Early Warning

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?”