by Belva Plain
“We’re almost there,” Tim said suddenly.
He turned off the main road and stopped on a deserted back street that contained only a cemetery, a church, and a small warehouse, boarded up. There was no one in sight.
“You all know what we have to do? Should I go over it again?”
No one answered. Everything had been so carefully rehearsed that each knew the instructions by heart, and yet, now that the moment had come, fear pounded in the chest, fear that in a crucial second all the instructions might just fly out of one’s head. Timothy must have sensed this, because he began to speak very slowly and firmly.
“There’s a briefcase for each of you in the back of the car. Each briefcase has four bottles of duck’s blood.” He paused and chuckled. “My cleaning woman makes Polish sausage. I paid her to make some for me, so she’s been collecting the ingredients in my kitchen, enough sausage for ten families. Anyway, this is it. You go in, ask to see your own draft records, which you are entitled by law to do. Don’t give your right names by mistake! So while they’re looking, you get out the bottles, rush in and splash as many file drawers as you can. The clerks will try to pull you away, but let me repeat—I can’t stress this too much—we do not want to hurt anybody. So temper your resistance. Let them pull you away rather than hurt anybody. That’s clear, I hope. I will be waiting outside in the car with the engine running. Come out as fast as you can, because the second I see guards approaching, I’m going to drive off, and anyone who’s left is left. That’s all. We have to protect as many of you as we can. Any questions? Any comment?”
“You know,” Steve said, “I’ve been thinking about the Berrigans, the way they stood there after destroying the files and waited for the FBI to come and get them. It seems somehow such an eloquent, heroic way of making a moral point.”
“Well, but—” Timothy began, when Lydia interrupted.
“Eloquent, shmeloquent! They played that game once too often and ended up in prison. When you’re in prison, you’re no good to the movement, are you? Don’t be a fool, Steve,” she said sharply. “Save yourself if you can so you can work again another day.”
Steve felt the reprimand. “Okay, I’m with you,” he cried, making his voice sound jaunty.
Tim started the motor, and they drove into the center of town. The streets were deserted now in the heavy rain.
“We’re almost there. The Selective Service office is in the town hall, that far wing, the new wing with a separate entrance. Rather handy for us.”
The men filed out. Tim touched Steve’s arm.
“Good luck. You’ll be okay,” he said.
Courage surged in Steve’s chest, and he went forward with Mark, who measured six feet four; yet Steve was the first to enter the lofty green-painted corridor, unmistakably official and governmental with a smell of marble. Steve’s heart was pounding now, and there was a hot taste in his mouth.
He cleared his throat and was the first to speak when they entered the office.
“We would all like to see our draft records.”
The clerk, a weary woman with gray curls, looked flustered.
“Is there any reason?” she began, when Mark came up beside Steve.
“All of us have got some problems, medical problems, and we’ve been worried. We’re in school, and we’re not sure where we stand or how to plan.” He spoke persuasively with a pleasant smile.
The clatter of typewriters had ceased, and the few clerks who were preparing to leave, since the clock was moving toward closing time, looked up curiously.
The first clerk was dubious. “Well, I don’t know,” she began again.
It flashed across Steve’s mind that this woman would not approve of them, since all except Mark were bearded. This woman would detest beards.
“Are these all friends of yours?” she asked Mark.
“Not exactly. But my attorney suggested that I ask to see my record, and somehow when word got around that I was coming here, these people asked whether I would give them a ride. So I did,” he said with the same pleasant smile.
His manner, his clean-shaven cheeks and neat slacks, along with the word attorney, apparently impressed her.
“Well, all right,” she said. “Write your names here, please, and I’ll go to the files. It’ll take a few minutes.”
Steve moved outside of himself, outside of the time and the place, observing as if from a great distance. At any minute guards will come to challenge, he thought. Open the briefcases, they will say. But these were students, so it was logical for them to be carrying briefcases. Lydia had thoughtfully varied them, some new, some battered, and one was a canvas bag with books protruding. It was all quite natural.
The woman summoned them. They followed into a gray space with a concrete floor, green walls, and green metal file cabinets. She opened drawers and called names. Bailey. The B’s were back here. Turner and Stankowitz, this way. She stepped for a second toward the door, the outer room from which they had entered, and said something to someone in that room, so she did not see that the men had opened the briefcases and the bottles. Then hearing the scramble of noise behind her, she understood suddenly what was happening and cried out. Other women came running, scurrying with furious, frightened cries, grabbing Steve’s coat and Dick’s shirt. Mark was opening more drawers and spilling the bottles. One dropped on the floor, its jagged neck broken off. Someone stooped to pick it up to salvage the dark blood. The blood was almost purple, thick and sticky, having congealed in the cold. Steve’s stomach lurched. He had a vision of ducks flying in V-formation through the autumn sky. The women went running through the chaos to the telephone.
“Let’s go!” cried Mark. They ran. They raced. The car’s doors were open.
“Get the hell in!” screamed Lydia. “Quick!”
Tim gunned the motor and they went around the corner on two wheels. There was no one on the street in the heavy rain. It was almost dusk, and no one, as far as they could tell, had seen the car. Tim swerved so sharply that they all fell against each other. They were out on the highway and off it again. “Back roads,” Tim said. “Through the farms …”
“Dick’s missing,” Lydia said, calmly enough.
“He braced himself against the door so that they couldn’t follow to identify the car,” Mark said.
“Oh, Jesus, now what?”
“He’ll serve time,” Tim said. “For malicious destruction of government property, interfering with the Selective Service process.”
“How long, do you think?” Steve asked.
“Two years. Maybe three.”
There was a reflective silence until someone said, “Tough. The college years thrown away. Lost.”
“Not as lost as for the boys in Vietnam,” Tim answered. “Not as lost as being trapped forever into this system. He went in with his eyes open, anyway, and he’ll come out with his eyes open. You all did,” Tim said, “and you all will.”
Now that it was over, Steve felt a resurgence of confidence, riding back wedged in with his friends, these friends with whom he had just shared danger. He felt a wave of well-being, here in this snug car, safe on these country roads, field after vacant field going by, with here or there a lighted house, and the steady rain still falling, and Tim at the wheel. Tim had come through many days like these, he would lead them through more days, and be with them whenever it was plausible for him to be there. He was a leader. It was an honor to go with him. Steve’s heart swelled.
“It would be best,” Tim said as he stopped at the edge of the campus to let them out, “if you could find a way to disperse. Don’t be seen together for the next few days. I don’t foresee any trouble, but it’s best to be careful. It seems unlikely that the clerks will remember you in such confusion. You don’t look all that different from hundreds of others, but still, one never knows. If any of you can find a way to get off campus for the weekend or even to go home right now, tonight, that would be best of all.”
Steve walked rapidly toward h
is room. Now that he had left the safety of the car and was alone in the dark, open space, he had an eerie feeling that some thing was about to pounce on him from behind. Imagine three years behind bars! He shuddered. “Those of you who can, go home,” Tim had said. Of course, the perfect alibi. But how to explain this unexpected return to his parents? He would have to think of some excuse. Well, something would occur to him. The main thing now was to get to the airport fast.
They were all in the living room when the doorbell rang. The evening had grown late and Anna was preparing to go home when the loud peal startled the quiet and Iris sprang up.
She looked through the peephole. “Why, it can’t be—it’s Steve!” she cried.
Alarmed, Theo sprang up too, as Steve came into the room. He was disheveled, he looked exhausted, and his damp clothes clung.
“What—what’s happened?” Theo stammered.
“Don’t get excited. It’s nothing—much. Had a little trouble, that’s all, and it seemed prudent to get off the campus over the weekend.”
A pang shot through Theo. “What sort of trouble?”
“We had—there was a little fracas at the local draft board. We don’t think anybody will be able to prove we were there if we can show we weren’t even in town.”
“What do you mean by a ‘fracas’?”
Steve hesitated. “Oh, you know. The sort of thing you must have been reading about in the papers.”
Theo steadied himself. “You mean throwing blood and—”
Steve nodded. Laura and Jimmy stared at him, while Iris and Anna stared at each other. There was a nervous silence until Theo spoke again, his voice catching in his throat.
“Is this what you’re doing! Is this what they’re teaching in that place, this what you’re learning?”
It was impossible to read Steve’s expression. Regarding a spot on the wall behind his father’s head, he seemed to have removed himself, or tried to remove himself, from the crisis.
“I’m waiting for an answer,” Theo said and, when none came, continued, “You realize, of course, that your whole future is at stake. Right now. This minute. If you’re found out you’ll be in deep, deep trouble. Ruined.”
Steve answered, then. “I know. I realize.”
He cracked his knuckles. Theo hated the sound when Steve did that, but this time he took no notice. He is struggling to keep control, Iris thought, pitying her husband.
Oh, why this suffering? It was so peaceful here tonight, with all of us sitting at dinner.… Theo and Mama were talking.… And Philip played his new piece on the piano for us.… And afterward Laura played checkers with Jimmy.… And now the peace is shattered.… And what is to become of this boy?
Theo spoke. “What are you trying to prove? That you can do what you’ve done and get away with it?”
“I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m just trying to stop this filthy war. How many times must I spell it out?”
“Listen,” Theo began, and now Iris recognized his “reasonable” approach, “listen to me. I myself believe this war is a mistake and for more than one reason. It’s probably not winnable, to begin with. But in this year of 1966, fifty-six percent of the American people support the President. Johnson says he’s willing to negotiate a peace, but not with the Communists in Hanoi. And he’s probably right. Wherever Communists have won, in Hungary or in Cuba, terror follows. I tremble for the people if they win over there. But I am perplexed. Yes, I am. I don’t know the answers, but I do know one thing. What you’ve been doing is not the answer.”
“Try any campus. Talk to the faculty, and you’ll find plenty of people who don’t agree with you. People more knowledgeable than you are.”
Theo flushed, tightening his lips against the response that was waiting to rush forth.
“That’s as it may be,” he said, after a moment. “But for heaven’s sake, can’t you see what you’re being led into? Leave Marxism out for now, all that jargon that you and I don’t agree on. Let’s talk just about what you’ve done. How can you govern a country, any country, no matter what the system, if every citizen gets it into his head to decide what laws he will obey and what laws he won’t? I accept the privileges of citizenship. If I’m ordered to go into the army, I have to go. I’ll go whether I like it or not.”
Steve raised scornful eyes to his father. “You’re pretty safe. They’re hardly going to reach your age bracket. Oh,” he said almost gleefully, “there’s a saying I came across last week. Somebody named Charles Edward Montague, I don’t know who he was, but he wrote, ‘War hath no fury like a noncombatant.’ That sums it up pretty well.”
“Don’t be a smart aleck. You know damned well that I fought behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied France. Don’t insult me.” Theo’s voice rose as he repeated, “Don’t insult me. Do you hear?”
Iris said desperately, “He didn’t mean to insult you, Theo, I’m sure. It’s just that we’re all so terribly upset, let’s try—”
“Iris, don’t plead for him. I can handle it. This is no child’s play, you know. What excuses will we have when the FBI comes to the door looking for him? Tell me, what excuses?”
Anna stood up, saying quickly, “I’ll make coffee and a sandwich, Steve. You must be starved.”
“No, I’m not hungry, Nana.”
Anna had already reached the kitchen door, followed by Iris and Laura. Mama’s as terrified as I am, Iris thought. It helps her to do something with her hands, especially in the kitchen. And, sinking in sudden weakness onto a chair, she let the other two work off their fear, Anna slicing bread and meat, and Laura rinsing a bunch of grapes at the sink. A cheerful domestic scene it was, and a stranger, looking in at it, would have no idea of the anguish just across the hall.
Tears sprang suddenly, and pretending to be looking for something, Iris got up to open the refrigerator. In the turning she was caught by her mother’s eye.
“Laura,” said Anna, “Laura, darling, it’s awfully late. Shouldn’t you go to bed?”
Iris recovered herself. “You shouldn’t have heard this tonight, Laura. It’s too nasty, too frightening.”
“I’m fifteen, Mom.”
“But still you shouldn’t.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
“Of course we trust you. But this is so serious, it shouldn’t be on anyone’s conscience. Your dad and I will have to think and talk, but you shouldn’t be burdened with it.”
Anna interposed quietly, “Laura knows what’s going on in the world. No one can hide it from her, and we shouldn’t.”
“Okay, Mom,” Laura said. “Take it easy.”
Iris kissed the girl’s troubled forehead. “I love you, Laura.”
When Laura went out, she cried to Anna, “Can you believe this? Who could have dreamed that a child of ours would come running home to hide from the law? Oh, can you believe what Papa would say? And we were so proud of Steve, he was so—”
“Iris, Iris, don’t cry, you’ll make things worse. Where’s a tray? Pour a cup for Theo too.”
Jimmy had gone upstairs, so that the father and son faced each other alone. If Steve just wouldn’t look so arrogant! Iris thought. The very way he stands infuriates his father. He must know that. It’s almost as if he doesn’t care, or even wants to anger him. And she passed her hand over her forehead as if to erase her thoughts.
Philip, who had been in bed, now came downstairs in his bathrobe and stood at the door. The little boy looked curious and scared.
“Go on back to bed, son,” Theo said. “I know you want to know what’s going on, but you’ll have to wait till morning, and I’ll explain it to you then. You need your sleep. Go on, son, there’s nothing to worry about,” he added gently.
Then, as if a new idea had struck him, he turned back to Steve, crying, “Oh, I’d like to get my hands on them, these professors!”
“I told you,” Steve said patiently, “professors had nothing to do with this. It was just me and some other guys. We do our own thinking. You do
n’t know a thing about it.”
“Don’t I? Doesn’t anyone who reads the papers know what’s going on?”
Theo was sweating. Iris had never seen him so furious, never seen the veins stand out, so thick and darkly blue, on his temples. Nevertheless, he was still fighting against his own fury, and lowered his voice.
“When I remember myself at your age, never would I have dared—”
“ ‘The times they are a-changing,’ ” Steve said. “But you probably don’t approve of Bob Dylan.”
“He’s a fine singer. He’s making a fortune too. They all are, these entertainers. They sing about how they despise our money-grubbing country, but I see that they grub plenty for themselves and live pretty high. They ought to have their goddamn necks wrung so they’d never sing another note!”
“Have you said everything you want to say?” Steve asked now. “Because if you have, I’m tired. I’d like to go to sleep.”
Theo glared. “Yes, you must be very tired. You’ve had a hard day’s work. It can’t be easy to tear up a Selective Service office.”
The atmosphere in the room was as shiveringly cold as if the furnace had been turned off. Rain glinted on the bare glass wall that led to the terrace. They had all collected in the farthest corner, and Iris was reminded, miserably, of the crowd that gathers around an accident or someone fallen on the street.