Tim O'Brien - The Nuclear Age

And Sarah.

Sarah in a cotton nightgown with lace and blue ribbons, her hair in curlers, puffy booties on her feet. Sarah sunbathing. Sarah baking cookies. In late January, I remember, she put on her old Peverson letter sweater to watch the Super Bowl, and afterward we went out for dinner, the two of us alone. It was a terrific time. We had some drinks, then several more, and on the way home she giggled and leaned up against me and asked if I believed in dreams.

She seemed a little unsteady.

“Dreams,” she said, “can they come true? Like with a crystal ball or something? Can you dream your own life?”

“Well,” I said, “let’s hope not.”

“No, I’m serious. Is it possible?”

I smiled and took her arm.

It was near midnight and we were walking through a park of some sort and I could smell flowers and cut grass. After a time Sarah stopped and looked at me.

“What I mean is… I mean, there’s a dream I keep getting. Not a dream, really, just this wacky idea. You won’t laugh?”

“Of course not.”

“Promise?”

I nodded.

There was a hesitation while she thought it over. Her eyes, I remember, were like ice; you could’ve skated on them.

“All right, then, but you have to use your imagination.” She bit down on her lip. “War’s over. No more battles, it’s finished, we all pick up and go home. You and me, we get married, right?”

“Right,” I said.

“Babies. Lots of travel. Settle down. But then what? I mean, I’m still young, I’m famous, I’ve got certain skills. So what do I do with myself?”

“The dream,” I said gently, “let’s hear it.”

Sarah sighed.

“You’ll think I’ve flipped. It’s like—I don’t know—just weird.” She giggled again, then swayed and kissed me. There was the smell of gin and lipstick. Drunk, I thought, but something else, too.

She shivered and hugged herself.

“Don’t laugh,” she said. “Pretend it’s Super Bowl Sunday. Like today, sort of. Packed stadium. Bands and floats and celebrities. National holiday. Bigger than Easter, bigger than Christmas. Hospitals shut down. Nixon’s got his phone unplugged. All across America—people adjusting the color on their TV sets, opening up that first beer. Whole country’s tuned in. Showdown time—Dallas versus Miami. You have to close your eyes and just picture it.”

I closed my eyes.

When I looked up, she was sitting on a park bench. She gazed at the sky for several seconds.

“Super Bowl,” she said. “Greatest show on earth. There I am. I’m a Cowgirl.”

“Cowgirl,” I said.

“War’s over, I’m bored, I need the spotlight. That’s me , isn’t it?—the glitter girl—this huge appetite—I just need it. Goose bumps. All the noise and dazzle and music. Very warm and mysterious, like having sex with ninety thousand people. Can’t explain it. Just Cowgirl magic—I’m wearing the blue and silver. Those little shorts, you know, and those sexy white boots. I’m there .”

I sat down and put my arm around her.

A hot night, but she was still shivering, and it occurred to me that this was a very desirable but very frightened woman.

Presently she laughed.

“So there I am,” she said. “Super Bowl. All the pre-game stuff goes as usual—welcoming ceremonies, lots of color and excitement—but then a funny thing happens. The teams don’t show up. Overslept or something—who knows?—they just don’t show. Two hundred million people waiting. No teams.”

“Nice,” I said.

“No teams. No football.”

“A good dream.”

Sarah shrugged.

“True,” she said, “but here’s the stunner. Nobody cares. Nobody notices . Because yours truly is out there blowing their dirty little minds with cartwheels. Cartwheels you wouldn’t believe. Nobody’s even thinking football—cartwheels, that’s all they want. Crowd goes bananas. Super Bowl fever, they’re all screaming for more cartwheels… Curt Gowdy’s shouting the play-by-play… TV cameras zoom in on me—instant replay, slow mo, the works. I’m famous! Fans swarm onto the field and… And that’s when it finally happens . Cheerleading, the main event. No sidelines crap—it’s me they want—they came to see me . Just a billion beautiful cartwheels. They love me. They really do, just love-love-love. Who cares about football? War’s over. Just love . It’s all completely reversed. At half time the two teams trot out for a cute little twenty-minute scrimmage and then—bang—back to the action—me and my cartwheels.”

There was a moment of quiet, then she nudged me and lifted up her sweater.

“My breasts,” she said, “they’re nice, aren’t they?”

“Fabulous,” I said.

“For a Cowgirl, though. Not huge or anything, but they’re—you know—they’re nice. I don’t need a bra.”

“I see that. Cover up now.”

“I’m not too old?”

“Just right,” I said.

Sarah frowned and examined herself.

“And my legs. I’d probably have to start shaving again, but they seem—”

“Very pretty legs.”

“You think so? Be honest.”

“Perfect,” I said. I helped her up. She wobbled a bit, laughing, then straightened up and took my face in her hands and kissed me hard. I could feel the structure of her jaw. When she pulled back, there were tears in her eyes.

“The dream,” she said softly. “You see the point?”

I didn’t but I nodded.

“Love,” she said.

She didn’t cry.

She smiled and said, “Love, that’s all. I want it. God, I do want it.”

The rest seems to slide away.

I remember her black eyes, flecks of orange and silver, how she kept smiling at me. “Love,” she said.

And then what?

Hindsight, foresight. But which is it? I can see her jerking up in bed that night, or perhaps another night, still trembling, hooking a leg around me, and maybe it’s then when she says, “I’m dead . I’m all alone .”

Is it possible? Can we read the future?

Do our bodies know?

I remember holding her.

“No,” I tell her, “just a dream.”

Which is how it was and still seems.

A curious year, fast and slow. I can see Sarah practicing cartwheels in the backyard. She winks at me and yells something—I don’t know what—then she goes up into a handstand, ankles locked, toes at the sky, and she holds it like that forever.

Or I see her squinting into a mirror. She winces, shakes her head, and begins applying a coat of Blistex to her swollen lip. After a second our eyes meet in the mirror. Sarah cocks an eyebrow. She nods and says, “All right, tiger, Congress is in session. But no fancy lip action.”

Naturally there were realignments in our relationship, certain taboos and touchy subjects, but over those months we more or less patched things up.

It was an exercise in tact; the questions were always implicit.

One evening she found me paging through a world atlas. I was studying topography, tracking the Rhine toward Bonn. Sarah came up behind me. I didn’t see her, or hear her, and it was a surprise when she placed her fingertips against my throat.

“Wrong continent,” she whispered, “wrong woman,” then she left the room.

In the morning the atlas was open to South America. Rio was circled in red. Europe was missing. At breakfast, as we were finishing our coffee, Sarah sniffed and said, “Love and war. If necessary, I’ll wipe out the world.”

For the most part, though, the days simply vanished.

I remember watching the war on television.

The same old reruns. There was a malaise, I remember, a weariness that imitated despair.