Tim O'Brien - The Nuclear Age

The postulate was obvious. If you’re crazy, it’s the end of the world.

Which is how it felt. Just nothing.

When there’s nothing, there is no sadness. There was a war on, but it didn’t matter, because when there’s nothing, there is no outrage.

One evening Ned Rafferty knocked on my door.

For a moment he stood there waiting, then shrugged and came in and sat on the bed. He wore a beard now, and wire-rimmed glasses, but he still had strength.

Nothing was said.

It was late and the house was quiet. Rafferty leaned back against a pillow. He was simply there . At one point he got up and turned off the light and then came back and touched my shoulder and held it for a while and then sat down again and waited. His glasses sparkled in the dark. A humid night, dense and oppressive. I took a breath and tried to keep it inside, but it came out fast, and then I was choking and telling him everything I could tell. The tears surprised me. I didn’t feel any great emotion. Ding-Dong, I thought, but I couldn’t stop choking and saying, “Crazy.” Rafferty was silent. He didn’t move or speak, but he was there. I told him how crazy I was. The fucking Ping-Pong table, I said. The flashes and missiles and sirens, and the fucking war, the fucking draft, the bombs and shrapnel and guns and artillery and all the shit, the fucking sun , it would fucking fry us, I said, or we’d get fried by the fucking physicists, or else the silos and submarines and fly-boys and button-pushers—all the assholes out to kill other assholes—fucking Nixon, fucking Brezhnev, fucking Ebenezer Keezer and Nethro and Hitler and Crazy Horse and Custer, my father, too, yes, my father, the way he died out at the fairgrounds every summer, just died and died and died, how he wouldn’t stop dying, every fucking summer, all the heroes and corpses, the fucking Alamo, fucking Hiroshima and Auschwitz—No survivors!—everybody killing everybody else—yes, and the so-called peace movement, the fucking underground with its fucking slogans and riots, the fucking dynamic—what good was it?—those guns in the attic and Ollie with his fucking bombs—where was the good ?—No survivors!—it was all so crazy, I said, just absolute fucking crazy—and then I laughed and shook my head and told him about Bobbi.

Pie in the sky, I said.

I quoted Yeats.

I told him about obsession and fantasy.

I told him you had to believe in something; I told him how it felt when you stopped believing.

“It feels fucking crazy,” I said, almost yelled, then I caught my breath and said, “That’s what craziness is . When you can’t believe. Not in anything, not in anyone. Just can’t fucking believe .”

I was sobbing now, but it wasn’t sadness. It was nothing. For a few minutes I lost my balance—I’m not sure what happened exactly, a kind of fury, thrashing around and yelling “Crazy!”—and then Rafferty had me pinned down by the wrists and arms. I could smell his sweat. He was leaning in hard, saying, “Slack now, lots of slack, let it unwind.”

Then the quiet came.

“There,” he said, “let it go.”

I closed my eyes and cried.

“Just let it out,” he said.

A nice guy. Nice, that was all I could think, and I told him so. “Nice,” I kept saying, “you’re a nice, nice, nice guy. You are . You’re nice.”

“A prince,” said Rafferty.

“For sure. Fucking prince.”

“Don’t say fucking.”

“I apologize. Not fucking at all. But nice .”

Rafferty filled my glass.

“What we should do in a situation like this,” he said, “is drink to how nice I am.”

We finished the brandy. The hour was late but Rafferty suggested a sea voyage, which seemed fitting, so we hiked down to the Front Street marina and exercised the right of angary over a handsome wooden skiff and aimed the vessel Gulfward. A mile out, we cut the engine. We drifted and breathed the air and looked back on the sad white lights of Key West.

I felt much improved. A quiet sway, and the skiff rode high and neat.

Rafferty laughed at something.

“Nice guy,” he said. He lit up a joint and passed it across to me.

I wasn’t a smoker but I liked the ritual of it. I liked him, too. And the smells and water sounds. There was largeness around us. When the joint was gone, Rafferty asked if I wanted more, and I said I did, so we smoked that one and then another, letting the currents take us, and presently I was made aware of numerous unique perspectives. It was all in the angle. The moon, I noticed, was without third dimension. I was intrigued by the concept of hemispheres. I detected a subtle crease at the horizon where the global halves had been stitched to perfect the whole.

Ned Rafferty nodded when I explained these matters.

“Nuts,” I said. “Haywire. I warned you, didn’t I?”

“I believe it was mentioned, yes.”

“Loose screws. Did I say that? Sometimes I feel—you know—I feel—there’s a word for it—not depressed, not just that. Like when you can’t cope anymore.”

“Desperate,” Rafferty said. “I know.”

“That’s it. Desperate. Did I tell you about Bobbi?”

“You did.”

“Married. Off to Bonn in Germany.”

“You told me.”

“Scholheimer.”

“A turd. You told me.”

“Desperate,” I said.

“Desperadoes.”

“That’s it .”

Rafferty sighed and removed his glasses. Funny angle, the dark and the Gulf and the dope, but it looked like he’d pulled out his eyes and placed them in the pocket of his shirt. The shine was gone. He leaned back and looked at me without his eyes.

“One thing,” he said. “To clear the air.”

“Anything.”

“About Sarah. This relationship we had, Sarah and me. It’s over. Never really got started. I love her. She loves you.”

“You don’t have to—”

“No, I want it out,” he said. “She loves you. Breaks my heart, but there’s the fact. Understand me? Loves you. Wants you back. Rio, that’s all she talks about.” He reached overboard, splashing water to his face. The skiff was gently fishtailing with the tide. “I do care for her, you know. Emotional thing.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Rio, for Christ sake. What the hell’s Rio?”

“Nothing,” I said. “A fantasy.”

There was silence while Rafferty reflected on this. After a time he issued a complex noise from the bottom of his lungs.

“Fantasy, I can respect that,” he said. “Obsessions, too. You’re obsessed, I’m obsessed. Look at Tina—big fat killer obsessions. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the man was obsessed, who isn’t? Ollie Winkler—walking obsession. Thing is, you have to respect people’s obsessions. Like with me. You want to know my obsession?”

“What’s your obsession?”

“Will you respect it?”

“I will.”

“My obsession,” he said gravely, “is Sarah. I’m a nice guy, you’re right, but you know something? I’d do anything for her. Drown your ass. Right here, if I thought it would do any good, I’d just drown your ass. Can you respect that?”

“I certainly can.”

“Maybe we should have another smoke?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I am a nice guy.”

“Of course. But you’d have to drown me.”

“You understand, then.”

“Completely and absolutely,” I told him. “Obsession, it’s nothing personal.”

Rafferty laughed and stood up to light the joint. He seemed stable enough. The boat was sliding sideways to the current but he kept his balance, passing the smoke and then turning and staring out at the sad lights across the water.