I had dinner with Joe again last night. I remarked how thin and tired he looked since our last meal. “I know,” he sighed. “The food’s awful. And the heat! Jesus!” He yelped and jumped. “What?” I said. He pointed to a bracelet on his left wrist. “Forbidden word. They shock me when it happens. Hell of a jolt.” We both laughed at that one.“So what’s up, kiddo?” Joe said, digging into his meatloaf. “It’s the war, Joe,” I said. “We’re in a conflict with…”
“I know about the war, kiddo. We get the papers down there,” he said. He looked up from his meal, eyelids narrowed in the laser look I knew so well. “Please tell me you’re not thinking of writing something or…” (eyes mere slits now) “protesting,” Joe said.
“Well, it did occur to me…” I began. He pointed his fork at me.
“In my day, we’d have your ass in jail, you communist,” he said, his face gaining some color. “I’m not a communist, Joe,” I said. He smiled and waved the fork back and forth. “I know. It just feels so good to say it. I miss those days, by God.” He yelled in pain again and rubbed the wrist.
I started a lecture on freedom of speech. “Doesn’t matter, “he interrupted through a mouthful of mashed potatoes. “You got any water? And ice? Boy do I miss ice.” I poured him a glass.
“Doesn’t matter at all. They’ve been killing the messenger since time immoral,” he said. “Immemorial,” I said. “Whatever. You wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes in my day,” Joe said.
I asked him what he meant by that. “Suppose I had hauled four or five of your spineless liberal rock and roll musician friends in front of my committee on communist charges. Would you have gone to bat for them? Spoken in public? Written one of your little columns?”
“Of course I would!” I said.
“What if it meant losing your job? That you’d never work in your chosen profession again?” He saw the slightest hesitation in my face and pointed his finger at me like a pistol. “Bang! See how easy it is? Fear is such a wonderful thing. You keep ‘em about 80% comfortable in their jobs and houses, and give them 20% to keep them up nights, to scare the Be…” he glanced at his bracelet “…jeepers out of them. Fear is what makes things work.” I told him how Orwellian that sounded. “Orwell. What an amateur. What a loser,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“Things are different today, Joe,” I said, and reminded him of 9-11, al-Qaida, Bin Laden.
“Right,” he interrupted. “Remember The Bomb? Duck and cover drills? Fallout shelters? You can’t tell me that stuff didn’t give you nightmares. Sometimes the fear of something happening is worse. And now you’ve got your own new threats,” he said slyly. He raised an eyebrow, looking eerily like John Belushi. “Wish I was still in the game…”
“These aren’t different times,” Joe went on. “‘You’re with us or with the enemy?’ I was saying that fifty years ago. Homeland security? The Patriot Act? Got ‘em in a spiral notebook somewhere. These are wonderful times! You want my advice, kiddo?” he said. I told him yes, I did.
“Keep your trap shut. Be a good citizen. Trust the people elected to keep you safe. They would not have gotten where they are if they didn’t know what they were doing. And don’t ever write another of your idiotic columns.”
I told Joe that I’d take that under advisement. As I gave him a thermos of ice water to take back with him, I asked him what they had him doing down there. “I teach accordion,” he said, and, seeing my grimace, gave me a very Gallic shrug as he vanished in a puff of smoke.
