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.
“Those papers were stolen, weren’t they? From the government?”
I thought about that for a second or two. “Daniel Ellsberg liberated them.”
“Liberated them?”
“Yes, he liberated the papers because of his conscience. He helped write the papers.” The lady in the mumu did not look convinced. The mouse dog barked twice. Bark. Bark.
“And you believe that these papers are the truth? The real truth?”
“Why not? Yes. I do.”
The pink lady looked at me like I was a misguided youth that desperately needed help. “Can you wait a moment? Right here on the porch. I have to get something.” The mouse had stopped barking and was still hiding under the mumu. It poked it’s head out and growled. A growling mouse.”
“OK”
I heard tinkling from the inside of the pink flat top house on the tree lined avenue. Then a pouring sound, something into a glass. She reappeared carrying a glass full of brown liquid and ice. It smelled like whiskey. She also had a photo album. A thick, fat, photo album that was tattered at the edges and had paper sticking out everywhere, like she had stuffed it with paper. The barking mouse was under her mumu. I could hear it growling and see its small, aggravated form pushing against the mumu like an actor behind a curtain. Then the women in the mumu opened the torn screen door onto the porch. There were a few chairs and a rusted steel table on the porch. She looked at me as she set the brown liquid in a glass on the table with the photo album.
“Sit down. I have to tell you a story.”
“A story?”
“Yes. A story.”
“What about?” I didn’t want to get trapped. Reviewing family photos and learning about Uncle Ned’s carp fishing hobby was not how I needed to spend the afternoon.
“You’ll see. Sit down.”
I sat down. Why would I not sit down? When a pink sausage lady in a mumu that conceals a barking or, for now, only growling mouse tells you to sit down because I HAVE TO TELL YOU A STORY you sit down and listen to the story. I set the pentagon papers on the extra chair, sat down, and waited.
It took the pink sausage lady a while to move to the chair. There was some heavy breathing and a little grunting accompanied by low growling. I heard a swishing sound as she moved across the porch, like she was storing crepe paper under the mumu. A little sweat began to accumulate on her brow, her neck, and even on her fingers. Sweaty sausage hands. I was beginning to get a little worried. Is she going to tell me a story about her mouse dog or her tv set or her pink house? My mother would never sweat like that. She might glisten, but no sweat.
She started off as soon as she sat down.
“In 1940 Thomas Dewey was running for the Republican candidacy for president.” She took a drink of the brown liquid then put the glass down on the rusty table and smiled at me. Sausage smile.
“Thomas Dewey?”
“Yes, Thomas Dewey. You have heard of Thomas Dewey?”
“Uh, I guess so.”
She opened the brown picture album and pointed at a faded picture of a man in a hat at the back of a train car, waving.
“See this. Dewey. Thomas Dewy.”
“Yes, I see. Old Photo.”
She looked at me with a furrowed brow. “I was a volunteer for his campaign. See, here, behind the train, that’s me.”
She didn’t look like a sausage back then. More like Rosy the Riveter. Big, Strong, Tough.
“He was an ISOLATIONIST. He did not believe that we should enter the war in Europe. Many people felt that way. It seemed like WW 1 was just yesterday, so nobody wanted to do that again.” She took another hit of the brown liquid. Smiled at me again. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to see another world war.
“No, I’m sure no one wanted that.”
“You’re damn right no one wanted that. Particularly HITLER.”
A little drop of sweat left her nose and dropped onto the shelf of her mumu when she said HITLER
“Hitler was an ISOLATIONIST?”
“Of course, Hitler was an ISOLATIONIST. You Idiot.”
“Yes, I guess he was. An ISOLATIONIST. I guess.” Now I began to sweat.
“And Hitler liked other ISOLATIONISTS. You know, because of France and Poland and all that. I discovered that Hitler, being an ISOLATIONIST, sent money to the Dewey Campaign. I saw the little envelopes at meetings. Full of money.”
“Deutsch Marks?”
“No, you idiot, there were American dollars in the envelopes.” There was that word again. I was beginning to believe it.
“American money. I get it.” I didn’t get it.
“Hitler secretly supported the ISOLATIONIST campaigns. And I worked for Dewey. SO, I WORKED FOR HITLER IF YOU WANT TO LOOK AT IT THAT WAY.”
“You worked for Hitler?”
“Stop repeating me.”
“OK, I’ll stop repeating you.”
She glared at me again, but this time as Rosy the Riveter, not madam mumu. By now my mind was swirling with images of the glass of whiskey, the photo album, Thomas Dewy, Deutsch Marks, the barking mouse, Hitler, and envelopes bulging with American dollars delivered by Satan Himself. Not to mention Ho Chi Minh and hordes of Viet Cong in pajamas streaming down main street America. Commies everywhere. Help!
“You ARE an idiot you know. Don’t you understand? The commies brought out the Pentagon Papers. They made them up. They planted them in the State Department and paid Ellsberg to steal them. They want America to back down. They want us to quit. The commies are like HITLER. They are isolationists. And you are working for the commies.”
I heard that. The commies. CHRIST, I WAS WORKING FOR THE COMMIES. I stared down at the concrete porch. I WAS WORKING FOR THE COMMIES.
I noticed that the little mouse dog under the mumu was trying to get out. His nose poked through right by her left foot. I also noticed she wore a ring on her little toe of her left foot. It might have been a mood ring. A bad mood ring. I think she was in a bad mood ever since she worked for Hitler.
I WAS WORKING FOR THE COMMIES.
CHRIST, I WAS WORKING FOR THE COMMIES.