Jane Smiley - Early Warning

“Take your pants down!”

“Pardon? Je ne comprends pas.”

The doctor and his assistant exchanged a glance, and then the doctor said, “Baissez votre slip. Tout de suite.” And the kid dropped his pants. Everyone crowded close to have a look. Painted on his chest was an arrow pointing downward, and affixed to the tip of his cock was a photograph cut from a magazine, of President Nixon. Everyone laughed, and even the doctor cracked a tiny smile.

Richie had been told that processing would take a couple of hours, but it was midafternoon by the time they were back on the bus — so it had taken six hours and fifteen minutes. He was tired, and he was glad that the Yippies, because that’s what they were, let the bus go back into town. It dropped them at the recruiting office. Richie didn’t quite know what to do next. He had thought, somehow, that the back door of the facility would open onto a platform, and all the ones who’d passed their physicals would get on a train or a bus to Fort Dix. From there he would call home and tell them what he’d done. But now he was in Boston, not far from Kenmore Square, with some change in his pocket, and he was seventeen years old, and he didn’t know what to do.

—

DEBBIE DIDN’T GO to Kenmore Square very often. Normally she shopped at Coolidge Corner and enjoyed herself in Cambridge — her new boyfriend went to Harvard Business School, and he did seem to remember her last name and to think she was pretty and fun. He respected her principles. He was from Lincoln, Nebraska, where, apparently, they also had principles, and thought Iowans were a little untrustworthy. He made Debbie laugh.

But Debbie’s dentist’s office was right across from those shops on Beacon Street. She was standing in front of the case, looking at the sausage, when a guy bumped her, and she looked up to scowl at him. She could have sworn it was her cousin Richie, though taller and without Michael, which never happened. She put aside the thought, but then he ordered a ham sandwich, and the voice was Richie’s, too. Richie’s and Uncle Frank’s. When he took his sandwich and went to pay, she followed him. He couldn’t have walked more like Uncle Frank, so, when he was out on the street, she said, “Richie!” and he spun around.

He hugged her. He had never hugged her since he was about four years old and told to do so. He had a beautiful grin, and Debbie had to admit she was a little dazzled. It was when he shoved the whole second half of his sandwich into his mouth at once that she realized he was starving, and not in Boston on a school trip or something. She adopted her best teacherly demeanor (at least, it worked with the eighth-graders she was teaching now) and said, “Okay, Richie, what is going on here?” and as they hiked up Beacon Street toward Coolidge Corner, he told her the whole story about walking away from his job, coming to Boston, joining the army, falling into a whirlpool of Yippies.

“No one has any idea where you are?”

“I don’t know.”

This sounded sullen.

“Where have you been staying?”

“I had some money, because I got paid Friday. It was a hotel on Copley Square. But I ran out of money, so I checked out of that hotel. I thought I’d be in the army by now, but they just let us all go, even the non-Yippies, because I guess they were fed up.”

At her place, she called her mom first, but there was no answer — it was five-thirty; maybe they were outside. Then, with Richie’s permission, she called Aunt Andy, but no answer there, either. Richie said, “What day is it?”

“Tuesday.”

“Nedra’s day off.”

“Do you want me to call your dad’s office?”

“They’ve gone home.”

“If they are looking for you, you have no idea where they are or what they’re doing.”

“I’m sure Michael told them some story.”

“What story could he tell them?”

“I fell in the river, and there’s no point in dredging because I was washed out to sea?”

Debbie said, “You guys! Everyone would know he was joking, right?”

“He can be pretty convincing,” said Richie.

Richie went into the bathroom. She felt a little protective of Richie — without Michael, even at six three or whatever he was, he seemed vulnerable. When he came out of the bathroom, she asked him if he wanted to go out for a pizza.

She had two pieces; he had six, and two Cokes. And she didn’t have to pry. He was not like Tim had been, secretive about every little thing. He told her about school — he had been busted down to corporal twice for fighting with Michael, but then he had made a friend of his own, from Little Rock, Greg, who was a swimmer. Richie turned out to be a better swimmer than a runner, and he had gotten on the varsity swim team. He and Greg practiced all the time, and his butterfly was really fast — he’d won six races over the winter. Greg was also good at math, and helped Richie bring up his grade to an A+, so he’d been promoted back to sergeant by the end of the year. The kids who hung around with Michael stopped teasing Greg when Richie punched one of them so hard he fell flat down, and Michael refused to punch Richie out, saying that if a guy couldn’t take care of himself it wasn’t Michael’s job to take care of him. So a truce for most of the spring, ready to be promoted in the fall, and supposedly off to West Point or the Naval Academy or something like that — but why wait? thought Richie.

“You can’t be in favor of the Vietnam War?” said Debbie. The undercurrent of their conversation, for her, was Tim Tim Tim, but maybe Richie didn’t perceive this. He would have been — what? — thirteen when Tim was killed. She knew from her job that thirteen-year-olds were lost in outer space.

“Why not?” said Richie. “The President was elected. He’s the commander-in-chief; he knows more about it than I do. His job is to know stuff that I don’t know. That’s why he ordered the invasion of Cambodia. Those college kids who’re shutting down campuses and rioting and stuff are just lazy and don’t want to fight.”

Debbie felt a pop of anger, but pressed her lips closed around that reference to Tim that she was about to make, reminding herself that Richie had been in military school for three years. She only said, “I guess they feel differently about it at military schools than at liberal-arts colleges.”

“My dad fought in World War II. He’s not sorry.”

“What does he think about the war in Vietnam?”

“He thinks it’s us or them.”

“Oh,” said Debbie. “I didn’t know that.”

“What does your dad think?”

Debbie shook her head. “I don’t think anyone will ever know.” And then she must have looked sad, because Richie — Richie! — actually reached across the table and patted her on the shoulder, then said, “Uncle Arthur is the most fun of any grown-up that ever lived.” After that, he said, “I thought Tim was our family’s version of Superman.”

Back at her apartment, she still could not reach Aunt Andy, and so she made up her mind. “Okay. Richie, I am going to give you train fare back to New York, and then you get yourself to Englewood and just walk in the door. Do you have a key?”

He nodded.

“The best thing to do is show up, and see what they say. Answer their questions honestly, but don’t offer any extra information. My bet is, they’ll be so glad to see you that they’ll lay off after a day or so. Also, give your mom a hug every so often, and tell her you missed her, and leave it at that. Did you give the army your home address?”

“Yes. There were cards and stuff.”

“Well, my boyfriend says that the Yippies are really successful here because there are so many kids who can be drafted. If you give them trouble, they just cross you off the list and go on to someone else.”