Linger (5 page)

The administration refuses to release casualty estimates, but the 45,000 body bags the Pentagon has sent to the region are all the evidence we need of the high price in lives and blood we will have to spare…. In other words we’re talking about the likelihood of at least 3,000 American casualties a week, with 700 dead, for as long as the war goes on.

Mr. Raleigh had a basket on his desk filled with new buttons: a big bloody thumb pointed down, across it the same words he had hung on his bulletin board: All for Oil.

Only a few took one on the way out, after the bell.

When I went by, he said, “Gary? Wait up.”

He came hopping around the corner of his desk, smiling at me. “How’s Bobby doing?”

“Okay.” Didn’t he know Lynn was writing Bobby?

“This button isn’t against Bobby, you know. It’s for him, in the long run.”

“I know.” I wasn’t sure I did.

“I hope you do. Maybe Bobby will get back to writing.”

“Not if they go to war.”

“No…. Tell Bobby I’m surprised he remembered I used to call ‘Linger’ ‘Joan’s Song.’”

“I remember it, too. What’d he do, write you or something?”

“He wrote Mr. Dunlinger’s daughter.”

(Like he didn’t know her name? Pass the barf bucket—I’m going to need it.)

He said, “Lynn had never heard how Joan inspired me to write that.”

“Oh, yeah?”

He had this crooked grin on his face. He stuck his hand in his trouser pocket and rattled his change. “Say hi to Bobby for me, all right?”

“I’m not going to get my book report in by Friday, Mr. Raleigh,” I said. “I’ve been watching CNN too much.”

I thought it was worth a try, seeing if Bobby’s being over in the Persian Gulf might buy me more time.

He kept grinning down at me. Said, “Then you get an F, Gary.”

I sighed. “I’ll get it in on time,” I said.

“What book are you reading?”

“
The Sheltering Sky
.”

“Come on, Gary. You’re reading a novel from the forties set in Morocco? Just when the movie starts Thursday at Cinema One? No wonder you want extra time—time to see the movie so you don’t have to read anything, right? What’s your problem with reading? You know how much lawyers have to read?”

“Okay, okay,” I said. “When I’m a lawyer, at least I’ll get paid to read.”

“Who’s going to take the bar exam for you, Gary? … Now here, here’s a book for you.” He turned to get it from his desk. “Ever read
Coward
by Tom Tiede?”

He handed it to me. “It’s not recent,” he said.

On the front it said,
The story of a young draftee who refuses to fight in a war he cannot believe in.

“I just finished a Stephen King,” I said. “I’ll do a report on that.”

“Take this anyway,” he said. “I don’t mind you kids reading books made into movies, and thrillers, but it wouldn’t hurt you to escape into a little reality now and then, too.”

“Vietnam is reality?” I said, because I’d turned to the flap and seen
shipped to Vietnam.

“There’s going to be a lot of little Vietnams,” he said, “and I’m afraid you kids are going to find them very real, unless you get more interested in what’s going on.”

“I’m interested,” I said. “I did a paper on those babies the Iraqis let die on the hospital floor, remember?”

“I’m trying to forget that paper.”

“Because it gave a reason for us getting involved there?” He’d given me a D minus.

“Because it was copied almost word for word from a newspaper—a., and b., it was unsubstantiated, maudlin, and manipulative.”

“What about
FEEL FOR OTHER PEOPLE
?”

He said, “Gary, every war has these reports of babies being pulled from their mothers’ arms, or stuck with bayonets or left to starve, or some damn thing. That’s manipulation. Women and children on both sides suffer during a war. But I want your attention focused on the issues, not the histrionics.”

“You want all for oil,” I said.

“Or find something that says it isn’t. You could argue that Hussein is developing nuclear power. He probably is. You could argue for Israel. Or you could argue that if we don’t defang Iraq and liberate Kuwait, we’re going to be in for a much bigger war someday. Get me
thinking,
not crying in my beer over dying babies.”

That weekend I went to see
The Sheltering Sky
anyway. Berryville, on a Saturday night in January, has two offerings: the movie, or bowling at Knock ’Em Down.

Linger was closed two weeks for painting and repair, and Mom and Dad had gone to Sarasota, Florida, where her folks were.

The Dunlingers were taking off the next day for St. Bart’s.

I figured Lynn was back at Faith Academy.

Some guys and I loaded up on popcorn, Coke, giant-sized Butterfingers, and boxes of little Milky Ways, planning on having our dinner in Cinema One.

We liked to sit practically in the front row and we were heading down there when Fred Schwartz said, “Mr. Raleigh’s in the back row, d’you see him?”

“Mr. Give-Peace-a-Chance,” Ollie Burns said.

“Give carrots a chance,” Dave Leonard said.

“All we are saying,” we all sang, “is give peas a chance.”

I glanced over my shoulder and saw him sitting back there. I gave him a little salute and he winked back.

It was a boring movie set in the desert, and it made me miss Bobby, remembering he wrote us the desert sand got into everything…. At one point Ollie Burns came back from the bathroom and said, “I just saw your sweetheart, Lynn Dunlinger, sneak in with Gloria Yee and sit down by Mr. Raleigh.”

“
My
sweetheart!” I said. (Don’t I wish.)

“Shhhut up!” Dave Leonard whispered. He didn’t care what was up there on the big screen, he went and lived there.

Some people behind us said, “Shhhhhhh!”

I couldn’t resist whispering, “Lynn Dunlinger is back in school, so it wasn’t her.”

“It was
her
!” Ollie Burns said.

“Shhhhhhh!” people behind us hissed.

I turned around and looked up at the back row.

Gloria Yee was there, all right, but Lynn wasn’t.

Neither was Mr. Raleigh. Not anymore.

—F
ROM THE JOURNAL OF
Private Robert Peel

Saudi Arabia

Sugar says, “You never say her name. Like what’s her name, Roberto?”

“Lynn Dunlinger. Okay? Lynn.”

I don’t think I ever said her name to her face. I always went out of my way not to have to speak to her.

Sugar says he has no girl and admits he is a virgin. He says he was never in one place long enough to date, thanks to his father, who dragged him with him from one country to another. He wouldn’t even send him to prep school, even though he had bucks. He’d leave Sugar alone nights in strange lands to be with women. Sugar joined up as soon as he was old enough, to get away from him. Never thought there’d be a war. The familiar refrain over here.

I tell him about my first time, with Cheryl Sledd. What I hated most was driving home after when she said it was too fast for her to enjoy and I didn’t give her time to get in the mood. I said, “Is this a report card, Teacher?”

“If it is, you get F plus,” she said. “The plus is because I didn’t have to use my own condom.”

Second time was Betty Chayka. Chike. I held back and it was good for her I think because we dated for a few months. She’d say she wanted to see the green light in my car, nights we’d do it.

Movie Star says when a Mexican girl is fifteen, she has a party called a
quinceanera;
she wears a frilly dress and dances her first dance with her father. His sister is having hers this week, and we all signed a card he made for her: Congratulations, Gina!

I
HEAR YOU’RE
writing Lynn Dunlinger
, I wrote my brother.
I hope you’re not falling for her, since you’d have to get in line. Only kidding! I know you better.

Joan, the cat, wore a yellow ribbon, and there was one tied to every tree, lamppost, railing, and fence on Linger property.

Mr. Dunlinger handed me three large ones, already tied, with two wires attached behind the bows, ready for hanging.

“These are to go up on the outside porch of Lingering Shadows,” he told me.

“Yes, Sir.”

“You don’t have to sir me, Gary. But I admit I like that you do. Bobby never did.”

“No, Sir. He’s not the type.”

“When you write him, you tell him we miss him around here, will you do that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, I know he’s writing my daughter and she could tell him, but I don’t think Lynn will remember to, and I don’t think she’s a very frequent correspondent.”

“I’ll remember to tell him.”

“I want you to check the smoke alarm in Lingering Shadows, and the burglar alarm, too. Lynn will be staying there weekends. Her mother and I agree that she should have a place of her own. And I think she’ll visit us more often this way. I used to never be able to get her away from Faith Academy. Now she’s coming home nearly every weekend.”

I knew that. I’d see them together walking out back, or she’d sit in the bar and watch him play. Nothing obvious. But I knew.

Mr. Dunlinger made the same leap from Lynn to Jules Raleigh, and I flinched as he said, “I’m assigning you a spy mission, too, where Jules is concerned. Who else would give you permission to spy on your teacher? … I want you to keep an eye on him.”

I was dumbstruck, a state of being which I think Mr. Dunlinger preferred from his help.

He said, “I’ve told him I want an upbeat patriotic song to start every set, and I want them blended into the mood music as well.”

“Did he agree?”

“He works for me. There’s no disagree to it if he wants his paycheck. But he wrinkled up his face, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he’d forget when I’m not around…. I want you to jog his memory.”

“Yes, Sir.” That was all.

“And everyone is to wear a yellow ribbon and a flag.”

“Did you tell Mr. Raleigh that?”

“I told him.” Mr. Dunlinger dug down into his pocket, felt around, and then took out a tiny lapel flag and an envelope. He said, “Give Mr. Raleigh this flag. He claimed he could find a ribbon but not a flag.”

“He’s not going to like it,” I said. “You know how he feels about us being over there.”

“Everybody in this county knows how he feels. I could fire him tomorrow and nobody’d blink an eye.”

“I’ll give him this,” I said.

“Linger is like a little country, Gary. We have our customs and our ways and our beliefs. You can visit us without subscribing to any of it … but if you’re a Lingerite, you do what the rest do.”

It was right on the dot of six, and Mr. Raleigh began to play in The Regency Room. Both Mr. Dunlinger and I paused to listen.

I’d never heard “America the Beautiful” played on the violin.

Mr. Dunlinger looked pleased.

Then he handed me the envelope.

“Lynn asked me to give this to you.”

Just beyond The Grill, there was a little hallway where I paused and ripped open the envelope.

There was a note and two photographs.

The note said,
Dear Gary, I thought you and your folks would like to have these…. Very best, L.

One was a group picture. Bobby was standing between two other guys, a good-looking dark-haired fellow and a tall blond. The three of them were in boots and camouflage uniforms, and Bobby was the only one with a big smile.

He’d written across the top
Augustin “Movie Star” Sanchez, Bobby (Roberto) Peel, and Donald “Sugar” Sweet send greetings from The Gulf. December 1990.

The other photo was just Bobby.

He had on a white T-shirt with two bayonets crossed over the letters “U.S.” in red, white and blue, and beneath that in enormous brown letters

ARMY

He had on the usual camouflage pants, and boots, but on his head he was wearing one of those things that look like dish towels. He was pounding his chest, big grin on his face.

On this one he’d written
Luv, Bobby.

About a week ago we’d gotten the same ones in a letter from him, only the one of him alone said
Your hero!
On the back it said,
I traded hats with a dude on a camel. This kind of headgears called a kaffiyeh.

I suppose I should have been glad she didn’t treasure Bobby’s photos, but I hated it. All I could think of was him over there in a strange land he could easily die in, writing Lynn Dunlinger, who didn’t even want a picture of him.

It wasn’t her fault—I knew that, too.

On my way up to Lingering Shadows, I tore them into tiny pieces and tossed them in a trash bin. I didn’t want my brother ever to know.

—
F
ROM THE JOURNAL OF
Private Robert Peel

Saudi Arabia

Sugar makes up new words to an old song from
South Pacific.

We got sunlight, we got sand,

We got moonlight, we got stars,

We got mail from home for kicks,

And we’re up to here in dicks,

We got Movie Star and Bobby,

And we never get afraid,

But what can’t we get?

We can’t get laid!

Later we turn on Desert Shield Radio, and a Phil Collins song is interrupted: “We
repeat
: Congress gave President Bush authority to drive Iraqi troops from Kuwait.”

Outside the tent some guys are cheering.

T
HERE WAS A SNOWSTORM
and it was bitter cold, so Mom picked me up after school. She’d come from Linger, where she was working now instead of at home, because she said it felt so good to be there.

“You feel safe there,” she told me.

“
You
feel safe there. I feel like a gofer there.” But I was grumbling pointlessly, because I liked it there too. When anything big happened, people gravitated toward the place, whether it was a World Series win, a scandal, or the threat of war.

Mom had on fur earmuffs, and I hoped they’d keep out the noise ahead of us, on the sidewalk in front of The Berryville Trust.

“Mr. D. found a tape of patriotic music, and it plays through the system all day. Sometimes I wipe the tears away,” she said.