Who is she now? Does it matter, really, to anyone except her?
On the tape, she says, “Most of us in the struggle are like millions of other young people. We have overcome our conditioning to see Amerikkka for what it really is.”
She says, “That is what scares the pigs. They would like to portray us as freaks and outcasts, but we are in every town, on every street, in every house. We could be anyone’s child, spouse, sibling, neighbor, or friend.”
She says, “My parents used their grip on the media to rouse public sympathy. My family exploited their plight to sell newspapers.”
And, “It was the fascist nightmare of a little white girl carried off by strong black men. They used my baby pictures to stoke fear.”
Does that make sense?
Is it not clear to her that she is not just anyone’s child? How effortful could it have been to “rouse public sympathy” for suffering parents?
Does she really believe her kidnapping to have been her family’s plight?
On the tape, she says, “My parents left our care to others, to nannies and governesses. They didn’t want to dirty their hands. We were their little trophies.”
She says, “My mother was on drugs too often to be a real mother to me. Even as a child I found it to be very unappealing.”
She says, “Both my mother and father had problems with booze and pills.”
And, “Only now does my mother deign to talk to me. She cries crocodile tears in front of reporters and advises me to trust in God. But she dresses in black which tells me that as far as she’s concerned I’m already dead. Well, bitch, the feeling is mutual.”
Does she really hate her parents? Or do these answers serve the purpose of exposing her parents’ “values and ideas” and by extension those of their class?
Who is she now? Who changed her name?
What might have brought about the change, other than some form of coercion?
On the tape, she says, “The geniuses of the pig media suggest that during the early weeks with my comrades I was falling in love with some member of the group. How bourgeois that they could not recognize that it was the People with whom I was falling in love.”
She says, “Cujo sat outside the closet, before I got a light in there to study by, and read aloud to me from Stalin’s Dialectical and Historical Materialism and other essays.”
She says, “He was very patient with me. He answered all my ignorant questions, knowing that I was growing and changing under his attention.”
And, “I had a lot of positive and strong feelings for him before my acceptance as a member of the cell.”
And, “Cujo was patient, loving, devoted, enthusiastic, and passionate.”
And, “Cujo was beautiful, gentle, kind, and tender.”
And, “Cujo was strong, brave, resolute, and unhesitant.”
And, “Cujo and I grew stronger and more purposeful because of the reinforcement and encouragement we provided each other.”
And, “Cujo and I were assigned to different teams because our skills and talents complemented those of different people. It was definitely not because we were in love and the others wanted to separate us.”
Hmmmm.
J. V. Stalin: “Hence, the practical activity of the party of the proletariat must not be based on the good wishes of ‘outstanding individuals’ … Hence, the party of the proletariat should not guide itself in its practical activity by casual motives.”
Must she deny him even now? Or is it simply easier? What would it cost her to attempt to describe the intricacy of her feelings concerning this brief and intense affair? To reveal the stubborn, continuing effort to camouflage the political infelicity of love as another form of radical camaraderie?
Oh, Cujo. 6’4” freckles stupid peaked cap the mustache that wouldn’t grow Stump he said Stump had a mustache dumb-dumb jealous of Stump! that smile of his gone belt buckle in the newspaper photo pigs standing over that crushed pile of ashes and bone “beyond recognition” with his belt buckle there she spotted it and who got the monkey?——
How frequently does she reach up to touch that stone monkey nestled in the hollow of her throat?
——and what about her other feelings? Cujo on her in the closet, having “asked” for the opportunity to be “comradely.” Wasn’t forgiveness accelerated by death, that one wedge between them knocked aside only once he’d vanished into oblivion?
Does she begin to lose her enthusiasm for the interview process at this point? Do the neatly written questions and answers, and the various interlinear and marginal interpolations and emendations, suddenly appear meaningless, trite, remote from her real preoccupations? Does Trout’s face, opposite hers, eager behind the impassive mask he wears, begin to betray his impatience as he waits for her to speak?
Who is she now? Is she more articulate now? More aware now? More brave now? More critical now? More experienced now? More fit now? More happy now? More lonely now? More mature now? More moral now? More practical now? More ruthless now? More smart now? More strong now? More sympathetic now? More tired now?
Is she less dependent now? Less elitist now? Less frightened now? Less helpless now? Less ignorant now? Less naive now? Less pliant now? Less sentimental now? Less silly now? Less spoiled now? Less squeamish now? Less tongue-tied now?
So many questions. They proffer themselves. Though most go unanswered, like prayers.
A ROAR AND A glow in the air, both faint, both coming from Candlestick Park off to the southwest. Extra innings coming to their clammy finale in the fog and the swirling, stymieing outfield winds. The rolled-up windows of Popeye Jackson’s car are all fogged up from the hot breaths of its occupants. Popeye sitting with Deandra Booker, a sweet little sister up from East Menlo. She seems somewhat nonplussed by the proposition he is making. I mean like not what she expected.
“Popeye, I got work down there. In a office? You know?”
“What work? You type?”
“Learned in school.”
“So you say you can’t go to this office, type up these letters and shit, just as well from right here?”
“What I’m suppose to take, the SamTrans? That’s a hour. And I have to get downtown to the bus stop first.”
“Get another job. Here in the city. Sunday paper’s full of them.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s just for a while.”
“Popeye. Besides. What’s my landlord going to say he sees you at my house?”
“‘Sir.’”
“Ha-ha. Really.”
“Why you always have to think about some contingency? Why, Jesus?”
“I have to think about getting to work when the clock says eight-thirty.”
“Eight fucking thirty? I thought nine to five is the general rule.”
“Maybe someplace. Not at DFW Corporation.”
“What’s that? Dumb Fucking Whitey?”
“Popeye. You bad.”
“You know it.”
“But why?”
“Why what?”
“Why you want to stay at my house?”
Because … Popeye shakes a cigarette out of the pack on the dash and lights it with one of these here Cricket lighters. Flick, flick, flick, small flame briefly illuminating the interior of Popeye’s car, the small woman gazing at him from the passenger seat, like bursts of light from the muzzle of a gun. The story. A woman. Old gray-haired lady Sara Jane Moore. Woman was a strange damn woman. Worked as a bookkeeper for that People in Need. While all the time she’s also working for the FBI, informing on the Left. Like what could she know? They pouring whole milk on cornflakes instead of skim? Sneaking they garbage into the neighbor’s cans? The FBI probably could learn more just reading the San Francisco Bay Guardian every week, but whatever. FBI never know nothing, just like to make up they files. Anyway, Sara Jane begins bringing Popeye glad tidings from Henry Billionaire Galton who has got it into his head that Popeye maybe can put in a word with his daughter Alice. Who Popeye never laid a
eye on or said a word to but so what. Anyways, they fuck up his parole with that fucked-up smack bust, and what does Popeye sit down with his a.m. Postum to read? A Examiner editorial extolling the United Prisoners Union and singing his praises as if he was Martin Luther King. So basically Popeye will be putting his ass in the driver’s seat of a little motherfucking airplane and skywrite a motherfucking valentine from Daddy to his daughter if that’s what Henry Galton want. Back and forth they go, Popeye paying out his line, getting his hook into the man.
He knew the SLA, sure.
Donald DeFreeze was this kind of man, see. Not smart, but not too dumb, either. Not crazy, but the dude was not all there, know what I’m saying.
The rest, they just followed along.
They all dead now, though.
Alice is someplace nearby.
This was all conjecture, see, but the Parole Board reinstated his parole.
Play him long enough Galton could get Popeye elected to Congress.
Then Sara Jane Moore came one lonely day into the sweet-smelling room where Popeye had just vipered down a joint and something about her desolate earnestness so impetuously stirred Popeye that he thought he’d itch her gibs just for the fuck of it, and it fucked her up good. Coming around all the time practically saying ahh. Sorry, bitch. One taste is enough.
Turn it to the left. Turn it to the right. Sara Jane now’s officially a revolutionary. The FBI are the bad men, get caught holding the bag with a bunch of bullshit files full of bullshit courtesy Sara Jane about whether Venceremos is adding Downy to its laundry suds. But guess the fuck what? Guess who is a “informer” against the “Movement” now? Guess who’s “betraying” the “revolution” by “getting too close” to Henry Galton?
Suddenly it’s all alarms and Fourth of July and shit. Nobody give a rat’s ass that Sara Jane is walking down the corner phone booth to ring the pigs that Huey Newton poured his used motherfucking motor oil down into the motherfucking storm drain but if old Popeye tries to work out a accommodation to keep his ass out of stir it’s time for a turkey shoot.
He’s getting death threats. Signs indicate that they are for real. Like, he left this shirt laying on the bed and when he got home it’s not there. Like they took it away and shit. Get a sample of his cellular structure do some weird shit to him. And some glass on the table still filled with ice cubes. How they’re not going to melt while he be out? Someone in there, waiting. He felt the shadow of a murderous presence. Good thing they got bored.
Which is why Popeye is sitting in his car on a cold San Francisco night trying to convince the beautiful Deandra Booker to swap apartments with him.
The glow in the southwestern sky is suddenly diminished; the lights ringing the parapet atop Candlestick have been doused. Popeye leans forward and rubs some of the condensation off the windshield in front of him, peering out into the murky gloom. “Well, look at it here,” he says.
“What?”
“Fog. Gets into my bones, makes ’em achy. Big mildew crawling up the shower curtain. Bottom of my shoes turning green in the closet.” This is true. Pulled some dress shoes out for another bullshit hearing and found a delicate mold, the color of lichen, spreading across the soles. “My age, that ain’t good. Turn into a asprin junkie.”
“What do I want with green shoes?”
“Maybe some Irish in you.”
“Ha-ha.”
“We going to do it?”
“Let me think about it.”
“Don’t be thinking too long. I’ll get someone else. Lose this exclusive opportunity.” Popeye is joking, but he is sweating, nervous. He would like to be on the Bayshore right now, heading down to Menlo Park. “Popeye Jackson, police informer.” How tight that snitch jacket is once they get it on you. And here comes somebody, fuzzy and indistinct in the light pooled around one of the lampposts up near the corner. Popeye watches the figure approach, vague and misty, through the little clean patch of windshield just in front of him.
“I don’t know if I’m buying what you’re selling.” She reaches out and takes the pack off the dash, shakes a smoke out, and lights it. “Too smoky in here,” she says, cranking down her window a few inches. “Open yours too.”
“No,” says Popeye.
“Popeye, open it!” Deandra leans across him and begins to turn the crank.
“I fucking said no!” Popeye grabs her by the shoulders and throws her back into the passenger seat, where she sits staring coldly at the foggy windshield, cigarette snapped in two like a Benson & Hedges ad. “Fucking said no, bitch,” Popeye adds, quietly.
Footsteps are audible as the figure passes the car. Popeye sits perfectly still, quiet, tense. Then Deandra says, “Popeye, what?” The footsteps stop. Popeye is in the act of raising his index finger to his pursed lips when the first shot shatters his window, catching him in the left shoulder. The second shot hits him in the back, ricochets inside his chest, where it severs his aorta, and then exits under his left nipple, lodging in the upholstery of Deandra’s seat. The third shot enters the back of his skull and tears through his brain. For the fourth shot the killer rounds leisurely to the other side of the car and shoots Deandra in the right eye through her open window. Just to prove that some people take things seriously. Popeye’s last thoughts? Righteous righteous self-righteous pain.
ON THE MORNING OF the seventh day, Trout’s suitcase lies open on the coffee table, his clothes piled haphazardly inside. Trout sits on the couch in his T-shirt and undershorts, meditatively dipping a piece of toast into the yolk of a soft-boiled egg whose shell balances in an eggcup improvised from a shot glass. He is alone in the big room below the sleeping loft, having already bid goodbye to Tania and Joan, who’ve left early to go to town and run some errands. Before him is a stack of cassette tapes. Seven of them bear numbered labels reading “T.” Others, also numbered, read “Y.” or “Tk.”
This has been an uncommon week for Trout. By now he’s just about completely lost interest in the project Guy had made sound so exciting. Conned him into, really. It took him maybe two hours after his arrival to realize that Teko and Yolanda were completely indifferent to literary matters, to questions of style, flavor, pacing, wit, and spontaneity. Chiefly, they were concerned with compulsively controlling all aspects of the making of the book. First the questions. Then the answers. Well, to be honest, at first Trout had thought the scriptwriting thing might help, if only because he figured it would disabuse them of the notion that the book was just waiting out there—free, ambient, ready to be harvested. Writing one was a bitch of a job and he was happy to have them know it. But it only encouraged their obsessiveness. Even after they’d begun working from the scripts—Trout rattling off the inane prompts he’d been supplied and fidgeting through the even more inane answers, like David Susskind in Hell—he’d watched them resisting their own words, suspicious of what they themselves had composed only hours before. They’d stop the tape to go back and examine some abandoned draft, make sure it didn’t contain the precise turn of phrase they felt was required. During playback Teko and Yolanda would express their great disapproval with the tone of voice in which certain of the questions had been asked or their answers provided.
As if it mattered, any of it; each of them spoke in the voice of the revolutionary automaton. The committee of three would withdraw into its little floating ministry of truth—the creamery, the woods, the funky-smelling sleeping loft—to shape and vet these anodyne dialogues. Trout had begun taking long walks alone in the woods after the sessions to avoid whichever of the three might attempt to take him aside to privately rebut the lies of another. Or it might be Joan, blowing off steam of her own.
It’s become clear to him that his function is first to humor them, second to offer a shoulder to cry on, and third to serve as a buffer between them and Guy. Guy, who, when Trout phoned him from town the other evening to kvetch, had grievances of his own to air. Worked his ass off and not a word of gratitude, etc. Did he have any idea how much all this was runn
ing him? Etc. Poor Trout. He’d had to rummage through his pockets for change to feed the pay phone at the operator’s command, while Guy rambled on.
Eventually they decided that Guy would drive out today to pick him up. Trout’s had enough, and now he’s ready to head back to Canada, transcribe the tapes, and await further instructions. He does not anticipate receiving his share of the six-figure advance Guy had talked about so, ah, rashly. Not exactly Book-of-the-Month Club material they have to work with here. Guy had thought that by some osmotic process he could turn these dogmatic wackos into a group of impassioned moderates bearing a message of uplift, ha-ha. A summer in the country, juicy berries and sweet corn on the cob: It would be like the Fresh Air Fund, right. Big, big mistake Guy had made, appealing to their vanity while dangling big bucks over their heads. They had amped up, not toned down. These tapes couldn’t possibly depict the adoption of a temperate way of thinking.
What they hadn’t quite gotten was that the fascist insect was interested only in Tania.
He finishes the last scrap of toast and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. Then he notices Yolanda gazing steadily at him from the top of the ladder leading to the sleeping loft.
“Good morning,” he says. He reaches to lift yesterday’s shirt from on top of the clothes piled in the open suitcase, patting the breast pocket for his cigarettes. When he raises his head again, Teko has replaced her up there.
“So today you’re leaving.”
“I spoke to Guy. He thinks we have enough for a start.”
“And how’s it going selling the book?”
“I couldn’t say. Guy’s department.”
Teko nods. It’s a rhythmic nodding, a bobbing, really. There’s silence. Trout feels the cellophany semicrumple of the cigarette pack in his hand.
“And so you’re going off to do what, exactly?”
“Well, as I said, Guy thinks we have enough to begin. I’m going back up north, and, you know—” He puts down the pack and mimes the act of typing, fingers flailing away. Then he picks it up again, lightly squeezing the butts through plastic, paper and foil.
Trance Page 36
