Claire said nothing. Rosanna imagined her sitting at her end of the table, eating between trips to the kitchen (Rosanna could hear her footsteps), smiling like she didn’t have a thought in her head, and so, the next day, Rosanna called Minnie and said, “Anything is better than this.” Minnie came and picked her up and took her home, where Joe set a bed up in the living room right across from the television. But she didn’t turn it on—she was grateful for every single moment of silence.
—
ANDY THOUGHT she had had a good session with Dr. Smith—just talking, very calm, a few fake dreams. They hadn’t practiced any Kama therapy in several weeks, because Dr. Smith was too busy with what he was writing to concentrate. And then the drive home was quite pleasant. When she pulled into the garage, she saw that both Frank’s and Nedra’s cars were gone, and she would be alone—also something to look forward to. She went up to her room, changed into shorts (it was quite warm for May), and entered the kitchen as the phone rang.
Normally, she would not have picked up, but she wasn’t thinking, and she was all the more sorry that she had when she heard Janet’s breathless voice. “I wanted to tell you before you heard on the news.”
“Heard what on the news?”
“We’re striking,” said Janet. “We’re not going to any classes, and I’m taking incompletes in all my courses. But also we’re marching on Washington. That’s the part you might see on the news. I could end up in jail. You don’t have to bail me out. I would rather stay.”
Andy felt her good mood slip away. She almost hung up right there, but then she said, sharply, “I don’t understand this at all. What are you protesting, Janet?”
“The murders at Kent State. Those kids were nowhere near the National Guard, and they were completely unarmed.”
Andy never watched the news, and she had tossed the morning paper on the hall table without looking at it. It wasn’t the first time she was maybe the last person in the United States to know about something—Dr. Smith never discussed “ephemeralities.” But Frank and Janet found her ignorance annoying, so Andy said, “Such a sad thing.”
“It’s worse than sad, Mom! Though Eileen told me her mom said those kids deserved what they got. Can you believe that? She’s a terrible Nixon-supporter. Eileen might disinherit herself.”
Andy didn’t know who Eileen was, either. She said, “Unarmed people who get shot never deserve it.” However, Andy thought, if they had any sense, they would expect it.
“Will you let me stay in jail if they arrest me?”
“Well, of course. But try not to get arrested.”
“I don’t know what to try,” said Janet. “Where’s Dad?”
“He’s in Frankfurt.” That, she made up.
There was a pause, and Andy began, “Are you—” But Janet had hung up. She’d meant to ask what Janet intended to do for the summer.
She washed her hands at the kitchen sink and plugged in the coffeemaker. She came upon Nedra’s doughnut stash, and she looked at the doughnuts—pink, chocolate, maple—for three or four moments before putting them back where she found them. She looked out the back door at the lawn, which needed cutting. On the hall table, the paper was folded together. She carried it into the kitchen. There was the boy, flat on his stomach, his head turned away, his feet flopped to one side, his arm folded under his chest. It could be any boy, any boy at all. Andy put her hand over the picture and then took it away. There was the girl, her arms out, kneeling over the boy, her mouth open in a scream. Andy put her hand over the picture again. There was no reason in the world for this picture to affect her, Andy. It was not her business, and anyway, she was inured to death, was she not? Dr. Smith said she was the least in touch with her feelings of anyone he had ever met; just look at the way she kept coming back to the murder of the woman she had never met, but skated over Tim’s death, the death of the darling boy, as if she didn’t care. Perhaps she had no feelings beyond nerve endings. Was that possible? But this picture…She took her hand away again, and stared. Moments before, that boy had been alive. Now he was dead. Someone his own age had shot him. Andy stared at the picture. She did not read the article—no need for that.
—
THE FIRST TIME, Claire was at Hy-Vee, beginning her Saturday’s shopping. She ran into Dr. Sadler in cereal (he was buying Frosted Flakes, which Paul wouldn’t allow in the house). Yes, he had been lightly flirting with her for years by now, but maybe he had never expected to get beyond that. He gave her a kiss on the cheek, which, by turning her head, she transformed into a kiss on the lips, and a passionate one. They left their carts in cereal and went straight to his house, four blocks away. She was home two hours later with her groceries and the news that she hadn’t been able to find any lamps to match the new couch—she’d looked everywhere. Paul related all the things he had done with Gray and Brad in her absence, not a flicker of suspicion, and it went like that for seven weeks, as if a slot had opened up in the normal progression of time that was dedicated to the advancement of their affair.
Claire had no shame, no remorse, no fear. Dr. Sadler was in charge of those emotions. Week by week, date by date, he got more tormented and more handsome. The first time seemed like a game they were both playing—hide and seek, don’t let the grown-ups know. They laughed most of the time—that he climaxed within a minute was hilarious, that they did it again and the corner of the contour sheet popped off with the violence of their lovemaking was wonderful. He admired Claire, her patience and her good nature, and her eyes, especially since she’d gotten the contacts—they were beautiful, riveting, such a strange color, not exactly brown, a cat’s eyes; he wanted her to keep them open while they were making love. He was wonderful to look at also—the sunlight flickering over his triceps, the shadows of his ribs, the indentation along the side of his gluteal muscles. When they were finished making love, he gave her treats in bed—leftover mu-shu pork, Popsicles, once a mai tai, which she’d never had before (Paul didn’t allow food out of the kitchen, he was suspicious of leftovers, and he would not go to a Chinese restaurant). What did Claire want to do? Dr. Sadler did it. Just kiss? He would kiss her a thousand times. Just let her touch it and look at it? He smiled while she explored. He had no inhibitions—he thought getting rid of those was what medical school was for—but, more than that, he was curious, curious about her. In her dating life, she had never met a man who was curious about her, and over the seven years of their marriage, Paul had grown suspicious of her inner life, not curious about it. If she said what she wanted for breakfast, for example, he met every response with an objection: if she wanted pancakes, eggs were more nutritious; if she wanted eggs, waffles would be a change.
After a couple of weeks, he said how could this go on, but of course it had to, he was only joking. He began to embrace her very tightly, as if they were about to part, but they did not part. Each lovemaking after that was more frantic. He never said, “I love you,” but he did say, “You’re adorable,” “I’ve never met anyone like you,” “I can’t stay away from you,” “I had no idea just looking at you,” “You’re killing me.” Claire floated along, every desire satisfied before she imagined it. Week six, he told Paul he was leaving in a month—going into practice with his younger brother in Kansas City. Dr. William Sadler specialized in podiatry, had served his internship at the University of Texas. Paul sat his partner down and told him frankly that ENT and podiatry made no sense together, and that starting from nothing in a place they didn’t know was insane—what in the world was he thinking? A week after that, he was gone from his house, from the office, from Hy-Vee, his telephone disconnected, his front step piled with newspapers and grocery-store flyers. She knew this because she drove by no matter where she was intending to go. She even parked and went into the house—the door was unlocked. A week later, a “For Sale” sign appeared on the lawn, and then she kept her eye out for the listing—“Two bedroom bungalow, single story, 1½ baths, very good condition, $36,000.”
He didn’t
have to write or call. There was no mystery: he had informed her of every shift in his state of mind, every new level of anxiety, every conviction that he had committed an impossible betrayal that could not go on. Claire was not unhappy; he was so present in her mind that he hardly seemed gone at all. Another two weeks passed; she was not pregnant. And so that was that.
—
RICHIE FIGURED they were looking for him by now. He had maybe one day, and so he was going to make the best of it by joining the army. Once you were in the army, they couldn’t get you back. He was seventeen. He had been to military school for years now. Whatever that thing was about parental consent, well, he would deal with that if they realized the letter he’d given them was a forgery.
And he looked eighteen. Michael was still bigger than he was, but not much: six three, 170 versus six three and a half, 175. If he caught Michael unawares, he could still knock him down, but he hadn’t done that in a year. Now they mostly ignored each other. Michael liked the Kinks; Richie liked Black Sabbath. That was all a person needed to know. Anyway, now he was in Boston, and here was the bus that was taking him to where he would go through the physical and the tests, whatever they were. He was the first to get on, and he walked to the back and sat down.
It was a nice July day, sunny but damp, a Boston day, not like that armpit in the Midwest where they sweated all day and night. It was a week since he’d walked out of the job that his dad got him, painting at a “Country Club,” though it didn’t look very exclusive to Richie. They painted green some days, and they painted white other days, and the painters talked about whorehouses and tattoos. Now Richie stared out the window at guys in uniforms telling the recruits to move it, get going. Finally, the sergeant followed the last guy onto the bus, and the door started to close. One of the draftees jumped out of his seat and said, “We need to vote on that.”
The sergeant said, “Sit down!”
The kid didn’t sit down. In fact, Richie saw, the kid was older than the sergeant. He said, “America is still a democracy. This bus will move when the people have decided it will move. Men!” He turned toward the guys in the seats. “Everyone who wants the door to close, say aye!”
Richie shouted, “Aye!” There were maybe five or six ayes.
“No?”
“Noo!” the whole bus erupted.
The kid said, “I think we need to debate this! Parliamentary procedures apply!”
The sergeant said, “Sit down.”
The kid went right up to him and put his arm around the sergeant’s waist and pushed into him slightly. He maybe outweighed the sergeant by twenty pounds. He said in a calm voice, “Let’s have a debate, all right?” He kept his arm around the sergeant, kept pushing into him, until the sergeant backed toward the driver and shrugged. The debate about closing the door, and then about driving away, lasted twenty minutes. Richie participated. He made the case against blocking traffic.
When the sergeant sat down, the kid sat down right beside him. It was clear who was the boss. When the bus pulled up at the facility, the door opened, and an older man got on, also a sergeant, but a lifer. The bus went dead quiet. This sergeant handed out cards and pencils—they had to write down their names, birth dates, and some other information. When everyone just sat there, the sergeant pretended to get mad and said, “Move it!”
The kid stood up.
“Sit down!” shouted the sergeant.
The kid said, “It is moved by the sergeant here that I sit down. Second the motion?”
A hand went up.
“What the—”
“All in favor?”
A few ayes. Not Richie—Richie wanted to see what might happen.
“All opposed?”
The bus roared.
The sergeant shouted, “Son, if you don’t sit down, I’ll sit you down!”
The kid said, “Motion made to sit me down by force. Second?”
A hand went up.
“All in favor?”
As everyone in the bus shouted “Aye!” the sergeant pushed the kid into his seat. But he popped up to exclaim, “Motion carried!” Everyone laughed.
Now they scribbled, but when the sergeant told them to pass their pencils forward, they all threw their pencils right at him—he had to duck. By the time they had debated and voted for getting off the bus, even he looked a little intimidated, though red-faced and angry. Richie didn’t know what to think.
Once inside the building, they were told to line up. Richie suspected that he was between two guys who knew each other, though they didn’t look at or talk to each other. For a while, things went along—no debates or votes. The “chairman” of the bus was five guys ahead of Richie, and the only thing he did was try to engage every doctor or orderly he met in conversation. Was Dr. So-and-So aware that 68 percent of American voters no longer favored the war in Vietnam? How did Dr. This-and-That personally feel about the invasion of Cambodia? Had Dr. Up-and-Down known Lieutenant Calley personally, and was he present for the My Lai massacre? (This last was said in a smooth and friendly voice.) “Keep it moving!” was all the army people said. But it moved very slowly, because it seemed like it took everyone in the line at least a minute to unlace each shoe and unbutton each button. Richie thought that the army personnel were pretty patient.
They came to a large room and were told to strip down to their underwear, put their clothes into a basket, and stay in line. It was then that he saw that the kid in front of him had painted black skulls with red eyes on his chest and his back, with the words “US Army” across his collarbones. The kid behind him had a bomb blast on his back. The line moved, and the doctors kept their eyes down. The “chairman,” still five ahead, had a map of Cambodia on his back and the words “Next stop, Peking.” They shuffled along very slowly. At one point, the front group paused. Richie could see the first guy come to a doctor sitting on a stool. He turned his head to the right and coughed, then to the left and coughed. He stood there. A few minutes later, when Richie got a better view, he saw that each kid was dropping his pants, and the doctor was sticking his finger up into the kid’s scrotum. They shuffled forward.
Finally, the “chairman” came to the doctor sitting on the stool. The doctor’s assistant muttered something, and the chairman said, “Please repeat your request.”
“Take your pants down!”
“Pardon? Je ne comprends pas.”
The doctor and his assistant exchanged a glance, and then the doctor said, “Baissez votre slip. Tout de suite.” And the kid dropped his pants. Everyone crowded close to have a look. Painted on his chest was an arrow pointing downward, and affixed to the tip of his cock was a photograph cut from a magazine, of President Nixon. Everyone laughed, and even the doctor cracked a tiny smile.
Richie had been told that processing would take a couple of hours, but it was midafternoon by the time they were back on the bus—so it had taken six hours and fifteen minutes. He was tired, and he was glad that the Yippies, because that’s what they were, let the bus go back into town. It dropped them at the recruiting office. Richie didn’t quite know what to do next. He had thought, somehow, that the back door of the facility would open onto a platform, and all the ones who’d passed their physicals would get on a train or a bus to Fort Dix. From there he would call home and tell them what he’d done. But now he was in Boston, not far from Kenmore Square, with some change in his pocket, and he was seventeen years old, and he didn’t know what to do.
—
DEBBIE DIDN’T GO to Kenmore Square very often. Normally she shopped at Coolidge Corner and enjoyed herself in Cambridge—her new boyfriend went to Harvard Business School, and he did seem to remember her last name and to think she was pretty and fun. He respected her principles. He was from Lincoln, Nebraska, where, apparently, they also had principles, and thought Iowans were a little untrustworthy. He made Debbie laugh.
But Debbie’s dentist’s office was right across from those shops on Beacon Street. She was standing in front of the case, loo
king at the sausage, when a guy bumped her, and she looked up to scowl at him. She could have sworn it was her cousin Richie, though taller and without Michael, which never happened. She put aside the thought, but then he ordered a ham sandwich, and the voice was Richie’s, too. Richie’s and Uncle Frank’s. When he took his sandwich and went to pay, she followed him. He couldn’t have walked more like Uncle Frank, so, when he was out on the street, she said, “Richie!” and he spun around.
He hugged her. He had never hugged her since he was about four years old and told to do so. He had a beautiful grin, and Debbie had to admit she was a little dazzled. It was when he shoved the whole second half of his sandwich into his mouth at once that she realized he was starving, and not in Boston on a school trip or something. She adopted her best teacherly demeanor (at least, it worked with the eighth-graders she was teaching now) and said, “Okay, Richie, what is going on here?” and as they hiked up Beacon Street toward Coolidge Corner, he told her the whole story about walking away from his job, coming to Boston, joining the army, falling into a whirlpool of Yippies.
“No one has any idea where you are?”
“I don’t know.”
This sounded sullen.
“Where have you been staying?”
“I had some money, because I got paid Friday. It was a hotel on Copley Square. But I ran out of money, so I checked out of that hotel. I thought I’d be in the army by now, but they just let us all go, even the non-Yippies, because I guess they were fed up.”
At her place, she called her mom first, but there was no answer—it was five-thirty; maybe they were outside. Then, with Richie’s permission, she called Aunt Andy, but no answer there, either. Richie said, “What day is it?”
“Tuesday.”
“Nedra’s day off.”