The confrontation between Rod and the suits had been cast into oblivion. The girl and the guardsmen were better footage. I sat down again beside Flint.
“She’s pretty cute,” he said, watching her make her charming way to the end of the ranks.
” ‘Cute’ is the right word,” I said. “Do you recognize her?”
“Should I?”
“Maybe. That’s Celeste Baldwin, Mrs. T. Rexford Smith.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. I wonder what she had under her daisies.”
“Little bitty titties, from the looks of ‘em.-
“Be serious.” I punched his arm.
“Serious about what?”
“What she just did looks either incredibly stupid or just naive. Celeste was neither.” I pushed rewind and watched the daisy routine in reverse, backing up to the place just before the bus arrived. Then I pushed play.
“Tell me about what you see,” I said.
“What? A bunch of hippies thinking they’re starting a revolution.”
“Do they look dangerous?” I asked.
“Hardly. What are you getting at?”
The buses arrived, in rerun, and the guardsmen piled off with their weapons. “Now what do you see?”
“The cavalry.”
I froze the frame. “To this point, you have maybe a dozen long-haired kids, none of them looking overly competent or threatening. The guardsmen outnumber them about four to one. A few idealistic youth versus a line of bayonets and helmets. If this picture were on the news, it would look like stormtroopers against Everyman’s baby boy. For the people in the Movement, that’s good.”
I let the tape run. “Watch this-media image sabotage. Celeste waltzes in with her daisies. She gets the bayonets to smile at her. Suddenly, we no longer have a line of bayonets, we have a second bunch of baby boys. See the dimples in close up?”
“You think she knew what she was doing?”
“She wrote the book.”
On the TV, Celeste continued her daisy walk. She moved from the last guardsman over to the two men in suits, Lester Rowland and his partner. Celeste guided a perfect little flower through Rowland’s lapel, playing up to the lecherous grin on his face. Then she got into a waiting VW Bug and was driven away.
If she had seduced no one else, she had certainly made a conquest of the man behind the camera: he followed her every move. The scene had charm, visual and social contrast, a palatable political message. I wondered whether the cameraman was thinking Pulitzer possibilities or simply admiring her hard young ass under the flimsy Indian cotton of her dress.
“What do you think?” Flint asked.
“Celeste’s forte was arson, but she may have had other talents. I wish I had Emily here to translate for me.”
I was thinking about Emily, too.” He gathered the food wrappers from the floor and got up. “Want anything from the kitchen?”
“No thanks.
Flint found the trash can in the kitchen, then made a trip to the bathroom while I watched the tape, waiting for Emily to tell me something.
Finally, the demonstrators we had been waiting for marched into view. At first sight, they were a slow wave rolling up Tele-graph Avenue, covering both lanes of the street. Square picket signs rode above their heads like sails on a rough sea. There were probably several hundred marchers, maybe more. They engulfed the relative order of the street scene we had been watching, swallowed up into their mass the by-now familiar figures on the screen.
In 1969, video cameras were still fairly bulky. The cameraman didn’t run along beside his prey. He staked out a strategic position and waited for the action to come to him. And the demonstrators did come. As they neared the camera position, what had been a sea of people became individuals.
As always, the leaders were in the front with their arms linked. They were chanting, “One, two, three, four, we don’t want your fuckin’ war.” It sounded like a football cheer. Most of the demonstrators were college students.
Emily and Jaime were on the left flank of the front row, arms linked with Lucas Slaughter and Aleda Weston on either side of them.
So maybe, according to their credo, the world had gone to hell. That didn’t mean they couldn’t have fun righting it. They were all smiles as they chanted. Emily brushed her cheek against Jaime’s shoulder and he turned and beamed into her face. She kissed him lightly, then picked up the chant again.
Jaime boosted Emily onto the bed of the truck. She reached down and gave him a hand up. He seemed to stumble a little and fell into her. It was a transparent ploy to be in her arms, but she was laughing as she caught him, held him longer than was necessary for him to get his feet under him.
I couldn’t take my eyes off Jaime and Emily. They were so young, so very beautiful together. And painfully in love. I wanted to warn them to steer clear of the monsters swimming just beyond the horizon. What they had together seemed to me to be worth a bigger struggle than I think they gave it. I don’t know where it came from, but I suddenly got a big, painful flash of Scotty and his pregnant new wife.
I heard water run in the bathroom, and Flint came out. He was yawning and digging sleepily at his ear with his knuckle. He got a look at me and stopped in his tracks.
“Not again,” he said. I didn’t know what he meant. He ducked back into the bathroom, which suggested a variety of possibilities, but he came right out again carrying a box of tissues. He dropped the tissues into my lap as he sat down.
“I can’t leave you for a minute or you start bawling all over again.”
I blew my nose. “Shut up.”
“That’s better than ‘fuck you,’ I guess. Come here.” He pulled me over against him so I could sob into his shoulder. It felt good. I wasn’t bawling, really, just tearing a little. I missed Emily terribly. Seeing her so happy only made me feel worse. So I pressed my face against his shirt and listened to Emily’s voice on the TV:
“Henry Kissinger tells us our goal in Vietnam is peace with honor. I ask Mr. Kissinger, and his boss, Richard Nixon, how many more young American lives, how many more Vietnamese youth, must be sacrificed before Washington is satisfied that honor cannot be achieved except by our complete, unconditional withdrawal from this immoral and decidedly dishonorable war?” The crowd roared, like a Chautauqua tent revivaclass="underline" “Amen.” “Right on.” “No more war.”
Emily’s strong voice continued. “President Nixon says this is a war for peace. I say, fuck this war, Mr. President, and give peace a chance.”
A chant was picked up by the crowd: “Give peace a chance. Just do it, Mr. President, do it, do it.”
I closed my eyes to hear them better. “Do it. Do it.”
Over the roar of the crowd, I found Emily’s clear voice: “Do it, do it. Do it, Maggot, do it.”
I sat up with a start.
“Were you asleep?” Flint asked.
“I don’t know. What did they just say?”
“I wasn’t listening. Want to rewind it?”
I shook my head. “Maybe later.”
“Emily was quite a girl,” he said. Then he chuckled. “Just don’t tell her I called her a girl, okay?”
“I won’t.” Tears welled in my eyes again. I could say anything to Emily now and she wouldn’t react. I hated it. My nose started to run.
“Come back here,” Flint said. He put his arms around me and rocked me. It was too sweet.
With my face mashed against his chest, I said, “Don’t start singing lullabies, okay?”
“Okay.” He yawned.
When he started humming, I looked up at him. He kissed me. At first it was just a brush of his mustache across my lips. When I didn’t move away, he kissed me again, this time with a little more assurance, a little tongue. He tasted faintly of beer and tacos. His hesitation was touching, considering what had gone on between us the night before.