The Cause

Contributed by Rivka Jacobs on 12/11/09

Susan Greenbaum sat alone on the top stone step. The autumn wind tugged at strands of her graying hair and spun dry leaves in eddies at her feet as they rested flat on the walkway leading to the short garden stairway. She tucked her fingers under her thighs, and breathed rapidly and deeply in an attempt to control her emotions. She focused on her black New Balance cross-trainers, scuffed and worn through hundreds of walks, marches, stand-ins, sit-ins, and clashes with opponents and police.

“Come on, Susan, don’t be like this.”

She looked up, squinting into the long, burnished beams of setting sunlight that flared around the silhouette of the man standing in front of her. She pulled out one of her hands and held it up to shade her eyes. She recognized thirty-five year old Greg Santino, who had been her assistant for six years. “Don’t be like what, Greg?”

“You know, don’t let her get you down. We’re all meeting in the banquet room for a victory drink!” He looked uncomfortable, his arms dangling as if unattached to his body. He shifted his weight, then raised one arm to swipe back his black curly hair as a chilly burst of air fluffed it.

Susan said nothing for a minute, while the sounds of rustling dancing dead leaves and whispering pine needles harmonized with the clicking of bare branches. The shadows were expanding from the far corners of the grounds of this vast formal estate, and everything had taken on a gritty gray patina. She lowered her hand as the final flash of the sunset sputtered and flickered through the sculpted hedges and groves, and was gone.

“We know what you think about the agreement,” Greg nervously interjected into the tension between them. “But Becky thinks we need to compromise, to be more sociable, to play to the media more….”

Susan’s steel-gray eyes glinted as she narrowed them. She easily came to her feet in one motion — the grace of a girl in a woman of sixty years. She shoved her self, all five-foot-two-inches of her, into Greg’s personal space as aggressively as she could without touching him. “And I told you, it’s the wrong thing to do. I’ve been dealing with these sorts of people for forty years. We never fraternize. We deliver our message, we accomplish our task, and then we leave.”

Greg looked down at the angry face, feeling confused and irritated. Susan Greenbaum was still officially their leader, but Becky McLaughlin seemed to be the voice they all listened to now. “Becky understands how we can get our message out to more people,” he offered, his tone defensive as he took a step backwards. He mentally compared the appearance of Susan, with her salt-and-pepper French braids, wearing her usual baggy sweats and little make-up, to that of Becky — younger and prettier and charismatic in her fall cashmere sweater and slacks, her hair stylishly cropped and fashionably spikey.

Two of Susan’s twenty-something proteges, Le Huong and Tom Selesky appeared at the top of the garden-stairs, and Greg glanced up at them. Susan instantly spun around and raised her head.

Tom motioned to Greg, sticking his thumb up like a hitchhiker and jabbing backwards in the direction of the huge house behind him. “Come on, she wants to talk to you,” Tom said.

Huong stretched her mouth into a thin line as she bounced down the three steps and patted Susan on the shoulder. “Not everybody is fooled by her, you know,” she said. Her long black hair and and feathery bangs fanned in the stiff breeze as she exchanged glares with Greg.

Greg’s expression changed, and any pretence of affability was gone. “Maybe it’s time you retired,” he said to Susan as he passed her and Huong and bounded up the three stone risers in one leap. He joined Tom, and they started to walk towards the brick mansion. Tom glanced backwards and gave Susan a brief look of sympathy and understanding, but then was facing forward again, huddling with the tall, lanky, and disgruntled Greg.

Susan and Huong watched them on the higher ground until they disappeared from sight. Susan felt embarrassed that tears had filled her eyes, and she said with difficulty, “Greg was my second in command. I trusted him completely. I can’t believe what I just heard.”

“What I don’t understand….” Huong muttered, gripping the bottom corners of her jacket and fitting them together, then impatiently yanking the zipper all the way up, “… what scares me, is how so many of us are completely sucked in by her.” She shoved her fists into her jacket pockets, winced as another blast of wind hit her full in the face.

Susan had wrapped her arms tightly across her chest, and was pacing now, back and forth a few steps each way, her face florid, as if generating her own heat and oblivious to the dropping temperatures and fading light. “Becky McLaughlin is a lying, psychopathic bitch!” she blurted out. “It sounds like sour grapes, like bitterness, like I’m exaggerating. But this is the truth!”

Huong nodded. “I know. I can see through her, too. But I don’t understand how so many of us, who fought together against corrupt officials from the lowest to the highest forms of government, are so easily fooled. I don’t get it.”

“The ‘Quatermass and the Pit’ syndrome,” Susan said, sighing. She halted in front of Huong, who inclined her head quizzically. “A movie. The now extinct Martians spent millions of years periodically turning on one another, becoming possessed by the need to become a raging mob. They taught humans the same trick — so that every few centuries the people of Earth had to ‘clean out the hive,’ purge our own in repeated Holocausts. Just as another hive-cleaning got started at the end of the movie, it was revealed that only a few people every generation have the natural ability to withstand the madness of mass hysteria. They are born with a resistance to the worship of tin gods, cult leaders, and demagogues.”

“Well, yeah, but I’m nothing special, so why can I see that Becky McLaughlin is an opportunist with anti-social personality disorder, and people like Greg Santino can’t?”

“Because she lies to each one, she charms each of them in a different way. She opposes me consistently, no matter what I say, no matter how logical my suggestions are — she repeats, “You are wrong, and I am right,” regardless. She accuses me of attacking her, projecting onto me what she herself is doing to me. It feels like being trapped in a carnival funhouse, where up is down and left is right and you can’t tell who is real or a distorted reflection. And throughout, Becky remains the reasonable one, especially if she drives someone to explode and lose control. You and I have been redefined as disruptive and mentally deficient because we won’t get in line to kiss her ass and worship at her feet.”

It was twilight, and the lights atop the wrought-iron lamp posts began brightening. Huong quickly wiped some moisture from under her eyes with one sleeve. “We worked so hard, we accomplished so much. We fought for everything from state consumer protection laws, quality education, and after school programs, to national issues….”

“And for all the world,” Susan said, “that’s what our group will continue to do. Except what psycho Becky really wants is power and control. She doesn’t give a fuck about any issue or any cause except herself and being the center of attention.”

They began climbing the three steps together, the gusts pushing at their backs. Huong said, “But it does matter, it matters to me. The Citizens Action Committee becomes the Becky McLaughlin Show? No, I’m sorry. You cared, you worked quietly, without notice, behind the scenes, to fight racism and stupidity and prejudice. For forty years it was never about you, it was always about the cause.”

“Which is why, Huong my dear, Becky the bitch has me over a barrel,” Susan said, giving the younger woman a hug. “What exactly am I supposed to do to stop her, without making it appear the entire thing is some petty attempt by me to do what I’ve never done before, make our cause something personal. Any attempt at self-defense is reinterpreted as a bitter attempt by me to pick a fight with poor, innocent Becky.”

They approached the garden and patio area. Ahead they could see two stories of exquisite windows sparkling with light. They heard music faintly playing somewhere in the midst of the stone and brick towers and ramparts strung with star-like electric bulbs.

“It’s a party,” said Huong.

“It certainly is. It’s a victory party,” Susan answered.

Coming towards them were two men, hurrying in the chilly wind. They were dressed in dark three-piece suits and ties. They were engaged in animated conversation. One of them shouted to Susan as they approached, “Are you one of them?”

“One of whom?” Susan answered, grabbing Huong’s arm to keep her from saying something she would regret.

“One of Becky’s group, one of those liberals,” the man nearest them said as he rushed by with his friend.

The two women slowly pivoted to watch them turn down a garden path and merge with a tossing, squally gloom caused by the interplay of electric light and an approaching cold front. ”What the hell?” Huong amost shouted. “Who were those guys, what was that all about?”

“Who knows. Cops, FBI, district managers for the CEO of Fitzer Pharmaceuticals whose hospitality we are now enjoying, and who we were supposed to be protesting. Maybe they’re reporters,” Susan said. “I’m cold,” she added. “Let’s go inside.”

As they came to a pair of French doors, they could see men and women draped in jewelry and designer clothes mixing with members of their committee, eating and drinking and chatting. Against the far wall, mostly obscured by bodies, was a large fireplace with a smoldering blaze.

“By the way, I forgot to tell you, “Huong said, restraining Susan from pushing the latch of the closest French door. “Hu Shuli has resigned! She quit! She quit ‘Caijing’ rather then give in.”

Susan Greenbaum said nothing, but a small smile stretched the corners of her mouth just a bit. Her silver eyes picked up the interior illumination and seemed to gleam.

“She said she’s going to teach at Sun-Yat-sen University’s School of Communications, but everyone knows she’s going to start her own publication now. She’s going to start again. They can’t stop her!”

Susan smiled a little more. “It’s going to be painful as hell, Le Huong. It’s going to hurt as if I’d lost a child or my husband. The hardest part will be that no one will understand why I’m in such pain. It will seem that I let her win, and I’ll look like a coward when I resign and walk away.”

“Then don’t walk away,” Huong hissed loudly.

Susan pushed open the door, swung it in to allow Huong to pass before her. She felt the warm air rush against her face, smelled liquor and a mash of perfumes. She heard the low rumble and punctuated laughter of superficial and empty conversations. As Huong refused to move, Susan stepped back across the threshold once more, still holding the door open, and said, “I have no choice.”