“What about the other side, them?”
“That’s vast territory. Far and away the biggest hurt, as you know, was the death of Tom Potts. He was an only child, a grad student on a hardship fellowship. That’s a lot of hope dashed.”
He became very thoughtful. “The rest seems petty in comparison. At least one of us was an FBI informant; there was some foundation to the rumors. I have my suspicions, but I don’t know for a certainty who it was. If that came out even now, it could be damned embarrassing.”
He poured himself the last of the coffee in the pot, tasted it, then dumped it into the sink. The bitter residue showed on his face.
“We weren’t caught for everything we did that was illegal, or immoral,” he said. “We slept with each other, did some drugs together, plotted mischief together, went to court ensemble. How serious it might be to have some of that old shit made public depends, I suppose, on one’s career or position. Or, maybe, family.”
“Starting at the beginning,” I said, “I guess the big question is, whose idea was it to set the bomb that killed Tom Potts?”
“Oh, God,” he moaned. He spent a lot of time putting dish soap in the sink, running water, getting out a fresh towel. He avoided looking at me.
“Are we picking at the old wounds yet?” I asked.
He looked at me sideways, almost smiling. “You were always the most persistent kid.”
“Who made the bomb?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Anyone can make a bomb.”
“I can’t,” I said, feeling some heat.
“If you have the right cookbook you can.” Jaime picked up the dish towel and wiped his hands as he headed out of the room. “Hold on a minute. Maybe I have something.”
The collie waited until Jaime was out of sight, then came over and laid his head against my leg. I took the bowl of table scraps off the counter and sat down on the floor beside the dog. He was a clever creature; he refused the bits of chorizo I offered him, but eagerly ate clumps of egg and a few pieces of tortilla. I didn’t know if doggie snacking was allowable, but it gave us both something to do while we waited for Jaime to come back. Besides, Lupe’s feelings might be hurt if she saw how much of her breakfast had been rejected.
For me, there was some uncomfortable deja vu involved in being left behind to wait for Jaime. Time does distort reality, but it seems to me that, as a kid, I was always being left behind by big people dashing off to do endlessly interesting and mysterious things. Em and Marc, because they were so much older than I was, and thus bigger, more competent, more independent, used to infuriate me. No matter how much I grew and matured, they always had a head start. Whenever I hit a milestone, they had already been there and were long gone. Especially Emily, primarily because we were the same sex. For instance, by the time I finally entered school, Emily already had a bra. When I got my first bra, Em had thrown hers away and was taking the Pill. I was doomed to always miss the good stuff.
I was certainly left out in 1969. I was shielded, given an expurgated version of everything because of my tender age. It made me mad. Even twenty-two years later, no one had told me the whole truth. Maybe that’s why I was always so nosy-I just wanted to know what was going on. I still do.
The dog was a big help merely by being warm and available. He sighed contentedly and was just closing his eyes with his head in my lap when Jaime came back into the kitchen.
Jaime held a faded color snapshot in front of me. “You can have this.”
The picture wasn’t very clear. I took it from him and looked at it closely. It was the core group, plus Marc.
The group in the snapshot was casually posed, squeezed in together to fit into the frame. Marc looked sharp in a fresh Marine uniform. He was sandwiched between Emily in a wilted cotton sundress and Aleda in shorts and Madras shirt. Clustered around them were six others.
“Where was this?” I asked.
“Honolulu Airport. We were on our way to Hanoi. Marc had some R and R coming between tours of duty. We arranged to meet.”
“You kept the picture?”
“So I’m sentimental. It’s a sin I’ve paid for dearly,” he said. “I loved Marc like a brother.”
I didn’t want to cry again; I didn’t want the tears welling in Jaime’s eyes to fall. I got up for a drink of water.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yes. These people have changed so much.”
“You’ve kept in touch?”
“No. I’ve seen almost all of them during the last twenty-four hours,” I said. “All except Arthur Dodds and Celeste Baldwin.”
“Arthur Fulham Dodds,” he said, running his thumbnail under the earnest young face in the picture. “He blew himself up making bombs in a basement in New York City about a year after this was taken.”
“Was he a bomb expert?” I asked.
“Obviously not very expert. Art’s eternal address is the Mount Carmel Cemetery. The dumb shit.”
“Was he?”
“He should have studied more chemistry before he tried cooking explosives,” Jaime said, frowning. “Art went east after the acquittal, joined the Weather Underground. He always got his high from confrontation. We were just too tame for him.”
I pointed to the skinny young boy with masses of kinky red hair framing his narrow face. I can’t believe that’s Rod Peebles,” I said.
Jaime laughed. “Every time he comes up for re-election, he hopes everyone forgets he was there. For most of us, that isn’t too difficult, he was just a limpet. He was always around, but he never had much to contribute. Except money.”
“Look at Lucas,” I said. “He looks so young. I always thought he was ancient.”
“Age is relative.” Jaime smiled. “You used to think I was old, too.”
“Yeah, I did. I thought you were gorgeous, though.”
“Wish you had said so, somewhere along the way.”
I stood up to pace a little, trying to force down the lump gathering in my throat again. Most of these people had been so familiar to me, a sort of extended family. I hadn’t thought about most of them for a long time.
My parents’ house is a short uphill walk from the UC, Berkeley campus. My father teaches there. During the Peace Movement, Emily had run their two guest bedrooms like a hostel for Movement organizers. A lot of people, including everyone in Jaime’s snapshot, had found succor in those rooms at some point.
Mornings, when I still lived at home, I never knew who I might find in the hall waiting for a turn at the bathroom. I remember on more than one occasion taking my place in line behind the Reverend Lucas Slaughter – in the snapshot he was standing behind Aleda.
I used to wonder what Lucas slept in, because in the bath-room line he never wore anything except a towel sarong and a heavy crucifix, which lay in his thick mat of chest hair like a tiny Jesus sunning in tall grass. He taught me two verses of “Did My Savior Bleed” one morning while we waited for Daniel Berrigan to shave:
Alas! and did my Savior bleed?
And did my Sovereign die?
Would he devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I?
Was it for crimes that I have done,
He groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity! Grace unknown!
And love beyond degree.
I don’t know whether our hymn singing made Berrigan shave any faster, but he came out laughing.