Don Pendleton - Civil War II

by Don Pendleton

  A muscle had been working in General Bogan's jaw. His eyes clashed with Mike Winston's eyes and locked there momentarily, then fell away.

  "The Stars and Stripes, ladies and gentlemen. Take comfort in that. . . . But. ... Sharpen that focus, John! Stars and stripes? That's not Old Glory! What is that design in the. . . ?"

  Norman Ritter was wheezing in an attempt to remain silent. Williams and Bogan were staring intently at the television screen and Mike Winston was impassive. Mayor

  Harvey reached over and slapped Ritter lightly on the shoulder and the two men erupted in spasms of repressed laughter.

  "But how could it... ? That's a fist, a black fist I Thats not the stars and stripesl"

  A confusion of sound followed, accompanied by microphone-feedback squeals and the clatter of a chair being upset. Someone whispered loudly, "Get that other camera outside! Outside!'

  And back at Oakland Town, Norman Ritter was hunched over in his chair, shuddering and gasping in the emotional release of the moment and struggling for control. Mayor Harvey had a hand to his face, dabbing at tears and chuckling merrily. General Bogan had risen to his f feet and was watching the confusion on the telescreen with dignified amusement.

  Abraham Williams was watching Mike Winston. The white man's eyes were watery; he felt Williams' attention and turned to him with a gaze of abject pathos. Williams J was smiling faintly. His eyes sent a message which Winston received, understood and returned. Then the two men turned their attention to the viewer.

  Howard Silverman's excited face appeared on the | screen. His headset was askew, one earphone dangling and I the mouthpiece perching jauntily midway between nose and ear. Then the screen went black and a new voice, crisp and unemotional, uttered two words, very calmly: "Please stand by."

  Now they knew.

  CHAPTER 3

  Oakland, California March 10, 1999

  Dear Michael,

  Just a short few hours ago, before my world disappeared, a very wise and noble man instructed me in the matter of leaf-tending. He likened mental stimulation to the wind that sets leaves free, and noble thoughts to the leaves themselves.

  "See to your leaves, Michael," was his admonishment to me.

  In this first letter to myself, I must confess a lack of experience in this matter of leaf-tending. And perhaps this is why 1 gropingly set out to press my first leaf with a borrowed pencil and some crumpled paper salvaged from a wastebasket in the War Room of the Oakland headquarters.

  After such an introduction, how do I begin this letter to myself? What am I trying to accomplish by this? 1 must confess, Michael, that I do not know what or why. I believe I am groping for myself. Yet all there seems to be to work on, as I sit here amidst the litter of coffee cups and overflowing ashtrays, are rambling emotions and stirring

  impulses. I am frightened. I am sad. I am unhappy. 1 am brave. I am courageous. I am bold. I am frustrated. I am challenged. I am defeated. I have not yet begun the fight.

  I feel that I am standing on the Universal Date Line, an artificial device which marks the gateway between yesterday and tomorrow. I stand here a ghost, in no-time, with one eye fixed upon yesterday, the other upon tomorrow, and wondering what has become of today. I know that I cannot stand here for long, because the world continues to turn, and no-time is also no-place. I am momentarily suspended, and I must very quickly come down in some-time and some-place.

  I have been wrong, Michael. How difficult a thing to say! But, yes, I have been very long wrong. I have known it for some time. I could just not say it, not even to myself. So why, Michael? Why have I drifted along in wrongness, clasping weakness to me in a forge of ignorance, and in dedication to a basic immorality? If anything of life be of value to the human mind, can it be found in any such framework?

  No, it cannot. And I know now that 1 am about to step outside that framework. I knew it a little while ago, as I sat watching television in the War Room. What these men have done, as terrible as it may seem, is no more than a natural expression of the human spirit. They are right, and we have been wrong. So, now Michael. Will 1 find the courage to take the proper side in this dispute? In the face of those who call me Quisling, or traitor, or coward—or in the mere prospect of such—will I be human enough and man enough to suffer through the courage of my convictions? We shall see, Michael, my lifelong companion. We shall see.

  So I have disposed of one vein of the leaf. There is no issue here between right and wrong. That issue is settled. I know now where my sympathies lie. So now I am pursuing a new growth tickling at the fibres of my leaf. Here goes, Michael, just for thee and me. I do not know every Negro in the United States. I am acquainted with a few. I strongly admire one or two. I once loved very much, a fraction of one, and I still cherish that memory. It is not necessary that

  I know every Negro to understand that a terrible wrong has been visited upon a few, or upon one or two, or even a fraction of one. I can find no rationalizers to justify the wrongs committed. Within the realm of my personal observation and experience, the Negro race—personified by that small number whom I have known—has, with great dedication and vigor, been thoroughly and unequivocally crapped on. Excuse my earthiness of expression, Michael. This is an earthy matter, and no other expression quite fits the crime.

  So here goes. I, Michael Winston, with my own bare hands, in whatever pit is opened to me, and without worrying about what creeps beneath my fingernails, must begin the task of shovelling that crap from my brothers' heads. I do not flatter myself that much will be accomplished by my hands alone. My black brothers have a rather formidable steam shovel of their own at the moment. But I must get my hands down in there just the same. They belong there.

  And now, what is this? Another vein for the leaf? Let us pursue it, Michael. I cannot condone the spilling of American blood this day. Yet, at the same time, I cannot condemn it. It is as though the nation has been marching inexorably toward this moment since the day the nation began. We came to these shores, in the beginning, as mistreated men with lofty ideals concerning justice and freedom and human dignity. But we also carted over with us some rather confused ideas about this business of justice and dignity. And we bound men, and took slaves, and lorded our supposed superiority over the poor and the weak and the black .. . and especially the black. And God what a landscape of misery and injustice and human cruelty lies about the edifice of this democratic nation, Michael. There is no more pervading form of tyranny than that exercised over a minority by an unconscionable majority.

  So, yes, the nation has been marching toward today, and to the blood that has been shed, and to all the other horrors. And all of us here are so many actors in the drama that is America. We change our costumes, apply our makeup, make our entrance upon the proper cue, speak our lines, add our part to the action, bring whatever life we may to the role being played, then exit. Some of us will be around for the curtain call, some will not; but this has no bearing upon the success of the play itself. I cannot rationalize my cue, I cannot write my own lines. 1 can only bring vigor and clarity to the role as allowed by the depth of scene and action.

  Thank you, Michael. I guess thats one leaf abstracted and blown free. Since 1 cannot read my own scribbling, 1 will hand it to Abigail Foster, John Harvey's secretary, in the hopes that she can . . . and that she will type it up for me.

  Don't return this to me, Abby. Drop it into a drawer, or press it in a book, or mail it—To Whom It May Concern, in care of the Universal Date Line. Someday I hope someone will send it on to me, but not too soon a someday, so that I may determine whether this, my first freed leaf, fell into the mud to rot with yesterday, or was borne aloft upon the cleansing winds of tomorrow.

  Michael Winston Oakland, March 10, 1999

  CHAPTER 4

  Claudia Sanderson was feeling vaguely disoriented on that Wednesday morning of March 10th. She had a Tuesday feeling, and the children of her fifth-grade class were exhibiting a Friday exuberance. She rechecked the calendar on her desk,
then looked at the date on the stack of papers she'd graded the evening before.

  An airplane had crashed a few blocks over from her house the night before. She had not been able to sleep the rest of the night. Leaping flames of the burning building it had fallen onto—the container factory—had filled her bedroom with a yellow glow and flickering shadows until the sun came up. Perhaps this was why she was still in Tuesday; she had not been allowed to consummate Tuesday in the usual routine. Claudia wondered vaguely how she would catch up to Wednesday.

  She was drawn out of her thoughts by the solemn face of blonde Melanie, who had approached the teacher's desk and was now standing in quiet non-assertiveness at the edge of authority. "Yes, Melanie?" Claudia said, acknowledging the fair presence.

  The ten-year-old mumbled, "It's nearly recess, Miss Sanderson."

  Claudia's eyes darted to the wall clock. "Thank you for

  reminding me, Melanie," she said quietly. "You go ahead."

  The child nodded her head and went softly to the door, opened it and stepped into the hallway. Claudia watched' her disappear from view, and thought of the progress the shy little thing had made in such a short time. When Melanie had first come to Lake Charles, at the beginning of the second semester, the soberfaced little newcomer had hung back from the smallest participation in group activities. She had been shyly withdrawn to the point of a practiced anti-sociality, even in the important area of student-teacher relationships.

  Claudia had made a project of the fair Melanie and she had broken through. Appointment to the important post of j "door monitor" had marked the break-through. The burdens of social responsibility often had a way of subjugating personal self-consciousness. Claudia had witnessed the simple psychology work time and again, in a time-worn formula.

  Her inward smile turned grimly at the corners. Physician, heal thyself! But where was a good time-worn formula for the distress of a twenty-eight-year-old unmarried schoolteacher? And especially in an age when the population balance of the world had gone haywire?

  She had been reading some fascinating statistics concerning the population question. In the year of her I birth, 1971, the combined population of the world had been around 3600 millions, and forward-looking scientists | were then trying to figure out some way to outwit the population explosion which expected to see some 40% more people crowding the globe by the turn of the century. Well, the turn was here—and the explosion had been outwitted, all right—in this country. North America had "stabilized" scientifically—and ughh, what price stability? Nature was working her own balance in China, India and Africa—thousands and tens of thousands were dying daily of starvation and disease. Certainly that was tragic, and no sensitive person could think of such a thing without feeling terribly sad. But what about the method of balance in this country? Was it really any better? What in the world had the scientists done to the American men? In the matter of

  balance—balance of the sexes, a subject near and dear to Claudia's heart, the American statistics were more.....

  alarming than the death rates of Asia and Africa.

  In the year of Claudia's birth, the balance of young adults was at about 98 males to every 100 females. This could be disconcerting enough thinking in terms of equal opportunity for a woman seeking a mate. One woman in fifty, in that era, would either go without or would be required to play musical-husbands with some of her sisters. But look at 1999! Yipes! One woman in ten was faced with this terrible truth ! What sort of sadistic balance was that Birth control, si—but, for God's sake—male control, no It certainly was no world for the shy female. Natural selection, survival of the fittest, adapt or perish—these were primeval jungle conditions! Claudia—unsure, shy, retiring Claudia was certainly no candidate for survival.

  She had ceased to care. Or, at any rate, she had ceased to be concerned. Except sometimes in the night. And sometimes in the early evening. And sometimes in the light of dawn. And then there were those embittered moments when she evinced a quiet anger with the male sex. What had they let happen to them? There had been a steady drop in the live-birth rate of American males for as far back into history as the records went. Why? Wasn't the male the primary determinant of sex in the conception of new life? What nefarious plot was this against the female, who wanted naught but a man of her own? Had the scientists done this? Or was it some twisted mechanism of the male psyche which was responsible? Did men resent this concept of female ownership? Had the female possessively screwed herself out of the possessive position? She smiled at the Freudian vulgarism suggested by that last structure, then blushed flame-red and looked up to see what her class was doing.

  The class was gone! She realized with a wrenching start that the recess bell had sounded somewhere back there in her borderline consciousness; she had dismissed the class in one of those automatic rituals without even realizing what she was doing. How unforgivable! The State of Louisiana deserved at the very least a conscious teacher,

  even at this meager salary. The children deserved more. Yes, the children—most of all—deserved more than this!

  Claudia got out of her chair, smoothed her dress against the backs of her legs, and walked slowly to the window. The children. In God's name, would it forever be someone else's children? Would there never be a fair little Melanie, or a mischievious-eyed little Tommy for Claudia to tuck into bed at night? Would she never read a story to a child of her own?

  She watched the pair through the window, Melanie and Tommy, noting their seeming obliviousness to one another and yet the obvious deep awareness each had of the other. Tommy was showing off, as usual, climbing the steel support of the zot-swings, haughtily and busily aloof to the mere girl below, the fair Melanie, the once-confirmed anti-sosh, now doggedly maintaining her position beneath the daring astrogator. Did children ever change, Claudia wondered, from one generation to another? The times changed, the toys changed, the styles of dress and speech changed . . . but did the children themselves actually change? Claudia believed that they did not The children represented the hopes of mankind. If somebody—some brilliant genius of a thinker or a scientist could figure out what happened, what went wrong, what slipped the track or jumped the cog, in that startling transition from childhood to grownup, and could figure some way to correct the deformation ... maybe the jungles could be left behind mankind once and for all. But, to Claudia, it seemed that each new generation of adults found some new corner of that vast and beloved jungleland to resurrect and re-explore. Wouldn't it be romantic if Tommy and Melanie were to grow up together all the way into adulthood, and marry, and produce more little Tommies and Melanies? Wouldn't that be so precious? And so utterly impossible!

  She thought of Melanie, Melanie the golden, walking into a CAC with a warmth in her thighs and an ache in her heart, and Claudia nearly cried.

  Well, she told herself, perhaps that would be preferable to the solo accomodation Claudia had made for herself. Who could say which was the lesser of two evils? An evil is

  an evil, and none is lesser nor greater, an evil is an equal thing.

  Perhaps, some day, Qaudia herself would go into New Orleans with some of the girls and see for herself what this man-woman thing was really all about. After all, she'd given up the dreams, hadn't she? Why not accomodate the reality? But she knew that she was kidding herself. She knew that she would never visit a CAC, not in New Orleans or anywhere else. There was one right there in Lake Charles. Why go clear into New Orleans? The evil is in the doing, not in someone finding out.

  Claudia knew, however, with the logic that is a woman's heart, that the only accomodation truly required by every woman was the abiding presence of a man of her own. Sex yes, but sex with love, with affection, with caring. All else was imitation. It was defamatory, the expansion and perpetuation of bitterness. And Qaudia Sanderson desired an application of sweetness to a life already edged with the bitter.

  She brushed away a tear and swung away from the window just as Dorothy Brannon, the Principal, entered the r
oom. The usually bright and grandmotherly Mrs. Brannan had a peculiar look about her on this visit. Her face was drawn in tight lines of suppressed emotion as she told the teacher, "Claudia, come here."

  Claudia went to the door like a sleepwalker. She had expected something unpleasant today. She hadn't shaken Tuesday yet and she was utterly unprepared for Wednesday. When a person eked out a lifetime on a day-by-hopeful-day basis, these things became important. Somehow Qaudia knew that Dorothy Brannan was the bearer of a terrible unpleasantness.

  The older woman moved her hps close to Qaudia's ear and spoke in a half-whisper. "We are dismissing classes for the day. Go and help bring the children back inside so we can get them on their way quietly and orderly."

  Qaudia's heart flopped painfully and she gasped, "Wh-what has happened?"

  "The Governor and most of the government at Baton Rouge were murdered in their sleep last night. Something is

  going on in Washington, also. Andrew has the tel-ed switched over to FBS if you want to come into the office after the children have left. But hurry, Claudia. Let us get these children into their own homes where they belong." Mrs. Brannan's composure was rapidly leaving her. She fought trembling hps and told the teacher, "For God's sake, Claudia, don't go to pieces now. Remember the children."

  The elderly woman hurried out, leaving Claudia wringing her hands in stunned confusion. Then Claudia pulled her hands across her face, using a trick her father had taught her many years earlier, and as the hands slid away, a bright and smiling face was revealed, like the sun breaking through a dark cloud. She opened the outside door, marched calmly into the play yard, and began calmly and methodically rounding up the little mavericks and sending them into the old corral.