John Gardner - The Sunlight Dialogues

“Got to clean this mess out,” he said aloud. “Matter of just settling down to it.” Panic flooded his chest and he reached for a cigar. As he was just about to strike the match he became aware of the murmur of voices from the cellblock. Bearded one holding forth again. Clumly studied his cigar and noticed the scratches on the side of his hand. Now that he noticed them he could feel them again. Not a pain, exactly; a presence. Musing on the scratches, thinking nothing whatever as far as he knew, he walked slowly over to the door that opened on the hallway leading to the cells. He glanced casually to his left and saw that no one in the front office was looking, then walked on, still casually, in the direction of the cellblock. A few feet from the door, where none of the prisoners but Boyle could see him, he stopped, leaned against the wall, and lighted the cigar. Boyle looked over the paper at him, then went back to his everlasting reading.

“It’s a question of point of view,” the bearded prisoner explained. He would be sitting with his big white hands on his knees, that burnt, hairy face looking up at the ceiling, infinitely sad. He sounded now incredibly like one of those lawyers summing up, tyrannical and grandiose. “It’s not pure madness to maintain that Society is rotten — rotten beyond all hope of redemption. Not at all! I don’t hold with that view, naturally, but it’s not pure madness, I give you my official word. Take a place like Watts, for instance. The evil of the ghetto is clear enough, yes? — and Los Angeles is maybe the richest city in the world. Average income of four hundred dollars a day, I read somewhere. They could do something — churches, Chamber of Commerce, businesses — but do they? Not till it explodes. And what does a city like Los Angeles do then? There are two possibilities. (Correct me if I’m wrong.) Go in with tommyguns, kill a few men, put the rioters down, place Watts under martial law. Or fiddle around — second alternative — let the fires die slowly, arrange for what’s called Serious Talks. What comes of all this? If martial law stops the riot, the result is a return to the old evil, no change of any significance. Why? Because responsible officials are responsible to voters, and mostly the people of places like Watts don’t vote. On the other hand, if you use Serious Talks, those Serious Talkers talk on and on, the way Serious Talkers always do, and the population keeps climbing in Watts and the responsible officials get busier and busier with the problem of houses that slide down hills, and pretty soon another explosion, more stores on fire. Burn, baby, burn, as the spade people say. If you happen to be a responsible citizen who feels a modicum of Christian concern for his unfortunate brothers, you try to mobilize public sentiment, you write letters, make phonecalls, talk to your fellow Elks. Result? Your wife divorces you on the grounds that you’re a nut, inattentive, also impotent. Which you are, it may be. Your boss discovers you’re not as efficient as a machine he can get. Your church slides into the persuasion that you’re out to block the Bishops’ Fund. In short, you are given good reasons for pulling your head in. Also, of course, you inevitably pick up some friends you could manage without: to wit, queers, neurotic ladies, Jewish psychiatrists, Muslim boys, and young Presbyterian assistant ministers. Those who hold this position (which I do not hold) would argue that the responsible citizen necessarily gives up. The situation is hopeless, and as a reasonable man the responsible citizen becomes indifferent. All the available options disgust him, from Ayn Rand to CORE to the Birch Society. He learns to punch the button and collect his check. In the exceptional case of the man who refuses to renounce his human dignity (as the newspapers call it), well, for him, gentlemen and friends, the outlook is by no means bright. He becomes, unwittingly, a Hell’s Angel of sorts, a rebellious lunatic defying the society he lives in. There’s a difference, of course. The Hell’s Angel holds up no model in opposition to the society he hates. The Just Man defies society in the name of a dead cause. He is somewhat more confused than the Hell’s Angel (this position would hold), but he does not recognize his confusion. In other words, in nontechnical terminology, he’s crazy. Ah! As I say, I do not myself hold this opinion — or any other. I am the strawberry eater, the skylight smasher — in a word, King Solomon’s cod. Meanwhile, let it be mournfully added, Watts — for all the failures of high-minded Christian citizens of the master race, or machine guns, or Talk — Watts takes care of itself, from inside, for no known reason. The people become proud, it may be. Or they overflow with foolish, sentimental emotion, and they improve the damn place! Life has no shame.”

A long silence.

“This is called Capitalism,” he said. “A deadly sickness of taste.”

Abruptly, again almost before he knew what he was thinking, Clumly strode down the hall to get the cell keys.

CLUMLY: You’re an intelligent man. What was your purpose, writing love on a busy highway?

PRISONER: The world needs more love. — Don’t you think so, brother?

CLUMLY: Is that any way to get it?

PRISONER: When the spirit say paint …

CLUMLY: Stop talking gibberish. Listen, I’ll tell you something. I don’t ask these questions out of idle curiosity. I’m interested. I feel friendly toward you, generally speaking. Also, of course—

PRISONER: It’s your job.

CLUMLY: Correct. You spoke of the Hell’s Angels. Are you—

PRISONER: Certainly not.

CLUMLY: Maybe we’re getting somewhere, finally.

PRISONER: Nonsense.

CLUMLY: Do you come from California?

PRISONER: I come from the Lord of Hosts.

CLUMLY: Don’t do that. Answer my question.

PRISONER: I’ve forgotten what it was.

CLUMLY (patiently): Do you come from California?

PRISONER: Why do you keep pacing? Sit down. You make me nervous.

CLUMLY: I’ll decide when it’s time to sit down.

PRISONER: No you won’t. You’ll put it off till the last minute and then you’ll fall on your ass. I had an uncle did that. It was terrible.

CLUMLY: Just answer the questions. Cigar?

PRISONER: Thank you. With pleasure. Why do you shake so?

CLUMLY: You’ll shake the same way when you’re sixty-four.

PRISONER: Bad for the system, no question about it. Does it worry you much? Worries the little woman, I’ll bet! Good cigar, though. There are always compensations!

CLUMLY: Where do you live?

PRISONER: Big old house on LaCrosse, with a blind woman. (Pause.)

CLUMLY: What in hell are you up to? How did you find that out?

PRISONER: Startling, isn’t it.

CLUMLY: Shut up.

PRISONER: Take it easy! I used to be a fortune teller. Learned lots of tricks. Are you sick of her — the blind woman?

CLUMLY: Of course not. Stop that!

PRISONER: Sorry.

CLUMLY: What do you do? Is it true that you’re a college man, a student?

PRISONER: I run a business. Big desk, time cards, things like that. I worry a lot, worry myself sick. Makes me do weird things, if I may speak in confidence. Strictest confidence. Or whatever the expression is. There are certain people who know secrets about me, but I’m not yet sure who they are. I find it difficult to trust people. Sometimes I think — I can trust you, I hope? — sometimes I think of doing downright deranged things. Shall I tell you?

CLUMLY: What is this?

PRISONER (intensely): I have thoughts of spying on my boss, listening outside his window. It’s insane, I know. I resist it, naturally. Nevertheless, sometimes the desire comes over me and — Christ! What’s this world coming to, I wonder? Do bosses talk to their wives, do you think? Do they get phonecalls, perhaps? (Pause.) A man could crouch there in the dark outside the window, in the shrubbery, say …