I Was Working for the Commies
Spring 1971. I walked down a sycamore tree lined avenue in HOMETOWN AMERICA. One I had walked a thousand times. The smell of mimeograph ink followed me down the avenue. I was toting the Pentagon Papers, abridged version, run off on a machine that came to America on the mayflower. Pilgrims and printing. I was going door to door, bringing enlightenment to America’s unwashed.
Down the tree lined avenue there was a pink flat top house. I walked up the worn sidewalk and knocked on the door. Scurrying sounds and shrill barking came from behind the torn screen door, as if a mouse was barking. I knocked again and the barking became shriller. I assumed that this was a very nervous mouse like dog.
The door opened and a voluminous women filled the door frame. She looked like a giant pink sausage in a pink mumu. A giant pink sausage in a flat top pink house accompanied by a scurrying, non pink barking mouse. The still scurrying mouse dog appeared to be about 5 lbs. Very big for a mouse, small for a dog. The pink lady’s hair was in curlers, the kind that were popular in the 50’s. Tight little circles of pink plastic all over her pink head. Her cheeks were pushing against the pink skin of her face, her neck was banded by tight ringlets of restraint, her mumu went all the way to the linoleum floor. I could see her pink sausage toes sticking out from under the mumu. Toes quite a bit wider than your average hot dog.
“May I help you?”
“Yes, I am a college student and I’m traveling door to door giving out the Pentagon Papers to local residents.” I held out an inky copy for her to see. She didn’t look at the papers. The mouse dog was now hiding under her mumu. It poked its nose out and barked a couple of times, then back under the mumu.
“The Pentagon Papers? You mean like on the news? Those pentagon papers?” She seemed suspicious.
“Yes, the same. Only it has been shortened to include key items like the war was started by Truman and Eisenhower and was really a war about the Chinese Communists. The Viet Minh, Diem, LBJ. And about secret financial aid to France. Like that. It was over 7000 pages. We can’t carry that much paper. So, it is reduced to 20 pages. Just the key points. We ran it off on a mimeograph machine. That’s the ink smell. Can you smell the ink? I can. Of course, it is all over me as well as the papers.” I was rattling on. Continue reading “Round Trip Chapter 1”