“There are some merchants,” the man said, though it was clear, from the tone of rehearsal that he brought to his speech, that they had not entered conversation, “I’ve heard about who, not Jews themselves, affect Jewishness. They do it superstitiously, much as a smithy hangs his first horseshoe above his door or the owner of a tavern frames his beginning dollar. Are you such a merchant, Feldman? Such as I’ve described, trading on your Christian credit to appease some Rothschild Cash and Carry Immanence?”
In a panic Feldman tried to remember Freedman’s telephone number and couldn’t.
“I’ve asked if you’re Jewish, Feldman.”
“Half Jewish,” he said, projecting a disparagement of the Jewish half.
“Oh,” the man said, disappointed, and once more was silent. But the buttons had come out again. Observing the man closely, Feldman saw that as he shifted he raised one shoulder slightly, swelling only half his chest. It was a puzzling, schizophrenic business, and he was not sure what to make of it, save that he knew he preferred the ingenious shoulder to the rigid, brooding one. He had to make the stranger keep the badges forward.
On a hunch he boldly put out his hand and fingered one of the tin buttons, the one with the American flag. “Old Glory,” Feldman said.
The man sat uneasily under Feldman’s touch but did not pull back.
Feldman’s finger moved to another button. “AFSAF,” he said. “FAFAC.” He opened his drawer and rummaged in it for a moment. “Here it is. I knew I had it,” he said, handing his find to the stranger.
“This is a paper clip,” the man said.
Feldman winked and took it back. “So,” he said expansively, something settled between them. “So!” He nodded forcefully. He had an idea now why the man had come: for a contribution. He leaned forward and glared at him. Then, inspired, he turned to the other lapel, the one without the buttons, and stared at it fixedly. After a moment the man moved his arm across his chest in a long, slow diagonal like some mystic fraternal salute, and taking the edge of the lapel, he turned it inside out. A hidden button was revealed.
“RAFAPACALFAF,” he said.
“How long,” Feldman asked, “have you been, ah…interested?”
“I haven’t seen yours,” the man said.
“I don’t belong,” Feldman said. “I don’t approve of their methods.” A pain swept over the man’s face. “Have you heard about my labor policies?” Feldman asked quickly. “I’m off the charge plate, did you know that?” Then he leaned forward, brushing the buttons contemptuously with the back of his hand. “I’m more comfortable with the renegade than I am with the convert. There are good words that can be said for confessed former Communists. I won’t deny it, but there’s something embarrassing in a new passion. Give me men who keep their instincts. The Northern racist, give me him, whose best argument is his prickling skin, his crawling flesh, his abhorrence fingerprinted in his cells. Give me snarlers who bare their teeth at the soul’s traif. Phooey on the isometric heart, the soul like a cleft palate or unequal feet. Am I taking a chance with you? Am I?” he challenged.
The man was silent. Then, “They’re getting away with murder,” he said softly.
“Am I taking a chance with you?” Feldman insisted. The man looked confused. “The buttons. Your buttons. So many eggs, so many baskets. I know what those cost you, you. The garish orchestration of your politics, a tune for turncoats, fa la la. First one thing and then another.”
“They’re getting away with murder,” the man said again.
“We agree in principle,” Feldman said sharply.
“They have to be stopped,” the man said, and his face went through an extraordinary change, a relaxation, giving way to a kind of gravity he had been resisting. Feldman understood that his brief rhetoric had been rehearsed. Now there was something fervid as falling about him. He might have been dropping through the air in a parachute.
“We agree in principle. Go on,” Feldman commanded.
“There are movements afoot,” the man said with the same blank passion. “A conspiracy.” His voice achieved the word. “The nationhood threatened,” he said so feelingly that he seemed close to tears. “Rioters. Looting. So-called civil rights.” As if these phrases had triggered his message, he began to talk rapidly now. Kennedy’s assassination. A signal. Their call to arms. A blood sacrifice — theirs. The Mistaken’s. Pervasive moral collapse. Municipal swimming pools and city parks systems usurped, national parks next. Muggings in the Grand Canyon, rape in Yellowstone. The debilitating effect of modern music: jungle rhythms, chaos. Basements tactics of the so-called Black Muslims. Trouble in so-called Asia. Prayer in schools, together with other decisions of the so-called Supreme Court. In a blueprint — he personally had seen the blueprint.
“You’ve seen the blueprint?”
“Yes. I’ve seen it.”
“Go on.”
The Mistaken were actually three and a half months ahead of schedule, and gaining at a rate of thirty-eight minutes a day. An hour and a half on the Sabbath while the nation slept. “Wake up, America!” he finished. “Oh, for God’s sake, wake up before it’s too late!” Then, as if to reassure himself that it wasn’t, he looked at his watch.
“Guns,” Feldman said quietly. “You want guns. And ammo. Plenty of ammo.”
“What?”
“Be quiet,” Feldman said. “Let me think. Who’s with you?”
The man blinked at him.
“Who’s with you? What’s your membership? The usual smattering of retired generals, I suppose, old ladies with cat hairs on their shawls, one of two sore losers from Cuba and Budapest. Is that the element?”
“I want—”
“You want, you want. I know what you want. You want a radio ministry. Fifteen minutes a day at six-fifteen in the morning. ‘Wake up, America,’ indeed. Do you know who listens to those programs? Shut-ins. People on turnpikes who drive all night to save on motels. I know what you want. You want pamphlets in bus stations and flags for the poor. Sit still. Sit still. This is important. Arm.”
“What?”
“Arm, goddamn it! The so-called British are coming. Arm! But the American way — with American weapons. Do you know what I see? A militia of deer hunters in red-checkered vests. A calvary of coon hounds. An arsenal of sporting goods and bombs in Cokes. A Winchester in every golf bag. Poisoned fishhooks and hangmen’s line. Wake up, American! Force! How much money you got?”
“I don’t see how—”
“How much money you got?” He waved his hand at the man’s lapel. “Don’t tell me that jewelry comes cheap. Don’t jew around with me. We’ll need sleeping bags, canteens, plenty of canvas tents and first aid kits. Don’t expect to get away without casualties. If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. We’ll need Sterno, charcoal grills, paper plates, walkie-talkies. And don’t forget the transistor batteries for the walkie-talkies.”
Whoopee, Feldman thought. Whoopee yi o ki yay. This is it. This is. “Tear-gas fountain pens,” he said. “Cattle prods. And flags, plenty of flags. Let them know who we are. And the rifles! And the ammo for the rifles! Forty thousand dollars. I can equip an outfit of two hundred men and put them in the field for forty thousand dollars. You got forty thousand dollars?”