Jane Smiley - Early Warning

“Are you mad at me?” he asked.

“I told you not to tell.”

“It slipped out. Are you mad at me?”

“I don’t know.”

They came to a cemetery. In Middletown, it seemed, you were always coming to a cemetery. She said, “Let’s look at the gravestones, and I’ll figure it out.”

Afterward, she said she wasn’t mad, and they did go to a movie, and he did stay in her room that night, and the next day he put her on the train. His first letter came Wednesday. She wrote right back, and neither of them even mentioned the fight, but she said yes to a date with a guy who went to Vanderbilt, and when the riots broke out in Chicago at the Democratic Convention, she assumed that the revolution had begun.

—

RICHIE WAS IN Alpha Barracks and Michael was in Gamma Barracks. The one other set of twins, John and Clay Simpson, were in Delta Barracks. Everyone, including the Simpson twins, thought Richie and Michael got along great, though their jokes and tricks sometimes went too far. That was why Richie was in the major’s office right now, waiting for the major to come back with his file — Richie had pointed one of the old Springfield rifles right at Michael’s head and pulled the trigger; everyone knew the firing pins had been removed. Michael even laughed. And he had pushed Michael off the high dive at the swimming pool. Michael had spread his arms and legs and shouted “Yahoo!” as he was going down.

They were “getting out of hand” once again.

Out the window, it was starting to sleet. That was all they ever had here, sleet. No real snow. The door opened, and the major came in. The major was pretty short — last year, Richie had been about his height, but this year, he had grown six inches (Michael had grown seven), and even without his cap on, he was way taller than the major. He looked down.

The major said, “Corporal Langdon.”

Everyone in his class was a corporal. Then you got to be a sergeant junior year, and an officer senior year. Richie saluted. “Yes, sir.”

The major started shaking his head. “I’ve been watching you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You may not know this, but I was at the swimming pool the other day, and I happened to witness you pushing your brother off the diving board.”

“Yes, sir.”

“He made the best of it, but you took him by surprise, and, Corporal Langdon, I don’t think you were joking.”

“I was, sir. He knew I was right there. He was ready for me. It may have looked like I surprised him, but that’s because he made a big deal of it. He was—”

“Are you contradicting the evidence of my own eyes, boy?”

“Yes, sir.” Richie said this snappily, his eyes straight ahead and his chin up.

“Finish what you were saying, then.”

“He was going to push me off. He knew it, I knew it. I was just quicker. For once.”

“You two like the rough stuff, then.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How would you feel if one of you got hurt?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“You don’t know?”

“We’ve never gotten hurt.” In the sense that someone had to go to the doctor, Richie thought.

“Well, think about it.”

“I will, sir.”

“No, think about it now.”

Richie thought about it, staring out at the sleet, which was making the windows of the major’s office look wet and cloudy. He often imagined Michael getting hurt. For instance, maybe the major would say that one of them would have to leave the school. This would be Michael, and on the day he was supposed to leave, Richie would take him somewhere and stab him to death. He said, “That would be bad, sir. I know that.”

“Boys can be heedless.”

Richie contemplated the roof of the building across the way. The roof was metal, and steep. If he and Michael were on the roof, Michael might look the other direction, just for a moment, and Richie could give him a push. It was three stories, and Michael would hit the pavement. He imagined that, headfirst.

“I have to punish you, Corporal Langdon. The rules say that, whether your behavior is intentional or out of carelessness, the suitable punishment will bring home to you the gravity of your actions.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I am not breaking you back to private, but I am warning you that that is a possibility.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tomorrow, and for each of the next three days, you will run six laps around the drill field, carrying your weapon and your pack.”

“Yes, sir.”

“At the completion of the six laps, you will do twenty-five push-ups. You will perform these exercises while the others are drilling, as an example to your fellow cadets.”

“Yes, sir.” Then this would lead to shouts and laughing back in the barracks. Michael always said, “Shit, you run like a girl!” Richie pressed his lips together.

“If that doesn’t do you some good, Corporal, I don’t know what will. But I have faith in you.” The major reached up and patted Richie on the shoulder. Richie guessed this was supposed to be a fatherly gesture. He stared straight ahead and practiced what he always practiced, which was being a blank brick wall and never letting on.

“All right, Corporal Langdon, that’ll do. You are dismissed.”

“Yes, sir.” Richie saluted again.

MINNIE HAD INSTIGATED a spring-vacation trip to the East Coast for junior and senior honors students — first New York, Empire State Building, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Statue of Liberty; then the train to Washington, D.C., where they would go to the Congress, have a tour of the White House, a trip to the monuments, and a day at the Smithsonian. Only two of the fourteen kids had ever been on a plane before. Minnie herself had flown once, to Dallas, for a conference. She said to Joe, “Do we pin the ‘Country Bumpkin’ signs to our chests or our behinds?” Joe laughed. Annie, who was sixteen but had the demeanor of a fourteen-year-old, was an honors student; she and Minnie were going ahead of time and staying two nights with Frank and Andy. Janet, now a freshman at Sweet Briar, would be driving up for the weekend. Rosanna maintained, “Janet has adopted herself into Lillian’s family, though she acknowledges Frank and Andy in a distant sort of way.” That was kids, if you asked Minnie.

When the plane took off, Annie put her two books obediently into the pocket of the seat back in front of her. When they were flying, she read them like clockwork, half an hour for The Mill on the Floss , half an hour for Love to the Rescue. Barbara Cartland. Well, better than television, Minnie thought. Minnie smoothed her wool skirt over her knees. That, too, was new — orange. Minnie could never have imagined herself in an orange skirt with an orange-and-green matching sweater. Annie had gone to Younkers and come out with a new brown dress; Minnie sometimes wondered what Annie would be like if she hadn’t lived all her life with the assistant principal (and now, as of next year, principal, the first-ever female principal in Usher County). Annie was soft and affectionate, a bit of a mouth breather, not much like Lois, who did everything right, including sleep in the same room with her husband and show kindness to her children. Lois acted toward Minnie with total correctness, but gave off no warmth that Minnie could see. Annie, Minnie thought, was, as the kids at school would say, clueless, though appealingly so. Minnie knew it was her job to prod her niece, to give her a little spine so that she might make something of her life. The stewardess announced that they were about to land; Minnie realized that she was not going to be able to distract herself from the marriage of Frank Langdon and Andrea Langdon for much longer.