The Child Buyer (18 page)

Miss CLOUD. Town Free Library. Supported by local taxes and a State allotment. You're welcome any time, sir. Anyhow, I was telling you. After a certain amount of this courtship ma-

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terial, Barry suddenly wanted some technical stuff on human beings.

Senator SKYPACK. I knew it. I knew it.

Miss CLOUD. He wanted a couple of gynecological texts, and I gave him—

Senator SKYPACK. By gorry, Aaron, it's time we got after these public libraries. Openly handing out this smut to minors.

Miss CLOUD. Senator, if you call Transactions of the American Gynecological Society 'smut/ then you've set some kind of record in bibliographic classification. And the basic works by Curtis, Wharton, Novak—they're about as smutty as the Rosetta stone. And about as easy to read.

Senator SKYPACK. I'm serious, Mr. Chairman. We've got to get in there and root this dirty stuff and filth out of these libraries, if it's getting to the minors.

Senator MANSFIELD. The boy is a bit young for that sort of book, Miss Cloud. What do you suppose his purpose was in wanting them?

Miss CLOUD. I hold back nothing from a child's mind— within reason. I can smell a bad smell as well as the next person, but where there's curiosity, healthy curiosity, I believe in satisfying it. If you thwart and withhold—then's when the prurience and sneaking and perversion begin.

Senator MANSFIELD. But you haven't answered my question. Why did the boy want those books?

Miss CLOUD. At the time I had no idea. It wasn't until the P.-T.A. protest meeting on the Rudd-Renzulli case—

Senator MANSFIELD. Why did the P.-T.A. hold a—?

Mr. BROADBENT. We have Mrs. Sloat, sir, the President of the Lincoln P.-T.A., waiting outside. I intend to call her before long. We'll get the full story.

Senator MANSFIELD. After that you knew why he had wanted! the books?

Monday, October 28

Miss CLOUD. It was only a guess.

Senator SKYPACK. You don't have to do much guessing, Mr. Chairman. It's bad enough on the newsstands, but I say that when the librarians of our public libraries start dealing out sex and sadism to our children!

Miss CLOUD. If you come down to the Town Free Library in Pequot with the intent of pulling out books and making a bonfire of them, sir, I'll be there to welcome you—with a fourteen-gauge shotgun. Please be warned.

Senator MANSFIELD. We'll have order, please. Resume your seat, Jack. Miss Cloud! That is the subject for another set of hearings, perhaps—not this one, anyway. I think we can excuse Miss Cloud now. Thank you for coming up here.

Miss CLOUD. Thank me for coming up? I was practically kidnapped!

Senator SKYPACK. Imagine a crippled virgin like that handing out sex and sadism!

Senator VOYOLKO. Before you go, lady.

Miss CLOUD. Yes, sir?

Senator VOYOLKO. Could I touch your hump?

Miss CLOUD. You certainly may, my dear Senator. I hope it brings you great good luck.

Senator VOYOLKO. Thank you, thank you. Real obliging. Sky-pack, ain't you gonta—?

Senator SKYPACK. Not with a ten-foot pole.

Senator MANSFIELD. All right, Mr. Broadbent, who's next? . . . Thank you, Miss Cloud, very forthright. ... If I may just . . . No, I can reach right across here. . . . Thank you.

Mr. BROADBENT. Mr. Paul Rudd. Please have him brought in.

Senator MANSFIELD. You're already sworn, Mr. Rudd. Take your place.

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TESTIMONY OF MR. PAUL RUDD, MACHINIST, TOWN OF PEQUOT

Mr. BROADBENT. Mr. Rudd, I've asked you to come back here to tell the committee about what happened, the chat you had with Mrs. Sloat and your subsequent futile conversation with your son, that took place on Thursday afternoon, the twenty-fourth. The afternoon before the P.-T.A. meeting took place that night.

Senator MANSFIELD. Now, just a minute, please, Mr. Broad-bent. We'll want to get the timing straight on this. This was after the stink bombing?

Mr. BROADBENT. After the stink bombing—that was Tuesday afternoon. After the attack on the Rudds' house—Tuesday evening, or night. After the boy was caught with the Renzulli girl—Wednesday in broad daylight at school. It was after all those things. In fact, the P.-T.A. was going to meet because of these happenings, to discuss—

Senator MANSFIELD. Why do you jump around in this way, Mr. Broadbent?

Mr. BROADBENT. I have to catch my witnesses when I can, Mr. Chairman. This Mrs. Sloat is a busy woman. Two, three committee meetings a day, seems to me. This happened to be the only chance I could snag her this whole week, and Mr. Rudd's testimony is germane to hers, and I'm going to ask Miss Pcrrin some questions, too. . . .

Senator MANSFIELD. Well, it's very aggravating. For weeks I've been trying to get you to unfold your material for us in a straightforward, orderly way, Mr. Broadbent. All right. Go ahead, now.

Mr. BROADBENT. Mr. Rudd, I'll ask you to tell us what you were doing last Thursday afternoon, the twenty-fourth.

Mr. RUDD. In the afternoon I was fixing the windows. That bunch of hoods.

Monday, October 28

Mr. BROADBENT. You were replacing the glass panes?

Mr. RUDD. Throughout. Every single one.

Mr. BROADBENT. You know the glazing trade?

Mr. RUDD. Learnt it thirty years ago. I picked up carpentering, fancy masonry stonework, I can do surveying, pump out septic tanks, any kind of machine press. Twenty kinds of work. Like I was saying here the other day: Why can't the boy earn his keep? Do you suppose Mr. Brain-child would stoop to learn something useful, something that would maybe bring in a living, part of a living even?

Mr. BROADBENT. You were replacing the windows one by one. Would you tell us what happened, please?

Mr. RUDD. By the way, somebody ought to pay for those windows. Everybody's offered plenty free advice, interference, you people, but I'm the one who's out of pocket on this deal. Here's the buyer with a big fat check in his pocket, all kinds of luxury items Maud and me've been wanting all our lives, and so far I'm the only one that's had to put out. I wonder if you gentlemen realize what a full set of glass costs for a person's home, putty, sprigs, some primer, sash tool, putty knife—it don't come to scratch feed. You people sit up here. Who looks out for the ordinary citizen like me?

Mr. BROADBENT. Please just tell us what was happening.

Mr. RUDD. I come home there the night before and find every blasted window smashed to smithereens. . . .

Senator MANSFIELD. Couldn't Mr. Rudd give us the details of the attack on the house while he's at it? I mean, to clarify—

Mr. BROADBENT. He wasn't there when it happened. You'd want—

Mr. RUDD. I wasn't there. I was down the bowling lanes. . . . So I came home and found all this broken glass, it was kind of a chill in the weather that night, too. So as soon as I could I got them to give me the afternoon off at Trucco, and, like I say,

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I was putting in these new panes, I was working on the kitchen, on the front, I was just trimming up and beveling the putty, when this brand-new Buick drives up, and this lady gets out and comes right acrost the sidewalk.

Mr. BROADBENT. Had you known Mrs. Sloat before? Did you recognize her?

Mr. RUDD. I vaguely seen her, they have this covered-dish supper over at the school every year. Maud drags me.

Mr. BROADBENT. And what did Mrs. Sloat want?

Mr. RUDD. All right, see how you'd feel about it. This woman is one of those ones that's into everything. She has this fox thing around her neck, a complete fox head looking at you with these bossy little brown glass eyes, it's like the lady's looking at you like a President, and the fox is looking at you like a Vice-President. The two of them.

Mr. BROADBENT. She has a child in Barry's school?

Mr. RUDD. You sec, our school district cuts across the Intervale and runs up onto the west hill, so you have a mixed group, you have the tenement-block people and some of the wealthy two-car-garage split-level people. And I don't know, this lady is one of your up-the-hill heart-bleeders. She's an improver. I say wealthy. I mean, like this new Buick and probably a secondhand Pontiac for the husband.

Mr. BROADBENT. What did she want?

Mr. RUDD. She lit into me. I was working on the windows, I wasn't in a mood for it.

Mr. BROADBENT. What did she say?

Mr. RUDD. She said juvenile delinquency was the parents* fault, The parents ought to go to jail. I hadn't even heard about this Florence Renzulli thing yet. I'm just the handyman around there, general repairman to fix the breakage all about my son that's so advanced. So she demanded I come to the meeting that night, this meeting about what are we going to do with the

Monday, October 28

younger generation? First the stink bomb. Then our house. Then Barry's in this sex trouble. She's counting the disasters on her fingers. Barry in sex trouble? That was news to me. I knew he was advanced for his age mentally, but . . .

Mr. BROADBENT. And?

Mr. RUDD. She suddenly started taking off on Miss Perrin. That's Barry's teacher.

Mr. BROADBENT. We know.

Mr. RUDD. She said Miss Perrin was trying to get the meeting called off. She said Miss Perrin wasn't fit to be a teacher, all like that. She really railed along.

Mr. BROADBENT. What did you say?

Mr. RUDD. What did I say! I couldn't have wedged the narrow side of my putty knife in between the words. I didn't have a look-in. First thing I knew, I heard her say I was to be there at eight o'clock sharp and then I'm reading the word ROADMASTER on her rear end going down the street.

Mr. BROADBENT. After that, what happened?

Mr. RUDD. Well, I was just beginning to have my reaction, I'd been too surprised to even get proper mad, but after she left I was building up, I tell you I could've smashed some windows myself—when Mr. Brain-child comes sashaying home. Whistling. 'Surrey with a Fringe on Top*—most cheerful gol-dang song ever written.

Mr. BROADBENT. And you then had a talk with him?

Mr. RUDD. Which didn't exactly give me relief.

Mr. BROADBENT. What do you mean?

Mr. RUDD. I mean I asked him what his objection was to going off with Mr. Jones and saving his country, et cetera. And you know what he said? I remember the words. You want to hear what he said?

Mr. BROADBENT. Yes, we do.

Mr. RUDD. 'I don't give a fig for my country/ Either 'fig' or

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'frig/ I'm not sure of anything any more in this world.

Senator SKYPACK. Did you hear that, Mr. Chairman? Do you need more than that? Are you satisfied now?

Mr. BROADBENT. What else, Mr. Rudd?

Mr. RUDD. I asked him what he did give a fig for, or a frig for. Know what he said? 'The future of the animal kingdom/

Mr. BROADBENT. Thank you, Mr. Rudd. That's all.

Senator SKYPACK. My God! Don't you think it's about time we cracked down, Aaron?

Senator MANSFIELD. All the same, Jack, don't forget that human beings are part of the animal kingdom.

Senator SKYPACK. Now I've heard it all! You, Aaron!

Mr. BROADBENT. I will call Miss Charity Perrin.

Senator MANSFIELD. You've already taken your oath, Miss Perrin. Please just be seated.

TESTIMONY OF Miss CHARITY M. PERRIN, SCHOOLTEACHER, TOWN OF PEQUOT

Mr. BROADBENT. We have information, Miss Perrin, that as the boy Barry Rudd's teacher you opposed the holding of the emergency Lincoln P.-T.A. meeting last Thursday evening. Is this correct, and if so, why did you take such a position?

Miss PERRIN. I wouldn't say opposed, sir. It wouldn't be for me to—

Mr. BROADBENT. Did you not solicit the support of Dr. Gozar in trying to prevent the meeting, and did you not telephone Mr. Owing and Mrs. Sloat on the subject?

Miss PERRIN. I did make some calls, and I realize it wasn't for a teacher. . . . The initials P.-T.A.—I realize P. comes before T., I know I don't have any business—

Mr. BROADBENT. Just tell us why, Miss Perrin. What was your angle?

Monday, October 28

Miss PERRIN. To be perfectly honest, there was one aspect . . .

Mr. BROADBENT. Which was?

Miss PERRIN. But, truly, it's giving me too much credit, to say I 'opposed/1 wouldn't have the nerve to—

Senator SKYPACK. All right, all right, miss. Spit it out.

Miss PERRIN. You mean, the aspect—?

Senator SKYPACK. I mean, spit it out.

Miss PERRIN. Well, there was one thing. Mind you, the parents at our school are good people, very kind people, and they put a lot of time and effort into school affairs. But it often seems to me—I'll say it sometimes seems to me—that they—I don't want to be too harsh—they miss the point.

Mr. BROADBENT. Specifically?

Miss PERRIN. This meeting, you see. It was to be a big explosive meeting about the troubles last week—about the decline and decay of the younger generation. About the unfortunate incident at Miss Henley's lecture, and the attack on the Rudds' home, and what someone saw Barry and Florence doing. The meeting was going to be all about those things. What's Wrong With American Youth?—and not a word, either before the meeting or at it, about the real point.

Mr. BROADBENT. The real point?

Miss PERRIN. The child buyer.

Mr. BROADBENT. The proposition wasn't discussed?

Miss PERRIN. Not a whisper. Neither before or during. It was just taken for granted, I guess. Forgive me, I know I have no right to criticize—but what I'd like to say is, if all you look for is delinquency, you're going to find it. There's so much good in young people—sometimes our best parents, I mean a cultured mother like Mrs. Sloat—it sometimes seems to me they're not really interested in good education for their children, they're only interested in getting school people fired.

Senator SKYPACK. You trying to condone these perpetual

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sex incidents, Miss Perrin?