for things properly Communist?”
Mike let go of the pamphlet and smiled a big toothy smile. “Excellent question!” Then he snatched the money from my hand anyway. “The answer might be in the pamphlet, which is now yours to read.”
“So . . . are there even any other members in Red Submarine?”
Mike shrugged. “Sure. We keep the group small, though, to avoid splits and purges. You know, arguments over political questions and disagreements often lead to organizations breaking apart.”
“So you keep yourself a small group on purpose, to not break apart?”
“That ’ s reverse psychology,” he said.
“Well, then, if I find the pamphlet persuasive, I certainly won ’ t come back and join your group.” I was pleased with myself for that little rejoinder. Generally, I wasn ’ t very good at thinking on my feet back then.
“You have leadership potential,” Mike said.
“How did you become the leader of your group?”
“By founding it,” he said, a little abrupt now.
“Just like in China and Russia, then?” I asked, and he frowned. I ’ d gone a little too far with the teasing, and was growing embarrassed again. I wasn ’ t here to meet this weirdo, and the guy I wanted to meet was behind a closed door, and his show was about to start. My Walkman had an FM tuner, so I put my headphones on, waved the pamphlet like a goodbye, and tried my best to walk away without rushing. There were free copies of the Village Voice in the vestibule, and I ’ d never had access to one before, so grabbed one too.
The Tao of Marxism , I understand now, made very little sense. Mike Schmidt was a “freelance revolutionary” and had been since he was a freshman back in the 1960s. The About the Author section was two pages long. The whole pamphlet was only sixteen pages. But in its way it was mind blowing. Mike liked Lenin, which surprised me given his comments on the Soviet Union, and was enthusiastic about what he called “the anarchist Lenin,” whom he found hiding between the lines of several of Lenin ’ s writings. A lot of the rest of the pamphlet was a rant against traditional leftist organizations—SWP, CP, RCP, RWG, the IS and the ISO, with the ISO being a split from the IS. I was reminded of a microbe budding little O-shaped daughter cells in order to reproduce. Regents-level biology, you know. There were a whole raft of other abbreviations he never deigned to name or even describe. That was all fine and sensible, if poorly written, radicalism, but then there were the last three pages. The revolution wasn ’ t an event that was going to come; it had already happened. There were a couple of million leftists in the US—anarchists and Marxists and Greens, anyone to the left of the Democrats, basically—and they were all doing something in culture, in industry, in schools. One day, they ’ d all do the same revolutionary thing at the same time, like iron filings influenced by a magnet, and the revolution, already “both imminent and immanent,” would be complete. All we had to do was join up, somehow. One didn ’ t even need to be a member of Red Submarine to be a “red submarine,” obscured under the waters of capital, ready to act in response to the revolutionary yang impulse to overthrow the yin of reaction. These were the cadre of the Imaginary Party.
It sounded good. Good enough that when I got home and started flipping through the Village Voice I decided, on impulse, to shave my head. Plus, maybe then my father would talk to me, and my grandma would say something to me that wasn’t about meals or television. I used my father’s clippers, and didn’t clean it out afterwards. I was ready for an infinity of abuse, and I got it. Kojak and Ban Roll-On jokes from the boys, sneers and outrage from the girls. I shut myself away, piloting a submarine in my own belly, waiting for the revolution.
9.
There are almost no girls or women in my life. I had wanted to make friends with that Chelsea girl
Mike let go of the pamphlet and smiled a big toothy smile. “Excellent question!” Then he snatched the money from my hand anyway. “The answer might be in the pamphlet, which is now yours to read.”
“So . . . are there even any other members in Red Submarine?”
Mike shrugged. “Sure. We keep the group small, though, to avoid splits and purges. You know, arguments over political questions and disagreements often lead to organizations breaking apart.”
“So you keep yourself a small group on purpose, to not break apart?”
“That ’ s reverse psychology,” he said.
“Well, then, if I find the pamphlet persuasive, I certainly won ’ t come back and join your group.” I was pleased with myself for that little rejoinder. Generally, I wasn ’ t very good at thinking on my feet back then.
“You have leadership potential,” Mike said.
“How did you become the leader of your group?”
“By founding it,” he said, a little abrupt now.
“Just like in China and Russia, then?” I asked, and he frowned. I ’ d gone a little too far with the teasing, and was growing embarrassed again. I wasn ’ t here to meet this weirdo, and the guy I wanted to meet was behind a closed door, and his show was about to start. My Walkman had an FM tuner, so I put my headphones on, waved the pamphlet like a goodbye, and tried my best to walk away without rushing. There were free copies of the Village Voice in the vestibule, and I ’ d never had access to one before, so grabbed one too.
The Tao of Marxism , I understand now, made very little sense. Mike Schmidt was a “freelance revolutionary” and had been since he was a freshman back in the 1960s. The About the Author section was two pages long. The whole pamphlet was only sixteen pages. But in its way it was mind blowing. Mike liked Lenin, which surprised me given his comments on the Soviet Union, and was enthusiastic about what he called “the anarchist Lenin,” whom he found hiding between the lines of several of Lenin ’ s writings. A lot of the rest of the pamphlet was a rant against traditional leftist organizations—SWP, CP, RCP, RWG, the IS and the ISO, with the ISO being a split from the IS. I was reminded of a microbe budding little O-shaped daughter cells in order to reproduce. Regents-level biology, you know. There were a whole raft of other abbreviations he never deigned to name or even describe. That was all fine and sensible, if poorly written, radicalism, but then there were the last three pages. The revolution wasn ’ t an event that was going to come; it had already happened. There were a couple of million leftists in the US—anarchists and Marxists and Greens, anyone to the left of the Democrats, basically—and they were all doing something in culture, in industry, in schools. One day, they ’ d all do the same revolutionary thing at the same time, like iron filings influenced by a magnet, and the revolution, already “both imminent and immanent,” would be complete. All we had to do was join up, somehow. One didn ’ t even need to be a member of Red Submarine to be a “red submarine,” obscured under the waters of capital, ready to act in response to the revolutionary yang impulse to overthrow the yin of reaction. These were the cadre of the Imaginary Party.
It sounded good. Good enough that when I got home and started flipping through the Village Voice I decided, on impulse, to shave my head. Plus, maybe then my father would talk to me, and my grandma would say something to me that wasn’t about meals or television. I used my father’s clippers, and didn’t clean it out afterwards. I was ready for an infinity of abuse, and I got it. Kojak and Ban Roll-On jokes from the boys, sneers and outrage from the girls. I shut myself away, piloting a submarine in my own belly, waiting for the revolution.
9.
There are almost no girls or women in my life. I had wanted to make friends with that Chelsea girl
Similar Books
