War Day

by Whitley Streiber; John Kunetka

  Whites, you talk to them, and they lost a family member here, a friend there. I'm talking about loss on a different scale. The church I belonged to, for example—there are just thirty of us left, out of a congregation of a couple of hundred. Not to say they all died, but half of them did. The rest, they moved away, most of them looking for work or relatives or just a better color of sky.

  Whites look sort of surprised nowadays when they see this big coal-tar black woman, which is me, coming along. I see it time after time when I go down to the Loop. A Negro. A black. One of them.

  Before Warday they'd sort of close up on you. Look right through you. Like you didn't matter, or they wished you didn't matter. Now they just look and look. You can see that they are fascinated by your black face. I look at them, and in my heart I say, "I am looking at you with two million eyes, for my face is a million black faces, and the look I am giving you is the reproach of a million souls."

  I hear the whole world singing in my memories. You'll never A C R O S S AMERICA 273

  guess it, but I sing for my supper now. You'll ask, "How can this furious woman possibly be an entertainer?" But that's what I am.

  An entertainer. You ever hear of the Cotton Club on State? Well, I am the star attraction, practically. I sing for them. I am memory for them. Blacks and whites come. They mix together more easily now, probably because the whites no longer feel so threatened.

  There I stand, on that little stage in that boozy and smoky hall, and I sing out all the sorrow that is in my soul. I sing until it hangs in the air around me and I am so sad I could die because that's the blues, but inside me where nobody can see there is God's glory, and that's the part of the blues they never talked about, but the part that's most important. The blues are true music of the human heart, the truest on earth, I think. How can we give up on the people who created this, and say they have no genius? Black genius doesn't have names attached to it. Black genius is not named Leo-nardo da Vinci or J. Robert Oppenheimer. Black genius flows in black blood, and has to do with pain.

  I say we had a worse time than you did. Sure, why not? We were living from hand to mouth, most of us. Black meant poor. It also meant noble, and it meant good and full of joy that maybe had no business in there with the pain.

  Am I angry? No, not anymore. I am working and there is food on my table. I'm singing for my supper. Every night before I go to sleep, I remember Henry. I had a picture of him, but it got lost.

  My profession is to remember my people, and spread my memories among those who remain. I do it in songs. That is what they are for.

  Anger

  As we crossed Indiana on our way to Cleveland, the character of the passenger complement began to change. The train was still almost empty, but there was something familiar about the people.

  They pushed and shoved and muttered. They were noticeably more tattered than the passengers on the run from Kansas City to Chicago had been.

  I recognized an accent, the harsh nasal twang of my old home-town. Refugees from New York have settled all through Ohio and Pennsylvania.

  Jim went up and down the train and found that these people were almost exclusively former citizens of the Bronx, with a scat-tering of Manhattanites. Most of them were laborers, a few professionals. They were traveling for many different reasons: to visit or seek relatives; to look for work; to buy things such as clothing, car parts, or furniture, in Cleveland. None of them were making long-distance journeys. Although many expressed a desire to return to New York, those who had tried said that there was no way around the Army cordon.

  Why the Army would cordon off what remained of New York was a puzzling question, one we were very eager to answer. It couldn't be radiation, not after five years. Of course, the radlevel 274

  ACROSS AMERICA 2 7 5

  will be higher by far than prewar, but we live with that in other places.

  On the train there was a certain amount of talk about the World Series, which was being held this year at Fenway Park between the Red Sox and the Pittsburgh Pirates. We hadn't encountered much talk of sports on our trip. Dallas doesn't have a baseball team and we were running too hard in California to find out about sports.

  Nobody on the train was going to the Series, but a lot of people were eager to see what the Plain Dealer had to say about it when they got to Cleveland.

  We met one woman who was of special interest to me, as she was triaged and sick. She was going to Cleveland to visit a popular alternate practitioner, a witch named Terry Burford. I had been eager to interview an alternate practitioner, especially a witch. Since Warday our concept of witchcraft has, of course, changed radically, as they have begun to make themselves public as midwives, herbalists, and healers. How effective they are I do not know, but it seemed important to meet a modern practitioner, since so many of us may eventually depend on one for medical help.

  Also on the train was one individual whose dress alone marked him as unusual and therefore of definite interest to us. We first saw this tall, elegant man heading from the sleeper to the diner.

  He was completely out of place on the train. Jim got out his recorder and we followed him into the dining car.

  His name was Jack Harper. He was an exchange officer with the Royal Bank of Canada at Toronto. He told us: "I am working on the development of the American Automobile Industry Refinance Plan with the Barclay's Consortium, our bank, and the New Bank of North America. We're developing a private gold backing for a currency to be issued by the big three automakers themselves. We feel that the best way to deal with the problem of restarting the industry is to attract as many skilled workers back to the Detroit area as we can, rather than attempt to move the plants south. We are hoping that the prospect of being paid in a gold-backed currency will satisfy the concerns about nonpaid work that made them migrate in the first place, and we are guaranteeing a 276 WARDAY

  year's supply of Canadian beef to every registered member of the U A W who comes back. The combination of not getting paid and then getting hit by the famine has made these men extremely suspicious of their former employers."

  The waiter came up and Mr. Harper ordered his lunch. The train had two meals available: soup and salad, or hamburger. Mr.

  Harper ordered one of each, only to be told that there was a consumption restriction of one to a passenger.

  "I hate the bloody States! Too bad there's no flight from Chicago to Detroit. It would have taken half an hour and I wouldn't be facing lunch in this diner." He smiled tightly, but there was venom in his voice.

  "Why do you hate us?"

  "You mean you really can't think why? That's not surprising.

  I'll tell you, the U.S. practically caused Canada to be destroyed. We were completely cocked up by Warday. The bank—you cannot imagine the anarchy. We lost not only our main computer but all our supporting computers as well. At the moment of the electro, we had about eight million in cash just evaporate, lost in the middle of electronic transfer. Within an hour the whole banking hall was filled with people shouting and waving paper records. We didn't know what we were doing or where we stood. It was madness, terrible madness. And it was caused by the United States and the damned missiles and the damned war. The phones were out, the lights were out, even the lockboxes were unavailable because the electronic locking mechanism was on the fritz.

  "Canada had one hell of a time because of your little twenty-minute war, let me tell you. Then there was the Russian business in Alaska Territory, to add panic to the whole affair."

  "What Russian business, and what is Alaska Territory?"

  "It used to be the state of Alaska until you ceded it to us last year."

  "We gave you Alaska?"

  "The treaty was signed in L.A. and Ottawa in June of 1992. We interned the Soviet naval units that had docked in Anchorage, and it was decided in Ottawa that our national security depended upon our remaining in Alaska. We paid you thirty-five million gold dollars, so you needn't quibble."

  ACROSS AMERICA 277

>   This did not seem like a very good price to us. "What about Prudhoe Bay? What about the Alaska Pipeline?"

  "It ends in Vancouver. Now, if I may, I'd like to attempt my lunch. What sort of grain do you suppose this false hamburger is made of?"

  "Soy."

  "I'd say oatmeal, from the taste of the thing. The meat is indis-tinguishable from the bread. Oh, waiter!" The waiter came over.

  "Bring me a half-bottle of Beaujolais, please."

  "We have Coca-Cola, sir."

  "Bottled?"

  "Fountain, sir."

  "Sad it's not bottled. I really don't want to get the damned Uncle Sam Jump yet again."

  I recalled laughing to Mexican friends about the Aztec Two-Step. If they were as hurt and embarrassed as I felt, they con-cealed it well.

  "What do Canadians think about the U.S. now?" Jim asked.

  "About the U.S. as a country? Very little, because it isn't one.

  We deal with half a dozen separate governments down here. Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio are one country we deal with a lot. It has four governors and on the whole is fairly disunited, but we deal with it. We also deal with the South, which has its de facto capital in Atlanta. There are other states, of course, but if you get Georgia on your side, they go along. We have a great amount of business with New England, of course. The Bostonians and the Vermonters are the two most vociferous lots. Then the states of Washington and Oregon are an independent entity. They have a joint legislature but two governors, so that can be complicated.

  California is the easiest. Governor Campbell is the beginning and end of power there."

  "What sort of dealing do you do?"

  "Canada in general, or just us bankers?"

  "You personally."

  "I do financings, mostly. We offer Commonwealth pounds, Canadian dollars, British pounds, and gold, generally in return for substantial equity ownership, which we then sell on the American Trades Exchange in London."

  278 WARDAY

  "The American Trades Exchange?"

  "It makes a market for persons wishing to buy and sell instruments of ownership in American plants and equipment, trade-marks, patents, and proprietary secrets. For example, one can buy a complete set of plans for the Boeing 747, including all supporting documentation, wiring diagrams, and subordinate electronic equipment schematics, and the right to use them, on that exchange. The 747 plans are going for eight million dollars gold or equivalent. I know this because a Canadian company has been attempting to buy them. We are financial guarantors in part of the deal. My involvement is in establishing acceptable currency equivalencies for the gold. Excuse me." He called the waiter. "Will you take this back and give me the soup, please? Amtrak really ought to get hold of some meat, if you want to have hamburgers on your menu."

  The waiter took back the partially eaten hamburger and returned with the soup.

  "It's not hot. I want it scalding. Boiled, do you understand?" He turned to us. "Sorry. Where were we?"

  I had a question that was a little off the subject of banking, but after our experience in California, I was eager to know the answer.

  "Is the Canadian border patrolled?"

  He smiled. "Very, very carefully. And it isn't because we don't like you, mind, or don't want you coming over, but rather for your own protection. There are Canadians, I'll tell you frankly, who are perfectly capable of violence against you Americans. So we think the passport/visa system is really best. They've pretty well cleared out the refugees that came into Saskatchewan and Manitoba from the Dakotas, so that particular disturbance is over. You've got to understand, it was your war and our country was just incidentally thrown into chaos in the process." He waved his soup spoon. "Let me ask you a question, and since I've been so frank with you, be frank with me. Before you encountered me, did you ever for even one moment think of what had happened to Canada? Of what we were going through because of you? Even that we were there? Did you?"

  We had to admit the truth: we had not.

  Jack Harper smiled his tight smile and went back to his soup.

  Interview

  Terry Burford, Midwife and Witch

  I'm working toward delivering a baby a day. Right now I do about three or four a week. At the moment I've got fifty-eight patients in the midwifery and about two hundred in my general practice. I've got thirty psychiatric patients divided into four groups. Also, I have my own coven, Rosewood, and I'm elder of four covens that have hived off from Rosewood. I keep office hours from seven to seven, and I always visit my patients in the home. I can't really work on anybody unless I know them and what kind of energies there are in their home environment, and preferably at work also.

  I'll take a fee of a dime for an office examination or fifteen cents for a home visit, plus ten cents to a dollar for the various preparations I might prescribe. Rosewood does healing rituals for free. I offer a complete midwifery service, with counseling and support throughout the pregnancy, for three dollars, which includes the delivery. If the child is defective or born dead, the fee is refundable. I lose about a third of the babies and one mother out of ten. My losses are almost always due to complications resulting from radiation exposure. I do euthanasias on profoundly crippled or retarded newborns for free. Also, I do abortion counseling and perform abortions.

  I have been a witch since I was ten years old. My mom was a witch, and her mom before her, all the way back, but I went to 279

  280 WARDAY

  Ohio State and N Y U , where I got an M.S. in clinical psychology. I am a Jungian analyst, with a strong Wiccan override. Prewar, my kind of practice would have been on the periphery of society, but things have changed so much that people are flocking to us witches now, primarily for healing and midwifery. I am a good herbalist, and I really can accomplish a lot with my medicants. And herbs can give you the kind of dramatic cure that an antibiotic can achieve—if you can get an antibiotic.

  My practice as a witch is also my faith. I follow the old pre-Christian religion. We worship the Earth as a Goddess, and Her male manifestation, the Horned God. Our emphasis on ecstatic union with the planet has accounted for the postwar growth of the Wiccan movement. As most Wiccans tend to be anti-hierarchical, we also feel comfortable with the Destructuralists—more than one witch is also a Destructuralist.

  We work from our own homegrown rituals. Many covens follow various public traditions, such as the Adlerian method started by Margot Adler in ' 8 8 , and the older Starhawk method. I am a

  "fam-trad" witch in that my craft comes from an old tradition in my own family. To join one of my covens requires a two-year ap-prenticeship. Right now we have four trainees for Rosewood—all we can take at one time—and a waiting list of sixty.

  Our lives are hard and our hours are long. Twenty-hour days are not unusual. Take the day before yesterday. Here's how it went:

  3:55 A . M . My assistant, Kathy Geiger, wakes me up. Betty Cotton has come to term. Kathy has already gone to the Cottons'

  house and examined Betty. She is nearly fully dilated. I grab my instrument and herb cases and we are on our way. We've just bought a new Chrysler vanagon, so it's no longer necessary to go pedaling through the streets of Cleveland on a bike. For the past year, Cleveland has had a good fuel supply. Gas is twenty cents a gallon here, which is certainly higher than you'd like, but we manage.

  I find Betty and her husbands managing her contractions very well. I use a modified Lamaze technique. These are very special people, in that they are totally radiation-free. Betty is one of the A C R O S S AMERICA 281

  few people in the United States who had a bomb shelter, and she remained in it for a month after Warday, so even though Cleveland got a dusting from the Dakota strikes, she was not affected. Both of her husbands are from the deep South, Mike from Gulfport and Teddy from Savannah, so they are clean too. The chances of a mutant are very small. Betty also owns a geiger counter, which she uses to clean up hot spots in her immediate environment. This is her sixth child, so things ar
e pretty well organized around here.

  The whole family is participating. The twins are boiling water, the middle kids minding the youngest, and the oldest daughter, Tabi-tha, is playing soothing music on her guitar. A good scene, and they get a boy of five pounds eleven ounces, healthy and strong.

  All I do is bathe him and get him breathing and give him to Betty and give her a cup of raspberry leaf and borage flower tea to promote lactation. Then I take off to grab some more sleep after making sure that we aren't going to have any hemorrhage, that nobody's got fever, and Betty's blood pressure is good. Betty Cotton—matriarch to a family of six kids and two husbands. I wish I had more as strong and happy as that bunch.

  6:50 A . M . I wake up again and eat a bowl of boiled oats and drink some ground ivy and wild mint tea. My office is already full.

  First patient is a cancer case who's been triaged. He comes for counseling, staging of his disease, and visualization therapy. VT

  works well for certain cancers, especially tumors of the cerebral cortex, but Joe T.'s bone cancer is proving resistant to our best efforts. He is in great pain. I have been prescribing wild lettuce juice rubbed in at pressure points—armpits especially—for its narcotic effect, but the pain is now breaking through even this drug, which is one of the strongest in my pharmacopoeia. I notice that he is coughing. His disease has spread to his lungs or he has acquired a secondary pneumonia. I tell Joe that he probably has at most a couple more months. He will suffer great agony. I recommend that he let me help him to sleep. His wife comes into the treatment room and the three of us agree. I know not to draw these things out. Joe could go to the hospital for euthanasia, but they would probably make him wait another week. Also, they do not do it with the same atmosphere of love and support. Kathy calls the Rosewooders who 282 WARDAY

  are available and we go together to the ritual space we have built at the back of the house. This is a large, pleasant room, full of sun from the skylights. There are flowers in vases. We take Joe to the big lounger and he lies back on it. I pour a tincture of henbane in his ear. His wife of twenty years sits beside him. They gaze at one another, talk a little. They cry. The henbane tincture is very powerful. When we see he is beginning to lose consciousness, we begin to sing. We sing "Deep River," then one of our own songs, "Joy in the Morning." Sometime during the last song, Joe's eyes roll back and he coughs three times, quite violently. His wife calls him once, then again, louder. Then she bows her head.