Jimmy turned away from her and gazed out over the hostile expanse.
“This lake can be mean,” he said. “But on a clear summer day, in a mild breeze, it can be pure joy.”
“I WANT TO remember this,” Jimmy said, in bed. “Kissing your soft bubbles.”
“Don’t let the air out,” she teased.
“You’re a mystery,” he said. “I want to carry your mystery with me.”
Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert. . . .
“There you go again.” She laughed.
“There’s a quotation for every occasion,” he said.
IF ANN COULD have retained in a notebook—or a photo album, or a tape recording—the fine points and essences of those Chicago days, it might have been enough to sustain her during his absence. The sensations, the silly words, the assurances, the hopeful laughter, the breathtaking sex—everything enigmatic and thrilling about Jimmy. But the leave in Chicago slipped away, and she was in class again.
February 14, 1968
Dear Ann,
I’m mailing this from Oakland just before boarding the bus to the air force base, but you won’t get it until after I leave the country. There was one thing I meant to tell you in Chicago. That is, I’m not afraid. I don’t go around in dread. I think Siddhartha—and also acid!—taught me a way of peace amid danger. And in fact most soldiers survive, so I won’t assume this is a fatal journey. As long as I have a Zen (?) attitude I should be all right, though I assure you I will stop short of setting myself alight.
I heard of a dozen guys just in the last few weeks who went AWOL from Oakland. It’s like the next-to-last stop on the tour.
I am taking with me special memories of our time in Chicago, as well as your visit to Fort Leonardwood before Christmas. That crummy motel with the neon light flashing all night. The lasting image I have of you is when you turned and walked away as my bus drove off. I watched you from the window. You waved, but you couldn’t see me. You didn’t notice, but a little dog started to follow you before you went inside the door of the station. I’m that puppy dog, following you in my heart while Uncle Scam kidnaps me in a big green machine. Sgt. Pepper has plans for me.
Love always,
Jimmy, or Jimbo . . . take your pick
HIS HANDWRITING WAS like chipmunks running through an inky maze. She decided that the word was Jimbo. That sounded hollow, as if he were trying to adopt a folksy attitude—imagining himself to be authentic, like her parents. Maybe he believed that at first, but now that he was really shipping out, she thought he must be whistling fiddlesticks to thrash his fears. Authenticity—what a romantic notion. He had read too much Heidegger.
IN HER CLASSES, Ann felt alone. Many of the students who knew Jimmy seemed to shrink from her. She was grateful, for she didn’t want to have to explain anything or to accept either their judgments or their commiseration.
The Twiggy lookalike, Elise, who boasted a new Yamaha, like a baby motorbike, was in the Milton class.
“Man, did he have any idea what he was doing?” she asked one day. “That’s a bad scene. Jimmy was in my Shakespeare class a year ago, and he seemed pretty intelligent.”
“He is intelligent,” said Ann.
“Then why would he do such a dumb thing?”
Twiggy Girl blinked her kohl-lined eyes and patted her bleach job. She wore a leather motorcycle jacket and striped pants with pink ruffles just above her biker boots.
“I wonder,” Ann said.
“HI, CHIP?”
“Hi, Ann. Word from Jimmy?”
“I heard the draft deferment for grads is ending.”
“Yeah, I know. I heard. All that soul-searching Jimmy did—it was going to happen anyway.”
“Jimmy might have gotten drafted, sooner or later. He won’t be twenty-four until November.”
“If I make it to June nineteenth, I’ll be home free.”
“What will you do if you get called before then?”
“I might have to go to Canada.”
“I thought you were going to the Yucatán.”
“I can’t speak Spanish, and the weather will be better in Canada.”
“You’re teasing, aren’t you?”
“I wish I knew.”
CAMP GRANITE
February 18, 1968
Dear Ann,
I made it here! It took twenty-four hours. We stopped in Alaska, Japan, and Bien Hoa. Lost a day on the international date line. But we get it back on return, like a bottle deposit.
The country is beautiful, what I’ve seen of it. Tropical, a little like southern Florida.
I’m with a good group of guys here. I entertain them by reciting poems.
Already I’ve had time to think.
I don’t regret my decision. Maybe I will. I’ve come to realize how much it hurt you . . . and I kick myself. I could kick the living daylights out of that dunderhead I was . . . running off to Chicago without you. We could have had the summer. Already I’ve matured a few years’ worth. Just by crossing the international dateline! It is startling to realize what a child I was. . . . Well, like all kids, I have to grow up, and now I have a job to do. And to start off, I want to confess that I made up that puppy dog that followed you, but it wasn’t a lie. I was the puppy. The pup was metaphorical. I wanted to follow you.
As I told you before, I don’t live in dread and fear. When we have a job to do, we have to do it, and we can ask philosophical questions later.
On the plane I read Hesse again and Hemingway, the humble aitches. And I thought about Heidegger.
Hang on to your hat! (That’s what my dad always said when the boat was coming about.)
Love,
Jimmy
CAMP GRANITE
Feb. 28, 1968
Hey, sugar,
That’s the lingo a GI would use for his baby, right?
The locals hang around here, begging for work. There’s a mama-san named Phan who does our laundry. She washes the clothes in a stream here on the compound. She pounds it on rocks, like people did two hundred years ago. She shines our shoes and cleans up. She knows a little English from being around GIs for the last year. The other day, she said something that sounded like “the fucking mess hall.” She might have picked that up from us, but it’s not something we’d say all the time. The fucking this, the fucking that, I guess. But why the mess hall?
We pay Phan and we try to give her things, but she’s not allowed to leave the compound with anything except laundry detergent and shoe polish. I don’t know why. But she asked for that, and so we gave her laundry detergent and shoe polish. I think she sells it to the black market.
There is so much routine you’d think we were still at the U.S. base. Already I am a typing fool. Officially, I’m a redeployment clerk.
A band came from the Philippines last night. Oh, they were awful! They tried to do Hendrix. So funny. Mack took a picture of the singer in white go-go boots. They were like your boots.
That made me miss you like crazy.
Hang on to your hat!
Love,
Jimmy
JIMMY’S LETTERS FROM Vietnam came through an APO box in the United States. No postage was required. Jimmy wrote an exuberant Free! on his letters where the stamp would have gone. Later, after she teased him about the free postage, he sent her some Vietnamese stamps for her collection.