by Marge Piercy
The Border
Circa 1967
She drove, not too fast, never over the speed limit but not too slowly either—the important thing was not to attract attention. She had the car radio on to the new album the Beatles had just put out, Revolver. The DJ was playing it all the way through with interruptions for acne medication, shampoo and beer commercials. She would have liked to turn it up to help her stay awake, but if she did, he might wake up. In the backseat, the man was still sleeping, occasionally moaning or cursing or grunting. It was better when he was asleep. Awake, he made her nervous.
She admired the vets against the war, admired those like her charge who refused to go back. The feds would call him a deserter but she saw him as someone driven by guilt and courage into an unknown life, where he could only hope for shelter—once she got him across the border. But he was a little scary, she admitted to herself. She knew that almost all of them, the deserters she helped, not the ones who were avoiding the draft, had serious drug problems and sometimes seemed crazed. Her job was just to get him to Canada tonight. She had done this five times before: three times for men fleeing the draft—whose number had been called up—and twice before tonight for guys who simply could not bear to go back to Vietnam.
She was a good choice because she was a woman, her comrades in the anti-war movement said, and because she had an old Volvo. Activists who lived in Manhattan were unlikely to own cars—it was like having an elephant for a pet. Where could you keep it that didn’t cost more than your rent? But she had an apartment in the basement of a brownstone in Park Slope and she could park on the street. The car had belonged to her husband, but when she got too involved in the Movement and he left, he gave her the old car. Bought himself a newer one. Got himself a newer squeeze who didn’t drive to Canada in the middle of the night risking arrest. She had two lovers, but neither of them lived with her. One was better in bed and the other was better out of bed; together they made one good boyfriend. After all, nobody could satisfy all of another person’s needs and desires. Better to patch things together and blunder on. Her ex hadn’t been good either way the last couple of years.
He was beginning to stir in the back seat and she was getting low on gas. They were just across the border into Vermont, still on 91. She’d watch for a station open twenty-four hours, probably a truck stop. She had to pee anyhow. All that coffee was on its way through her. When she did one of these runs to Canada, she tanked up, since she wanted to arrive around dawn near the border. Few people awake and stirring, little traffic but visibility okay.
Her usual Movement job was draft counseling. That was more comfortable. She’d sit across a table in the Peace and Freedom office or if the client—she called them clients—was not comfortable going there, she’d meet them in a coffee shop. She’d ask, “How much do you want to stay out of Vietnam? Because if you really want to, I can tell you how to fail your physical and be let go. But if you don’t want it desperately enough, you won’t do what you have to.” She explained how to act gay; how to act crazy; how to shock enough to get out. Often she could tell by the man or boy’s reaction to her suggestions if the guy had the courage or the willingness to act against all convention and acceptable behavior. If a guy wanted to avoid the draft enough, she could help. By the time they left, she had a pretty good idea if they were going into the meat grinder. She could not force them to act on her scenarios. She did not try to talk them into it. It had to be their own choice. But sometimes she wanted to weep. Come on, she pleaded silently, an hour of shameless behavior or walking into the jungle to kill or be killed in somebody else’s country where you don’t speak the language, don’t know the customs, don’t belong. Come back with trauma and drug habits you can’t deal with. Destroy your family. Be haunted the rest of your life. Please cross the line of acceptable behavior and save your life.
His voice broke her out of her reverie. “No,” she answered. “We have many miles to go, all the way north through Vermont to the border. I’m watching for an open station for gas.” She glanced at him, his knees drawn up toward his belly as if to protect it. He was lanky and thin and, of course, nervous.
When she saw the lights for an open truck stop, she took the ramp. After getting gas, she pulled into a spot. She had to use the bathroom and so did he. She hoped he looked normal. He had been wearing fatigues when they met, but she had provided him with civilian clothing that almost fit. They collected clothes at rummage sales kept in a box in the office.
He returned smoking and got into the front seat. “Do they have American cigarettes in Canada?”
“I don’t know … I’d imagine so, but I don’t smoke.” She had stopped when her husband left. It saved money and a cough she had developed scared her. Now his smoke bothered her, but she suspected it would be even tenser if she asked him not to. Instead she cracked her window about an inch.
“If you’re going to keep that fucking window open, turn on the heat.”
“The cold helps keep me awake. Alert. The heater doesn’t work well. I actually have it on.”
He grunted. “You should get it fixed. Damn cold tonight.”
“The guy in the garage said it had to be replaced, but this is an old car and parts are hard to come by.” And she didn’t have the money. In the Movement, many things came free: her dentist, her doctor didn’t charge her. But the mechanic did.
He nodded and was silent for maybe fifteen minutes. Then he put his hand on her knee. “I’m beat. Want to stop at a motel? We could drive on after we take it easy, what do you say? Have a little fun.”
“I have to work tomorrow. Have to be back before nine.”
His hand began to work its way upward. She grabbed it and the car swerved. “I’m married, if you didn’t notice.” With men she didn’t know, she put on her old wedding ring. It felt clumsy and bothered her in a minor way, its unaccustomed pressure on her finger reminding her of what she preferred to forget.
“Okay, okay. Don’t drive into a ditch.” He took his hand away and lit another cigarette from the stub in his mouth. Then he turned the radio louder. She was glad of that. It avoided having to talk. That passed an hour. Then the DJ changed and it was ’50s songs she hated. Obviously so did he, because he shut the radio off. She had to make conversation. She noticed he had a nervous tic of scratching the back of his hands. They looked raw.
“Where are you from, originally?”
“Marquette. That’s in the Upper Peninsula.”
Michigan. She knew that much, even though she’d grown up in Rochester, New York. “They say you’re born on skis.”
He gave a brief snort of a laugh. “Yeah. You’d think I’d be used to the cold. I guess I was. But not anymore.”
“Do you wish you could go back home?”
He was silent for a bit. “Yeah. My folks are there. Three brothers, two sisters and my ma.”
“Where’s your father?”
“Dead. Mining accident.” He turned to stare out the side window into the darkness.
“A mine explosion?”
“You’re thinking of coal mines. This is an open mine. A truck backed over him.”
“I’m so sorry. That’s awful.”
“I think he was too hung over to hear it coming.” He shrugged. “I was seven. I barely remember him. Just bits and pieces.” He was silent for a bit and she tried to think of something less painful to ask. Then he shook his head. “That’s when we moved to Marquette from near the mine. Mom got a job cleaning. She held the family together.”
A police car was sitting on the side of the highway. She slowed down a little more, watching in the rear view mirror until it was out of sight.
She didn’t really like to learn much about the guys she ferried. If she got to know them, she would worry what they were going to do in Canada, how it would work out for them, how they would manage never seeing their families again, how they would make a living. The more real she let them become, the more they would nibble at her brain, worrying, wondering.
Once she drove off, she would never hear of them again, unless something went terribly wrong and they appeared in the newspaper or on the evening news. An occasional one couldn’t take the isolation, the strangeness of it all and tried to come back. Usually they were caught. But his suggestion of a motel had unnerved her and she thought it safest to keep him talking. She thought of it as grounding him, giving him context, keeping him calm and distracted.
“What made you join the Army? Were you drafted?”
“My number came up. My brother Nolan already went, but he’s a mechanic so he just works on trucks and jeeps and stuff. Sandy, my oldest bro, he’s married with two kids and he’s safe. Neil has a funny heart, like it skips beats, so they didn’t take him. I wished I had that, I guess.”
Atrial fibrillation? “Which one are you closest to?”
“Neil. Cause he’s just a year and a half younger. Always looked out for him at school. So he wouldn’t get beat up, you know. He was never no good at sports.”
“What did you play?”
“Basketball and track. I was good at sprinting. Came in second in a hundred-yard dash in all state.”
She was beginning to taste her fatigue, bile in the mouth. Her eyelids felt swollen and heavy. She had eaten a hasty supper at six and her stomach was growling, but she did not want to risk stopping in a well-lighted place. Best to keep going. His head lolling on his shoulder, he slumped in his seat, dozing, waking, dozing again.
“How much farther?”
“Another hour will do it.”
In the east, the sky was streaked with grey. The dark was thinner, more watery-looking. About the only traffic were trucks also bound for Canada. “Do you speak French?” she asked him, already sure of the answer.
“French? No. Why?” He shook his head rapidly to wake himself.
“They speak French in Quebec. So head west to Toronto. Get into Ontario, anyhow.”
“I was thinking about Windsor. It’s right across the river from Detroit. Always looked neat and clean when I saw it.”
“That’s a long way. And too near the border. That’s a major crossing. Toronto is better. There’s guys like you there. They’ll help you.”
He was silent, staring out the side window. Perhaps the realization was hitting him how alone he would be in a strange country. She tried not to think about it. Her job was just to get him across the border safely.
“We get off the interstate here.” She used Derby Line, where the border ran down the main street. They got stuck behind a slow logging truck but then he turned off and she could hurry again. Her hands had begun to turn clammy on the wheel. She always had visions in her head of the old Volvo breaking down on one of these roads and she and her charge ending up in police custody. It had begun lightly snowing, just a few dry desultory flakes as if the sky had dandruff. A police car with lights flashing had somebody just before Derby Line. She checked her speedometer. Just under the speed limit. Still she couldn’t bring herself to speak until she stopped watching for that cop in her rear view mirror.
“Now, what’s your name?”
He started to say his real name and she interrupted, “Your traveling name.”
“James Royce … Makes me feel like I’m in a spy movie.”
“Why are you in Canada?”
“I’m going to Manitoba to see my aunt who married a Canadian.”
“Where in Manitoba?”
“Winna something or other.”
“Winnipeg.”
“Are you a teacher or something?”
She grimaced. “I’m the person who’s trying to get you into safety.”
“Safety …” He thought about that, looking out the window again. The darkness was grainier. She hoped the snow would hold off. Footprints in new snow worried her. “I don’t believe in that anymore.”
They were on the outskirts of Derby Line now. A few lights in houses. Two cars passed them, but mostly it was deserted. She turned onto a side street, turned out her lights and rolled to a stop. “Go ahead. Just keep walking. There’s a line and when you cross it, you’re in Canada. There’s a bus that comes through at ten and stops at the coffee shop. We’ve given you enough Canadian money. Try not to talk much so you don’t give yourself away as American, but ask the driver to let you off for the bus to Montreal. This bus stops everyplace. Takes a long time. Try to sleep. You take it to where you can change for Montreal. Then take a bus to Toronto.” She reached for her purse. “Here’s the phone number of a contact in Montreal. You can stay with her for the night and she’ll take you to the bus in the morning. And here’s the address of help in Toronto, a group set up for guys like you to get you settled.”
She waited till he nodded. He seemed reluctant to get out of the car. She patted his shoulder. “Best to get going before it turns light or starts to really snow. No one’s around yet. Just walk quickly and turn left at the fourth street. The coffee house opens at six. That’s half an hour. You can get something to eat there.”
He opened the car door, turned and stared at her. “Guess I won’t see you again.”
“I hope not. That’d mean trouble for both of us.”
He laughed. “I seen enough trouble to last me a lifetime, if I live that long.” Still he stood looking at her. “Guess I should thank you.”
“Just get moving and stay safe. I appreciate what you’re doing.”
“Nobody else I know would.” Finally he turned and strode off, the knapsack they had given him slung on his back. She sat in the dark car watching him until he had crossed the border and kept walking until she could no longer see him. She felt sad, empty and relieved at once. Into the unknown he walked. Well, she better get out of here before someone wondered what she was doing. She turned the ignition and the car coughed and died. Her heart skipped and she thought of his safe brother. Neil? She waited a moment so she wouldn’t flood the old engine and tried again and this time it started. She turned around carefully, thankful for the little car’s tight turning radius. Then she headed out of the village. She fished a candy bar out of her purse, saved for this occasion and bit off pieces while she drove carefully toward the entrance to the interstate. The cop who had lurked near the ramp was gone. By the time she entered the interstate, it was snowing harder and soon the plows were out. It would be a slow trip. When she had gone a safe distance, she would stop for breakfast. She imagined him waiting for the bus and hoped he would not be obvious to anyone. She had used that village several times, scouting it beforehand. She could no longer help him, whatever happened. All she could do for those guys who became briefly her charges was to guide them to the border, see them across and then abandon them to whatever destiny they could create or blunder into on the other side. He was not the first and would not be the last. She owed her help, the risk she took, to the ones who decided not to fight. It cost her a day of prep and an all night and half a day drive; it cost those she ferried the rest of their lives. If you wanted to stop the war, this was one of the things you just did again and again.
I Had a Friend
I had a friend, Simon. He was big, almost bearlike, on the clumsy side with dark hair that flopped over his forehead. He was good looking but thought himself ugly. Something had damaged him already in his mid-twenties.
We worked together against the Vietnam War, against the draft, against imperial ambitions, against racism. We made a good team. We had both tried to work with other people but found ourselves undervalued, run over, our ideas never really considered—me because of being a woman and Simon because he was not an alpha male. We listened to each other. We wrote with me at the typewriter and him pacing behind me. It was a relationship of equals, comfortable for both. We went to demonstrations together and I felt a little protected with his powerful body beside me. I am still proud of what we did together. But in those days, I had multiple emotional and sexual relationships. Sex came easily to me and I enjoyed it. My affections were readily engaged without being possessive.
He grew obsessive. He d
emanded more and more attention. He resented my other relationships and insulted my friends. Once he threw one of those huge old office typewriters across the office where our group worked, narrowly missing one of my lovers. Another time when I was dancing at a party, he punched my partner, knocking him down. I thought his jealousy might quiet down if we were lovers and suggested it to him one afternoon when we had finished the pamphlet we were writing for a demonstration against the CIA. But he could not make love to me. He was impotent with me and that made him angry. His anger was terrifying. I withdrew a bit and so did he. We could no longer work together. That made me sad, but I moved on to work with others on different projects in different ways. I was a good organizer in those days.
Simon tried to work with several other activists, but he could not mesh his creativity, his drive, his ideas with theirs. Finally he withdrew from politics. He became a carpenter. He said that working with his hands was more honest than working with words. He made furniture. It was ugly. His bookcases leaned to one side. His chairs wobbled. His tables were untrustworthy. We got back in touch socially but that was all. He seemed to have fully recovered from his obsession with me, although he did present me with a lopsided bookcase.
Six months later he found G-d, an Orthodox Jewish god, male, frowning like a storm cloud. He grew a beard and let his sideburns grow, hoping for peyeses. He prayed loudly morning, afternoon and night and joined a shul with a charismatic rabbi. He would not eat in restaurants unless they were kosher. I served him swordfish but it was not kosher enough and he shoved his plate away. He tried to get me to dress more modestly—without success. He said his blessings every five minutes. I grew up with an Orthodox bobbelah who gave me my religious education, but my Hannah was a pagan compared to him.