Summer of '69 Page 5

  Charles scans the personal-information form I’ve filled out. “So, what’s the problem, Lucas? You’re from the North Shore. Just tell Daddy to pay for college and get your Two-S deferment.”

  I explain that I’m too late. This morning I spent several hours on the phone calling numerous institutions of higher learning to see if any were still accepting applications for the fall. The results were not encouraging. College applications last year hit an all-time high. A reflection, I’ve learned, of a strong economy (see military-industrial complex) and a heightened desire among young draft-age men to keep from having their nuts shot off in some Southeast Asian jungle.

  Every day more and more people turn against the war. It’s gotten to the point where even the veterans who fought in it are voicing their opposition at protest marches and on the news. Young men who might have voluntarily enlisted a few years ago are resisting. Those who can afford college are applying like never before. As a result, more borderline applicants than ever were wait-listed this year (see yours truly). From admissions office after admissions office, I heard the same thing: freshman classes are full. Yes, sometimes one or two accepted students don’t show up in the fall, but the chances of getting one of those spots are slim to none, especially if I don’t have some kind of pull.

  Charles taps a Marlboro out of the pack and lights it. “So, tell me, Lucas, why don’t you want to go to Vietnam?”

  The answer is obvious. I don’t understand why he’s being such a dick. “Because I don’t want to die.”

  He takes a drag and exhales smoke upward. “Riiiight. With the odds being one in five of getting killed or wounded, let some other sucka fight. Why risk your own neck?”

  I’m here because Milton said this is the place to come for help dealing with the draft, and I guess I should appreciate this guy for volunteering his time, but his attitude completely blows. “No, I don’t want anyone to fight for me. I don’t want anyone to fight, period. I don’t believe in war. It’s wrong.”

  Charles flicks his cigarette ash onto the floor. “Oh, yeah? So you wouldn’t have fought against Hitler?”

  Again, the answer seems obvious. “You can’t compare Vietnam to that. Hitler was a madman. He was killing millions of innocent people. Now we’re the ones killing innocent people. And why? It’s not like the United States is in any kind of danger.”

  Charles scratches the side of his nose thoughtfully. His eyes slide toward me. “Someone tell you to say that?”

  What the hell? It’s been a really weird couple of days. What happened behind the junior high yesterday nags at me. My hand didn’t stay under Tinsley’s breast for long. A few moments later it started to rain, so we left. Barry never knew. But my hand did. Why did it stay there even for those few moments? Why participate in whatever weird mind game she’s into? It’s not even like it was some kind of super-erotic moment. A breast squashed against your hand on the ground is about as exciting as one pressed against your back on a crowded school bus. No, I take that back. The school bus is more exciting. So all it amounted to was an act of betrayal to Robin. Ever since yesterday, I’ve felt guilty — and used. Even if I was seriously trashed on hash, why did I have to be so passive?

  I shouldn’t have taken that crap from Tinsley, and I’m starting to think I shouldn’t take this crap from Charles. He can’t be the only draft counselor around. I push my chair back, the legs scraping the floor. “Listen, man, sorry to waste your time. I’m looking for advice, not a hassle. Maybe this is the wrong place.”

  “Whoa.” Charles slides his boots off the desk and sits up. “Don’t go anywhere, Lucas. I’m here to help. Sit down. No one else is gonna be able to do anything I can’t.”

  I lower myself back into the chair. Charles takes another drag and studies me. “Okay, you caught me at a bad moment. Those last two cats really messed with my head.”

  I cock my own head quizzically.

  “I’m kind of new to this, dig?” Charles says. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’ve done the training. I get the counseling thing. The problem is who I’m counseling.” He plants his elbows on the desk and leans closer. “You sure no one told you to say that stuff about innocent Vietnamese dying?”

  “Why would anyone have to tell me?”

  Charles leans back. “Why? Because to be perfectly blunt, my friend, most of the rich white kids who come in here don’t give a shit about Vietnam or the Vietnamese. Women and children dying? Not their problem. Working-class war? Mostly blacks and blue-collar kids getting killed over there? Too bad, suckas. Those last two guys weren’t even sure where Vietnam is. ‘Uh, somewhere in Asia?’ As far as they’re concerned, the war’s for poor trash who can’t afford college, not entitled brats who think they can enjoy the benefits this country offers without paying a price.” Charles flicks ash on the floor again and stares at the red tip of his cigarette. “So, where’s Vietnam, Lucas?”

  “Southeast Asia. On the South China Sea, bordered by China, Cambodia, and Thailand.” (I’m no geography whiz, but when I started dating Robin, it became clear that if I was going to have dinner with her antiwar parents, I had better know where Vietnam was.)

  “Laos, not Thailand, but good enough.” Charles studies the personal-information form again, thinks for a moment. “Okay, here’s the deal. Your induction letter hasn’t come, so we’ve got some wiggle room.”

  “Any chance it’ll never come?” I ask. “Like they’ll never find out I didn’t get into college?”

  Charles scoffs. “Believe in Santa Claus, man? You’re in one of the toughest draft districts in the country. Your name is on that list, and naughty or nice, they’ll check it twice and find your sweet ass. Catch the news tonight? Two hundred and twenty-three Americans died last week and another four hundred were wounded. Not to mention every month you’ve got nearly forty thousand deployments ending. That’s a lot of bodies that need to be replaced, dig?”

  They call the war a meat grinder, as in grinding up bodies. Back in May, there was a ten-day battle nicknamed Hamburger Hill for that very reason. Nearly 450 American soldiers were killed or wounded. They finally took the hill from the Vietcong, held it for a few weeks, then walked away. Within a month, the North Vietnamese were back, as if the battle had never taken place. Nearly every day over there that scenario is being repeated — lives wasted for no reason.

  Charles stretches his long arms and yawns. “Given that you have some time, Lucas, and based on your sincere belief that war is wrong, I think we should take a shot at filing for conscientious objector status. Believe in God?”

  I shake my head.

  “Well, you might want to reconsider. Know what they say? There are no atheists in foxholes.” Charles dashes out his cigarette in an ashtray and slides a mimeographed sheet of paper toward me. “Here’s a list of books. Familiarize yourself with Thomas Aquinas and just-war theory: jus ad bellum and jus in bello. In the meantime, I’ll get the CO application in the mail to you.”

  I trudge out into the dark lot behind the church, feeling a weight on my shoulders, thinking about Chris. It might surprise Charles to learn that I have a friend over in Nam who fits the definition of blue-collar working class to a T. Chris actually enlisted. I tried to talk him out of it, but no dice. Now I’m racked by a jumble of disquieting emotions. Mainly guilt because I’m a “rich white kid” who hopes to find a way to stay out of the war — while many less fortunate white and minority guys have no choice but to go . . . and some will die.

  I’m also feeling discomfort because growing up in my well-to-do, lily-white, middle-class suburb, I never thought of my family as rich. It wasn’t until I began working at the paterfamilias’s bulk-mail company in Hempstead a few years ago that I realized how privileged my life really was, and how much I took for granted.

  And then there’s the angst of knowing that Charles is so right. Here I am, a middle-class white kid asking a black guy to help me stay out of a war that a lot of black kids have no way to avoid.

  But here’s wh
at feels the most shameful of all: everything I’ve just thought won’t stop me from accepting Charles’s help.

  Chris’s most recent letter arrived the day before Robin and I left for Maine:

  6/7/69

  Dear Loogie,

  It’s a total shit show over here. No one believes we can win this war. Half the time we don’t even know who to fight unless it’s every gook we see. During the day the VC pretend to be farmers and village folk. The guy plowing behind a water buffalo. At night he puts on black pajamas and puts a bullet in your skull or a knife in your back.

  Command says we’ll win this war because we have a kill ratio of ten to one. That means 10 VC die for every American. But like everything else command tells us that’s bullshit. Why? Because the VC don’t care if they die. THE KILL RATIO COULD BE 30 TO 1 AND THEY WOULDN’T CARE. This is their country and we’re the invaders.

  Loogs, what kills me ain’t just what we’re doing to the people. Burning their villages. ACCIDENTALLY killing babies. It’s also what we’re doing to their country. You never saw a more beautiful place. Beaches that make Jones Beach look like a crappy playground sandbox. Miles of green rice paddies. Mountains. Except we’re bombing, burning, and defoliating it so fast, it looks the surface of the moon. Only with dead tree trunks.

  In your last letter you wrote you couldn’t believe the army censors didn’t censor what I wrote. I got news for you, Loogs. Like everyone else, the censors don’t give a shit. No one does. The other night our squad flat out refused to go on patrol. Everyone’s sick of getting killed or booby-trapped in the dark. And if that ain’t bad enough, it fucking rains leeches. I swear to God, Loogie, they fall out of the trees when they sense you under them. They get down your shirt collar, on your neck and back. You return from patrol and there are these big fat blood-filled worms all over your body.

  Most of the time when we get sent on patrols, we sandbag it in a safe place in the jungle and wait till it’s time to go back. You hear about guys fragging their hard-ass COs and NCOs. You believe it, Loogs? GIs KILLING THEIR COMPANY COMMANDERS SO THEY DON’T HAVE TO FOLLOW THEIR STUPID ORDERS. They call it fragging ’cause they use frag grenades to do the job. Don’t have to worry about the guy getting away wounded.

  There’s a story going around about a company that raised $500 for anyone who would kill a CO who was ordering useless attacks. I believe it.

  I’m counting the months weeks days hours minutes till I can get out of here. If I knew then what I know now I would have listened to you and NEVER EVER SIGNED UP. All I can say is you better keep your act together, man. DON’T BE THE NEXT SUCKER THAT GETS SENT OVER HERE.

  Peace, brother

  Chris

  Obviously, the line Don’t be the next sucker that gets sent over here has taken on a new urgency in my life. I fold Chris’s thin white air-mail envelope with a red dragon printed on it and the word FREE scrawled where a stamp usually goes. (One of the rewards for needlessly facing death every day for your country is that the army doesn’t make you pay for postage.) Each letter from him brings mixed feelings of outrage and relief. He’s going through hell, but at least he’s still alive — or he was three weeks ago when he sent it.

  Anyway, it’s time I penned a reply:

  Dear Chris,

  Great to get your letter. I’m blown away by the part about the military saying a kill ratio of ten to one is a success. Let me get this straight. They’re completely fine with letting 10,000 American soldiers die if it means 100,000 Vietcong die as well? That’s considered success? How could all that death ever be considered success? Would any of the military strategists who came up with that ratio ever volunteer to be one of the 10,000 soldiers they’ve agreed to let die?

  I mean, seriously, this completely blows my mind. What altered state of reality are they living in? I thought I was the one living in an altered state (let’s roll another one, my friend), but even wasted I know that life is sacred. You don’t make deals with human lives as payment. I’ll give you one of mine for ten of yours? There’s one thing for sure about that level of insanity: whoever thinks it’s acceptable for soldiers to die is making certain that no one they love and care about is part of that deal.

  Anyway, despite all the madness, it’s good to hear from you. It kills me to know what you’re going through. I know for your family’s sake you’ve got to do what you’re doing, but I want you to know that a lot of guys who’ve come back from Nam are against the war. You’re in good company.

  In the meantime, I think you’re totally justified in trying to save your own ass. I can’t help feeling guilty that you’re over there risking your life and I’m not. In high school I knew that things could be unfair. That fat cats benefitted unduly while workers suffered. But it was all kind of theoretical. It feels a hell of a lot more personal now.

  All I can say is, try to stay safe, my friend.

  Lucas

  A few summers ago, when I started working at the bulk-mail company, I was the owner’s long-haired hippie freak son, on my feet eight hours a day running an envelope-insertion machine alongside the oppressed working class: high-school dropouts, minorities, even a few ex-cons.

  No one spoke to me. I assumed they figured that if they hassled me it might get them fired. Most of them weren’t only from a different socioeconomic class but from another generation. Even being three or four years older than me meant they’d grown up as hoods, greasers, or jocks, listening to Elvis, Roy Orbison, and the Everly Brothers instead of Dylan, the Beatles, the Stones, and acid rock.

  There was one guy around my age. Pale, thin, and slightly built, he wore his dirty-blond hair in a greaser’s combed-back pompadour and always had a cigarette parked above his right ear. He ran a machine a couple of rows over from me, but I rarely saw him anywhere else on the property.

  It took about a month to realize that he was actively avoiding me. A sandwich truck swings by four times a day — breakfast, midmorning, lunchtime, midafternoon — to sell coffee, sandwiches, and snacks. Those are the only times employees have a chance to mix. But if pompadour guy saw me near the food truck, he went in another direction. The same thing happened at the start and end of the day when we lined up to punch in/out at the time clock. One minute he’d be in line. The next minute, vanished.

  Why was he avoiding me?

  The answer came one afternoon during snack break. I caught a glimpse of him slipping out a door that led to the shed behind the building, where old insertion machines, spare parts, and mail bins are stored. I decided to follow. Out back, there was no sign of him, just the tall barbed-wire fence that surrounds the property. I stood there for a moment, puzzled, then heard coughing and saw a puff of smoke drift out from behind the shed.

  I smelled it, too. Good old skunk weed.

  Son of a gun.

  When I came around the side of the shed, the guy let the joint fall to the ground and nonchalantly crushed it underfoot like someone might do with a cigarette. Only he crushed it extra hard and long so there was practically no trace left. With a quick nod, he started back toward the factory as if nothing had happened.

  Was that why he’d been avoiding me? Because he assumed, perhaps correctly, that I was the only one around who could clock him for a head — and as the owner’s son, I might rat him out?

  The next morning, I got to work early and left an envelope taped to his mail inserter. Inside was a joint from my stash of Acapulco Gold.

  The day proceeded normally. As usual, he avoided me. But at the end of work the envelope was no longer taped to his inserter.

  The next morning, I left another J for him.

  It was a particularly hot and humid week, and even with the window fans running, the building was stifling. At the midmorning break, I was sitting on the curb in the shade enjoying the first of two containers of orange juice when he sidled up to me. “That’s some dynamite weed,” he whispered. “How much you want for it?”

  “Nothing, man.”

  He frowned. “Come on.
”

  “It’s cool, man. Enjoy.”

  He was wearing a T-shirt with a pack of cigarettes tucked into the sleeve. Only the cigarettes were Belair menthols. No real greaser would be caught dead smoking them.

  He must have seen something in my face because he said, “Swipe ’em from my mother. She buys ’em by the carton.”

  I considered offering him a Marlboro, then rejected the idea. He might have taken it the wrong way. Like, Of course the owner’s son can afford Marlboros. Show-off! Meanwhile, this guy had to steal his mother’s crappy mentholated coffin nails.

  He offered me a Belair and we lit up. The tobacco tasted like it had been dipped in mouthwash. Barf-o-rama.

  “You’re the owner’s son, right?” he said.

  “That’s what they tell me.”

  He suddenly coughed hard enough that his body shook.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Mild asthma. No biggie.” His voice went raspy. “So, what’s the deal? Since when does the owner’s son have to work in his father’s sweatshop?”

  “That’s what I keep wondering.”

  “But you get paid more, right?”

  “Dollar ten an hour.”

  “For real?”

  “Come Friday, I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours.” Fridays are paydays.

  He took a thoughtful drag. Hacked again. Spit. Wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “Everyone thinks you’re a spy for your old man.”

  “Yeah, that’s me, the Benedict Arnold of junk mail.”

  He scowled. I got the feeling he didn’t know who Benedict Arnold was. But spy for my father? Not without feeling like a traitor to the cause.

  There were five minutes left in the break. “Got that J?” I asked.

  From that day on, Chris and I met at the shed every afternoon and got high. Like Cousin Barry, he’d dropped out of high school in tenth grade — not because he’d been severely beaten and had become a basket case, but because that’s what everyone in Chris’s family did. You went to school until you were sixteen and then got a job.