Robert Coover - Public Burning

Now, over loudspeakers, as the clock ticks inexorably toward twelve noon, comes the friendly rumbling but worried quaver of Tex Ritter, the Texas Cowboy:

I do not know what fate awaits me,

I only know I must be brave,

And I must face a man who hates me

Or lie a coward,

A craven coward,

Or lie a coward in my grave…!

There’s a strange unsettling drumbeat in the song, maybe that’s what they’ve been hearing all along. The crowd shifts about uneasily, like a movie audience deep in the third reel. Men feel their cheeks for signs of bristle, pat their hips as though reaching for six-shooters. Women hug their children to their skirts. It’s not the same, of course. They’re not like those yellow-livered cabbageheads in the Hadleyville town saloon, not at all. The President, unlike Gary Cooper, is not alone — no, the nation is ready for this, the whole damn town will be marching down Main Street tonight behind Uncle Sam and Ike and Dick and Edgar and Joe and Irving and all the rest, no one’s forsaking anybody, oh my darling, we’re all in on this one, everybody from the Supreme Court, Congress, and the Cabinet, down to your average housewife, ditchdigger, man in the street, give or take a skunk or two. Who will be dealt with. HUAC has already launched an investigation of all those protesting the executions, noting that “nowhere has the craven hypocrisy of Communism been exposed so tellingly as in the monstrous campaign organized in behalf of atomic espionage agents Julius and Ethel Rosenberg!” Why, it’s as bad as Billy the Kid protesting against “mob law” when he got sentenced to be hung for twenty-one murders. The essence of the Phantom’s campaign, says HUAC, alerting the Internal Revenue Service, is deception and fraud, “fraud with sinister purpose and spectacular profit, [seeking] to blacken the name of America throughout the world, and [milking] the American people of some half million dollars while it did so!” Not that they’ve loosened the bonds on these two copperheads. On the contrary! As The Commonweal has noted:

They have maneuvered the President into a position where if he did grant a stay it would be widely interpreted as succumbing to Communist pressure in this country and the pressure of Communist propaganda abroad — which is precisely what the United States cannot afford at this time….

No, it cannot. The American press is unanimous: “The switch must be pulled!” The people, a poll shows, agree. “The will to execute them,” in the words of the Catholic weekly America , is “an affirmation by America, as the voice of humanity, of its will to survive…. Such conspirators against humanity must either die or relent if humanity is to live!” Eisenhower knows this. He’s in complete agreement, he has said so. Then, why this strange titillation, this odd anxiety, this recurring note of impending doo-oom that makes one want to giggle and clutch his balls? Of course, there are precedents for last-minute clemency. During the Civil War, for example, General William Tecumseh Sherman, never one to fuck around about such things, arrested one of Horace Greeley’s newspaper correspondents, charged him with spying, and was about to shoot the man, when Abraham Lincoln stepped in and saved the reporter’s life. Of course, Abe himself got shot after that, the lessons should be clear. No, it’s something…ah! the woman perhaps! And the children, the two boys…

The Rosenberg case focuses attention once again on the fact that Communism is a profound spiritual and psychological evil as well as a conspiratorial and military force…. “He that loves a son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” Communism has proven to be a vicious caricature of Christianity. The Rosenbergs, who were willing to betray their people, their country, and humanity itself, stand ready now to leave their own two children orphans….

Yes, The Commonweal is right, something so malignant here as to fall beyond a decent man’s understanding: who can account for a Spirit so perverse that it turns Jesus on His head and tears perniciously at the roots of parenthood all at once, mocks sainthood and the social contract at a stroke? These two boys, so cheaply exhibited these past few weeks, yet so pathetic…and the President himself is a father, is he not, a grandfather, an affectionate man who tragically lost his first little boy; only a day or so ago there was that touching scene with Smokey Bear, and now Father’s Day coming up Sunday — who in all this crowd can truthfully say he or she would deny these boys their parents, this family their longed-for reunion? And who is not, at the same time, flushed with awe and excitement at watching this real-life drama, its tragic end foretold, unfold inexorably before their very eyes? And listen, not only must the President orphan these two small boys, he must — this gallant lover from the border wars — kill a woman in cold blood. Could Bill Hart have strung up little Eva — or even the town trollop? Could old Lafe McKee or Bill Farnum bring such a judgment down on a lady, even were she Belle Starr herself? Of course, a lot of women died in the West, not all in their beds, but more often than not it was an accident, a stray bullet, or a whore’s impulsive sacrifice. Not even villains like Walter Miller or Arthur Kennedy ever dragged them out to the tree and slapped the horse’s rump. There’s only one woman who’s ever been put to death by federal authorities in American history before, and that was Mary Suratt for helping to murder a President. True, like the Judge says, a “crime worse than murder”…yet there is a softness here, deep in the heart of the American soul, that is being probed, pinched, palpated…

Oh to be torn ‘twixt love and duty!

Supposin’ I’d lose mah fair-haired beauty!

Look at that big hand move along,

Nearin’ high noon…!

And then he appears: the President of the United States of America. High up on the White House balcony, surrounded by family and friends. Tall, gentle, handsome, shy, his blue eyes twinkling.

The crowd is at first silent, momentarily awed, train wheels pounding through their heads — then they shake off the strange spell and break into thunderous cheers.

“WE LIKE IKE! WE LIKE IKE!”

Already, distantly, bells are tolling.

“Put your trap on a short chain, Ike!”

“Change trains for the future!”

“Whoo! Whoo!”

The President smiles, lifts his arms. “Friends…”

The crowd falls silent. Expectant.

TIME say: “At the focus of pressure, / Dwight Eisenhower did not flinch….”

Bare stage. Dim figure of Justice in the background. Low distant hum of the world’s ceaseless traffic. At no time during the dialogue does the PRESIDENT address the PRISONER, or even acknowledge her presence on the same stage. The PRISONER, aware of this, sometimes speaks to him directly, but more often seems to be trying to reach him by bouncing echoes off the Audience:

PRIS: ( liturgically ) Petitioner respectfully prays that she be granted a pardon or commutation for the following reasons: FIRST.

PRES: ( clearing his throat ) I have given earnest consideration.

PRIS: ( insistently ) FIRST: that we are innocent.

PRES: I have made a careful examination.

PRIS: Innocent, as we have proclaimed and maintained from the time of our arrest.

PRES: …into this…case.

PRIS: Innocent… This is the whole truth.

PRES: And am satisfied.