Early Warning

Jeff pushed his glasses up his nose. David was staring at his half-eaten slice of pizza. Debbie expected Jeff to start in about Tim somehow. Her fingers were trembling. But Jeff said, in his most superior voice, “What happens after the third warning shot? Well, the revolution begins, and it’s about to. Clearly, you think that everyone was upset when Martin Luther King was put out of his misery by a CIA hit man. Don’t you recognize crocodile tears when you see them? Ask Eldridge. Whites hated him, even though King didn’t really realize that until the very last moment, and blacks with any sense had come to hate him, too, because he didn’t understand whites. He thought, if black people were just good boys and girls, then the folks up at the big house would let them grow up. Bobby Seale and Eldridge know better. They’re glad he’s dead. And, for the same reason, I’m glad RFK is dead. Everybody has to die eventually. But if you are standing in the way, if people think you’re going to change everything but really you aren’t, you can’t, and you don’t even want to, because your idea is that if poor people need houses they just need to suck up to big business even harder than they already do, then better to die sooner rather than later.” He pushed his glasses up again and looked around the restaurant. His voice had risen. Now he lowered it. He said, “That’s what I think.”

Debbie said, “That is just a bunch of bullshit.”

“You ask your dad the spook. You ask him what is really going on. Go ahead, I dare you.”

Debbie said, “Do you think I would want to live under a government that you ran or set up? It’s all very nice to say you’re an anarchist, but you only want anarchy for yourself. For the rest of us, you want to make sure we do what you say, think how you think, and remember you’re the boss. You ask me why you wear that jacket or give away that piece of crap on the street, even though you know that when people take it they just throw it in the next trash can, or why you wear those glasses right out of Doctor Zhivago? You just want to get laid, like every guy. My brother, Dean, thinks playing hockey is going to get him laid. You think pretending you are some Russian is going to get you laid — big fucking difference.” She tossed her head. “You wouldn’t mind running General Motors. You hate big business just because you’re not the boss. If, by some magic trick, you got to be the president of…of…of Dow, you’d do it, and you would be happy to make napalm, too, because if you don’t care about one person getting killed, then you don’t care about any person getting killed. You’re just a heartless asshole.”

David had already stood up, and now he said, “I think we should leave.”

“I’m not leaving with him,” said Debbie.

“We don’t have to,” said David. He took her hand, and pulled her toward the door. Outside, it was hot and very sunny. When they had gotten about halfway down the block, David said, “I guess his dad is in the Teamsters Union in Pittsburgh. They’ve always been pretty militant. And his grandfather knew Big Bill Haywood.”

“He doesn’t—”

“I mean, it’s not like he speaks to his dad. I don’t think they’ve spoken since Jeff was fifteen or something. He doesn’t agree with his dad, and he always says, ‘If you work in the factory, even if you are in a union, then you are still agreeing that the factory should exist.’ ”

“Well, the factory should exist. Is your mom going to make your clothes, and are your sisters going to dip candles and carry buckets of water up from the river?”

“Are you mad at me?” he asked.

“I told you not to tell.”

“It slipped out. Are you mad at me?”

“I don’t know.”

They came to a cemetery. In Middletown, it seemed, you were always coming to a cemetery. She said, “Let’s look at the gravestones, and I’ll figure it out.”

Afterward, she said she wasn’t mad, and they did go to a movie, and he did stay in her room that night, and the next day he put her on the train. His first letter came Wednesday. She wrote right back, and neither of them even mentioned the fight, but she said yes to a date with a guy who went to Vanderbilt, and when the riots broke out in Chicago at the Democratic Convention, she assumed that the revolution had begun.

—

RICHIE WAS IN Alpha Barracks and Michael was in Gamma Barracks. The one other set of twins, John and Clay Simpson, were in Delta Barracks. Everyone, including the Simpson twins, thought Richie and Michael got along great, though their jokes and tricks sometimes went too far. That was why Richie was in the major’s office right now, waiting for the major to come back with his file — Richie had pointed one of the old Springfield rifles right at Michael’s head and pulled the trigger; everyone knew the firing pins had been removed. Michael even laughed. And he had pushed Michael off the high dive at the swimming pool. Michael had spread his arms and legs and shouted “Yahoo!” as he was going down.

They were “getting out of hand” once again.