Southern Cross

by Stephen Greenleaf

  “You seem a tad less enthusiastic than the Galloping Gourmet.”

  “If I see another canapé, I’ll scream.”

  “So why don’t you do something else?”

  “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there aren’t any jobs out there these days. None. For anyone.”

  She was right. Times were tough and getting tougher, and the recession would last till the end of the century.

  “So,” she went on. “Like I said. What do we do now?”

  I was too tired for more analysis, of us or of anything. “We could go to the dance.”

  “You hate dancing.”

  “One good thing about middle age is, you don’t mind making a fool of yourself once in a while, at least for a good cause.”

  She clutched my arm and snuggled against my side. “That’s what I always wanted to be—a good cause. How are you at geography, by the way?”

  “B-minus, as I recall. Why?”

  “I wondered if you knew that Baltimore isn’t all that far from Charleston.”

  SIX

  On Saturday, the reunion turned earnest with a vengeance. Immediately after breakfast, the crowd subdivided like so many metastatic cells and launched discussions ranging from the prospect for peace in the Middle East to the danger inherent in the collapse of the Soviet Union to the roots of the palsy that laid claim to the economy. The group I joined, or rather was engulfed by, took off in pursuit of the election.

  All but two of us were Democrats, it turned out, the exceptions venerating Bush because he was the anointed apostle of the Holiest of Holies—Ronald Reagan. Most of the rest were pining for Cuomo—more because of his debating skills than his policies or his personality—while pulling for Clinton and fearing Perot, although there was one unreconstructed Tsongasite and two who were eloquent for Brown. Many of us were passionate, even illogical, on this issue or that; all of us saw the election as the last chance in a generation to constitute a compassionate government that was run for the benefit of the common man rather than big business, yet none of us had donated our time to a cause we felt was vital.

  At some point, somebody mentioned Rodney King.

  “What a travesty.”

  “The verdict or the riot?”

  “The verdict, of course.”

  “Did you see the tape? The whole tape?”

  “I saw a man being pulverized, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Only when he resisted. Whenever he assumed the position, they stopped hitting him. The cops were only doing their job.”

  “Was it their job to spout racist filth over the police radio? Was it their job to keep pounding him when it was five against one?”

  “That wasn’t a trial, that was a metaphor.”

  “For what? Black irresponsibility?”

  “That’s such bullshit. The black man has been oppressed in this country for two hundred years. This was just an official reminder that they should keep their place, in case anyone forgot.”

  “That’s liberal pap. The black man has been looking for an excuse for two hundred years. Now he’s blaming Koreans, for God’s sake.”

  “It’s true that lots of people are pissed at being called racist, and not just conservatives, either. They think blacks had their chance and blew it.”

  “They think blacks just want to have babies out of wedlock and mug whites to buy drugs.”

  “Statistics say they’re right.”

  “That’s not true. Most blacks in America are middle class, not underclass. And most people on welfare are white.”

  “The problem is, fucking and doing drugs are the only thing this racist society lets them do. Every time the black man starts to rise, the power structure knocks him down.”

  “How can a society that created Michael Jordan and Bill Cosby be called racist?”

  “Gladiators. Jesters. Fools. Oppressors have always made allowances for their amusements.”

  “What about Jesse Jackson?”

  “Another entertainer.”

  “What’s sad to me is that so many blacks—”

  “You mean African-Americans.”

  “—African-Americans, including black intellectuals, think their problems result from a conspiracy to destroy their race. Like drugs, for example.”

  “And AIDS.”

  “What I can’t believe is that some people actually want those young studs to impregnate as many women as they can.”

  “‘Babies having babies’ is what Jesse calls it.”

  “You realize that if Jesse had run this time, he would have gotten the nomination.”

  “Why do you think they didn’t let him run?”

  “Blacks will never get anywhere until their leadership stops looking for scapegoats. What’s wrong with black people is black people—conspiracies are the refuge of tiny minds.”

  “Conspiracies are what’s left after the government holds hearings to find out what happened.”

  “JFK. Right. Great film. I think it was the CIA, myself.”

  And so it went. Although the debate was typically dry and distant, it strengthened my resolve to go to Charleston with Seth, to finally involve myself, no matter how tardily and tangentially, in the cause of racial peace some twenty-five years after I should have first stepped forward.

  Nothing occurred on a more engaging level until Gil and I were next to each other in the lunch line. After he’d filled his plate, he tapped my shoulder. “This is where it happened, right?”

  “What?”

  “The crime spree.”

  “Oh. Yeah.” I pointed. “That window over there.”

  I’d forgotten about it, incredibly enough, but what Gil was referring to was a burst of criminality I’d engaged in during the winter of my junior year. Seth and I had become so addicted to a certain chocolate cookie the dining hall served from time to time that we decided to steal as many as we could get our hands on. After planning our caper down to the last detail, we snuck down to the kitchen at 3:00 A.M. the night before the cookie usually appeared on the menu, broke a window, climbed in, found several trays of the tasty morsels, appropriated as many as we could carry, then scrambled back to our room and feasted for forty-eight hours.

  A week later, the dean of men suspended me for ten days and confined Seth to his room during evening hours for a month.

  As I was recalling the tongue-lashing I’d endured from Dean Antley, Gil was laughing at me. “I hope you’re better at solving crimes than committing them,” he said. “How much they nail you for, by the way?”

  “For the cookies?”

  He shook his head. “The class gift.”

  “Oh. Uh … five.”

  “Thousand?”

  “Hundred. How about you?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  “Hundred?”

  “Thousand.”

  “Oh.”

  At the cocktail hour, a dentist who owned a half-interest in a winery graced us with a taste of his first crush. At dinner, some former thespians staged a parody of Laugh-In that lampooned some of the more notorious professors. Only the professors found it funny, further proof that academic egotism is boundless. At the awards ceremony, a historian, a performance artist, a newspaper columnist, and Gil received achievement awards—afterward, the consensus seemed to be that this was the first time the artist had been seen on campus. And suddenly we were in line for the final gathering of the weekend but for breakfast Sunday morning and an A.A. meeting for the road.

  I was sorry to see it end, surprisingly. I’d met people who had been important to me back then and was pleased to see they were doing well. I’d also heard sad stories about classmates who hadn’t put in an appearance, raising questions about fate and predestiny and similar credos we used to discuss ad nauseam in the days before we had to get jobs and life itself became philosophy. Best of all, I’d heard several self-effacing narratives from some true heroes of our time—teachers in inner-city schools, social workers in Appalachia, cancer researchers in teac
hing hospitals. And pastors and physical therapists and day-care workers, too, a sturdy parade of people who were doing good in the world out of sight and mind of all but the objects of their bounty. From time to time I try to believe I am part of the parade myself, but I seldom get the job done.

  Seth had avoided me all day, presumably because he was afraid I had decided to turn him down. When I had a chance, I told him I’d changed my reservation and had an open ticket on the morning flight to Charleston. He smiled and whispered, “Thanks.”

  And then I was left with Libby.

  Eighteen hours earlier, we’d parted after a single dance, surrendering to the demands of fatigue and mixed messages. By unvoiced consent, we’d pursued separate agendas all day, but the end of the evening found us face-to-face.

  We maneuvered to an unoccupied corner of the hall and sat side by side on a tufted couch. “Do you ever get back East?” Libby asked after a minute.

  “Haven’t for years. Do you ever come West?”

  “Haven’t yet.”

  People looked at us, and grinned and whispered. “We’re causing talk,” I said.

  “We always did. People thought we were extremely mismatched. Do you think we’d have survived if we’d stayed together, Marsh?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because most people don’t. And because we each had some problems to work out.”

  “I still have most of them.”

  “Me, too.”

  Her smile was wan. “I thought we were supposed to have it figured out by now.”

  “I don’t think that’s part of the cosmic scheme—when you solve one riddle, another has to take its place. The indestructibility of angst, I think it’s called.”

  We people-watched for a time, taking stock of our fellows, whose moods seemed to range from the ecstatic to the miserable. After a while, Libby leaned my way and whispered. “Here we are, at a crossroads of life, with all kinds of momentous things to discuss, and I can’t stop thinking about sex.” She wriggled her fingers as though they hurt, then placed them on my thigh. “But it would be wrong, don’t you think?”

  “Why?”

  “There are standards, Marsh. Principles. It’s why we went to school, for God’s sake.”

  “Nothing we learned in school governs what you and I should do in the next hour.” I put my hand on hers. “But if you think making love would be immoral, you shouldn’t do it.”

  “Then I guess I won’t.”

  “Fine.”

  A moment later, she pinched my bicep. “You’re not even going to debate the issue?”

  “Nope.”

  “You never were very assertive.”

  I laughed.

  “But not being assertive is what I always liked about you, come to think of it.”

  “It’s what I always liked about me, too. Tell me about your children.”

  Libby’s face softened, and she looked closer to thirty than fifty. “As a matter of fact, they’re pretty neat. They had problems early on, big ones, but they’ve come out in good shape. I’d like you to meet them sometime.” She reached in her purse and pulled out some pictures of kids that looked like all kids.

  After I’d said the right things and handed them back, Libby bit her lip. “What did you think of Thelma and Louise?”

  “Good B movie.”

  “Not a mirror of the times?”

  “Not even close.”

  “Who did you believe, Hill or Thomas?”

  “Hill.”

  “Are you pro-choice?”

  “Secondarily. Primarily I’m anticonception.”

  “Have you read Backlash?”

  “No. What is this, a litmus test?”

  “I think this is foreplay.”

  “You used to be better at it.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Your place or mine?”

  “Whichever’s warmer,” she said.

  SEVEN

  The next morning I made do with a vending-machine meal—coffee and a Baby Ruth—in lieu of the Mother of All Breakfasts, which was the fulsome offering in the dining hall. By 8:00 A.M., I’d managed to load my bags in my rented Taurus and corral Seth and his stuff as well. Moments later I was on the freeway pointed north, relieved at having avoided anything resembling an awkward good-bye, including one with Libby.

  My leave-taking wasn’t as craven as it seemed. Over the course of the previous evening, Libby and I had said everything we could bring ourselves to say to each other and done everything it occurred to us to do. Initially tentative and even fearful, our lovemaking became increasingly comprehensive as we exchanged the awkwardness of uncertainty for the finesse of the familiar. Sex became not a source of shame but solace, was no longer ambiguous but essential. With far more gratitude than lust, we allowed ourselves to revel in it—energy was summoned and spent, again and again, our only pause a moment’s test to confirm the condom had survived the storm. On the brink of aerobic breakdown, wet with sweat and laboring for air to fuel our frenzy, we entwined in a consuming clutch for succor, as if we were each other’s only haven. By the time we climbed toward climax, it was both easy and imperative to believe we were bound together once again, our fates mutual and interdependent, our journeys joint and endless, as they had seemed so long ago. But in the postcoital gloom of my excessively monastic room, we knew we were mistaken now as then, that the truth we had tried to manufacture would only last the weekend. Whence came ensuing melancholy.

  But not for long. When we had bathed and dried and were alternately sipping Pepsi from a single can as we lay naked and knotted in the moonlight, we joked and laughed and poked and kidded, told silly deprecations on ourselves and also bragged a little, voiced reasonable hopes and immoderate fears, remembering why we’d loved each other. At some point, I put a slip of paper in my wallet with Libby’s phone number scrawled on it, and she took a similar souvenir of me, along with my pledge that I would call before I headed home from Charleston and consider a detour to Maryland. I’ve made such promises before, always without keeping them; I wondered what I would do this time.

  At my side, Seth was quiet for several miles, until it became unnerving. “If you had a good time,” I said finally, “you’re good at keeping it secret. Must be those years in the Drama Club.”

  “Since none of my old girlfriends showed up, the festivities seemed pretty bland.”

  “Speaking of which, where was Miranda?”

  He shrugged. “Somewhere in Europe, I heard. Not that I’d have done anything if she’d showed up,” he added sleepily.

  “Why not?”

  “I’m spoken for.”

  “Unless you and your wife exchanged some off-brand vows, that doesn’t forestall conversation.”

  “I’m not married anymore.”

  “Since when?”

  “Three years ago.”

  “If you’re spoken for, who’s doing the speaking?”

  “Fiancée. Jane Jean Hendersen. A belle to her bustle—great-granddad fell at Chickamauga. We first met when I went down to work for SNCC—in some sense I’ve loved her ever since.” Seth’s look turned lewd. “I hope you’re not telling me all you did with Libby was converse.”

  “No comment.”

  “Comment’s not necessary—it sounded like rugby in there.”

  Seth smiled at my good fortune, then closed his eyes. I knew why I was tired—Libby and I had played till three—but I wasn’t sure why Seth was. “You found the encounter with your beloved classmates less than marvelous, I take it,” I offered after a few more miles.

  He shrugged. “For one thing, the wrong people were there. Most of the interesting ones didn’t put in an appearance. Remember Boskitts? The rock climber who stole the statue of Voltaire from the library and hauled it up the bell tower and hung it in effigy to protest the war? They don’t even know where he is; last seen in Nepal, someone said.”

  “Probably underneath a glacier.”

  “And Castle. Reme
mber him? SDS and all that? They say he’s in Peru with the Shining Path. A real live revolutionary.”

  “So you didn’t find any kindred spirits. What else is bothering you?”

  Seth sighed and shook his head. “Nothing to do with the reunion.”

  “Which leaves the Alliance for Southern Pride.”

  He nodded. “I think it would be better if we pretend to be strangers, by the way. We can arrange to share a cab from the airport like we’re businessmen trying to make a buck on the per diem. When we get to town, I’ve got a place to stash you till we get a chance to talk. Is that a problem?”

  “Fine with me, but why the cloak-and-dagger?”

  “You might be more effective working incognito. Safer, also.” Seth closed his eyes so I wouldn’t ask more questions. “I know a woman in Charleston you’ll like,” he murmured after a few more miles. “She thinks the best thing about the South is its degeneracy.”

  I laughed. “I spend the prime of my life duplicating the sex life of the Dalai Lama, then I tiptoe up on fifty and all of a sudden I’m hip-deep in women.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  The response seemed to carry a subtext, but I was too tired to pursue it.

  “The South is an interesting place,” Seth went on after a minute. “I became obsessed with it the summer I spent with the voter drive. Those times have been on my mind a lot lately, what with the ASP business, and the reunion, and some guy going around town asking questions for a book he’s doing on the SNCC days. All the hassles we had to go through so black people could do a simple thing like vote. The blacks were so amazingly brave and the whites so amazingly frightened. I thought for a while they were afraid of empowering black people for fear they’d turn the tables, and for the up-country whites that pretty much was it. But for the upper classes, I think what they were most afraid of was facing up to what they’d done.”

  “You mean slavery.”

  “No. Slavery wasn’t the worst of it, in my opinion—there were historic and economic reasons for slavery, after all. It was Jim Crow that was unmitigated evil, the systematic dehumanization of the black population instituted after Reconstruction. Nothing up North was nearly as wounding to the black psyche as the sanctioned stigma constructed down here in the name of God and segregation. That’s what the South can’t face about itself—that so many good people ignored it for so long, or pretended it didn’t matter. A guy I know claims Southerners romanticize their past for the same reason Hitler revived the Nibelungenlied—to mitigate a holocaust. Anyway, it was that kind of schizophrenia that made me want to go back one day and help them get beyond it.”