Me, I didn’t have a passion. Not like that, anyway.
Not like Milo and the movies. Not like Bruce and music.
I’d had a plan, but that’s different.
Now it was gone, too.
But whenever I was taking tickets, I didn’t dwell on such things. I was able to work in the blank state of mind I clung to at school. The whole month was like that—blank and familiar. Everything was thoughtless, fantastically so. That entire month was steady, save one day.
January 30th, 1968.
The Lunar New Year.
Tết Nguyên Đán, as the Vietnamese called it.
Tet, for short.
―
Dad and I found out when we got home from wrestling practice.
Momma was sitting in the den, hunched toward the TV screen with a sour look on her face. Roy was on the floor playing with building blocks.
“What is it?” Dad asked. “What happened?”
“An attack,” she mumbled. “Some sort of attack.”
CBS News was calling it the Tet Offensive. When Dad got caught up on the story, he called it “a goddamn nightmare.” Every American embassy, base, and airfield in South Vietnam was hit with simultaneous surprise attacks. As the newscaster droned on, my spirit dwindled—for months, all I’d heard was that we’d been kicking ass and taking names, but now it was clear that peace was out the window. Our troops weren’t going anywhere, and neither was the draft.
Now it was all I could think about, the draft the draft the draft. I couldn’t put it out of my mind anymore, or pretend it wasn’t coming. I was no longer able to convince myself that Bruce’s death had paid some cosmic debt and left me free from having to worry about being drafted and killed myself.
The fear was in me now, and those numbing efforts were futile. It was just a matter of time before I was smacked out of my grief-induced meditation. I knew it was coming. I felt it. But, in the end, I was still surprised by the force of the hit.
―
The Friday after the Tet Offensive, the Royal Atlantis ran The Graduate. Judging by the size of our opening-night crowd, I wasn’t the only one who’d heard rumors about how salacious it was. Half of the senior class was there, including all the guys from the wrestling team. They made fun of my work uniform as I tore their tickets to the late show.
My boss, Mr. Dori, always left before the last show. So once the movie started and the lobby cleared out, I abandoned my post and went upstairs to the projection room to bullshit with Milo. Every time I did this, the empty upstairs hallway struck me as creepy; the glow of the fake chandeliers was dull, and the echoes of competing films disorienting. I hurried down the matted red carpet to the small door labeled Employees Only. I opened it and went inside.
The small door led to a small room hidden above the crowd. Milo sat in the corner eating a box of M&M’s, paying no attention to the machinery or the images they projected.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, man.”
I peered out the opening that the camera lens stuck through. I didn’t see any sex stuff happening on screen, just Dustin Hoffman freaking out on a mechanic.
“How’s the movie?” I asked.
“Fantastic. The cinematography’s amazing. Real Euro-style, I dig it.”
“Cool,” I said. He passed me the box of M&Ms.
“Wanna hear something messed up?” he asked.
“Always.”
“The New York Times published the signal the Viet Cong sent their troops before the Tet attacks. Know what it said?”
I shook my head.
“Crack the sky, shake the earth.”
The words sent a visible chill down my spine.
“Yeah,” he said, “I know.”
He leaned on the opposite side of the projector and peered into the theater.
“What are we gonna do, man?” I asked.
“Hope our numbers don’t come up until we figure something out.”
I finished the box of chocolates and threw it at his head. “You’re supposed to be the smart one!”
“Hey,” he said, turning, “what can I say? It’s a low fuckin’ bar.”
As if on cue, the audience below us busted up in laughter about something on screen. Milo did his Groucho eyes. I rolled mine in response.
“You better get back downstairs,” he said. “It’s getting near the end.”
“Yeah. See you after?”
“Yep.”
I opened the small door to leave, but then turned back.
“Since when do you read the New York Times?”
He shrugged and turned back to the theater. I left him there as he watched a third ending flicker like a déjà vu dream.
By the time I got back downstairs, moviegoers were shuffling into the night. I waited until the crowd cleared out, then got the broom and rolling trashcan out of the janitor’s closet. I turned on the house lights of Viewing Room 2 and started cleaning. I pushed the broom across the back row in one long motion, shoveling all the garbage into a gross pile.
I dumped that pile, then moved on to the next row.
Then the next row.
Then the next row.
Then the next.
I was nearly finished sweeping when I came upon three pieces of gum stuck to the armrest of an aisle seat. Annoyed, I put the broom down and started peeling. The first two pieces were stale, so they came off easily. But the third piece was fresh. I cursed the perpetrator as I pulled it from the armrest in a gross, unmanageable string. That was when I heard a voice echo from the foyer of the stage-left emergency exit.
“What’s the matter, bitch? I thought you like sneak attacks.”
It was too ugly to come from the mouth of anyone but Stink Wilson.
I wiped the gum on the corner of the trashcan, and then headed toward the exit to see what was going on. My stomach clenched at the thought of conflict, but my job was also too cushy to lose on account of a jackass like Stink.
The hallway leading to the exit doors was dark and cramped. The light behind me was just bright enough to make out five Cordelia High lettermen jackets.
“Just admit it,” another voice said, “and we’ll let you go.”
“I swear to fuckin’ God,” a third voice yelled, “get your mudderfuckin’ hands off me right now, or I admit I’m gonna kick the shit outta every one of you!”
The voice was powerful and feminine. The word “mother” rang out in that Midwestern sneer I only heard when I watched the Bears lose on TV.