning in it. You yourself told Cynthia . . .”
“You’ve noticed that there’s nothing on it?”
Flying to America Page 18