George Chesbro: The Language Of Cannibals

"You're naive."

"Hmm. Does that mean you don't agree with me?"

"What does that painting mean?"

"I wouldn't presume to try and second-guess the artist. You probably wouldn't see it the same way in any case."

"What does it mean to you, Frederickson?"

"It means Jack Trex probably wouldn't see it the same way as you either."

Elysius Culhane studied me for a few moments, looked down at the floor, then back at me. I had the impression that he was making an effort to calm himself. "I'm enjoying this conversation immensely, Frederickson," he said at last. "May I suggest that we continue it tomorrow? I have a rather nice home on the river. Why don't you join me tomorrow afternoon for cocktails?"

"I won't be here that long, Culhane, and I don't believe you're enjoying this conversation. What do you really want from me?"

Again Culhane flushed, and he averted his gaze. His smile had become a grimace. He took a deep breath, slowly let it out. "All right, that's blunt enough," he said. "What I'd like is to talk some more about your relationship with Kevin Shannon."

"You mean you want me to tell you what you think I know that could hurt the president and his administration."

"Some people say you and your brother know more about some of this country's vital secrets than the director of the CIA."

"You know, Culhane, I can never tell if you're putting me on. I read your columns and listen to you on television; you're the one who's the obvious recipient of leaks of classified information. Every time there's going to be a vote on the defense budget, you come up with some of the most wondrous information."

"You may not always feel as anti-American as you do now. You-"

"Who said I feel anti-American?"

"There may come a time when your opinions will change."

"Meaning that I'll see things your way?"

"If and when that time comes, you may want to make some moves that could help your country. If you'll share information about Shannon with me, I'll make it worth your while."

"You'd pay me?"

"Of course."

"I love it. Is betrayal high on that list of what you call 'Christian values'?"

"Supplying information that will hurt the enemies of this country isn't betrayal."

"Do you really believe that Kevin Shannon is an enemy of this country?"

"Unwittingly, perhaps, but his actions make him a dupe of the communists."

"Culhane, has it ever occurred to you that there are people in this country who believe that the American right wing has been, and continues to be, a greater threat to our personal liberties than the communists ever have been, or will be? You guys are always talking about getting government off the backs of the people, but what you really mean is that you want the government to get off the back of business. It doesn't bother you at all, in fact you like it, when the government goes snooping into our bedrooms and libraries. Total social control has always been a wet dream of the far right. I don't mind the government auditing my taxes, Culhane, but I sure as hell don't want it auditing my mind."

The color drained from Elysius Culhane's face. He shifted his weight slightly, like a prizefighter, raised a thick index finger, and stuck it in my face. "You're what's wrong with this country, you fucking dwarf communist! People like you are the reason this country is going down the toilet!"

I was studying the finger in front of my face, trying to decide just what I wanted to do with it, when there was a sudden loud screech of brakes from the street, then movement and shouts from the people in the other room. Culhane turned in the direction of the noise, and I decided it was better to leave his finger alone than risk a lawsuit for assault. I brushed past him in the narrow corridor, went into the main viewing area to see what all the excitement was about.

It looked as if the house had listed and thrown everyone to the front; people were crowded in the entranceway and at the windows, staring at something outside.

A woman shouted, "Atta boy, Gregory! Way to clean up the sidewalk!”

Being of diminutive stature occasionally has it advantages. I was able to slip, sidle, and squeeze through the clot of people in the entranceway and make my way out to the porch, where I maneuvered around more people until I was able to claim a spot at the railing.

The screech of tires I'd heard had, I assumed, come from the Jeep Wagoneer that was now resting half up over the curb with its nose on the sidewalk at about the spot where the three men from the Community of Conciliation had been passing out their fliers. One of the blue-shirted Community members was sitting on the ground, ashen-faced and stunned, his fliers scattered around him. The other two men were trying unsuccessfully to hold their ground against a heavyset man, presumably the driver of the wayward Jeep, who kept advancing on them, bumping first one Community member and then the other with his barrel chest as he snatched at the fliers in their hands. The big man wore camouflage fatigues and a khaki tank top. He wore his blond hair cut very short on the top and shaved on the sides. I decided he was too young, probably in his early twenties, to be a veteran of anything more serious than Grenada. Except for the black sneakers he wore, and the fact that MPs and commanding officers take a very dim view of servicemen driving up on sidewalks and bullying civilians, he looked as if he might have just stepped out of a Marine barracks or boot camp.

A woman from the Community of Conciliation had joined the group since I'd come in. She was now standing by herself on the other side of the sidewalk bisected by the nose of the Jeep, her back straight, head high, and chin thrust out as she held aloft a neatly lettered cardboard sign stapled to a wooden stick. Whatever message the three men had been trying to convey with their fliers, there was nothing subtle about the message on the woman's sign. It read: STOP THE DEATH SQUAD.

There was something vaguely familiar about the woman, and I moved a few steps to my left in an effort to get a better angle of her face. She was tall and slender in her jeans and blue T-shirt that outlined small but firm breasts. I put her in her mid-forties. She wore steel-rimmed glasses that glinted in the light from the streetlamps, which had just come on. The most striking feature about her was her long hair, a light blond that was almost white, dramatically streaked with gray and hanging almost to the small of her back. The hands that clutched the wooden stick seemed too large for the rest of her frame, with the nails unpolished and cut very short.

They were hands I'd seen before playing an acoustic guitar as well as or better than any of her equally famous contemporaries as she'd sung her protest songs in a dulcet, achingly beautiful soprano.

Shades of the 1960s: antiwar protests, sit-ins, civil rights marches, Pete Seeger, Harry Peal, Judy Collins, Dylan, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Baez. The middle-aged woman standing on the sidewalk, defiantly holding up her sign, was none other than Mary Tree, one time "Queen of Folk," and my brother Garth's all-time secret heartthrob for more than twenty-five years. Although Garth had always disagreed with her pacifism, and a good deal of her politics, he'd bought every one of her records as soon as they were released, and had attended all of her concerts throughout the sixties and seventies whenever she appeared in the New York area. Then the war ended, the "Me Generation" blossomed into adolescence and adulthood wearing hundred-dollar sneakers and pushing five-hundred-dollar baby carriages, and Mary Tree's popularity faded like Puff the Magic Dragon, along with most of the protest movements of which she had been such an integral part. Her concerts became rarer, in smaller and smaller arenas. The woman who had once been able to sell out Madison Square Garden ended in tiny coffeehouses similar to the ones in which she had begun her career. And then she disappeared from public view altogether, and no more records were released. Garth was heartbroken, and he finally got around to transferring all of her records to tape about one playing or two before the needle on his record player would have broken through the vinyl. We both wondered what had happened to her. Now I knew; she'd apparently been living in Cairn, working with the Community of Conciliation.