'Bill Schwarz did,' Jim Briskin said, 'but Verne Engel didn't. And it's Engel who runs CLEAN, not the SRCD Party.'

'I know darn well the SRCD pays the money to keep CLEAN solvent,' Sal murmured. 'Without their support it’d fold in a day.'

'I don't agree with you,' Briskin said. 'I think there'll always be a hate organization like CLEAN, and there'll always be people to support it.' After all, CLEAN had a point; they did not want to see a Negro President, and wasn't it their right to feel like that ? Some people did, some people didn't; that was perfectly natural. And, he thought, why should we pretend that race is not the issue ? It is, really. I am a Negro. Verne Engel is factually correct. The real question was: how large a percentage of the electorate supported CLEAN'S views ? Certainly, CLEAN did not hurt his feelings; he could not be wounded; he had experienced too much already in his years as a newsclown. In my years, he thought to himself acidly, as an American Negro.

A small boy, white, appeared at the booth with a pen and tablet of paper. 'Mr. Briskin, can I get your autograph ?'

Jim signed and the boy darted off to join his parents at the door of the tavern. The couple, welldressed, young, and obviously upper stratum, waved at him cheerily. 'We're with you!' the man called.

'Thanks,' Jim said, nodding to them and trying - but not successfully - to sound cheery in return.

'You're in a mood,' Pat commented.

He nodded. Mutely.

'Think of all those people with lily-white skins,' Sal said, 'who're going to vote for a Col. My, my. It's encouraging. Proves not all of us Whites are bad down underneath.'

'Did I ever say you were ?' Jim asked.

'No, but you really think that. You don't really trust any of us.'

'Where'd you drag that up from ?' Jim demanded, angry now.

'What're you going to do ?' Sal said. 'Slash me with your electro-graphic magnetic razor ?'