Erich Segal - Oliver's Story

Jenny would have nightmares and would wake me up. In those days, before we knew how sick she was, she'd ask me, genuinely scared, 'If I can't have a baby, Oliver — would you still feel the same?'

Which didn't prompt a knee-jerk reassurance on my part. Instead, it opened up a whole new complex of emotions that I hadn't known were there. Yes, Jen, it would upset my ego not to have a baby born of you, the person that I love.

This didn't alter our relationship. Instead, her honest qualm provoking such an honest question made me realize that I wasn't such a hero. That I wasn't really ready to face childlessness with great maturity and big bravado. I told her I would need some help from her. And then we knew ourselves a whole lot better, thanks to our admissions of self-doubt.

And we were closer.

'Jesus, Oliver, you didn't bullshit.'

'Did the unheroic truth upset you, Jenny?'

'No, I'm glad.'

'How come?'

'Because I know you never bullshit, Oliver.'

Marce and I don't have that kind of conversation yet. I mean, she tells me when she's down and when she's nervous. And that she worries sometimes when she's on the road that I might find a new 'diversion'. Actually, that feeling's mutual. Yet strangely, when we talk we say the proper words, but they trip out too easily upon the tongue.

Maybe that's because I have exaggerated expectations. I'm impatient. People who have had a happy marriage know exactly what they need. And lack. But it's unfair to make precipitous demands of someone who has never had a … friend … that she could trust.

Still, I'm hoping someday she will need me more. That she will maybe even wake me up and ask me something like:

'If I can't have a baby, would you feel the same?'

'Marcie, I may cry a lot this week.'

It was 6 a.m. and we were standing at the airport.

'Eleven days,' she said. 'The longest that we've been apart.'

'Yeah,' I said, and smiled. 'But I was thinking I just might receive a dose of tear gas at the demonstration.'

'You act like you're looking forward to it, Oliver.'

'Touché. To catch a little gas is kind of macho in some circles. She had caught me with my ego down.

'And also don't provoke a goddamn cop,' she added.

'I promise. I'll behave.'

They called her flight. A fleeting kiss and then I trotted — yawning — to get on the shuttle down to Washington.

I candidly confess. I like it when Important Causes ask my help. This Saturday was New Mobe's huge November End-the-War parade in Washington. Three days earlier, the organizers called me to come down and help negotiate with all the boys in Justice. 'We really need your bod,' said Freddie Gardner. I was peacock proud until they told me that it wasn't only for my legal expertise but'

'cause you cut your hair and look like a Republican'.

The issue was what route the march would take. Traditionally, parades in Washington go right down Pennsylvania Avenue and by the Presidential Palace. Squads of government attorneys argued this one had to be more south. (How far? I thought. The Panama Canal?) Marcie got a blow-by-blow each night.

'Kleindienst kept insisting, "There'll be violence, there'll be violence." '

'How the hell did he know?' Marcie asked.

'That's just the point. I asked him, "How the fuck do you know?"'

'You employed those words?'

'Well … all but one. In any case he answerd, "Mitchell says so." '

'How the hell does Mitchell know?'

'I asked. He wouldn't answer. I had the sudden urge to throw a punch.'

'Oh, that's mature. Are you behaving, Oliver?'

'If sexy thoughts were crimes, then I'd get life.'

'I'm glad,' she said.

Our phone bills were phenomenal.

Thursday afternoon two bishops and a pride of priests arranged a Mass for Peace outside the Pentagon. We were forewarned that they would be arrested, so we had a congregation packed with lawyers.

'Was there any violence?' Marcie asked that evening.

'No. The cops were really courteous. But man, the crowd! It was incredible. They shouted, things at priests they wouldn't shout in drunken bars! Christ, I wanted to throw punches.'

'Did you?'

'Mentally.'

'That's good.'

'I miss you, Marce. I'd like to get my hands on you.'

'Keep that inside your head as well. What happened to the priests?'

'We had to go to court in Alexandria to help the bailing out. It went okay. Why did you change the goddamn subject? Can't I say I miss you?'

By Friday, the administration had revenge. Doubtless through the prayers of Mr Nixon (via Billy Graham), Washington was throttled by a cold wet chill. And yet it didn't stop the candlelight procession, headed by Bill Coffin, Yale's amazing chaplain. Damn, that guy's enough to bring me to religion. And in fact I went to hear him later in the National Cathedral. I just stood in back (the place was mobbed) and kind of breathed the solidarity. And would've given anything for Marcie's hand to hold.

As I was making my unprecedented visit to a house of God, in Du Pont Circle hordes of Yippies, Crazies, Weathermen and other mindless assholes staged a nasty riot. Thereby giving credibility to everything I'd been denying all week long.

'Those bastards!' I told Marcie on the phone. 'They aren't even for a cause — except self-advertisement.'

'Those are the guys you should have punched,' she said.

'You're goddamn right,' I said with disappointment.

'Where were you?'

'In church,' I said.

In rather rainbowed language Marcie indicated disbelief. Then I quoted Coffin's sermon and convinced her.

'Hey, you know,' she said, 'tomorrow's papers will have half a column on the service and three pages on the riot.'

Sadly, she was right.

I had trouble sleeping. I felt guilty that while I was in the poshness of my cheap motel, so many thousand marchers were encamping on cold floors and benches.

Saturday was chill and windy, but at least the rain had stopped. Having no one to bail out or anything to argue for, I wandered over to St Mark's, which was a rendezvousing place for everyone.

The church was filled with people bunking out, or having coffee, or just sitting silently to wait the cue. Everything had been well organized, with marshals to keep marchers from the cops (and vice versa). There were medicos to handle unexpected crises. Here and there I even saw a person over thirty.

By the coffee urn, some doctors were explaining to a group of volunteers how to react should tear gas manifest itself.

Sometimes when you're lonely, you imagine that you see a face you know. One female doctor looked extremely like … Joanna Stein.

'Hello,' she said, as I was pouring coffee. It was Joanna.

'Don't let me interrupt the first-aid seminar.'

'That's okay,' she said. 'I'm glad to see you here. How are you?'

'Cold,' I said.

I wondered if I should apologize for never having called her back. It didn't seem the moment.

Though I think her gentle face was asking.

'You look tired, Jo,' I said.

'We drove all night.'

'That's rough,' I said, and offered her a swig of coffee.

'Are you by yourself?' she asked.

What was her implication?

'I hope I'll be with half a million others,' I replied. And thought I'd covered every loophole.

'Yeah,' she said.

A pause.

'Uh, by the way, Jo, how's your family?'

'My brothers are down here somewhere. Mom and Dad are stuck in New York, playing.'

Then she added, 'Are you marching with a group?'

'Oh, sure,' I said, as casually as possible. And instantly regretted lying. For I knew she'd have invited me to join her friends.