Across the Miles

ACROSS THE MILES

My dad used to say that the reason I had such remarkable ESP was because he couldn't afford the phone bill. And this explains to a degree my failure at a star-spangled career.

My dad would have liked me to be a photo journalist, an anthropologist, an indexer at Tell es-Sa'idyeh; anything to get me out of the house and preferably away from the phone. He didn't encourage marriage as he felt it was just asking for trouble and what he wanted from me was a little quiet and a few letters. I liked the idea of marriage much better but having tried it, I had to agree with my dad that Greenwich Village to Phoenix, Arizona collect for advice was not exactly what we all had in mind.

So it was that, after I suddenly turned up with all my earthling belongings, a few months family counseling commenced and it was decided that I should try my hand at a career. In other words, I was booted out.

To give me support and because she was fond of a lark, my mother accompanied me cross country on the Greyhound bus to Washington, D.C. She installed me in a small room at a quaint Victorian hotel on Connecticut Avenue and after tea, she left.

We were very optimistic and pleased with ourselves and that same afternoon, I went to see the awesome building of the Dept. of State where on Monday morning I was to being my career. On my way back, I walked past the White House. I went all the way around it and came back again past the White House guard. He looked at me questioningly and I couldn't help but say that it was just so beautiful, I was going around it again.

After that day on my way home in the autumn cold, I would walk all the way around the White House before going up Connecticut Avenue. The White House guard would smile and say a friendly hello, asking how things were in the typing pool.

Things were actually very bad in the typing pool. I was in the Cuban section. I had to read letter sent in by Cuban families pleading to come to the United States. I had to put their names on a card, translate their reasons for wanting to come to the States, and who would be responsible for them. The average by the other typists was 230 cards a day. I did 50, not because I couldn't type but because the letters were appallingly sad.

Mr. Warzovski came shaking his head. One could not be fired from the typing pool but on the other hand, one could not spend the day crying over letters. And then there was the business of my having made an error. One mistake in spelling the family's name and it wouldn't be able to come. Didn't I realize what I had done? I tried to explain to Mr. Warzovski that I thought the family had misspelled its own name, (as though spelling Smith with two m's.) and had patched it up so that they all could come. What was he going to do with me? He decided I should be promoted; I could be his assistant and not type cards. One day I could have his jog and all of Cuba would then be under my wing. I could go meet everybody on a big ship and bring ices for all the nieces and nephews.

I could not be transferred or promoted till I had been on the job 90 days so Mr. Warzovski and I did the best we could. During my lunch hour, I would take my can of Metracal and go sit by the planters to watch the elevators.

We were going along fine when one morning, Mr. Warzovski came in bewildered.

“Stop typing,” he said. “Nobody will be coming. The President says, 'Stop typing.'”

For two days, we all sat. When I watched the elevators, the doors would open to reveal ashen,shaken faces.

When I walked around the White House, the guard was busy. Everywhere there was a sense of activity and dead quiet. Crisis was a word that was said as one would say cancer and seemed equally terminal. The radio was unbearable and grocery stores opened with empty shelves.

I thought of all the times I had been in danger, of planes shot down, houses bombed, timed devices dismantled by my enterprising brother; and I started wondering what this career thing was all about. What was the point of it if what I was doing was just a way to grow into an old maid in a quaint Victorian townhouse. What was the necessity of being so far away from everyone who knew me just to have a title after my name? All those Cubans I had cried over; what had I done for any of them?

Two days after the Cuban crisis, I walked past the White House guard. He was very cheery.

“It's all right, now,” he said.

“Yes, it is,” I agreed. I told him I was going home, back to Arizona.

“You just got there,” he objected.

Yes, and I might have taken twenty years to find out I was in the wrong place. I walked up Connecticut Avenue, gathered my few earthly belongings, and headed for the Greyhound bus.

When I arrived at my dad's house, he said, “I was sure hoping you'd turn up. Whose idea was this about a career, anyway? I was going to call you on the phone but decided to save myself some money. Just waited up instead.”