A Trip to the Country

AS SOON as they were out of the car, Mr. Cartwright, with a perfunctory nod to the demonstrators, had dropped his gear in the ditch and was hiking up the road far enough so that the sentries would not see him from their shack when he crawled under the barbed wire. Godfrey and Miriam saw him reach his spot, fall flat on his stomach, and slide under. Then he was trotting comically across the field toward the sound of the bulldozers, where he planned to leap into the hole and be carried out.

They watched him disappear over a rise, then went to join the men and women, some with infants, who were conducting the vigil. They found Mr. Peck, who clasped his hands and shut his eyes as an expression of gratitude for the speech Godfrey had delivered in the town square on behalf of youth. The whole outdoors seemed a church. Soft, friendly faces were turned toward them by those seated on the ground.

“We’re very hot,” said Godfrey. “We were passing out Mr. Cartwright’s pamphlets door to door. Do you think we could just splash a little in the water, very quietly, before we join you?”

“I don’t see anything wrong with that,” said Mr. Peck, “provided you go a little ways down the road.” The boy and girl walked quickly until they had turned a bend near where Mr. Cartwright had gone under the fence, then they dashed to the brook and sprawled forward on a flat rock to wash their faces and arms. Lying there side by side, they filled their mouths with water and squirted each other playfully, then he put his wet mouth against hers and felt her slide her face across his mouth until his nose was against her ear. “I really like you,” she said. “No kidding.”

They put their faces right down in the water, coming up now and then for breath, until a voice called out gruffly, “Hey! You ain’t going swimmin’ in there, are you?” It was an old farmer, two younger farmers standing behind him. Godfrey stood up. “No,” he said. “We were just cooling our faces.”

“You with them people?”

“Over there? Yeah.”

“Tell ‘em they better not get in my water. This here’s my water, and all around, both sides of this road’s my property.”

“Was that your property over there?” asked Miriam.

“Still is,” said the farmer. “We’s just leasin’ it to the government. Now, you remember, I don’t want them people contaminatin’ my water. You get me?”

“Yessir.”

“What’s goin’ on out there, anyhow? Ain’t no picnic.”

The younger farmers pulled him back and said something to him angrily. He shrugged and spat at their feet. “Well, I don’t care what you be,” he said. “It’s a free country, just so’s you don’t bother nobody or get in no water. Hear?”

“Yes.”

The old farmer winked and walked away, but one of the others, making sure the old man’s back was turned, gave Godfrey and Miriam the finger, and the other one picked up a clod and feigned throwing it at them. The father must have had a strong character, however, for when he turned around they became fine, docile young studs.

The boy and girl walked hastily to join the protesters.

There couldn’t have been a more beautiful setting or season for a vigil. The several dozen pacifists were sitting in a circle on the new spring grass near the bubbling brook; and the sound of bulldozers over the rise seemed as pleasantly industrious as the chirping of birds flitting from ground to tree with twigs in their beaks. It was the day before Easter, and in the silent circle it was hard not to dream, under the blue sky and warm sun, of girls. Godfrey had to keep bringing his mind back to a realization of what was going on. He had to glance frequently at the sign warning people to stay out of the pasture up ahead because it was going to be a nuclear missile site. But as the afternoon progressed, the frantic rush by the dinosauric machines to build the mountain that would surround the hole into which the missile would be placed (hopefully, after they had extricated Mr. Cartwright) was made ominously evident by the visible rise of a hill of dirt where only that morning there had been white spring flowers on a flat meadow.

At three o’clock, several cars pulled up to the sentries at the fence to wait for the men whose shift was over. One of the cars was full of singing children, hanging on the neck of a pretty mother who kept glancing anxiously at those who were keeping the vigil. Godfrey wanted to sing, too. He became impatient with the silent, joyless intensity of the pacifists, kept glancing at Miriam’s ankles, and finally abandoned prayer in favor of fantasies about leaning on a tree playing his recorder. He had wanted very badly to entertain the people with his excellent music, not understanding the rules of a silent vigil. He saw himself now dancing erotically in the meadow with Miriam.

He was proud of the speech he had given, relieved that Mr. Cartwright had suffered only a bloody nose when the big patriot dragged him off the edge of the fountain, and now he wanted to express his exhilaration. Noticing that someone would occasionally break the circle to walk up the road alone, presumably to take a leak, he arose finally, smiled at Miriam, and crossed the road to the brook. She came after him presently. They sat on a rock, took off their shoes, and let the water rush over their feet, and she said serious, husky things about how she had really prayed the way she never thought she could. He was glad for the truth that they shared and wanted to wrap her in his arms and love her for it. “Tonight,” he said, “let’s take a long walk under the stars, and I’ll bring my recorder. We’ll celebrate Easter. OK?”

“Beautiful,” she cried. “Let’s do.”

There was a noise that first sounded like a flock of frantic birds, but as it rose it proved to be a siren. They had seized Mr. Cartwright. Godfrey and Miriam joined the now intensely prayerful circle and were immediately caught up by the powerful vibrations of intercession and compassion. They found themselves praying also for an end to violence, reliving all the small violences that they had witnessed in their lives and watching them dissolve in some new love that they wished into being. They again lived through the terror they had experienced when they stood on the edge of the fountain with Mr. Cartwright, making speeches, and the heckling had begun, and they now understood that somehow, because of the man being held captive, they had been able to master a great fear. All raised their heads and opened their eyes to watch unprotestingly as a jeep appeared at the gate with Mr. Cartwright in the back seat, muddy and expressionless, a man accustomed to the rituals of arrest, uneasy bureaucratic discussions, and silent jail cells.

THAT evening a group gathered near a small fire to drink coffee and exchange views on what might be done to encourage disarmament. It was again a Quaker-style conversation, with long, thoughtful pauses and then a quiet voice spoken from the heart of concern and gentleness. Miriam and Godfrey spoke in tremulous voices about what might be done at their universities by way of local weekly vigils, and the respectful response made them feel mature, drew them toward each other, and sent them finally on that long walk down the road.

They looked up at the stars, making deploring remarks about what kind of hardware might be up there now or soon, but eventually the stars became only the stars, the moon ceased to be a target and became the old, melancholy moon, and the hands of the two young people were joined as they crossed a series of furrows and lay down on the grass bordering the plowed earth.

“Now,” said Godfrey. He took his recorder from his shirt and blew the pure, pastoral sounds out into the windless air; and, as he played, Miriam’s blouse came off, and then her brassiere, and she was showing her white, tight breasts happily to him as she did a dipping, whirling dance, kicking up the sod.

That is the way the spotlight caught them — he, seated, cross-legged, on the ground; she, leaping over the furrows as she circled with arms arched over her head — when the police car they had not seen was suddenly there.

“You two! Come over here!”

He grabbed her brassiere, stuffed it into his pocket while she pulled on her blouse, and they walked, squinting, heads hung in fear, toward the car.

“What are you kids doing out there?”

“Dancing,” whispered Godfrey.

“Where are you from?”

“They’re from the peace vigil.” It was the voice of Eugene Cartwright. They saw him now in the back seat. “They’re nice, brave youngsters,” he said. “They’ll walk right back to the camp. They were just playing because they’ve been very serious a long time. You fellows understand.”

To the surprise of Miriam and Godfrey, the police seemed to respond amiably to what their prisoner was saying. “Okay,” said the younger one, getting back into the car, “but you walk right on back to your people. It’s not safe out here. A lot of folks don’t think much of types like you.”

“Folks around here,” the older policeman added, “got their jobs staked on this project. They might give us all a lot of trouble if they get the chance.” He kept his eyes on Miriam for a while, glancing at her blouse wistfully and without malice. “Understand?” He went back around the car, got in, and drove off slowly, the rookie looking back as the searchlight went off.

“They’re crazy to let Mr. Cartwright go,” said Godfrey. “He’ll just walk right back in again.”

“Sure he will,” Miriam said. “That’s the way he does it all over. He just keeps trespassing, and they keep arresting him. That’s the way he was at Los Alamos, that’s the way he was out there in the Pacific with his boat, and that’s the way he’ll always be. Where’s my brassiere?”

Godfrey started pulling a strap out of his pocket. He held the brassiere up in the moonlight. “If I could find two trees,” he said, “I could use this for a hammock.” Screaming, she chased him back down the road.

THE bull session around the campfire had ended, and little groups were settling down in a wide circle. There were more than fifty people, for a number of sympathizers from the town had come in to spend the night with them. Godfrey and Miriam sat down inside their sleeping bags, shoulder to shoulder. Her hair blew across his eyes. There was a cold, sweet wind now that made him shiver and press himself against her. He began to love these pacifists and townsfolk enormously. Tears stung his eyes. He felt terribly sentimental, and, leaning around in front of Miriam, took her by the shoulders and whispered in her ear, “Thank God.”

“For what?” she asked, shivering.

“For them. For you.”

“Thank God for me, too. I mean, for them. For us. For you.”

“Miriam?” Now he began to shudder with emotion. His stomach muscles were twitching. “Do you think you would marry me sometime?”

“Of course.” She smiled. He could see just her teeth in the darkness. There was no moon any more. He leaned forward and hugged his elbows. His whole body began to quake. The words of Jacob came to his mind, “Surely the Lord is in this place,” and then he laughed at the absurdity of this thought, hearing the bulldozers that ground on frantically through the Easter Saturday night, and he thought of Jesus out in that field in his tomb. He heard a rustling in the circle, and a voice broke the silence. “Gene,” said a scolding woman’s voice, “now, don’t you be a fool. If you’re going out there now, you take this flashlight. There are all sorts of holes out there.” A grunt, and the vague shadow of Mr. Cartwright could be seen headed for the fence again. Godfrey began to laugh to himself, thinking of Mr. Cartwright as Jesus sneaking in and out of the tomb. Without irony, he thought, “Good old Jesus,” and he said this to Miriam, making her laugh loudly because the tension was so great, until somebody embarrassed them both by whispering courteously, “Please. Let us be silent.”

It did not take long for the jiggling headlights of a jeep to appear on the rise. Mr. Cartwright was once again on his way to the police station. And no sooner was the jeep gone than another car appeared and stopped on the road near the vigil. Then two more cars sped up and skidded to a stop. The protesters responded by an absolute quietness so overwhelming that Godfrey felt himself being drawn into the discipline as if he were being pulled downward toward a source of light. As the boys advanced with crude remarks, witty insults, and threats, he found the word peace repeating itself in his mind as an all-encompassing, insubstantial mode of being, a vibrant but unmoving quality of plenitude. With His eyes closed, he could see the boys moving as if they were walking on the air, actors without the power of reality. They moved toward the point of conflict, yet there was no movement. With a humor of soul, Godfrey realized that he had been absolved of fear for the time being and that somehow nothing as violent as the scene at the fountain was going to take place. He felt as it the boys, who had come to a stop just behind him, subsiding into silence, were weightless as shadows, that their power had been drawn into the circle in much the way that he had been, and that it was being transformed and would be restored to them with the kind of sentiment that he now felt — one of affection.

One of the Quakers walked over to the leader and explained what the vigil was about. In response, the boy said, “Screw you, Jack,” but awkwardly and without strength. The others found their laughter dying in their throats and were quiet. As the Quaker walked away, however, there was the sound of a rock smacking against his jacket. Godfrey could see the parents spreading themselves out as if in a ballet over the sleeping forms of their children.

“Let’s go!” the leader shouted at last, and the whole gang turned back toward the cars. As they drove off, the boys honked their horns, but there was no sound of voices. The rest of the evening was quiet except for the bulldozers. Feeling triumphant, more strengthened by the close presence of such good people, whose desires for peace and the good life were so akin to his own, than impressed by the horror of what men labored at across the field, Godfrey lay down, threw an arm around the girl he wanted to wed, and fell asleep.

He awoke to sun and bird song. A police car was parked nearby with two bored officers in the front seat and Mr. Cartwright in the back, frustrated, frowning, all three of them. The old man’s chin was resting on clenched, handcuffed fists. People were rolling up their sleeping bags or wandering around to take the chill out of their bones. Godfrey went over to the police car. “What are you going to do with Mr. Cartwright? He’s our passenger.”

“We’re going to keep him right here until you take him out of this county,” said a weary officer. “Where have I seen you before?” Godfrey shrugged and ran with Miriam to the brook, where they again dipped their faces in the freezing water.

It was time to leave. Reporters were interviewing. A man with a portable tape recorder came over to Godfrey. “Would you care to tell us what you felt like when that crowd got out of hand?”

“I felt that I was going to cry,” said the boy. “But then it stopped, and I suddenly wasn’t afraid any more.”

“Do you have a copy of your speech? Or do you remember any of it?”

“I remember saying that our own schools, jails, parks, and centers of culture remain small and inadequate, while our missiles grow larger and more adequate to destroy other people’s schools, jails, parks, centers of culture, and so forth, and maybe our own as well.”

The police were bringing Mr. Cartwright to the microphone. They allowed him to say a few words; then they told Godfrey, “You are responsible for taking this old coot straight back home. Do you understand? Just put him in the car and keep going.”

On the way through town, however, Mr. Cartwright insisted that they stop by a church. He kept glancing at his watch. “Should be about that time,” he said happily. He put his head out the window. “Yes!” he cried. “Just in the nick of time. Quick, stop here.”

They could hear the exultant voices through a high green window of the Presbyterian Church on the corner. Godfrey and Miriam rushed after the muddy old man and, despite the condition of their hair and clothing, they all ran right up the steps, through the vestibule, and into the aisle of the sanctuary, where Mr. Cartwright revealed a new facet of his personality, for, leaning back to fill his skinny lungs, he joined in powerfully with the hymn, “Jesus Christ is risen today. Hallelujah!” When the last verse was over, he beamed all over, as if he had just imbibed a good tonic, put his arms around the two young people, and led them back down the stairs to the car. “I just have to sing that thing when it comes up,” he said. “Only comes up once a year, and f love it. If we hadn’t lucked off, I would have had to wait a whole ‘nother year. Good grief.”

Those were his last words until they approached the city. He fell sound asleep in the back seat, and not even the fact that Godfrey and Miriam were improvising irreverently on that hymn most of the way home could wake the intense little old man.

At last Miriam lay her head where Godfrey wanted it, and he stroked her thick hair, driving with one hand. “I love you, hallelujah!” she murmured. “I love what you love, hallelujah!” Godfrey pulled over to the side of the highway, stopped, turned around, and shook the old hero awake. “Can you drive, sir?”

Glancing apprehensively from time to time into the rear-view mirror, the tired, bewildered agitator drove the rest of the way into the city.