Heidelberg, West Germany

In the fall of 1971, Kathleen Cleaver said in a press interview in the United States that she was going to go to Germany to meet with the black soldiers who were against the racist, imperialist ambitions of the United States government. Kathleen was the wife of Eldridge Cleaver, a well known black American revolutionary, now in exile in Algeria.  Max and I heard of this event on the Monday before Thanksgiving Thursday.  The International Herald Tribune had run it as a news item, and then Jamie McDonald had gotten it from some black soldiers who confirmed that they were in touch with her.  Jamie told us too when he stopped by to see if Max knew of a room he could rent.

Jamie had a red beard, Max a black one. Otherwise, Jamie was fifteen years younger than Max and thirty-five kilos lighter, but both were in Germany to support anti-army GI’s, also known as RITA’s or resisters inside the army. in Germany.  Any soldier who acted in any way contrary to the military structure was considered a resister, whether he had quit the army or tried to blow up headquarters.    Max had invented the logo RITA, was very proud of it, and used it as an umbrella to describe all sorts of antimilitary actions in any army all over the world.  Now in 1971, however, the US Army was the main target; it was the motor  of the imperialist aggression against Vietnam; as such, resistance from within its own ranks was extremely  important. 

Jamie himself had been a RITA, a resister inside the army, usually by selling drugs, until he ETSed; that is, until his Estimated Service Time was over.  First he had served in Korea, then in Germany, and had stayed on in Heidelberg to organize.  Ex-soldiers were invaluable organizers or FRITAS (friends of resisters inside the army) as they knew the terrain and had the confidence of the soldiers far more than any outsider.  Now he needed a place to live, so he had come by to see Max.  Max said that if Walter Müller went back to Schwaebisch Hall, maybe Jamie could get his place in Heidelberg.

--Walter’s apartment will be free at the end of November, said Max.  Actually, a woman who lives upstairs in the same building is moving into his apartment, but then her apartment will be free.  We’ll go see about it after dinner

           

            Jamie said that would be fine.

            The three of us went off to the pizza place for dinner, the Milano.  Notable feature: an aquarium with transparent little tropical fish and thin, waving green plants in white sandy soil.

            No oil.  Unpolluted fish.  Bubble bubble bubble of air tube in from outside to insure a steady supply of oxygen; so no suffocating mouths swimming subsurface; a catfish on the bottom to clean up.

            --I really want to get myself together, said Jamie.  I have my own place, I can put my books there, do some reading.  I’ve been farting around for so long.

            Jamie had gone away for a month pushing drugs, and when he got back to Heidelberg, he had enough money to stay in Europe for awhile.

            --How did you work that?  asked Max.

            --Because nobody else has my connections and my outlets.  I get good stuff, and I get it cheap, and I know who to sell it to.  Of course I know that it suffices for one time I get picked up, and it’s over.

            --I don’t relate to drugs, said Max.  But I know I’m another generation.

            According to Jamie, the US Army was divided into heads and juicers.  The juicers were usually lifers; the heads leftists, resisters, fighters—unorganized, spontaneous, sporadic.

            --The pushers are all great people, said Jamie.  Really worth knowing.  Outside society, you know?

            Are they political?  The comrades of the IVth would say no.  Old left militants too, like Max.  Does it matter?  Is Jamie political?  Well, he is staying on in Germany to organize.  In whichever way.  Pushing is certainly against the military structure.

Leaving the tropical fish swimming quietly in the Milano, we took Max’s Citroen to Karlsruhe Strasse.

            --I’m glad it’s out here, said Jamie.  I want to be off the main drag. Only a very few people are going to know where I live, or I’ll get nothing done whatsoever.

            Max parked half off half on the sidewalk.  A trolley passed.  A car passed.  Sparse.  Splashed across the opposite façade in red and blue neon lights was

            OLD VIENNA.

Over three windows, chalet gables were traced in blurred neon.    Standing in the door was a black militant with an outrider’s hat on the side of his head.

            --Gravidson.

            How do I know he’s a militant? 

Jamie stood on the bottom step, shook hands with Gravidson standing on the top.

            By the color?  By the hat?

            --Hey man, how you been?  asked Jamie.

            Gravidson said he had been all right.

            --So this is where it’s at?  said Jamie.  I knew you guys were at the Old Vienna, but I thought the Old Vienna was somewhere on the main drag.  You still having the meeting on Saturday night?

            --No, said Gravidson.  We’re going up to Frankfurt.  I mean, they asked us to.  She’s sort of like the queen, you know.  And if we have our own meeting down here while she’s up there, I mean, it won’t look so good—like we were boycotting her or something.

            Her?  Kathleen Cleaver.  Boycotting?  The Black Panther Support Committee in Germany.  The Wolf brothers.  Frankfurt SDS in 1967.  Deserter campaign.  The young SDSers there dissolved themselves in 1970, and one of the splinters (dissolving into splinters?  Maybe ice splinters—but then not dissolved or?) Organized into a Black Panther Support Committee.    Political gadget for German leftists?  White Germans from Old Vienna emerged.  Crowded stoop.  Step.  Gravidson stepped back inside Old Vienna, followed by Jamie, Max, and June.

            Me.  Objectification of self.

            The Germans had come from the bar on the right, predominantly right.  To the left a room in the penumbras was sparsely peopled.  On the small dance floor, two black men danced separately and alone.

            Blink blink blink pink and blue lights in time to the music.  Music from a big chrome jukebox stopped.  The two men, dancing separately, stopped.

            The room itself was shaped like a foreshortened L with a horseshoe bar in the center next to the dance floor.  On the short side were three booths along the wall.  Six more booths ran down the long side under the chalet-shaped windows.

            Gravidson and the three whites stood near the door.  I said to Gravidson I had seen him at the K’town rally, and Max asked Gravidson if he was from the UBS, a fact confirmed casually by Gravidson where upon Max asked whether they, the UBS, had gotten any money from Amaryllis Botts of Panorama Television who had televised the rally.

            --He is supposed to put 1000 marks in our bank account, said Gravidson. But he has not yet done so.

            --That bastard, I added.

            --If we had the 1000 marks we could get more buses up to Frankfurt on Saturday, said Gravidson.

            --You have to be organized to get money out of a television company, said Max.  You see, Botts told us he was giving you money and that was okay with us, so we didn’t put pressure on.  And he probably told you he was giving us money.

            --We never seen that 1000 marks, said Gravidson.

            Like a whore, you should get it beforehand.  But the UBS were not whores.

            Another black outrider came over.  Stocky, dark, wearing a black turtle neck sweater and blue jeans, he did not look like a GI at all.

            Off work Black GI’s don’t.  Look like GI’s.

            I glanced at Jamie.  Red beard and all, he looked more like an ex-GI than the Black GI’s looked like active duty soldiers.  As for Max, he says he looks like the popular stereotype of a communist, minus the bomb.

            Did he?

            --This is Porter, said Jamie.

            The black outrider, Porter, acknowledged the presentation.

            --Look, said Max.  I have a tape of the rally if you want it.

            --Only the second part, I added.

            I had recorded the first part, then erased it by mistake while recording the second part.

            --I made you a copy, continued Max, ignoring my little burst of candor.  I’ll leave it for you at the bookshop.  You know, Schiffgasse.  Actually, that’s the address you have on About Face.

            Porter nodded.

            --I’ll leave that and some other stuff—GI papers, clippings about the rally, in a plastic bag for you.

            German grocery stores supplied free plastic bags for groceries.  Not French.

            My Walkin Shoes, a country tune, came out muffled from the juke box.

            --What’s that?  I asked.

            --Not music, said Porter.

            He looked at me.  I was wearing blue jeans, a black sweater, an Army fatigue jacket and a string of beads.  Between thumb and forefinger, he picked up the beads, let them fall.

            --They’re from Paris, I said apologetically.

            Inauthentic.  Old enough to be his mother.  Possibly not evident in blinking pink and blue lights?

            --But pick it up, continued Max.  If it lies around too long, it will get lost.

            --Kathleen Cleaver’s coming to Frankfurt then?  asked Jamie.

            --Yeah.

            --What’s happening?

            --There’s a meeting on Thursday at one of the university buildings, said Gravidson.  I forget which one.  It’s just off the main drag, you know?

            --The Mensa? I asked.  Where they eat?

            --I don’t know, said Gravidson.  It’s easy to find though.

            --An open meeting?  asked Jamie.  Or for UBS only?

            --On Thursday it’s for UBS only, said Gravidson.  Then on Friday we will take her around to some of the bases, and on Saturday there will be a big political meeting.

            --Where?

            --I don’t know yet.  We should get word by tomorrow.

            --Fine, said Jamie

            --Should we go to Frankfurt?

            --You go, said Max.  I can’t afford to show myself in public.

            Silence.  The country tune had ended, a pebble in a sea of soul.  Porter walked off.  Gravidson stood there.

            --Well, I guess we’ll be going, said Jamie.

            They shook hands all around.  Max tried the Panther handshake, second version.  Gravidson laughed.  The three whites left.  On the sidewalk, Jamie turned back to look at the pink and blue façade of Old Vienna.

            --So that’s where it is, he repeated.

            --Right next to Walter’s apartment, said Max. Will that complicate things for you?

            Jamie shook his head.

            He wouldn’t say anything was complicated for him even if it was.

            --I’m not going to tell anyone where I live, he said.  Anyway, the UBS don’t care.

            --What about the Thursday meeting?  That’s just for Blacks?

            --They probably won’t be too strict about girls, said Max.  But I won’t go.

            --Fraüleins are a nigger’s best friend, I said.

            Jamie looked at me.

            --That is the title of an article in the July 4th About Face, I added.  By Cloudman.  I wonder who he is?

            --You could take Elizabeth, said Max.

            --Elizabeth?  asked Jamie.

            --A Polish girl.

            --Oh yes.

            --She is working very well, said Max.  She puts up GI’s who come for the weekend.

            --I know, said Jamie.  She put me up.

            --I never remember who knows who, said Max.

            Next to Old Vienna, under an archway, through a dark courtyard, up a winding stair to the fourth floor, lived Walter.

--All leftists live on the 4th floor, remarked Max, breathing heavily.  It’s an unwritten law.

            Eighty-seven kilos, compulsive eater, gregarious, lonely.

            --Will he be awake?

            --It’s only ten-thirty.

            Walter Müller came to the door.  In Schwaebisch-Hall he had converted “a dilapidated pavilion” in the park into a youth club and lent it to GI’s from Dolan Barracks to put out their antiwar paper, Last Exit.  Ex-officer in the German Bundeswehr, pacifist, studying medicine at Heidelberg University, he had married a childhood sweetheart and had a four year old daughter.  A Leftist, non-party man.

            --Where’s your wife?  asked Max.

            --Asleep.

            Over his desk, a naked pinup.

            --This is Jamie.

            On the wall, a Che poster.

            --You know June.

            On the floor, a child’s toy and kiddie car.

            --I’ve met Jamie too.

            --I forget, said Max.  Who knows who.

            --I know, said Jamie.  After I got out of the Army, I grew a beard, and the first time I came to see Max after that, he came over and stuck out his hand and said, “I’m Max.  What can we do for you?”

            He laughed.

            --I just don’t remember faces, said Max, sitting down heavily.  Is the room upstairs still free?

            --As soon as she moves in here, said Walter.

            --When will that be?

            --The fourteenth of December.

            --Three weeks away.

            --Can you stay where you are until then?

            --I wanted to get settled before, said Jamie.  I’ve been unorganized for so long.

            He smiled.

            --How much is it?  asked Max.

            --Too much, said Walter.  Now that we’re leaving, they are raising the rent.

The upstairs stairs room will be 230 instead of 100.

            --Can you afford it? asked June.

            --Maybe, said Jamie.  Now I can.  It depends on how things work out afterwards.

            Pushing?

            --In a way, it depends on whether I can get the GI bill or not.

            --I’ve asked some people to look into that, said Max.  Some Israeli friends.  I’ll try to find out this week.  Anyway, you need to speak some German to qualify for a German school.

            --You might be able to take a crash course in German, I said.

           

            --Yeah, said Jamie.

            --We had better let Walter finish studying, I said.

            Once Max gets somewhere, he stays.  Unlike disciplined Walter with all the advantages of a middle-class home.  And disadvantages?

            --A place like this would be great, said Jamie as they left the large room through the small hall, past the kitchen, the washing machine, the sleeping bedroom.

            Jamie was lower middle class, mass education, joined up, fed up.

            Outside on the sidewalk, the chalet lights of Old Vienna burned quietly.  Pink and blue.  An American car with green Army plates parked silently.  A big black man emerged, looked up, and went into the chalet.

            --Sergeant said Jamie.

            --You know him?

            --Yeah. He’s a lifer.  Also with UBS.

            --They have lifers?

            --One or two.

            --I’m impressed.

Max drove Jamie back to center Heidelberg, left him on University Place.

            --I’ll come out to see June this week, I said.

            A young Army June was living on Karl Marx Strasse in Viernheim.  Jamie was staying there with her and her husband and their little boy.

            --That would be good, said Jamie.  She was sorry she didn’t see you on your last visit.

            --I was just here for a few days.

            --She understood, said Jamie.

Tuesday 

            I had arrived in Heidelberg on Sunday night, and we had seen Jamie on Monday.  On Tuesday morning, the following article appeared in the International Herald Tribune, followed by a more complete account that evening in the Monde:

CLEAVER’S WIFE DENIED ENTRY TO West Germany

(Bonn, Nov. 24).  Kathleen Cleaver, wife of American Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver, was denied entry into West Germany today.

In a joint announcement by the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and of the Interior, the government also claimed that a German guard shot and injured at the US Air Force Base in Ramstein last Thursday was the victim of an attack by armed members of the Black Panther Party.

Two  men  have been arrested on warrants issued by the district court in Zweibrucken on suspicion of involvement in a conspiracy to commit murder, the announcement said.

Mrs. Cleaver, herself a Black Panther official, was to have come to West Germany to represent her husband (previously denied an entry visa) at several private meetings being organized by the Black Panthers, the government announcement said.

            Max had brought his Tribune back from town, and I had folded it in quarters, propped it up-against the electric coffee percolator and sat down to breakfast. 

            --The UBS still haven’t picked up the tape.

            I stirred heavy cream into the light coffee.  Bacon and eggs and cream.  A rich breakfast.  Like Max.  Bureaucrats?  Are we?

            Kathleen Clever Denied Entry.

            --She didn’t deny entry.  They denied her entry.

            --What?

            --Or passive.  She was refused entry. 

            I read the article aloud to Max.  He looked serious.

            --That is very stupid of them, he said.

            Expulsion and interdiction touched him personally; at the age of ten he had been expelled from Austria by the Nazis; at twenty-three by the Truman government of the United States under the influence of a Senator McCarthy; at forty-one by the Pompidou government of France.  Between semi and official expulsions, he had left England and Israel voluntarily at the respective ages of sixteen and twenty-six.

            --Big Man was sent back from Frankfurt Airport last year, remember?  The Minister of Foreign Affairs said he had not given orders to that effect and was very surprised to hear about it.  So, the next week, Big Man was let back in.

            --I know.  But I don’t think they will let Mrs. Cleaver back in.

            --Neither do I, said Max.

            He looked at my now empty plate and remarked he had had nothing to eat.

            --Why not?

            --I had my class at nine o’clock.

            --Make yourself some eggs and bacon.

            --Too much trouble, said Max, I’ll have a sardine.

            Sardine kiss through the beard?  No.  Besides, he got up, I didn’t.  And I’m only on a visit so it doesn’t set a precedent.  I hope.

            For the above-mentioned reasons, I made him his breakfast and wondered if Kathleen Cleaver made breakfast for Eldridge.

*                      *                      *                      *                      *                      *

            --If she had not had a child with her, we would have arrested her, said an unidentified representative of the French Airport police.

            Touching respect for the family.

            We were again having coffee, espresso this time, at the Café Roma on the Hauptstrasse in Heidelberg.

            --Whoever gave out that statement got his ears pinned back, I bet, said Max.  What is known as an éxcès de zele.  An unidentified member of the Airport police indeed!

            --What were they going to put her in jail for?  Hijacking?

            Leaving Max in town, I drove back to his house on the hill.

            House on a hill.  A song from the 60’s.  Manfred Jackson used to sing.  Where was he now?  Paris, I suppose.

            Above Max’s house on a hill, through the German forest, I took the same walk I had taken on the 4th of July, day of the first public meeting of the UBS in Heidelberg University.  The 1000 black GI’s had actually gotten there, brought by buses from bases all over Germany.  The Rector of the University is against the Vietnam War.  I had not gone to the meeting because it was, after all, for black GI’s.  But I had gone down afterwards to see Heidelberg momentarily converted into a town of the black revolution.  There had always been black African students in Heidelberg, and ever since I had known it, there had been black US soldiers, and never a turnout of 1000 against the Vietnam War.  At least, that was the position of the IVth—that soldiers were motivated to get together because they objected to the Vietnam War.  Max said they objected to conditions in the military first, and Vietnam second.  I took both positions into account: soldiers had always objected to conditions in the military, but had not started openly organizing and objecting in public until Vietnam.

            When I returned to his house, Max was back, reading the afternoon edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine.

            --You know what the official reason for not letting her in is?  He asked.  Because her husband is a rapist, and they don’t want rapists in Germany.

            --That’s stupid.  Also incorrect.  He already served his time for rape.  His parole was revoked for no ostensible reason. 

            --They don’t like him making political speeches.

            --But he’s not trying to get in, she is.  Is she supposed to be a rapist?  Anyway, it’s not a legal reason.

            --Well, they ain’t gonna let her in.

            --Big deal Social Democrat government.

            Max raised his eyebrows.

            --Willie Brandt.

            Max sighed.

            Let it drop.  Maybe he will stop citing Willie Brandt as a hero of the Second World War who fought against the Nazis in Norway.  Twenty years later he gets elected Chancellor so he can kick out Kathleen Cleaver through his Minster of Foreign Affairs.  The good antifascists were shot, the bad ones became chancellors.  Or bureaucrats.  Or maybe ministers of foreign affairs.  Grosso modo.

            --I think we should do something, I said. Like Iqbal’s speech:

”Even where our militants do not participate,

Even where we have no militants,

Even then, we carry out acts of solidarity.”

            --I’m not a revolutionary, said Max.  I’m a reformist.

            --That’s no reason not to show solidarity.

”Because this is in the tradition of the Bolshevik movement.

Because this is in the tradition which, for the last 20, 30, 40 years has been distorted and twisted out of all recognition by all Social Democracy and Stalinism.”

            --We could ask them if they wanted to make a tape to send to Radio Free People.  You know, speak directly to the American people, denounce the German government, go right over the heads of all the officials—

            --Now there you have something.  That I’d be willing to do.

            --Okay, let’s do it.

            So that night we made a second visit to Old Vienna.

*                      *                      *                      *                      *

            Since we did not want to get there too early, we went to the eight o’clock showing of Doctor Jivago.   Max had already seen it.

            --Why did you take me to this?  I asked when we emerged.  It’s awful.

            --Baby A thought it was communist propaganda.

            Baby A was the first US deserter from the Vietnam War to come to France.

            --That’s no reason to go to see it.

            --Do you know whom the Red partisans were fighting in eastern Siberia in 1920?

            --Yes, the Americans.  You’ve told me several times.  That is still no reason to waste two and a half hours seeing a bad movie.

            --I usually make a running commentary.

            --Buttonhole politics.

            --There is nothing wrong with buttonhole politics.

            From which it can be seen that we did not always agree.

            The agreed-upon visit to Old Vienna brought us to the same parking place on the opposite sidewalk.  The same three chalet gables in blurred neon were traced over the same three windows, two on one, one on the other side of the door.  Up three steps and inside the door, white Germans were again crowding out.  On the right was a white, light bar; on the left, a dark one.  Penumbras.  Dancing couples, black and white, on the floor: black men, black women, white women.  More of the first and last than of the second and third. Blink blink blink went the pink and blue lights, wired up to the jukebox.  Stopped.  Some couples separated, some left together, all left the dance floor.  Max and I walked across the penumbras room to the horse-shaped bar.  We sat on one side with our backs to the chalet windows.  Next to Max sat a white man, young and small, looking like a soldier.

            Off duty.  Whites look like, Blacks don’t.

            Black men and white German girls sat sparsely around the bar.  An empty stool isolated Max and the white soldier.  The bartender, a white German, asked them what they wanted.  I told him coke, Max had a white wine and soda. 

            A Scholle?  Or is that beer and wine?  Or is that a Radler?

            From under the chrome counter, two coke glasses were produced.  With ice.

Consequences of US clientele?

            I sipped, stood.

            --I might as well look around now as later, I said.

            --Yes, said Max.  I know how to talk to white GI’s, but black—

            Untrue, of course.  He had talked to Manfred Jackson.  But Manfred had been one black deserter, not a mass movement of Unsatisfied Black Soldiers.

            Back in the small arm of the L, red lit, two booths harbored four black men.

            Begin here.

            Two of the men got up.  One, in light gray slacks, a white turtleneck, heavy, almost fat but big, very young looking, looked familiar.  Say something.  What?

            Nothing said, he passed her.  The person with him, half-seen, disappeared.

At the first booth, a thin black man, all in black, black glasses, shirt, trousers, sat.  All I could see of him was black.

            Shoes too?  Invisible.

            I looked down.  The thin black man barely looked up.

            --Do you know if Gravidson is here tonight?  I asked.

            My beads, purse, open Army jacket, dangled.  He shook his head.

            --Or any of the UBS?

            --Why?

            The music started.  Back to booth one, I looked first at the man in black on the right side of the booth, then at the much larger man in a white shirt and round dark glasses on the left side of the booth.  Neither of them looked up.

            Matter of supreme indifference to them whether or not…

            I leant back down, put my forearms on the table, and, dividing my attention between the two of them, said:

            --We read about Kathleen Cleaver not being let into Germany, and we thought it would be good to be able to take direct action of some sort against it.  “We” are people who have been working with GI’s in Germany for quite a while—we put out Act and help some of the GI’s here put out Graffiti and Propergander.  We distribute the Bond—you’ve probably seen it.

            No flicker of receptivity flickered in either pair of brown eyes.

            Must sound like an idiot.       

            --What we thought was, there is a Radio Station sponsored by antiwar people, which is called Radio Free People.  They want tapes from GI’s who are against the war—either speeches of accounts of things that have happened to them—nothing running more than five or ten minutes.  But the station is heard all over America.  Jane Fonda is connected with this, and a lawyer called Mark Lane who wrote a book about the…Kennedy assassination…that it wasn’t.. Oswald who shot him?

            Complete idiot.  Get to the point.  Must think I’m…

            --Anyway, we thought if the UBS would like to make a tape, explaining the real reasons the German government is keeping her out, or whatever…The SDS is organizing a demonstration…you could talk about the counteraction being planned.  Or whatever you wanted.  You know better than we do.  We could see it got to them.  Obviously you wouldn’t have to give names or anything…just UBS.

            Two unsatisfied black soldiers were silent.

            --I’m not a soldier, said the thin man on the right.

            One unsatisfied black soldier was silent.  I looked at the non-soldier.

Older…Too old to be a soldier.  Not too old for a lifer though.

            --Are you, or do you know any of the…

            The large black man to the left looked up.

            --He’s UBS, said his friend.

            --You work for this radio station?  asked the big man.

            --No, we just work with anyone against the war, practically.  We just know about Radio Free People, and so we thought it would be a good way to get the information out.  Particularly your point of view.  I was at the K’town rally in October.

            --I saw you there, said the thin man.

            --We were the ones who brought the Panther newspapers that they sold there, got them from the States, from this lawyer.  But originally we put out Rita-Act.   RITA meaning resistance inside the army.  And we are fritas, friends of resisters inside the army.  Anyway, Max has copies of Act and the Bond and…he’s at the bar now.  Wait, I’ll go get him.

            I went.

            Feel like a perfect fool.  Of course, they’re right to want guarantees.  Find the right ones.  Up to me.  Say I’m a member of the IVth International?  Explain.  The Fort Jackson 8 and all.  But Max isn’t.  A member.

            Sitting at the bar was Max, still talking to the white GI.

            --Come on, I said.  They’re interested.  I think.

            --Excuse me, said Max to the white GI.  We came here to see some people.

Carrying a plastic bag full of GI literature, Max walked around the horse shoe through the blinking lights blinking to music into the small part of the L.  The booth had room for three people to sit.  The thin man on the long side moved over for Max and his briefcase.  I still stood.  Max sat down, took out Acts and Bonds. 

           --I’m Max, he said.  We helped the guys at K’town put out Propergander.

           Out of a plastic bag, Max took a Propergander No. 3, mimeographed except for  hand-written title and, underneath it, a graphic of a small fat gander.  Then he extracted some Acts and Bonds.  Curiously the black militants turned them over.

            --What do you have to do with this Radio Free People? asked the thin man.

            --They’re friends of ours, said Max.  We thought you might like to make a tape about Kathleen Cleaver being kept out of Germany.

            --We have to be careful, said the thin man.

            --I live here in Heidelberg, said Max.  You can find out who I am by asking at the ASTA or at the political bookshop; we work with both of them.

            --I live in Paris, I said.

            --Who do you know in Paris?  asked the thin man.

            --Julia Wright.

            --Yeah, I know her, he said.

            More people know Julia than Julia knows.  But if knowing her means nothing, not knowing her would mean not knowing anyone known in the Black movement in Paris.

            --We’ve known her since the deserter days, said Max.  She did a big article on Buster and Manfred for—what was it, June?

            --Prensa Latina.

            Cuban Press Agency.

            --Manfred Jackson was the black deserter who got asylum for all American deserters in Paris, said Max.  A sort of asylum.  Deserters get residence papers with no sweat, but it’s hard to get jobs, work cards.  Anyway, look, I’ll give you my name and number here but please don’t give it out.  I am a professor at the University, and the police have already checked me out once, and their visit made my landlord very unhappy.

            The thin man smiled slightly.

            Very slightly.  The ghost of a…but nevertheless…a smile.

            Opening a small black spiral notebook, the thin black man wrote down Max’s name and number.

            Max has now given his name and number to Spiegel, Stern, Overseas Weekly, the Express, and the New York Times.  The police have it too.  And now the UBS.  Some clandestinity.

            --Ordinarily, said Max, you can leave messages for me at the political bookshop.  As a matter of fact, I left a plastic bag full of stuff there for you a few days ago.  No one has picked it up yet.  It’s up to you.  But I don’t think it is a good idea to leave stuff lying around there for too long.  Anyone can pick it up.  Among other things is a tape recording of the K’town rally.  The CIA and MI were probably there too, but I don’t see why we should make them a present of the tape. 

            --Where did you say you left it?  asked the thin man.

            --The political bookshop on Schiffgasse.  One of the tapes has been gotten to Cleaver in Algiers by one of our militants.  He is very interested in developments here.  So if you decide to make a tape, we can get a copy out to him.

            I don’t know if it is such a good idea to tell people you know more about something that they consider their thing than they do.

            --His movie is opening in Paris next week, said the thin man.

            --It is? 

            Had often been supposed to—but never shown.

            --It finally is? I repeated.

            The thin man nodded.

            --I’ll give you my address there.  You can check me out in Paris if you want, I added.

            As bad as Max.  Why should they and how could they?

            Under Max’s name and number in the small black spiral book went my name and number,  Julia—Prensa Latina topped the list.

            They check us out we don’t check them.

--We have to be sure who we’re dealing with, said the thin man.  Because a lot of

people could get in trouble.

Reciprocity?

--I can get in trouble too, said Max.  I’ve already been expelled from France, and I don’t feel like being expelled from Germany as well.  General Polk is not very happy about my presence here, but for the moment he is not doing anything.  If you want to make a tape, we’ll send it to Radio Free people.  And that’s it.  We don’t want to push you.

              The thin man took a yellow card with black curved printing on it out of flap in the spiral notebook.  Frejus-Photography was written on it with an address and a telephone number in Heidelberg.

            --You see, he said.  I have a business activity here.

            --That is great.  Just what is needed.

            --But, said Frejus, he is vulnerable.

            Three pairs of eyes looked at the big man who was vulnerable. 

            --What sort of harassment can they use?  I asked the big man.  Generally, I mean.  I know they can give you a court-martial or an article 15, but generally, what do they do to political militants?  Transfer them?

            --Transfer.  I was in Stuttgart, now I’m here.

            --They broke you all up?

            --They broke us all up.

            --Does that break up your political work, or can you usually start something going in your new company?

            --It’s hard.

            Reaching in his pocket, he took out a new black wallet, a worn card, hand-written with scrolls and signs: BAG-Black Action Group.

            --They broke this up, he said, flicking a thumbnail at the worn card before reinserting it into his wallet.

            --BAG, I repeated.

            Heard of.  Didn’t know it was broken up though.

            --You’re still in the Army?

            He nodded.

            --What’s your rank?

            Name, rank and serial number.  Stupid question.

            --Spec/5.

            High?  Depends on how long he’s been in.  One step up and he’s a lifer.  Jamie said the UBS has lifers.  Well-established in the military.

            Behind her back, turned away from Frejus and Max, she heard Max remark they meant well.

            Who?  Us?

            --A lot of people mean well, said Frejus.  That doesn’t prevent them from doing harm.

            --You see, said Max, they’re very young and inclined to be sectarian.

            Oh. The Next Step people.

            --Here’s Gravidson, said Frejus.

            A tall thin man in a black outrider’s had handed a mimeographed sheet down to the thin man on the right, to the big man on the left.

            --They put this out, he said.

            --Could I see one?  asked Max.

            Gravidson put down a package of leaflets.  The BAG man was not reading his.  It lay on the table in front of him.  I asked if I could read it, he nodded, I took it.

BLACK PANTHER SOLIDARITY COMMITTEE

Pigs are Pigs are Pigs.  NO MATTER WHERE THEY ARE FOUND.  As you have probably heard by now, Kathleen Cleaver has been refused entry into West Germany to share Thanksgiving with the Blacks here.  This should be to us a clear indication of the role that the West German Labor, boot-linking government is playing in the fascist, racist, pig-hearted Nixon regime of the Amerikkan imperialist empire. Three right-on revolutionary brothers who were spreading information concerning the coming of Kathleen Cleaver were approached by a low-life pig, of course in a piggish manner (oinker)—they dealth with this pig in a revolutionary manner, with the tool of liberation (the gun).

            Poetic.  “Dealth with this pig…”  Dealt and death.  Intentional?

“The brothers Larry Pierson and William Burrell were arrested and are accused of murder conspiracy for the revolutionary act of self-defense.”

            But the brothers were the ones dealt with.

            --That is very good, I said.  What happened to the third brother?

            Death?

--He is still in Germany, said Frejus.  Which is the last place I would be if I were he.  They tried to drive onto Ramstein Air Base and were stopped by a guard.  A German guard.  The car was full of Panther literature that they were planning to give to some brothers on base.

            --Why did they open fire?

            Frejus shrugged and shook his head.

            --The German cops turned the dogs loose on them, he said.  They got Larry and Bill, but the third guy got away./

            Not a good scene.  But presented as a revolutionary incident?  Turn defeat into victory?  Hotly debated.

            Gravidson had been joined by a heavy black warrior wearing a white turtleneck and gray slacks.  Tackle.

            --That’s a good leaflet, I said.

            Praise easier than criticism.  Bourgeois background.  Say the pleasant thing.

            --This Radio Free people, said Tackle.  You work for it?

            --No, I said.  But we are in touch with them.  We can get a tape to them.  If you want to check it out, we can give you the tape, and you can send it yourselves.

            --It would be good for the organization, said Tackle.  We could do that.

            --You wouldn’t have to give your name or anything, said June.  You could do it in the name of the UBS.

            --That’s right, said Tackle. That’s just what we would do.

            Max stood up.

            --You want to make this tape, he said.  We could meet at the bookstore Saturday before the demonstration.

            --Very good, said Tackle.  We could do that.

            --Are you demonstrating?  I asked.  As if it was any of my business.

            So no one answered.

            --The bookstore closes at two on Saturday, said Max.  Could you make it at a quarter to two?

            --Yes, we could make that.

            --Good, said Max.  We’ll be there.  But look, do me a favor, pick up the K’town rally tape tomorrow.  If you want it.  It makes me nervous when these things lie around too long.

            --Sure.

            We all shook hands.  But no Panther shake.

            Once outside, I asked Max if he thought they would come to the bookstore on Saturday. 

            --Don’t be surprised if they don’t, said Max.

                                                                                                           

 The Next Step

            After the Brussels Congress for a Red Europe, Max had been annoyed when I had come a day late because I had given my place in the Heidelberg bus to Norbert.

            --You were just so pleased about working with all those young militants, you were in no hurry to get here.

            --What would you have done?  After all, he was a stranger, he doesn’t speak any German—besides, I thought it would be good for him to get to know the Heidelberg comrades.

            --I never heard of a car where you couldn’t fit in at least one more person.

            --It wasn’t so marvelous for me, you know.  I had to go out and have a drink with the Mannheim comrades and discuss politics in German until two in the morning.  And then get up and take a train here.  I would much rather have come straight to you—cookie.

            A side result of my overnight stay in Mannheim had been that I had forgotten a pair of blue slacks and a black umbrella there.

            --I don’t see how anyone can leave a pair of trousers anywhere, said Max.

            --I put them over a chair so that they wouldn’t wrinkle and then, in the morning, I put on a skirt.  I knew I’d forget the umbrella.

            --I don’t suppose you have their name or address or anything.

            --No, but I could find it.

            Max heaved a sigh.

            --New Left, he said.

            I smiled.  Suppose I should be glad he thinks I’m New Left.  What he means is, I’m not an old Party member like he is.

            --We could call Berthold, I suggested.

            --He’s never in.

            But we did and he was.  Max always did all the talking with Berthold because Berthold spoke little English.

            --Your YSA friend is coming to the bookstore, said Max when he hung up.  He wants to meet black GI’s.

            --What’s he been doing since he got here?

            --Not meeting black GI’s, I guess.

            --He certainly hasn’t been breaking his neck to get in touch with us.

            --Your comrades from Mannheim will probably take him to the SDS meeting tonight.

            --What SDS meeting?

            --Didn’t you see that leaflet the SDS gave us in Old Vienna?  Big meeting against Kathleen Cleaver expulsion.

            --I thought that was in Frankfurt.

            --There’s one here too.

            He handed me a mimeographed sheet in German.

TWO WARS AND A BOURGEOIS WAR

The Portuguese invasion of Guinea, the refusal to let Kathleen Cleaver enter Germany, the renewal of the bombing of North Vietnam by the Nixon government.

Information meeting on these three themes, Friday at 20 o’clock, auditorium 13 in the New University.

Then, hand-written across the bottom of the page: DEMONSTRATION AGAINST IMPERIALIST CRIMES SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20TH, AT TWO-THIRTY ON UNI PLATZ.

            --The bourgeois war is the one against Kathleen Cleaver, I guess.

            --Your friend from the IVth will probably be there, repeated Max.

            --I wonder if any of the UBS will go.

            --They’ll probably go to Frankfurt.

            --Maybe we could fix up somewhere to meet in town.

            We arranged to go to the Milano after the University meeting at eight.  I figured we would have had enough after two and a half hours of it.

*                                  *                                  *                                  *

            --As it turned out, I had had enough after an hour.

            --SDS meetings are always like this, Max said.

            --It’s the NRF.

            --Same thing.  They began life as the SDS.

            The speakers, one after another, came to the front of the crowded hall and read rapidly from written texts—every now and then glancing up at the public.

Monotonous.

            --In Paris this wouldn’t work at all.  The hall wouldn’t be quiet two minutes if anyone tried to read a prepared speech.

            --This is the way the German students do it, said Max.

            Reaction against fascist demagogy?

            --They have a good crowd anyway.

            By eight o’clock the place had been packed, and people continued to arrive, filling in the empty space in front of the door and overflowing into the side aisles.

            --There’s Norbert.

            Looking much younger than I had remembered, a good head taller than most of the people surrounding him, Norbert stood in the crowd by the door.

            Uncomprehending?

            He was wearing a new brown sheepskin coat.

            On the other side of the platform, half-hidden by a map of the world hung over a blackboard, stood a thin, black clad figure.  Frejus.  Heavy photographic equipment was draped over him.

            Reporting or supporting?  We all could be from the CIA.  Or we could not be.  Or some of us could be and some of us not.  Postulating our possible pertaining to Establishment finks is paranoiac. So don’t.

            During the meeting Max had intervened on the reasons behind the non-combativity of the US soldiers in ‘Nam.  Giaou had intervened on the Vietnamese reaction to the American invasion of Cambodia.

            Max had talked from the hall.  Giaou had been brought to the microphone.  Both were foreigners against the Vietnam War in a NATO country, and it would have been in the individual interest of both to remain unidentified, as it would be to the individual interest of each Unsatisfied Black Soldier to remain unidentified.

            Solidarity with the struggle.

            Norbert stood and listened.

            Uncomprehending unless he has brushed up on his German in the last three days.

            Frejus walked around.

            Comprehending probably since he has a business here.  Easily identifiable too.  Must be as well known to MI-CID-CIA as the white wolf.  Black wolf.  A sign?

            --I think he made a sign.

            --Who?

            --Frejus.

            --I thought your friend from the IVth might be getting bored.

            ----I’m sure he is.  I’m getting bored and I understand German.  Or most of it:  in dem die Bundesregierung die Information hier über  verhindert…”  (Whereas the German government has withheld all relevant information and thus places itself on the same side as the Americans)…

            --I agree with what he is saying, but they are nevertheless boring.  No chairman.

            Frejus left the auditorium.  Through the open doors, I could see him mingling with the crowd in the entrance hall.

            --They’ve had me, I said.  I’ll see what Frejus wants and introduce him to Norbert.

            --I don’t see any UBS, said Max.  But then I didn’t really expect to.

            --They wouldn’t have understood either.

            Lack of understanding and contact between ASTA-SDS student intellectuals and GI prolos?  Or simply language barrier?  Or both?  Probably both.  No reciprocity.  GI’s glad for ASTA-SDS to support them, but if ASTA-SDS asked for GI support on their positions, would they get it?  Would the soldiers understand and, having understood, support?  The campaign against Axel Springer, for example?  Could the Germans explain the importance of it to the GI’s?

            I stood up and started picking my way over the knees of the people in the aisle.

            Max would think it wasn’t important whether or not the soldiers support the SDS.  Let SDS servir le peuple …serve the people.  In this instance, the GI’s.  Which is what the SDS thinks too: serve the proletariat by leading them to power.  And the proletariat?

            --Norbert?

            --He looked, recognized me from the Brussels Congress for a Red Europe.  A small German comrade with him smiled.

            I recognized  him from the bus back to Germany.

            All three left the auditorium and went into the hall where the German comrade left them.

            --You’ve been talking to GI’s?  I asked Norbert hopefully.

            --No, I’ve been talking to the SDS.

            --But you’ve been here four days.

            --They said they’d get me in touch with the Unsatisfied Black Soldiers.

            --Well, they’re based here in Heidelberg.  There is a black comrade I met with them.

            I pointed to Frejus.

            --He’s not a soldier but he works with them.

            Frejus was in one of the large window alcoves whose panes were blacked out seen from outside.  His photographic equipment was laid out on the broad sill.  If, inside the hall, he had made a sign, he gave no sign.

            --This comrade from the States is doing some articles on the GI movement, I started my spiel.  Could he come and see you to talk about it?

            --I’m going up to Frankfurt tomorrow, said Frejus.  I’ll be back during this week.

            --You’ll be here next week, won’t you?  I asked Norbert.

            --No, said Norbert.

            --Maybe you could talk to him now?

            Frejus said there were too many people around he didn’t want to see or be seen by.

            Respect his position.  But if you come to a meeting like this, you are going to be seen by everyone.  Maybe he doesn’t want to be seen by everyone with us.

            Max suddenly surfaced from the surroundings, shook hands with Frejus, and asked him what was new with Ramstein.

            --Have they caught that third guy yet?

            --Those brothers, said Frejus, shaking his head.  That was a bad scene.

            --Do you know about that?  I asked Norbert.  Three—or was it four? —three, I think, black GI’s tried to drive onto Ramstein Airbase with Panther literature.  They were challenged, opened fire on the guard, he shot back, turned the dogs loose and got two of them.

            --Second major error was trying to get away inside the base, said Frejus.  That was where they got picked up.

            --And the third one? 

            I meant the third major error, but Max thought I meant where was the third GI?

            --Just as well not to ask, he answered.

            Norbert asked what the first error had been.

            We were all conscientiously counting the errors.

            --Bringing literature on the base, no?  I said though Frejus had been asked.  It would have been better not to put everything in one car driven by black GI’s.

            --A lot of things should have been better about that operation, said Frejus. Those brothers were really putting it on—they were bringing the news about Kathleen Cleaver to Ramstein, and no pig was going to stop them.  So maybe that Ramstein shooting was what stopped her getting in the country.  One of the things.  Let’s say it didn’t help.

            --The SDS are playing it up as a revolutionary pig shooting, I said.

            --Of course, said Max.  Really, June, after your years of association with me, I’m surprised you don’t know more about mass media.  Always present adverse news so that it works for your side.  The SDS is working very well presenting it as a revolutionary pig shooting.  They must have absorbed something from Max after all.

            --Marvelous Max, I said mechanically.  It’s still too bad they lost all that literature.

            Max, Norbert and I left Frejus going up a side street from University Place and walked together down the Hauptstrasse.  Three Americans got out of an old Volkswagen with green plates.  One was wearing a cap and an Army jacket, the second a plaid jacket and khaki pants, the third a blue wind breaker with turned around—yellow lettering on the back.

            --What are you looking at?  asked Max.

            --I wanted to see what he had written on his back: TEXAS ALL STARS.

Demonstration

            Saturday at one forty-five, we met Norbert in front of the political bookstore on Schiffgasse.  Norbert was wearing his new brown sheepskin coat, a camera and light meter hanging around his neck, and carrying a tape recorder.  They waited until two-fifteen while the owners of the bookstore put up the grills and locked the small door cut in the thick concrete walls.  A former cellar, fronting on picturesque Schiffgasse in Old Heidelberg, its casement windows now presented Marx, Lenin, Mao, Che Guevara, and other less prolific political writers.

            Although Guevara not all that prolific.

            --They’re not coming, said Max at two-fifteen.

            And so we went up Schiffgasse to find a place to eat.

Two white soldiers, one in a blue duffel coat and brown plaid scarf, one in a pair of brown slacks, an imitation tweed jacket and a striped wool shirt, passed in the opposite direction.

            --If we eat in Wimpys, we can see the demonstration forming, said Max.  German demonstrations usually start on time.

            Wimpys offered two places at one table, one at another, this last taken by Max who chatted with the student opposite him, the one who ran the mimeograph machine over at the ASTA, while I told Norbert again that I was glad the American section was sending someone who was interested in working with the soldiers in Germany because I was the only one doing this work in the French section.  If the French section even knew that that was what I was doing.  As for the German section, Berthold and his girl comrade—

            --She’s called Gaby, said Norbert.

            --Yes, well, Gaby, they’re constituting a youth group and have no time or real inclination for GI’s who are logically the concern of the American section.  The American comrades who have come have just gone back home and written articles in the Militant.

            --I’m just here to report too, said Norbert.  I’m not staying.

            Max stood up, announced to Wimpys at large that the demonstration was starting.

            --I don’t want to get thrown out of Germany, he added in a lower tone.  I’ll wait for you at the car.

            Norbert and June walked up in front of the ASTA and joined the demonstrators.

            --In the States we have to have militants along the route to keep demonstrators from breaking windows, said Norbert.

            --Why?

            --Because otherwise there are always demonstrators who will break windows.

            --Why shouldn’t they?

            --It isn’t legal, said Norbert.

            It isn’t legal.  Some revolutionary.  Legal realities weighed against revolutionary situations:  Ramstein brothers shoot guard, illegal, rally Germany leftists´ support, legal, end up in jail, legal or illegal depending on whether you are an MP or a lefty.  Legal reality for Max is he’s thrown out of Germany for demonstrating with no support, maybe some, anyway a long court case like in Paris now; Legal Reality for Norbert is doing what the YSA tells him and not taking personal initiatives involving closer contact with black GI’s; everyone has his own problem, and his own bag except in moments of great revolutionary upswing when you drop your bag and run with the crowd shouting:

            --HUP HUP HUP HUP

as the demonstrators ran now down the Heidelberg Hauptstrasse, shouting:

--HUP HUP HUP

FREIHEIT FÜR BOBBY SEALE

U-S- A-S-A-SS.

US KRIEGSVERBRECHER RAUS AUS VIETNAM

            Linking arms in squadrons of demonstrators winding in and winding out along the Haupstrasse.  Up on a balcony, hooked to an 18th century façade, three black militants raised clenched fists in solidarity.

Third Visit to Old Vienna

            --Maybe he forgot to look up as he ran along the Haupstrasse, I remarked, and missed the three black GI’s on the balcony.

            Norbert had called Max Sunday at one, and they made a date to meet at the Milano at five.  As the time drew near, however, I finked out and decided I did not want to spend two hours listening to Max tell Norbert about resistance inside the army.  I took this out half on Max, half on Norbert in absentio. 

            --I don’t see how he cannot have met any black GI’s by this time, I started.

            --He told me that the comrades of the IVth were supposed to get in touch with the UBS, but none of this has happened yet, said Max mildly.

            --All he has to do is walk down the Hauptstrasse.

            --You know your IVth International has a lot of Old Left tendencies: you contact organizations, not individuals.

            --It’s silly to have the Mannheim comrades contact the Frankfurt SDS so that Norbert can contact GI’s in Heidelberg.

            --You’re the one who’s against buttonhole politics, said Max, buttoning bone buttons into their suede buttonholes.  Norbert’s your comrade, not mine.  Of course, I’m the one who has to go talk to him, as usual.

            --If he’d been serious, he’d have asked us about contacting GI’s.

            --He said he’d tried, but the phone where he was staying was broken.

            --Well, he should have gone to another phone.

            --And we should have gone by his place.

            --Who knows where he lives?

            Of course, I should have gotten all this information from him on the bus.  But he didn’t know where he was living yet, and he’s young, his first trip to Europe, no German, it’s normal he didn’t get through.  It’s surprising he telephoned at all really.

So Max went down to talk to Norbert, and I said to call me when they had finished.  I spent the intervening two hours reading Trotsky, and after that was more motivated to meet them at the movie, The Confession by Costa Gavras.

            Slansky trial.  London trial. Purges in Czecho in ‘52.

            --But a very positive film, said Max.

            Purges are a pity but we won the war.  Second World War, that is.  We being the Left in general, the Red Army in particular.  Let it go.

            --I’m sorry we lost each other during the demo yesterday, I said to Norbert in front of the Fauler Pelz, a movie house which had taken the name of the prison next door to it.

            --I had a bad cold, said Norbert.

            --You should have bought your sheepskin coat earlier.

            --Yeah.

            Max translated The Confession for Norbert all through the movie, but the few people in the theater did not object or did not hear.  After the show, Max suggested we get something to eat at the Palme and then go over to Old Vienna to see if any of the UBS were there.  The Citroen was parked half on, half off the sidewalk below the Fauler Pelz, so we left it there and walked through the narrow connecting streets down to the Palme, corner of the Haupstrasse and the Heiliggeistkirche.

            Church of the Holy Spirit?  Ghost?

            The Palme was in great favor with well-off students.  Open till two in the morning, with indirect lighting and concealed congealed music, it had more clients than tables.  After walking through the three connecting rooms, we finally sat down at an occupied table.

            --What would you like to eat?  asked Max.

            Norbert said he wasn’t hungry; he had had a pizza while waiting at the Milano.

            --I didn’t think I could just sit there, he said.

            --I’m sorry I was late, said Max.  It would have been okay just to have a coffee, you know.

            --I didn’t know.

            Sympathetic.

            I ordered lasagna and Max liver and onions.

            --I’ll have a salad, said Norbert.

            Max reached into a plastic bag with blue and green squares on it and pulled out a packet of GI papers.

            --What do you think of this?  He asked Norbert proudly, handing him a copy of  Propergander.

            --You gave me one before, said Norbert.

            --The trouble with those guys is, began Max, that they do important things like organizing the K’town rally, or getting out this paper, but after such major effort they just sit around getting stoned.  Very unequal effort.

            --They’re not organized politically, said Norbert.

            --None of the politically organized groups do anything, said Max.  The time it took the Communist Party to react to GI work in France!

            --They never did, I said.  They only helped organized deserter work and in the wrong way.

            --It was all part of the same effort, said Max.  And I was very glad when they finally began to help with deserters.

            --A lot of good it did.  They stuck them all out in that apartment in Cachan where they spent their time getting stoned and going on trips. Even shooting up.

            --I’d rather have them shooting up than shooting Vietnamese, said Max.

            Norbert looked back from looking around the Palme.

            Picturesque German Beer Stube?  I keep forgetting this is his first trip to Europe.

            --I would have been stoned all the time if I hadn’t joined the YSA, said Norbert.

            --Is that why you stopped?  asked Max.  Because you joined the YSA?

            We looked at each other.

            --Just like that?  repeated Max.

            --Yeah.

            --But why?

            --They told me it was a bad thing to do if I was going to do serious political work, said Norbert.

            Suddenly he smiled.

            Very nice smile.  Spontaneous.  Unexpected.

            --Bad, he repeated shrugged his shoulders.  I guess they didn’t say bad, but they got it across that it wouldn’t be possible to work politically and go on getting stoned.

            --So you just stopped?  asked Max.  Amazing.

            --It’s not hard to stop, said Norbert.  It’s harder to study.  When you’re smoking, I mean.

            --Did you?

            --What?

            --Study when you were smoking?

            --I got through high school on hash.

            He hesitated.

            --But it was hard to concentrate.

            --What did your family think?

            --Well, they would have been against it, I suppose, said Norbert.  But I moved out when I was fifteen.

            --Didn’t get along?

            --It wasn’t that.  They didn’t say anything but it was sort of understood I wasn’t to be back later than ten-thirty or eleven.  So when I was…well, my father didn’t say anything, but I just didn’t feel free.  So I moved to some friends.

            --Where did you get money for hash?

            --I was working part time in a grocery store.

            --All that would never happen in France, I said.  You couldn’t go to school and support yourself doing part time work.

            --And then what happened?  asked Max.  You joined the YSA and quit smoking and started working politically?

            --That’s about it, said Norbert.

            --Did you graduate from high school?

            --Just.

            A thick layer of baked hard cheese protected molten lasagna from the smoke-filled air of the Palme.  Touching it tentatively with a fork, I looked longingly at Norbert’s salad, Max’s white onions swimming around a liver.

            --What do your parents think of your politics?  asked Max, spearing the soft organ, mopping up brown gravy.

            --Well, my father knows he’s getting screwed by the company.

            --What does he do?

            --He’s working in the automobile industry.

            --You’re from Detroit?

            --Yeah.

            --What does he think of the Panthers?

            --Well, he digs the blackness side of it.  And standing up for themselves.  But he’s afraid of getting involved.

            --What about the black AutoWorkers Union?

            --He’s in the UAW.  He goes out on strike with them.  So far he’s watching the black unions, but he hasn’t made any moves.

            Finishing the liver, finishing the salad, finishing the lasagna respectively, together they moved on to Old Vienna.

Same parking place on opposite sidewalk.  Same three chalet gables traced in blurred neon over same three windows, two on one side, one on the other side of the door.  Up three steps and inside where white Germans crowded out.  White light bar on right balanced by dark dance floor on left.  Empty.  Music played to listeners in booths under windows.  Three back benches empty.  Pink and blue lights went blink blink blink wired up to the jukebox.

            Norbert, Max and I sat at a booth under the windows.

            --If you sit long enough, someone usually turns up, said Max.

            A young German waitress turned up and asked, in American, what they wanted to drink.

            --Coke.

            --Coke.

            --Eine Scholle.

            --What? asked Norbert.

            --White wine and soda.

            Max and Norbert sat on one side opposite me.  A black outrider came over, stopped in front of the booth.  Max recognized few whites, fewer blacks, therefore said hello to everyone, thinking everyone was someone he knew.

            --Hello, said Max.

            I recognized Porter.  He sat next to me.  Max asked if he had seen Gravidson and how the Cleaver demonstration in Frankfurt had gone.  Porter had not gone.  Some had, he said, but he had not, and he had had no word.

            --This is Norbert, I said.  He is doing some articles on the GI movement for a left wing paper in the States.

            Porter nodded.

            --Where you from?  he asked.

            --Detroit.

            Porter nodded.  The drinks came.  Max asked Porter what he was drinking, but Porter shook his head.

            --Do you have any copies of the Militant?  Max asked Norbert.

            --I thought I might have some trouble getting them in, said Norbert.  So I didn’t bring any.

            Hypersensitive to legality.  Like all the YSA. Our militants keep demonstrators from breaking windows…I might have trouble.  Overreacting to anarchistic Weathermen?

            --I can let you have some, said Max.

            --Where are you from?  Norbert asked Porter.

            --Chicago.

            --We did a lot on the Cairo strike.

            Porter nodded.

            --The Militant’s a good paper, said Max.  If you would give him information on the GI movement over here, it would really get out to a lot of people.

            --There’s a lot of interest in the States in the GI movement, said Norbert, turning to Porter.  I mean, generally.  Did you hear about the CBS television show?

            --A friend of mine has stateside TV, said Porter.  But I didn’t watch that particular show.

            --It was great, said Norbert enthusiastically.  What you have to remember is that this was a national television show.  I mean, it is one of the biggest television shows in the States.  So they have this whole show on soldiers in Vietnam, lying around stoned on a hill someplace.  When the reporter asks if they’d kill Vietcong, they say no, they don’t want to—maybe if the Vietcong killed their buddies they would, but if they didn’t, they wouldn’t.  All the time he’s talking, this GI is lying on his back, he’s wearing beads, he has a peace symbol on his pocket where his name’s supposed to be—

            --I’ve seen those reports, said Max.  The New York Times printed them.  Pretty good.

            --Don’t forget, this is national television, repeated Norbert.  It has a terrific impact—because the great part, get this, really the greatest—moment comes when he takes out his gun, this big old gun, and says, “This is shotgun.”  So the CBS reporter says something like, That’s what you shoot the Cong with?” And the GI says, “Well, yes, that too, but what we really use it for is—watch this: so he takes his joint and puts it in the breach and shouts, “Shotgun shotgun,” and all the guys from the troop come up saying, “Good old shotgun,” and start inhaling the smoke pouring out of it—man, even the CBS cat gets stoned!

            Norbert laughed and Porter smiled and said he should come to the meeting Monday night.

            --It’s our weekly meeting, added Porter.  We don’t have outsiders but you can come.

            Outsiders equal whites.

            --Where should he come?  asked Max.

            --Here.

            Soul Vienna.

             

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