Mike Sorsa

Mike Sorsa is William’s friend and one of Jenny’s most consequential sources of help while she is living underground. His support is material—a $500 gift and a truck—but it is also an expression of an old promise to William. Through Mike, the story gives political loyalty a personal scale: survival depends not only on movements and money, but on who remembers an obligation and acts on it.

Identity and Circumstances

Mike appears first among the people gathered at Tom Milner’s apartment after Jenny returns from an operation. He is part of the circle waiting there with William and Tom, and he witnesses the intense reunion between Jenny and William. His presence places him within their personal and political network, though the scene does not elaborate on his role in the operation itself.

Mike’s own work gives him a grounded perspective on class. He paints rich people’s houses and is learning to create fake marble surfaces for clients who cannot afford the real thing but want the appearance of it. He reflects on the distance between political abstractions such as capitalism, class, and private ownership of land and the everyday arrangements that govern people’s lives. His work makes that contradiction tangible: he questions why he cannot simply grow his own food and live independently, yet earns a living helping others imitate wealth.

Aid to Jenny

When the money from the grocery store is gone and Jenny and Pauline can no longer rely indefinitely on Tom and Sandy, Jenny asks Tom to contact Mike. She travels by bus to Golden Gate Park, wearing a hat and glasses, but Mike recognizes her immediately. Without first discussing the matter, he embraces her and presses a doubled-up envelope into her hand. It contains $500 in twenties and fifties.

Mike also offers transportation. He drives Jenny back in his truck, which Tom had said still ran. Jenny is delighted and disbelieving when she sees it; Mike assures her the vehicle will keep her afloat and adds that his business is thriving. The money and truck address immediate needs in different ways: the cash gives Jenny resources, while the vehicle offers a practical means of staying mobile.

Jenny questions why Mike would put himself at risk and spend so much on her, especially when she sees herself as the girlfriend who ought to have been imprisoned alongside William. Mike answers by identifying his bond with William: William is his friend, and long ago asked him to make it his sworn duty to keep Jenny safe if anything happened to him. Mike’s aid is therefore not presented as an abstract political gesture or a newly negotiated bargain. It follows from a personal commitment made before Jenny came to depend on him.

Politics, Work, and Personal Obligation

Mike does not dismiss structural explanations of hardship, but he argues that they do not account for everything. He points out that personal and emotional forces also control people’s lives. As an example, he brings up Frazer’s rush to Jenny’s aid, while declining to comment on its possible personal motives. His observation shifts the conversation from broad systems to the attachments and promises operating within them.

That distinction also complicates Jenny’s sense of political solidarity. Mike offers to help her survive and to think about how she might earn money, extending his practical support to Pauline as well. His assistance links political history, friendship, and immediate care without reducing one to another. The same conversation that turns on class and work ends with Mike taking responsibility for particular people he knows.

Mike also asks whether Jenny would be interested in meeting some of his new comrades. Jenny does not show him her recoil, but privately fears that he sees her as hardened and eager to leave the sidelines. His invitation marks the possibility of renewed political involvement; her response reveals that her experience has made such involvement newly troubling. She can see how outsiders might view their weapons group as violent and courting destruction, even as its activities have made her and the other women feel more capable. Mike’s network thus represents an available path, not one Jenny is ready to take without reservation.

Narrative Role and Significance

Mike’s importance rests on a contrast between political ideals and the intimate obligations that keep people alive. His class-conscious reflections do not prevent him from responding concretely to Jenny’s vulnerability; his promise to William gives that response a specific history. The envelope and the aging truck make loyalty visible as resources transferred from one person to another.

His presence also helps reveal the uneven, personal texture of Jenny’s underground existence. She depends on a network that includes Tom and Sandy, but that support cannot last indefinitely; Mike becomes a fresh resource when their money is exhausted. At the same time, his invitation to meet new comrades places solidarity beside Jenny’s growing doubts about revolutionary violence. Mike does not resolve that conflict for her. He embodies a form of commitment that remains available even as Jenny’s faith in organized struggle begins to change.