The Lacuna

“Communism is the same as Stalin, that’s what he thinks.”

“Correct. And baseball is nine white men and a stick. Seeing is believing. For years the president told us we had no fear. They put up signs to that effect in every post office. ‘Tojo doesn’t scare us.’ Now we have a change of program, they’re plastering up a new slogan: ‘Run like hell.’”

“I see what you mean.”

“According to Elmo Roper’s last poll, forty percent of Americans believe the Jews have too much power in this country. Tell me, we have how many Jewish men in the Congress?”

“Not many, I shouldn’t think. Maybe none at all?”

“So what is the problem? Foreign-sounding people, not Christian, and not apologetic about it. They may have their own ideas. It suggests a challenge to our hard-earned peace and bounty. Making a fuss over Negro segregation would be another example.”

“I see that. The issue is not Communism per se.”

He leaned forward, his blue eyes watery, feverish looking. He held up both hands as if he meant to clasp my face between them. “You know what the issue is? Do you want to know? It’s what these guys have decided to call America. They have the audacity to say, ‘There, you sons of bitches, don’t lay a finger on it. That is a finished product!’”

“But any country is still in the making. Always. That’s just history, people have to see that.”

He dropped his hands, sat back against the booth. “Pardon my French, but tell it to the goddamn Marines.”

“My stenographer said the same thing, more or less. Minus the French.”

Artie had finished his breakfast and now stacked up plates, ashtray on top, recovering himself. “Your Mrs. Brown, a very astute lady. How is she?”

“Astute, as you say. And not mine, for the record. She’s all right, I think.”

“Good.” He ground out his cigarette, smoothed the contract on the table, and folded it into its envelope. “You can sign this. Affidavit and all, if that’s what you want. I can’t say yes or no. But I’m going to tell you something about history in the making. Remember you heard this first from Artie Gold, over a plate of ground hog and cackle. This is going to get serious. What these men are doing could become permanent.”

“What do you mean?”

Suddenly he looked weary. “You force people to stop asking questions, and before you know it they have auctioned off the question mark, or sold it for scrap. No boldness. No good ideas for fixing what’s broken in the land. Because if you happen to mention it’s broken, you are automatically disqualified.”

“Surely that’s overstating it,” I said. “America runs on extremes. The latest craze and a tank of gas will get you about anywhere. Today the Kremlin is a messianic movement and you’re better dead than red. Tomorrow they’ll decide the real mischief is cigarettes and sugar in your coffee. The culture is built on hyperbole.” I wanted to see him smile. “Or maybe you really do think this food is worth yodeling about.”

He didn’t smile. “I’m an old man, I’ve seen a lot. But what these men are doing is putting poison on the lawn. It kills your crabgrass all right, and then you have a lot of dead stuff out there for a very long time. Maybe forever.”

The Asheville Trumpet, June 18, 1948

City Slams Doors on Polio Menace

by Carl Nicholas

The City Health Commission this week banned all public gatherings, to stem the tide of infantile paralysis sweeping our state. The quarantine began at 1 am Monday, closing movie houses, skating parlors, swimming pools, and other public sites of infestation. All city churches except the Roman Catholic have sensibly urged their flocks to pray from the safety of home. This city of 50,000 souls is quiet as a grave, as housewives stay home from shopping and our businesses and resorts see profits stolen by the epidemic.

Dr. Ken Malusa, interviewed at the Health Department by telephone, reminded us that even the wisest of medical men can offer no chemical cure for polio. “This germ is crafty, you won’t see him with the human eye or even the best microscopes. Many have given it a try, but the sneaky fellow won’t show his face. Penicillin doesn’t scare him, it’s no use at all. My advice is, keep the kiddies away from the crowds where he travels.”

That goes for men and ladies too, no one’s in the clear. Seven percent of hapless victims die, says Dr. Malusa, and nearly all are crippled. The good doctor said no explanation accounts for the epidemics each year, which occur in summer only. Asheville is presently suffering the worst rate of epidemic in our nation, in a state that already this year has seen more than one thousand victims fall to the polio menace. The national total is nearly six thousand.

The town fathers have composed a letter to Bishop Vernon Reynolds in Raleigh urging him to grant permission to Roman Catholics here to remain away from their rites.

July 6

Dear Frida,

It’s two in the morning, and bright as day outside. The paved street has a watery shine, with the trees lined up along both banks like the canals of Xochimilco. The moon is not quite full: perfect down the left side but a little ragged on the right, so waning. C for Cristo means it is dying away. I couldn’t sleep tonight so sat up to meet our birthday. But I must have fallen into a dream for a few seconds, because you were here in my room just now, in your wheelchair, your hair all done up. Working at an easel with your back to me. I said, “Frida, look, the streets have turned to rivers. Let’s take a boat somewhere.” You turned to me with empty eye sockets and said, “You go on, Sóli. I have to stay.”

The radio news may have put me off sleep. Stalin’s blockade of Berlin is a horror, and not so difficult for us to imagine here. Asheville is also under siege, quarantined because of the polio. Today I walked downtown to put Mrs. Brown’s wage in the bank, and I saw not one other living soul on the way. The school playgrounds, empty. The luncheonettes dark, their counters attended by lines of empty chrome stools. The city is a graveyard. My only compatriots today were the plaster models in the store windows, with their smug blind eyes and smart attire. Of course, the bank was closed.

I can imagine you here, Frida, limp-skipping through the streets to have a laugh at all this fear. You’ve already had the polio, you have your leg to show for it, your billowing woe and passion that can’t be chased indoors for anything. It’s a gift to survive death, isn’t it? It puts us outside the fray. How strange, that I include myself, I wonder now what I mean. What was my childhood disease? Love, I suppose. I was susceptible to contracting great love, suffering the chills and delirium of that pox. But it seems I am safe now, unlikely to contract it again. The advantages of immunity are plain. People contort themselves around the terror of being alone, making any compromise against that. It’s a great freedom to give up on love, and get on with everything else.