Vida (62 page)

“Sometimes” Eva did look at her briefly for the first time that day. “We have to be clear what we’re doing and why. Good propaganda this time, folks. And antiproperty only. No antipersonnel stuff. We have to be extra careful of that in this context where we’re arguing about saving lives in the future. There’s no saying we’re fighting a war at home now.”

Eva was supporting her! Vida let herself sit back against her chair, her tension loosening a bit.

“A revolution is a war,” Lark said. “It’s hot enough war in Africa right this moment.”

“But we’re here,” Roger said. “And it’s tepid.”

“Are you arguing for or against this proposal?” Kiley barked.

“I’m making up my mind” Roger puffed out clouds of smoke as Eva and Vida moved back surreptitiously. “Not all of us are visited by the truth instantly. Some of us think till we reach it”

“Then I take it you’re undecided on this proposal and the proposal for a new global position paper?” Kiley persisted.

“No, Kiley. I’ve made up my mind on the paper. I’m opposed. I think we’ve taken quite enough time playing academic in the last two years. We could do that as well in prison. The Network exists for two purposes: one, to service fugitives; two, as a political expression for fugitives. We can’t do political education well from underground. Anybody with a job at a college, a high school, a trade union, a newspaper can do that fifty times better. Our specialty has to be propaganda of the deed”

“Then you intend to vote with Eva and Vida?”

“I intend to work on the only proposal for action I hear coming out of this meeting. I don’t care who proposed it—I wouldn’t even mind if you had, Kiley. I want us moving again. I doubt if my decision shocks you. You had to have reached the same analysis, or you wouldn’t have been trying to maneuver me off the Board” Roger puffed more furiously.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Kiley gave a thin smile, a crescent of even white teeth. “Your recent choices of how to live your life are disconcerting in a Board member.”

“I don’t think cadre should relate only to cadre. I think that’s elitist. If we want to serve the people, we have to have some contact with them”“

“Oh. Are you recruiting your schoolteacher, then?”

“I was a high school English teacher myself, Kiley. Don’t be a snob. Your class background is showing.”

”This context is an odd one for waving class banners,” Lark said with annoyance. “This proposal is basically opportunistic. It doesn’t grow out of our politics.”

“Our politics have been growing mold,” Vida said. “We slowed down our corporate and governmental raids because the war ended there was no constituency out there for them. There’s a hundred issues, but you have to look to people to tell you which of those hundred terrible things move them …”

“A Marxist analysis should tell us what to move on, not the evening news” Kiley said. “Lark, remember in the SAW office in ‘68 when Oscar, Lohania and I launched the Con Edison project? It had everything: Labor troubles we could relate to. The consumer getting screwed. Pollution. Alternative energy—yes, we were talking about that in 1968. Public health— the incidence of respiratory diseases near generating stations. Regulatory agencies. Governmental corruption. Control by the rich and powerful. Demands for public ownership. But there was one problem: it was boring. The project died a slow, dreary death. People crept away from it and didn’t answer their phones. Fewer people came to every meeting. Finally Oscar, Lohania, and I had a fight and we buried it. An absolutely correct project with no sex appeal.”

Kiley stood. She met every pair of eyes. “You have the votes, I’ll work on it.”

Lark frowned. “I can’t go along … No, I’d better resign from the Board”

“Don’t be foolish. Accepting the temporary will of the majority is good discipline,” Kiley said to him. “It won’t hurt us to carry out a successful action. I am convinced the position paper doesn’t move the troops. This project is weak-minded and opportunistic, as you agree, but we can put together a proposal for a set of actions based on a sounder analysis by February or early March.”

According to the prevailing etiquette of the group, Kiley and Lark could not go into the next room to confer privately about whether he should resign from the Board in protest to what was obviously going to be their decision. Kiley could only glare appeal to him with her eyes and ask him to maintain discipline.

Lark cracked his knuckles in the silence, “My disagreement is too strong.”

“I don’t want you to quit, Lark. Neither Eva nor I went along with the omission of a strong gay-rights section in our last position paper, and that struck close to the bone. Neither of us resigned.” Vida asked with her eyes also. She had a moment of relief that Joel was not present to reduce her maneuverability. “Continuity is important to us. You and Kiley provide that. We built this Network in the teeth of a government at war with us and we’ve survived everything they could throw at us. Let’s survive our occasional disagreements with each other. They’re minor compared with all we share of work and politics and history.” As if tremendously moved, she took his hand: a rhetorical gesture, but meant. She did not want Lark quitting. What kind of victory would that be? A Board without Lark would lack legitimacy.

He let her squeeze his hand while he frowned into space. “I don’t know …”

“Well, I could hold your other hand if that would help you decide” Kiley said sarcastically. “Vida likes to put a little body English on her arguments.”

Vida noticed that Roger was not joining the persuasion attempt. Either he wanted Lark off the Board, leaving him clearly the dominant male, or he couldn’t get rid of resentment about Kiley.

Eva said, “If you think we’re wrong, shouldn’t you retain the maximum leverage to affect our judgments?”

Vida gave Lark’s hand another squeeze and let go, smiling at Kiley. “Communication works on a lot of levels. Between comrades, argument should be aimed at communication. What I was trying to communicate is the depth of my respect and affection”

“Do go right ahead” Kiley snapped. “Borrow the couch”

“Kiley is having an emotion,” Eva said smiling, “It’s big and green and covered with long spines.”

Kiley glared. Vida thought that Kiley was a woman who did not take nonsense or interference from any man, including her lovers, but refused to identify with other women, who annoyed her simply by being women.

Lark drew himself up. “This is unnecessary. Of course I’ll remain on the Board. I strongly disapprove of this decision. I can’t even imagine how we’ll explain it internationally. But I’ll stay on and fight with you. I’ll work on a counterproposal. I admit, I’m surprised by Roger’s position. I’m beginning to think the time is wrong for a long analytical project. I accept responsibility for producing a counterproposal by February 28 centered on corporate profits from South Africa.”

“But you agree we proceed with this project in the interim?” Roger asked.

Lark nodded. “I understand. I don’t approve.”

“But do you cooperate?” Eva asked.

“Of course” he said. “That’s group discipline”

”Now, down to specifics” Roger opened his ancient leather briefcase. “What and where? No functioning plants. That’s just too bloody dangerous. We could do more damage than those blockheads that build the awful things. I understand Peregrine has some concrete ideas on construction sites, and so do I. Let’s take a look at the various possibilities and check them out”

“We have two construction sites to choose from. We should scout them both tomorrow and then begin surveillance on the target we pick” Vida said. “We can figure out what kind of action to take once we’ve got our site and know it reasonably well.” She unfolded a map of northern New England and spread it on the table as the others moved closer to look.

22

They spent a week scouting the possibilities before they decided on an initial site where the Mohican Nuclear Power Plant was under construction on the Connecticut River on the New Hampshire side. Then surveillance began around the clock. Joel, Tequila, and Marti were involved now that the Board had finished meeting and the action had been launched. Every two days they met to correlate observations and get on with the planning. They planned a small local action soon and then a bigger action later focused on the corporate offices of the electric company.

“First off today”“ Kiley rapped the big sheet of butcher’s paper taped to the plate-glass window. There weren’t an abundance of available flat surfaces in the A-frame where Kiley and Lark were sleeping and the meetings took place. The A-frame was located in between Hardscrabble Hill and Agnes’ farm, where Roger, Eva, Joel, and Vida were staying. “A timetable. And the wherewithal.”

“Money?” Eva asked. She had pointed out to Vida how squeamish Kiley was about naming sex and money. “We have a contact for dynamite, but they won’t do it on the cuff”‘

Roger laid out his pipe, tobacco, ashtray, and pipe cleaners on the table before him like tools for an operation he was commencing. “Do we have anything in the kitty?”

Lark was treasurer. “We’re broke. A lot of our sources have dried up. My last trip to New York was wasted.”

“Maybe this’ll loosen them” Roger said cheerfully. “But we need money soonest to prime the pump. I think we have enough cash between us to get a small load—enough to blow that earth-moving equipment. But for a more major effort we need a modest pile”

“Joel and I have a possible job that could bring in something” Vida said. “A contract for a lawyer in New York.”

“What kind of job?” Lark looked suspicious, his eyes narrowing.

“Kidnapping two children back for the mother. The father took the kids to Michigan.”

”How do we know this is politically correct?” Roger challenged.

Eva shook her head at him. “You identify with all fathers.”

Joel sat by the window unraveling a length of old rope. He tended to place himself at the edge of the room during meetings. “We talked about doing that job, yeah, but to live on. We been broke for months. We can’t go on like we have. It’s too dangerous.”

Lark asked, “How much money is involved?”

“Fifteen hundred” Vida said. Joel threw her a dark fuming glare. Did he expect her to lie?

“That’s great,” Roger said, gaining enthusiasm. “We can split it down the middle. It’s enough to finance our action and you can live on it for a couple of months besides”

“I don’t think it’s fair,” Joel said. “The risk is all ours. For months we been on the road. Constantly hitting people for money. Both dog-tired. Vida was sick for weeks while we holed up in Brooklyn. I want to live someplace with her. It’s our right.”

“We’re not in this for comfort and our rights” Kiley said. “Where do
I
live?”

“You thrive on it. She doesn’t.” Joel glared at Kiley.

Eva was frowning, hugging herself. Vida could feel Eva’s inner buffeting. Finally Eva burst out, “We’re not in this to burn ourselves out either. Haven’t we long ago passed the stage of trying to prove we can each take more deprivation, more loneliness, more danger, more tension, more fatigue than anybody else? We’re the survivors. Let’s give each other a little room.”

“Peregrine proposed this action,” Roger said. “I’d have thought she’d be ready to support it all the way.”

“The whole group agreed,” Eva said. “It’s not hers any longer … And you don’t seem to lack a desire for a little stability in your own life. How can you deny it to them?”

Joel got up awkwardly and came over to Eva. “Thanks,” he muttered. “You really care about her too.”

Eva gave him an exasperated glance. “Too! You’re the one still to be tested and proved.”

Vida wanted to put her arms around both of them. “I suggest a two-thirds/one-third split” she said. “We can ask for half the money as an advance. We’ll take the one-third split for the Network out of the advance. Five hundred should cover our expenses on the power-company action. Then Joel and I will take the second payment to live on.”

“How soon can you get the advance?” Kiley asked.

”The lawyer’s waiting for us to get back in touch. We were okayed by the mother.”

“Do it at once” Kiley was jotting on a calendar. “Get the money before Christmas. We can start the New Year with our broadcast.”

Vida had not heard that old slang in a couple of years: a broadcast: an action. She smiled, “I’ll call the lawyer today. But we have enough cash for dynamite to take on a small action at once. We know we can place a bomb at the Mohican site, where there’s only one watchman to get out of the way”“

Tequila stood, grinning. “We can get the dynamite today.”

“Let’s jump right on it. By tomorrow at the latest. Tonight if we can.” Roger cleared his throat, rapped with his pipe. “I’d like to go home—I mean to Rochester—for the holidays. The kids will be disappointed if I don’t show.”

“If Tequila leaves now and brings the sticks back, we can pull it off tonight” Kiley said, beaming at everybody. “It’ll be neat”

“Go just for Christmas” Eva said. “If we’re, going to do a major bombing at the utility offices, we need to do surveillance for a lot longer and a lot more carefully than on the construction site.”

Tequila left with what money they had between them to get the dynamite as Marti arrived, with Dylan along, to take the next shift of surveillance with Roger. Marti’s daughter Tamara and Roz were in kindergarten, but her son Dylan was too young and had to be parked in the A-frame for the rest of the day. Joel rose to the occasion as the one most sensitive, in Roger’s absence, to the demands of a bored and lonely little boy. Lark, looking up from his hand calculator and running a column of figures, instructed Vida, “Get it in tens and twenties. Leave the day after tomorrow. We’ll proceed on this end assuming you can get the money here by Tuesday night.”