In Trouble (8 page)

What have I done? I don’t have guns hidden under my sofa, but I do have ideas in my head. And I’ve taken political positions some people don’t like.”

“Unfortunately for you, important people,” Paul said.

“Sadly.” Dad nodded. “So I’m named as a Communist, and the Communist Party is a
political
party. I’m then fired from my job because of that
political
name-calling.

And in this country right now one isn’t simply identified as a Communist, one is vilified.” Dad looked carefully at Paul to see if he understood.

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“Maligned,” Paul said.

Of course. “Vilify” had been one of Paul’s words in the
Record
office when he rejected an attack piece on the head of the cafeteria. “Just tell the story,” he said. “No need to
vilify
. The facts are damning enough.” Dad looked like he was enjoying this exchange. “Then I’m summoned to testify before Senator McCarthy’s sub-committee, part of the
political
structure of our government. The Senator orders me to name names of people I supposedly know are Communists. Footnote here,” and Dad makes what looks like an asterisk in the air, “naming names is a form of name-calling these days.” Paul wrote furiously in his notebook. So far nothing about life in prison, which is what I’m afraid to hear about.

“I told the Senator I believe that in a democracy no one should be forced
under compulsion of law
to say how he voted, what church, if any, he attends, et cetera, et cetera.

You don’t like my beliefs, fine. But I’ve a right to them and, equally important, the right to express them without fear of government harassment.

“Bottom line,” Dad continued, “it’s none of your business. And if I won’t tell you about my political convictions, surely you understand I won’t talk about anyone else’s.” Dad stretched his feet out in front of him and lightly tapped the arms of the chair. “I believe in democracy and free speech, and I condemn any government that gags the speech of its citizens.”

83

Paul’s pencil was suspended in midair. “But haven’t you supported the Soviet system, which is a dictatorship?” Dad took a deep breath. “When the revolution happened, I was so hopeful. Many of us were. We thought the world had finally found a way to end poverty.” Dad blinked rapidly, his eyes like windshield wipers clearing a mist. “Some people say we were naïve. Perhaps, but I still believe it was a worthy ideal.”

“But now we know,” Paul said, “Stalin ran a murderous regime.” Dad shook his head as if in disgust. “A complete betrayal of the ideals of the revolution.” This is so weird, because Dad left the Communist Party back in 1939 at the time of the Stalin-Hitler pact, way before Senator McCarthy questioned him. Paul didn’t know that, and actually I hadn’t either until he was fired.

“But Dad,” I said, “you weren’t even in the party when Senator McCarthy went after you.”

“It’s okay for you, Jamie, and you, Paul, to ask me about my politics, but not for the government. If members of the John Birch Society—a conservative, vehemently anti-Communist group—were called before Congress, I believe they too have the right not to testify.

“So, I refused to answer Senator McCarthy’s questions, and boom! I’m charged with ‘Contempt of Congress.’ It took over two years until final sentencing.” Dad folded his arms across his chest. “So, yes, I’d say it’s accurate to call me a political prisoner.”

84

Dad’s eyes half-closed the way they do when he goes off somewhere. I looked down at Scruffy, who had his head and one paw on my lap, the other paw tucked under his belly. His eyes were also half-closed, and he blinked.

Someone once told me that’s how cats send you a kiss.

I felt better.

“In prison, Mr. Morse,” Paul said, “was there a difference between how you and other prisoners were treated, since you were in there because of your ideas?”
Here it is!
All energy vacuumed out of my arms and legs. I no longer felt better.

A barbed-wired yard....

Tough-looking men in bunches, leaning against the wall....

Tight close-up on striped shirt with bull’s-eye on back....

Striped pants torn....

Two guards, grinning, walk slowly towards inmate....

“Behind bars is not a place you want to be,” Dad said,

“but the actual conditions in this minimum-security prison weren’t that bad.” His mouth curled in a half smile.

“Mind you, I’m not talking about the food. Dreadful.”

“So it wasn’t like in a James Cagney movie,” Paul said,

“with guards whacking their batons on the cell gates, itching to beat up inmates?”

85

Dad shook his head. “No, but I’m sure there are many prisons much worse than anything Cagney ever acted in.

Just not this one.”

Paul picked at the eraser on his pencil. At one of our first editorial meetings at the
Record
, he had told us about his interviewing technique: if there’s an awkward silence, let it happen. Don’t rush in to fill up the space. Let
them
.

You might get something really quotable.

But this isn’t a space; it’s a chasm. And it’s my dad.

Dad broke the silence. “We were a mixed bunch, and we all knew why each of us was there. Sure, there were some guards and inmates who’d yell ‘Better dead than red!’ And there was a little bit of shoving, but mostly we’d all spend our time getting through our time. And part of the daily routine was crossing off days on a makeshift calendar.”

Dad rubbed his hands up and down the arms of the chair. “I missed this.”

“Your chair?” I said.

He smiled again.

“Were there a lot of political prisoners?” Paul asked.

“Three of us. Most of the others had committed what they call ‘white-collar’ crimes. They’d stolen from a business, bribed someone, lied to stock investors, per-jured themselves about something, those kinds of non–

physically violent crimes.”

Paul stopped writing. “So the other inmates weren’t really scary-looking people.”

86

Dad tapped his fingertips together. “This wasn’t like a maximum-security prison where people are doing hard time. A lot of those inmates are not only tough, but they want to look that way. Offense, some say, is the best defense for survival. Very different from the group I was with.” Dad looked out the window. When he turned back to us, his voice wavered, his words no longer sharp and distinct. “The truth is there
is
something awful about prison.”

Run!

“But it wasn’t physical brutality.”

Scruffy leapt off the couch. Did he know what was coming? I watched him as he trotted down the hallway.

“It’s all about doors,” Dad said. “Opened and locked by someone you don’t know. And you don’t have the key.” Dad looked at me and Paul, but I don’t think he was seeing us. “Until I was behind bars, I never fully appreci-ated what it means to be free.” He leaned forward. “We make choices all the time. We walk down the street when we want. We eat when we’re hungry. We stay up late, reading well into the night. But we don’t think about these as choices. We live them.”

The three of us sat without talking until we were wrapped in the darkening afternoon and Dad had to turn on the table lamp.

87

17.

11:35. I’m getting to be a stickler about time. Six blocks from the subway to Lois’s stoop. Lois said two of her friends would be there, Mary something and Phyllis something.

Lois was alone in the kitchen when I came in. “Hey, Jamie, slight change in plans. It’s just you and me.”

“Hey,” I said. How is it your voice can crack on one word?

Run!

She looked at me quizzically, and I looked at my watch and gave a half smile. “Got a train in an hour and a half.” She seemed to accept that and steered me to her couch. “Put your feet up, kiddo. It’s not much time, and I’ve got some phone numbers for you.” She went back into the kitchen and returned with a plate of cookies, a teapot, and a pad tucked under her arm.

88

“Might as well get started,” she said, and the knot in my chest loosened a little. “But there’s one ground rule, Jamie. This is information only for you and friends who need it. Mind you, it’s not shame or guilt, or anything like that. It’s the world out there.” She grabbed a cookie. “Think of this room as a separate universe,” she said.

“Rooms with hidden corners,” I murmured to myself.

“Any chance Elaine would go to California?” she asked. “I’ve got some numbers there she could call.” I shook my head. “Her father’s got her chained at home. Won’t even let her come into Manhattan.”

“Chained?” Lois said, startled.

“He watches her every move. She has to go into the bathroom to be alone, and it’s tough because the phone cord doesn’t go that far.”

Lois flipped some pages on the pad. “Well, here’s one thing she could try at home. Vodka and 7-UP.” I pictured Elaine staggering around, tipsy from the vodka and hiccupping from the 7-UP bubbles.

My damn eye began twitching again, and Lois’s voice seemed to come through an echo chamber.

“It sounds slightly nauseating, I know, but apparently it does work for some people,” she said.

“What does?”

“Vodka and 7-UP.” She looked at me sharply. “Are you okay?”

“Right. I’ll tell her.”

89

I have no idea if Elaine’s parents have vodka. Probably.

Even mine do, and they don’t drink a lot.

Lois turned more pages. “Here’s a number for a doctor in New Jersey, but if Elaine can’t travel—”

“We’ll figure out a way,” I said.

She wrote the number on a blank page, tore it out of the pad, and handed it to me.

“Officially, he doesn’t do abortions, and she doesn’t want one.”

I must have looked confused.

“With different doctors you say different things, but they’re all something like ‘I’m bleeding a lot,’ or ‘I’ve funny pains every month.’ Doesn’t much matter. They know.” This is getting complicated, and I feel very dumb.

I’m glad Elaine isn’t here. For sure she’d be out the door by now.

“And prepare her that the doctor may tell her not to get undressed, except for her pants, of course.” Lois shook her head slightly. “Happened to a friend of mine. ‘In case you have to leave quickly,’ the doctor told her.”

“Oh no!” I covered my mouth.

Wide angle, dark room. A cone of light on a small circle. This time a girl, not Aunt Sheila, lies on a kitchen table, fully dressed, her legs spread apart. She is singing in her head every showtune she knows, trying to calm down, to keep her pounding heart from bursting out of 90

her chest. But she’s afraid she won’t hear the police, so she stops singing. The stillness is shattered by a siren howling—

“Stop!” I said softly and shook my head to get rid of the picture. I so didn’t want to see that movie.

“You sure you’re okay?” Lois leaned toward me.

I nodded. And blushed.

“More tea?” she asked.

I nodded again, afraid I’d croak if I tried to speak.

Lois went to fill the pot, and I got up and walked around the living room. I needed to move. If being grown-up is hearing stories like this, I’d like to wait a little.

“Sometimes you grow up fast,” she said as she brought back a refilled teapot and a plate of cookies. “Elaine,” she paused, “and you, too.”

My face felt hot. I didn’t want her to sit next to me on the couch, so I sat in an armchair, the kind that’s deep enough you can sink in and almost disappear.

“If you can find a private doc, it’s best,” Lois said, “because with some hospitals you have to convince their staff psychiatrists you’d kill yourself if they don’t help you.”

“You’re kidding!”

Is that what Mom and Aunt Sheila were talking about?

If the hospital wouldn’t help, maybe Mrs. Hanson could?

“And some hospitals sterilize you at the same time they give you the abortion.”

“
Sterilize?
”

91

She took a deep breath. “Bastards. Making sure you’ll never be able to have another baby.” I grabbed a cookie. Something sweet. Something soothing. Something decent.

“Remember
The Philadelphia Story
, with Katharine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart, and Cary Grant?” I said.

“Yup.”

“There’s the scene when you find out nothing happened between Stewart and Hepburn, and she asks him,

‘Why? Was I so unattractive?’ And he says, ‘Not at all.

But you were a little the worse for drinking, and there are rules about things like that.’” I leaned back, exhausted.

“Elaine sleeps with Neil and she gets pregnant—” I started to cry “—and now she has to be crazy to get help.

Isn’t anyone like Jimmy Stewart?”

“Hey, Jamie, it’ll be okay. She’ll work it out. Listen, you never know how parents will be when you really need them. Sometimes they come through. There are good people out there.”

Mrs. Reilly, the Kotex-counter? Mr. Reilly on Elaine-stakeout?

Mom? Dad?

Lois looked up from her pad. “Like Robert Spencer, the local doc in Ashland, a small town in Pennsylvania—broken bones, sore throats, births—everything. He takes care of people with all kinds of problems.” She repeated, “
Al kinds
of problems
. There are brave ones like him who risk going to jail. Here’s his number.” She tore a page from the pad.

92

“Women go to him from all over the country. He charges maybe fifty dollars, or whatever you can pay. A truly decent man.” She handed me the paper. “Only problem is you can’t always be sure he’s there. I had a friend who went, but the office was closed. There was a note tacked to the front door: ‘On vacation.’ He was supposed to be in, but the police often warn him of a scheduled raid.” She paused. “And why not? Cops’ wives and girlfriends also get pregnant.”

I scrambled to think of how to get Elaine out of New York. I pictured the two of us riding a bus deep into the Pennsylvania countryside.