Upstairs, Richard looked more closely at the weekly’s cover as he pulled on shorts. In its upper right corner was a teaser for an article inside. THEY CALLED HIM A “PSYCHO”: THE CASE HISTORY OF A MARINE WHO CAME BACK FROM A WWII MENTAL CRACKUP.
As Richard pulled on fresh khakis, he skimmed:
“Nearly one million servicemen were diagnosed as psychoneurotics during World War II. What happened to them after they were discharged? Did they adjust? How many wound up as misfits—or even criminals? Here’s the case history of a marine who cracked up after Okinawa….”
The article opened by reassuring readers that an Army study found only 8 percent of veterans diagnosed as “psychoneurotic” were disabled “enough to be a real problem to themselves or others.” Symptoms of being “psycho” or “fright-burned” included headaches, jitters so bad a man had to use two hands to steady his fork when he ate, sudden irritability, stomachaches, and bad dreams.
Richard took in a sharp breath. Those were all symptoms that plagued his father. Was that what it was? “Fright burn?” Engrossed, he kept reading as he headed toward the stairs. The marine profiled in the article had returned home and “became something of a problem for a time,” staying out nights, restless when home, and drinking heavily. Check. Check. Check. Uh-oh. Richard turned the page nervously.
“Whoa, son, look where you’re going!” Richard felt a jerk on his collar. “It’s not safe to walk down steps while you’re reading!” Don laughed. “What’s so interesting?”
Richard held up the magazine. Dare he ask his dad about his nervous quirks?
“Hang on a sec. I heard about this. It’s about an old buddy of mine. He and I trained for the FBI together. I haven’t seen him in years. We both joined up after some jerk saw us two good-looking, fit young guys”—Don jokingly flexed his muscles like Popeye—“and called us gutless draft dodgers for not being in uniform. It made us hopping mad. G-men are exempt from the draft, but most people don’t know that. So we enlisted that very day. When I went to the Air Corps, flying over Europe, he went to the Pacific with the Navy.”
Don shook his head and flipped through the pages. “I heard he had a rough go of it and was pretty much a lost ball in high weeds when he came home. I’m afraid a lot of our boys coming back from Korea will be, too.”
“It says in the magazine that he’s fine now, Dad, that he’s a lawyer and belongs to a country club. Hey, Dad?”
“A country club?” Don got an odd look on his face. He didn’t seem to hear the questions in Richard’s voice. “Well…good for him.” He clapped Richard on the back, kind of hard, and headed downstairs.
In the kitchen, Ginny was back. She twirled round and round as Abigail stuffed deviled eggs. “Dance on your feet, Daddy!” She skipped toward him.
“Not now,” Don replied gruffly. He reached into the refrigerator for a beer. “Later. During the fireworks.”
Abigail looked up from her work with a frown. But Ginny pouted for only a moment before starting to twirl again. “I’m not going with you tonight.” She did a little curtsy before continuing. “I will be sitting with Senator Johnson and his girls. I’m going to interview him about his feelings during the fireworks.”
“Wait, you mean it’s just going to be me with…” Richard snapped his mouth shut. If anyone saw him alone with his parents, when every other boy he knew was at that pool party, he’d look so pathetic. With Ginny there at least he could claim his mom had demanded a family outing.
Abigail sighed and looked to Don for help.
He took a swig and eyed Richard for a moment before putting the bottle down on the counter. His dad got what was bothering him. “Tell you what, son. Let’s get out of your mom’s way. Today’s the very first Fourth of July that the National Archives are open for viewing the Declaration of Independence. Just think, on this day a hundred…” He paused. “Hmmmm…1953 minus 1776 is…is…” He squinted his eyes in subtraction.
“One hundred seventy-seven,” Richard said, jumping to show off his quick math skills.
“Right! So let’s celebrate the one hundred seventy-seventh anniversary of Americans thumbing their noses at the king!” He laughed at his own enthusiasm. “Then I’ll treat us to lunch. Guy to guy. Patriots!”
“Really, Dad? Just you and me?”
Don grinned. “Yeah, and let’s make it a steak and oysters at Harvey’s. We’ll go all in. That’ll put hair on your chest.”
Richard suddenly felt a foot taller. Who knew that a day that started out so awful could turn so great? He’d have to remember this the next time he felt like a total reject.
Within the hour, Richard and Don stood in the vaulted rotunda of the National Archives, surrounded by gleaming marble, Corinthian columns, and two huge murals representing all the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. People around them spoke in hushed whispers, reverent in such a grand temple to ideas.
“Ain’t she gorgeous?” Don leaned over, almost pressing his nose to the glass to read the opening lines of Jefferson’s bold words. “‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…’ Damn straight,” he murmured and straightened up to look at the life-size founding fathers in the murals. “Way to go, boys.”
As they descended the Archives’ wide white marble steps onto Constitution Avenue, Don detailed just how God-awful Jefferson’s punishment would have been had the revolution failed. He got all excited about historical stuff. “Before hanging him, the British would have drawn and quartered TJ and ripped out his guts and burned them!”
He paused, seeing Richard’s look of disgust. “Sorry, kiddo. All I’m saying is those guys were brave.”
He laughed at himself and gazed catty-corner across the street at the Pantheon-like National Gallery of Art. Then he turned to look up the wide boulevard toward the Capitol building. A cool dignity, a sense of destiny, emanated off all that polished white stone, built in such balanced symmetry. Richard had to admit it was pretty gorgeous where they stood.
“We Americans have our faults, son. But our bodacious liberties”—Don pointed his thumb back toward the Archives—“our respect for freedom of speech and religion and the rights of each individual—that’s worth protecting.” He nodded, almost as if convincing himself of something. “That’s why I’m back at the FBI. We were supposed to have made the world safe for democracy by fighting World War II. That’s what they promised us. But…” He trailed off.
“You were a tail gunner, right, Dad?”
Don startled out of his thoughts at the question. “Yup.”
“See a lot of action back there?”
“Yup.”
“Did you choose that particular gun, Dad?”
“Oh, the Air Corps put me there because of all that sharpshooting training at the FBI, I suppose.”
“Was it…” Richard hesitated. This was his chance to find out what bugged his dad so much. “Was it hard? Like how the Saturday Evening Post article described Okinawa?”
“What?” Don looked sideways at Richard and then away. “Well, let’s just say it was no walk in the park, son. War is hell. That’s why I’m back at the FBI, trying to stop threats to the United States before they snowball into another one.”
His jawline twitched like he was grinding his teeth. “Let’s get those oysters.”
Richard had never been in the legendary Harvey’s restaurant. But he knew it was where Washington’s celebrities—congressmen and White House staff—went for lunch. He bet the place was crawling with spies, too. Vying to get a table close to some big-deal official, so they could eavesdrop during their shrimp cocktail.
This was swell! Maybe his dad would be eyeballing some foreign agents while the jerks checked out a senator. Don had said it was his job to know the difference between Reds and people who just liked Russian music. Maybe he’d witness his dad spot a pinko traitor!
Richard and his dad joined a lon
g line of men in seersucker suits and ladies in white cotton gloves and little pillbox hats.
“Wow, I didn’t think it’d be this busy today,” Don said. “But it’ll be worth the wait, Rich. You’re old enough to appreciate all this now. Best oysters anywhere. And don’t tell your mom, but their crabmeat Norfolk is as good as hers. I’ll take the Fifth if you repeat that.” He winked at Richard as two couples were ushered to a table and the line inched forward.
Richard could now peer around the bodies to see a slice of the activity inside. Propeller-big ceiling fans swept the rising cigarette smoke into drifting puffs of fog, as elderly Black waiters in white shirts, white aprons, and crisp bow ties took orders. Mahogany wood and brass fixtures were polished to a sheen, reflecting sunbeams spilling through the windows. The dining room was loud with clinking china, almost-shouted table conversations, and the scrape of chairs pushed back as men recognized one another and stood to shake hands.
Nobody looked like a Red. But that was the point, according to Philbrick. Subversives were supposed to blend in. Once they were seated, Richard would ask Don exactly what telltale signs he should be looking for.
The maître d’ ushered in a large group, making Don and Richard only six people back from his podium. Now Richard could see that amid all that frenzied eating and delivering of food there was a calm pool of empty tables not far from the entrance and next to the stairway leading to the restaurant’s second floor. Richard waited to see if that was where the group would sit, but they were led up the steps instead.
The aroma of hot butter, garlic, and steaming oysters was getting pretty irresistible. Richard’s stomach rumbled. He started to ask Don about the empty tables when the maître d’ waved in the last patrons ahead of them. He and his father stepped into the black-and-white–tiled foyer.
“We’re next!” Don grinned. Then he stiffened. “Damn it. I didn’t think he’d be here today.”
Richard followed his dad’s gaze. Hey! Wasn’t that Mr. Hoover himself, sitting with his right-hand man at the FBI, smack-dab in the middle of all those empty tables?
Just as Richard was about to point at the bureau director, Don put his hand on Richard’s shoulder. He gripped it tight. “I’m sorry, son. How about we—”
He stopped midsentence and plastered a fake smile on his face when Hoover spotted him and gestured for him to come over.
“Wait here.” Don strode into the fray.
When Don approached the table, Hoover reached out and put his hand on Don’s forearm. Seemed friendly enough, but a real courtesy would have been a handshake, Richard knew that much. Sitting there, Hoover looked a lot like the boxer dogs he owned—thickset around his middle, dark eyes and brows, and his nose kind of squashed like he’d walked into a door. Even as he smiled at Don, it looked like a weird little snarl to Richard.
Watching the scene, he noticed a number of patrons had stopped talking to eye his dad. The waiters looked pretty surprised he was standing there, too. Don had suddenly become the center of attention.
Richard felt himself swell up with pride, like a puffer fish. His dad had to be pretty darn important for the director to call him over like that. Maybe Hoover was telling him about a spy in a corner table he was supposed to tail!
Richard held his breath as he watched.
Don leaned down. The director spoke into his ear and handed him something. A top secret document? But as Don came back toward him, Richard could see it was a wad of money his father was stuffing into his jacket’s breast pocket.
Why money? Maybe it was to bribe some stool pigeon, like in a Mickey Spillane detective novel.
“Come on, Rich,” Don said, his voice hoarse, his face flushed red. “Let’s go to Hot Shoppes. I have a hankering for an Orange Freeze shake and a Mighty Mo burger.” He walked out the door.
Hot Shoppes? What? What about casing Harvey’s for spies? What about their special man-to-man lunch? The drive-in was kids’ stuff, a poor man’s substitute for Harvey’s. And Richard had been pretty stoked to try those oysters, just like tasting the coffee Don always drank.
“Dad, wait!” Richard called.
But Don was already halfway down the block. When he caught up, Richard could tell by the set of his dad’s jaw that he shouldn’t ask any questions. All of a sudden, Don was in one of those moods.
BANG. Bang, bang, bang!
Across the street a couple of kids lit a string of cherry bomb firecrackers and threw them into the air. Richard flinched and gasped and then laughed at himself as he watched the boys run off, shouting insults at each other.
Cherry bombs! Well, if he wasn’t getting treated to Harvey’s, maybe he could guilt his dad into buying him some cherry bombs to replace the stupid sparklers. “Hey, Dad, do you think we could stop at a fireworks stand on the way home and pick up some—” Richard broke off, seeing his father’s reaction.
Don was searching the sky frantically, then looked over his shoulder. His face was ashen and his whole body quaking.
“Dad?”
Don shook his head, like a wet dog shudders off water. He turned to Richard. For a second, it was like his father didn’t recognize him. Then Don’s eyes cleared. “Step on it, son,” he snapped. “I haven’t got all day. I’ve got something I need to do now.”
When they got in their green Chevrolet, Don’s hands were shaking so badly, he could barely get the key into the car’s ignition. Richard had seen that before, so many times—but now he put two and two together. Don’s hand shook when he was startled by a sudden and loud, sharp noise. Or when he really didn’t like something someone said. Just like the magazine article described.
Richard had always just chalked up such moments to Don having a big personality, a little bit of a temper—being a little jumpy, maybe. But now, according to the Saturday Evening Post, he had a scary new word for his dad’s reactions: psycho.
RICHARD sprawled on his bed in front of the whirring window fan, breathless, nauseated. He’d almost gotten caught! He’d been snooping in his father’s tall dresser, unscrewing his pipes to see if any of them were actually secret-agent pistols, when his mother came in with a stack of folded laundry. Thank God she’d been preoccupied with balancing all those towels so he could slip out without her spotting him.
The wild pounding of his heart slowed as Richard lay on his back staring at his bedroom’s sky-blue wallpaper, dotted with fighter planes. Sometimes, when he couldn’t sleep at night, or was really wound tight about something, Richard counted those tiny airplanes. His dad had hung the wallpaper, and there were lots of bubbles where Don hadn’t rolled it down tight. But Richard didn’t care. He loved that paper.
He flipped onto his stomach, rattling the twin bed. How could he have explained himself if Abigail had seen him? He replayed the scene in his mind, realizing he’d left some of the pipes unscrewed. He’d have to go back to put them together. And it hadn’t even been worth the risk—they were all just plain old pipes.
What a dumb-bunny. What a baby. You’re entering high school—the big time—in two weeks, man, he reprimanded himself.
Maybe there’d be some upperclassmen he could talk to. Guys who might have read some of the books he had that summer—like The Count of Monte Cristo or The Sword in the Stone. He was dying to talk to somebody about that book The Catcher in the Rye and the way Holden started out being a total piece of work and then turned all angsty and poetical. It was like the author, J. D. Salinger, could see right into Richard’s heart. It’d been a great summer that way, at least—finding all sorts of truths written by authors who felt like friends, just like Holden said.
Richard had read a bunch of stuff. As soon as his mother stole Robin Hood and purged their bookshelf, Richard read The Maltese Falcon by that Red subversive Dashiell Hammett. Abigail had obviously forgotten that Don had given Richard a copy of his own. He didn’t do it to be defiant. Honest. He just wanted to know what the big deal was. He was all in for watching out for commie spies. After all, he wanted to be a G-man.
>
But books? Come on. They were sacred.
Take Steinbeck’s The Red Pony. He’d read that just to see how dangerous the author really was. Richard couldn’t see a Red being able to write so beautifully. He’d even written down one of Steinbeck’s descriptions, it was so well turned.
Richard hung over the edge of his bed and pulled out the notebook he filled with observations that impressed him, pieces of conversations he overheard, and lines from books he loved.
He flipped through the pages to find: “He was only a little boy, ten years old, with hair like dusty yellow grass and with shy polite gray eyes, and with a mouth that worked when he thought.”
Richard had loved that way of describing a kid who actually thought as he talked.
He tucked the notebook back under the bed, into a shoe box he kept next to a shirt box full of songs he was writing. That one was top secret. No one knew about that box and its contents. Not even Don.
Philbrick would never have gotten caught unscrewing pipes. Sighing in disgust with himself, Richard reached to his nightstand for I Led 3 Lives and flipped the book to his favorite passage—the part where Agent Philbrick astounded the courtroom and horrified eleven Communists on trial with the revelation that he had been an FBI double agent all along. His testimony was the very first time the FBI had publicly acknowledged it had undercover agents working inside the Communist Party. Philbrick’s statement drew gasps in the courtroom, glares from the defendants, and panic from their attorneys. “I sat back in the witness chair”—Richard read the phrases he’d highlighted—“…a great weight rolled off my shoulders….Now for the first time…I was able to shrug off the burden of those nine years, and to square myself with my family, my friends, and the world.”
Suspect Red Page 3
