Playground Zero

by Sarah Relyea

  “Yeah, no sleeping with the warmongers,” added Wanda.

  “The warmongers say we’re programmed, war is in our genes. Guys who refuse war—they say we’re laggards in the evolutionary struggle.”

  “Laggards!” laughed Wanda.

  “Yeah. Funny, huh?”

  Sabrina’s face reddened, as though in anger or shame. “I wonder what’s holding up Michael.”

  Dan and Wanda were heading for the door.

  Sabrina leaned in. “I oppose warmongering, but I’m also uncomfortable with some of the people being groomed as leaders.” She was peering in Marian’s eyes. “Dan and Wanda are up-and-coming movers.”

  “They’re in the Party, I know.” Marian was remembering the day in Sproul Plaza when she and Wanda had sparred over Tom’s lawyering. Wanda was clearly up-and-coming—among other things, she’d been one of the spark plugs for the orgasm controversy. Ramparts had run a condescending essay on “women power,” and someone calling herself “Wanda in Berkeley” had penned one of the responses, touching off a debate on women’s orgasms. Groups of women had sprung up who were focusing on women’s problems, but Marian would have been wary of joining such a group. Tom was already restless.

  “Wanda was in anthropology, before she dropped out.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, Michael found her charming.” Sabrina shrugged. “Now she’s moved on. You know, I was never impressed by her. I feel my husband was slumming somehow.”

  Feeling a pang of sympathy, Marian wondered how Sabrina could appear so calm. “Are you—do you have an open marriage?”

  “Yes, I suppose we do. My husband loves me dearly, but he’s always searching for new experiences. He’s been pining for a research year.”

  “I’m sorry, Sabrina.” Marian was feeling very square.

  “Why? I could do the same.”

  “I know, but—”

  “I’m planning some workshops, and then, of course, I have the girls. Helen concerns me—she always rebels when her father’s away.”

  “I imagine she misses him.”

  “Of course. So do I.”

  There was a pause. Marian pushed her coffee away and made a sudden confession.

  “Tom’s been seeing someone.”

  “Tom?”

  “Yes, a woman lawyer. There’s something going on.”

  “Why, he seems so very regular.” For once, Sabrina seemed confused. “Things are very open here, you know,” she counseled. “But he’s bound to get bored with her, unless it’s very deep.”

  “Deep?” Marian was embarrassed by the image of Tom and Ginger enjoying something momentous.

  “Yes, would Tom want something deep from her?”

  “I assume he simply wants a fling.”

  “That’s what I thought—he’s very regular,” Sabrina sighed, glancing at her watch. “Damn—where’s my husband?” She was fidgeting. “Have you heard what’s happening on campus?”

  “What—something new?”

  There was already so much. A group had been demanding new black and Chicano programs, even a Third World college. Then as demands were being made, someone had burned a campus building, Wheeler Hall—or maybe it was only the auditorium that had been engulfed in flames. Marian wondered if she would be passing by the dismaying sight. Demanding more programs was one thing; arson was another. The upheaval had begun on the campus of San Francisco State, where mobs had fought the police, closing down the campus. One young professor—or was he a grad student?—had urged black students to carry guns on campus; he’d been suspended, and now the case was among the group’s unwavering demands. A semantics scholar, Professor Hayakawa, who’d been named as acting college president, had brought a harsh semblance of order: relying on armed guards, banning groups and gatherings, and clearing the campus of anyone not enrolled or employed there. Marian found herself agreeing with the man’s values and pronouncements regarding the purposes of a college and was offended by the enforced coupling of those values with overweening authority. Until recently, Hayakawa had been concerned with language rather than overbearing force; why should he have been compelled to crush an uprising?

  “Yes, they closed off Sather Gate yesterday. No one could pass through.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “The demands are reasonable—long overdue, in fact. If Michael had no fear of losing funding, he would have been there.”

  The door swung open and Michael came through, searching the room. “There you are, Sabrina. No chance of going on campus—cops are everywhere. I’m sorry, I’ve got to get back, they’re beating people.” He was young looking, in safari pants and an African tunic. “Damn those cops, they’ve dragged one of my students away. No one knows what’s happening.” He paused. “I’ll call you from Kroeber Hall.”

  “No, I’m going with you. Marian, are you coming?” Sabrina was groping in her purse. “Oh, damn—ah, there we are!”

  She slapped some bills on the table, placing her saucer over them, and then rose, reaching for Michael’s elbow. Marian followed them through the door, her forehead pounding with a wary sense of emergency.

  The avenue was calm, though as they neared the campus a group of large men passed by, one wearing torn jeans as though he’d just had a scuffle. As they reached Bancroft Way, bordering the campus, Marian saw a throng of people jammed by Sproul Plaza. Squads of police were grouped here and there, ready for war. Flushed and angry, Michael paused by the curb, searching the human fence that had just sprung up as the throng, arms locked together, braced to repel a police charge. Following his gaze along the line, Marian caught sight of Dan and then Wanda. As Sabrina leaned on his shoulder, Michael turned away.

  “Michael, why are we here? There’s nothing you can do now.”

  “I know.”

  “Oh my God, there’s Dan—and Wanda!”

  “Yes, I see them.”

  “And some of your students?”

  “No, they’re gone.”

  “Then maybe we should go.”

  For a moment Michael hung fast. Then a cry rose from the crowd as the police began moving in.

  “Michael, we’re going. Now.”

  “Yes, I’m coming.”

  Over her shoulder as they fled, Marian could see Dan and Wanda, good comrades, arm in arm on the line. A cry was wrung from the crowd as the armed police squads charged. She turned and ran along Telegraph, following Sabrina and Michael.

  There was a confused goodbye near the Med, as Sabrina and Michael conferred on a new problem: whether he would go back on campus, though that meant appearing aloof from the strike, or home with her. The problem hung over them as Marian moved to go. Then she was fleeing Telegraph through streets suddenly charged with random energy. She was shaking: she’d been looking forward to a campus tour, not some armed confrontation. She could scarcely say how she’d been so nearly dragged along. It was a good thing she’d delayed enrolling in any courses; even the Pattersons were confused by the upheaval.

  As she neared College Avenue, a dog ran up. He’d been lounging unleashed in someone’s yard, and he rushed her aggressively, nosing her leg by way of brief preliminaries before finding her crotch.

  “Down!” she commanded, smacking the animal. But he’d found her female odors and refused to go. She edged along the pavement, cursing unleashed dogs. There were so many; the city had repealed its leash laws and encouraged these roving canines, as though conferring human rights on them. Only men could dream up such schemes.

  Reaching home in a fury, she found Curt splayed on the living-room rug among rows of baseball cards, obsessively scanning and arranging them. Casual as a caveman, he was gnawing on a greasy chicken leg.

  “You’re having dinner now, before your father gets home?” she demanded.

  “Just leftovers.” He tore off a chunk, testing her.

  “You had lunch, I suppose?”

  He shrugged, a vague and unreadable gesture.

  “In any case,” she continued, “you get
lunch money from your father. I assume you’re buying lunch with it?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Are you sure? You seem awfully hungry.” There was no response. “What were you doing—running laps in the gym?” she pursued, enjoying her sarcasm.

  “Kinda.”

  “How can you ‘kinda’ run laps?”

  “Yes, we ran some laps. And yes, I had lunch and I’m hungry anyway.”

  Probing would be of no use, though he and Sammy were clearly using lunch money for something else: comic books, baseball games, maybe even marijuana. He’d been coming home ravenous, as if he’d had no food all day—though when pressed, he would recap the menu and regale her with commentary on the offerings. Barely suppressing her rage at the day, and wanting to be alone, she abandoned her son for the second floor, where she slammed her bedroom door.

  Curt

  RESENTFUL OF HER anger, Curt scarfed the remains of chicken thigh. He was hungry—he’d been playing basketball, learning as much as he could from the guys, most of them black, who used the gym after school. He enjoyed the group, and in the close contact of a game, no one thought so much about who was black, who was white. They were just guys playing together. All the conflicts of the school day seemed to fall away; on the court, the black guys were cool.

  But he was also mad—of course his mom was accusing him of spending the money on something else, even though it wasn’t true. On the other hand, no way would he confess what was happening. He was a boy, he could deal. And there was a challenge in having to deal, though it made him mad that the world was shaming him and refusing him a place—demanding what no one could manage to do. He’d always been an acknowledged leader among the boys. He was already as large as his father and nearly as powerful; he could do many things. But the world was tossing out obstacles he’d never foreseen. For days now, a boy had been ambushing him by the door to the lunchroom, confronting him, demanding money. The boy was black—small but scrappy—while the ambushes were nervy and outrageous, as if he was hoping Curt would lose his cool. Then a clash involving several others would erupt, and Curt would get pounded. That was the real purpose, he knew. It would disgrace him and mess things up—just when he was getting along with the basketball group. And so he’d been ignoring the smaller boy, moving around the space he commanded rather than shoving through. Then the week before, the boy had pulled a blade—small and rusty, but a blade. That had changed things fast. The boy’s eyes were gleaming with a pleasure Curt had never seen before; he would enjoy hurting someone. Curt had dug up the money and cursed the boy, who made no move but only murmured “pussy,” close and rude, claiming the win, before sauntering over to the lunch line, cool as could be.

  For days now Curt had been forced to skip lunch. He was becoming more and more angry, though he’d promised himself no one would ever know why.

  Sabrina

  ONE DAY IN early March, Sabrina passed through Sproul Plaza and crossed the border of the campus, turning along Bancroft Way. There were no more lines of students and police facing off by the plaza, as they had for weeks. She was carrying a book bag; rounding the corner, she found her car, unlocked the door, and climbed in.

  As usual, the going was slow. People were jaywalking; the streets were clogged with cars; the green light was changing to red. She contemplated the passing scene, her thoughts musing over the morning’s reading, Margaret Mead’s book on Samoa. The book was an old standby, one she’d read over and over during her early years with Michael, along with other classics in anthropology, because she was intrigued by them and so she could be someone he would really talk to. In a general way the plan had worked, as far as Michael was concerned. The problem had come from her: she’d grown beyond her own image and begun searching for more. So she’d begun taking classes in Michael’s department, some from colleagues with whom he no longer agreed. That part had been naughty and fun and had given their evenings some new charge. She enjoyed ideas and they’d engaged as real colleagues—increasingly as opponents.

  Though belonging to another place and era, Mead’s report of casual young love under the palm trees had rung a profound meaning for Sabrina. When the theory of a warmongering people or warmongering gene had been proposed by an Ivy League colleague, she’d been much more appalled than Michael, though he would probably never go so far as the colleague. Following Mead, she regarded human problems as largely cultural and Mead’s work on Samoa as proof that the aggressive and acquisitive individualism of her own modern world was culturally programmed. Rather than a dangerous unleashing of passions under the palm trees, Mead had found the vanquishing of jealous, damaging love through the early enjoyment of earth’s pleasures and one’s own body. Mead’s young Samoans had been spared disfiguring conflicts by the magic of enough—enough of the simple things needed for happiness: warm sun, fresh island food, tolerant elders, and ever-changing love. Young Americans, whose gadgets and perfumes far surpassed any island largesse, if freed from shame would also prune away the urge for jealous hoarding of another person—they would no longer need Plato’s Symposium in order to learn that. The young would emerge clear-eyed from the cave of obsessive love, passing through the door of the Now, where many paths lay open for them, and where the burden would be one of choosing. Boston or Berkeley, scholar or reveler, Greek or Black English—the young would pursue and be gathered into a group harmony.

  Sabrina’s eyes fell on a figure, a woman. The woman was Wanda; she was walking the other way, along Fulton Street toward the campus. She was young, barely a grown-up, though she maneuvered as though in charge. Sabrina flushed; in the mirror she eyed herself, grown though not yet graying, and sped on.

  As Wanda’s image flooded her thoughts, Sabrina became unexpectedly enraged. Wanda had pursued Michael, her former professor, even though she’d been living with Dan Dupres: so far, so imaginable. Anthropology departments had a well-earned reputation for producing sexually experimental faculty, Sabrina was aware. But when Wanda had abruptly dropped Michael, Sabrina had been outraged by the abandonment; her pride had been wounded in sympathy. A few weeks ago her problem had been how—in what manner and through what observances—to welcome the prodigal home, wounds and all.

  Then a few days before, she’d gone to Telegraph Avenue for some books. She’d no sooner rounded the corner, heading toward campus, when she glanced through the window of the Caffé Med and found Michael and Wanda in a languorous embrace. From where she gawked, Sabrina had no fear of being seen—though she’d nearly stumbled over a bedraggled girl camped on the pavement, the leash for a scruffy German Shepherd wrapped around her ankle. Wanda had come as a passing interference and Sabrina had refused to feel threatened; the young woman was only seven years older than Helen, and though her maneuverings through Peace and Freedom had shown her to be brash and sharp, she was an angry rebel whose thinking would not hold Michael for long.

  But the drama in the cafe window had changed everything: it had been glaring, aggressive, voluptuous. The sun had glowed on her husband’s dark mane, for thankfully she’d been unable to see his face, eyes closed in bliss, so intolerable to see; feeding on the girl’s mouth he seemed to be her age. Sabrina had gathered up her day, removing herself from the reach of the German Shepherd, whose long nose was already searching her foot, before he could cause a scandal. Soon she was safely around the corner and heading along Dwight Way.

  Michael had returned for dinner in the usual manner, the red beard freshly combed and—was she imagining?—the eyes blandly unmoved as he elaborated for her the inner machinations of a departmental gathering: it was an enduring assumption of the marriage that she wanted to share in the personal components of his professional life. Wanda, of course, played no role in the story, though Sabrina had grasped with barely suppressed feelings of betrayal that the departmental gathering in all its length had overlapped with another engagement in the Med and could, therefore, be presumed to be largely or wholly imaginary.

  Sabrina drove along Piedmont Avenue, passing b
eneath the California School for the Deaf and the eucalyptus groves above. Green with spring grasses, the place was lovely and secluded; by chance she and Michael had found the fire road one day when they’d followed one impulse or another. They’d made love in the open—the only time they’d done so, other than Samoa. She’d hoped for another child but none had come . . . Sabrina glanced away just as several imaginary figures emerged dancing from the eucalyptus groves. From Ashby Avenue she turned onto Elmwood Court, parked the Volvo, and paused for several moments peering at the brown-shingle house beyond the overgrown hedge. The hedge—Michael’s handiwork—had run riot, shading the lower floor and obscuring it from the street. Planted the year they’d moved into the house, it now bore soaring tendrils.

  Sabrina entered the house.

  “Helen! Maggie!”

  There was no response; she’d expected none. Maggie would be playing at someone else’s house; moody Helen would be anywhere she pleased. Not so long ago Helen had passed her afternoons on a couch overlooking the garden, where she’d enjoyed leafing through her father’s books. Helen engaged her father in long conversations about other cultures, as though they were colleagues; he responded in a humorous though teacherly way as she imagined her own family configured along the lines of one or another Amazonian tribe. Recently, though, Helen was becoming ungovernable, and Sabrina wondered if Michael’s indulgence were to blame—compounded, of course, by the upcoming year in the Amazon. For example, Helen had begun complaining during dinner, saying they should refuse meat. Sabrina had assumed the girl was simply showing her concern. She knew her father enjoyed ham, beef, lamb, the foods he’d grown up with—however would he feed on caterpillars? Then one day Helen had come in from the yard, all aglow, meaning to fry up something she’d caught there. There’d been a sense of mad purpose in her, enough for Sabrina to feel a sense of foreboding as the girl had gone off laughing, leaving dead bugs on the counter.

  Sabrina entered the living room. There was the heavy smell of incense: so, Helen had come and gone, and she’d been smoking grass.