Who Zeked Roger Johnson?

Roger Johnson is very tired; it’s Friday afternoon and it’s been a long week. He’s looking forward to the weekend; there’s a baseball game he’s taking in with his son, his co-worker and his daughter. But first they must wrap up work; there’s a rumor that both men are duty-bound to check out.

           It’s almost Halloween of 1953; the weather has turned cool quickly and fall is definitely in the air. Maryland in the autumn is a fine place to be and Roger’s wife Betty has been baking pies lately; he can hardly get home to see what’s she’s been busy with all day. But before that can transpire, Roger by protocol needs to converse with John Smith.

           “It sounds like malarkey,” John explains while opening his hand to demonstrate the absurdity of the idea. “It sounds like just the kind of misinformation they tried to disseminate last week through Niger about them putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade. I don’t believe it at all.”

           “I know,” Roger wearily acknowledges while closing his eyes in pain and frustration. “But we still have to put it to bed before we dismiss it out of hand.”

           Both National Security Agency analysts are discussing a report, coming out of East Germany, that a “very rich and powerful” customer is looking to purchase nuclear secrets from the Soviets. Probably just another Soviet misinformation campaign, but it is their jobs to check out dumb stuff such as this; that’s what they do for a living.

           “You know John,” Roger pretends to play devil’s advocate. “If it is some country like Switzerland trying to purchase their own atomic bomb, this could accelerate the Russian nuclear program like lightning; they could buy their first computers and soon they’ll be ahead of us. You know the stuff we keep hearing about their space program; that thing that writer Clarke was talking about before—the thing that bounces signals around the globe—”

           “It’s called a satellite,” John supplies for the other. “I still say our captured German rocket scientists are better than their captured German rocket scientists; they’re mired in the stone age.”

           Roger sighs, sitting down at his desk. When John gets like this, he’s difficult to talk to; he simply wants to go home as every other worker does at the end of a long week. “Well, it’s not like it can’t wait; we’ll talk about it again on Monday.”

           “Monday,” John agrees and pulls out some paperwork to shut off any more conversation between the two.

           Because the two live next door to each other, they carpool; John closes his eyes and pretends to sleep while Roger battles afternoon traffic. After the usual delays and frustrations, Roger pulls his 1951 Chevrolet four-door sedan into his driveway. Dinnertime, he thinks.

           “See ya tomorrow,” John calls over his shoulder, his right finger hooked on his jacket swung over his back. “Early—I want to get good seats.”

           The game starts at one pm; last time they had to sit up in the bleachers it was so crowded. “Nine o’clock,” Roger yells back.

           He walks up the stairs to his porch; he picks up the afternoon paper. Inside his front door, he calls up the flight, “Hey, I told you about your bike in the driveway.”

           Roger can’t stay angry too long; Betty has an apple and a mincemeat pie—two pies for dessert! “Honey, you’re the greatest,” Roger enthuses to Betty as she hands him the driest martini possible with two olives.

           The next morning, John is the first in the house to awake; usually Janie, his sixteen-year-old daughter, is up because she’s into jogging now—must stay svelte for her tight jeans to make all the boys at school drool over her. But he had a bad dream; the Cold War is much scarier than the general public has been led to believe. But because of men such as Roger and John, America can pursue its postwar bliss in near pitch-perfect suburban happiness. The baby boom is merely icing on the cake.

           After he showers and shaves, John entertains notions of mowing the lawn; but because it is so early, he doesn’t want to wake the neighbors. So instead he sits down to coffee, a Danish and the morning newspaper at the kitchen table; television at this hour on a Saturday scares him even more than his nightmare had.

           He’s had the same nightmare or variations on since he began work at the NSA—global thermonuclear war and its aftermath; he’s never been much on Australia but it sure beats freezing in Antarctica. Visions of the nuclear winter cloud his imagination; he attempts to picture working anywhere but where he does. He fantasizes about being a stock broker on Wall Street; picking the next trend would be child’s play compared to what he does for a living.

           His wife Susan kisses him good morning after rousing Janie, who forgot to set her Mickey Mouse alarm clock last night. He tastes the toothpaste his wife didn’t quite rinse out of her mouth; he attempts to remember if they had sexual intercourse last night. He finishes with the sports page and lets the dog out in the backyard before she has an accident on the living room rug.

           At two minutes to nine, John knocks on Roger’s front door. After a few minutes, the entranceway opens to reveal an old man in a bathrobe with a cane. “Yes?” the geezer snaps at the intrusion. “What do you want?”

           Flustered, John is speechless for a beat or two; he had some witty repartee all prepared but this apparition threw him a curve. “I’m sorry,” he finally stammers. “I wonder if Roger and Little Rahj are ready for the game.”

           “Who?” the sullen old guy thunders, ready slam the front door on this insolence.

           “Roger. Roger Johnson,” John clearly and mincingly enunciates with his own distemper over this practical-joke-gone-wrong. “He owns this house—along with the bank. Roger—where are you?”

           “Listen you miscreant,” the miser angrily retorts. “I own this house—and I have for ten years. Good day sir!” And he slams the front door shut with such force that the entire structure reverberates.

John walks back to his place confused with his life, which is commonplace and solitary. He asks his wife who lives next door to them, in order to check his own sanity, as casually as the occasion will allow.

           Susan looks at him funny. “His last name is Wallace; I forget his first name,” she imparts as nicely as she can while doing the breakfast dishes in the kitchen sink. “He bought the house ten years ago—when your war buddy sold it. Remember? I think his name was Robert or Roger. Something like that.”

           John nods as he attempts to reconcile what he thought is happening with what actually is transpiring. “Oh well,” he simply says to himself after he’s walked into the living room. “I guess we’re going to the ball game alone.”

           On Monday at work the guy at the desk next to him is someone he’s never seen before; he greets the other hello when he’s offered the same. “How was your weekend?” the stranger who seems to know him wants to know.

           “Same old same old,” John asserts, realizing he’s ready for the funny farm. “Just another Monday morning.”

           “Uh-huh,” the other man confirms, who sits down at Roger’s desk as if it were his own.

           “Oh, remember what we working on, Friday afternoon, before we left?” John throws out, just to see what the response will be. “That report from the DDR on the Soviets selling their nuclear secrets to a ‘rich and powerful customer?’” East Germany was called the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (or simply the initials) by many of the cognoscenti before unification.

           The stranger draws a blank. “I don’t remember that at all,” he eventually responds, to see if John is pulling his leg.

           “Never mind,” John allows as he returns to his own work pile. “Probably just something I dreamed.”