By Silent Majority

by Robert Buschel

  The next thing that Connie could remember was second period art class. Class was held in the portable classroom because second period was involved in a spray-painting project and the school didn’t want anyone spraying in a good classroom. Connie was engrossed in her art like a good prep student. She watched Jessica out of the corner of her eye. The substitute teacher was gone from the room, and Jessica made her way into the supply closet. By stealth she captured the telescope brush-holder.

  The brush-holder is a device with miniature hooks that can grasp. The hooks are normally used to grasp a paintbrush. The metal rod can be extended like a telescope so an artist can paint in high places. Jessica was ingenious; she had another purpose in mind. She collapsed the brush-holder into its smallest form and put the item in her purse undetected. Connie averted her eyes and pretended that she did not know why Jessica was taking the brush-holder. June trained Connie to think in innocent ways and Connie liked the way she thought even though she would never admit it to anyone including herself. Talking about rebellion was rebellious, but actually rebelling was not satisfying at all. Like a politician, talking about change is popular, but actually changing is not—until there is enough leverage. Leverage is the push that throws the recalcitrant actor over the cliff.

  Connie wanted to remain friends with Jessica. She also felt that Jessica’s problem was now her problem. Only together could she get over it. Besides, Jessica would owe Connie big for it. With these thoughts, Connie realized how much political savvy was inculcated into her personality. She would give Jessica an abortion, and she felt accomplished for it.

  “And you did it,” Rock asked, more for satisfaction of curiosity rather than to complete the story. Connie didn’t realize that however, and she continued.

  “She came over at the end of the day. I remembered it was raining and I had to do it in the rain.”

  “How did you do it? I mean, how did you know what to do?”

  “Like I said, Jessica had a book and I followed it closely. I thought for the next week I should become a surgeon.” Connie laughed nervously. “The operation was a success but the patient. . . .”

  “She didn’t die, did she?” Rock asked anxiously.

  “No. Of course not. She got an infection and she became sterile.”

  “She went to a doctor?”

  “Yes. Did he know why she got infected?”

  “He didn’t let on, according to Jessica. At least not to her parents. But she felt that he did, and was protecting her.”

  “You still in contact with her?”

  “No. She went to college in Iowa and we lost touch.”

  Rock broke rank and told Connie what he thought. “It’s kind of surprising that after such an emotional experience you two didn’t keep in touch.”

  “I thought you weren’t my psychiatrist, Mr. Rock?” Connie shot back. He remained silent. “She’s married now. She adopted a baby Chinese girl. I think she’s a lot happier than I am. She’s got a baby. Her father pulled strings to get the baby. I heard he wanted a white baby for his daughter, but she wanted the first mother available. Anyway, he turned it around, and now having a Chinese granddaughter served his career. Isn’t that sick?”

  “You think her husband knows that she had an abortion?”

  Connie didn’t like that Rock cut her off. He was asking some very difficult questions. He should be tolerant of her guilt. But he didn’t care. Rock had only one client, and his client was not in the room at the moment. Only if Daniel Carlson had a need to make his daughter happy would he do his best to make her feel better. To him, it seemed like a waste of time. Psychological counseling was nonsense. You just act, not feel. Respond logically, not emotionally, and the politically correct response will surface, and the negligible feelings will be repressed.

  “Is that all, Mr. Rock?”

  “If that’s all then, yes, I’ll check it out. Thank you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t tell my father.”

  “Why not?” Rock asked.

  “I lied to him about this once,” Connie conceded.

  June walked into her family room and shut the door. She sat on a couch opposite Roger Rock. She was dressed as if it were a formal occasion. Rock was a man she felt she had to dress for. She looked at his eyes and immediately took out a cigarette and lit it.

  “You’re not a smoker,” Rock said forthright.

  “This whole dialogue is bothersome. I resent it and I don’t feel very good about it. You’re going to have to deal with my smoking?”

  “I meant in public. The future First Lady does not smoke. It’s a disgusting habit.”

  “You smoke.”

  “I’m not running for office, you are. The whole family is. And it’s not what I think, it’s what the public thinks. First Ladies don’t smoke.”

  “First Ladies don’t smoke,” June said dutifully. She could say nothing else, he was right. She wanted to make it to the White House and knew that would be the climax of power. Where she would have the most influence. For what, even she had not resolved. June had no cause or pet project that she wanted to see furthered. The influence over others gave her a sense of security. An odd prioritization of values for a woman from the poor South. A priority of power number one makes a woman clawing her way up a silk curtain like a cat; but, instead of it being a game of adventure—the purpose of a cat—it is necessary for survival. With power as a need in June’s life, surely she scratched the wrong rat along the way.

  At first, June was reluctant to confide in Roger Rock, like the rest of the family. June, however, felt guilty. She was guilty in her mind. She told a couple of usual stories, linked to forgetfulness or laziness—not returning excess change at the grocery store. Rock grew impatient. June knew that this was not what he wanted. She needed some lubricant; she needed a psychiatrist.

  “I’m your priest, June. You should tell me everything. Everything that will help your husband become President.” Rock knew what to say next. “When Daniel is President, you will be able to bury these memories and do some wonderful things once you’re tapped with authority.”

  June immediately complied. Her thoughts took her back to the early 1970s. She was June Wolfe back then. Tom, her husband returned from Vietnam less than a hero, as most soldiers did. While most wives pined away for their lovers or got their love elsewhere, she did neither. June didn’t yearn for Tom or any other man. She moved on, financially and socially.

  June and Tom had just leased an apartment in a suburb in Virginia, before he was called away to the Vietnam “police action.” While Tom provided well for June financially, she wanted more from life than waiting for her husband to come home and offer to take her out. She wanted to need to go outside. “I have an appointment,” she would love to say. Through a friend, she joined the staff of Senator Buckley of Alabama.

  Her job at first was secretarial. The responsibilities grew as June demonstrated that she had a taste for the job. She had a sense of protocol. She knew how and when to be cordial; when and how to stall someone, without being too obvious. She also knew how to send a message to enemies of her Senator’s camp; yet, she could remain undercover as the sweet office girl, able to revive her southern belle accent posthaste. She was creating exactly what she wanted in her life, even without her husband. This revelation was contrary to what she learned as a child; but that is how little girls from the country-bumpkin south think, not women of influence. June’s mother, who was beaten by June’s father, could think nothing else, until one day she died from a complete surrender. She lost all self-interest and only served her man. When June’s mother didn’t, she got thumped for it. June, instead of adopting a similar attitude, reacted to it.

  June married a man like her father. When Tom was away in Southeast Asia, she discovered her opportunity to break free and live for herself. Like an overstretched rubber band, June couldn’t recoil to t
he same position she used to be when Tom was the bread winner. Once she saw she could survive, she would never be dependent again—certainly not dependent on someone of Tom’s caliber.

  When Tom returned home, he told June to quit her job and keep house again. He believed he could get a job in the post office that would provide for both of them. When June told Tom that she was pregnant with Alan, he still maintained that he was the man, and he would provide for the family. In an attempt to convince Tom that having a job was good for both of them, she took him to an office social.

  June took a big chance bringing Tom into conversational distance with her co-workers. He wasn’t raised to know or even have an instinct for etiquette. Tom was working class. He wouldn’t fit in. Tom also seemed more awkward than usual—since she remembered. June, however, was desperate to keep her job with the Senator, at least until Alan was born. She tried to make Tom feel comfortable, but all he could talk about was the war. Most of the people in the office were against the war, and were politically maneuvering to get the current administration to pull out of Vietnam. Tom became drunk and reacted with hostility to any contradicting point. June later learned at the end of the night that Tom wasn’t only drunk.

  June read about the symptoms in a magazine at work, but she was naive at first to think that Tom would’ve fallen victim to heroin. When she saw him in the bathroom shooting up the black tar into his veins she instantly lost all respect for him. She divorced any emotional commitment to him and their marriage. Now he was part of the gutter and she was from the Capitol. He was handcuffs and she was freedom. Where did he come from to think that she was his property, which he could do with whatever he wanted. How antiquated. She would no longer participate in it, for fear that she would die of the same disease her mother did.

  June felt threatened, not with the idea of physical harm upon Tom’s discovery that she knew of his addiction. Tom looked up at her from his squatting position next to the toilet. His arm was extended and he was tapping the last drop of liquid into his vein. He didn’t react emotionally. He made the extra effort to shut the door so she couldn’t see him complete the procedure. She wouldn’t let it go.

  “You humiliated me,” she said through the door. She wanted a reaction and looked to bait him.

  “Can’t hear you.”

  She opened the door widely. “You humiliated me,” she said with disgust.

  “What a bunch of communist sympathizers you work for. They don’t understand that I, and guys like me with the balls to serve, needed support from our country.”

  “They have a different view, that’s all.”

  “I forbid you to work there.”

  “You can’t forbid me, Tom!”

  “I’m the man, damn it. I make the rules! Now shut the fuckin’ door.” The warm mellow feeling enveloped Tom as the heroin fully kicked in. He collapsed on the bathroom floor, the same place he was the night before.

  How could June incite Tom if he passed out? It’s no fun fighting someone who won’t fight back. She wanted him either to be with her new life or out. June, deep in the pit of her ego, knew what she wanted. She wanted him out of her life. Her husband would sooner throw up on the shoes of the Senator, than say something appropriate. He didn’t fit in. Tom was about heroin and she was about power, control, and influence.

  The day had passed, and Tom had slept it away like every other day since he returned home. When he rose from the stupor, he was surly. He went to the refrigerator and stuffed food into his mouth, swallowed, then stuffed more food into his mouth. June gazed at him in disgust.

  “What are you doing? “

  “I’m fuckin’ hungry.”

  “Don’t talk to me like that!” June exclaimed.

  “At work they may kiss your ass, but here I’m the damn Senator. I bet you would cook dinner for him. You’re probably fucking him too.”

  “You sicken me,” June rebuked. “Get out of here!”

  “I take it back. I know you don’t fuck, you fat bitch.” Tom between swallows forgot June was carrying his son. He cared not to remember.

  “Use a plate, pig.”

  “I’m done,” Tom said as he slammed the refrigerator door. He walked to the bathroom to find his heroin, and inject more in his vein.

  “Eat, sleep, and get high—you’re worse than a dog.”

  Tom ignored her. His addiction made his procedure a mission. He opened the door to the bathroom and began to look around.

  “Where is it, June?”

  “I threw it out,” she replied.

  He immediately turned and charged her with force. Tom grabbed her by the throat and shook her head.

  “Don’t fuck around, June! Where is it?” Sweat oozed from his forehead. He was pale. His skin was thick like oatmeal. His blood ran cool. His breathing hissed when exhaling. Frightened, June immediately told him where he could find his stash.

  “It’s in the medicine cabinet,” she eked through the portion of the throat she could open.

  “Don’t move my stuff, ever.” Tom turned and moved back to the bathroom. He swung open the medicine cabinet door. He cracked the mirror door against the tile wall. June cried at the sound of the crash.

  Tom’s eyes were out of focus from the tears and cool wetness from his forehead that ran into his eyes. His stomach ached from the pounding onslaught of protein he just consumed. His thoughts remained clear but his hands would not cooperate.

  He screamed out, “June, come here. You have to help me, I’m sick!”

  “I’m not going to help you anymore. You can buy your own shit from now on. You can shoot the stuff up and kill yourself for all I care.”

  He cried, “I’m so sick, and nobody can help me. They made me sick in ‘Nam. It was damn hell there. Every day you thought you were going to die. Escaping to the Caribbean is the only way you can survive. Please, I’ll go to a clinic tomorrow. You have to help me get normal. Just normal.” He collapsed to his knees. He looked up at June in agony. His grimace accentuated the thick stubble around his mouth. “Please June, for better or for worse, remember? I swear, on our baby, tomorrow I’ll get some help.”

  June sensed that it was hypo talk. Tom wanted a fix and couldn’t do it himself. She looked down at him and saw a weak pitiful man. He was dirty and unkempt. When once he was possessive, powerful, and ambitious, his spirit was dying.

  June had the power and she made a decision to help. She edged her way into the bathroom. She wasn’t afraid to touch him. She knew that he wouldn’t hurt her if she was helping him get a fix. Tom wasn’t a violent person, he was a drug addict, and he had an evil force pulling his strings. June resigned it as the devil within him. There was only one way to exorcize him.

  June took the syringe in one hand, and the black tar heroin in the other. Instinctively Tom wrapped the rubber tie around his bicep to push the vein up in the joint of his arm. He filled the syringe with the usual amount. He looked at the syringe and he put in more. More, she thought, was too much. But she didn’t protest. He added more tar to the heroin water mix. He pricked himself deep and quickly released the mixture into his arm. The warm numbness enveloped Tom’s soul and he became relaxed. He was passive as a lamb—peaceful and kind.

  Tom then tensed and regurgitated the last meal all over his soiled undershirt. This didn’t bother Tom. This was part of the process. He felt higher than he ever did before. Lost in nothingness, he was on a vacation from the nightmares. The nightmares of everyday life, the world that hated him, which he thought were part of his inner-devil’s dreams.

  June stood up after Tom lost his lunch and walked away. She went into the kitchen and poured herself vodka straight. In one of the very few times in her life, she took a drink of the devil’s nectar. She could hear Tom convulsing in the bathroom. She heard his body thump when he hit the floor. She knew he was in serious crisis. He injected too much heroin.

 
; Coolly, after she waited twenty minutes, she picked up the phone and dialed for an ambulance. A few minutes later, the ambulance arrived. Tom was dead minutes after they examined him. There was nothing the medics could do. He was another bit of data in a statistic. Another dead vet. A shame for the woman of influence—but only for a moment in time. Now he was gone, it was a new life. A life of martyrdom. A capsized soul.

  “Does Daniel know this?” Rock asked.

  “No, I never told him. Do you think I can be framed as a murderer? Do you think I’m a murderer?”

  “It’s not for me to say.”

  “Okay. No one raised an issue at the time.” Rock hoped no one would raise it again.

  Roger Rock stood when Daniel entered his office at home. The two shook hands and then sat on the same couch in the corner of the room. Unlike the rest of the family, Daniel was not nervous. He had been primed for campaign politics, already had been elected and re-elected Senator so he thought there was nothing to worry about.

  Daniel spoke about a time when his fraternity house was burglarized in college and he added some items to the police report that weren’t actually stolen. For less than a thousand dollars in insurance money, Rock merely grimaced at the thought. Of course, Daniel spoke about the one time slip with marijuana and how he had regretted not maintaining his political purity. He was mad about slipping into the normal/human realm, not about the stigma associated with smoking marijuana. Daniel was never really against those smoking it. He was against smoking it only for himself. He knew it wouldn’t be smart for him to smoke it. He violated his personal discipline.

  Daniel decided years earlier that smoking pot is not healthy for his body or his brain. He betrayed the vocal minority. That to him offered him more disappointment today, then the liberating feeling he felt that night when he did smoke it. For he always reasoned, it’s not what your personal rule is, it’s whether you stuck to it. If someone said, no hamburgers, and then they ate a hamburger, then that person violated the personal integrity. Shame, shame on Daniel, who was not nervous but uncomfortable as he brought these thoughts into full focus.