Leigh

by Lyn Cote

  Leigh glanced at her watch. She couldn’t wait any longer for Mary Beth or she’d miss this evening’s limo to the Amphitheatre. In front of the closet door mirror, she glanced at herself. She wore a shades-of-pink paisley miniskirt and matching vest over a pink blouse with a large ruffled collar. She adjusted her pantyhose. Then she refreshed her pale-pink lipstick and combed her waist-length blonde hair, swinging around to catch the ends and comb them, too.

  Tonight, the delegates would cast their votes and all the excitement, craziness should end. “Please hurry, Mary Beth. It’s dangerous out there.”

  Leigh tried not to worry, but 1968 had been a year for worrying. The Tet Offensive at the end of January had heated up the Viet Nam War, sending two hundred thousand U.S. troops there. Then in April, Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated in Memphis. Race riots had burst cities all over America into flames and funerals. Then at the end of March, LBJ had dropped out of the race for a second term. Finally, in June, Robert Kennedy had been killed in California while campaigning for president, and another rage had boiled over into the streets.

  From the transistor radio came Simon and Garfunkel singing, “Feelin’ Groovy.” Leigh did not feel groovy. She switched off the radio.

  “What a bloody year,” Leigh murmured to the universe. Each disaster had hit her as another wave of hopelessness. Soldiers were dying in a war the generals had bungled and misrepresented even to the powers that be. The world had careened off its axis. But all her mother wanted from her was good grades and to know whether Leigh was dating anyone “nice.”

  Leigh glanced at her watch again. “Mary Beth, I can’t wait any longer,” she said aloud in disgust. She headed down the stairs, her footsteps echoing in the concrete stairwell. She walked out the entrance into the sunshine and looked around for the limo, for Mary Beth, for others in the Maryland delegation. A nearby crowd of demonstrators with long hair, bare feet, and homemade signs was yelling but that wasn’t new. Chicago might have been “the city of big shoulders” to Sandburg, but it was the city of loud mouths to Leigh.

  Bottles and toilet paper were raining down from the Hilton. She caught the yippie chant, “Hey, Hey, Go Away!” The worry that Mary Beth might be out there among the protestors again pinched Leigh. She shaded her eyes with her hand. But what can I do about that?

  The long black limo was farther away than usual—too near the line of police for comfort. Leigh hurried forward, waving to the driver.

  Then there were screams, shrieking police whistles, people running toward Grant Park, toward the Hilton. Blue-uniformed police chased the fleeing demonstrators—billy clubs flailing. Leigh felt, but couldn’t hear herself screaming. Just yards ahead, a policeman was clubbing a hippie sprawled on the pavement already bleeding. In a sickening moment of terror Leigh recognized the man on the ground—it was Mary Beth’s boyfriend, Chance. Horrified, Leigh ran—full tilt—toward the cop. “Stop! Stop it!” He’s down! Leave him alone!

  The policeman turned on her and swung his billy club wide. Leigh ducked and charged under his arm, butting into his chest. The two of them went down and landed on top of Chance. People surged forward, tripping over them, cursing, yelling. Leigh felt her skirt rip at the waistband. The policeman pushed her away and rolled to his feet. He kicked her in the side and then ran back into the fray.

  Pressing her arm against the pain in her side where she’d been kicked, Leigh rolled off Chance. “Are you okay?” Panting, she bent over him, trying to protect his head as people jostled over and around them.

  He moaned as she mopped the blood that leaked from a gash on his forehead with the tail of her blouse. Blood also flowed into his long blond hair—and more from his nose.

  Quiet came suddenly. Leigh stood and helped him up. Numbed by the bedlam she’d just witnessed, she looked around for assistance and located a yippie aid station on the north side of the street. She staggered there, hauling him with her.

  “The revolution has started,” was the exultant greeting she got there. For a moment, a scene from Dr. Zhivago flashed in her mind—a wintry street in Moscow, the red-coated Cossacks riding down a silent march of poor people. And for a moment, the unreality of being attacked on an American street by a policeman surged through her, weakening her knees. She slumped down on the curb, shaking with the residual terror of what she’d just seen, just been caught up in. But around her—obviously exhilarated—the protestors exclaimed, “Power to the people!”

  “Hey, you’re my old lady’s friend,” Chance said, eyeing her from under the new bandage over his eye.

  “Where is Mary Beth?” Leigh asked.

  Before he could answer, out of nowhere—the next wave launched. Bottles flew over their heads. Trash barrels rolled and careened toward the re formed line of police and National Guard. And the sound of booted feet and chanting swelled all around. Voices shouted, “ Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!”Tear-gas grenades exploded.

  Chance dragged Leigh off the curb and behind the shelter of a large blue mailbox. She huddled with him behind it, watching several policemen pick up a yellow traffic barricade that had been pushed over. The police, using it as a battering ram, charged the crowd in front of them. More screaming, cursing. Blood spattered on the street.

  Leigh gagged with the shock and horror. Choking on the tear gas, she clung to Chance’s T-shirt, trying to make herself the smallest target possible. She wanted to scream, “Stop it! Stop it!” But she shrank down farther. Chaos raged all around them. Who would hear her, obey her?

  Another chant started, loud and strident. “The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!” Then Leigh glimpsed Mary Beth in the crowd. A cop had her by the hair. “Mary Beth!” Leigh screamed, rising.

  First Chance, then Leigh leaped from the shelter and plunged into the fray, trying to reach Mary Beth. A policeman knocked Chance to the ground. Leigh screamed at the cop. Then he swung his billy club.

  Leigh saw it coming, felt it, heard it crack against her head. Stars burst before her eyes and she felt herself falling, falling into darkness.

  She opened her eyes and blinked. Her eyes were full of sleep-dust and stung from something. At first, she didn’t move. She couldn’t move. Her fuzzy mind groped for information. Where am I?She moaned and the sound rolled through her throat and mouth, sounding loud and fuzzy in her ears. She felt around with her hands. She was lying on cool concrete and people were nearby, talking and laughing. Laughing?

  Slowly she sat up. Looking around, blinking in the stark light, blinking to rid herself of the sandy feeling in her eyes, she was met by a motley circle of amused faces—black, white, and tan. Some were hippies; the rest looked like prostitutes or street people, junkies.

  “Cinderella finally woke up,” said a long, lean black woman with very red lipstick. She wore a tiny red miniskirt.

  A younger woman, a hippie, came to Leigh and helped her up onto a bench. “We’re in a holding cell. I was afraid when you didn’t wake up. They should have taken you to an emergency room. You’ve got a nasty bump on your head.”

  That wasn’t surprising news. Leigh felt nauseated and her head pounded. “Why am I here?” she mumbled.

  “You got in the way of a billy club,” the woman with the red lipstick answered with a smirk. “You college girls don’t know when to duck.”

  “What time is it?” Leigh asked. She’d lost her wristwatch somewhere.

  “We don’t know,” the hippie said. “They come and get us one at a time. But we can’t call anyone because of the phone strike.” The girl cursed AT&T, Mayor Daley, and the whole city of Chicago from top to bottom. The other women chuckled with appreciation.

  Footsteps. A burly cop appeared and barked, “Leigh Sinclair.”

  Leigh held up her hand a few inches.

  “Come on.” He unlocked the cell and waved at her. “Come on, come on, girlie. I ain’t got all night.”

  Leigh looked around uncertainly but finally limped to the door. She looked down and noticed she’d lost the
heel to her right pump. She followed him, swaying slightly as he led her down corridor after corridor. Her head pounded with what must be a migraine.

  Finally, the cop opened a door and said, “In here. Wait.”

  She staggered into a small room and just made it into a chair. She’d never felt so weak, battered, nauseated.

  The door opened and a familiar face came in. Her splitting headache and vague disorientation slowed her recognition, but then she placed him. The man was Dane Hanley, an FBI agent, a friend of her stepfather’s. His thick dark hair looked a bit too long to please the FBI and his too-serious dark brown eyes bore into her. The white of his shirt contrasted with his tanned neck and face. He looked like a man from a Marlboro ad who’d been forced off his horse and into a suit.

  For the first time in hours, she felt safe. Dane would protect her. And she fought the urge to throw herself into his arms. Without a word, he handed over a small, tan shoulder bag that the police must have taken from her.

  She recalled then that this was her second trip to a Chicago police station and her memory of yesterday returned. She’d met Dane yesterday when he’d come to help her bail out Mary Beth. In another ancient-looking police station, she’d stuck close to the protection of Dane’s side, searching for Mary Beth’s face among the hippies lining the walls and sitting on chairs and the floor. Dane had shown his FBI badge and ushered Leigh with him down several poorly lit, cramped corridors. Finally, a door was opened and Mary Beth had leaped into Leigh’s arms—laughing—as if being picked up by the police were a joke.

  Now, Leigh recalled seeing her friend tonight in the second wave of trouble. She squinted up at Dane and murmured, “Mary Beth.”

  “What?”

  She cleared her raw throat. “Is Mary Beth here?”

  “No. Come on,” Dane said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “I’m not steady on my feet.” She put a hand to her brow. “My head… pounding.” Then she burst into hot, embarrassing tears.

  Dane put an arm around her and helped her up and out the door, his strength a balm for her frazzled nerves. “You’re bruised over one eye. I’m taking you straight to the emergency room.”

  Soon she was aware that they were riding in the back of an air-conditioned taxi through the city and then she was in a wheelchair being pushed into a hospital—swarming, buzzing with yippies, hippies, doctors, cops, and nurses. In a daze, she tried to find Mary Beth’s face. Then the motion of being pushed along made her sicker and she felt herself sliding down… The soft darkness took her again, blotting out everything.

  Leigh opened her eyes. The effort was almost too much for her. Pain seared her consciousness, stunning her once again. She heard a moan and realized it was hers.

  “Is she coming around?” a man asked.

  Lost in a clammy gray mist, Leigh tried to bring up words, but couldn’t get them to her tongue. Where am If

  Sirens blared in the distance. That brought back the recent past, the terror of being attacked. Her nose and eyes still burned. Tear gas. Her head still throbbed. A name came to mind then, “Mary Beth.”

  Someone took her wrist. “Are you coming around, Miss Sinclair?” a woman asked her.

  “Mary Beth,” Leigh managed to whisper, “Get her. She’s…”

  “Mary Beth?” the man’s voice came again. “Your friend that we bailed out yesterday?”

  Leigh nodded, and the slight motion set off an atom bomb in her head; pain vibrated through her, bringing nausea. She gagged and dry-heaved. “Cop… got her.”

  “I’ll see if she’s been admitted or arrested.”

  Leigh recognized it now. She realized it was Dane’s voice. She couldn’t reply, but her mind brought up, like a newsreel, another memory for her. Mary Beth. Yesterday. Near the Picasso at the Chicago Civic Center Plaza, a crowd of yippies with a large pig—their candidate for president. Police with twisted faces crowded close. Hippies jeered them. After that, she’d met Dane. He’d come to the hotel to help her get Mary Beth out of jail.

  Leigh opened her eyes and she tried to get herself to think normally. “Dane,” she whispered.

  Now, in the lowering light of dusk, a white-coated doctor came in. “Conscious, I see.” After his cursory examination, she was headed to X-ray to make sure she didn’t have a hairline fracture of the skull. As they rolled her away from Dane, she tried to say, “Don’t leave me,” but she couldn’t form the words. Desperate, she reached for his hand.

  He squeezed her shoulder and said, “I’ll be here. I won’t leave you.”

  And she sighed with relief.

  *

  She woke up in a bed and again smelled the distinctive odor of “American hospital.” In the dim room, light seeped over a tall white curtain that cut off her view of the other half of the room. A man with dark hair and broad shoulders sat in a chair by her bed—Dane, true to his word. “Hi,” she whispered, glad to see his face.

  Dane moved forward, and the light flowed over his hawklike features. Beams of light from above moved over him, and away; they must have been headlights, not moonlight. She gazed at his harsh but handsome face, trying to remember… something.

  “Leigh, you have a concussion,” he informed her. “But otherwise you’re okay.”

  “Obviously… ,” she joked weakly, “my headache… didn’t show up on the X-ray. It’s colossal.”

  “Sorry.” He touched her shoulder. “Want a pain pill?”

  She closed and then opened her eyes, drawing strength from his calm presence. “Yes. It’s awful.”

  Not letting go of Leigh’s shoulder, he buzzed for the nurse. She appeared and gave Leigh a pill and a glass of water, and then left without a superfluous word.

  Dane watched Leigh as if expecting some unwise action from her and ready to stop her.

  “Don’t worry.” She tried to be wry. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Well, that’s not quite true. You’ll be going home this afternoon with me.”

  “Home? With you?” That didn’t make sense.

  Headlights came again, casting shadows on his face, his high cheekbones. “No, I’m taking you home to your parents.”

  “But my reservation is for Saturday,” she objected with as much heat as she could muster. “I wanted to do some sightseeing after the convention. The Art Institute—”

  “Sorry.” He gave her a wry grin. “When you get yourself on TV being clubbed by a cop, you lose your sightseeing rights.”

  His ironic comment couldn’t be true. “TV? Me?”

  He nodded soberly. “Your parents saw you.”

  “Oh, no.” Distress welled up inside her—a geyser. Her mother, who hadn’t wanted her to come, would be fit to be tied.

  “Your parents were going to fly here, but I persuaded them that the best idea is my getting you out of this crazy city.”

  “Thanks,” she said in warm relief. She didn’t want to think how embarrassing it would have been having her parents fly in to take her by the hand and lead her home. “They still think I’m a baby.”

  Dane shrugged. “Well, how old are you?”

  “I’m twenty-one,” Leigh defended herself.

  “Then you are a baby.”

  She made a face at him and her head twinged with pain. “I missed the nomination tonight,” she said, going through her mind, trying to bring everything back into focus.

  “Hubert Horatio Humphrey got the nomination after all—even without your being there,” he said dryly.

  She grimaced, but with only half her face. She closed her eyes. She wasn’t up to repartee. And besides, everything that had happened here was awful.

  “What? Didn’t Humphrey have your support?”

  “Stop teasing. What does my opinion matter? I was just a hanger-on with the Maryland delegation. Tonight has been a total disaster.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. At least we got to tour an other historic Chicago police station, another venerable dump.”

  She ignored this, worr
ying her lower lip. “Where’s Mary Beth?” She opened her eyes, peering at him through her veil of pain.

  His face drew down. “So far we haven’t found her. I’ve got the local police and FBI on the lookout for her.”

  She relived seeing that cop dragging her friend by the hair. No. She’s okay. She has to be. “Then I’m not going home. I can’t leave without Mary Beth.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  What makes you think she wants to be found?” Dane asked with blatant sarcasm in his voice. “The last time we saw her, she was doing a good job of straying from the straight and narrow. She’s probably off somewhere stoned out of her mind.”

  His sarcasm stung. Leigh wanted to say that wasn’t true. But unfortunately, it might be. This fact made her quiver inside, feel a bit sick or sicker than she already felt. “She’s my friend.” Leigh emphasized the word friend. “One of my best friends.” And someone has to care about her.

  “Then you should choose your friends with better care. I don’t think she’s looking for you.”

  Leigh flushed warmly since, again, she couldn’t disagree. “A friend is a friend. I don’t abandon my friends just because they make bad choices. Despite what you think, Mary Beth wouldn’t leave me behind, and I can’t leave until she’s found.”

  “Are you sure about that?” But he gave her no time to answer. “You won’t be doing anything until you are released from this hospital today. So you’re stuck here until I get back. And I’ve got to check in with the local Bureau here.” He nailed her with both eyes. “Be here when I come back.”

  Leigh wanted to argue, but her residual weakness left her mute. She nodded. How had everything gone so awry?

  Dane chuckled without mirth and walked out of her room. She watched his back recede from her sight, feeling an inexplicable sense of loss. He was sarcastic, but when he was with her, he made her feel safe.

  Viet Nam, August 29, 1968