Bleeding Kansas

by Sara Paretsky

  Schapen says some good-natured teasing between the groups—many of whom have known each other for years—was taken the wrong way by Mrs. Grellier and others in the anti-war group. Mrs. Grellier threw blood on a contingent of local ROTC members, yelling, “Our blood is on your hands.” In the resulting skirmish, Schapen handcuffed her and six other offenders: Autumn Minsky, who owns Between Two Worlds on Seventh Street; Elaine Logan of 1706 Vermont Street, Gina Haring of New York, Jonathan Schlager of 2834 Missouri Street, Oscar Herschel of 2323 Orchard Lane, all in Lawrence, and Theodore

  Black of Eudora. The seven were charged with two misdemeanor accounts, of violating their parade permit terms, and creating a public nuisance, and were each fined $250.

  One of K-PAW’s ringleaders is from New York, Deputy Schapen pointed out. He warned that “outside agitators turned Douglas County upside down in the seventies. We’re in danger of seeing that happen all over again today. The time to stop violence is before it gets out of hand. We need to send a message to sodomites and witches that they are not welcome in our community.”

  Gina Haring says she lives half a mile from Deputy Schapen’s farm. “Apparently, Mr. Schapen considers an outsider to be anyone who doesn’t live in his house and share his extremely narrow, medieval beliefs.”

  Ms. Haring is a niece of John Fremantle, the son of Elizabeth Fremantle, who died two years ago; Elizabeth Fremantle left money for many civic projects in Lawrence, including the Children’s Theater, named for her late husband Nathan. Gina Haring is currently living in the Fremantle house five miles east of Lawrence.

  Jim was in the wheat field when Susan called from the county jail to report her arrest. He’d been kneeling to feel the level of moisture in the soil and to see if the freeze line had retreated. The wheat had made it safely through the winter; right now, it looked like clumps of dead grass. It was still at least three weeks from breaking dormancy, he decided, when he heard his daughter screeching, “Dad! Dad!,” at the top of her lungs as she ran into the field in her flip-flops. “It’s Mom,” Lara panted, handing him the phone. “She’s in jail!”

  “It was Arnie,” Susan blurted out to him, distraught. “He was at a pro-war rally in park. He started hassling Gina and me, calling us harlots, and worse names than that. I was carrying a plastic bag of hog’s blood, we were going to pour it over a poster of the president at the end of the march, but I swung it at him to try to make him get away from me and it broke and he arrested seven of us.”

  “Oh, Susan,” was all Jim could manage.

  His concern for the winter wheat evaporated. Even though he could sense her fear from the way her voice trembled, he was angry, unable to utter even mechanical words of comfort. He had been opposed to the march, to the whole K-PAW venture in his wife’s life. And see what came of it: Susan had been arrested, just like the rioters he remembered from his adolescence, the kids who turned the town and the valley upside down with drugs and anti-war violence, imagining that they were the only people on the planet with working brains.

  Because it was a Sunday, Susan had to spend the night in the new jail out on Twenty-fifth Street. Despite his anger, Jim drove over to see her, but it was after hours and he wasn’t allowed in. The guard, a tiny woman barely out of high school who seemed too frail for the weight of the gun and handcuffs hanging from her waist, told him that he couldn’t visit a prisoner unless he was on an approved-visitors list, anyway.

  “But it’s my wife,” he said. “She was arrested this afternoon.”

  The guard shook her head. “I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t let you in. She was arrested at that march downtown, right? There will be a hearing at ten-thirty in the morning. You can bring your lawyer, and she’ll probably be released on bail.”

  Jim knew some lawyers, from church and through his brother, but the only one he and Susan ever consulted helped them with their estate planning and advice on threading through the maze of government regulations affecting the farm. Those legal bills were high enough that he could well imagine what it would cost to have someone represent Susan in the courtroom. She’d have to take her chances in front of the judge, he decided, and if she had to do thirty days, well, serve her right for taking part in the blasted march. All the same, he worried about Susan spending the night in a cell. When he got home, he called his brother in Chicago.

  “Schapen, huh?” Doug said. “Damned asshole. If they charge Susan with assaulting a cop, she could be in big trouble. But for this hearing tomorrow, tell her to plead not guilty and wait to see what the charges are before you hire anyone. If it’s a criminal case, maybe I could fly down to represent her.”

  Jim was grateful, not just for the offer but for Doug not taking the opportunity to reiterate his views on Susan and her resemblance to an unguided missile.

  “Call Drysdale,” Doug added. “He’s a good guy. He won’t want to drag you through a court battle.”

  “I can’t do that, Doug. I can’t trade on your friendship with the guy.”

  “Jimbo, that’s why we have friends—so we’re not on our own when we need help.”

  Jim was unconvinced, but when he got to the courthouse next morning he found that Doug had played big brother behind his back: Hank Drysdale met Jim outside the courtroom.

  “Jim, I’m so sorry Susan had to spend the night in jail. You should have called me yourself—I didn’t even know she’d been arrested until I got Doug’s message, and he didn’t reach me until after midnight.”

  The sheriff bent forward to add confidentially, “Between you and me, Arnie got overzealous. This was a Lawrence event; Chief Furman had four Lawrence police officers posted at South Park, and Arnie was only there as a civilian taking part in a counterdemonstration. Any rowdiness, it was the LPD’s call on how to respond, not an off-duty county deputy’s. Chief Furman is pretty unhappy with me, letting one of my boys muscle in on his cops’ jurisdiction.

  “I’ve spoken with the DA and with the mayor. No one wants a big trial that’ll bring a lot of outsiders into the town: no one wants to see those seventies riots all over again. Bad enough they’ve brought reporters in from Topeka and Kansas City. Someone told me there’re even runners or stringers or whatever from Chicago, so we plan to keep it low-key. The DA is willing to believe it was an accident, especially since it was Susan carrying that bag of blood. We’ll call it a B misdemeanor. No need to go to trial unless you want to, but then there’d be court costs and her fine might go up. Your call, though.”

  Jim wondered if Susan would insist on a trial. Would she think she was a martyr, like Jim’s ancestors, and that a trial would be romantic? He didn’t say this, just nodded at Hank, who clapped him on the shoulder.

  The two men went into the courtroom together, where they separated, the sheriff joining the prosecutor’s table up front, Jim looking around for a seat. The courtroom was full of people, most of whom were strangers to Jim. The only one he recognized was Rachel Carmody from church. She waved to Jim and scooted over on her bench to make room for him.

  “Elaine Logan lives in New Haven Manor. I’m on their board, you know, and they needed someone to look after her in the courtroom,” Rachel explained. “I’m sorry about Susan. She’s such an ardent spirit. I’m sure this must be a shock to her.”

  “To me, too,” Jim couldn’t help saying, then quickly added, “How did Elaine get involved?”

  “She’s an old seventies peacenik, or at least she says she is—I never know if half the stuff she says is true. She claims she was involved in that commune that used to live somewhere near your farm. I’m assuming that’s how she met Gina Haring. Isn’t she living out there, too?”

  “Yep. At the Fremantle place. That’s where the commune was, too.”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t seen Elaine, then—she hitches out there sometimes to moon over her past, and she’s pretty hard to overlook. The New Haven director got an SOS from her only last week, demanding he come pick her up at the crossroads. Elaine is as proud of being arrested as if
she were Joan of Arc on her way to the stake, but I have an unchristian feeling that Gina was just using her to swell her numbers—even though the country has turned against the war, you don’t get too many people willing to take to the streets in this neck of the woods.”

  Jim smiled wryly. “I wonder if it would be any comfort to think Gina was just using Susan, too, but Susan likes big causes. Sometimes I think she’s been waiting her whole life for this anti-war nonsense.”

  He broke off, embarrassed at having said so much about his private business, and said, to change the subject, “I see the place is full up.”

  “Some of them are the K-PAW members.” Rachel pointed to a group across the aisle, most of them women, most in their fifties or sixties, neatly groomed, looking anxious. “The others are mostly from the other side, Kansas Patriots Speak Up. They’re the ones carrying the little flags.”

  Jim was so rattled he hadn’t even noticed the American flags a lot of the spectators were holding. For reasons he couldn’t quite define, the sight upset him. It was as if the courtroom were an Olympic stadium and the spectators were all set to wave their flags and yell “USA! USA!” when the hearing started.

  Rachel nudged Jim and pointed out the reporters. Jim recognized the man from the Douglas County Herald who’d come out to the farm when Susan was running the co-op market and a woman from the local cable channel. The others were strangers.

  “I guess they’re hoping we’re going to reenact bleeding Kansas for them,” Rachel said. “And if Elaine Logan gets close to any of the Speak Up people, that may start to happen, which is why I’m going to hustle her out of here as soon as the hearing is over.”

  The clerk stood and announced the judge. Jim and Rachel got to their feet with the rest of the spectators. The hearing was for everyone who’d been arrested over the weekend, not just the marchers. Jim had to wait while a man charged with beating his wife, a woman who’d broken a mirror in a fight at the Storm Door, and two teens who’d ridden their motorcycles through someone’s front yard, all had their cases heard.

  The protestors were then called forward as a group. They seemed bedraggled after their night in jail, especially Elaine Logan. She was a fat woman, wearing gray sweatpants and a pink sweatshirt stretched tight over an enormous bosom. Her faded blond hair stood out from her head in dirty elflocks. Her hands were shaking, but she looked pugnaciously around the courtroom, making a peace sign at the group from Kansas Patriots Speak Up, who hissed at her. She poked Gina, urging her in an audible whisper to make a stand for justice. Gina stepped back without looking at the older woman. She was holding herself aloof, looking neither at the judge nor her fellow arrestees, not even Autumn Minsky.

  Susan was so white that her freckles stood out like polka dots on muslin. She, too, tried to whisper to Gina, but Gina stared forward, ignoring Susan as completely as she had Elaine. Jim felt a spurt of anger: Gina had gotten Susan and Elaine involved in her stupid march and now she was acting like they were flies she was switching off her back. For the first time since his wife called him yesterday, Jim felt the urge to wrap his arms around her, comfort her, protect her from the big bad world.

  When the hearing began, Arnie Schapen testified as the arresting officer. The Kansas Patriots waved their flags as he spoke, just as Jim had imagined they would, but the judge told them bluntly it was a courtroom, not a football field, and they would have to leave if they couldn’t observe appropriate decorum.

  Arnie gave his evidence without looking at Jim or Susan, but Jim could see he was smirking when he sat down. The judge gave the protestors a short, sharp lecture on civil conduct before offering them a choice of a fine or a trial. Jim waited tensely while Susan looked again at Gina, who chose the fine. Susan and the others all followed suit. It was suddenly over, no criminal charges, no trial, but two hundred fifty dollars! Where was that money going to come from?

  As soon as the judge dismissed the protestors, Rachel Carmody hurried to the front of the room to collect Elaine Logan. Jim waited for Susan at the back of the courtroom. She stumbled down the center aisle, exhausted, and collapsed against him. He put an arm around her, but neither of them spoke, not while he stood in line at the cashier’s window to pay her fine, not while she signed for her belongings, not while they walked out to the parking lot. The reporter from the Herald recognized them and hurried over, followed by a camera crew from the local television station. Jim shook his head, not saying a word, just picked up his exhausted wife and carried her to the pickup.

  When they got to the farm, she looked up at him, her amber eyes painfully large. “I’m sorry, Jim. I couldn’t help it.”

  “We’ve got to come up with that money somehow, Susan, so maybe you’d better pay attention to your sunflower crop for a while.” In the complicated mix of tenderness and anger that he’d been feeling for twenty-four hours, it was only harshness that he felt able to express now.

  She stared at him, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. “I need you to understand how it happened, Jim. I didn’t mean to get you in trouble or make a spectacle of myself.”

  “I’m too worn out to listen right now. You go up and take a bath, get some of that jailhouse dirt off you. I have to go out to the wheat field.”

  She flicked her tears away; he noticed she had dried blood on her hand and on the front of her blouse. He often wondered later if he’d taken her in his arms then if things would have turned out differently.

  When he turned to go to the fields, he noticed a light in the combine shed. Blitz was there, underneath the combine. He was taking apart the clutch—the bearings and gears were laid out on a tray next to the clutch housing. Blitz had the radio tuned to a country-music station and was talking to the machine in time to the music: “Yes, this bolt done left you, broke your poor old Caterpillar heart.”

  Jim didn’t think he could stand it if Blitz offered him sympathy, or even commented on Susan’s arrest, but when Blitz heard him come in all he did was pop his head out from the engine to say, “Should have done this before harvest last year. Three bearings are just about shot to hell. I don’t know why Reba here didn’t freeze up on us in the field.”

  Blitz called the combine Reba after his favorite country singer. He talked to her as if she were a horse, slapping her side when he eased her out of the shed. Lara once told him she was surprised he didn’t give Reba sugar cubes to suck on, and he laughed and said, “She takes oil right from my hand, she’s such a good old girl.”

  Blitz had shown up on the farm sixteen years ago, in the middle of a blizzard. He was driving from Abilene to Olathe, where he had a lead on a machinist’s job, when his pickup got stuck in a drift. He’d seen the spotlights at the train crossing, a faint orange against the blizzard’s whiteout, and when he made for them he found the Grellier farm just beyond.

  Jim had been in the equipment barn, trying to salvage the gearbox on his grandfather’s diesel truck, when Blitz staggered in, his black beard a mass of white crystals. After he’d caught his breath, he explained that he needed a tow, but could he sleep in the barn until the storm passed? Of course, Jim and Susan put him up on the spare bed on the sunporch. In the morning, Jim found him in the barn, machining a new gear for the old diesel truck. When the snow stopped, Blitz went on to Olathe, but he returned a few weeks later. He wondered if Jim didn’t need help.

  It was the first winter after Jim’s grandfather had died, and Jim was overwhelmed by the job of running the farm on his own: he’d welcomed Blitz like a savior. It was Chip, just learning to talk, who gave him the nickname. “Blitz, him come in blitz,” he crowed, trying to say “blizzard.” The memory twisted Jim in half. Why hadn’t he known then that nothing was too hard to handle if your boy was shrieking with delight at the world?

  Blitz handed him a long screw. “Bolt’s frozen on. Can you undo it?”

  The morning moved through a soothing rhythm of repairs, Jim replacing the fan belt on the tractor while Blitz machined new bearings for the combine, Jim puttin
g new siding on the X-Farm greenhouse, where he checked on the seedlings, while Blitz hammered a bent disk on the corn-head shredder.

  Jim knew Lara had been looking after the seedlings, but he hadn’t paid enough attention to how they were shaping. He checked the moisture, but Lara had been keeping up with the watering. They’d joked about her taking over the place a few weeks ago, but maybe she really would want to now that Chip had made it clear he didn’t: she had the knack and the patience to care for the plants.

  You had to be a gambler and a conservative at the same time to be a farmer. Every time you put seed in the ground, you were betting against God Almighty and the politicians that the weather would be good, the pests controllable, the fuel prices low, the political situation overseas stable so you could sell your crop there. And you had to be conservative, willing to play by those out-of-date rules of hard work, sweat of the brow. Who would choose such a life? You only did it if the life chose you.

  At noon, Blitz pulled a meat-loaf sandwich out of his lunch box for Jim. Jim ate half of it before he remembered that Blitz was a vegetarian. So Blitz had come out prepared to look after him. The thought was consoling. He punched Blitz on the arm.

  By the end of the afternoon, Jim felt calm enough to go back into the house to face his wife. She was asleep, purple shadows on the delicate skin under her eyes. Jim sat on the bed, holding her hand, stroking her freckled forehead.

  He heard a car door slam, then the kitchen door: Lulu was home. “Dad! Dad! Are you in the house? Where’s Mom? Is she in jail? Chip got suspended from school for fighting Junior Schapen and Milt Riley.”