The Day They Came to Arrest the Book (8 page)

“Wow!” Barney exclaimed as he came to the end. “That’s powerful stuff.”

“I’d sure like to hear
you
debate Mr. McLean.” Kate turned triumphantly to Deirdre Fitzgerald.

“I’m sure I shall have that opportunity,” the librarian said. “I can’t say I’m looking forward to it, but I’m not going to yield any more than he will.”

“Right on,” Nora Baines said. “Well, maybe I shouldn’t be using that phrase in this particular context.”

The head of the school board—he refused to refer to himself as the chair because he said he still had some mobility left—was Reuben Forster. His business, a chain of convenience stores that were open twenty-four hours a day, had been so efficiently organized by Mr. Forster that it practically ran itself by now.

Not that he didn’t occasionally pay a surprise visit to one of his We-Have-It-All emporia at three in the morning to make sure it hadn’t run out of beer or applesauce or light bulbs. But Mr. Forster spent most of his time on what he called his public business: the affairs of the school board; a senior-citizens center he kept supplied with conveniences from his stores; and, a special passion, a nonprofit summer camp for dogs. It was Mr. Forster’s strong conviction that dogs need vacations too—especially from their masters.

A portly man whom no one could remember seeing without his pipe, Reuben Forster was much given to
long conversations with himself when he had a problem to work out. Actually, the conversations, though he was alone, were with the people involved in the problem. He would assume their voices, as best he could, while asking them questions designed to make them more open to reason.

So it was this sunny morning, the day after the Griswold-Dickinson debate, in Reuben Forster’s spacious office at the We-Have-It-All headquarters in the center of town. Puffing his pipe and walking slowly up and down the room, Mr. Forster turned to an empty chair in front of his desk and said, “Tell me, Mr. McLean, what if a white parent objected to a book written by a black author who preached that all white people are inferior?”

Taking on the clipped, swift voice of Carl McLean, Forster answered himself: “You have to name me the book and show me the specific passages where this inferiority of whites is preached. And then we will talk about it. But we are
now
dealing not with a hypothetical case but with a
real
book in
this
school. And in this real book, there are many passages that clearly preach the inferiority of blacks. That clearly say blacks are not fully human.”

Forster frowned and said to himself, in his own voice, “What if we did have a book saying all whites are animals? Would I defend that book? Not if it was by some nut. But what if it was by somebody of historical importance?”

“You don’t have to address that question now.”
Forster’s voice had become blunt and quick. “Because
Huckleberry Finn
is not what Mr. McLean says it is. It does not preach the inferiority of blacks. Quite the opposite.”

“But Miss Baines,” Forster said in his own voice, “that
word
is there. All through the book. I can’t even bring myself to say that word, but good Lord, how can you expect a black child—” Forster shook his head and then went on. “I know your answer, Miss Baines. Mark Twain was
against
slavery. But that word, that word. Oh, my. I have another question. Should the meeting of the review committee be public?”

A deep, buttery voice now filled the room. “No, Mr. Forster. To make that meeting public would only increase and intensify the divisiveness over the issue. As principal of George Mason High School, I can tell you an open meeting will greatly inflame the situation. Let the committee meet by itself and then, when their recommendations come before the school board, it will be time enough for public debate. At least by then the review committee will have a clear, well-reasoned report on the matter, and that may bring some calm to the proceedings.”

“I doubt it, Mr. Moore.” Mr. Forster spoke to the air. “I doubt if we’ll have any calm about this anywhere along the line for some time to come. No, it seems to me the more public participation, the better. Then there’ll be no charges of a conspiracy by the review committee. Yes, that’s what we’ll do.” He knocked the ashes out of his pipe. “Now, I’ll have to meet with the
school board and see whom we’ll have on the review committee.”

“You
had better chair that review committee.” A new voice was heard in the room. A high, piercing voice. “Everybody knows you’re fair, so you’re the one to chair it!” the voice continued.

“Why, thank you, my dear.” Forster bowed to his imitation of his wife. “But I don’t know that that’s a good idea, because later I’ll be chairing the meeting of the school board that accepts or rejects the review committee’s recommendation.”

“Nonsense,” the piercing voice was heard again. “All you have to do when the review committee sits is to say you’re not taking part in the decision at that point. You’re just there to keep order since it’s a public meeting on a highly controversial matter.”

Reuben Forster filled his pipe. “All right, my dear. That makes sense.”

“Mr. Forster—” A squeaky male voice edged into the discussion. “We’ve had a lot of complaints about that new line of batteries. Customers say their being cheap don’t do no good if they give out right away.”

“You are at the wrong meeting, Oliver,” Mr. Forster growled. “This is public business.”

   “I cannot believe this is happening,” Luke, sprawling in a chair, said to Barney in the library two days after the Matthew Griswold-Kent Dickinson debate. Nearly everyone else in the school had gone home, but they, along with Nora Baines, were waiting to find out who
would be on the review committee for the trial of
Huckleberry Finn
.

“I cannot believe it.” Luke kept shaking his head. “Just a couple of weeks ago, on television, I saw that movie,
Fahrenheit 451
. You know, the one they made out of Ray Bradbury’s book. But that was in the future. Way in the future.”

“Where you been?” Barney said. “This has been happening all over the country.”

“Yeah”—Luke ran his hand through his hair—“but it hasn’t been happening to
me
. I mean, I heard some things last year about some books just dropping out of sight because Mighty Mike met with a parent or somebody, but I didn’t pay it much mind. I should have, I suppose, but I didn’t. You didn’t either.” He pointed at Barney.

“What do you want with me?” Barney frowned. “I just became editor.”

“But you were writing for the paper last year,” Luke said. “I don’t remember reading anything about behind-the-scenes censorship at good old George Mason. Or was that because Mighty Mike wouldn’t have let you become editor if you’d made that kind of noise?”

“Damn it”—Barney glared at Luke—“you know better than that. I tried to nail down a couple of those stories last spring, but it was like catching smoke. Nobody would say anything. Mr. Moore would just give me one of those fat smiles. Mrs. Salters said she didn’t know what I was talking about, and when I got to one of the parents who’d supposedly complained, all she’d
say was she had nothing more to complain about. Anyway, good buddy, it seems to me we ought to concentrate on what’s happening
now.”

“I cannot believe it,” Luke said again. “Next thing you know those firemen from
Fahrenheit 451
will be coming in
here
putting the torch to”—he waved at the shelves around him—“all of this. And then each of us is going to have to memorize a book to keep it alive for generations to come. Man, that’s hard work.”

“Calm down,” Barney said. “No way this review committee is going to throw out
Huckleberry Finn
. But it is good to have all this out in the open now—so we can fight it out in the open.”

Miss Baines, who had been leafing through the
Daily Tribune
, snorted. “Barney, I want you to think about what you just said. Here we’ve got a book on public trial. No matter how that trial comes out, I think it’s sad that it ever had to begin. You know, it’s never the book that’s really on trial. It’s the author, even if he’s dead. Remember that, Barney. Every time this sort of thing happens, it’s a
person
who’s being tried. For his ideas, his feelings, his memories, his fantasies, his yearnings, his language, which is his very self. To tell you the truth, I don’t care
what
the book is. I hate to see words on trial. I get the willies. We’re stuck with this trial, Barney, but we should not celebrate it, even if we win. Because putting a book on trial is wrong. It always has been, it always will be, and I am dreadfully afraid it will never stop.”

Having never heard Nora Baines speak in quite this
way, Barney wasn’t quite sure how to answer when a shout was heard, followed by Deirdre Fitzgerald’s excited voice. “I’ve got it! I’ve got the list!”

Deirdre sat down at her desk and spread out a Xerox copy of the school board’s appointments to the review committee in the case of
Huckleberry Finn
.

“You’re on the list, of course?” Nora Baines said. “The librarian has to be on it.”

“Well”—Deirdre smiled—“Mr. Moore said he was thinking seriously of recommending that the board disqualify me because I had already made up my mind. But I reminded him that our discussion had only been about his wanting to take the book off the library shelves
before
the poor thing had even heard the charges against it. I asked him if he was going to do the same thing to me.” She laughed. “He backed down. With a very sour smile, I’ll tell you.”

“But you already have made up your mind,” Barney said to the librarian.

She looked at him soberly. “Why, you know, Barney, that judges cannot come to any conclusion until all the evidence is in.”

“The list!” Nora Baines said impatiently. “Who else is on the list!”

“I don’t know some of these names,” the librarian said. “Remember, I’m new here. Okay. From the staff, Helen Cook. Head of social studies department, right?”

“Yup.” Baines nodded. “Very strong feminist. Thinks it essential that feminists make political alliances with blacks. One for the other side.”

“Frank Sylvester. He’s—”

“Chairman of the English department,” Nora Baines said. “A straight arrow. Never uses any book in his own classes that anyone would object to, but he doesn’t censor anybody else in the department. Says he’s not a policeman. A vote for us. Maybe.”

“Why maybe?” Luke asked.

“Because,” said Nora, “I don’t know how stiff a backbone Frank has when the heat gets put on him in public. Next.”

“Two parents.” Deirdre looked at the list. “Evelyn Kantrow and Stanley Lomax.”

“Kantrow,” Nora Baines said, “is a big wheel in the Republican party. Not only locally. She’s a state committeewoman. Can’t tell anything from that, though. In my experience, Democrats like to censor just as much as Republicans. Lomax is a professor of sociology at the college. And he’s black. That’s all I know about him. Except for his daughter. Eleanor Lomax is the most argumentative young woman I have ever had to teach. She drives me up the wall! But maybe that means they prize free speech at home. We’ll see. Still, he
is
black. Mark Professor Lomax as a very possible vote against Huck.”

“Are you stereotyping, Nora?” Deirdre looked at the history teacher.

“Move on” was Nora’s answer.

“And two members from the community at large—Ben Maddox and Sandy Wicks.”

“Maddox is an old party,” Nora Baines noted. “A
lawyer. I don’t know what kind of law he practices. All kinds, I guess. We’re not a big enough town for specialists. Maddox has been around here forever. But I can’t remember his ever having had anything to do with the school. Mark his vote unknown.

“On the other hand,” Baines went on, “Sandy Wicks should be on our side. She’s managing editor of the
Daily Tribune
. Good Lord, if journalists don’t understand the First Amendment, who will?”

Deirdre looked up. “Sounds as if the committee could go either way. Oh, I found out something else. There’s a second formal complaint. About sexism in the book.”

“Ye gods!” said Baines. “Who’s that from?”

“One of our own.” Deirdre sighed. “A math teacher. Morgan, I think her name is.”

“Oh, yes.” Nora Baines sniffed. “Cynthia Morgan. Kate’s in her class. A conspiracy, if you ask me. Just what are the charges?”

“All the women in the book,” Deirdre said, “are caricatures. Sentimental, not very bright, sometimes just foolish. If they’re married, they’re subservient to their husbands. None of them shows any real independence. This kind of pervasive sexism in the book—the complaint goes on—is harmful to the self-image of every female student in the school and is also harmful to the male students because it encourages them to hold on to ignorant stereotypes of women.”

“Humph!” Nora Baines scowled. “The women in
Huckleberry Finn
are no more foolish than the men
in
Huckleberry Finn
. And the women don’t go around cheating and murdering people like most of the men do.”

“That’s not all,” Deirdre said. “Another complaint is on its way from Parents for Moral Schools.”

“Let me guess what’s bothering their pinched little souls,” Nora snapped. “This book is unfit for school consumption because Huck and Jim were always naked on the raft when there was no one else around.”

“How did you ever guess?” Deirdre smiled. “But that’s just the first item in the complaint. Your friend, Huck, it goes on, is a liar and a thief. And he makes fun of religion and everything else respectable people hold dear. Also, considering that this book is being used in a
school
, Huck speaks very badly. His grammar is atrocious. Shall I go on?”

“A disgrace!” Nora Baines slapped her hand on the table. “This whole thing is a disgrace. But let me tell you something.” Nora looked around at Barney and Luke. “This is going to be a very important learning experience. For all of us. Before it’s over, we’ll know who the sons and daughters of liberty are, and we’ll know who the Tories are. Including the ones who’ll be keeping their heads down so they can’t be counted—so
they
think. But
I’ll
count them, because you can’t be in the middle in this kind of fight.”