“Police brutality!” the two prisoners chanted with him.
Penny and the dazed spitter stood off a little way watching the struggle arising from this latest development. The young man was coming back to his senses. Trembling, he removed his hand from Penny’s and began fumbling in his pocket. The first thing he came up with was a money clip containing two one-dollar bills, a social security card, a driver’s license and a draft card. He fumbled some more, and his hand emerged with what he’d been seeking—a pack of cigarettes. Once more he dipped into his pocket, and this time he came up with a pack of matches.
He stuck a cigarette in his mouth and put the pack back in his pocket. Absent-mindedly, he continued to hold the money clip in the same hand with the book of matches as he tore off a match and struck it. He should have closed the cover. He didn’t. The matchbook and the money clip flared into flames before he realized what was happening. He dropped it all to the ground and stamped on it to put out the fire. Too slowly. All that was left was ashes.
“Ohmigosh!” he exclaimed.
“What’s the matter?” Penny asked.
“I’ve burned my draft card.”
“What’s that?” The policeman’s head shot up. “Did you say you burned your draft card?”
“Draft-dodger! Commie coward!” The youth with the swastika armbands surged towards the young man and Penny. “It’s his kind that’s ruining America.”
“You sure he’s a Commie?” one of the brighter young rightists asked. “He don’t look nothin’ like Eisenhower.”
“Yeah, he’s a commie all right! Come on, let’s get the yellow-belly! Burning his draft card!”
“Wait a minute,” the young man protested. “I didn’t do it on purpose!”
“That’s right.” Penny backed him up. “It was an accident!”
“Accident, hell!” one of the Birchy bunch snarled. I remember this guy now. I tried to sell him a poppy on Veterans’ Day last year and he wouldn’t buy! He’s a Red, all right.”
The Sons of Sicily joined in. “Burning a guy’s one‘ thing,” their leader announced, “but burning a draft card’s something else again. That’s unpatriotic. Come on! Let’s get him!”
“Down with Communism!” The Girl Scouts came hurtling up. “The only ism we want in America is Americanism.”
“Aren’t you going to help us?” Penny demanded of the bluecoat indignantly.
“Not me! If this country isn’t good enough for you two, why don’t you go back where you came from? That’s what my sainted mother would say to the likes of you! A hundred percent American, she was.”
“Are you sure she wasn’t Irish?” Penny asked perceptively. ‘
“Sure and she was. A hundred percent Irish, too! But don’t you be talkin’ about her, you! Nothin’ but a draft dodger’s moll is what you are! Your filthy Commie mouth ain’t fit to pronounce her name.” Patrolman Fitzgerald spat his contempt at them and walked off, leaving them to the mercy of the advancing mob.
“What about you?” Penny asked the lawyer. “Won’t you defend us?”
“I wouldn’t touch the case with a ten-foot pole.”
“And you two?” Penny addressed herself to the bearded youth and the female folk singer. “This is really your cause. Won’t you help us?”
“We’re off the hook, sugar. You got our sympathies, but you know-—Look at it this way. Every cause has to have its martyrs. And better you than us, if you know what I mean. But we’ll see that you’re not forgotten. There’ll be leaflets and songs and even a rally so people will know how you gave your lives for the cause.”
“What cause?” the young man behind Penny howled. “It was an accident. I didn't mean to burn my draft card.”
“Honest, that’s the truth,” Penny added, joining hands with him as they backed away from the oncoming lynch mob.
It was too late. With a shriek of rage that seemed to come from one horrendous throat, the mob tore loose from its moorings and rushed the hapless pair. Penny and the young man bolted, the screaming mob right behind them, hands outstretched like tentacles, like the hundred claws of a centipede, a centipede lusting for blood, the young man’s blood, and Penny’s.
Dazedly, as she ran, knowing that the crowd was almost upon them, a stray thought flitted across Penny’s mind. She’d overstayed her lunch hour. She hadn’t even had lunch. It looked like she was going to die on an empty belly.
But not completely empty. That was really what lay behind the terrible predicament in which she now found herself. Yes, that, and that lousy, leaky, unhousebroken cardboard coffee container!
CHAPTER TWO
THE ENRAGED CROWD was almost on them when Penny remembered that they were in front of the entrance to the building in which Pussycat Publications had its offfices. Feeling the hot breath of their rage on her neck, she dived through the glass doors, dragging the unintentional draft-card burner along with her. The pair plunged toward a set of elevator doors which were just closing. They just made it, and the doors slammed shut before the leaders of the crowd could follow.
Penny led the way out of the elevator at the sixth floor. She darted for a doorway diagonally across the hall, still pulling the young man at her side. It wasn’t until the door closed behind them and Penny was leaning solidly against it that she dared to heave a sigh of relief. “We’d better stay in here a minute,” she told the young man, “just in case any of them followed us up.”
“Okay,” he agreed meekly.
“I don’t think they’d think to look for us here,” Penny added.
“What is this room?” The young man look around h1m' curiously. All he could see was the door Penny was leaning against, two parallel tiled walls, and a metal swinging door opposite her. They seemed to be in a sort of cubicle, and the entire floor area was only a few square feet.
Penny looked across and pushed the swinging door open a few feet. “It’s the ladies’ room,” she told him. “See for yourself.”
“Oh!” He peered interestedly. “Do you think I should be in here?” he asked doubtfully.
“Would you rather take your chances outside with that lynch mob?”
“No.”
“Then let’s stay put a while.”
They fell silent. The young man shifted from one foot to another awkwardly. He cleared his throat nervously. The second time he did it there was a question mark punctuating the sound.
“Yes?” Penny responded.
“I just wanted to thank you for helping me the way you have. And to apologize for getting you into this mess.”
“Well, you certainly should apologize. Not for what happened with the draft card. That was just an accident. It really wasn’t your fault. But you should apologize for being such a masher on the street before. If you hadn’t been so fresh, none of this would have happened.”
“I do apologize for that. Still, you sort of got even with me, didn’t you? I mean, was it really what you said in that container?”
“Yes, it was. And don’t start spitting again!” Penny added hastily.
“But why—?” he started to ask.
“That,” Penny told him frostily, “is none of your business.” She turned the doorknob slowly. “I’m going to go out and see if the coast is clear,” she said. “You wait here.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if I went?”
“No. I work here. My office is on this floor. I’m familiar with it. I’ll know where to hide if there’s any trouble. And I won’t have to explain to anybody what I’m doing here.”
“Okay. I’ll wait.” He leaned back against the tile wall as the door closed behind her.
The minutes dragged by. He wasn’t wearing a watch, so he couldn’t tell how many. Finally the doorknob turned again. Fortunately, he heard the voice before anybody entered: “. . . and so I told the doctor, ‘Look, you’d have a lump on your breast too if you was married to a guy that squeezes grapefruits for a living,’ and the doctor says . . .” The voice definitely wasn’t Penny’s. The young man dived through the swinging door and into one of the stalls before he could be seen. He bolted the door to the stall, and then, not knowing what else to do, he sat down. “Gee, Gertrude, after listening to you, I’m glad I’m not married,” a second female voice said as the two women entered the ladies’ room.