Dan Wakefield - Home Free

He thought of how church was as a kid, the men sitting stiffly in their best suits, the women wearing hats that seemed precariously perched on their heads with the aid of pins, everyone vaguely itching, mouthing holy hymns, fighting temptations to doze through the preacher’s drone; time sticking in the slow thick syrup of Sunday. None of it fed him, nothing was filled.

“No,” Gene said. “It wasn’t—it isn’t enough.”

“Have you had any mental or emotional problems—ones that required professional help—a psychologist or psychiatrist.”

“A couple,” Gene said.

Pete picked up his pencil, hopefully.

“How many is that? Two? Or more than two?”

Gene figured.

“Three,” he said.

“What was the problem?”

“They didn’t know.”

He smiled, thinking of the Dylan song that said, My best friend the doctor won’t even tell me what I got …

“Why did you seek this professional help?”

“They told me. The schools. I was breaking their rules.”

“Which ones? Serious?”

“Not attending classes. Booze in the room. Dope.”

“Hard stuff?”

Gene shook his head.

“Just weed,” he said.

“The doctors—what did they tell you?”

Gene pressed his temples, remembering rooms, licenses framed on the wall and Sister Corita prints with lively colors and quotations from famous people endorsing life; testimonials from statesmen and philosophers assuring that things weren’t as bad as they seemed. Gene’s favorite was the quote from e. e. cummings, “damn everything but the circus.” In front of it, at a desk in one of those rooms, sat a sad-eyed, gentle woman who looked as if it had been a long time since she’d been to any circus. The third time he saw her she said, kindly and sadly, that there wasn’t any magic in her field, that she didn’t know how to instill motivation into anyone and she hoped sometime he would find something that would move him to use his potential. He appreciated that she hadn’t handed him a lot of crap, given him lectures like the men shrinks had whom he’d seen at other schools. Both those dudes sat there and told him like they were laying some heavy information on him that he used dope and alcohol as an escape.

What the hell else did you use them for?

Pete reviewed Gene’s case and determined that he lacked any of the mental or physical defects that would have saved him from military service.

Shit. He was even deficient in having deficiencies. His physical was less than two weeks off.

Lou called a conference. She didn’t say that, she just asked everyone to meet at Barnes’s place.

“What good’ll it do?” Gene asked.

“Ideas,” she said. “Somebody might have one. Maybe if we all keep talking and thinking about it, concentrate on it, somebody’ll just come up with something.”

Lou was like the chairman. She wouldn’t even let Thomas pass around joints or Flash make a batch of rusty nails, though each of them complained she was stifling their inspiration.

“Later for that,” Lou said. “First we try to think.”

They were allowed to sip wine and smoke regular cigarettes.

Gene told about the draft counseling guy, and how he didn’t think the stuff that Gene had or had done would get him out.

“Not even three different shrinks?” Barnes asked.

“That’s nothing anymore,” said Lou. “It’s probably the national average.”

“Fuckin wine,” said Flash. “How do people drink the stuff?”

“Quiet,” said Lou. “So what do we do?”

“It’s easy,” said Thomas.

There were general groans.

“Go on,” said Lou.

“We make Gene crazy,” Thomas said.

“How?”

“Start about a week before the physical. Feed him some acid, uppers and downers, hash, grass, any kind of dope, booze, no food but some garlic maybe, no shave or bath, by the time he gets there he’s crazy. Besides, they won’t be able to stand the smell.”

“No,” said Nell.

“I’ve seen it!” said Thomas. “I helped guys through it, helped em do it.”

“When?” Nell asked.

“Last year sometime.”

“Yeh, but now they know,” Nell said. “This guy at Northeastern showed up like that, dropped acid and all, this army doctor just smiled and told him, ‘Have a good trip, it’s the last one you’ll take till we ship you to Nam’.”

“Maybe it wasn’t good acid,” said Thomas.

“No,” Nell insisted, “they know now.”

“It figures,” said Lou.

“Maybe they know everything now,” said Gene. “Maybe there ain’t no way.”

“Well, if they get your ass,” said Flash, “try to sign up for radio school. Learn a fuckin trade.”

“No!” Lou shouted.

Barnes was pacing, scratching his head.

“If there was just one of those little things, that Gene had …”

“What little things?” asked Lou.

“You know. Like bee stings.”

“What about them?” Gene asked.

“They can keep you out. If you’re allergic to em.”

“You’re shittin me,” Gene said.

“No. I knew a guy once. Why?”

“I think I am. Allergic. Or was anyway. As a kid. I got real sick once after a bee stung me, had to go to the doctor.”

“ What doctor?” Barnes asked.

“Family.”

“Yeh, but who , his name! ”

“Dr. Gardner. Why?”

Barnes lifted his body about an inch off the floor. For him, that was a leap.

“Write him! Call! Good old Dr. Gardner. Get him to give you a letter about it. Get on the phone! Get ahold of the guy, now! ”

“Can’t,” Gene said.

“ Why? ”

“He’s dead.”

“You know for sure? Maybe he’s not. Maybe he’s just old.”

Gene shook his head.

“Died of a heart attack at a high-school football game.”

“You sure ?” Barnes said. “You really remember?”

Gene nodded, holding his head.

“We lost, seven to six. Missed the extra point. That’s what did him in.”

“That’d be somethin,” Thomas said, “if you had to go to war cause the guy missed the extra point.”

“Shut up,” Lou said.

“Hell,” said Flash, talking out of the side of his mouth now. “What’s wrong with all of ya? All we need here’s a letter from a doctor, right?”

“Sure but the doctor’s dead.”

“Doesn’t have to be that doctor,” Flash said. “ I know a doctor.”

“Yeh,” said Gene, “but will he give me a letter that—”

Flash waved away the question.

“The stuff this doctor gives me, a letter’s nothin.”

“Listen,” said Lou, “does this sound real? Like it really can work?”

“Yeh,” Barnes said, “but there might be a hitch.”

Thomas rasped a laugh.

“Even I coulda told ya that.”

“Knock it off,” said Lou, looking intently to Barnes.

“The guy I know, who got out because of the bee sting business, when he went for his physical he had a letter from his doctor but then they gave him a test.”

“Shit,” Gene said, “they put him in a room with bees?”

“No, no. They gave some kind of serum, see, and they give you this shot of it, and if you’re allergic, the place where they stuck you swells up and gets red. Then they know you got it.”

“Christ,” said Gene. “What if I haven’t got it anymore? What if they stick me and nothin happens?”

It was quiet.

“You make it happen,” Thomas said.

“How?”

“Don’t you know?” said Thomas, smiling. He was the center of attention now.

“Goddam, Thomas,” said Lou, “if you know something say it.”

“It’s not so much what I know it’s who I know.”