The Nuclear Age

by Tim O'Brien

  First a prickly stirring below my belt, then the inevitable laws of hydraulics. I shut my eyes and tried to force it down, but Sarah suddenly jerked away.

  “What the hell’s that?” she said.

  “Nothing, it’s a—”

  “I know what it is! Just keep it away from me!”

  I was already wilting.

  “An accident,” I said.

  “Accident!”

  “Look, I’m sorry, it’s like chemistry or something, those things happen. You shouldn’t take it quite so personal.”

  Sarah winced.

  “Never fails. Same old garbage—put on a letter sweater, guys automatically assume you’re Little Miss Easy Squeezie. Little Miss Huff and Puff.”

  “Not me. I don’t think that way.”

  “I’ve got feelings!”

  For a second it seemed she might spin away. Her eyes moistened. It was real anger, and a kind of sadness, but then she gave me a resigned half-smile, almost tender, and locked her hands around the small of my back. She kept dancing even after the music stopped.

  Here, I realized, was a very troubled young lady.

  After a time Sarah sighed and put her cheek against mine. “All right, you couldn’t help it,” she said. “Chemistry. You’re not such a bad guy, really. Under other circumstances—who knows? It’s just too bad about your rotten personality.”

  “My mistake.”

  “A queer duck, aren’t you?”

  “Unique,” I said. “One of a kind.”

  She smiled. A volatile person, I thought, but it was a genuine smile, crooked and friendly.

  We danced flat-footed, barely moving.

  “You know what I remember?” she said. “I remember back in high school—even junior high—you had this tremendous crush on me. Remember that? Not that I blame you. Thing is, you never made a move. Didn’t even try, for God’s sake.”

  “A little bashful,” I said.

  “Maybe. But it was like I wasn’t quite good enough for you. I mean, did you ever smile at me? One lousy little smile?”

  I thought about it.

  “I guess not,” I said. “I didn’t know you were all that interested.”

  Sarah laughed. “Of course I wasn’t interested. I would’ve shut you off like a light. All I’m saying is you never gave yourself a chance. Gutless, et cetera.”

  But again she smiled.

  It was tempting. Partly a dare and partly something else. Sarah looked straight at me.

  “The problem,” she said softly, “is I’m bad news. Too hot to handle. You’d get burned.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Seriously. Don’t mess with it.”

  There was still that intriguing half-smile, like an invitation, it seemed. At the corner of her mouth was a small red blister, which inspired me, and there was that hard acrobat’s body, and that perfumed skin.

  I was working my way toward an act of great courage when Ned Rafferty tapped me on the shoulder and stepped in and glided away with her.

  It was too quick to process. No words, just a wave, then she was gone.

  “Sure,” I said, “go right ahead.”

  I felt the fuses blowing. Scalped, I thought. First my father, now me.

  Hard to find meaning in it.

  When the music ended, I began weaving my way across the floor, but things were jammed, and by the time I got there it was too late, they were dancing again.

  That fast—every time. It just happens.

  I moved off to a corner and stood watching. Painful, but I had to admire Rafferty’s style, all the dips and fancy footwork. He was handsome, too—curly brown hair and gray eyes—but his greatest strength, I decided, was strength. He had that Crazy Horse power: feathers and war paint and big killer shoulders. It was pure hate. And what I hated most was the way Sarah smiled at him, that same inviting half-smile, except now it was aimed elsewhere.

  Which is how it always happens.

  That fast.

  You get all revved up for somebody, ready to take the plunge, and the next thing you know you’re diving onto concrete.

  There was a moral in it. Never underestimate the power of power. Never take chances. Because you end up getting smashed. Every time—crushed.

  Safety first, that was the moral.

  A half hour later Sarah found me sitting at a table near the buffet line.

  “Back in the fold,” she said cheerfully, but I ignored her. I was busy twisting a scalp around my fists.

  There was a hesitation before she sat down.

  “You’re excited,” she said, “it’s obvious.”

  At her forehead was a smudge of Rafferty’s orange war paint. I turned sideways and crossed my legs and began braiding the scalp into two neat pigtails.

  For a few minutes Sarah sat watching.

  “All right, listen, I’m sorry,” she finally said. She studied the scalp for a moment, then smiled. “Shouldn’t have gone off like that. The call of the wild, I guess. Fickle me. But it’s not like we’re engaged or anything. We’re barely friends.”

  “Right,” I said, “barely friends. Take a walk.”

  Sarah’s lips compressed.

  “That old green devil. Jealousy, it gives me goose bumps.” As if by accident her hand dropped against my wrist. “Apologies, then? I didn’t mean to mess up your super ego. I was just—you know—just letting loose. Just dancing with the guy. No big deal.”

  “He’s a turd,” I said.

  “If you say so.”

  “Fuzzball.”

  Sarah laughed.

  “Absolutely,” she said. “That’s why I’m here. Fuzzballs get boring. They tend to stick to your sweater.”

  She liked me. She almost said so.

  It was like riding ice, things seemed to skid by. I remember a saxophone. I remember Sarah leaning up against me. Not love, exactly, just intense liking. And it cut both ways. I liked her, she liked me. Late in the evening there was a Hula Hoop contest, which Sarah won, and afterward we ate sandwiches and potato salad, then danced, then sat in the bleachers and watched the party and talked about little things, our lives, which led into bigger things. Now and then she’d touch my arm. She’d look at me in a fond sort of way. At one point, I remember, she said she admired what I was doing at the cafeteria. It took guts, she said; it was honorable. I shrugged and said, “Half-assed?” and she was silent for a while, then said, “Well, listen, I’ve got this big mouth.” I told her it was a beautiful mouth. Then later we talked politics. It was soft, serious talk, not romantic, but it implied something. She said she hated the war as much as anyone. She had principles. She knew a thing or two about death—her father was a mortician—the stiffs stayed stiff—they didn’t wake up—she couldn’t see any reason for the killing. She put her hand on my arm. Her only quibble, she told me, was tactical. It was a real war, wasn’t it? Real bombs? Which required a real response. Posters were fine, but too passive, not enough drama.

  She kept smiling, I remember. She kept that hand on my arm.

  “What I’m trying to explain,” she said, “is you have to get people’s passions involved. Like with cheerleading. Politics and passion, same thing.”

  And so then we discussed passion.

  For me, I said, it wasn’t a question of right or wrong. It was a kind of seeing. “Crazy,” I said, but she didn’t laugh, so I told her about the flashes, and she nodded—she cared—she listened while I went on about Phantom jets and napalm and Kansas burning, how it wasn’t a dream, or not quite, or not entirely, just seeing.

  Even then she didn’t laugh.

  “Well,” she finally said, “I guess that’s one kind of passion.”

  At two in the morning there was a final dance, then we trooped over to the student union to watch an old Jane Fonda movie.

  But it was hard to concentrate. Sarah sat with her legs in my lap, knees cocked up like targets near my chin.

  “You can touch,” she whispered.

  So I touched. And lat
er she chuckled and said, “Kneecaps—who would’ve thought it? You’re a sly puppy, aren’t you?”

  Then she fell asleep.

  For a long while I simply sat there in the dark. Up on the screen, Jane Fonda was busy seducing a basketball team, but I couldn’t keep my mind on it. I watched Sarah’s sleeping face. Real, I thought. It was no fantasy. Those pulsing places at the throat and inner thigh, the connectives, the curvatures and linkages. I considered my good fortune. There was a curious flow of warmth between us, as if we were exchanging blood, and the rest I imagined.

  Much later, Sarah nudged me.

  “Hey, there,” she murmured.

  “Hey,” I said.

  She sat up and stared at the screen. There was fatigue in her eyes, a lazy blankness.

  “Kiss?” she said.

  I kissed her, and she nodded. She moved closer. “You were aching for it, weren’t you? I can always tell. And now I suppose you want more?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “No future in it. No tomorrow.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “I do see. Nothing.” She eyed me for a moment. “You’re a virgin, no doubt?”

  “Sort of,” I said. “With you, I used to pretend.”

  “Pretend?”

  “You know. Make-believe.”

  There was a short silence. “Well,” she said, “glad I could help.” Then she sighed. “All right, permission granted, but just kisses. Nothing else. Don’t even pretend.” She slipped her head against my shoulder. “A little intensity this time, it’s good for the complexion.”

  And later—maybe four in the morning, maybe five—later, when the lights came on, Sarah tucked her blouse in and looked at me with level eyes and said, “I wish it could work out. I really wish that.”

  “But?”

  “Let’s walk.”

  We skipped the pancake breakfast.

  Outside, there was a bright moon. Not quite dawn, but I could feel the stirrings.

  “Be a gentleman,” Sarah said. “I’m très bushed. Too late for nookie.”

  She hooked my arm.

  We walked past the science building, across a parking lot, down a gravel path that led to the Little Bighorn. Our shoes made crunching sounds in the snow.

  “What it comes down to,” she said, “is we’re different people. Complete opposites. Nobody’s fault.”

  “Right,” I said. “Opposites.”

  Sarah stopped at the riverbank.

  She lay down and made an angel in the snow, then shivered and stood up and took my hand.

  There was a slight droop to her eyelids.

  “It’s like a jigsaw puzzle, like when the pieces don’t fit. Miss Razzle-Dazzle. Mr. Gloom-and-Doom. We’ve got our images to protect.”

  “Images. I never thought of that.”

  “I wish you’d—”

  “Fucking images.”

  I was moving on automatic. The river curled eastward, through white birch and pine, and things were very still.

  “Besides,” Sarah said, “we had an agreement. A brief encounter. Didn’t we decide that?”

  “I guess we did.”

  “There you are, then.”

  “Of course,” I said. “A deal’s a deal. Very tidy.”

  She stopped, removed her gloves, put her hands on my cheeks, and held them there. We were the same height, almost exactly.

  “It’s for the best,” she said. “I told you before, I’m dangerous. Too raunchy, too bitchy. Everything. You’d get hurt.”

  “Sarah—”

  “Enough.”

  Crossing campus, we didn’t say much.

  I was a gentleman.

  Now and then, by chance, we brushed up against each other, and I could smell her skin, the skin itself, and there was that moment of hurt and panic, the urge to try something desperate, something gallant, like rape, a blow to the chin and then drag her off.

  It made a nice picture.

  At her dorm door I swallowed and said, “Well.”

  Sarah kissed me.

  “Passion,” she said, “good luck,” then she shook her head and backed away.

  It was a rough weekend. Hard to envision a happy ending. Complete opposites—she was right.

  On Monday morning I confronted the facts. It wasn’t love, after all. It wasn’t anything.

  Getting out of bed was a major enterprise.

  I showered and shaved and examined myself in the mirror. The eyes were bloodshot, the expression empty.

  “No problem,” I said.

  At noon I picked up my poster and walked over to the cafeteria. Ollie and Tina were already there. It was a dull winter day, bare and frozen, and no one cared, no one understood, and when I took my place on the line it all seemed trivial and small and dumb. Three clods in the cold. The poster, the model bomb—a bad joke. Not love, I thought. Not passion either. A joke, but it wasn’t funny.

  For a long while I just stared down at my shoes, shoulders hunched, pondering the world-as-it-should-be.

  When I looked up, Sarah was there.

  Which is how it always happens—that fast. She was simply there.

  We stood inspecting each other. Her hair was pulled back in a businesslike ponytail. She wore blue culottes and earmuffs and a silver letter sweater.

  “What you remind me of,” she said after a moment, “is tooth decay. No sleep, I’ll bet. Bad dreams.”

  “Surprise,” I said.

  “You could’ve called.”

  “I could’ve. I didn’t.”

  Her lips brushed across my cheek.

  “Well,” she said quietly, “a girl likes to be chased. Hot pursuit. The feminine mystique, I guess.” She looked over at Ollie and Tina, then at my poster. “So this is it? The famous Committee?”

  It was all I could do to nod. There was an absence of symmetry, a strange new tilt to the world.

  Sarah shrugged. She made a low sound, not quite a sigh, then took a step forward and turned and stood beside me. She was carrying a megaphone and red pom-poms.

  “Don’t expect miracles,” she said. “You and me. A trial period, understand?”

  “Of course.”

  “And there’ll be some changes. New tactics. New leadership.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “It’s only natural.”

  Sarah lifted her megaphone.

  “All right, that settles it,” she said. “Two weeks, maybe three, then we shut this rathole down. No more bullshit. There’s a war on.”

  6

  Escalations

  LIKE HIDE-AND-GO-SEEK—the future curves toward the past, then folds back again, seamlessly, always expressing itself in the present tense.

  The year is 1969, for example.

  If I concentrate, if I stop digging for a moment, I can see Sarah sitting at a kitchen table in Key West. She wears a black bikini. She’s oiling an automatic rifle. “Terrorism,” she tells me, “is a state of mind. No need to hurt people, you just give that impression.”

  Or it’s 1971. She’s famous. She’s on the cover of Newsweek. She smiles and says, “I warned you, William. Years ago, I told you I was dangerous. Remember that? And now I belong to the ages.”

  Or it’s 1980, or 1985, and the war is over, and she’s one of the last of the die-hard rads. Her skin is leathery. Her eyes show the effects of windburn and fatigue. “Terrorism,” she repeats, “is a state of mind, but nobody gets terrified anymore.”

  And now it’s late in the century, it’s 1995, and I’m digging, and I see sharpshooters and a burning safe house and the grotesque reality of the human carcass. The dead won’t stop dying. Ned and Ollie and Tina, all of them, they die in multiples, they can’t call it quits.

  Then 1967.

  Mid-March, a Sunday afternoon, and Sarah slips into my dorm room. She takes off her clothes and does a handstand at the center of my bed.

  Even then, I suppose, she was something of a terrorist.

  “Lucky William,” she’d sigh. “This relationship can’
t last, you know. A law of nature, I’m just a higher form of life.”

  At times it seemed she was right. Different species, almost, certainly different social classes, and yet over the final months of our junior year at Peverson State, as cause led to effect, Sarah and I somehow managed to make it work. We studied together, ate together, eventually slept together.

  Even now, with the advantage of hindsight, I’m not sure what she saw in me. Maybe a counterpoint to her own charm; maybe a challenge. Cute, she’d sometimes call me, but I knew better—too skinny and angular and gawky. I had no poise, no presence. I’d often glance into windows or mirrors, obliquely, trying to catch myself unawares, to see myself as Sarah would, but the results were always depressing. I couldn’t find the cuteness. It was a strained, almost haggard face, blond hair gone sandy brown, blue eyes set back in deep dark sockets—grim-looking, I thought.

  Still, she liked me. Not quite romance, just an intense collaboration of spirit. She kept me on my toes. Sudden shifts in mood, a heavy emphasis on coercion.

  Extremism, after all, was her specialty and those were extreme times. There was a nip in the air. The music was militant. In Vietnam, more than 400,000 Americans were at war, and at home, even in Montana, apprehension had come to discontent.

  “No more bullshit,” Sarah said, “there’s a war on,” then she went to work.

  At the end of March, she orchestrated a series of teach-ins and classroom boycotts; in the first week of April she led a torchlight parade along the Little Bighorn—a pep rally for peace—half protest, half party.

  How she did it, exactly, or why, I’m not sure, but by May Day politics had become respectable at Peverson State College, trendy and stylish. Again, the images blend and collide, but I remember pom-poms and cartwheels and barricades in front of Old Main. I can see Tina Roebuck silhouetted against a bonfire along the river. And I can see Ollie Winkler, who grins and spits on his hands as he wires up a stink bomb in the school auditorium. His eyes are nasty. “You don’t make a revolution,” he tells me, “without breaking a few legs.”

  Mostly, though, I remember Sarah. She made things happen. Glamour, yes, and a flair for the dramatic, but she was also tough and practical, no tolerance for abstraction. “It’s combat,” she’d say. “Philosophy’s fine, but you don’t hem and haw on the front lines. You haul in the artillery.”