I’d overplayed it, and now I was stuck with them. All I’d really wanted was someone to hold Stan off with, but they weren’t about to let a bona fide hero of the revolution get away. I was hauled bodily into the midst of a gaggle of college types and plunked down into a seat between Joan and Clydine. I could hear a ripple of whispers circling out from where I sat, and I slouched lower in my seat, wishing the floor would open under me.
The movie was good — not as good as I’d expected, but then they never really are — and I enjoyed it despite the need to keep up my little masquerade.
After it was over, one hairy young cat suggested we all go up to his pad and blow some grass. I saw an easy out for myself. I took Clydine aside out in the lobby.
“Uh — look, Clydine,” I said in a slightly embarrassed undertone, “I don’t want to crimp the party, but my parole officer and the local office of the FBI are staying awfully close to me. They’re just waiting for the chance to bust me back into the big joint, and if they caught me at a pot party, well — I’ll just split out and —”
Her eyes flashed indignantly. She had gorgeous eyes, very large. “Stay right here,” she ordered me. “Don’t you dare move.” She circled off through the crowd with her long dark hair streaming out behind her, and her little fanny twitching interestingly in her tight jeans. She was back in about a minute and a half.
“It’s all fixed, Danny,” she told me. “We’re all going to the Blue Goose for beer instead.” She grabbed my arm again. I felt Joan move in on the other side. Trapped.
The Blue Goose was a beer joint near the campus, and by the time we got there the place was packed to the rafters. Word had leaked out.
Clydine and Joan brought me in like the head of John the Baptist. All they needed was a plate — and maybe an ax.
“Danny,” Clydine said in an undertone, “I hate to say this, but I’ve forgotten your last name, and if I’m going to introduce you —”
“No last names,” I muttered to her quickly. “The FBI —” I left it hanging again.
Her eyes narrowed, and she nodded conspiratorially. “I understand,” she said, “leave everything to me.”
“I won’t be able to stay long,” I said. “I think I’ve shaken off my tail but —”
The rest of the evening was like something out of a very bad spy movie or one of those Russian novels of the late nineteenth century. I said as little as possible, concentrating on drinking the beer that everybody in the place seemed intent on buying for me.
A number of girls insisted on kissing me soundly, if indiscriminately, about the head. Even one guy with a beard slipped up behind me and planted one on my cheek. He called it the “kiss of brotherhood,” but if he carries on like that with his brothers, his family has serious problems. Still, it was the first time I’d ever been kissed by anybody with a beard. I can’t really say that I recommend it, all things considered.
After a couple hours I was getting a little bent out of shape from all the beer. Most of the time the place was deadly quiet. Everybody just sat there, watching me guzzle down the suds. Now I know how the girl feels who provides the entertainment at stag parties.
Most of the conversation consisted of half-spoken questions and cryptic answers, followed by long intervals of silence while they digested the information. “Was it — ?” one young guy with a mustache asked.
“Yeah,” I said, “pretty much.”
They thought about that.
“Is there any kind of — well, you know — among the resisters, I mean?” another one asked.
“I don’t think I should — well — the guys still inside — you know.”
They kicked that around for a while.
“Do the other inmates — ?”
“Some do. Some don’t.”
That shook them.
“Do you think a guy really ought to — ? Instead of — well, you know.”
“That’s something everybody’s got to decide for himself,” I said. I could say that with a straight face, because I really believed it. “When the time comes, you’re the one with your head in the meat grinder. After all the speeches and slogans — from all possible sides — you’re still the one who has to decide which button you’re going to push because it’s your head that’s going to get turned into hamburger.”
That really got to them.
“I’d better split now,” I said, lurching to my feet. I walked heavily toward the door, feeling just a little like James Bond — or maybe Lenin — or just possibly like Baron Munchausen. I turned at the doorway and gave them the peace sign — they’d earned it. Look at all the beer they’d bought me.
“Keep the faith,” I said in a choked-up voice. Then I went on out.
The patter of little bare feet behind me told me that I hadn’t really escaped after all.
“You’d better go on back to your friends, Clydine,” I said, not bothering to look around.
Glom! She had me by the arm again. She pulled me to a halt beside my car.
“Danny,” she said, looking up at me. “I think you’re just the most — well —” She climbed up my arm hand over hand and pulled my face down to hers.
Despite some bad experiences, I’m not a woman-hater. On the whole, I think the idea of two sexes is way out front of any possible alternatives. I responded to Clydine’s kiss with a certain enthusiasm.
After a while she pulled her face clear and looked at me, her big eyes two pools of compassion behind those gogglelike granny glasses.
“How long has it been, Danny?” she whispered.
As a matter of fact it had been a little better than a month.
“Too long,” I said brokenly, “too long.”
She let go of me, opened the door of my car, and got in.
“Will there be any problem at the place where you live?” she asked matter-of-factly.
“No,” I told her, starting the car.
We drove across town to the trailer park in silence. Clydine nestled against my shoulder. In spite of the shabby clothes which she wore as a sort of uniform, she smelled clean. That’s a pretty common misconception about girls like Clydine. I’ve never met one yet who wasn’t pretty clean most of the time.
As a matter of fact, the first thing she did when we got to my trailer was to go into the bathroom and wash her bare feet.
“I wouldn’t want to get your sheets all filthy,” she said. She stopped suddenly, her hand flying to her mouth. Silently she mouthed the words “Is this place bugged?” at me. Too many movies.
Motioning her to silence, I picked up my FM transistor from the coffee table and stuffed the earplug into the side of my head. I turned it on, picking up a fairly good Beethoven piano sonata — which she, of course, couldn’t hear. I made a pretense of checking out the trailer.
“It’s clean,” I told her, switching it off.
“How does that —”
“It’s a little modification,” I said. “An old con in the joint showed me how. You get anywhere near a microphone with it and you pick up a feedback — you know, a high-pitched whistle.” I jerked the plug and switched the piano sonata back on. “And that’ll blank out any directional mike from outside.” I moved carefully to all the windows, looking out and then pulling the drapes. Then I locked the door. I go to movies, too.
“We’re all secure now,” I said.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“I understand, Danny. Maybe after.”
I wished to hell she wouldn’t be so cold-blooded about it.
“You want a drink?” I asked. I always get nervous. I always have.
“Well, maybe a little one.”
I mixed us a couple, hitting hers a little hard with bourbon. I didn’t want her to get away.
We sat on the couch drinking silently. I just sipped at mine. I didn’t want to booze myself out of action.
She took off the granny glasses and laid them on the table. Without the damned things, she had a cute little face. She was one of those short, perky little girls who used to get elected cheerleaders before all this other stuff came along. Then, without so much as turning a hair, she shucked off the sweatshirt. She wasn’t wearing a bra.
My faint worry about the booze turned out to be pretty irrelevant.
She stood up, her frontage coming to attention like two pink little soldiers. “Let’s go to bed now, shall we?” she said and walked on back down the narrow hallway to the bedroom.