Public Burning (87 page)

“This woman,”
gasps the doctor,
“is still alive!”

Now they're all up on their feet! This is impossible! Executioner Francel steps out of his alcove scratching his head in stupid bewilderment. “Want another?” he asks, but he seems confused, indecisive. The Warden, too, seems to have lost the initiative, and the doctors, thrown into this ad lib situation, are lost. There's but a moment's hesitation—long enough to reflect perhaps that it's too late, the Sabbath has already begun—and then, as a gaunt hoary figure rises up from the front-and-center section in his familiar star-spangled plug hat to cry,
“A little more grape, Captain Bragg!”
, they all rush forward, led by young Dick Nixon, followed by Joe McCarthy, Herb Brownell, Bill Knowland, Lyndon Johnson, Foster Dulles and Allen, Engine Charlie, and Estes Kefauver, virtually the entire VIP section, scrambling up over the side of the stage, fighting for position as though their very future depended on it, racing for the switch—it's hard to tell who gets his hands on it first, maybe the Vice President with his head start, maybe Francel himself, or young Senator Kennedy, more athletic than most, or perhaps all of them at once, but whoever or how many, they throw themselves on it with such force they snap the thing clean off! The guard nearest the chair, seeing what was about to happen, has been frantically trying to belt Ethel up again, but he only gets one of the straps done up, and loosely at that, when the charge hits, hurling him backwards off the stage and cutting a wide swath through the VIPs as he flies by. Ethel Rosenberg's body, held only at head, groin, and one leg, is whipped like a sail in a high wind, flapping out at the people like one of those trick images in a 3-D movie, making them scream and duck and pray for deliverance. Her body, sizzling and popping like firecrackers, lights up with the force of the current, casting a flickering radiance on all those around her, and so she burns—and burns—and burns—as though held aloft by her own incandescent will and haloed about by all the gleaming great of the nation—

EPILOGUE

Beauty and the Beast

It was her voice. She was singing her poem, the one she'd written when the year began. I could hear her outside the spare-room window…

Ah, tears, hurt: what did she know? I sat inside on the carpeted floor, curled up in the dark, there among all those dog biscuits and blankets, kennels, knitted sweaters, and rubber bones that the American people in their love and simplicity had sent to Checkers, whimpering softly to myself, nuzzling the curtains, scratching my itches, feeling sick and bitter and hairy and abused. I'd worked myself ill over this thing, and where had it got me? Cast out. Disgraced. Triped and fell on and kiked in the side—oh Jesus, I felt a pain all over…

I hadn't stayed around after for Uncle Sam's new instant-replay gimmick or for the boxing or wedding ceremonies, I'd had all I could take for one night, and besides I smelled too bad—instead I'd dashed off to that country-club boodle banquet in New Jersey, hoping to lose myself in the smoke of old-fashioned backroom politicking. But I hadn't been able to get up any appetite for that shit either, I'd just sat there amid all those beaming fatsos, part of the waxworks, feeling ugly, very low-down and smarmy and ugly, deep in post-crisis fatigue, suffering their smirks and grimaces and thinking: Ah fuck, I've done it again. No matter how many times I warn myself, no matter how many goddamn notes I write myself or how many quotations I copy out, I always forget: the point of greatest danger is not in preparing to meet the crisis or fighting the fucking battle—it occurs after the crisis of battle is over. It is then, with all his emotional resources shot to shit and his guard down, that a guy can easily, if confronted with another battle, even a minor skirmish, blow it.

When I got home I was very sore, feeling restless and troubled. I'd wanted to talk about it all somehow with Pat, but she'd been busy with the girls, still up and overexcited apparently by all the big-city entertainments, and she'd looked completely pooped. Of course, she always looked pooped, it was her way of advertising to the world what a joy it was to be married to me, but tonight there was something zombielike in her eyes that hinted at a final turning-off, an end of the road. She'd only had one thing to say to me all night. That was when I'd collapsed into my seat beside her at the burnings after having had to run the gauntlet of the VIP aisles from the Whale's mouth. I'd been close to tears. I'd wanted her to hug me close and comfort me. Instead, she'd patted my hand absently and, staring blankly up at the electric chair, had said: “That was a nice speech, dear.”

Now she'd come into the bedroom where I'd just commenced to get undressed, thinking to take a bath, and had asked flatly: “What does ‘I am a scamp' mean, Dick?”

“How the hell should I know?” I'd yelped. I was still very jumpy.

“I don't know. But it's written there on your backside,” she'd said.

“What—?!!” I'd turned my butt toward a mirror: sure enough, there it was, in big greasy red letters, still more or less legible though badly smeared. “Ah…well…that!” A moustache too, stuck there on one cheek, that one I'd bought for a disguise—I'd wondered where I'd lost the damned thing. All the time, feeling it pasted back there, I'd thought I'd somehow fouled myself. I'd snatched it away irritably and pulled my pants back up: “It's, uh, it's my enemies, Pat…they—”

But Pat had already left the room: she was back in the bathroom picking up Julie, who'd fallen asleep on the toilet. I'd chased after her, holding my pants up, feeling hurt and misunderstood. Hated even: Jesus Christ, what an anniversary…! She'd brushed past me impatiently, carrying Julie into the girls' bedroom, and I'd followed. Tricia was in there, jumping about in little circles with her hands over her eyes, singing out: “Help, help, the Phantom's got me!” Checkers was bounding at her heels, yapping and wagging his tail.

“Pat!” I'd cried. “Listen to me! It's not what you think!” It had welled up in me: that new fondness for her I'd been feeling ever since the near-betrayal. “I did it for the nation, Pat! For the Party!” I'd be nowhere without her, I knew. She was the only one I trusted, the only one I loved—I
needed
her, couldn't she see that? “I did it for
you
, Pat! For
us!”
But she'd acted like I didn't even exist. I'd recalled suddenly that game we used to play when we were just engaged: “Hey, look, Pat! Rrowf! Snort! Gr-r-roww-ff!” I'd squatted down and hunched my shoulders, roughed up my hair, bared my teeth, and gone lumbering about the room, barking and yelping and rolling my eyes up at Pat and Tricia. If I'd had a tail, I would have wagged it.

“Oh, Dick, grow up,” Pat had snapped irritably.

“I don't wanna play monsters, Daddy,” Tricia had whined, breaking into tears. “I wanna play Run, Sheep, Run with Mommy!”

“We're not playing anything, young lady. Your Daddy's leaving this room right now and you're going nighty-night! It's very late! Now get your pajamas on!”

“Yarf, Pat!” I'd pleaded, scratching my armpits, bounding up and down pathetically, then rolling around on the floor. If only she'd patted my head, scratched my ears, anything! My elbow had bumped Julie's doll Tiny and it had fallen off a chair, banged its head on the floor, and let out a little crying noise. This had started Checkers barking at me, in turn waking up Julie.
“Gruff! Yip!”
I'd bellowed over her wailing.
“Hrr-r-roiiwl-ll!”

“Now stop that, Dick!” Pat had scolded, her voice cold and angry. “You're going to give them bad dreams!”

Grunting and huffing, I'd lurched for the doll and tipped over a table full of games and building blocks. I'd squatted amid the debris, clutching Tiny. Now everybody was screaming. Because of the doll. Somehow I'd managed to take Tiny's head off. What was happening to me? I'd struggled for words, I'd wanted to tell Pat that she was the only one who could free me from this terrible enchantment, but all I could think of were arf and whine and snarl.

“Get out of here!” Pat had cried. “Right now!
Or you'll be sorry!”

I'd gone galumphing out into the hallway on all fours, feeling hunted, banging my shoulder—the sore one—on the doorjamb, skinning my face on the hallway carpet. That swarm of black thing was coming down on me again. I could feel it in Checkers's fangs as he growled and nipped at my shins. I could smell it in my skunky armpits and foul breath. And I could see it coming out of Pat's mouth as she passed me to go into our bedroom. What she'd said was: “Put Checkers in the basement, Dick, before you go to bed,” but what I'd seen coming out was: “You make me sick.” I'd reared up on my hind feet to follow after, but she'd slammed the door in my face. Oh, the bitch! I'd fallen back, howling and moaning like a wounded bear, then had gone lunging about, crashing into things, batting the walls, falling through doorways, ending up finally in a dark corner of the spare room, curled up, pawing my ears in misery, listening to Ethel Rosenberg's aria drifting in through the window on the midsummer-night's breeze, howling along pathetically and thinking: in the end, I'm not hard enough for politics, I don't deserve to be President, I'm too good, the world's not like that, my mother and my grandmother ruined me…

Well, poor Ethel—let's face it, she hadn't had it easy either. I'd envied her her equanimity at the end: she'd died a death of almost unbearable beauty. In fact, it
was
unbearable—that was probably why we'd all fought our way up to the switch when the electrician bungled it. Ultimately anyway: I'd have to admit that wasn't exactly what was on my mind at the time. I'd been thinking more about just getting the goddamn thing over with. I was hanging on then by the grace of one thought only: that the day had to end, it would all be got past. Had to. Time marches on. Shakespeare said that in some play, I believe. Some tomorrow would inevitably become today and we could start forgetting, that was the main thing. I'd never doubted this until that moment the doctors said she was still alive: then suddenly I'd felt like we were teetering on the brink of infinity. Scared the hell out of me. The rest was simple reflex.

Like the way I'd left the stage earlier on. When the lights went out, everybody had started screaming. It was terrible. Somebody was screaming wildly right where I was! It was me, I'd realized. Christ, I'd leapt completely outside myself! I'd pulled myself together as best I could, swallowed down my yelping panic, groped around in the dark for something to hang onto. What was awful was the terrible
emptiness
—it had felt like there was nothing holding anything together any more! I'd hit upon a chair and sat down in it. I'd felt safer. Thank God for gravity! I'd remembered my pants: I had to get them untangled before the lights came up again. I'd worked one shoe off. Then I'd felt the leather on my butt, the studs, and it had come to me suddenly where I was sitting. For one dreadful moment I'd felt locked to the chair, as though the leather of the seat and the skin of my ass had got interchanged somehow—then I'd ripped free at last, and the rest, as I say, was reflex. The momentum had carried me right off the edge of the stage and down with a bruising splat onto that sea of turbulent flesh below. Don't know who I hit, but it had felt like Bess Truman. I'd pitched and rolled blindly through the turmoil, carried along by the tide. Everything was wet and slippery and violent, with high crests and deep troughs: like rape, I'd thought. I was afraid I was going to get seasick.

Then I'd opened my eyes and discovered I could see after all, even though everybody else in the Square had still seemed to be flopping about helplessly with glazed looks in their eyes, screaming about the darkness. I'd understood this. When I was very young, just a freshman in high school, my father took Harold and Don and me to Los Angeles to hear Dr. Paul Rader preach a revival sermon and give ourselves to Jesus. Mother did not go. I grasped, even then, that this was not her Jesus, not the Jesus I'd grown up with, the Jesus of little boys. This was a ferocious Jesus who lived in a wild place only grown-up men could go to. Or anyway this was the impression I got from my father, who seemed very serious, even frightened. My mother was sad to see us go and I felt sorry for her—it was like some kind of conspiracy against her. At the meeting, everyone became very emotional. My own father became very emotional, in a way I'd never seen before—he cried and seemed to lose control of himself, seemed to
want
to lose control of himself, as though the very firmness of his will—and he was always a very willful man—depended on this momentary release. Harold and Don cried, too. So did I, it seemed to be important to my father that I did so and I obeyed as I always obeyed. And like the rest of them, I walked down the aisle through that dark forest of wild emotions and pledged my life to that fierce Jesus. But all the time I felt as though I were walking in a dream, somebody else's dream, not mine—I didn't really quite believe in what I was doing. It was like being in a play and I could throw myself into the role with intensity and conviction, but inside I was holding something back. Even as
I
wept: later I was to recall this scene to help me to weep on cue in
Bird-in-Hand
, in the back seat of my Dad's car with Ola, up at Wheeling—but that night I felt guilty about it. I worried that I had not been completely saved. Grace, I knew, was a matter of luck—after all, there were peoples all over the world who had missed out, who were still missing out, who'd never even heard of the name of Jesus, much less had a chance to be baptized, so grace wasn't a blanket promise…and maybe I was not one of the chosen ones. I wept and knelt and prayed with the others, but I couldn't really
give
myself to Jesus, not entirely, not the way the others did. Later, after I'd seen more of the world, I felt pleased with myself for not having given in. I was proud of my discipline—what my mother called Self-Regulation and Self-Restraint—and even though I envied my brothers' ability to plunge uncritically out into Dad's world, I nevertheless felt a notch above them. I felt singled out, touched by a special kind of grace, a unique destiny: I was God's undercover agent in a secular world. For such a one, emotional release was a kind of debauchery. An impiety. My way was harder, but at least I could see where I was going.