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Come on, Mia.

To:
[email protected]
June 3
/ 0852

Subject: re: Hi,
there!

You there? I have to go in
a minute. Where are you?

To:
[email protected]
June 2 /11:53pm

Subject: re: Hi,
there!

I’m not feeling well, Jake.
Sorry. I hope you have a good night. Take care. Love.

M.

JUNE 9, MONDAY

“
Hey, M…What is up with the
machine? I thought you said you got a new one. I tried two days
ago, but no answer, no machine. At least it’s working now…Uh,
anyway, I hope you’re out doing something fun for your birthday…Was
hoping I’d catch you, especially today, but I guess…Well, happy
birthday, birthday girl…I wish I could try back later, but there’s
a mission, so…I love you. Email me, okay? Tell me about your
birthday…Bye.”

JUNE 10, TUESDAY

I ride with Safia and Paul
to the college. Posters and banners in the back seat spill over
onto my lap, and I try to keep them smooth and unwrinkled. Safia
sings with the radio, her white-blond hair blowing around her face,
and Paul, his elbow resting on the door through the open window,
taps the car roof with the drum beat while he circles the
lots.

“Look how packed it is. Good
sign, huh, Saf?”

He finds a spot near the
science building. Safia smiles at him and throws open the door,
then comes around to gather the posters from the back seat. With
her arms full, she asks which one I want to carry. I choose the one
reading, ANYTHING WAR CAN DO, PEACE CAN DO BETTER, because it seems
the least inflammatory. The one under it demands an end to a war
started by men who would not fight in a war, themselves. “This one
is mine,” she says, patting it. “Paul, help me?”

When we get to ‘the bowl,’ a
low, circular stone wall in the dip of a vast lawn between
buildings, we find a crowd of close to fifty standing in small
groups of three or four and holding posters or signs at their
sides. Safia and Paul walk ahead of me and stop at one group, shake
hands, thank them for coming, and move on to the next. I recognize
some of the people from their dinner standing in their own circle,
and when Rose and I make eye contact, she looks away as quickly as
if she didn’t see me. Maybe she didn’t, and if she did, I’m
grateful to her for not wanting to wave me over. I hate small
talk.

I move through the clusters
and avoid eye contact, pretend I’m headed somewhere, looking for
someone I’m meeting. Most of them are younger than I am and wear
old sandals and loose-fitting knits that smell of patchouli.
“Sorry,” I say when one of them, stepping backward, ends up on my
foot. He touches my arm and apologizes and asks if I’m okay, and I
tell him yes, fine, fine, and continue through the crowd, stopping
when I see Denise and Brian sitting on a far wall.
Over
, she said. She nudges
Brian, who searches until he finds me and then nods. Denise
beckons, but I turn around and weave back through the crowd to the
other side.

“…have your attention,” I
hear Paul shout. The group quiets for his announcement that it is
time, and will they please raise their signs. I raise mine, feeling
foolish, but—after catching onto what they’re saying—I chant along
with them, anyway, feeling more foolish, then, because the chant
isn’t inspired, or even original.

“What do we want? Troops
out! When do we want it? Now!”

“What do we want? Troops
out! When do we want it? Now!”

I look around at others’
posters and find them to be a combination of sentimental (YOU CAN
HAVE MY GUN WHEN YOU PRY IT FROM THE FINGERS OF MY COLD, DEAD
CHILD), humorous (a leashed dog wears a T-shirt warning that “Bombs
kill puppies”), and ironic (WHO WOULD JESUS BOMB?). The crowd
skirts the inside edge of the bowl, and on the other side is a
scattered crowd of onlookers.

The words keep coming from
me, and the more I say them, the more I mean them. I do want the
troops out. I do want it now. I do want Jake home, safe, regardless
of our future together, and I want it as soon as possible. I want
them
all
safe as
soon as possible, because they are all someone’s Jake. Or
Jennifer.

I want the troops out. I
want it now.

A woman howls from the
center, “The military is nothing but a murdering instrument for the
government!”

The transformation comes
instantaneously; the energy changes form. People shout and shove
and signs I hadn’t read, hadn’t seen before—

A.R.M.Y.: AMERICA’S REASON
TO MURDER THE YOUNG

and

WE SUPPORT OUR TROOPS WHEN
THEY SHOOT THEIR OFFICERS

—fly high over the rest and
this is not what I came for, not what I believe, not what I think
Paul and Safia had in mind. The din of shouting drowns any one
message and all that is clear is that there is no agreeing about
anything. The calm gathering has become a rally of screaming,
spitting, hatred, and rage. Signs soar and fists jab through the
space in front of me and someone yanks my hair. I pull it free and
back my way out of the pit, stopping to jump on—and bend over to
tear in half—a sign calling to SUPPORT OUR MUTINEERS! I rise just
in time to see Brian with an arm around the neck of one of the men
who helped carry the banner reading WE SUPPORT OUR TROOPS WHEN THEY
SHOOT THEIR OFFICERS. Denise stands by, watching, shouting
something with her teeth bared, then swipes at the man’s face and
leaves three dark, red lines. He struggles to get free and Brian
punches him in the stomach. Denise smacks the man again, smearing
the blood from his cheek to his mouth.

The onlookers have changed,
too, protesting the protestors, calling us traitors and
un-American, jumping into the bowl to fight. I push through them,
my sign since dropped so I could use my hands to guard my face, and
I see Donny standing just outside the wall, shouting with his fist
in the air and his mouth open wide, eyes invisible in his angry
face.

I wave, and his arm falls
when he sees me. When I move toward him, he steps back and screams
something at me I can’t hear. I hold up my hands and move closer,
but he takes yet another step back and the way he looks at me makes
me want to fall to my knees. He points at a sign raised high above
the commotion, rocking side to side in the struggle: AMERICAN
MILITARY: PROOF NAZISM IS ALIVE AND WELL IN THE USA.

“I’m not one of them!” I
scream. I scream it so loud I cough, but he waves me off and
trudges up the hill. I start to run after him, but trip on a sign
in the grass. By the time I’m back on my feet, he’s
gone.

I crawl to the top of the
hill until I’m at a safe distance from what looks like a mosh pit
in the bowl, and I wait for a ride home.

A camera crew films the
scene from the granite steps of the library. I hope they caught the
first peaceful minutes before the fanatics took over.

________

“…
anti-war protestors
rallying in what the university refers affectionately to as ‘the
bowl,’ anger and violence marking their anti-war, anti-military
sentiment.” Cut to a young college boy holding out his T-shirt, the
picture a dead American soldier, the caption reading, “The only
moral soldier is one who’s been stripped of his weapon.” Cut to a
still of a crumpled banner: VICTORY TO THE ENEMY; DEFEAT TO
OCCUPYING SOLDIERS.

A commentator in a red tie
says, “Would you look at that, Janie and Tom?” He gestures at the
image. “These anti-war types are ruining our country and destroying
the morale of our troops. Look at that sign. Disgraceful. They’re
anti-America, is what they are. Protestors! They hate our military
and they’re enemy sympathizers, every last one of ‘em. We ought to
try the lot of ‘em for treason.”

Beside me, the bowl of
rubber darts empties steadily.

Load.

Fire!

Load.

Fire!

Load.

Fire!

Chancey’s paws fly at the
air.

JUNE 11,
WEDNESDAY

Denise’s place is quiet
behind the front door. I put my ear to the wood and hear movement,
so I knock again. “I saw your car,” I say. “Open up.”

I didn’t see Denise and
Brian again before Safia and Paul came up the hill, banner dragging
behind them, and told me to get up because they were going home. I
studied Safia’s face for a betrayal of amusement or
satisfaction—maybe she got exactly what she wanted—but she was
crying. “Those assholes ruin it for us all,” she said, more angry
than sad. “They want to hate, hate, hate, and they think they have
sense, but they are the same as—Paul, where was that? Those people
with the funeral?”

“Indiana?” he said,
breathless. The walk to the car was more of a slow jog.

“Screaming to the top of
their lungs at the funerals because the soldier is gay. I do not
like this war, you know. You know this. But I do not like it
because of the politics. The people—the people are only doing what
they are told, even if they do not agree. They work hard, they die,
and you have more assholes—” (I think ‘asshole’ is her favorite
English word)—“telling the families at the funeral that they
are
glad
they are
dead, only because they are gay! Stupid asshole people
and—”

“Shhh, Saf.” Paul rubbed her
back and she leaned into him.

I hear the bolt slide and
when Denise opens the door—“I don’t have a lot of time,” she
says—her eyes are pink and swollen and she’s wearing baggy
sweatpants and a man’s stained white T-shirt. “I’m
packing.”

She doesn’t wait for me to
come in, but leaves the door open and walks around a corner. I
close the door and follow her into the living room, filled with
boxes packed and taped. A few more are open, their contents
obviously haphazardly chosen. Throw pillows and rolls of toilet
paper and pens in one, books and coffee mugs and scarves in
another. Written on the boxes in black marker is simply,
“Stuff.”

“They won’t give you
movers?”

She straddles the coffee mug
and scarf box and folds down the flaps, drags the tape dispenser
along the seam. “Of course I get movers. They couldn’t come until
Friday. I have to do something between now and then, so I’m packing
it myself.” Her back is to me. The waistband of a pair of boxer
shorts rises above the elastic waist of her sweatpants. “Besides,”
she says, “you can’t count on them to do it right.”

“So, you got the
money.”

She swipes her hair out of
her eyes and turns to look at me, one hand still on the box.
“What’s up, Mia?”

“I just mean, if you’re able
to leave, they must have—”

“What brings you here?
Today.”

“I don’t know. The last time
I saw you, you and Brian were…lecturing…a guy.”

“And?”

“I’m just making sure you’re
okay.”

“I’m fine.”

“And, I haven’t called since
we had dinner. You know. To see how you are.”

“I know.” She smiles, but
not really. “Thanks for making up for it.”

“Do you want help
packing?”

“No, thanks. It keeps me
busy.” She stretches and laces her fingers over her head. “A break
would be nice, though. Wine?”

(She follows this with
asking me to take the rest. “Will you please take the rest? It’s
too nice to waste, Brian hates white, the movers won’t take it, and
there is no room for it in my car. I bought the case last week when
I didn’t know just how soon I’d be leaving.”)

“
The money isn’t here, yet,”
she says. “My parents are helping out.”

“That’s nice of
them.”

“I’m giving most of it to
his family.”

I say nothing.

“I
thought
that would make you
happy.”

“It’s none of my
business.”

“I know it isn’t.” She
circles her hand around the base of the bottle and rotates it
little by little on the table.

“Why did you
decide—”

“They—those
people
at the bowl—turned
him into some kind of villain. You know that? William, a bad guy.”
She laughs. “How ridiculous is that?” She looks outside when a gust
of wind punches the window. “I was only there to watch, you know.
I’m one hundred percent for the war.” She looks at me. For a
reaction, I think. “Anyway. I have to get out of here.”

“I wasn’t one of them,” I
say.

“I know, I know.” She clears
her throat and concentrates on her glass. “Do you mind coffee,
instead? I don’t feel like wine.”

“Have whatever you
want.”

“Do you want coffee, or
not?”

“Yes, please.”

She carries our drinks to
the counter and sets them in the sink, then fills the carafe and
pours it in the coffee maker. “Brian asked me to marry
him.”

“Oh,” I say. I have no
feeling about this, have no emotion whatsoever. I wonder if I’ve
run out. Ordinarily, I think this would affect me.