Robert Coover - Public Burning

It is not easy, needless to say, for anyone to follow such giants, least of all the twelve ordinary middle-class citizens — simple bookkeeper types for the most part, unaccustomed to the public limelight — to whose lot it fell to be the jurors in this historic case, and to whose lot it now falls to come out, together with their wives and children, to do their turn on the stage and step down to take their seats on this one night, like Queens for a Day, with the famous and the mighty. They fumble about in the wings, pretending to be distracted, urging each other to go first, then banging into one another in their eagerness to be helpful, knocking fedoras and glasses off, tripping over each other’s feet, apologizing, smiling dismally, some finally backing on as though intending to go the other direction, others stepping out boldly only to freeze in panic when they hit the bright lights, still others getting tangled in the bunting at the edge or stumbling over the electric cables coiling out from under the chair, no one seeming to remember which way they’re supposed to go when they get out there, and so in bug-eyed desperation trailing around after each other in a dizzying welter of wrong directions. But Irving Saypol, who can operate with this jury, as Harry Gold would put it, “in the very manner that a virtuoso would play a violin,” rises opportunely from his seat in the special section to take command, focusing the jurors’ distracted attention and guiding them to their places of honor. Down they come, grateful for Saypol’s timely intervention, to the cheers of the citizenry packed up in Times Square, a veritable phalanx of stalwart middle-Americans, whom Brian Donlevy himself would have been proud to have with him on Wake Island and with whom anyone out in Times Square might identify (and who back in the anonymous jam-up does not dream of being up there in the front rows tonight?).

Then, as Betty Crocker solemnly rings her dinner bell three times in the traditional courtroom manner, out from the wings comes the Boy Judge, Irving Robert Kaufman, flanked by two FBI agents and twelve New York City policemen, his pale round face barely visible through all the thick hips and holsters, and followed by his wife, Helen Rosenberg Kaufman, and their three sons. The Judge, swathed in his flowing black robes of office, steps out briefly from under his forest of protectors to thank the FBI for watching over him and to receive, before taking his front-pew seat, a few honors from, among others, his alma mater, the American Legion, the Jewish War Veterans, and the Federation of Women’s Clubs. Then, recalling his famous farewell to the jury the day before he laid down the death sentences, he lifts one hand in a gesture both papal and pugnacious, clears his soft throat, and exclaims: “God bless you all!”

With all the principals of the case seated, Betty Crocker is left with only two 3 × 5 recipe-sized index cards in her hand. One of course is for the nation’s Chief Executive, President Dwight David Eisenhower, who will address the crowd briefly before the executions. The second is for the man she now announces: the country’s highest-ranking legal officer, Attorney General Herbert J. Brownell. It is not merely for reasons of protocol that the head of the U.S. Department of Justice has been granted the unique honor this evening of sitting at the right hand of the President of the United States — no, more importantly, it is to make public acknowledgment of the fact that, were it not for this one man, these electrocutions would never have taken place at all tonight…if ever. He has overseen the Department’s prosecution of the case in the appeals courts these past several weeks, coped with Communist threats and demonstrations, pursued the execution of the death sentences with vigor, skill, conviction, and intransigence, remaining steady as a rock when others in the Administration might have faltered, and even called the Supreme Court into a historic special session in order to protect the time plan. If any man in America can be said personally to have shepherded the Rosenbergs to their deaths tonight, it is Herbert Julius Brownell, and he it is who now, with his wife and children, steps out on the Death House stage to receive a hero’s welcome from the citizens, this cloud of admiring witnesses, in Times Square. He nods politely at all the people, now on their feet and giving him a standing ovation, but it’s not the sort of thing that the Attorney General enjoys.

Herb works the anxious-glance-at-the-watch ploy to still the crowd, then signals for the Singing Saints, who lead the congregated in singing Irving Berlin’s sacred classic, “I Like Ike.” And as the chorus mounts to a thundering climax, into it ambles, in that familiar easygoing yet brassy-hoofed putting-green stride, grinning affably but shyly, his grandpa’s belly pushing softly against a brand-new single-breasted suit and his blue eyes twinkling merrily: the 34th President of the United States of America, Dwight David (the Iron-Hewer) Eisenhower! His left arm is raised in a friendly open-handed salute to the screaming, stomping, chanting masses; on his right, smiling graciously: the 30th First Lady of the Land and the prettiest in a coon’s age, the saucy pride of the Hawk-eye State and belle of officers’ clubs these past forty years from one end of the world to the other: Mamie! The place is going wild! America has seen nothing like this man since the day it was born — it is indeed, no fooling, as though George Washington himself were back on earth, alive and well once more and whacking out bogies at Burning Tree! And who knows? it may be so! Ike and Mamie bask briefly in the adulation of the people; then, while the First Lady is escorted by General Jerry Persons to her place in the front pew, the President steps forward, both arms raised as though having his chest measured by a tailor, to address the gathered community, remarking to no one in particular but loud enough for everyone to hear and smile: “I had no idea that our host had such a party as this!”

When things have quieted down enough for him to speak, he assumes a country-philosopher double-chinned pose and, speaking with blurred haste like a man with a mouthful of saltwater taffy, loose teeth, and a hundred things to talk about if he could just remember them, says: “My friends, before I begin the espression of those thoughts that I deem appopriate to this mo-ment I want to say: this one thing — of course, huh! there are a lot of things in a big country such as ours and the kind of world, that we are living in that make interesting subjecks, for conversation and very naturally, I wouldn’t make a serious decoration on such a sujject — supject — uh, at this mo-ment but there are a few thoughts, that crowd into my mind with your permission and I will attempt to utter them in a very informal and homely way…” There is widespread applause at this remark. He tucks one hand awkwardly in his jacket pocket, managing to look bemused, humble, and very important all at the same time. “In many sets — segs — sections of the country in every area, let me say, I have said these things before — and to some of you that are here tonight, some of you here — I hate to be insulting — who I would call contemptries of mine. Whom. What I came to — what I came to repeat — and they are given a new, a sharp meaning by the nature of the tension tormending our whole world and so I don’t mind, repeating what I have said as often as I have spoken pubbick — uh, plubicly, about this sub…ject. What I should like to point out, and I am talking plain common sense — and let me intercheck, whatever the answer be, let it be plainly spoken, I don’t want to sound like Saint Peter. It would be fooling — uh, foolish, to give anything that would appear to be an authoritative conclusion, and certainly I did not come over in the role of a professor to give you a lecher, but I would say this: it is a question that I will not answer, ladies and gentlemen, without a bit more pepprer — uh, pepperation on the thing, of course, I have never thought I had quite all the answers, it’s a damn thorn in the side, but certainly, we can hope for the best — the formula matters less than the fete — faith…”