Public Burning (64 page)

“Judas, I'll be glad when this thing is over,” sighed the cop with the walkie-talkie.

The fat cop shrugged heavily and mopped his brow. “A job's a job.”

“Yeah, so long as the damned you-know-who don't show up,” said the other one.

“The Phantom? Shit, I wish he fuckin' would,” snarled the fat cop, hiking his gunbelt. “I'd love to tangle asses with that greasy cocksucker. I bet he ain't half what he's fuckin' cracked up to be!”

“Half's enough,” the other one said, giving me a long inquisitive stare. “Who's the dude in the handlebars and funny bags?”

“A crasher. Says his name is Nature Boy.”

“Greenleaf,” I corrected, but I knew it was hopeless. I could see the prison up the hill at the top of the street, so close and yet so far.

“Thomas Greenleaf?” asked the cop with the walkie-talkie. “It's all right, Frank. The Chief said to let him through. The Warden's waiting for him.”

Frank shrugged and waved me by, moving to stop some other guy coming up behind me. Made it after all! I braced my shoulders and strode by them—but then the cop with the walkie-talkie grabbed me as I passed: “Hold on there a minute, pal!”

“Eh? What—?! You said I—”

“It's your moustache,” he said, leaning down to whisper in my ear: “You got it on upside down!”

“Oh! Uh, right…!” Just as well. It was beginning to itch, and changing it around gave me a chance to scratch. The cops' laughter, though, I could have done without.

It got more congested the further up the hill I went. There were other checkpoints, but they were easier to get through than the first: the weakness of all security systems. Once you cracked the periphery, the rest got easier. But not all that easy. At the prison parking lot, I found at least a hundred and fifty reporters and cameramen, some of whom I recognized, and nearly that many more police, among them the Sheriff of Westchester County, apparently a guest of honor in the cavalcade that would soon transport the Rosenbergs to Times Square. “Anything stirring below, Sheriff?” a state trooper asked him.

“Nope, all quiet,” he said. “Nothing but Republicans down there.” Everybody laughed. Even I was laughing, it was like someone was pulling my face and shaking it.

“They say there's trouble brewing up in the city,” a reporter said.

Somehow I had to find a way past all these guys without being recognized. Access was through a gate in a wire fence behind all these people. There were more guards there, then another heavier gate in a thick wall, the prison beyond that. I'd expected gray blocks of marble—stone upon stone—like an old castle, but most of the walls and buildings in fact were made of brick. Brick and concrete. It was large, but it had seemed larger from below. Impregnable, just the same. And archetypal: probably those familiar hexagonal watchtowers with the peaked roofs gave you this feeling. Just like in the Raft and Cagney movies. You could get nostalgic about this place if you hung around long enough. The guards in the towers were armed and wore dark sunglasses. They seemed very relaxed. They reminded me of the captains of some ships I'd been on. There was some kind of walk up through the chopped granite hillside by the north wall: maybe there was a way in through the back. But one of those towers hovered over the place where the walk began, with a lot of smiling cops gazing down. Not a chance.

I stood for a few uncertain moments in the sun at the edge of the parking lot, near a bank of telephones hanging exposed on a fence there. I reasoned: if somebody comes up to me suddenly, I could duck my head over a phone and give someone a call. I realized I'd probably call Pat. I was sweating heavily and my moustache kept slipping. The sun was dropping over the river: time running out. It was now or never. A couple of reporters turned my way, apparently coming to use the phones. I stepped brusquely out into the parking lot as though heading for my car, then turned on my heel and walked straight toward the gate. My moustache fell off: I grabbed it, clutched it in my fist. My heart was pounding away a mile a minute, but I remained outwardly cool. Courage—or, putting it more accurately, lack of fear—is a result of discipline. Any man who claims never to have known fear is either lying or else he is stupid. I was afraid, all right, I knew a lot was at stake, but I'd made up my mind to do this, and now I had to carry through. I was famous for this, this stubborn carry-through, everyone from my mother to Uncle Sam had noticed it, I probably couldn't do otherwise. But I felt like I'd felt getting into that cage with Sheba. There was a sign at the gate:

I felt a rush of activity around me as I bulled forward. People turning to stare. Reporters lifting their cameras. Guards rushing toward the gate. Christ, I thought, afraid to look up at the towers, they might even try to shoot me! I couldn't remember who I was supposed to be. All I could think of was Greenglass, but that wasn't it. I glanced up and saw that on the other side of the fence some guy was barreling straight at me with a magazine held up in front of his face like a mask. In my panic I thought it might be me! That I was charging straight at a mirror! That I'd been inside all the time and was rushing out! But that there
was
no “out”! If life is all free flow, I wondered, bracing myself for this astounding collision, then how do such things happen? And if it is not, then what the hell am I doing here?

INTERMEZZO

Their lips have remained sealed and they prefer the glory which they believe will be theirs by the martyrdom which will be bestowed upon them by those who enlisted them in this diabolical conspiracy, and who, indeed, desire them to remain silent.

—
J
UDGE
I
RVING
R. K
AUFMAN

Human Dignity Is Not for Sale

A Last-Act Sing Sing Opera by Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

CAST

Julius Rosenberg, prisoner (tenor)

Ethel Rosenberg, prisoner (soprano)

James V. Bennett, Federal Director of the Bureau of Prisons (baritone)

The Warden (bass)

The Turnkey

A Matron

SCENE 1

The Sing Sing counsel room at 11 a.m., Tuesday, June 2, 1953
.
JAMES
is standing near the back wall under a huge diagram, much larger than life, of an electric chair with its various auxiliary elements: a dynamo, excitor, rheostat, volt and ampere meters, switches, attachment sockets, and so on, all of it wired up, labeled, and complete with instructions
,
JULIUS
is brought into the room by the
TURNKEY
,
who then retires, closing the door behind him
.
JULIUS
glances curiously after the
TURNKEY'S
departure, since this is the first time he has ever been alone with anyone without an officer or Sing Sing official present
.
JAMES
allows
JULIUS
to do a few anxious turns onstage, then steps forward to commence the Overture:

The history of our country in freeing war criminals, Nazi and Fascist, in not putting to death traitors and spies, and yet, for the first time, making the Rosenbergs the worst criminals in all our history—you know this is not right!