When Sheila arrived, Coco spent half an hour showing her the house and the children’s equipment. At eleven, Coco extracted a token from the bottom of her purse and walked out to catch the Connecticut Avenue bus. The moment she disembarked near the White House she felt the vibrations of rally fever that preceded all Washington demonstrations. It was still early enough to catch all the aimless waiting and walking and talking, the repetitious speculations about tear gas, busts, heat strokes, comfort stations, chartered buses, television coverage, the whereabouts of the President, the percentage of blacks, food, shoes, Band-Aids, youth-contingent bum trips, riot squads, and the official estimate of crowd size versus the police chief’s version.
There was seldom any mention of the politics of the protest, either because the principles were too profound for small talk or simply because issues were forgotten during action. There would be no mention of oppression or liberation until everyone was seated picnic-style on the Mall, cooling their feet and tempers in the Reflecting Pool, warmed by the sun and the holiday humor. Then they would listen to speakers expound on the reasons and objectives for the march, exhorting the protesters not to disappear after they dispersed.
But today the demonstration felt like half-forgotten Fourth of July political rallies back in Chicago when Daley-machine aldermen and congressional candidates entertained constituents in Hyde Park and the kids set off firecrackers (illegally smuggled in from Wisconsin), released free balloons into the hot sky, and ate hot dogs smeared with German mustard while the men emptied kegs of Democratic beer and mothers relaxed content that their children were safe in the Democratic wonderland. Coco felt a resurgence of excitement, an old Illinois State Fair high, but she also felt a nagging need to locate a familiar face (her mother’s?) in the crowd so she could have a base from which to stray.
The D.C. Women’s Liberation leadership had planned to meet on the northeast corner of Lafayette Square, directly across from the White House, so Coco walked slowly through the park, peering at the women who stood about in small groups, reciprocally feeling powerful as they watched NBC and CBS watch them. But Coco knew that the cameramen, high up on their scaffolds, faded in only on the faces of the no-tables or on the notable bodies of the unknowns and for the rest of the time focused on whatever Lucille Ball qualities they could extract and capture. Coco felt simultaneously serious and silly, committed and frivolous, concerned and conspicuous, as she passed before the TV crews.
Near the center of the park she saw a cluster of familiar faces, and she began to walk toward them, feeling excited by their looks of excitement. Sexual competition, and social status had suddenly evaporated, and the atmosphere in the park was as liberating as being in the bathroom alone. Coco wove in and out of the crowd, moving toward the Washington contingent who looked super-responsible on their hometown turf, and busily providing hospitality to all the out-of-town women. They milled around, trailing long lists of papers (did they staple regular 8½-by-11’s together to get such an official lengthiness?), maps, timetables, and lists of speakers.
But then a hand reached out and caught Coco’s wrist.
It was Sylvia. “Hi, Coco.”
There was a violent wrenching cramp in the center of Coco’s stomach.
Sylvia stood her ground, solid, stoic and sullen. She was wearing a white Mexican blouse hanging out over a pair of blue jeans, big hoop earrings, and a rosy little sunburn on her turned-up nose.
“This looks like it’s going to be a great march.” Sylvia sounded insincerely enthusiastic.
Coco nodded. Her knees were vibrating because the sight of Sylvia had transmitted an electrical shock through her entire system. Over the past two days Coco had totally repressed the idea that Sylvia was still in Washington or planning to attend the march. Hadn’t she and Gavin run off to Latin America?
“I heard there’s a couple units of pigs waiting on the Fourteenth Street Bridge in case we commit any civil disobedience,” Sylvia announced.
“Oh.” Coco couldn’t think of an appropriate reply. Her legs were trembling so athletically now that she was certain Sylvia would notice. “So, how have you been?” she asked, feeling both defensive and homicidal.
The crowd of women was flowing around them.
“Pretty good,” Sylvia nodded. “Say, Coco. I was wondering about something.”
Pitipatpitipat … Would You Mind Giving Gavin A Divorce Since We Are Madly In Love And Want To Get Married As Soon As Possible And We Know You Won’t Mind Letting Us Have The Children Because We Have Just Bought An Apple Orchard In Vermont And Want To Raise Them Rurally And Would You Mind Please Jumping Off The Memorial Bridge So There Won’t Be Any Alimony Payments Or Custody Quarrels Or Left over Lives …?
“I was wondering if … I haven’t been home much, because I’ve been into all that Steering Committee shit … you know … organizing the—”
“Yes. I know,” Coco interrupted. Pitipatpitipat.
They shared a long silence in their cave of fear near the rocking ocean of women, and then Coco heard a familiar gasp as Sylvia tried to catch her breath. It was the same sound she had listened to during her own desperate four-day struggle to breathe. Sylvia’s face had become mottled with pink splotches, and beads of sweat rose on her forehead as she struggled to swallow enough air to finally flush the words out of her mouth.
“Well, I was wondering, since I haven’t been home much, if … well, I don’t know if Suede’s been trying to reach me …”
Helen Blumenthal walked past and touched Coco’s shoulder to greet her.
Coco waved and smiled.
So it was Suede, then, not Gavin after all. Sylvia was so transparent that it was clear she had no idea where Gavin was. It was clear that Sylvia had spent the last week waiting for a telephone call from Suede—not even knowing whether he was still in Washington, unaware that he had flown away into the wild blue yonder on the Saturday-morning shuttle.
Now pieces of intuitive evidence were scrambling about in Coco’s head like an animated cartoon of puzzle pieces reassembling themselves. So it wasn’t Gavin whom Sylvia wanted, but Suede. Somewhere Sylvia had lain Flat on Her Back in the old number-one-favorite position for sex or life—just like Coco, suffering, frightened, hurt, jealous, helpless, and outraged. But it wasn’t over Gavin. Briefly Coco felt cheated because Gavin wasn’t the cause or object of Sylvia’s pain, gypped because Sylvia had miraculously exempted herself from the battle Coco had been waging against her, making a mockery of all the war games. Sylvia was no longer an enemy because she had already been wiped out by a common foe—by the ambidextrous, double-dealing, two-timing, finger-fucking Suede Bellock.
It was so terribly Jamesian, so perfectly parallel, that Coco felt overcome by emotion, heat, information, and aching empathy.
“Well, Suede left,” she said very gently. “A few days ago.” The words lifted an enormous weight off her heart. Mysteriously she was beginning to identify with Sylvia, soul-mate, victim-sister, partner in the long spectrum of painful emotions.
“When?” Sylvia panted softly, trying to conceal her breathing problem.
“Saturday. Saturday very early,” Coco said quietly, aching with empathy.
Suddenly she wanted to grab one of the nearby picket signs, turn it over to expose its clean side, and india-ink a message in simple block letters: Dear Dr. Finkelstein: Gavin not with Sylvia. Whereabouts still unknown. Jealousy subsiding from disappearance of co-star. Prognosis for Recovery Good. Resting and Recuperating. Healing. Wounds Mending. Paralysis Lessening. Patient now able to reach out hand to other human being. WILL LIVE. WILL LIVE. Signed, Ms. Anthrope. Coco’s spirits lifted as she waved the invisible picket sign high above her head.
“It looks like they’re getting ready to start,” Sylvia said after several minutes of silently observing the environment.
They were being jostled by flurries of women pushing and hurrying forward toward Pennsylvania Avenue. Helen Blumenthal, holding a bullhorn, was calling out the names of states to
bring delegations forward. The NWRO women were to be up front.
“Listen, Sylvia,” Coco said quickly, “Suede asked me to tell you good-bye for him. His editor telephoned him to come back to New York unexpectedly, and he couldn’t reach you.”
Sylvia looked at Coco quizzically, trying to sift out some truth from the saving lie. “Well, I guess it’s just … par for the course,” she said slowly. “I mean … Suede just seemed sort of different to me, but I guess he’s really just a like the rest of them.” She began to draw a cold defensive expression across her face. “Oh, I don’t mean Gavin, of course. He’s not. He’s really doing a great job for us. But guys like Suede, they just come and go … and I guess I still believe all that same bullshit.”
“Listen,” Coco said. “Come on, let’s walk together. We can walk behind National Welfare Rights.”
Sylvia flushed, extinguishing the heat splotches on her skin, as contradictory emotions fought over the battlefield of her face. “I’d like to,” she said awkwardly, but then quickly withdrew her consent and began to retreat, “but I’m supposed to be with the Steering Committee. Maybe I’ll see you later,” she whispered, veiling her vulnerability behind the long spaniel ears of her hair that began to close down over her face. “We’ll probably see each other later … at the Capitol.” She was drifting away, disappearing among the other women.
“WALK EIGHT ABREAST, WALK EIGHT ABREAST,” the bullhorn instructed.
So Coco moved out into the street, joined an incomplete line, and walked in the outside file. Still busy filing away information in her mental file drawers, she looked straight ahead toward the Capitol dome and didn’t speak to the woman at her side. Although she was still not one hundred percent convinced that Gavin wasn’t stashed away in Sylvia’s apartment on Capitol Hill, the resurgence of compassion had diminished her own emotions. Both pain and suspicion subsided.
The women marched up Pennsylvania to 14th Street, followed the jag of the avenue, and then started toward Capitol Hill. On the corner of 9th Street, Coco asked the woman walking in front of her if she might carry her baby. The woman looked grateful and silently handed over the child. So Coco wrapped her arms around the baby and walked along feeling the pressure of infant knees and elbows plundering her body. After several blocks the mother insisted Coco had done enough. She reclaimed the little girl, and Coco felt a chill of loneliness for Joshua.
When they reached the empty Capitol building, the women swelled up on, and over the front steps, to petition a government that had already adjourned for a redress of their grievances. As impractical and symbolic as the gesture was, there was a sweet closeness between the women as they stood together in the heat, and Coco felt reaffirmed and fortified. The speakers seemed less strident than usual; Bella’s bellow was less abrasive, Steinem’s vision more political, Shirley’s charges less rhetorical.
We’re growing up, Coco thought. We’re all learning how to do things, put things together. We’re all getting high on our first taste of standing together and feeling power together and knowing that together we might be able to do the things none of us can do alone. Like those girls in the commune. Maybe they feel stronger because they have each other and when you’re strong you can help other people. Maybe every women needs to know there are other women around to help—and then each one can do it alone.
Coco left the Capitol before the rally was over and walked fifteen blocks before she caught a bus.
She was exhausted when she reached home, but after dinner she put the children in the car and drove downtown. The traffic was tedious, and she couldn’t find a parking place near the Mall. Finally she abandoned the car eight blocks away at a vacant fire hydrant, and then, boosting a cranky and tired Joshua into her arms so that her shoulder-bag strap kept slipping down into the crook of her elbow (making the purse bang against her leg) she took Nicky’s hand and delegated Jessica to Mike. Already weary and worn, feeling like a martyred Joan of Arc, Coco herded them forward, on toward the biggest light show of the year. She knew she was overachieving again. The children would have been perfectly happy, watching the fireworks from the second-floor back porch if Coco had made popcorn and used real butter.
Why do I do these things? Coco wondered helplessly, moving amidst the crowd with wobbling knees and aching shoulders. When they finally reached the Mall, Mike flung the old madras spread across the grass, and Coco sank down, dumb and numb, amidst her children. Joshua instantly revived, and in full possession of his mute energy, began to half toddle, half-crawl away, around other blankets, farther into the crowd.
“Jessica, get him, honey,” Coco begged.
“I want to watch the fireworks,” Jessica said calmly.
“But they haven’t started yet.”
“How do you know?” Jessica asked.
Tune out, Coco’s de-lib-erating voice said, tune out.
“Peoples von’t keep him, Mudder,” Nicky said, trying to placate everyone.
So Coco lay down, flat on her back as usual, and looked up at the upper halves of people moving past her with their bags and baskets and blankets and babies, waiting for darkness in the hot muggy night.
After a while a man appeared directly above Coco’s head. He was holding Joshua. In a nasty voice he asked if the boy belonged to them. Mike confessed.
Slowly July Fourth turned into the longest day of the year. The sky didn’t begin to darken until 9:30. Then the government finally capitulated and sent up their first flare. Josh and Nicky were sound asleep. Jessica and Mike cricked their necks back to ohhhhhh and ahhhhhhhed about the finest, farthest-flung explosions of color.
A strong scent of dope was in the air and Coco breathed deeply, trying to get stoned.
So, she thought, here we are. We’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here. We’re here because it’s the Fourth of July—grand ole Independence Day in America; and now Coco, newly liberated from bondage (otherwise known as deserted by her husband), lay stoically on government ground staring up at the sky. Yea, though I walk in fear through the Valley of Freedom, through the darkland of liberty where people must take care of themselves (plus their children), I shall not fear.
Take the Independence Day Trip—American plan—said Ms. Post-libby dressed like a stewardess, walking down an aisle of picnickers as if on a plane.
Gavin, Coco called wordlessly, please come back now. Here we are. Right here. On the Mall behind the White House on our old madras spread. Can’t you see us? Over here.
And what is independence? Miss Pre-libby, now dressed like a Chicago second-grade public-school teacher in Chicago, asked. Coco watched splashing lights fall down through the darkness.
What does freedom mean?
Coco didn’t know the answer, so she continued looking up at the sky. The answer was in a folder that was missing from Coco’s mental filing-cabinet of information.
“Mama, let’s go home,” Jessica said.
“Jessica! It just started. Oh, look at that one. It’s red, white, and blue. Isn’t that beautiful?”
“But my neck hurts.”
“Well, lie down, honey.”
But Jessica continued nagging. Finally Mike socked her on the shoulder and then Jessica threw herself, screaming and shrieking, upon her brother. Coco broke it up. The fireworks and the fighting went on and on, until Coco surrendered. Mike was so outraged at leaving early that he refused to hold Jessica’s hand on the way home. Coco woke up Nicky and lifted the sleeping baby into her arms. They began stumbling over the bodies of spaced-out or stretched-out spectators as they moved across the Mall. Nicky began to cry that he was too tired to walk. He wanted Coco to carry him. He sobbed and called, “Daddy, Daddy,” weeping pathetically enough to make people turn around to watch him. Mike, furious about missing the fireworks grumbled, complained, and wouldn’t help either Nicky or Jessica cross Pennsylvania Avenue. Coco’s arms felt as if they were breaking. Her head throbbed.
It was almost eleven when they reached the house
, and the telephone was ringing as Coco unlocked the front door. She laid Josh down flat on the floor in the hallway and ran wildly toward the kitchen.
“Hello.”
“Hello.”
“Hello.”
It was Mr. and Mrs. Silverman coming in from Chicago over the two extension phones in their Michigan Avenue apartment. Mrs. Silverman would be in the kitchen leaning on the counter while Mr. Silverman lounged on the bed using the powder-blue Princess that matched the bedspread and draperies.
“Darling, how are you?” Mrs. Silverman intoned. “We’ve been so worried. We’ve been calling all evening, and no one answered.”
“Oh, hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. I’m fine. I took the kids to see the fireworks downtown, and we just got home.”
“Oh, honey. We couldn’t imagine what was wrong, why no one answered. And we’ve been expecting you to call all weekend. How are the children?”
“Oh, they’re fine, Mom. I just have to get them up to bed now.”
“Oh, I miss them so,” Mrs. Silverman moaned.
“So what else is happening, sugarplum?” Mr. Silverman interrupted.
“Not much, Dad.” Coco maneuvered around the kitchen table so she could open the door and release Happy into the yard.
“Where’s Gavin? Did he go with you?”
“Well …” Coco took a deep breath and pulled the screen door shut so that the rats wouldn’t come in. Through the window she could see flashing flares and lights exploding in the patriotic sky above the apartment building across the alley. Liberation and Freedom and Independence were shattering into millions of cascading stars. “Well, actually, Gavin has gone away for a while.”
“What?” Mrs. Silverman whispered. “Where?”
“I’m not sure, exactly. You know, we weren’t getting along too well. I guess he just wanted a little peace and quiet.”
“Coco, what are you telling me?”
“Wait a minute, Jenny. Hold on a minute. Now, tell me the whole story, Coco.”
“Oh, Daddy,” Coco moaned. “Not now. I’m really bushed. I had to carry Joshua for about ten blocks.
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