Telling Lies

Chapter Sixteen

“‘Up against the wall, motherfucker?’”

Flint put down his beer and paused Emily’s VCR. “They let those long-hair peckerwoods say ‘motherfucker’ on the six o’clock news? Where was I? I don’t remember language like that.”

“Such a prude you are,” I tsk’ed. “This is just raw, unedited footage. All the ‘motherfuckers’ and tit shots get purged before any of this hits the air.”

“I know that,” he said. “Just checking to see if you’re awake.”

“I’m awake. Barely. These tapes are so boring.”

“Ditto,” he said. “Anything for dessert?”

“Tofu.”

“I pass.

The Corona beer we had picked up at Chico’s all-night market on Broadway was warm. I gathered up the greasy wrappers of takeout tacos that littered the couch between us and wadded them into a bag I set on the floor next to the last two beers in the sixpack. My knees were stiff when I got up to put another tape from Garth’s box into the VCR.

I needed to move around a little to stay awake. We had made it to the end of the first two tapes without finding enlightenment. The raw footage was damn tedious to watch. Most of it was just people milling around or mugging for the cameras, peace demonstration organizers looking for people to organize. There was an incredible amount of T and A. Young, nubile women had a magnetic attraction either for the zoom function of the camera lens or for the cameramen. I used the fast-forward button a lot. If I skipped past any young female material that looked especially choice, Flint rewound the tape and replayed it, sometimes a couple of times. He was a tease.

“What is this we’re watching now?” Flint asked.

I picked up the tape cover and read to him from the label, “Demonstration against war-related research on campus, University of California, Berkeley, November 19, 1969.”

“How long is this one?”

“Two hours, fourteen minutes, twenty-eight seconds.”

“Hmm.” He unsnapped his belt holster, took it off, and tucked his automatic under the sofa. After some stretching, he settled down into the sofa cushions and put his feet up on Em’s coffee table. His socks smeared a few of the black graphite smudges the fingerprint man had left on every surface in the apartment. The place was a mess and I thought about poor Mrs. Lim tackling it alone. If I hadn’t been so exhausted, and so beer-mellow, I would have gone in search of a rag and some cleanser.

Instead, I reached for the VCR remote and fast-forwarded the tape until something seemed to be happening.

The demonstration was in Berkeley, on a lovely, clear fall day. The camera was set up at the end of Telegraph Avenue near the Setter Gate. This was my hometown. I enjoyed watching people walk by, seeing again the familiar street scene just off-campus. It was something like watching home movies.

On the screen, a couple of cars pulled up, followed by a flat-bed truck festooned with banners, HELL NO, WE WON’T GO, and variations on that theme. The truck parked in front of the Bear’s Lair, a popular student hangout. The truck was positioned so that its bed was a stage facing down Telegraph. Two men in bright tie-dyed shirts and bellbottom jeans hooked up a P.A. system. I recognized one of them-young, thin, red-haired Rod Peebles.

The carloads of people who were dropped off next seemed to be a vanguard, the setup crew. A pudgy young woman in baggy jeans unfolded a card table on the sidewalk and taped a poster, LEGAL TEAM, to the front. I suspected this was Fay Cohen though I couldn’t see her well enough to be sure. She was off at the side, down Bancroft, and not what the cameraman was looking for.

Cartons of pamphlets were hefted onto the flatbed, opened, and distributed to passersby. In the background, someone was singing Beatle songs, with a guitar accompanying him. Some things never seem to change. Street musicians in Berkeley are still playing Beatles music.

The camera panned left, and I thought I saw Emily standing in a cluster of kids passing a joint. The pale, shiny hair was the same, and the person was very tall. When she started to turn, the long hair swept across her face like a sheaf of wheat blowing in the wind. I was already standing close to the TV. I leaned forward anyway, to see better. The hair I was watching fell into place and uncovered the wrong face. I took a moment to accept this; I really wanted it to be Emily. The kid with the long, shiny hair also had a full beard and mustache, a hippie, dippy guy. I punched fast-forward.

Flint stifled a yawn. “Exactly what are you looking for?”

“I’ll know when I see it.”

“Hmm,” he said again. His eyes were on the screen, but half-closed. “All that hair. Didn’t any of their parents ever take them to the barbershop?”

I laughed. “Do you have kids, Mike?”

“One. He’s fifteen.”

“How does he wear his hair?”

He pointed to a young man on the screen who had a two-foot-long ponytail hanging over his shoulder. He might have been all of eighteen. “I’d never let my boy out of the house looking like that.”

“So you say.” I nudged him. “You want another beer?”

“No thanks.” He seemed to rouse himself. He sat up and stretched.

“Maggie, where are you going to stay tonight?”

“Right here.”

“I think that’s a real bad idea until we get the door fixed.”

“Exactly why I have to stay,” I said. “I’m not leaving the apartment unattended. Not when someone’s already broken in. Anyway, there isn’t much night left.”

“Could we argue that once around again, or is that final?”

“I’m staying right here,” I said.

He sighed. “Then I’m staying with you.”

“Do you have a note from home?”

“Yeah,” he smiled. “I sign my own notes.”

“Okay, then.” I fast-forwarded a dead section of tape, watching the TV to avoid making eye contact with Flint, give away something before I was ready. I was glad I wouldn’t be in the apartment alone. I could have had worse company than Mike with whom to see the night through. A whole lot worse.

I had long ago concluded that his resurrected-hawk routine was exactly that, a routine, cop talk. While I suspected he didn’t pay dues to the ACLU, he wasn’t as reactionary as he tried to make out. Flint, I was learning, was a provocateur. He would say anything to get a rise out of me. I didn’t mind. I like a good argument now and then.

The scene on the TV began to take on some energy. Two army-green buses pulled up in front of the Bear’s Lair and four or five dozen national guardsmen in riot gear spilled out. They jogged into position around the campus gate and formed phalanxes on both sides of the flatbed. With bayonets affixed, they held their rifles at the ready.

A couple of men in business suits arrived in a plain brown Plymouth and strutted over to the flatbed. I recognized a younger, thinner version of Lester Rowland. Something about him, his attitude or his carriage, set my teeth on edge. Plainclothes in Berkeley is not J. C. Penney’s suits. Never was. If these two agents had had signs on their backs, KICK ME, I’M FBI,” their identity could not have been plainer.

Rod Peebles stuck close to them. He looked over their shoulders when they took leaflets out of one of the boxes on the truck. Lester Rowland said something to Rod, and Rod raised a fist in reaction. Just as the exchange seemed about to escalate into something interesting, a young woman carrying an armload of daisies entered frame right and seduced the cameraman’s focus away.

The woman was energetic and fresh-looking, with a curly mass of Renaissance-red hair that was held away from her face by a leather band. Her batik sundress was long. Its thin fabric billowed around her legs and fell away from her slender, suntanned arm when she raised a hand to sweep back a shiny lock of hair. Love beads swung from her neck in rhythm with the graceful step of her bare feet.

The cameraman must have been besotted. He stayed with her, giving us a full side angle as she broke off daisy stems from her bouquet and, ever careful of the bayonets, inserted a yellow daisy into the barrel of each guardsman’s rifle.

The guardsmen, who seemed to be about the same age as the woman, held their positions. But when she smiled, they smiled, dimples and healthy white teeth showing under flak helmets. As the camera moved in for a closeup, one of the guardsmen picked up a flower that had fallen to the pavement. He smelled it before he tucked it into his helmet.

The confrontation between Rod and the suits had been cast into oblivion. The girl and the guardsmen were better footage. I sat down again beside Flint.

“She’s pretty cute,” he said, watching her make her charming way to the end of the ranks.

” ‘Cute’ is the right word,” I said. “Do you recognize her?”

“Should I?”

“Maybe. That’s Celeste Baldwin, Mrs. T. Rexford Smith.”

“No shit?”

“No shit. I wonder what she had under her daisies.”

“Little bitty titties, from the looks of ‘em.-

“Be serious.” I punched his arm.

“Serious about what?”

“What she just did looks either incredibly stupid or just naive. Celeste was neither.” I pushed rewind and watched the daisy routine in reverse, backing up to the place just before the bus arrived. Then I pushed play.

“Tell me about what you see,” I said.

“What? A bunch of hippies thinking they’re starting a revolution.”

“Do they look dangerous?” I asked.

“Hardly. What are you getting at?”

The buses arrived, in rerun, and the guardsmen piled off with their weapons. “Now what do you see?”

“The cavalry.”

I froze the frame. “To this point, you have maybe a dozen long-haired kids, none of them looking overly competent or threatening. The guardsmen outnumber them about four to one. A few idealistic youth versus a line of bayonets and helmets. If this picture were on the news, it would look like stormtroopers against Everyman’s baby boy. For the people in the Movement, that’s good.”

I let the tape run. “Watch this-media image sabotage. Celeste waltzes in with her daisies. She gets the bayonets to smile at her. Suddenly, we no longer have a line of bayonets, we have a second bunch of baby boys. See the dimples in close up?”

“You think she knew what she was doing?”

“She wrote the book.”

On the TV, Celeste continued her daisy walk. She moved from the last guardsman over to the two men in suits, Lester Rowland and his partner. Celeste guided a perfect little flower through Rowland’s lapel, playing up to the lecherous grin on his face. Then she got into a waiting VW Bug and was driven away.

If she had seduced no one else, she had certainly made a conquest of the man behind the camera: he followed her every move. The scene had charm, visual and social contrast, a palatable political message. I wondered whether the cameraman was thinking Pulitzer possibilities or simply admiring her hard young ass under the flimsy Indian cotton of her dress.

“What do you think?” Flint asked.

“Celeste’s forte was arson, but she may have had other talents. I wish I had Emily here to translate for me.”

I was thinking about Emily, too.” He gathered the food wrappers from the floor and got up. “Want anything from the kitchen?”

“No thanks.

Flint found the trash can in the kitchen, then made a trip to the bathroom while I watched the tape, waiting for Emily to tell me something.

Finally, the demonstrators we had been waiting for marched into view. At first sight, they were a slow wave rolling up Tele-graph Avenue, covering both lanes of the street. Square picket signs rode above their heads like sails on a rough sea. There were probably several hundred marchers, maybe more. They engulfed the relative order of the street scene we had been watching, swallowed up into their mass the by-now familiar figures on the screen.

In 1969, video cameras were still fairly bulky. The cameraman didn’t run along beside his prey. He staked out a strategic position and waited for the action to come to him. And the demonstrators did come. As they neared the camera position, what had been a sea of people became individuals.

As always, the leaders were in the front with their arms linked. They were chanting, “One, two, three, four, we don’t want your fuckin’ war.” It sounded like a football cheer. Most of the demonstrators were college students.

Emily and Jaime were on the left flank of the front row, arms linked with Lucas Slaughter and Aleda Weston on either side of them.

So maybe, according to their credo, the world had gone to hell. That didn’t mean they couldn’t have fun righting it. They were all smiles as they chanted. Emily brushed her cheek against Jaime’s shoulder and he turned and beamed into her face. She kissed him lightly, then picked up the chant again.

Jaime boosted Emily onto the bed of the truck. She reached down and gave him a hand up. He seemed to stumble a little and fell into her. It was a transparent ploy to be in her arms, but she was laughing as she caught him, held him longer than was necessary for him to get his feet under him.

I couldn’t take my eyes off Jaime and Emily. They were so young, so very beautiful together. And painfully in love. I wanted to warn them to steer clear of the monsters swimming just beyond the horizon. What they had together seemed to me to be worth a bigger struggle than I think they gave it. I don’t know where it came from, but I suddenly got a big, painful flash of Scotty and his pregnant new wife.

I heard water run in the bathroom, and Flint came out. He was yawning and digging sleepily at his ear with his knuckle. He got a look at me and stopped in his tracks.

“Not again,” he said. I didn’t know what he meant. He ducked back into the bathroom, which suggested a variety of possibilities, but he came right out again carrying a box of tissues. He dropped the tissues into my lap as he sat down.

“I can’t leave you for a minute or you start bawling all over again.”

I blew my nose. “Shut up.”

“That’s better than ‘fuck you,’ I guess. Come here.” He pulled me over against him so I could sob into his shoulder. It felt good. I wasn’t bawling, really, just tearing a little. I missed Emily terribly. Seeing her so happy only made me feel worse. So I pressed my face against his shirt and listened to Emily’s voice on the TV:

“Henry Kissinger tells us our goal in Vietnam is peace with honor. I ask Mr. Kissinger, and his boss, Richard Nixon, how many more young American lives, how many more Vietnamese youth, must be sacrificed before Washington is satisfied that honor cannot be achieved except by our complete, unconditional withdrawal from this immoral and decidedly dishonorable war?” The crowd roared, like a Chautauqua tent revival: “Amen.” “Right on.” “No more war.”

Emily’s strong voice continued. “President Nixon says this is a war for peace. I say, fuck this war, Mr. President, and give peace a chance.”

A chant was picked up by the crowd: “Give peace a chance. Just do it, Mr. President, do it, do it.”

I closed my eyes to hear them better. “Do it. Do it.”

Over the roar of the crowd, I found Emily’s clear voice: “Do it, do it. Do it, Maggot, do it.”

I sat up with a start.

“Were you asleep?” Flint asked.

“I don’t know. What did they just say?”

“I wasn’t listening. Want to rewind it?”

I shook my head. “Maybe later.”

“Emily was quite a girl,” he said. Then he chuckled. “Just don’t tell her I called her a girl, okay?”

“I won’t.” Tears welled in my eyes again. I could say anything to Emily now and she wouldn’t react. I hated it. My nose started to run.

“Come back here,” Flint said. He put his arms around me and rocked me. It was too sweet.

With my face mashed against his chest, I said, “Don’t start singing lullabies, okay?”

“Okay.” He yawned.

When he started humming, I looked up at him. He kissed me. At first it was just a brush of his mustache across my lips. When I didn’t move away, he kissed me again, this time with a little more assurance, a little tongue. He tasted faintly of beer and tacos. His hesitation was touching, considering what had gone on between us the night before.

“That was nice, Mike,” I said. I pulled my hand free so I could stroke the back of his neck.

“That’s nice, too,” he said.

I felt so warm and comfortable cuddled against him, I could easily have fallen asleep. Until Mike moved his hand to cup my breast. I was lying over his lap, and I could feel him growing underneath me.

I looked up into his gray eyes and smiled. I said, “She felt the cold, hard steel of his snub-nosed.38 under his belt and whispered into his juglike ear, ‘I love it when you hold me tight, baby, but that rod you’re packing is digging into me.’

Mike laughed. I ain’t packin’ no rod.”