by Tim O'Brien
"At this hour," David said, "sulking's uncool. Tell me about your Volvos."
"The twins!" Dorothy cried. "And let's see—oh, my God!—those two boggling boys of mine, and scads of cash, and a couple country clubs, and this huge house I still get lost in. Christ oh Christ, David, I don't want to go home. Not ever, ever, ever."
"You don't?"
"I don't. I have cancer, you know."
"Yes, you showed me."
"Did I?"
"You sure did."
"Eight nodes."
"Eight," David said. "I remember."
"That's thoughtful of you. Eight. What a stinky number." Dorothy made a noise in her throat, as if trying to swallow something foul. She did not cry. Instead, after a moment, she giggled. "This'll sound crazy, I know, but I can tell it's not all gone. The cancer, it's still inside me. These wee specks of ... Am I stoned? These little hairy specks, millions and millions, all different colors. And I can feel it, David. Like this allergy or something, only it's in my blood, sort of hot and itchy. Cancer for sure. And if I go home ... I don't want to go home, just don't, and that's final." Dorothy tossed the lighted cigarette at the ceiling and watched it pinwheel through the dark. It seemed to take several hours to come down. "I almost left Ron, you know. A few years ago, like two or three, I came that close. A whisker. Missed it by a whisker—Ron's phrase. Whisker! Boy, I truly am stoned, aren't I?"
"You truly are," David said.
"So what happened was, this nosy next-door neighbor of mine, he talked me out of it. Put the hex on me."
"Maybe you didn't want to leave. Not really."
"Who knows?" She fell into clumsy thought. "Would you mind if I asked something hideously, hideously stupid? Doesn't matter, I just will, but do me a favor first. Put your arm around me. Hold me a minute."
He pulled her close.
"Comfy," Dorothy said, then looked up at him. "I don't mean this to be like sex, you know."
"I do know," David said.
"Good, I'm glad. Pretty glad."
"Me, too," he said.
"Not super glad. Not ecstatic. Now here's my hideous question. At these reunions, David, do you ever look around and sort of wonder who won't make it to the next one? Like with Karen or Harmon? It's ghoulish, I know, but sometimes I can't help myself. I look at the faces, I start to wonder."
David shrugged and said, "No, I don't do that."
"Never?"
"Not like that," he said.
"Well, I do," said Dorothy. "I used to think it would be poor Marv, or maybe Jan, or maybe even you—all those drugs, the cigarettes, that leg thing—but now, God, I'm pretty sure ... Hope I'm wrong, naturally, but I don't think I'll be showing up here in five years." She shut her eyes. "Sometimes I see the cancer. Did I tell you about those specks?"
"You did. Millions."
"Right. Tiny dots. Very alive."
"Alive?"
"I'm not making this up. Right now, I mean. They're in my blood." Dorothy made a low, throaty sound again, as if to cry, but her voice brightened. "My next-door neighbor, he claims I'm a goner. Couple more years, he tells me."
"A doctor?" David said.
"Assassin. Retired, I think, but it's complicated. Point is, he might be right."
David shook his head. "The man's nuts, Dorothy. Don't listen."
"I'm not sure. A strange guy, that's true. But something about him, his voice, the way he looks at me ... It makes me pay attention, makes me face things. Time, I guess. How to use it. I'm glad we did this tonight." She kissed David's ear. "Back in the old days, I guess I was a tiny bit ... Help me out."
"Wound tight?" he said.
"I wouldn't say tight."
"Boring?"
"Boring! Boring's more like it. I'm the first to admit—" She stiffened, held a finger to her lips. "What's that noise?"
Dorothy sat up.
"That noise," she said. "You don't hear it?"
"No."
"Behind us, I think. At the door."
"It's nothing."
"Oh, it is," Dorothy said, and laughed. "Marla, I'll bet. I'll bet anything."
A moment later Marla Dempsey walked in. She switched on the lights, surveyed things for several seconds, then looked down at her feet. She was wearing pajamas and flip-flops. "Sorry," she said. "If I'm barging in, I don't want—"
"You aren't barging," said Dorothy.
Marla turned to leave.
"Don't," Dorothy said. She got up and went to the door and took Marla's arm. "Honey, there's no problem, I was heading home this very minute. Husband, you know. Soirees, fundraisers. I'm way, way overdue."
Dorothy found her purse, kissed David's forehead, kissed Marla.
"You're not driving, I hope?" David said.
"No, no. I'll walk. Be home by daylight." She went to the door, then stopped and looked back at Marla. "That's one sweet ex you've got there. Nice-looking. Complete gentleman. Missing a leg, of course."
"I noticed," said Marla.
"Watch after him, will you?"
Marla nodded and said, "We'll see."
High over Nebraska, Marv Bertel and Spook Spinelli levered back their seats, closed their eyes, and sat listening to the hum of the 737's big engines. It had been a stressful two days, at times great fun, at times unbearable, and now a mix of weariness and midlife melancholy had set in. Spook tried to sleep, then gave up and toyed with Marv's wedding band. The cabin lights had been dimmed, the flight attendants were dozing, and the engines made a lullaby sound that seemed to come from another life.
Across the aisle, in darkness, a feeble old woman mumbled in her sleep.
Two cowboys cuddled at the rear of the plane.
After many miles, Spook said, "Baby, I'm fine. Once we get to Denver, I'll give you a big hug, say my bye-byes, catch a flight back to the Cities. Don't worry about me."
"I won't," Marv said, "but what about the husbands? Don't they worry?"
"Yes, no doubt. Guess they've learned to cope."
Marv waited a few seconds. "So what's this all about? Jumping aboard. Your new fly-with-Marv policy."
"I've told you."
"Again."
"Just that feeling I had." Spook cut him a quick, embarrassed look. "I can't explain it. This sad, morbid feeling. Really strange, really scary. Like I knew for sure the plane would crash."
"Then why get on?"
"Oh, please. It's obvious."
"To you it is. Why?"
"Because then it couldn't happen," Spook said. "Because nothing can ever hurt me, not unless I do it myself." She stopped and seemed to drift away somewhere. "Maybe that's your answer."
"Jesus," Marv said. "Don't talk like that."
"Sorry, my sweet. Can't help it." She looked around the cabin as if to find something else to say. Then she tapped Marv's belt buckle. "We could fool around a little."
"We could," Marv said, "but we've got company."
"Company where?"
"Next door. The old lady."
Spook glanced across the aisle. A pair of fierce, watery eyes peered back at her.
"So much for that," Spook said, "but I still need you to talk about how you'll whisk me away somewhere, carry me off to Samoa or Bangkok, someplace romantic."
"Might be arranged," said Marv.
"I'm waiting. Tempt me."
Across the aisle, the old woman closed her eyes, shook her head, and feigned sleep. The matter was out of her hands. No one ever listened.
Nebraska rose westward into Colorado.
Ahead lay the vast stormy wilds of the Pawnee National Grassland.
"Beautiful to think about," Marv Bertel finally said, "except it won't happen, will it?"
"No," Spook said. "But let's dream."
And then for some time they fantasized, taking turns at inventing a happy ending for themselves. Down below, the great unconscious heart of America glided by, the black earth and pastures and fairgrounds and summer gardens and fields of wheat and baseball diamonds and funeral par
lors and lonely farm lights and deserted roadways. It had become the ninth day of July, Sunday, just before three in the morning, a new age, a new century, and for both Marv Bertel and Spook Spinelli, the turbulent world of their youth had receded like some idle threat or long-lapsed promise. Nixon was dead. Westmoreland was in retirement. That war was over. Now; there were new wars. But still, as with Spook and Marv and several million other survivors of their times, there would also be the essential renewing fantasy of splendid things to come.
Dorothy Stier trudged happily along Snelling Avenue, night-tripping, carrying her shoes, buoyant and alert and wired to the world. She would live forever. Yes, she would, because in fact she already had, and because no big deal, forever was just a scrap of now, a puddle to be splashed through, a moon, a wet sidewalk, a neighbor watering his yellow sunflowers. The hour was late. There were stars. She wondered if Ron could score some acid. Probably not, she decided, but still ... Acid golf, acid bridge.
Dorothy yelled, "Nodes!"
Amy Robinson and Jan Huebner lay side by side on Amy's bed, watching wisps of smoke rise from a burnt-out candle. They were planning an August trip out to Vegas. "Your luck, my looks," Jan was saying, "how do we go wrong?"
Amy said, "Break the bank."
In her pajamas and flip-flops, Marla Dempsey led David Todd across campus. It was just after three in the morning. "We could sit for a while," Marla said, which for her was brave.
"Sitting would do it," said David.
"I can't promise anything."
"No need. Just sit."
"Are you straight, David? Give or take?"
He smiled and said, "Drop in the bucket." He looked at her. "Want to try some?"
"No," Marla said. "I want you to try not to."
"Where should we sit?"
"I don't know," she said. "The chapel?"
At 3:11 A.M. Dorothy Stier was halfway home.
Minnesota's lieutenant governor was asleep. His ex-fiancée, a Lutheran missionary, had just gotten up to take a sedative.
Billy and Paulette shared a cigarette, making plans, telling each other how lucky they were, how terrified, and how it all seemed like such a sudden and impossible and engulfing miracle. "Like a heart attack," Paulette said, and Billy said, "Almost," and it was still 3:11 A.M.
Not ten seconds had passed.
Marv and Spook were at thirty-two thousand feet over northeastern Colorado.
A Twin Cities physician and a mother of three, once a basketball star, played make-believe in a ground-floor dorm room.
Three floors up, Jan Huebner explained to Amy Robinson how her ex-husband Richard, an abuser from the start, a tyrant, a manipulator, a curse, an infection, had one day waved and smiled and walked out on her, not a word.
"Please," Amy said, "stop it."
Two miles from campus, Ellie Abbott prepared for the worst, hoped for something better. She had no idea where to find her husband, or if he wished to be found, but with the wise counsel of a TV evangelist, Ellie concluded that nothing could be lost by trying. Her suitcase was packed. In a few hours, when daylight broke, she would check out of the hotel, fly home, walk through the front door, and wait for her life. "You never know," the evangelist said.
It was 3:11 A.M.
Spook said, "What's that?"
Marv said, "What?"
Twenty-six seconds had elapsed.
The pale old woman hissed at the void.
Marla Dempsey and David Todd sat on the damp steps of the Darton Hall chapel. Marla asked why he'd never once tried to talk to her about the war, what he'd seen, what he'd heard, what he'd gone through along that terrible river, and David Todd did his best to explain that most of it was impossible to remember, all scrambled, and that the rest of it could not be believed. "I'd believe," Marla said, and David shook his head and said, "You wouldn't," and Marla said, "Try," but David just laughed and looked at his wristwatch. It was 3:11 A.M. "Maybe someday," he said.
Fred Engelmann's alarm went off. He put on a robe, walked outside, sat on his front steps to see what the night would deliver.
"Someday," a physician said to a mother of three.
"I'm famished," said Jan.
"Someday, that's fine," Marla said. She took a breath. "I love you for sure. I just can't be married."
"Of course not," said David.
Billy said, "Think you can sleep a little?"
"I could," Paulette said. "But why? Let's call your daughter. Right now."
"You'll love her," said Billy.
Dorothy turned off Snelling Avenue, walking briskly, stoned, six blocks from home.
Amy Robinson said, "Me too, I'm starving. I need pancakes."
"Bingo," Jan said.
Dripping sounds came from the trees in front of the Darton Hall chapel.
The lieutenant governor turned in his sleep.
The Pawnee National Grassland lay as it had for centuries, flat and desolate.
There was a shearing noise.
"The thing is," David said, "some of the crap I remember is pretty stupid. Like when I first arrived in-country. I don't know how, don't know where, but for some reason I'd lost my dog tags. You know, just these ridiculous goddamn dog tags. One second they're around my neck, next second they're gone, and I'm scared to death. Out of uniform, you know? There I am, just showed up in Death City, and I'm scared I'll get busted or reamed out or whatever. No kidding, I still dream about it."
"David," Marla said.
"Yes?"
"Tell me about the river."
Ellie Abbott stepped into the shower. Imagination, maybe, but she felt a hopeful breeze sweep through her thoughts.
"Baby," Spook said.
Billy was on the phone with his daughter, who said, "Really?"
Amy Robinson and Jan Huebner were getting dressed.
Jan was saying, "There's that all-night diner on Grand. Great pancakes, cute waiters."
Dorothy Stier decided it might be interesting to sit for a few minutes on the sidewalk.
Billy handed the phone to Paulette.
"Maybe we'll score," Jan said.
Johnny Ever twitched and watched the world through water-clear eyes.
"Monkeys," he mumbled.
Marla said, "The river, David, tell me," and David said, "I don't believe it myself."
Dorothy looked up at the opulent summer stars.
"Baby," Spook said, and Harmon Osterberg kicked a cantaloupe at Ellie Abbott, and Billy burned his draft card, and Karen Burns eyed a newly hired professor of sociology. It was 3:11 A.M., Sunday morning, July 9, 2000, but over the bleak, flaming grasslands it was July now, July always.
"Maybe we will score," said Amy.
"Not even maybe," said Jan, and took Amy by the hand. "Follow me, sweetheart. We're golden."