“They’re meeting right now?”
“Yes.”
“What are they discussing?”
“Whether the university will declare an official moratorium on classes for some period of time to allow students to learn about the war.”
“Where are they meeting?”
“It’s not my place to give out that information.”
“Are they in the chancellor’s office?”
“It’s not my place to give out that information.”
“Okay, Frank,” said the newswoman. “We’re not going to get anything more out of him.”
Frank turned the camera off.
“The man who sent me over here said your name was John Meyer. Is that M-e-y-e-r or M-a-y-e-r?”
“With an e.”
“Now, off the record, John, where’s this meeting taking place. I’ve got a big chance to scoop the competition here. I’d like to take advantage of it.”
“Sorry. I can’t help you.”
“Were you told not to tell anyone?”
“No.”
“Then why won’t you tell me?”
“Because I wasn’t told I could tell anyone, either.”
“I think I’ll try the chancellor’s office.”
“Suit yourself.”
She and Frank scurried off to find the big secret meeting. I wished I hadn’t opened my mouth about it, but there didn’t seem to be any harm in people knowing it was going on. Other reporters had probably followed the chancellor back to his office anyway. It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that there would be action there, at some point.
As I watched the TV people leave the ballroom, I saw Claire enter, pushing a stroller and trying to hold onto a struggling Jonah in one arm. She had a big straw bag hanging from her shoulder. Just seeing her sent a thrill through my body. When I waved to her, she put Jonah down and pointed him toward me. He came running in my direction, a big smile on his face, and let me pick him up.
“Decided to brave the big strike, huh?” I said when Claire drew near.
“I listened to WUWM. They said it was all pretty orderly, so I thought I’d come down.”
“I’m glad you did. How was work?”
“Exhausting. All the old folks were cranky. I’m glad I only had a half day.”
“Tony’s here, too,” I said. “Apparently there wasn’t much work at the docks.”
“Where is he?”
“Down in the snack bar. At least, he was. We liberated that, first. Tim’s there, too—and Miriam, my old girlfriend.”
Jonah, tired of being ignored, was squirming to be let down.
“You can just let him run around,” said Claire.
I put him down and he took off, making a big arc around the huge expanse of floor—a toddler’s paradise. Occasionally, he glanced back to make sure we were still there.
As Claire watched him, I watched her. She caught me staring.
“What?” she said.
“I love you,” I said.
She blushed. “You shouldn’t say that to me.”
“It’s true.”
“I know, but … I don’t know.”
She started fishing around in her shoulder bag and came up with a pack of Kools.
“What’s going to happen, Claire?”
She took out a cigarette, but before she could slip the matches out of the plastic sleeve around the pack, I snatched the pack from her hand. I pulled out the matches, lit one, and held it up to her. She brought the flame to her cigarette by gently guiding my hand with her fingertips. Her touch sent a shiver through me. She inhaled deeply and blew the smoke up into the air.
“Let’s just play it by ear, okay?” she said. “I have to see how things develop between Tony and me.”
We shot the breeze for a while, watching Jonah explore the ballroom. Then, I looked over Claire’s shoulder to see Tony entering the ballroom with Alicia on his arm. Claire saw me looking and turned to see what I was looking at. At the same moment, Tony noticed her. He paused for a half step—I could almost see the wheels turning in his head—but then he continued on. It was so quick that Alicia didn’t even notice. He walked right up to us, his arm still entwined with hers.
“Hey, Claire,” he said, looking nervous in his attempt to act casual. “This is Alicia. She’s in my sociology class. Alicia, this is my wife, Claire.”
Alicia did not appear to be surprised.
“Hi, Claire,” she said. “Tony’s told me a lot about you. Where’s Jonah?”
“Here he comes,” said Tony.
Jonah, having just noticed his father’s arrival, was barreling toward him. When he arrived at Tony’s leg, he threw his arms around it. Tony let go of Alicia’s arm and lifted him up.
“Hey, little guy, what are you up to? Have you come to join the strike?”
“He’s so cute!” squealed Alicia in that patronizing way that people without children have when they’re trying to ingratiate themselves with someone who has children. “Look at those little overalls!”
She poked at his belly with her index finger. Jonah slapped her hand away.
“Be nice, now, Jonah,” said Tony.
Jonah wriggled in his arms. Tony put him down and off he went again.
“So, what’s happening with this strike?” said Tony. “We’ve been sitting on our asses in the snack bar for a couple of hours, now. What’s the point?”
“Who’s still down there?”
“Just Kolvacik. The rest of them split. I told him I’d go find out where the action is.”
“Didn’t anybody ask you guys if you wanted to demonstrate in classes?”
“Nobody said anything to us. We’ve just been shooting the breeze and drinking sodas and keeping the vultures away from the vending machines. What happened in the chancellor’s office?”
“He wasn’t in. His administrative assistant came by and told us the chancellor would meet with the strike committee at 1:00.”
“You don’t really think he’ll shut the place down, do you?”
“What do you think?”
“Do you know what ‘fat chance’ means?”
“Don’t be so cynical, Tony,” said Claire. “Maybe they’ll work something out.”
“Yeah, I’m sure the trustees would go for him ending the school year a few weeks early. He’d be out on his ass if he made a deal with us.”
As if on cue, the members of the strike committee appeared, fresh from their meeting with the chancellor. None of them said a word. Jimmy Sommers threw himself into a folding chair and crossed his arms tight over his chest. Carl plopped down in the chair beside him and stared across the ballroom. John Ascher leaned against the wall and looked down at his feet while Bill Fleischer paced. Suddenly, Jimmy slammed his fist down on the table.
“Damn it!” he said. “I told you. you can’t trust the Man!”
“What happened?” I asked.
“As I suspected,” said Carl, “he let us have the Union but has no intention of cooperating with us in any other way. While we were talking with him, his administrative assistant called him out of the room and told him strikers were disrupting classes. He came back in like the wrath of God, demanding to know who we thought we were pulling something like that without consulting him.”
“At which point,” Bill Fleischer interjected, “I told him we were a strike committee, not the fucking Boy Scouts of America.”
“Which did not endear us to him,” said John Ascher dryly.
“Fuck endearing ourselves to him!” said Jimmy.
“It’s not like we should have expected him to cooperate.” said Carl, “The fact that he gave us the Union raised false hopes.”
“It’s war, now, man,” said Bill.
“It’s war we’re fighting against, Bill,” said Carl. “Let’s not start talking about a non-violent protest in those terms.”
“I still think we ought to disable the power plant or trash the water lines” said Jimmy. “Really shut the p
lace down.”
“Then we wouldn’t be able to stay here, either,” said John.
“We can manage,” Jimmy replied. “This is a revolution, not a dinner party.”
“It’s not a revolution, either, Jimmy,” said Carl. “It’s a strike. It has a limited purpose. We can achieve that purpose without destroying anything.”
Jimmy didn’t reply. He just recrossed his arms and sat, stone-faced.
“Let’s prepare a press release,” said Carl. “We’ll announce that the administration is refusing to cooperate with a moratorium on classes, making this officially a strike. We can take the high moral ground here, driving home the point that confronting the war is more important than finishing a few college classes.”
“Preaching to the converted,” muttered Jimmy.
“And if we destroy things,” said Carl hotly, “we’ve alienated the converted, too! Give it a rest, Jimmy. You agreed to a non-violent, non-destructive approach. After the strike is over, you can organize whatever kind of political action you want.”
“Don’t think I won’t!” Jimmy replied.
Suddenly it seemed to sink in to Carl that the committee was airing its dirty laundry in public.
“John,” he said to me, “would you and your friends mind giving us a little privacy? We’ve got some planning to do.”
“Sure,” I said. “Why don’t we all go down and check in on Kolvacik?” I said to the others.
“I’ve got to go,” said Claire. “I just wanted to see how you were doing.”
Tony raised an eyebrow when Claire addressed this statement to me. I wondered later if it was the first time he’d suspected there was something besides friendship between us.
“I’ve got to go, too,” said Alicia. “I have to get to work. How about walking me to the bus, Tony?”
Tony looked at Claire, who remained impassive. I wondered how, even in their circumstances, she could watch this come-on without showing a hint of jealousy.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll walk you to the bus.” He looked at me. “How about I meet you and Kolvacik in the snack bar in a little while?”
I said that was fine.
“See you later, Claire,” he said.
“Yeah, later,” she replied. “I’ll see you later, too, John,” she said and kissed me quickly on the mouth, making sure Tony saw it.
“Jonah,” she called.
Jonah was on the other side of the ballroom, his face pressed against the glass that separated the ballroom from the balcony. He turned and came racing toward us as we moved away from the table. Alicia and Tony were ahead of us. This time, when Alicia tried to take his arm, Tony wouldn’t cooperate.
“What do you think about that?” I asked Claire.
“What?” she said.
“How do you feel watching her come on to Tony like that?”
“Confused. Sometimes I think he and I both need a break from one another; other times, I think having another relationship would kill ours.”
She stopped and turned to me.
“That’s why I need to go slowly with you, John. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what I can give you. I have to think about Jonah, too.”
As always, her pale green eyes mesmerized me.
“Take your time, Claire. I’ll be patient.”
It was what I wanted to believe about myself, but even as I said it I wondered if I really could wait. My desire for her was painful.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tony look back over his shoulder at us. Then Jonah slammed into my leg and started giggling. I picked him up and looked into his brown eyes. “Life’s not simple, is it, pal?” I asked him.
He got a serious look on his face, as if he understood perfectly what I was asking him, and shook his head.
Claire chuckled. “This kid’s no dummy is he?” I said.
We continued out the ballroom entrance.
“Why don’t you put him in the stroller,” said Claire. “I’m sure he’s worn out from running around in there.”
I lifted Jonah in while she lit another cigarette.
“Will you be here all night?” she asked.
“Depends on what comes down. I’ll come home if I can.”
Suddenly, I had a powerful sensation that I was talking to my wife.
I said, “Do you think we could …”
She drew deeply on her cigarette, her brow furrowed, and blew out the smoke. Then she smiled.
“Maybe. I need to think about it. She glanced in the direction Tony and Alicia had disappeared. He might not even come home tonight.”
“I’ll be there,” I said, “unless something really serious comes down here.”
I walked her out of the Union entrance, said goodbye again, and stood watching her push Jonah down the street, her fine blonde hair swaying back and forth as she walked. I hoped she would look back at me and wave when she turned the corner, but she kept right on walking, her eyes straight ahead.
9
BY TEN O’CLOCK THAT EVENING, Claire and I had made love in my bed and come back downstairs to watch the news about the strike. Jonah was asleep and no one else was home. We sat hip-to-hip on the sofa, sharing a beer and a cigarette.
The student strike was the top story and, after a few shots of the action at the better-known national schools, the focus moved to UWM. The same reporter I’d talked to was shown standing at the edge of the crowd in front of Mitchell Hall, describing the action, while Carl spoke on the platform, far behind her. Then there were shots of the march, of students milling around in the ballroom, and of the Theatre X performance. Then, suddenly, my face appeared on the screen. I nearly dropped the beer bottle.
“Far out,” said Claire.
I was saying my bit about how it was our generation paying in blood for the war and about how we were hoping to change attitudes across the country. It wasn’t more than thirty seconds long, and then they moved on to shots of demonstrators in the classrooms. Claire started to speak.
“Wow, that was really—”
“Wait a second,” I interjected. “I want to hear this.”
They described the classroom demonstrations as confrontational, disruptive, and disrespectful, and showed only the most damaging footage of demonstrators shouting down professors, standing on desks, and harassing students.
“Damn it,” I said, “that wasn’t all that happened! Tony and Kolvacik and I were in a class this afternoon that spent two hours talking seriously about the war after the group we were demonstrating with came in. Of course, they couldn’t show anything like that. That’s not dramatic enough!”
A commercial appeared. I threw a pillow at the television, accidentally turning it off.
“Whores!” I said.
“You didn’t really expect them to make you guys look like heroes, did you?” asked Claire.
“Yes! No. I don’t know. I just wish they could be fair.”
“They played what you said. That was pretty eloquent, if you ask me.”
I smiled slyly. “You’re not just saying that because you had multiple orgasms, are you?”
She hit me in the face with a pillow.
“Are you calling me a whore, now?” she said.
I threw my arms around her, pulled her to me, and kissed her deeply. Then I pulled my head back. “If the shoe fits …” I said, deadpan.
She punched me in the chest half-heartedly.
“See if you get anywhere with me again,” she said.
The phone rang. I went to kitchen and answered it.
“John,” a voice said, “this is your father.”
“I’m here, too,” said Mom, who was on their other phone.
“We just saw you on the news, son,” said Dad. “You were very articulate. We were proud of you.”
“We couldn’t believe it,” said Mom. “Why didn’t you tell us you were going to be on?”
“I never thought I would be.”
“Well,” she said, “you should have told us you might be.
We could have missed it.”
“We don’t want you to think we agree with this strike thing, son,” said Dad. “You kids ought to finish your studies before you go off demonstrating. But we did want you to know we thought you presented yourself well. Maybe you ought to go into public speaking. You’ve always been good at that sort of thing.”
“Maybe I will,” I said. “Thanks for calling.”
We small-talked for a few minutes, then said our goodbyes. I returned to the living room, shaking my head.
“Your folks?” said Claire.
I nodded. “Praising me to the skies because I was so articulate on TV.”
“You’re getting on better, now, aren’t you? I told you you would.”
“It isn’t that that amazes me. It’s that they could listen to what I said, think it was eloquent, but not respond at all to the content. If they’d really heard what I said, they’d understand what all this is about.”
“I don’t think that’s true. People hear what they want to hear. Your folks just heard their son speaking well on TV. They can’t relate to what you said, but they can relate to you. Take it for what it’s worth.”
“I suppose. I just can’t understand how anybody can think that dirty, stupid little war is worth dying in.”
The phone rang again. This time it was my siblings, miffed that Mom and Dad had called without letting them speak to me.
“You were great, John,” said Marion. “My brother the TV star!”
Even George was impressed.
“Did you ever think of going out for the debate team?” he asked.
A school friend called next. “Guess you’ve had your fifteen minutes of fame, now, huh, pal?”
A couple other friends called, too. It was quite a lesson in the pervasiveness of television. Thirty seconds on the air and I was locally famous. Suddenly I understood why people worked so hard to get their face on the tube. It was heady stuff.
But I came down fast. When the phone calls stopped, I went to find Claire, who’d gone upstairs. Her door was closed and I could hear her sobbing on the other side. I tried to door, but it was locked.
“Claire,” I said, “what is it?”
“Go away,” she said.
“Why?”
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