Robert Coover - Public Burning

peddler (thelma ritter) the pick

pocket knocks out the spy by smash

ing his head against a wall

slugs it out with him on a sub

way platform and on the tracks

in front of an oncoming train

all this mayhem is brought on when

the pickpocket discovers some micro

film containing military

secrets in a wallet he has lifted

from the b-girl’s purse by the fadeout

the pickpocket and the b-girl have found

true love and government agents

with the pickpocket’s help have smashed a

red

spy

ring

Yes, there are happy endings, but the world is tough and you have to work for them. No one knows that better than Uncle Sam, who has been flying about the world all morning, coping with the Phantom’s overnight malice, sweeping up the Free World streets ravaged by an alien ardor, hurling abuse at Russian tanks in East Berlin, rounding up prisoners in South Korea. All night long, on the battlefront to the north, transport planes on flare sorties have been turning night into day in one of the brightest pyrotechnic displays of the war, dropping million-candlepower flares at short intervals for hours on end, surprising gooks in their nighttime mischief and giving them a kind of preview of the Apocalypse before picking them off. Then, with the dawn’s early light, the battleship New Jersey and cruiser Bremerton have led surface ships in an artillery assault on the Korean east coast, and the west coast has been hit by the Polkadot Squadron from the USS Bairoko . In the daily air battle, Major Jimmy Jabara, the Wichita Ace, bags his twelfth MIG. In fact, Yanks are reportedly downing fifteen enemy MIG-15s for every Sabre Jet lost…

when the migs offered battle

in numbers [TIME say] they were being

knocked down like grouse

on a scottish moor

one cocky pilot snorted

that the requirement for ace

hood ought to be raised

to ten kills then added:

“ten hell make it fifteen

or twenty and put a hundred

pounds of cabbage in our tail

assemblies as a handicap!”

Wall Streeters might prefer narrower odds, but still, for every fifteen MIGs down, there’s another Sabre Jet to be built, and anyway, the replacement demand for some reason seems higher than that.

At home meanwhile, the President’s Cabinet has been called into morning session, the Sing Sing prison officials and Times Square program committees have been put on alert, the Nine Old Men have arrived at the Supreme Court. The Senate, not to miss any of the action, is in recess today, but the House of Representatives is heavily engaged upon major legislation, and the situation there is reported to be “one of anxiety and suspense.” Between votes, Congressmen spend a lot of time at their phones. At the White House, queues of visitors are already forming up, waiting for the doors to open, and the guards are jittery: almost ten thousand tourists out here this morning, what if just one of them—? “Simple duty hath no place for the twitters!” Uncle Sam admonishes them in firm Quaker cadences, watching the Vice President squirt across Pennsylvania Avenue from Lafayette Square out of the corner of his eye. “Chins out, chests up, lads, discipline is the soul of a army, and if any strange fruit attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot!” He grins thoughtfully to himself as the Veep bowls over a little kid; then he ducks into the White House through a back entrance, meditating on Moe the necktie-peddler’s observation in Pickup on South Street: “He’s as shifty as smoke, but I still love him!”

At the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Fred Vinson takes his seat under the clock in front of the tall Grecian columns and red plush curtains, hastens perfunctorily through the opening rituals, and announces abruptly: “We think the question is not substantial. We think further proceedings to litigate it are unwarranted. Accordingly, we vacate the stay entered by Mr. Justice Douglas on June 17,1953!”

There’s a moment of shocked silence in the packed courtroom — it’s come so fast it’s caught everyone by surprise, some still haven’t taken their seats — then a burst of cheers and boos. The defense attorneys, dark with anger, leap from their chairs, tipping them over, scramble toward the bench — but Justice Robert Jackson objects to the “irregular manner” in which the new lawyers have entered the case, and they are ordered to carry on their unpleasantries elsewhere. Justice Tom Clark notes that the Court has now considered this case seven times, and a moment of awe grips the courtroom— the seventh occasion!

But Justice Hugo Black, dissenting from the 6-to-2 majority opinion and doubting the Court even had the right to vacate the stay of a fellow Justice in the first place (“…so far as I can tell, the Court’s action here is unprecedented…”), argues crabbily that “it is not amiss to point out that this Court has never affirmed the fairness of the trial!” There he goes again. “What,” the people mutter, “is Black and white and Red all over?”

Justice William Douglas, facing possible impeachment, insists bluntly that “the cold truth is that the death sentence may not be imposed for what the Rosenbergs did unless the jury so recommends,” but before he’s even had a chance to get it all out, Manny Bloch is on his feet, asking for more time to rewrite the clemency appeal, arguing that the doubts of three Justices (Frankfurter has snuck out unnoticed for the time being) is “a matter which is appropriate for consideration on a petition of mercy.” He’s wearing a brand-new suit, having dumped coffee on his old one this morning: no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked.

U.S. Acting Solicitor General Bob Stern snorts at this argument, but Justice Black, cantankerous as ever, points out that clemency from the President is all but pleaded for in the majority opinion itself, which says plainly: “Vacating this stay is not to be construed as endorsing the wisdom or appropriateness to this case of a death sentence.” Stern, who is as aware as Black is that this is a mere protective maneuver by the Court to avoid any hint or complaint of error, says flatly that no more time is needed, and the Court, thinking about this for fifteen minutes (the stage is built, after all, and this show is ready to go on), agrees. No more delays. Even Douglas caves in now and votes with the majority, leaving Black alone in his bilious dissent.

The spectators, reporters, court buffs rush from the courtroom, spreading the word to the thousands left outside, all of whom now grab up their children and cameras and race to the White House: It is nearing High Noon, and now President Dwight D. Eisenhower alone stands between the atom spies and death .

Wrinkling his brow and bulging his blue eyes in mock amazement, the President interrupted Foster Dulles and said: “This thing is so foolish as to be fantastic!”

I jerked my head up. What was he talking about now? The Rosenberg stay, Rhee, Berlin? Double-breasted suits? He was chewing his lip, a bad sign, and doodling on his little white pad: some kind of face with a careless black beard. Guiltily, I touched my own cheeks: already a little bristly, and it wasn’t even noon yet. I was still nervous and distracted from having run that gauntlet outside — in fact, I’d barely made it to the White House in time for the opening prayer, slipping through the door just as Jerry Persons was getting ready to shut it — and so was able to tune into the Cabinet meeting with only half my mind, but as usual that was enough, they were never much more than diffuse and errant bull sessions. We sat around the long coffin-shaped table in our high-backed leather chairs, shaking our heads in commiseration, blowing smoke, digesting our breakfasts, struggling to get awake enough to face the inevitable assault of newsmen after the meeting broke up, agreeing with the General whatever he was talking about. Maybe he was only complaining to Foster about waking him up at two in the morning yesterday to tell him about Rhee’s release of the prisoners. Dulles made few mistakes, but that was one of them. He wasn’t apt to make it again.