"Bigot!" the Italian accused. "Perpetrator of ethnic stereotypes! Barbarian!"
"Do you know why Italians aren't allowed to swim in the East River?" the Norwegian asked Sammy.
"No. Why?"
"Because they leave a ring around the pier!" The Norwegian chortled. "And do you know how you tell a bride at an Italian wedding?"
"How?"
"She's the one with the clean bowling shirt."
"That's a lie!" The Italian was apoplectic. "And it has nothing to do with Columbus. The greatest explorer- Who but an Italian could have-?"
"Columbus!" The Norwegian snorted his contempt. "The fact is that I can prove conclusively that no Italian could possibly have discovered America because no Italian has anything remotely like a sense of direction. Why, do you know that they won't even hire Italians as elevator operators because they always forget the route?"
"Hun! Barbarian! Savage!" the Italian shouted. "Vandal! Cultureless destroyer of ancient, hallowed civilizations! Robber of historical truths! Next thing you'll be claiming Julius Caesar was a Svenska!"
"Why get excited?" Sammy pleaded. "Even if Leif Erickson did get here before Columbus, that can't take away the other attainments of Italians. Their art, their opera, their sculpture-"
"Their Mussolini," the Norwegian stuck in spitefully.
"Name one Scandinavian accomplishment that can com pare with the contributions Italians have made to the world!" the Italian demanded. "Go on! Name just one!"
"We discovered America!" the Norwegian said triumphantly.
"But what difference-" Sammy started to say for the upteenth time…
"Don't be afraid." Llona had also spoken the words quite a few times before. "I'm not going to hurt you." Each time she tried to make her tone imbue reassurance.
But it didn't seem to work. The strapping young man occupying the bed in the room in which Llona now found herself seemed anything but reassured. His beefy face was contorted with fear and his once steely blue eyes were on the verge of tears. Even his muscular frame was trembling at the threat posed by the intruder.
"Maybe if you tried telling me what you're afraid of," Llona suggested, "we might work it through together."
"Decisions," the hulking patient admitted in a voice that was almost a whisper. "I can't face making decisions."
"But you don't have to make any decision," Llona told him soothingly. "There's nothing to decide."
"Yes, there is. There is something to decide. But I can't do it."
"What?" Llona asked logically. "What is there to decide?"
"Whether to scream or not." His voice was so low now that Llona could barely hear it.
"But what is there to scream about?"
"You."
"Me?"
"You."
"But why should I make you scream? A great big hunk of man like you?"
"Because you're authority. Or you're defying authority. I can't decide. And if you are authority, I can't decide if I should scream or not. And if you're not authority, I can't decide whether or not to scream. You see, that's why I'm here. That's why I had my breakdown in the first place."
"Well," Llona opined, "I certainly don't think you should scream. Absolutely not. Screaming would be childish. It would be giving in to your illness-whatever it is. I'll tell you what, to get your mind off screaming, why don't you tell me what it is that's responsible for your being here. Maybe I can help you."
"Help me?" His voice rose. "Then you are authority!"
"No, I'm not."
"If you're not, then why should you help me?"
"Just out of human feeling."
"Human feeling? Then you're anti-authority. And that means you have no right to be here. Which means I should scream for help."
"No, it doesn't. What do you need help for?" Llona asked quickly. "Surely a tough-looking bruiser like you can handle a weak woman like me."
"Not any more. Not any more, I can't. I can't handle anything. Not any more." His voice stayed low, but he was obviously very disturbed.
"Tell me about it," Llona suggested, stalling for time. "You'll feel better if you tell me about it."
"That's what they all say. All the ones in authority. You sure you're not an authority figure?"
"I'm sure."
"Then I should scr-"
"No-no-no!" Llona interrupted firmly. "We've been all through that. You shouldn't scream. You should just tell me about it."
"I should? Oh, all right. You see, that's one of my problems, too. I accept things too easily. I'm too prone to go along with whatever anybody suggests. And then when somebody else suggests just the opposite, I accept that, too."
"I see. How did it all start?" Llona prodded.
"How? Well, I guess it started when I graduated from the Police Academy in New York City. They assigned me to a beat out in Queens. That was when O'Connor was D. A. I wanted to be a good cop, to uphold the law. But I had no idea how hard it would be."
"A policeman's lot is not an easy one," Llona agreed.
"You can say that again."
"A policeman's lot-"
"Yeah. Yeah. Skip it. Anyway, the first dichotomy (how's that for a cop-word?) came when I was assigned to a meeting in a high school of this organization dedicated to promoting decent literature and stamping out the other kind. You know, I was on duty there just in case there was any trouble. Not that any was really expected, and not that there was any trouble. Well, this outfit had samples of the kind of cheesecake pictures they wanted not to be available to kids posted on two bulletin boards on either side of the stage in the high school auditorium. Before the meeting started, just about every man there went up for a look at those pictures. They'd stand there, staring, shaking their heads and clucking their tongues and staring some more. I guess it was an eye-opener for them, but it was even more of an eye-opener for me."
"What do you mean?" Llona asked.
"It began to dawn on me that when you scratch a blue-nose, you invariably find a lecher. See, I always accepted these values. That's why I became a cop. To me, right was right, and wrong was wrong. But watching these paunchy, middle-aged, married types licking their lips over these pictures they were trying to have banned, I began to see where things weren't that simple. But it was when O'Connor spoke that I really got confused."
"What did he say?"
"He said that under the law, these cheesecake magazine publishers and book publishers were allowed to publish this kind of stuff. Then he said that his office was dedicated to harassing them anyway. He implied that while they couldn't win any cases in the courts, by harassing the publishers he could make it so hot for them that they'd think twice about publishing what he called 'salacious material.' The audience applauded him, but I was more confused than ever."
"Why were you confused?"
"Well, if the law says it doesn't have jurisdiction, then how can a public official sworn to uphold the law justify badgering people? That's what I asked myself that night. And about a month later I asked it again-of myself, I mean. I was sent out on a raid to pull some of these very magazines off the newsstands in Queens. The order came from down O'Connor's office. And I realized it was a waste of police time and taxpayers' money because there was no real infraction of law involved. It was just a case of pandering to the morality set up by one self-appointed censorship group. Maybe it got O'Connor votes later on, but what I couldn't reconcile was that police power was being used to pressure people who hadn't broken any law. Indeed, when the state legislature, some time later, tried to pass a law that would have justified raids such as ours, it was defeated because many of the lawmakers felt the Supreme Court would throw it out as unconstitutional. So you see, all this was the beginning of the confusion in my mind between authority and anti-authority. Later on that confusion just seemed to grow and grow."
"How do you mean?" Llona wanted to know.
"Well, you have to understand that I only carried out orders."
"So did Adolf Eichmann," Llona couldn't stop herself from pointing out.