by Tim O'Brien
Sarah yawned and kicked off her sandals and arranged her feet in Ned Rafferty’s lap. Her hair had been cropped Peter Pan style, tight to the head, and she was wearing yellow camp shorts that called attention to the shapely integrity of her legs. There was distance between us. Opposite extremes, I thought. The conclusion was foregone—she had her code, I had my own—but even so I felt some sadness.
After a moment Sarah smiled.
“Anyway, don’t fret about it,” she said pleasantly. “You play possum, we’ll handle the politics. No objections, I hope.”
“I guess not.”
“But?”
I watched her feet move in Rafferty’s lap.
“But nothing,” I said, “except it seems a little out of proportion. Those guns. I keep thinking people could get hurt.”
“Hurt?”
“Just one opinion.”
Sarah glanced across the table at Tina. “Hurt, he thinks. He’s got opinions.”
“I heard,” said Tina.
“No scruples, lots of opinions.”
“Sad boy.”
“No doubt,” Sarah said, “very sad.”
Ned Rafferty seemed uncomfortable. He looked down at Sarah’s pink toenails, then shifted in his chair and examined the night sky.
Ollie and Tina got up to dance.
For a time things were quiet. Sarah picked up her glass and drained it and rattled the ice. Not drunk, I thought, but close. Her eyes had a hazy, indefinite shine.
“Just one item,” she said thickly. “Those guns you’re so worried about, you know where they were headed? Here’s a hint—not Iowa. Not South Dakota. Guess where.”
“I know where.”
“Oh, you know. That’s the bitch, man, you really do know. That’s the sin. Right and wrong—real perceptive. Bombs and jets and shit, you know it all. But there’s this neuter problem. Huff and puff but you can’t get it up—conscience-wise, pecker-wise—can’t perform. Just can’t. You know but you can’t.”
“Whatever you say.”
Sarah nodded and reached for Rafferty’s glass.
“Neuter,” she murmured, “that’s what I say. Emasculation Proclamation.”
“All right, then.”
“Not all right. That people-might-get-hurt bullshit—dead wrong. Go count the bodies, check out the stats, then tell me who’s hurting who. Mull it over for a while. Ask yourself this: What’s it like to have Congress with a jellyfish?”
I folded my hands and said, “Fine.”
Sarah laughed.
“Fine, fine,” she mimicked. “Bury your head, it’s always fine.” She turned unsteadily toward Ned Rafferty. “I’ve said my piece. Anything to add?”
Rafferty kept his eyes down. It occurred to me that he wasn’t entirely unsympathetic. All evening, especially up in the attic, he’d been watchful and silent. A jock, to be sure, but he was no gunman.
“Final thoughts?” Sarah asked.
Rafferty tried to smile.
“No,” he finally said, but gently, as if to suggest apology. “I guess that’s pretty much the gist of it.”
He wiped his forehead with a napkin and looked straight at me, not without kindness, then shrugged and stood up and took Sarah’s hand and led her toward the music.
Too bad, I decided. They made a handsome couple. Fluid and fitting. Partners in dance and crime and bed. That was the kicker. The ultimate gist—just too damned bad.
There was nothing to be done.
I left some cash on the table and took a short walk up Duval Street and headed back to the house. Endings, I thought. It seemed conclusive. I sat up reading for a while, then turned off the light, but the various gists kept accumulating.
The kinetics, too.
Escalation: G-forces and dizzy spirals. Ho Chi Minh was dead. Others were dying. In the Republic of Vietnam there was the weekly butcher’s bill to pay. There was demolition and privation. There was duplicity. In New York, before the General Assembly of the United Nations, Richard Nixon spoke eloquently of peace, of raising a “great cathedral” to the human spirit, but even then, in Cambodia, the secret bombs were falling on the secret dead. What was unknown could not hurt us, yet somehow it did hurt. There was uncommon distress. Buildings were burning. Harsh words were exchanged. Autumn 1969—the scheme of things had come undone—councils of war, guns in the attic.
I was in it, yes, but I was not part of it.
I just watched.
On the first day of October, my birthday, Ebenezer Keezer and Nethro flew in for a daylong planning session. The meeting convened at 10 a.m. around the kitchen table. I kept my distance, of course, serving coffee, washing the breakfast dishes, but even so I heard enough to feel the dynamic at work. I remember the sounds of shuffling chairs and a briefcase snapping open, the singsong inflection in Ebenezer’s voice when he said, “Hurricane season,” pausing a beat before smiling—“Stormy climate, kiddies, that’s what the Weatherman tells me.”
He was wearing tweeds and sunglasses, a crimson tie loosened at the neck. A professor’s voice, I thought, cool and well waxed as he analyzed recent developments—a situation report, he called it—stressing the convergence of certain historical factors. His smile was steady. “The Feds and the Reds,” he said lightly, “they’re on a collision course. We just aim to lend a helping hand.”
Nethro grunted at this.
“No bullshit,” he said. “Let the good times roll.”
Ebenezer glanced across the table at Sarah, who nodded, then at Ned Rafferty, who looked away. I tried not to listen. I scoured the frying pan and hummed Happy Birthday, pretending I was back home again, my father outside raking leaves, my mother in the bedroom wrapping gifts. October, I thought, a splendid month, but then I was listening again. Knockout time, Ebenezer was saying. He discussed the meaning of moratorium—how it derived from the Latin, as in dilatory. His tone was contemplative as he talked about a pending coast-to-coast mobilization. The pieces were in place, he said. A nationwide coalition. Parades and pickets and fireworks of assorted caliber. The general thrust, he explained, would be nonviolent, but there was always room for maneuver.
Tina Roebuck looked up from the banana she was peeling. Her skin was sallow, her eyes small and beady.
“Maneuver,” she said, “you mean guns?”
“A possibility,” said Ebenezer.
Tina nodded. “You don’t do shit with parades. Guns, that does it. People tend to notice.”
Ebenezer crossed his legs professionally.
“Guns,” he said, smiling. “Now there’s a thought.”
I’d heard enough.
When the dishes were done, I excused myself, moved out to the living room, and turned on the television. I was feeling a little fuzzy. The midmorning fare of game shows seemed wanton and ill conceived—mostly static—happy winners and plucky losers, prizes for everyone. It all rang up as tragedy. There were automatic weapons in the attic, and out in the kitchen my colleagues were discussing crimes against the state, but here on the magic box was a contestant in a clown suit squealing over an Amana self-cleaning oven. Where was the rectitude? And where, I mused, did comedy spill over into sadness? Hard to impose clarity. No theorems, no proofs. Just a war. And the clown-suited contestant bounced and danced in claim of a brand-new self-cleaning oven. Passions were stirred—laughter and greed, the studio audience found it amusing—and Bob Barker rolled his eyes, winningly, as if to absolve: Here it is, America, the fruit, the dream, and the price is right.
Happy birthday, I thought. Johnny Olsen’s deep baritone: William Cowling—come on down!
Curtain Number One: Rio! Cha-cha-cha!
Curtain Number Two: Shine on, William! A trip to the moooon! Samsonite luggage and deluxe accommodations along the unspoiled shores of the Sea of Tranquillity—Shine on!
Curtain Number Three: Hold tight now, because here it is—You’ll never die! That’s right! Never! A blond stewardess and the northern lights and life ever after. It’s all yours … ifff
f the price is right!
But no consolation prizes.
Which made it hard. Risky choices, and if you guessed wrong the real-life game left you unconsoled.
I closed my eyes and dozed off.
At noon, when they called me in to prepare lunch, the table talk had turned toward acrimony. The issue, apparently, was guns. Tina and Ollie favored force, Ned Rafferty was urging restraint. At the head of the table, his eyes behind sunglasses, Ebenezer Keezer seemed to be enjoying the democratic ironies.
Tina’s face was flushed.
“Nobody ever listens to me!” she was saying. “Fat Tina, stupid Tina. I’m not stupid, though, I’ve got brains.”
“Look,” said Rafferty, “I didn’t—”
“You did. Ridiculous, you said, I heard it, you said fucking ridiculous.”
“The guns, I meant. The shoot-’em-up stuff.”
Tina crushed a napkin in her fist.
“There, you see? Nobody pays attention. I didn’t say anything about shoot, I never once said that. I said action. Action, that’s all I ever said.”
“Gun action,” Rafferty muttered.
“And so?”
“So I object.” He looked warily at Ebenezer. “This quick-draw business. I don’t go for it. The rifles, they’re just a symbol, right?”
Tina hooted.
“Symbols,” she said fiercely. “What about Nixon? Our chief executive, he doesn’t grasp symbols. Power. That’s all he grasps. Just power. Symbolize all you want—sit on your ass and sing If I Had a Hammer—but I’ll tell you something, somebody has to drive home the nails.”
Ollie Winkler clapped.
“Nails! Beautiful!” He got up and circled around the table and ran a hand through Tina’s thin greasy hair. Lovebirds, I thought. I could imagine their children: midgets and Mars bars. “Pure beautiful,” Ollie said. “Isn’t she beautiful?”
“Charmer,” said Nethro.
Ollie eased his fingers down the slope of her neck. “Nails, baby—say it again.”
“Nails!” Tina said.
Nethro yawned and said, “Fun couple.”
For two or three minutes the only sounds were my own, clanking plates and silverware.
Then Rafferty pushed his chair back.
Very gently, almost in a whisper, he said, “No guns.”
He started to add something, but stopped and tapped the table with his fingernails.
I admired him. Go for it, I thought. Curtain Number Three.
I sliced the sandwiches and laid them on a platter.
After a moment Rafferty pushed to his feet.
There was no movement in his face when he looked down on Ebenezer Keezer.
“The guns,” he said, “stay in the attic.”
“That so?”
“It is.”
Ebenezer lounged back in his chair. His eyes had a lazy, hooded quality.
“My friend,” he said politely, “take a seat.”
“No, thanks.”
“Be cool, child. Sit down.”
“No,” Rafferty said, “I don’t believe I will. If you want, we can settle it right here.”
Ebenezer kept smiling.
I delivered the sandwiches and went back for the mustard and mayonnaise. The price, I was thinking. You play, you pay. I admired him, and I wanted to say something, but it wasn’t my game.
Rafferty’s eyes were flat. He seemed perfectly at ease.
“I’m serious,” he said. “No gunplay.”
“Or else?”
“However you want it.”
“Oh, my.”
“Right here,” Rafferty said. “You and me. We settle it.”
Ebenezer seemed delighted. He stroked his tie and removed his sunglasses and winked.
“Violence,” he said mildly. “Love to oblige. Real pleasure, in fact.”
Rafferty shrugged.
“Pleasure an’ honor,” said Ebenezer. He glanced at Nethro. “Me, though, I’m nonviolent.”
“Peacenik,” Nethro said.
“God’s word. The nick of peace.”
Even then Rafferty did not move. Briefly, his eyes swung in my direction, but I busied myself with the coleslaw and potato chips.
There was a dead spot at the center of the kitchen.
“That’ll do,” Sarah said.
“I just want—”
“Point taken, Ned. We hear you.” She reached out and put her hand on Rafferty’s waist. “Let’s just table it.”
“The guns. I need an answer.”
“Ned—”
“Yes or no,” he said. “Do they stay in the attic?”
Sarah shrugged.
“The attic. For now.”
“And later?”
“Don’t press it,” she said, “later’s later.” She looked over at me and made a motion with her free hand. “Let’s do food.”
No problem, I served the sandwiches.
It wasn’t heroism or cowardice. Just noninvolvement: potato chips and coleslaw and iced tea.
After lunch I did up the dishes and slipped out the back door. Nowhere to go, really, so I hiked down to the plaza off Mallory Square and sat watching the gulls and sailboats. The first of October, approaching tourist season, and the Key was crowded with youth and polyester. Things seemed very clean. There was a war on, but you wouldn’t have known it, because there were happy faces and jugglers and shrimp boats and enterprising girls in halters and flowered skirts, blue sky and blue water, everything so pretty and polished and clean.
At midafternoon I drank a beer under one of the umbrellas at the Pier House.
Happy birthday, I thought.
Then I thought about Sarah and Rafferty. The signs were obvious. Sad, but there it was. They made a splendid match. I thought about the various comings and goings of age, how nothing ever lasted. Not romance. Nothing. I called the waiter and had another beer and then circled back to the house and sat on the porch and listened through an open window while my comrades mended fences.
I wasn’t a party to it.
At one point I heard Rafferty say, “All right, it’s settled. We don’t play with guns.”
I heard Tina Roebuck whine.
“Same old bullshit,” she was saying. “Tina-do-this, Tina-do-that, but who ever listens to me? Dumb fat ugly Tina. Here’s a fact, though—I’ve read my Chekhov—and if there’s a gun in the story, it better go bang at the end. Better happen. Sooner or later.”
I heard Ebenezer’s mellow laughter.
“Tell it,” he said. “Sooner or later.”
“Nobody listens.”
“No matter, girl. Just keep tellin’.”
That night, while the others were out dancing, I baked a cake and opened a bottle of brandy and celebrated my birthday alone.
By midnight I was riding a chocolate high. I proposed toasts to my health and prosperity, to the stellar flight crews of Trans World Airlines. I was drunk, no doubt, but I was emotionally solvent. I retched and had a nightcap and fell asleep on the sofa.
It was a bouncy sleep, in and out. There was turbulence and disorder. “Fire!” someone screamed.
Late in the night I heard a door slam. Voices rose up, and then footsteps and darkness and silence again.
Nethro draped a blanket over me.
His face was calm and kind, almost brotherly. He put a hand on my forehead and held it there.
“Rockabye, babe,” he whispered. “Don’ mean nothin’.”
Then I was back in the turbulence.
“Fire!” someone yelled, and I dreamed the attic was burning. There were projectiles in the dark. Intense heat and gunfire. Holes opened in the walls and ceiling, then other holes, and the wallpaper curled and burned. I smelled flesh. I heard Tina calling the fire department, but the line was busy, and the attic crackled with red tracers and flame. “I’m dead!” Sarah screamed. She leaned out a window and screamed, “I told you so! I’m dead!” The house was unsafe. Smoke and calamity. Tina crawled into a burning refrigera
tor. Ollie Winkler danced on the roof, which was also burning, and Ollie danced and burned along with it. “Dead!” Sarah cried. She was gone from the window—the glass was burning and the beams and timbers were silver-blue like bones lighted by X ray—but even then, though the fire had her, Sarah was still yelling, “Dead!” I couldn’t move; I was snagged up in long rubber hoses. “Alone!” she screamed. There were fire trucks now, and helicopters, and firemen wearing armored vests and silver badges, but the firemen were firing fire at the fire, it was cross fire, and the hoses hissed and shot fire, and Sarah screamed, “Dead!”
The sirens woke me up.
For a long while I lay there waiting for the dream to burn itself out. Not foresight, I thought. Just a preview. It was nearly dawn when I made my way to the bathroom. No sirens, and no smoke, but I could still feel the heat.
I showered and brushed my teeth and moved down the hallway to Sarah’s bedroom.
I undressed without thinking.
Outside, there were morning birds, slivers of pink light playing against the curtains, and when I slipped into bed, softly, trying not to wake her, Sarah curled alongside me and smiled in her sleep, her arms bare, the soles of her feet cool and dry, and after a time she turned and came closer and said a name that wasn’t mine.
It didn’t matter. I knew anyway.
“No,” I said, “just the birthday boy.”
In the morning there was little to say. By fortune I was scheduled to fly out that afternoon, and at one o’clock I finished packing and called a cab.
We were adult about it. At the front door Sarah handed me my itinerary, and we smiled and said our goodbyes, and even hugged, but when the cab pulled up she decided to tag along out to the airport. It was a pleasant eight-minute ride. She wore white shorts, and her feet were bare, and I noticed how nicely engineered the heels were, so narrow and elegant, and the unshaved legs, the ankles and arches, the exact relations among the toes. These details seemed important.
At the boarding gate, we sat in plastic chairs and made grown-up conversation.
I wished her luck with the moratorium.
Sarah rubbed her eyes.
“The truth is,” she said, “I did send out signals. Distress and so on. It isn’t as if I didn’t warn you.”