!!!!!!!********WORKING DRAFT********!!!!!!!
The next three months breezed by, punctuated several times a week by letters from Mike. Reading them and writing back was always a break from the stress of school, both classwork and extracurriculars. Enveloped in his words, I tried to imagine the unfolding of spring in Connecticut. I shared my fears, anxieties that kept bubbling up, that I was never good enough, never would be. Things I would never say even to Lizzie, much less my mother or sister. His letters were seldom as dark; he had a perpetual rosy attitude about life and everything that happened to him. I began to think he used that optimism to avoid dealing with anything that didn’t go his way. His poems became fewer and farther between; those he sent were truly forgettable. He claimed that writing to me was replacing the urge, the need to discover his thoughts in verse.
He drove that Lancer, equipped with studded snow tires, back at the end of January, and again in March, for a week each time. That was just enough to keep us connected, but not enough, it seemed to me, to move us forward. We were suspended, satisfied with what we had, not lusting for anything more.
Mid-April, he sent another poem, shorter this time, that seemed a harbinger of better times. No title, just a date:
Cheeks acquiver,
Flaming rose
anoints their beauty.
Rushing joys
Deny the body
to control its own.
Cascading tresses,
Now unfurled
caress a fleeting passion.
Black yet shining
A world of
Ingenuous striving
is hidden there.
My father started watching the evening news, which every night showed frightening film from jungles on the other side of the world, in “East Southeast Asia”, as our history teacher Mr. Knab called it. Indochina, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos – it was a slow rumble which had escalated into a quickening roar. My brother Eddie, home with Charlotte and little Denise, spoke only of the “resistance”, and the “mobilization against the war” which the Students for a Democratic Society was organizing.
At school, it had also punctured into the conversations, along with fascination over hippies and strange new music. Songs not about simple love, but rather complexities of the world, competed with the Beatles and Beach Boys for airtime on AM radio. Names like Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Jimi Hendrix (why did they all seem to start with “J”?) burrowed past my filters, replacing the show tunes and songs of Streisand which used to live in my head. Always a little off to one side, I saw the world rushing past me faster than I could watch it go.
In the news room one day, Lizzie, Kit and Will were heatedly discussing how to process all this in our school paper. As I walked in, Will was intently pointing at Lizzie. “No, we can’t just do a fluff piece on the school review. I know the Pony Chorus is your little baby and all, but there are more important things happening. We should lead with something about the rally they’re having at Fountain Square next weekend, try and get as many kids out as possible. It’s important! We’ll all be gone next year, and we have to make sure the younger guys, the sophomores and juniors, carry on the struggle.” He turned to me. “Janie. What about it? Can you get through to your friend here?”
I’d just come from It’s Academic practice. I was part of our three person team, along with Phil Schwartz and Larry Schnieder, competing in the high school version of a popular TV show, College Bowl. Sort of a proto-Jeopardy, or maybe an off-shoot of Whiz Kids. We were the acknowledged brains of the class, ready to answer any question about math, science, history, literature, culture, or trivia. Each of us had a specialty: Phil was the math/science guy, Larry history and literature, which left me with culture and trivia. That was Janie Stein, filled with a bunch of useless facts, easily and quickly recalled.
I stared at Will, at his imploring moon-shaped face. I wondered if he and Mike would become friends at W, if there was anything at all which connected the two of them. Mike was cool, quiet, often with a blank exterior. Underneath, I knew, he boiled with passion, a hidden romantic who saw the world, and his life in it, as a continually evolving story. Will’s interior was open, always there for all the world to see. Hiding nothing, everything he thought was instantly available to anyone around him.
“I know!” he said. “Why don’t we go down to that rally this Saturday afternoon? Take some pictures, nose around a bit, get a read on kids at other schools, how they feel about the war and all.”
Lizzie moaned, “Our final dress rehearsal is Friday night, and then we open on Saturday. I’m gonna be exhausted. I just don’t have time to do that, Will.”
He turned to me. “What about it?” He looked exactly like a shaggy sheep dog, eyebrows raised expectantly.
I was torn three ways. Eddie had been drumming into me the importance of this moment, the need for action, not just concern. On the other hand, our It’s Academic team had the semi-final round against two other schools that morning. The half-hour show was live, airing at 11AM, which meant, win or lose, we’d do a post-mortem at the Big Boy drive-in afterwards.
And then there was Will himself. He seemed awfully eager to get me out there. I was suspicious of his motives, but he was so insistent, and I was so curious that I surprised myself by saying, “What time would we have to get there? I’ve got It’s Academic that morning, you know.”
“Oh yeah. Miss Brainiac. I forgot. It doesn’t start until around three. I can pick you up maybe at 2 o’clock?” I looked at Lizzie, hoping I’d find an ally there. But I knew she had to be back at school by 4, to get ready for the premiere of the review. I’d have to deal with Will all by myself if I wanted to be a part of the anti-war brigade.
That Saturday, Mr. Gleason drove us to the WLW studio. Phil and Larry sat silent, nervous in the back while I fidgeted with my necklace up front. There was really nothing we could do to prepare at this point, not knowing what any of the questions would be. The anticipatory anxiety was isolating each of us, apart together in that old Dodge sedan. I mentally reviewed the process. Each of us would have a button, able to buzz in at any point if we felt we knew an answer. Points were taken away for wrong answers, so guessing was not advised. But gut feelings were the way to go, Mr. Gleason had said. “You’ll know you know the answer before you think you do,” he’d said. Whatever that meant.
The studio lights glared down on us as we sat behind our desk, little name cards in front. Mine read “Sarah”. I hoped I’d remember to answer to that when called, instead of the “Janie” I’d come to be ever since third grade, when I thought my first given name was too old and frumpy. My forehead started to glisten with beads of sweat under those hot floods. Just before we started, a lady came over and patted our faces with powder. “Dearie, don’t worry, you’re gonna show these boys.” I looked across at the other two desks, and saw that I was the only girl on stage. I thought of Lizzie, high-kicking before a different audience that night in her fishnet tights, chest held high, long hair flung from side-to-side while the chorus line counted out its final kicks, “…65, 66, 67.” I wondered what the poor kids in the class of ’99 would be doing? And how the kids in the year 2000 would get to be so lucky.
In the end, we slaughtered the other two schools, going on to the finals where we would be up against the Catholic league champs from St. Xavier and the county league winners from Princeton. Princeton, the same team Mike and Beto had to beat to get to the state debate tournament. At least this would be the end of the line for us, only one more round to go.
A bunch of kids from school were there, all bouncing and happy. Everyone was grabbing hands, shouting at our success. Phil and Larry looked a little pleased with themselves, but were standing off to the side. Being more accessible, I found myself smiling in a group of girls, simply relieved my time in the spotlight was over. Through that mob came Will, who grabbed me suddenly in a giant bear hug, nearly lifting me off the ground. “You’re the best, Janie. So quick. I loved it when you knew all those Rodgers and Hammerstein songs.” He finally let me down, but kept a hand on each of my upper arms. I was wearing a sleeveless jumper, on the advice of my mother, who knew how hot the studio would be. I didn’t really want him fawning all over me, but didn’t know how to stop it in the aftermath of our victory. I backed away as best I could without actually throwing his hands off me.
“We’re going to the Big Boy now,. just the team. A ‘de-brief’, Gleason calls it. I’ll see you at 2? You know how to get to my house?”
“Of course, right off Clifton? I’ll be there, don’t worry. Here’s hoping we don’t get arrested.”
“You serious?”
Quickly, Will said, “No, no, don’t worry. It’s just, they’re so much more conservative here in Cincinnati, and you know what happened out in California, when they started having these kinds of rallies there.” He had these hooded, wolfish eyes, and I though I saw a slight bit of menace behind the smile.
In the end, the rally was polite, benign. Local politicians and religious leaders spoke for over an hour. A representative each from the colleges, UC and Xavier, politely asked the mayor and the governor to consider – not “pass”, just “consider” – resolutions against the war. A kid from Western Hills High School got up for five minutes, talking about how it was “Our time to stand up for what’s right. I’m seventeen, and I don’t think I should have to fight in a war that’s wrong, that takes a country away from its people.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,’ I whispered to Will. “I thought we were fighting the Communists there.”
He looked down a bit disparagingly at me, saying, “I think you’ve got a lot to learn, Janie.”
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