Читать книгу Going Nuclear - Stephen Hart - Страница 4

About three years later, on a sunny spring afternoon in 1969, Arthur stood with several hundred protesters outside the administration building at the University of Illinois. “Hell, no, we won’t go,” chanted a long-haired young man through a bullhorn. He stood on the steps of the building waving two fingers back and forth in the air as his voice carried over the crowd. A newspaper photographer dropped to one knee and snapped his picture. Soon most of the students were shouting the phrase with the young man, many extending two fingers above their own heads to form their own peace signs. As Arthur observed the enthusiastic demonstrators, the homemade signs, the long hair flowing in the breeze, he was warmed by their apparent solidarity and sense of purpose—young people united against the egotistic insanity of the older generation, young people determined to make a better world.

As he continued to survey the scene, Arthur suddenly spotted an unexpected but familiar face, Joshua Taylor, a wiry young black man who, like Arthur, was working on a PhD in physical chemistry. Arthur wondered what someone like Joshua was doing at the peace rally. Joshua had always impressed Arthur as more or less apolitical, the quintessential lab rat, dedicated to working dutifully on his thesis and not much else.

Suddenly, a contingent of six campus policemen stomped menacingly up the steps to the leader, grabbed the bullhorn from his hand, and ordered the crowd to disperse. The photographer took more pictures. “Leave the area now,” one of the policemen ordered mechanically. “Leave the area now.”

“Go to hell,” Joshua shouted as the crowd began to fall silent.

“Go to hell,” more voices echoed, followed by cheers and applause. At that point, one of the policemen, a heavyset young man, pointed his billy club at Joshua, said something to a superior, and then started wading through the demonstrators in Joshua’s direction. Arthur also started to work his way toward Joshua, who stood defiantly in place with both arms crossed in front of him.

“You’re coming with me!” the policeman cried out as he latched onto one of Joshua’s arms.

“Why?” Arthur yelled, arriving at the same time. “He has a right to be here.”

“Stay out of this,” Joshua snapped at Arthur. He then turned to the policeman, jerked his arm free and shouted, “Fuck you, pig. I’m not going anywhere.” The policeman immediately raised his club to crack Joshua’s head, but before he could, Arthur, acting on impulse, body checked the policeman, knocking him to the ground. As the two young men stared at the stunned officer, who was still on his back, Joshua yelled urgently, “Let’s get out of here” and began pushing his way through the crowd. Arthur followed closely, struggling to get past the maddeningly inert students. Finally able to pick up the pace a bit, Arthur glanced back and saw that the policeman was now scrambling to his feet and would soon be in hot pursuit.

“Let’s go,” Arthur shouted, pushing at Joshua’s back. Once they cleared the crowd completely, they broke into a dead run across campus. Arthur looked back again and saw that the policeman had indeed taken up the chase.

“The chemistry building,” Joshua shouted over his shoulder, veering in that direction. To Arthur, this made no sense. He couldn’t see running to a place where they could both be easily identified, despite the fact that it was Friday afternoon and the building would be largely vacant. Conceding to the immediacy of the situation, however, Arthur simply followed Joshua’s lead, sprinting two more blocks before slowing down to dash up the front steps and into the building. As the main entrance door closed behind them, Arthur looked back once again. The policeman had fallen farther behind but was still after them, gulping for air as he ran. Arthur and Joshua walked hurriedly down the hallway to a set of stairs, then darted up one flight to an office that Joshua shared with two other grad students. Panting heavily, Joshua slipped his key into the office door, gave it a turn, and waved Arthur in. “Leave the lights off,” Joshua gasped, closing the door behind them. “Sit down on the floor.”

Arthur rested his back against a wall as Joshua locked the door and sat down next to him. “Let’s see that pig find us now,” Joshua said, grinning. Arthur nodded, grateful for the chance to catch his breath. After several minutes of silence, they heard the policeman’s footsteps stalking the hall.

“You have to come out sometime,” the policeman yelled, slamming his club against a door several offices down. He passed Joshua’s office, then slammed his club on the door of the next office. “You might as well come out. I know you’re here.”

As the policeman’s footsteps faded, Arthur wiped his forehead with his hand, shifted his weigh, and began to speak. But as he did, Joshua raised a finger to his lips. After a bit longer, however, Joshua cocked his head to one side, then whispered, “Okay, I think he’s gone.”

“Probably is,” Arthur replied softly. “I haven’t heard anything since he passed by.”

“Yeah, but I think we’d better plan on laying low for a while,” Joshua said as he fumbled in the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a joint and a book of matches. “Might as well relax a little, though. This is Panama Red, some primo shit by way of San Francisco.” He lit the joint, took a hit, then passed it to Arthur.

Arthur took a long drag. “I think you’re right,” he said as he released the smoke. “That cop looked pissed. He’ll probably be waiting for us at the door all night.”

“Yeah,” Joshua said, laughing. “Fucking pigs.” He took the joint back from Arthur.

“They didn’t have any right to interfere with that demonstration,” Arthur asserted, shaking his head.

“Where I come from, they don’t have the right to pull half the shit they pull, but they do it anyway. Of course, you probably don’t have any idea of what I’m talking about. Growing up for you was probably a piece of fucking cake.” Joshua took a hit and passed the joint back to Arthur.

“Are you kidding? I would have had it made if the only thing I had to worry about was the police.” Arthur took another hit. “I grew up in the military. My old man was a hard-core officer in the Army. Talk about some deep shit.” He passed the joint back to Joshua.

“Hell, you don’t know what deep shit is. Have you ever been put down on the sidewalk and cuffed and searched just because of the way you look? Have you ever had a friend shot by the police just because he showed a bad attitude?” After a long drag, Joshua passed the joint to Arthur.

“No. But I know something about attitude. When I was a kid, I couldn’t disagree with my old man or even look him in the eye wrong without worrying about getting slapped across the face. And he had a razor strap that he liked to use, too. We had to say ‘yes sir’ and ‘no sir’ to adults, and we had room inspection every morning: shined shoes, made bed, everything.” Arthur took a hit and passed the joint back to Joshua.

“Room inspection and shined shoes. How the hell did you survive?” Joshua laughed and shook his head.

“It may not sound like much, but it was.”

“So what were you doing at the demonstration today then, rebelling against your old man?”

“No. I was just watching. I think the war is a big mistake, and I was glad to see people doing something about it. What about you?”

“I needed to be there, needed to participate. It’s important to me to do everything I can to obstruct that fucking war.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s so blatantly racial,” Joshua shot back.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean white leaders in Washington, D.C., are ordering young black guys to Vietnam to kill yellow people for no good reason. And a lot of the black guys are getting blown away or permanently injured as a result of this government’s stupid-ass policies. That’s what I mean.” Joshua took a deep drag on the joint and passed it to Arthur.

“It’s not just black guys that are being sent over there.”

“No, I know there are white guys over there, too. But there are also a hell of a lot of white guys who come down with sudden medical problems, problems that qualify them for a medical deferment. And what about student deferments?” Joshua glared at Arthur.

“What about student deferments?”

“How many black guys do you think are in college? How many black guys from the inner city have that as an option? Let me tell you, very few. Student deferments are the most blatantly racist aspect of this whole damned war. It’s like the government is saying that white guys are too intelligent to risk losing in battle. Their brains are just too fucking valuable. So we’re going to have to protect them and let the lower-intelligent black guys do the fighting and dying. You know, a little natural selection at work.”

“White guys are getting killed there, too, educated white guys. My brother was killed there.” Arthur took a small hit and passed the joint to Joshua.

“Really?” Joshua’s tone softened. “Sorry, man. Some white guys have gotten killed, sure, but the number of black guys getting killed is disproportionately higher by one hell of a lot. You have to admit that much. You must know there aren’t many white guys, from good families anyway, actually doing the fighting over there.”

“I don’t know the exact numbers, but I suppose you could be right. I would assume there’s a much higher percentage of white guys with student deferments than black guys.”

“That would probably be a safe bet.” Joshua took a drag on the joint and passed it to Arthur, holding the smoke for a long time before exhaling and taking a deep breath. “But no matter how it breaks down, this bullshit has got to stop. So tell me about growing up in the Army. You say it was hard.”

“Yeah, but I’m not saying it was all bad. It wasn’t. In a way it may have even toughened me up some, but it wasn’t easy. That’s all I’m saying.”

“What did your father do that toughened you up so much, besides inspecting your bed and shoes every day, that is?”

“Oh, I don’t know, different things. A lot of it was mental more than anything else. He didn’t want us to be too soft or anything.”

“So what did he do?”

“I don’t know, lots of things.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.” Arthur paused and looked at the floor. “Okay,” he began, looking up. “I remember one thing that sort of fits. This was when I was about five. It was springtime. We were living in a house in Oklahoma with a big backyard and trees and everything, and my mother had just put in a small garden. So one day I went out back and saw some rabbits hopping around, little ones and big ones, with cotton tails and everything. And I thought they were kind of neat, so I went in the house to get a bowl of water to set out for them. But my dad was there, and he asked me what I was doing. And when I told him, he immediately got his twenty-two and went out and started killing all the rabbits he could scare up, even the little ones. And he made me watch. At first when he started shooting, I cried and screamed for him to stop. I was just a kid, of course. But that only made him mad, so he started shooting more, anything that moved, any clump of grass or bush where a rabbit might be hiding. When it was over, he sat me down and told me that he had killed them because they were eating things in my mother’s garden. He told me to stop crying and act like a normal boy. He said he wanted me to grow up to be a soldier, not a girl.”

“So your father killed some rabbits. I hate to tell you this, but rabbits get killed every day. Are you saying that made you tough?” Joshua took a last hit from the joint.

“I was only five. But there’s more. That night I went out to find the rabbits, to see if any of them had lived and needed some help. I found them in a burlap bag, all dead. I tried to put an ear back on one, but it wasn’t any use. And then a weird thing happened. I started laughing and couldn’t stop. It was like everything was funny: my dad, the rabbits, the ear, everything. And from then on, nothing like that bothered me.”

“Nothing like that bothered you? I don’t know. Sounds a little strange, more than anything else. But tell me, if watching your father shoot the rabbits made you so thick-skinned, why are you still talking about it now?”

“I was just giving you an example of what it was like growing up,” Arthur replied, frowning.

“Okay. Okay,” Joshua said, waving an open hand at Arthur.” It just sounds to me like your father’s view of life is a little different than yours, that’s all.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, the way people see things is usually based on the way they want to see things. Your dad wants to see himself as an officer, practical and tough, not overly sensitive, which is not all that different from a lot of black guys I know, by the way. But you don’t want to see things that way because you don’t have any interest in being in the military, and for you, being sensitive about something that you care about is just an honest emotional reaction.”

“I don’t know, maybe. So do you think of yourself as tough and practical?”

“Sure, I have to be.”

“Why?”

“Look at what I’m up against. Nixon and his crowd play for keeps.”

“What do you mean?”

“Take the election last year. Look at how close it was. Then ask yourself, who would have won if Bobby Kennedy hadn’t been assassinated.”

“You think Nixon had something to do with his assassination?”

“I think it’s possible. Very possible. Can’t you just hear Nixon telling someone that there is no way in hell he’s going to lose to another fucking Kennedy? And Nixon has been in bed with the CIA and the FBI for years, two undercover organizations that hated Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King as well.”

“I don’t know. It’s easy to speculate. But nobody’s actually after you, are they?”

“Not that I know of, but with this government, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Why would you think the government might be after you?”

“Well, for one thing, I’m working with some very serious people now who want to take things to the next level.”

“The next level?”

“Yeah. The nonviolent approach just doesn’t work, so we’re going to have to start playing the game on the government’s terms.”

“More like the Panthers?”

“No, this is bigger than the Panthers, a lot bigger. But I can’t say any more about it. Someone could be listening.”

“You think your office might be bugged?”

“Could be. I mean, after all, I am black and politically active.”

“You really think race is that much of a factor?”

“Oh, hell yes, man, race is everything, especially with all the white bigots lurking around every corner.”

“Yeah . . . Why do you think there is so much white racism?

“Because many whites believe deeply that they are superior, and even a suggestion that they may not be drives them crazy. I think it’s encoded in their brains, part of some survival instinct. Their brains tell them that they must pass on their superior genes, pure white genes, to the next generation, and anything that might interfere with that passage must be crushed. So yeah, I think the roots of white racism run deep.”

“But not all whites are racist.”

“More than you think. Do you want to know how I can tell if a white person is racist? And this includes many so-called white liberals.”

“How?”

“I walk down the street with a white girl on my arm. It drives them crazy. I know. I’ve done it.”

“How did you know you were getting to them?”

“The looks I got. They wanted to kill me. Not that long ago they would have killed me, would have lynched me.”

“So you have a white girlfriend?”

“Not exactly. I had a thing going with a white chick for a while, but then my regular girlfriend found out, and I had to cool it. I still see the white girl quite a bit, but it has more to do with trying to stop the war than anything else.”

“So she’s an activist, too?”

“Yeah.”

“Does the idea that you’re not supposed to be with a white girl make it more of a turn-on for you?”

“Sometimes. That and her tight little white ass.” Joshua laughed.

“So this girl works on demonstrations with you?”

“Yeah, some. But I’m kind of losing my interest in demonstrations.”

“Why?” Arthur looked at Joshua closely.

“I don’t think demonstrations accomplish that much. They’re an opportunity to stir things up a little, maybe vent a little, but that’s about all you can say. I mean, take that demonstration today. You don’t think anything will come out of that, do you? I mean, the war isn’t going to end or anything.”

“Probably not.”

After a pause, Joshua stood up, opened the office door, and carefully looked down the hall both ways. “I think we can go now,” he said.

As they opened the front door of the building, Joshua and Arthur looked to both sides, but the policeman was nowhere in sight. Feeling fairly stoned, Arthur flashed the peace sign at Joshua, who only shrugged.

The two young men then went their separate ways.