Jane Smiley - Early Warning

David hugged her like he was really glad to see her, and he looked tanned and fit from working at the golf course. He’d had to cut his hair, but it was growing out.

The argument was not with David, but with Jeff MacDonald, whose job was at an “underground newspaper,” a bunch of typed articles that they dittoed, stapled together, and handed out on street corners. The argument started when David admitted that he had hit some balls at a driving range earlier in the week. Jeff said, not joking, but in that teachery way he had, “I told you you weren’t reliable, and anyway, have you given me twenty-five percent of your tips?”

David scowled, and Debbie said, “Why is he giving you twenty-five percent of his tips?”

“The ruling class has to fund its own overthrow.”

“Are you talking about the ruling-class players on a public course, like old Italian guys and people who work in factories?”

David said, “Deb—”

She went back to picking the olives off her pizza. In the nine months or so that she and David had been dating, Debbie had gotten used to Jeff MacDonald and didn’t take him very seriously anymore. But she did not want to overthrow the ruling class; she wanted to end the war in Vietnam.

The three boys continued to talk about tips. Nathan, who was waiting tables at a diner on Main Street, was making twenty-eight dollars a week plus forty in tips. His share of the rent was fifty dollars. David was making fifty a week plus caddying, which could be another fifty, but could also be another ten, and that didn’t take rainy days into consideration. Jeff, of course, was not putting in his share of the rent, because the paper was too radical to have a large paying audience, but they had handed out fifty copies last week and fifty-three this week. Jeff and the editor had debated about whether they should carry advertising — there was a head shop on Pearl Street that would pay for an ad, and that guy knew a tarot-card reader.

Debbie stifled a smile. Jeff saw it, because he said, irritably, “So I guess your old man was taken out by his fellow spooks.”

As soon as he said this, she knew David had told her secret. She said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah,” said Jeff. “You do. But I don’t think you should take it personally. There are more important things in the struggle than the fate of individuals.”

“I’m surprised you think that,” said Debbie, “when the most important thing to you always seems to be that you have the last word.”

“If I consider my analysis to be more correct, then I have to make sure it’s understood.”

“You have an analysis of my father’s…illness when you aren’t a psychiatrist and you haven’t met him and you’ve never even talked to me about it?”

“I don’t have to know particular individuals in order to understand that the ruling class will do anything to retain control of the means of production and of the organs of indoctrination.”

“Yeah,” said Debbie, “Like 1984. ”

“Mistakes have been made.” He shrugged. “Look what they did to Bobby Kennedy. I’m not saying I liked Bobby Kennedy. He remained pretty reactionary, but that’s the key. He got just a little out of line and they shot him.”

Nathan said, “They haven’t shot Eugene McCarthy.”

“He has no charisma and no chance,” said Jeff. “They know that. You know there’s five hundred thousand American soldiers in Vietnam? Why do you think they’re there? Culling! We have a big generation. Once everyone is drafted, they cull us. What do you think friendly fire is? When we’ve been trained to toe the line, then they’ll bring everyone home and put them to work, and you’ll never hear a peep out of our generation again. JFK was the first warning shot, MLK the second, and RFK the third.”

“That was in your paper,” said David.

“Yes, it was.”

“You’re ‘Kropotkin’?” said David.

Debbie laughed out loud, but it was an angry laugh. Jeff looked right at her. She said, “Everyone in the world knows that communism doesn’t work. Even my aunt Eloise knows that.”

“Peter Kropotkin was an anarchist.”

“Party of one,” said Debbie.

Jeff pushed his glasses up his nose. David was staring at his half-eaten slice of pizza. Debbie expected Jeff to start in about Tim somehow. Her fingers were trembling. But Jeff said, in his most superior voice, “What happens after the third warning shot? Well, the revolution begins, and it’s about to. Clearly, you think that everyone was upset when Martin Luther King was put out of his misery by a CIA hit man. Don’t you recognize crocodile tears when you see them? Ask Eldridge. Whites hated him, even though King didn’t really realize that until the very last moment, and blacks with any sense had come to hate him, too, because he didn’t understand whites. He thought, if black people were just good boys and girls, then the folks up at the big house would let them grow up. Bobby Seale and Eldridge know better. They’re glad he’s dead. And, for the same reason, I’m glad RFK is dead. Everybody has to die eventually. But if you are standing in the way, if people think you’re going to change everything but really you aren’t, you can’t, and you don’t even want to, because your idea is that if poor people need houses they just need to suck up to big business even harder than they already do, then better to die sooner rather than later.” He pushed his glasses up again and looked around the restaurant. His voice had risen. Now he lowered it. He said, “That’s what I think.”

Debbie said, “That is just a bunch of bullshit.”

“You ask your dad the spook. You ask him what is really going on. Go ahead, I dare you.”

Debbie said, “Do you think I would want to live under a government that you ran or set up? It’s all very nice to say you’re an anarchist, but you only want anarchy for yourself. For the rest of us, you want to make sure we do what you say, think how you think, and remember you’re the boss. You ask me why you wear that jacket or give away that piece of crap on the street, even though you know that when people take it they just throw it in the next trash can, or why you wear those glasses right out of Doctor Zhivago ? You just want to get laid, like every guy. My brother, Dean, thinks playing hockey is going to get him laid. You think pretending you are some Russian is going to get you laid — big fucking difference.” She tossed her head. “You wouldn’t mind running General Motors. You hate big business just because you’re not the boss. If, by some magic trick, you got to be the president of…of…of Dow, you’d do it, and you would be happy to make napalm, too, because if you don’t care about one person getting killed, then you don’t care about any person getting killed. You’re just a heartless asshole.”

David had already stood up, and now he said, “I think we should leave.”

“I’m not leaving with him,” said Debbie.

“We don’t have to,” said David. He took her hand, and pulled her toward the door. Outside, it was hot and very sunny. When they had gotten about halfway down the block, David said, “I guess his dad is in the Teamsters Union in Pittsburgh. They’ve always been pretty militant. And his grandfather knew Big Bill Haywood.”

“He doesn’t—”

“I mean, it’s not like he speaks to his dad. I don’t think they’ve spoken since Jeff was fifteen or something. He doesn’t agree with his dad, and he always says, ‘If you work in the factory, even if you are in a union, then you are still agreeing that the factory should exist.’ ”

“Well, the factory should exist. Is your mom going to make your clothes, and are your sisters going to dip candles and carry buckets of water up from the river?”