Robert Coover - Public Burning

Intuitively, I just kept moving. I put the U.S. Chamber of Commerce at my back like a big brother and plunged straight ahead, into the park and toward the White House. I saw it, I knew it immediately: this crowd is all unfriendly — the Phantom has touched them, I thought, he’s invaded them, they’re all contaminated, we will have to liberate them all, as we’ve done with the Rosenbergs. I kept my head ducked and bulled hopefully ahead — so far they hadn’t noticed me. Just a block, that damned square, but it seemed endless — I felt like I was crossing all of Gettysburg. I prayed to God to get me through safely. I prayed to Uncle Sam, I prayed to Pat. “In the name of Jesus Christ!” I whistled softly between my clenched teeth. What troubled me most was the complete unreasoning hate in their faces: this mob, I recognized, is a killer mob! I suspected some of them were even doped up, and I feared that, if they saw who I was, they’d get out of hand. They carried placards, shouted, and seemed to be picking up things they might throw. It made me almost physically ill to see the fanatical frenzy in the eyes of those teenagers; anyway, something was making me quite ill. I felt absolute hatred for the tough Communist agitators who were driving children to this irrational state, and I wanted to shout at them, or scream, or bite them or something, but somehow I kept a grip on myself, knowing that above all I had to control my emotions and think calmly. The test of leadership is whether one has the ability, as Kipling said, to keep his head while others are losing theirs. By this time, I was virtually running, shoulders hunched like a fullback, snorting desperately.

I slowed. I noticed I was drawing a lot of attention. I worried I might have a heart attack. Or some other kind of seizure, I could hardly breathe. The mob turned toward me and started to close in. It was essential, I knew, that I bust right through: if I turned back now, it would not be simply a case of their bluffing out Richard Nixon, but of the United States itself putting its tail between its legs and running away from a gang of Communist thugs. For an instant, the realization passed through my mind: I might be killed! — and then it was gone, mind and all. They were nearly on me. I stopped abruptly. Then I lurched forward. Everybody must have been surprised: as I plunged on, straight at them, amazed at my own impetus, the mob stumbled backwards. In a larger sense, I recognized, this was another round in a contest which has been waged from the beginning of time between those who believe in the right of free expression and those who advocate and practice mob rule to deny that right. I might have calmed myself with such a thought, but there was no time — one of the ringleaders, a typical case-hardened Communist operative, stepped into my path, blocking me off, a look of cold hatred in his eyes. And I realized then, as this was going on, that right here was the ruthlessness and the determination, the fanaticism of the enemy that we faced! That was what I saw in his face. This was Communism as it really is. He opened his mouth — I felt like I was back in the lion’s cage with Sheba. Oh my God—!

“Excuse me, Mr. Nixon,” he said, the rest closing up behind, forcing me to pull up short. “Could I have your autograph?”

“What?” I shouted. This startled them and they fell back a step. I noticed then for the first time that the placards they were carrying read DEATH TO THE JEWISH TRAITORS! and THE HOT SEAT FOR THE ROSENBERGS — SIZZLE ‘EM! It came to me then that this was my own constituency. The range and scope of this crisis began to fall into a pattern. “Can you have my autograph?’” I yelped, repeating his question to give myself time to think, and also, hopefully, to stop my hands from shaking. I groped for words, for a phrase, something tough and pungent I could exit on. I wanted to do more than simply mouth prepared platitudes, but my mind was completely locked up, like the traffic around Washington Circle. All I could think of was: everyone in politics knows a Vice President cannot chart his own course, it’s not my fault! They stared at me, somewhat amazed. A young college boy with a friendly smile was carrying a big picture of the electric chair with the legend HOME COOKING, KOSHER STYLE! and I saw a priest with a sign that read THE ROSENBERGS ARE MORTAL ENEMIES OF THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE! I realized it was going to be another hot day. I was sweating like a stoat. “The issue is not whether or not I can give you my autograph,” I said at last, leaning toward them as a coach would lean toward his players in a huddle, “but rather the survival of the nation itself!” I gazed at them with a very heavy look, and the few who were still smiling went blank, their jaws dropping. For a fraction of a second there, I gave them all a sense of what it felt like to be at the center of things, drew them all in to the High Councils of Power, showed them a glimpse of the brink and its peril. Then I smiled, nodded, clapped a shoulder, waved to someone at the back as though recognizing him, and lunged on through. They parted in astonishment. This has been very successful, I thought.

Except for the mounted U.S. Park Police, some parked buses, and a couple of lonely Red Top cabs that had managed somehow to get through the traffic jam further up the street, Pennsylvania was empty as I crossed it. A long way across, and I felt very self-conscious. Then, off to my right, I saw them: the real demonstrators, marching toward me, seven abreast, down Pennsylvania, headed toward the Supreme Court. What now? I wondered, freezing in my tracks: should I stop and confront them? — and nearly got run down by a trolley car whistling up from behind. Jesus, I thought, picking myself up and scrambling on across the goddamn street, this is going to be one helluva day. At the White House gates, still hurrying forward, I looked back over my shoulder at the crowd in Lafayette Square, thinking: you’ve got to be careful in a situation like that, you have to think all those things through — and plowed into a child standing there on the sidewalk. I glanced around. Luckily, no photographers had seen this. I set the boy back on his feet, brushed him off, skinny little kid, about the age of my daughters, with big dark eyes and baggy pants. Like the waifs out of those Horatio Alger novels. Very intense and even, somehow, mysterious. I’d given him a thumping whack and he wasn’t even crying. He looked up at me as though he were lost, as though looking for a friend or a father, and I thought: he’s beautiful, this child! He reminded me of all those March of Dimes posters. I wanted to hug him to my breast, to protect him from all this, to kiss him, I wanted to reach into my pocket and give him something. “Don’t be afraid, son,” I whispered. His nose was running. I wiped it with my own handkerchief. “It’s all right.” He gazed up at me with those soulful eyes, parting his small lips — I know this child, I thought. As though from a dream, a beautiful dream. I seemed to recall green hills, a rippling brook, a rustic cabin, and inside — and then I realized who it was he looked like. I pushed him away in alarm, wiped my hands nervously on my pants, and, shuddering, hurried on through the White House gates. That haunting face: it belonged to Ethel Rosenberg!

The special session of the Supreme Court is the tourist sensation of the summer. Thousands stand in line for the 350 available seats to watch the spectacle of the nation’s highest court, called back to the bench from golf links and fishing boats, having to decide overnight whether or not to execute without further delay “the principals,” as Judge Kaufman has called them, “in this diabolical conspiracy to destroy a God-fearing nation.”