Stephen Hunter - Time to Hunt

“I want us to get married,” he said. “Right now.”

“Donny, I want to marry you so much I think I’ll die from it.”

“We’ll do it after this weekend thing.”

“Yes. I’ll marry you as soon as it’s over. I’ll move into an apartment. I’ll find work. I’ll—”

“No, then I want you to go home and finish your degree. I’ll go for the early out and I’ll move back home. There’ll be G.I. Bill money. I can work part-time. We’ll get some kind of married-student housing. It’ll be great fun! And you can tell your mother we’ll have all the parties then, so we’ll keep her happy too.”

“What brought this on?”

“Nothing. I just realized how important you are to me. I didn’t want this getting away from me. I was an asshole last night. I wanted to put us back together as the first priority. When I get out, I’ll even help you in this peace stuff. We’ll stop the war. You and me. It’ll be great.”

They walked a bit, amid kids their own ages, but stoned and wild, just celebrating the youthfulness of their lives in a great merry adventure in Washington, DC, stopping the war and getting stoned and laid in the same impulse. Donny felt isolated from it terribly: he wasn’t a part of it. And he didn’t feel as if he were a part of the Marine Corps anymore.

“Okay,” he finally said, “I ought to be getting back. We may be on alert. If not, can I come by tomorrow?”

“I’ll try and break off tomorrow if nothing’s happening here. We don’t even know ourselves what’s going on. They say we’re going to march to the Pentagon over the weekend. More theater.”

“Please be careful.”

“I will.”

“I’ll figure out what we have to do to get married legally. It might be better to hide it from the Corps. They’re all assholes. Then after it’s done, the paperwork will catch up to us.”

“Donny, I love you. Ever since that date when you were with Peggy Martin and I realized I hated her for being with you. Ever since then.”

“We will have a wonderful life. I promise.”

Then he saw someone approaching him swiftly. It was Trig, with Peter Farris and several other acolytes following in his wake.

“Hey,” he called, “it just came over the radio. The Military District of Washington has just declared a full alert and all personnel are supposed to report to their duty stations.”

“Oh, shit,” said Donny.

“It’s beginning,” said Julie.

Aflare floated in the night. Lights throbbed and swept. The gas was not so bad now, and the mood was generous, even adventurous. It had the air of a huge camp-out, a jamboree of some sort. Who was in charge? Nobody. Who made these decisions? Nobody. The thing just happened, almost miraculously, by the sheer osmosis of the May Tribe.

At the Pentagon almost nothing had happened. It was all theater. By the time Julie and Peter and their knot of Arizona crusaders actually got onto government property, the word had come back that the Army and the police weren’t arresting anybody and they could stand on the grass in front of the huge ministry of war forever and nothing would happen. It was determined by someone that the Pentagon itself wasn’t a choke point, and it made more sense, therefore, to occupy the bridges before the morning rush hour and in that way close down the city and the government. Others would besiege the Justice Department, another favorite target of opportunity.

So now they marched along, past the big Marriott Hotel on the right, toward the Fourteenth Street Bridge just ahead. Julie had never seen anything like this: it was a movie, a battle of joy, a stage show, every pep rally and football game she had ever been to. Excitement thrummed in the moist air; overhead, police and Army helicopters buzzed.

“God, have you ever seen anything like this?” she said to Peter.

He replied, “You can’t marry him.”

“Oh, Peter.”

“You can’t. You just can’t.”

“I’m going to marry him next week.”

“You probably won’t be out of jail next week.”

“Then I’ll marry him the week after.”

“They won’t let him.”

“We’ll do it secretly.”

“There’s too much important work to be done.”

They passed the Marriott, maybe fifty abreast and a half-mile long, a mass of kids. Who led them? A small knot at the front with bullhorns of the People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice; but more realistically, their own instincts led them. The professional organizers merely harnessed and marginally directed the generational energy. Meanwhile, the smell of grass rose in the air, and the sound of laughter; now and then a news helicopter would float down from the sky, hover and plaster them with bright light. They’d wave and dance and chant.

ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR

WE DON’T WANT YOUR FUCKING WAR

or

HO, HO, HO CHI MINH

N-L-F IS GONNA WIN

or

END THE WAR NOW

END THE WAR NOW .

That’s when the first tear gas hit.

It was acrid and biting and its overwhelming power to disorient could not be denied. Julie felt her eyes knit in pain, and the world suddenly began to whirl about. The air itself became the enemy. Screams rose, and the sound of panic and confusion spread. Julie dropped to her knees, coughing hard. Nothing existed for a second but the pain searing her lungs and the immense crushing power of the gas.

But she stayed there with a few others, though Peter had disappeared somehow. The evil stuff curled around them, their eyes now gushing tears. But she thought: I will not move. They cannot make me move.

Suddenly someone arrived with a bucket full of white washcloths soaked in water.

“Breathe through this,” he screamed, an old vet of this drill, “and it won’t be so hard. If we don’t break, they’ll fall back. Come on, be strong, keep the faith.”

Some kids fell back, but most just stood there, trying to deal with it. Someone — no one could ever say who or why — took a step forward, then another one, and in a second or so those that remained had joined. The mass moved forward, not on the assault and certainly not to charge, but just out of the conviction that as young people nothing could deter them because they were so powerful.

As Julie moved she saw ahead a barricade of DC police cars, their lights flashing, and behind them Army soldiers, presumably a contingent of the 7,500 National Guardsmen called up to much hoo-hah in the newspapers. They had an insect look, their eyes giant, their snouts long and descending, like powerful mandibles, their flesh black. The masks, she realized. They were wearing gas masks, all of them. This infuriated her.

“You are warned to disperse!” came an amplified voice. “You are hereby warned to disperse. We will arrest those who do not disperse. You do not have a parade permit.”

“Oh, like that’s really crucial,” said someone with a laugh. “Shit, if I’d realized that I never would have come!”

A helicopter floated overhead. To the right, over the Potomac, the sun began to rise. It was about six, Julie saw, looking at her watch.

“Keep moving!” came a cry. “One, two, three, four, we don’t want your fucking war!”

Julie hated to curse; she hated it when Donny cursed, but standing there in the astringent aftermath of the gas, her eyes bawling, her heart knotted in anger, she picked it up and was not alone.

ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR

WE DON’T WANT YOUR FUCKING WAR

It was like an anthem, a battle cry. The kids that were left took their strength from it and began to move more quickly. They came together in the strobing lights of the police cars and the running lights of the circling copters. Those who’d fled regained their heroism, stopped and, moved by the strength of the few who remained, turned and themselves began to march.