The Laws of our Fathers (51 page)

    'Tomorrow, Seth is going to the cashier there to draw the $20,000 in chips,' June told him. 'He'll have his driver's license for ID. Don't think about any heroes from the FBI rescuing him, because he's also going to have some plastique taped to his belly and a detonator on a remote-control switch. Do you know what that is?'

    'No.' As my father answered, I was standing beside her, my head close to the telephone earpiece. 'It's a high-powered explosive,' she said. 'Oh my God.'

    'Very safe,' said June as my father said, 'Oh my God,' again. 'Very stable. Just as long as nobody hits the button. Which they won't. Because we are going to get the money. Right?'

    'Without question.'

    'Sure. Without question.'

    I would mail the chips Special Delivery to a post-office box in San Francisco. I was free to go at that point. Someone would then drive back and redeem them, not at the Roman Coin casino in Las Vegas, but at the one in Lake Tahoe, as a precaution in case the chips had been marked in some way. Eddgar, I was sure, had been on the verge of delirium in plotting all of this. It meant something that this whole scheme had flung him as far as possible from Maoist drab into worlds he never entered. Gambling. Casinos. How did Eddgar even know about such crap? How was it that he had absorbed so many of the rules and customs of the life he abjured? Envy, I decided, was a motive force of revolution.

    'Now, when we get the money, Seth is free to go. He'll give you a call. Only one condition. He's on parole.'

    'Parole?'

    'Right. Parole. Like parole. Like, he's okay if he's a good boy. See? See, now this whole thing is fucked up, right? We're thinking this guy's like the son of Rockefeller or something and he's not. But we're not sitting in any pig slammer because we made a mistake and are dumb enough to say so. Do you understand me? We get covered for our expenses, bygones are bygones, blah blah blah. But not if it's us instead of him. Understand?'

    'You wish to go free as well.'

    'Exactly.'

    'This desire is not surprising,' my father said.

    'Irony, right?' June asked. 'That's just what we want. No surprises. We don't want Seth here giving physical descriptions. Or making sketches. Or you opening up your mouth.'

    My father pondered. Static sizzled on the line. It was, I realized suddenly, a great match, Eddgar against my father.

    At last he said, 'I give you my word of honor that we shall disclose nothing.'

    'Thanks. Well, that's great. That's outta sight. No, I think we need to do a little better than that. Just a little.' She laughed, meanly. She was, like any actor, in love with the part. 'And don't treat me like I'm a fucking moron. Because I'm not. Have I treated you like that?'

    He didn't answer.

    'See, we have a problem. And it gets worse. Because the way I get this, okay, your son - your son was supposed to show up and get his ass drafted sometime today, last week, whenever. And he ain't there, and so the boys in the blue suits and shiny shoes are gonna be looking for him. You following?'

    ‘I believe so.' He paused again to calculate. 'Under the circumstances, I would think that Seth is no more eager than you to speak to the FBI.'

    'Now you're getting close, mister. What's that thing about great minds? The only thing is he plans to see the northern lights. Isn't that his gig? He's going to run away. And once he's up there he won't be afraid to take a call from the Bureau. And neither will you. Now it's "Hi, how are you, let me tell you about these douche bags who ransomed my kid." So that's how come he's on parole. Remember parole?'

    'Yes.'

    'Okay, I'm talking fast because I'm running out of time. Don't want to break the rules. Here's the scoop: For the next six months, he goes where we say. We'll pick a place. Somewhere in America the beautiful, okay? Somewhere from sea to shining sea. Somewhere we can watch him. He can live there, work there. Whatever he likes. We'll get him some papers, a social security card, that kind of thing. He can be underground. Just so long as he keeps in mind that we got a ton of people who can check on him. He knows just what we expect. He doesn't disappear, not for ten minutes, without we know where he is. And he never, repeat never, talks to any kind of police. No pigs or any other farm animals. Local cops. FBI. Old Mother Hubbard. Same for you. Absolutely. Bureau comes around, you don't have the foggiest idea where he went. We get hinky in the least, Seth so much as has a cup of coffee with a meter maid, we call the FBI and tell them just where they can find little Seth. We bolt for Algeria and he heads for slam city to do eighteen months to three. Are you following me?'

    ‘I have the entire picture,' my father said.

    'Goodbye.'

    She called back in forty minutes.

    'Any questions?' 'None,' my father said. 'The money cool?'

    'I have spoken directly to the banker. The funds will be wired before the end of the day. The casino is on alert and will oblige Seth whenever he arrives.'

    'No problems?'

    'None whatsoever. The banker was somewhat curious, but I explained that for some time, as a hobby, I have been studying the laws of probability and blackjack. He was quite interested and recommended a book.'

    'Far out. Here's your son.'

    'Dad, I'm sorry.' I meant it, of course. In triumph, I was wretched and remorseful.

    He didn't answer. He was, I was sure, torn by unbearable emotions - insane with rage and washed clean by the relief of hearing my voice.

    'I want to be sure you understand what happens afterwards,' I said.

    'You will call us.'

    'I meant after that. The FBI will be looking for me. Within a few weeks. You won't be able to call me, to write me. Do you understand? Nothing that will trace.'

    'Your mother will not endure that.'

    'I'll call every few days. A pay phone. Just so you know I'm okay. That's all I can do.'

    'Will we know where you are?'

    'It will be a lot safer for you if you don't. Really. If you can just say "I don't know" when those people show up. I don't want you guys to get in trouble.'

    'Trouble,' my father repeated. 'My Lord, Seth.' But as the shape of what was ahead settled in, he voiced no further complaint. This fit my father's needs too well. He would never see through it. Were it not for the pain of surrendering the money, he would regard all of this as perfect.

    'Is Mom okay?' 'She knows nothing.' 'Great. Look. It'll be all right.' 'I pray,' my father answered.

    Afterwards, I sat with my hand still on the phone, while I wrung myself out one more time. It was over now. In all practical respects. I'd done the worst, and everybody had survived. No one had had a coronary. No one knew they'd been betrayed. I waited now to experience the uncertain mood of freedom. The traffic fumes, the whine from the road, flapped in with the curtains as they were tossed by the wind.

    'You know, there's a lot of cruelty in life, Seth,' June said, behind me. 'That surgeon who saves your life - there's a little part of him that likes the blood when he cuts.'

    'Which one of us are we talking about?' I asked, although I had no doubts. I was dangerous and neurotic. I would have to accept that about myself. But I took no pleasure from the fact. I already sensed the bilious weight that would fall over me whenever I thought about this episode for the rest of my life. But for June, I could see, epic events were an essential measure: the heat of the spotlight, the rush of applause. Things that go boom. Change. Catastrophe. A new lover at night. She was turning out to be easier to comprehend than I'd imagined.

    ‘I was trying to let you know how I look at this,' she said. 'You're helping something important. I know this riles you up. I can see it's painful. But we all make sacrifices for the revolution.'

    The phone rang then. June listened and said nothing, before she put down the handset.

    'You might find Tuttle at Africa House,' she said. 'And be careful. There's a lot of irresponsible behavior with Cleveland inside. He kept his entire cell in line. That's another reason we need him out. Let's say one hour.' She looked at her watch. I rooted in my pocket for my car key, then turned back.

    'What's Eddgar's sacrifice?' I asked. 'For the revolution?'

    She studied me for some time. 'His faith,' she said.

    A clock clicked, a horn on the highway tore off in a Dopplering wail. She knew, somehow, that her remark was harder on me than her.

    'And what's yours?' I asked.

    ‘I stay with Eddgar,' she answered at once and, without looking further at me, reached out for her book, which still lay on the bed.

    

    Crossing the Damon campus, I encountered a festival atmosphere. This morning the faculty had voted to declare the university on strike. Classes had been suspended indefinitely, so that students could engage in letter-writing campaigns and community organizing. But they seemed impressed to have accomplished their own liberation, and in spite of a certain freneticness, the campus held some of the joyous air of the weekend. Stereos boomed from windows and people milled in the plazas and green spaces. Bed-sheet banners hung from the windows of the dormitories. A closed fist of a brilliant, urgent red was stenciled on each sheet, beneath which a single word was set forth: STRIKE.

    Walking toward the quad, I was handed a mimeoed flyer:

    

    

    
Ohio State
Laos New Haven Cambodia Vietnam Nationwide Student Strike

    
Strike before it's too late! Strike for knowledge!

    
Strike for sanity! Strike for yourself! Strike for peace! Strike! Strike!!! STRIKE!!!

    In the main quad, an open-mike speechathon was underway, one antiwar speaker after another, faculty and students reviling Richard Nixon to the celebration of enormous applause. Huge rock amps boomed out the message, which resounded off the buildings, echoing over a huge crowd. 'We have declared an end to business as usual,' a woolly-looking prof was shouting, 'an end to standing by while our leaders continue this despicable war.' He was an officer of the Faculty Senate, one of the guys who'd been happy two nights ago about booting Eddgar. He cried out for peace and the crowd shouted back to him. 'The whole world is watching!' they chorused spontaneously at the end of his address. For a moment I let myself believe it. I fondled my passion and my hope like a precious toy - I clutched them, embraced them - then looked at my watch and put them all aside. I had only forty minutes left.

    Africa House was located in one of the old red-brick dorms. The Afro-American students, as they recently had begun calling themselves, had swapped and cajoled and intimidated their way into a block of thirty rooms. Residency in Africa House was limited solely to members of the Negro race. It was intended as a separate paradise where everybody wore dashikis and called each other 'brother' and could debate issues of politics and culture of unique concern to the residents. Whenever I passed by, the music blaring from the windows was great - Miriam Makeba, Junior Walker, and the Miracles - the sound track of my high-school years. The campus daily carried competing editorials regularly, debating whether this kind of separation was desirable. Having accepted from an early age that there was no more stupid way to judge a human than by skin color, I regarded the formation of Africa House as irrational and deeply destructive. But its existence was by now an accepted fact. A portrait of Malcolm X in Day-Glo shades had been painted on the doorway, over which the Ghanaian flag fluttered. Here too the strike banners hung from the windows, in an unexpected showing of solidarity.

    In the corridor, a soul sister in shades and a high natural took her time when I asked for Hobie Tuttle. She was reading
Cane
at an old school desk, hauled in from a classroom. There were slogans from Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr, inscribed on the walls.

    'Who you?'

    I told her. Friend. Roommate. 'You a narc?'

    'You want to search me, search me.' I lifted my hands from my sides.

    The room where I found Hobie about ten minutes later was tiled entirely in black and white - large squares, eighteen inches on a side. They covered not only the floor but the walls and ceilings as well. The first impression was of looking into a kaleidoscope. When I pushed open the door, Hobie sat across the room, slumped in a comer, beside a simple dresser of university issue which had been refinished in dull black contact paper. He was wearing a long leather coat. My initial thought was that he was sick or drunk, but he smiled with enough sureness that I knew he had his bearings. There was a large silver pistol on the tile beside him, a few inches from his hand. I had never seen a gun before in my life, except in the holster of a cop, and I stared at it for quite some time.

    'You gonna shoot me?'

    He issued a wan smile and motioned me inside. I lifted a hand to the walls. 'Psychedelic' 'It works.'

    'If you passed through the looking glass. I got night sweats and it's 4:15. How you hanging, dude?'

    'Feelin groovy,' he answered. He looked bad. Through his color, his nose was reddened at the bridge and on the nostrils. His scruple against coke appeared to have eroded at a time of distress. He told me this was once Cleveland's pad, one of his locations.

    'Cleveland's in pretty deep, huh?'

    'Oh, you know, man. The pigs planted that shit. You know that. Pigs just can't
handle
this nasty colored boy in law school.' That was the story the Panthers had put out. Whoever had replaced Eldridge Cleaver as Minister of Information had been on the radio calling Cleveland's arrest a setup. But we'd all heard this tune too many times now. Between Hobie and me the gloom of all our differences settled in his spirited rendition of this sad little lie. 'I'm heading to Canada,' I told him.