During his last year, Jim made what amounted to, for him, a political statement. Syd Gordon had an idea. The Redwood Giants football team had a game that Friday night. Time, thought Syd, to shake things up a bit, to make a statement. Syd asked the kids: why not do something different at halftime, make a statement against the Vietnam war? They would form a peace sign at the center of the field. A couple of the students spoke out against doing it. One of them was Jim Kopp. When it came time to do it, he and the other dissenters stood off to one side in silence. Vietnam would soon cease to be an abstraction for him. According to his own account, in 1973 he and Walt had their names drawn as “high probability” numbers in the U.S. draft lottery. But the war ended before their numbers were called.
Life for Mary Kopp, the youngest of Chuck and Nancy’s three daughters, was never easy. To the neighborhood boys living near the Kopp house on Via Lerida, Mary seemed odd. She was a heavy girl with a round face, who wore dark-rimmed glasses. She resembled her mother, Nancy, who also struggled to keep her weight down. It was Marty, the middle sister, who had the looks, the personality.
Jim believed Mary was tormented by other students. They were shallow and cruel. He knew she was a gentle soul who taught everyone how to love. She was the one who first taught him to read when he was four. Jack and the Beanstalk. He still could see sunlight pouring in the window back in South Pasadena, the room with walls covered in knotty pine and painted a garish pink. Mary had been diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1965, when she was 13. Not uncommon for those suffering mental illness at the time, she underwent electric shock therapy. She was diagnosed with leukemia six years later, when she was 19. Even as she fought the disease, Mary managed to graduate from Redwood high in 1972. She became a born-again Christian.
On May 2 1974, she died. Three months away from his 20th birthday, it was the first time Jim could say that death had truly affected him. The family gathered for the burial in a town just north of Greenbrae called Novato, where Nancy’s Lutheran Church was located. It is a beautiful spot, lush green grass of the cemetery set against the parched foothills in the background. On top of the main stone is a concrete cast of her small hands, with “Mary” written freehand with a finger above it. She was buried next to her grandmother, Kathryn Leonard. Jim wept along with Mary’s friends from the neighborhood, the ones who had understood her and had cared about her.
“OK, so I ask to borrow the book. Borrow, you understand.”
Bart was at it again, holding court. Could anyone tell an anecdote better? He had that delivery, that Bill Cosby thing going. He picked out things in everyday life, little absurdities, ironies. It was a Sunday night, and Bart was hanging out with the guys, Rick, Lawson, John. None of the others could match his jokes, his knack for telling a story, apocryphal or not, to highlight an absurdity, and just be damn funny. Maybe it was the setting that gave him so much material. What he and the others were engaged in was a serious enterprise, to be sure, but here they were, in their mid-20s, studying medicine in Mexico for Chrissakes. They were attending med school at Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara (UAG) with its more liberal admission standards.
“Borrow. A book. Just—a book. From Brian,” continued Bart. “I needed to borrow it, you understand. It was mainly for this one chapter.”
The guys grinned and listened. Bart Slepian shared an apartment with a married couple who were also in the med school. The husband’s name was Brian. He was pleasant enough, but Bart did not get along at all with Brian’s wife.
“And so Brian says, ‘I don’t see why not,’ and he turns to his wife. ‘Can Bart borrow the book?’ And she says, ‘Well, you know, we, ah, paid for that book.’”
Pause.
“And the husband said, ‘Well, he’s just going to read it. He’s just going to read a chapter. Just the one chapter.’” Pause. “And she says, ‘Well what if he reads the whole thing?’”
The guys roared.
UAG was a strange place to be back then. Most of the students were local, but there were also about 2,500 Americans down there. The Americans didn’t really associate with the Mexicans, who were mostly kids, right out of high school. Bart made the most of life there. He always caught the Sunday American movie carried on a local TV station. Sometimes it was a classic western, like High Noon with Gary Cooper. His favorite was The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance.
Rick became the mouthpiece for their group, because Bart’s Spanish was, to put it charitably, a work in progress. Bart was 28, not quite six feet tall, maybe 170 pounds. He wore big round glasses, had unruly hair that was receding, and did not yet have the beard he would grow in his thirties. Jogging kept him slim, but he did not have a particularly athletic build. Still, Bart had a sharp mind, the sense of humor. He could be very charming with women and he dated American students here and there. Bart also used his modest appearance to his own benefit, turned it into a strength, a game. His exterior masked sinewy strength.
He was also a bit of a con. Actually, a lot of a con. A hustler. He took his act to a local pool hall. Bart did not look especially hip or cool. He wore schleppy T-shirts, jeans. He’d linger around the tables until challenged to a game.
“Well, O.K. I guess.”
Bart would toy with the opponent, just hold his own, let the bets grow, and grow—then run the table and send the other guy home with an empty wallet. His buddies took it all in, stifling their laughter. He played backgammon with friends like Lee and Brian, for high stakes. For a time, arm wrestling, of all things, became his best con of all. Early days at the school, he challenged Rick to a match. They set up at the table, locked hands.
“You ready?” said Bart.
“Yep.” Someone yelled, “Go!”
It was over. Bart’s first move was lightning, so quick and sneaky that Rick had barely felt his arm tense with anticipation before the back of his right hand was flat on the table. They tried again, and again Bart won. He was the best arm wrestler any of them had ever seen. He beat all comers, took some money in side bets, too. In second year, after beating some of the local Mexican students, national pride came into play. A hulking guy was brought forward by the Mexicans, his arm the size of a man’s leg. Even cocky Bart looked taken aback by the ringer.
“Uh, Bart,” said Rick. “Sure you want to do this?”
“Not a problem,” said Bart.
“Bart, this guy’s gonna break your friggin’ arm.”
It was a raucous scene in the cafeteria, the air of a championship fight, gringos lined up behind their unlikely- looking-butundefeated champion, Mexicans behind their mountainous local boy (who may or may not have been an actual student). Bets were down. John, Lawson and Rick all knew that Bart surely didn’t stand a chance. But they bet on him anyway. The two combatants locked hands, Bart’s hand swallowed by his opponent’s, the roar from the spectators grew. At “go,” Bart was already on top, accelerating as he always did. This time, he was overmatched, even the quick start wasn’t enough. He lost.
Chapter 4 ~ Silent Scream
Walter Kopp attended Berkeley after graduating from Redwood, en route to the University of Colorado for his master’s in hospital administration. What would Jim do? His roots required that it be something special. His father had once told him that one day Jim would be a small part of something very big.
Jim was convinced that his forefathers’ experiences were indicators of his own destiny. A great-grandmother on his mother’s side was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian, “a strikingly beautiful woman.” His maternal grandfather,
