Tim O'Brien - The Nuclear Age

That fast—every time. It just happens.

I moved off to a corner and stood watching. Painful, but I had to admire Rafferty’s style, all the dips and fancy footwork. He was handsome, too—curly brown hair and gray eyes—but his greatest strength, I decided, was strength. He had that Crazy Horse power: feathers and war paint and big killer shoulders. It was pure hate. And what I hated most was the way Sarah smiled at him, that same inviting half-smile, except now it was aimed elsewhere.

Which is how it always happens.

That fast.

You get all revved up for somebody, ready to take the plunge, and the next thing you know you’re diving onto concrete.

There was a moral in it. Never underestimate the power of power. Never take chances. Because you end up getting smashed. Every time—crushed.

Safety first, that was the moral.

A half hour later Sarah found me sitting at a table near the buffet line.

“Back in the fold,” she said cheerfully, but I ignored her. I was busy twisting a scalp around my fists.

There was a hesitation before she sat down.

“You’re excited,” she said, “it’s obvious.”

At her forehead was a smudge of Rafferty’s orange war paint. I turned sideways and crossed my legs and began braiding the scalp into two neat pigtails.

For a few minutes Sarah sat watching.

“All right, listen, I’m sorry,” she finally said. She studied the scalp for a moment, then smiled. “Shouldn’t have gone off like that. The call of the wild, I guess. Fickle me. But it’s not like we’re engaged or anything. We’re barely friends.”

“Right,” I said, “barely friends. Take a walk.”

Sarah’s lips compressed.

“That old green devil. Jealousy, it gives me goose bumps.” As if by accident her hand dropped against my wrist. “Apologies, then? I didn’t mean to mess up your super ego. I was just—you know—just letting loose. Just dancing with the guy. No big deal.”

“He’s a turd,” I said.

“If you say so.”

“Fuzzball.”

Sarah laughed.

“Absolutely,” she said. “That’s why I’m here. Fuzzballs get boring. They tend to stick to your sweater.”

She liked me. She almost said so.

It was like riding ice, things seemed to skid by. I remember a saxophone. I remember Sarah leaning up against me. Not love, exactly, just intense liking. And it cut both ways. I liked her, she liked me. Late in the evening there was a Hula Hoop contest, which Sarah won, and afterward we ate sandwiches and potato salad, then danced, then sat in the bleachers and watched the party and talked about little things, our lives, which led into bigger things. Now and then she’d touch my arm. She’d look at me in a fond sort of way. At one point, I remember, she said she admired what I was doing at the cafeteria. It took guts, she said; it was honorable. I shrugged and said, “Half-assed?” and she was silent for a while, then said, “Well, listen, I’ve got this big mouth.” I told her it was a beautiful mouth. Then later we talked politics. It was soft, serious talk, not romantic, but it implied something. She said she hated the war as much as anyone. She had principles. She knew a thing or two about death—her father was a mortician—the stiffs stayed stiff—they didn’t wake up—she couldn’t see any reason for the killing. She put her hand on my arm. Her only quibble, she told me, was tactical. It was a real war, wasn’t it? Real bombs? Which required a real response. Posters were fine, but too passive, not enough drama.

She kept smiling, I remember. She kept that hand on my arm.

“What I’m trying to explain,” she said, “is you have to get people’s passions involved. Like with cheerleading. Politics and passion, same thing.”

And so then we discussed passion.

For me, I said, it wasn’t a question of right or wrong. It was a kind of seeing . “Crazy,” I said, but she didn’t laugh, so I told her about the flashes, and she nodded—she cared—she listened while I went on about Phantom jets and napalm and Kansas burning, how it wasn’t a dream, or not quite, or not entirely, just seeing.

Even then she didn’t laugh.

“Well,” she finally said, “I guess that’s one kind of passion.”

At two in the morning there was a final dance, then we trooped over to the student union to watch an old Jane Fonda movie.

But it was hard to concentrate. Sarah sat with her legs in my lap, knees cocked up like targets near my chin.

“You can touch,” she whispered.

So I touched. And later she chuckled and said, “Kneecaps—who would’ve thought it? You’re a sly puppy, aren’t you?”

Then she fell asleep.

For a long while I simply sat there in the dark. Up on the screen, Jane Fonda was busy seducing a basketball team, but I couldn’t keep my mind on it. I watched Sarah’s sleeping face. Real, I thought. It was no fantasy. Those pulsing places at the throat and inner thigh, the connectives, the curvatures and linkages. I considered my good fortune. There was a curious flow of warmth between us, as if we were exchanging blood, and the rest I imagined.

Much later, Sarah nudged me.

“Hey, there,” she murmured.

“Hey,” I said.

She sat up and stared at the screen. There was fatigue in her eyes, a lazy blankness.

“Kiss?” she said.

I kissed her, and she nodded. She moved closer. “You were aching for it, weren’t you? I can always tell. And now I suppose you want more?”

“I suppose so.”

“No future in it. No tomorrow.”

“We’ll see.”

“I do see. Nothing.” She eyed me for a moment. “You’re a virgin, no doubt?”

“Sort of,” I said. “With you, I used to pretend.”

“Pretend?”

“You know. Make-believe.”

There was a short silence. “Well,” she said, “glad I could help.” Then she sighed. “All right, permission granted, but just kisses. Nothing else. Don’t even pretend.” She slipped her head against my shoulder. “A little intensity this time, it’s good for the complexion.”

And later—maybe four in the morning, maybe five—later, when the lights came on, Sarah tucked her blouse in and looked at me with level eyes and said, “I wish it could work out. I really wish that.”

“But?”

“Let’s walk.”

We skipped the pancake breakfast.

Outside, there was a bright moon. Not quite dawn, but I could feel the stirrings.

“Be a gentleman,” Sarah said. “I’m très bushed. Too late for nookie.”

She hooked my arm.

We walked past the science building, across a parking lot, down a gravel path that led to the Little Bighorn. Our shoes made crunching sounds in the snow.

“What it comes down to,” she said, “is we’re different people. Complete opposites. Nobody’s fault.”

“Right,” I said. “Opposites.”

Sarah stopped at the riverbank.

She lay down and made an angel in the snow, then shivered and stood up and took my hand.

There was a slight droop to her eyelids.

“It’s like a jigsaw puzzle, like when the pieces don’t fit. Miss Razzle-Dazzle. Mr. Gloom-and-Doom. We’ve got our images to protect.”

“Images. I never thought of that.”

“I wish you’d—”

“Fucking images.”

I was moving on automatic. The river curled eastward, through white birch and pine, and things were very still.

“Besides,” Sarah said, “we had an agreement. A brief encounter. Didn’t we decide that?”

“I guess we did.”

“There you are, then.”

“Of course,” I said. “A deal’s a deal. Very tidy.”

She stopped, removed her gloves, put her hands on my cheeks, and held them there. We were the same height, almost exactly.