1. The old picture poster that I found in Susan’s Volvo, in the front seat, in a cardboard tube.
2. The terrible scene the previous Christmas in the Jewish household at 67 Winthrop Rd., Brookline, a two-family house built, in the style of that neighborhood, to look like a one-family.
3. Our mad grandma and the big black man in the cellar.
4. Fleshing out the Lewins, maybe following them to the Turnpike and then to Brookline. Remember it wasn’t until you got into Susan’s car that it really hit you. They’re still fucking us. You get the picture. Good boy, Daniel.
5. Just as long as you don’t begin to think you’re doing something that has to be done. I want to make that clear, man. You are a betrayer. There is no cheap use to which you would not put your patrimony. You’re the kind of betrayer who betrays for no reason. Who would sit here and write all this, playing with yourself instead of doing your work — what do you think, Professor Sukenick will come to see if you’re really working? Do you think it matters to him? Or are you just looking for another father. How many fathers does one boy need? Why don’t you go out and get a job? Why don’t you drop something heavy? Why not something too heavy? Why not something to show Susan how it’s done?
SILENCE IN THE LIBRARY: Who is this cat who starts out of his chair and bumps the reading table, and rushes into the stacks looking for anything he can find? Does Columbia University need this kind of graduate student? Going through the shelves like a thief — plundering whatever catches his eye, stumbling back to his place, his arms loaded with Secondary Sources! What is his School! What is his name!
6. The trip downtown to see Artie the Revolutionary and the suspicion of financial shenanigans afoot.
7. The Isaacson Foundation. IS IT SO TERRIBLE NOT TO KEEP THE MATTER IN MY HEART, TO GET THE MATTER OUT OF MY HEART, TO EMPTY MY HEART OF THIS MATTER? WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH MY HEART?
The summer of 1967 was just beginning. There would be a wave of draft-card burning. There would be riots in Newark and Detroit. Young people in the United States would try a form of protest originated in this century by the Buddhist monks of South Vietnam. They would douse themselves with gasoline and light matches to themselves. They would burn to death in protest. But I, Daniel, was grieved, and the visions of my head troubled me and I do not want to keep the matter in my heart.
Ascher’s huge hand was like a band of steel. He was a gentle, soft-spoken man, but when he was excited he lost control of his great strength and didn’t know he was using it. Daniel tried to pull away, to loosen the ring of pain around his wrist, but Ascher’s response was to tighten his grip and pull even harder. “Come, children, come,” the lawyer said. Laboriously they scrambled up the steps from the subway — a steep flight encased in black dirt and littered with gum wrappers and flattened cigarette butts. Rising after them were the hot odors of arcade popcorn, pizza, donuts, pretzels — all the marvels of cheap nourishment following after them like the cries of animals in a pet store. He always imagined they wanted to be bought.
“Come, children, come.” Susan — smaller, lighter, shorter in the leg — couldn’t keep up. She dangled from Ascher’s hammy hand, her shoes banging on the steps, finding purchase only to be hauled into the air again. “You’re hurting me!” she screamed. Why was he holding them so? Did he think they’d run away?
“You’re hurting her arm, Mr. Ascher,” Daniel said. “If you let us go we can get up the steps faster than you.”
“What? All right then, scoot,” Ascher said. Rubbing their wrists they clambered up, easily outgaining the huge, heavy lawyer. “Don’t fall!” he called after them. “Stay right there at the top.”
Calm now, curious, they watched the great bulk straining to reach them. Where they stood, in the mouth of the precipitous entrance to the subway, two winds converged, the hot underground draft rising to caress their faces and the cold blast of the street cutting at their backs. Dust, paper, soot, swirled along the ground. It was a cold, windy day. The brightness of the sun made their eyes squint.
Ascher climbed the last two steps with his hands pushing at his knees. “I’m not going to live long,” he said, trying to catch his breath. He pulled them out of the stream of people pouring down the stairs.
They stood against the building while Ascher took deep breaths and got his bearings. Across the street was Bryant Park and the Public Library. To the right was Sixth Avenue. “That way — we go west,” Ascher said, and he took their wrists again and they were off. They waited for the lights, crossed Sixth, and proceeded along 42nd Street toward Broadway. The newsstand man wore earmuffs. The wind blew hard. The kids walked with their faces averted, Daniel with the nubbin brim of his wool cap down on his forehead. His nose was running and he knew the wind would chafe him. It cut right through his pants. Ascher’s heavy grey overcoat moved in front of his eyes. Abruptly the hand let go of his wrist and he was thrust up against Ascher’s side, contained by the hand, sheltered from the wind. “Stay in close, that way you can walk,” the lawyer said. So it was like a strange six-legged beast walking down the windy range of Sixth Avenue, the two kids pressed into the man’s sides.
“Like the rest of our luck,” Ascher muttered into the wind. “Like the way all our luck is running.” With his face buried in the man’s coat Daniel was aware of sounds: horns, cars starting and stopping, the large yet soft sound of innumerable people walking, music coming out of a record store. And then a clop-clopping that made him pull back and look around the coat. Two cops on horses, straight backed, tall, manly on their really fine brown horses. And he felt guilty for admiring them, for he knew they were reactionaries.
The lawyer spoke. “Now you must stay close to me and do as I tell you to do. We are a little late. I can tell from here, a tremendous crowd, it’s a great tribute. You should feel proud. When you’re standing up there, keep your heads up, look proud and tall and don’t slump, stand up straight. So that everyone can see you. Vershtey? Don’t be afraid. What is it, little girl?”
“I’ve got something in my eye.”
“We have no time now, Susan. Come.”
Susan leaned back against Ascher’s grip and planted her feet. “I’ve got something in my eye,” she insisted.
“Keep your eye closed. It will come out.”
“No! It hurts,” she said.
Ascher let go her hand and started to yell. Daniel understood that everyone was nervous. He took his sister by the hand and led her into the doorway of a shoe store. Here they were protected from the wind. He took off his gloves and lifted the back of his mackinaw and dug into his pocket for a handkerchief. “Take your glasses off,” he said. “Don’t rub it. Take your hand away — that’s it. Look up.”
Her little red face was squinched up around the closed eye. “How can I see what it is if you don’t open your eye,” Daniel said.
“I can’t.”
Daniel laughed. “Come on, Susyanna — you should see what a funny face you’re making.”
“I am not!”
“Please, children, we are late. This is very important! Quickly, quickly!”
“Just a minute, Mr. Ascher,” Daniel said. “She’s only a little girl, you know.”
The poignancy of this description so affected Susan that she began to cry. Daniel put his arms around her and said he was sorry. Ascher muttered in Yiddish and lifted his arms. Then he dropped them, with a smack, against his sides. He walked away and came back.
“Come on, Susan, let me get it out and when we get home I’ll play with you. I’ll play Monopoly with you.” That was a treat because it was such a long game.