Jane Smiley - Early Warning

After a couple of weeks, he said how could this go on, but of course it had to, he was only joking. He began to embrace her very tightly, as if they were about to part, but they did not part. Each lovemaking after that was more frantic. He never said, “I love you,” but he did say, “You’re adorable,” “I’ve never met anyone like you,” “I can’t stay away from you,” “I had no idea just looking at you,” “You’re killing me.” Claire floated along, every desire satisfied before she imagined it. Week six, he told Paul he was leaving in a month — going into practice with his younger brother in Kansas City. Dr. William Sadler specialized in podiatry, had served his internship at the University of Texas. Paul sat his partner down and told him frankly that ENT and podiatry made no sense together, and that starting from nothing in a place they didn’t know was insane — what in the world was he thinking? A week after that, he was gone from his house, from the office, from Hy-Vee, his telephone disconnected, his front step piled with newspapers and grocery-store flyers. She knew this because she drove by no matter where she was intending to go. She even parked and went into the house — the door was unlocked. A week later, a “For Sale” sign appeared on the lawn, and then she kept her eye out for the listing—“Two bedroom bungalow, single story, 1½ baths, very good condition, $36,000.”

He didn’t have to write or call. There was no mystery: he had informed her of every shift in his state of mind, every new level of anxiety, every conviction that he had committed an impossible betrayal that could not go on. Claire was not unhappy; he was so present in her mind that he hardly seemed gone at all. Another two weeks passed; she was not pregnant. And so that was that.

—

RICHIE FIGURED they were looking for him by now. He had maybe one day, and so he was going to make the best of it by joining the army. Once you were in the army, they couldn’t get you back. He was seventeen. He had been to military school for years now. Whatever that thing was about parental consent, well, he would deal with that if they realized the letter he’d given them was a forgery.

And he looked eighteen. Michael was still bigger than he was, but not much: six three, 170 versus six three and a half, 175. If he caught Michael unawares, he could still knock him down, but he hadn’t done that in a year. Now they mostly ignored each other. Michael liked the Kinks; Richie liked Black Sabbath. That was all a person needed to know. Anyway, now he was in Boston, and here was the bus that was taking him to where he would go through the physical and the tests, whatever they were. He was the first to get on, and he walked to the back and sat down.

It was a nice July day, sunny but damp, a Boston day, not like that armpit in the Midwest where they sweated all day and night. It was a week since he’d walked out of the job that his dad got him, painting at a “Country Club,” though it didn’t look very exclusive to Richie. They painted green some days, and they painted white other days, and the painters talked about whorehouses and tattoos. Now Richie stared out the window at guys in uniforms telling the recruits to move it, get going. Finally, the sergeant followed the last guy onto the bus, and the door started to close. One of the draftees jumped out of his seat and said, “We need to vote on that.”

The sergeant said, “Sit down!”

The kid didn’t sit down. In fact, Richie saw, the kid was older than the sergeant. He said, “America is still a democracy. This bus will move when the people have decided it will move. Men!” He turned toward the guys in the seats. “Everyone who wants the door to close, say aye!”

Richie shouted, “Aye!” There were maybe five or six ayes.

“No?”

“Noo!” the whole bus erupted.

The kid said, “I think we need to debate this! Parliamentary procedures apply!”

The sergeant said, “Sit down.”

The kid went right up to him and put his arm around the sergeant’s waist and pushed into him slightly. He maybe outweighed the sergeant by twenty pounds. He said in a calm voice, “Let’s have a debate, all right?” He kept his arm around the sergeant, kept pushing into him, until the sergeant backed toward the driver and shrugged. The debate about closing the door, and then about driving away, lasted twenty minutes. Richie participated. He made the case against blocking traffic.

When the sergeant sat down, the kid sat down right beside him. It was clear who was the boss. When the bus pulled up at the facility, the door opened, and an older man got on, also a sergeant, but a lifer. The bus went dead quiet. This sergeant handed out cards and pencils — they had to write down their names, birth dates, and some other information. When everyone just sat there, the sergeant pretended to get mad and said, “Move it!”

The kid stood up.

“Sit down!” shouted the sergeant.

The kid said, “It is moved by the sergeant here that I sit down. Second the motion?”

A hand went up.

“What the—”

“All in favor?”

A few ayes. Not Richie — Richie wanted to see what might happen.

“All opposed?”

The bus roared.

The sergeant shouted, “Son, if you don’t sit down, I’ll sit you down!”

The kid said, “Motion made to sit me down by force. Second?”

A hand went up.

“All in favor?”

As everyone in the bus shouted “Aye!” the sergeant pushed the kid into his seat. But he popped up to exclaim, “Motion carried!” Everyone laughed.

Now they scribbled, but when the sergeant told them to pass their pencils forward, they all threw their pencils right at him — he had to duck. By the time they had debated and voted for getting off the bus, even he looked a little intimidated, though red-faced and angry. Richie didn’t know what to think.

Once inside the building, they were told to line up. Richie suspected that he was between two guys who knew each other, though they didn’t look at or talk to each other. For a while, things went along — no debates or votes. The “chairman” of the bus was five guys ahead of Richie, and the only thing he did was try to engage every doctor or orderly he met in conversation. Was Dr. So-and-So aware that 68 percent of American voters no longer favored the war in Vietnam? How did Dr. This-and-That personally feel about the invasion of Cambodia? Had Dr. Up-and-Down known Lieutenant Calley personally, and was he present for the My Lai massacre? (This last was said in a smooth and friendly voice.) “Keep it moving!” was all the army people said. But it moved very slowly, because it seemed like it took everyone in the line at least a minute to unlace each shoe and unbutton each button. Richie thought that the army personnel were pretty patient.

They came to a large room and were told to strip down to their underwear, put their clothes into a basket, and stay in line. It was then that he saw that the kid in front of him had painted black skulls with red eyes on his chest and his back, with the words “US Army” across his collarbones. The kid behind him had a bomb blast on his back. The line moved, and the doctors kept their eyes down. The “chairman,” still five ahead, had a map of Cambodia on his back and the words “Next stop, Peking.” They shuffled along very slowly. At one point, the front group paused. Richie could see the first guy come to a doctor sitting on a stool. He turned his head to the right and coughed, then to the left and coughed. He stood there. A few minutes later, when Richie got a better view, he saw that each kid was dropping his pants, and the doctor was sticking his finger up into the kid’s scrotum. They shuffled forward.

Finally, the “chairman” came to the doctor sitting on the stool. The doctor’s assistant muttered something, and the chairman said, “Please repeat your request.”