Class Warfare (4 page)

EVEN TO HIS closest friends, he was often a mystery; the great affection he inspired was not unmixed with awe, a sense of sheer astonishment at the multiplicity and ardour of his genius. His generosity had over the years become a part of him as essential, as physical, as the immense belly, the beard, the curious yet somehow appropriate manner of dress. What had begun, perhaps, as a rich man's whimsical impulse—who could remember?—had grown into a habit, a lifework, an industry. If sometimes he wearied of it, if the scope and complexity of his responsibilities sometimes overwhelmed him, he nonetheless resisted, better than most men, the seductions of pessimism. The more cynical of his associates may have observed, toward the end, a note of strain, of obscure vexation, creeping into the familiar laughter; a handful of his intimates may have guessed, as Christmases rolled by with disheartening frequency, however more reluctantly he girded himself, year after year, for the long night journey. But to the world at large he betrayed no sign of despair, no hint of deepening disillusionment. No one can confirm, and many would deny, the legend that in his last years he had come to despise children, enduring their cloying company, their demands, only as a final reflexive gesture toward public relations.

After his retirement, he wasted little time upon nostalgia, but it is said that he felt, and occasionally expressed, bitter disappointment at the indifference with which his departure was greeted. He was, after all, human, and in his way as hungry as any man for the honey of recognition; he had hoped for a Nobel Prize, or at least a gold wristwatch. That may, indeed, be the reason why, after leaving the Arctic, he undertook at once to erase all marks of his former identity; in this he was, by all accounts, remarkably successful. He lives today, unrecognizably slim, clean-shaven, sporting a stylish black hairpiece and tailored clothes from Joe's of Hollywood, in an attractive mobile home in Sunset Village, near Tucson, where he pursues the customary enjoyments of the aged: golf, bridge, speculation in real estate. Normally reticent about his affairs, he recently confided to newsmen, however, that he and his present wife, onetime starlet Peggy Pringle, are both registered Republicans, “and damned proud of it.”

—for Joe Gluck

“
But she (sc. nature, matter's mistress) holds our agreement as a mystic secret bond; and even if we decide to be off as though freemen, she claims we are fugitives, and tries to bring us back, again, and has us seized as runaways, quoting her document against [us]
.”

—Synesius

MARIE TYRELL AND Gerard Macklewain, her lover, were waiting for the police. They sat together in Gerard's room, above a bakery, in the commercial district; the air smelled of bread. They shared a cigarette, her last, watching the smoke drift like coastal fog across the rental furniture. When the police came, Marie Tyrell picked up her knapsack, without haste, and walked to the door. Two policemen were standing there, and a woman in plain clothes; very little was said, nothing that matters. It would have been redundant, at that point, to have said goodbye.

Toward the end, she dreamed architecture, massive constructions in the New Brutalism, grey and brown, splayed out upon soft hillsides, institutional, guarded. The wind was blowing continually, from the east. She was allowed newspapers, carefully censored: in one of them she read that the government had fallen, in another that it didn't matter, the military were pledged to keep order.

Order was kept. A National Day of Mourning was declared, and duly observed. It was not clear to her what was being mourned, or whom. In her dreams Marie Tyrell paced up and down concrete corridors, under bare lights, reciting libertarian slogans in several languages. Awake, she thought extensively about God. Sometimes she thought about Gerard Macklewain, and summoned him to lie with her on the thin mattress, to be silent with her in the cold cell. In this time she began many letters, never finished, to people whose whereabouts she had long since forgotten. She wrote, “What would you do in my position? Would you drop the war where it is, or would you prosecute it in future with elder-stalk squirts charged with rose-water? Would you deal lighter blows rather than heavier ones? Would you give up the contest, leaving any available means untried?” She wrote, “I shall do nothing in malice. What I deal with is too vast for malicious dealing.”

From a letter found among the papers of Marie Tyrell, after her execution
:

 

Comrades, there is less to tell you now than I would have thought, less to say, evidently, than you are prepared to hear. Often my mind is wholly empty, quiet, a room vacated in anticipation of some catastrophe, which will come soon enough. I apologize to my brothers and sisters, for this. I understand what you expect of me, what you deserve, in this darkening of our history. You need something usable, a Statement, to ennoble our cause and shame our enemies, words to engrave, soberly, on the monuments you doubtless will not forget to erect to me. There was a time when I knew the words. I remember how they rang in our meeting-rooms, at our rallies, how they shone in my mind, when we spoke them together. I remember how I repeated them, for comfort's sake, again and again through the nights I lay in hiding, and when I was discovered and taken away, how joyfully I spat them at my tormentors. They were good words, and I do not regret them, nor the end they led me to. Be certain of that. Now they have left me, as so much else is leaving me, and I have not the strength, nor the wish, to call them back. Let my memorial be silent, if you would build it. More blood than mine will be shed, before you do.

 

“It is reported that the subject habitually spends much of her time in a lethargic, approximately quasi-catatonic state, leading us to hypothesize that (unidentified) visitors, or fellow inmates, may be supplying her, clandestinely, with one or more psychotropic drugs. We have questioned the subject at some length, however, without obtaining an unequivocal admission that this is in fact the case. We strongly urge that the customary procedures [Section IV-B, Subsection 2, ¶11] be implemented at once.

“Periodically, the subject appears to undergo a radical alteration of her behaviour-patterns, characterized by hyperactivity, obsessional reiteration of ‘left-wing' propaganda, and pronounced alienation from, and resistance to, authority. We were able to observe these phenomena on two [2] occasions. In the first instance, the subject, having conducted herself in a docile manner for several hours, abruptly began to walk back and forth across her quarters (‘pacing') in a markedly agitated manner. She then paused, and recited what seemed to be a ‘speech,' either improvised spontaneously or committed to memory at some earlier time. (It was not possible to determine which was the case, as the subject refused to answer, or may not have heard, our questions.) Unfortunately, our recording equipment was inoperative during this ‘performance,' and we cannot provide an exact transcript of her words. The principal theme, however, was articulated quite distinctly, in the para-rational mode typical of Phase II paranoia [
cf.
Weber & Hartley]. The subject said, in effect, that a ‘revolution' (presumably Communist, although we have no clear confirmation of this) was about to occur, and that everyone who had hitherto ‘oppressed the people' [
sic
] would be killed. Significantly, the manner of death was not specified; we have found that many subjects in a delusional state are deliberately vague upon the actual implementation of their ‘fantasies.' The subject went on to describe, more explicitly than we had anticipated, a number of acts of ‘terrorism,' which she openly advocated, including the abduction and assassination of (unnamed) prominent public figures, the organization of a ‘gorilla army' [
sic
], and a calculated campaign of bombing and arson, air piracy, larceny and what we interpret [
cf.
Section IX, Subsection 5-A, ¶ 6] as illegal assembly. It may be relevant to note that the subject referred, in several instances, to a pseudo-concept she called ‘correct thinking.' We have encountered this syndrome in other subjects whose delusions assume a purportedly ‘political' character, but we have no experimental evidence, to date, to indicate what, if anything, it may signify. During her ‘oration,' which continued for a period of twenty-two [22] minutes, the subject spoke in a low monotone, as if addressing her remarks to a person or persons directly facing her. She either ignored, or was unaware of, the observers, and, at the conclusion, returned to her bed, and simulated an attitude of ‘sleep.'

“The second occasion was witnessed the following day, shortly after the termination of Recreational Therapy. Provocation may have been a question asked by an attendant [D-604-263-8352], who is reported to have enquired of the subject, quote, Are we feeling all tuckered out, dear? Unquote. The question was answered by an outburst of hysterical ‘laughter,' during which we were summoned to the subject's quarters. Her behaviour was sufficiently violent to warrant, in our opinion, the administration of a sedative, despite departmental directives to the contrary [
cf.
Memo #121-3408-444]. We preferred to remain, however, in our role as ‘disinterested' observers. After 5.6 minutes, the hysteria abated somewhat, and the subject began to sing what could have been either a Negro ‘spiritual,' so-called, or an insurrectionary ‘anthem.' We had not heard it before, and in any event we are not qualified musicologists; we deduced, tentatively, that the quality of the ‘singing' was somewhat below normative professional standards. Due to a malfunction in our recording device, we were prevented from making a full transcription of the song, but we believe the following paraphrase to be representative of its content, and we include it here for whatever clinical value it may have:

 

Some say the street will take us,

Some say the jungle deep,

When laws conspire to break us,

Who has the time to sleep, Lord?

Who has the time to sleep
?

 

At the end of this curious performance, the subject went to her bed, sat on it, and began to sway back and forth in a ‘rocking' motion, moaning loudly and (in our judgment) unintelligibly. We propose that this behaviour-pattern indicates a state of self-induced excitation, probably sexual, associated with the ‘political' delusional system referred to above.

“This being an interim evaluation, we respectfully submit that a more detailed examination be conducted prior to termination of the subject.”

Perhaps it's true, Gerard Macklewain thought, composing his sentences carefully, perhaps it is true (there may be someone, a cosmic Stenographer, noting all this, marking it down for the Confidential File) that somewhere, in the caverns of the city, there are others like me, who have not inherited the earth. Who love obscurely, wantonly, murmuring seditious things late at night, in small voices. Surely there are these others who wait, tiredly as I, for the Revolution, who long ago ceased to lay up treasure anywhere, heaven or earth. Who are resigned to living as I live now, treasonably, in a world of brown brick and coastal fog. Where are they? Where will they be when the bells sound, and the guns rage, and all our friends are dead? I can't fail to wish them well. I can't help but dream of them, when I sleep. There is such a thing as heartbreak, and we have all at least once seen the flaming sword, and nothing beyond. And how many of us have lived off the glory of it, fattening, telling the tale again and again, trading it for regrets we'd thought we were immune to …

One night in 1968 we were all together in a park, at the edge of a prosperous city; there were troops and tanks massed against us—
us
?—not far away. A number of us had already been gassed and clubbed, others had managed to run away, others to find hiding-places. We were proud of our wounds, who had them. Mine were superficial. I lay down beside a woman whose face was bruised, bleeding; I was cold; we could see flashlights moving in the trees; we could hear the dogs barking, coming closer. I was scared shitless, and this woman—whom I'd never seen before—put a blanket over me, with appropriate contempt. It was certain, by then, that we were going to be arrested: that certainty was as comforting as any other. I wanted only to sleep, and I wasn't comforted. I knew that I would dream that night of the city in flames, the brown-brick towers falling, caving in on themselves (in slow motion, great clouds of burning dust), proud lights flickering out,
psssffft
, all the messages going dark one by one. Christ, I wanted that. It was better than being dragged off to jail, as we would be, hauled away to questions I'd have to remind myself not to answer. It was better than the night wind off the water, the damp grass we lay on, awake, under the trees. What else had I expected? This was supposed to be the people's war, and they were all elsewhere; they were watching us on television.
Desist, in the name of the People
. Something was dying. The woman beside me stared stony-faced into the dark, into the approaching lights, devoted, while I pretended to bleed. We'd talked, for a while, about the familiar things: abortions, dope, the historical failure of liberalism, the prospect of a swift and honourable death. It passed the time. Before the police came I heard her singing, in a harsh experienced voice, the verse of We Shall Overcome that begins:
We are not afraid, we are not afraid
. It was the last time I heard anyone singing that, in any of our battles.

There is such a thing as heartbreak, after all. We live on, savouring ancient grudges, collecting memorabilia, talking. I don't know what will happen next. All these days I have been holding back tears.

Saturday, January 2nd.
The second day of the New Year has passed—a day just like any other. I took a laxative last night, and haven't left the house since. We dismantled the Christmas tree last night, a rather wearisome task to put it mildly. Mother cried. I made an attempt to straighten up the mess my room is in, but once again I failed miserably. Mother and Daddy went out later, they went to Susie MacGregor's. I am alone as I write this, and the stars are shining.

The weather today was just so-so. Most of the afternoon was dark and cloudy, but there were a few sunny intervals. I made my own lunch and nibbled at it most of the evening. It's supposed to rain or snow tomorrow, or something. And now it is late, and I have to go to bed. I wish we had a television. Goodnight my Someone—goodnight!

Thursday, January 14th.
Another horrible day. O 1960, is this what you hold for me? Please, Year of Years, let more joy enter my existence. Maybe, let us hope, it is only the weather. I wrote a science test this morning, and undoubtedly failed. Beastly. This afternoon, a Latin test was only slightly better. After school I went down to Susie MacGregor's to watch the opening of Parliament on television. I really wanted to watch Jerry S. bowling, but Miss Matheson our civics teacher made it clear that where duty lies I goes or dies, so I went. Parliament was very boring. It was very educational though, and I have made a lot of notes for civics. I did my lessons tonight. I have a feeling that Mr Driscoll did not appreciate my magnificent Composition which I handed in today. I think Mr Driscoll is a drip! Oh, well, such is life. Still, I have confidence in the future and “in spite of everything, I still believe that people really are good at heart.”

Saturday, January 16th.
Today has been dull. I slept till noon this morning, and did nothing exciting all day. After lunch Mother took me next door to see Mrs Eliot's new sewing machine. So what. It must have been very expensive, and everyone knows they haven't a penny. Afterwards, we went out to poor Nellie Jamieson's who's got cancer, for a while. Dull, and not very interesting, but it passed the time. Daddy said a prayer with her, I guessed it helped. Then we went for a drive out the highway, and that was the best part of the day. We passed Jerry S. on the corner of Dominion Street, and my heart skipped not just one beat, but two! This evening I played records and did some homework.