Susan Shwartz - Suppose They Gave a Peace.pdf - Susan Shwartz - widez2

Kennedys . For the personal use of those who have purchased the ESF 1993 Award

anthology only.

Suppose They Gave a Peace...

by Susan Shwartz

Twenty-five years after the war, and my damned sixth sense about the phone still

wakes me up at 3:00 A.M. Just as well. All Margaret needs is for me to snap awake,

shout, and jump out of bed, grabbing for my pants and my .45. I don't have it

anymore. She made me sell it as soon as the kids were old enough to poke into the

big chest of drawers. I don't interfere when she makes decisions like that. The way

things are going to the dogs, though, I'd feel a whole lot better about her safety if I

had the gun.

So I stuck my feet into my slippers--the trench foot still itches-and snuck

downstairs. If Margaret woke up, she'd think I was raiding the icebox and go back

to sleep. I like being up and alone in my house, kind of guard duty. I don't do much.

I straighten towels or put books back on the shelves-though with Steff gone, that's

not a problem anymore. I don't like seeing the kids' rooms so bare.

Barry's models and football are all lined up, and Margaret dusts them. No

problem telling the boys from the girls in our family. Barry's room is red and navy,

and Steff's is all blue and purply, soft-like, with ruffles and a dressing table she

designed herself. Now that she's at school, we don't trip on clothes all over the

place. And I keep reminding myself we ought to yank out the Princess phone she got

when she turned thirteen. Light on the dial's burned out, anyway.

I wish she hadn't taken down the crewelwork she did her freshman year. The

flower baskets were a whole lot prettier than these "Suppose They Gave A War And

Nobody Came" posters. But that's better than the picture of that bearded Che-guy. I

put my foot down about that thing, I can tell you. Not in my house, I said.

I'm proud of our house: two-floor brick Tudor with white walls and gold carpet

and a big ticking grandfather's clock in the hall. Classy taste, my wife has. Who'd

have thought she'd look at someone like me?

Besides, dinner was pretty good. Some of that deli rye and that leftover steak..

As the light from the icebox slid across the wall phone, it went off, almost like it

had been alerted. I grabbed it before it could ring twice.

"Yeah?" I snapped the way I used to in Germany, and my gut froze. My son

Barry's in Saigon. If anything goes wrong, they send a telegram. No. That was last

war. Now they send a car. God forbid.

But Steff, my crazy daughter--every time the phone rings at night I'm scared.

Maybe she's got herself arrested in one of her goddamn causes and I'm going to

have to bail her out like I did in Chicago. Or it could be worse. Two years ago this

month, some kids were in the wrong place at the wrong time up at Kent. Damn

shame about them and the National Guard; it'll take us years to live it down. Hell of a

thing to happen in Ohio.

I thought my kid was going to lose her mind about it. The schools shut down all

over the place, all that tuition money pissed away, and God only knows what she got

into.

Not just God. Margaret. Steff would call up, say "put Mom on," and Margaret

would cry and turn into the phone so I couldn't hear what she was saying. I think she

sent money on the sly-like, so I wouldn't make an issue of it. You don't send kids to

college so they can get shot at. Steff would say you don't send anyone anywhere so

they can get shot at. She's just a kid, you know. She doesn't really believe all that

stuff. The kids shouldn't have been there. Anyone could tell you that.

"Hey, that you, Joey?" The voice on the other end was thick with booze. "It's

Al. Remember me?"

"You son of a bitch, what're you doing calling this hour of night?" I started to

bellow, then piped down. "You wanna wake up my whole damn family?"

"Thought you'd be up, Joey. Like we were... the time when. . ."

"Yeah ... yeah ..." Sure I remembered. Too well. So did Al, my old army buddy.

It happens from time to time. One of us gets to remembering, gets the booze

out--Scotch for me these days now that my practice is finally paying off-and then

picks up the phone. Margaret calls it "going visiting" and "telephonitis" and only gets

mad at the end of the month when the bills come in.

But Al wasn't from my outfit at the Battle of the Bulge. Weren't many of them

left. Not many had been real close friends to start with: when you run away from

home and lie about your age so you can go fight, you're sort of out of place, soldier

or not.

Damn near broke my own dad's heart; he'd wanted me to follow him into school

and law school and partnership. So I did that on GI bills when I got out. Got

married, and then there was Korea. I went back in, and that's where I met Al.

"Remember? We'd run out of fuel for the tank and were burning grain alcohol...

rather drink torpedo juice, wouldn't you? And pushing that thing south to the 38th

parallel, scared shitless the North Koreans'd get us if the engine fused..."

"Yeah ..." How far was Korea from Saigon? My son the lance corporal had

wangled himself a choice slot as Marine guard. I guess all Margaret's nagging about

posture and manners had paid off. Almost the only time it had with the Bear. God,

you know you'd shed blood so your kids don't turn out as big damn fools as you.

I'd of sent Barry through school, any school. But he wanted the service. Not Army,

either, but the Marines. Well, Parris Island did what I couldn't do, and now he was

"yes sir"-ing a lot of fancypants like Ambassador Bunker over in Vietnam. At least

he wasn't a chicken or a runaway ...

"You there, Joey?" I was staring at the receiver. "I asked you, how's your

family?"

"M'wife's fine," I said. How long had it been since Al and I spoke--three years?

Five; "So're the kids. Barry's in the Marines. My son the corporal. Stationed in

Saigon. The Embassy, no less." I could feel my chest puffing out, even though I was

tired and it was the middle of the night.

Car lights shone outside. I stiffened. What if... The lights passed. All's quiet on

the Western Front. Thank God.

Al and the beer hooted approvingly.

"And Steffie's in college. Some damn radical Quaker place. I wanted her to stay

in Ohio, be a nurse or a teacher, something practical in case, God forbid, she ever

has to work, but my wife wanted her near her own people."

"She getting plenty of crazy ideas at that school?"

"Steff's a good kid, Al, looks like a real lady now." What do you expect me to

say? That after a year of looking and acting like the big-shot debs my wife admires

in The New York Times, my Steffie's decided to hate everything her dad fought for?

Sometimes I think she's majoring in revolution. It wasn't enough she got arrested in

1968 campaigning for McCarthy--clean up for Gene, they called it. Clean? I never

saw a scruffier bunch of kids till I saw the ones she's taken up with now. Long hair,

dirty-and the language? Worse than an army barracks.

She's got another campaign now. This McGovern. I don't see what they have

against President Nixon or what they see in this McGovern character. Senator from

South Dakota, and I tell you, he's enough to make Mount Rushmore cry. I swear to

God, the way these friends of Steff's love unearthing and spreading nasty

stories--this Elisberg character Steff admires, you'd think he was a hero instead of

some nutcase who spilled his guts in a shrink's office, so help me. Or this My Lai

business: things like that happen in war. You just don't talk about them. Still, what do

you expect of a bunch of kids? We made it too easy.

I keep hoping. She's such a good girl, such a pretty girl; one of these days, she'll

come around and say "Daddy, I was wrong. I'm sorry."

Never mind that.

Al had got onto the subject of jo-sans. Cripes, I hadn't even thought of some of

them for twenty years, being an old married man and all. What if Margaret had

walked in? I'd of been dead. Sure, I laughed over old times, but I was relieved when

he switched to "who's doing what" and "who's died," and then onto current events.

We played armchair general, and I tell you, if the Pentagon would listen to us, we'd

win this turkey and have the boys home so damned fast...

About the time we'd agreed that this Kissinger was a slippery so-and-so and that

bombing Haiphong was one of the best things we could have done, only we should

have done it a whole lot earlier... hell of a way to fight a war, tying General

Westmoreland's hands, I heard footsteps on the stairs.

"Do you have any idea what time it is?" Margaret asked me.

I gestured he called me! at the phone, feeling like a kid with his hand in the

cookie jar. My wife laughed. "Going visiting, is he? Well, let his wife give him aspirin

for the hangover I bet he's going to have. You have to go to the office tomorrow

and..." she paused for emphasis like I was six years old, "you need your sleep."

She disappeared back up the stairs, sure that I'd follow. "That was the wife," I

told Al, my old good buddy. "Gotta go. Hey, don't wait five years to call again. And

if you're ever in town, come on over for dinner!"

God, I hope she hadn't heard that stuff about the josans. Or the dinner invitation.

We'd eat cold shoulder and crow, that was for sure.

Fall of '72, we kept hearing stories. That Harvard guy, that Kissinger was

meeting with Le Duc Tho in Paris, and he was encouraged, but then they backed

down: back and forth, back and forth till you were ready to scream. "Peace is at

hand," he says, and they say it in Hanoi, too. I mean, what's the good of it when the

commies and your own leaders agree, and the army doesn't? No news out of Radio

Hanoi can be any good. And the boys are still coming home in bags, dammit.

Meanwhile, as I hear from Margaret, Stephanie is doing well in her classes. The

ones she attends in between campaigning for this McGovern. At first I thought he

was just a nuisance candidate. You know, like Stassen runs each time? Then, when

they unearthed that stuff about Eagleton, and they changed VP candidates, I thought

he was dead in the water for sure. But Shriver's been a good choice: drawn in even

more of the young, responsible folk and the people who respect what he did in the

Peace Corps. But the real reason McGovern's moving way up in the polls is that

more and more people get sick and tired of the war. We just don't believe we can

win it, anymore. And that hurts.

I get letters from Barry, too. He's good at that. Writes each one of us. I think

he's having a good time in Saigon. I hope he's careful. You know what I mean.

Barry says he's got a lot of respect for Ambassador Bunker. Says he was cool

as any Marine during Tet, when the VC attacked the Embassy. Says the

Ambassador's spoken to him a couple of times, asked him what he wants to do

when he gets out of the service. Imagine: My boy, talking to a big shot like that.

And Margaret sent Stephanie a plane ticket home in time for the election. Sure,

she could vote at school, but "my vote will make more of a difference in Ohio," she

explained to me. She was getting a fancy accent.

"You gonna cancel out my vote, baby?" I asked her. "I sure am, Dad. D'you

mind?"

"Hey, kid, what am I working for if it isn't for you and your mom? Sure, come

on home and give your fascist old dad a run for his money."

That got kind of a watery laugh from her. We both remembered the time she

went to Washington for that big march in '69. I hit the ceiling and Margaret talked me

down. "She didn't have to tell us, Joe," she reminded me.

No, she didn't. But she had. Just in case something happened, she admitted that

Thanksgiving when she came home from school.

I didn't like the idea of my girl near tear gas and cops with nightsticks when I

wasn't around, so I pulled a few strings and sent her Congressman Kirwan's card.

Mike, the Congressman says I should call him when be comes to the lawyers' table

at the Ohio Hotel. And I wrote down on it the home phone number of Miss Messer,

his assistant. If anything goes wrong, I told her, she should call there. And I drew a

peace sign and signed the letter, "Love and peace, your fascist father."

She says I drew it upside down. Well, what do you expect? Never drew one

before.

Anyhow, she'll be home for Election Day, and Barry'll vote by absentee ballot.

I'm proud that both my kids take voting seriously. Maybe that school of hers hasn't

been a total waste: Steff still takes her responsibilities as a citizen very seriously.

Meanwhile, things--talking and fighting both--slowed down in Paris and Saigon. I

remember after Kennedy won the election, Khrushchev wouldn't talk to President Ei

senhower's people because Ike was a lame duck. As if he weren't one of the greatest

generals we ever had. I tried to listen to some of the speeches by this McGovern

Stephanie was wild for. Mostly, I thought he promised pie-in-the-sky. Our boys

home by June, everyone working hard and off welfare—not that I'd mind, but I just

didn't see how he was going to pull any of it off. I really wanted to ask Barry what he

thought, but I didn't. Might be bad for morale.

Then things started to get worse. They stepped up the bombing. Tried to burn

off the jungle, too. And the pictures... Dammit, I wish I could forget the one of that

little girl running down the road with no clothes on, screaming in pain. Sometimes at

night, it gets messed up in my mind with that thing from Kent, with the girl kneeling

and crying over that boy's body. Damn things leap out at you from the newspaper or

the news, but I can't just stick my head in the sand.

Maybe the kids... maybe this McGovern... I've been under attack, and I tell you,

there comes a time when you just want it to stop. Never mind what it costs you.

You've already paid enough. I think the whole country's reached that point, and so

McGovern's moving way up in the polls. Election Day started out really well. The

day before, letters had come from Barry. One for me. One for his mother. And even

one for Stephanie. I suppose she'd told him she was going to be home, and APO

delivery to the Embassy in Saigon is pretty regular. We all sort of went off by

ourselves to read our letters. Then Margaret and I traded. I hoped Stephanie would

offer to show us hers, too, but she didn't. So we didn't push.

You don't push, not if you want your kids to trust you. Besides, my son and

daughter have always had something special between them. He's a good foot taller

than she is, but she always looked out for her "baby brother" in school. He never

minded that she was the bright one, the leader. Not till he decided not to go to

college, and he overheard one of the family saying that Stephanie should have been

the boy. So our Bear joined up, not waiting for the draft or anything. I expected

Stephanie to throw a fit -- Margaret certainly did, but all my girl said was, "He needs

to win at something of his own."

I wouldn't have expected her to understand what that means to a boy. Maybe

she's growing up.

But it's still all I can do to keep a decent tongue in my head toward my

brother-in-law with the big fat mouth.

On Election Day, it's a family tradition that everyone comes over to watch the

Susan Shwartz - Suppose They Gave a Peace.pdf

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