I wrote in my diary: “I know the source of his sickness. The capitalist system. The fascism which keeps the gambler gambling long after he wants to or has the money—or blood—to pay with. [Certainly a lurid description of my father’s modest trading.] The revolution I want is a society where everybody works to produce enough for everybody but not for profit.” And then: “My father’s neck is marked by the weasel teeth of Morgan and Mitchell. [Mitchell was president of the National City Bank, whose stock had given Father a big ride up, then plunged to the bottom.] He worked all his life for these men. Now he rattles in the wind, sick and miserable, walking up and down in his store, hoping something he cannot imagine will come to the rescue and save him.”

Then this, which still astonishes me: “From now on I will be kind to him and—[I underlined the phrases italicized here] I will revenge him. Now is the time, as my strength is building. I will make the revolution. That is all I want.”

Who the hell did I think I was?

That fall, after Men in White opened, I became a member of the Communist Party of America.