Rich Boy

by Sharon Pomerantz

  “You know, in the Andes, they have shamans that cure illness and exorcize demons? Sort of half priest, half doctor. A shaman might be able to help your breathing problems.”

  “Oh, yes, a witch doctor, that’ll do it,” he said, taking a chip from the bag in her lap. He had made yet another unsuccessful trip to the doctor, a young internist recommended by a friend at the restaurant. He’d paid cash and again been told that nothing appeared to be wrong with him. The man had suggested an allergist, but then added that his allergies would have to be serious indeed to get him out of Vietnam. Doctors were suspicious these days of men his age. What Robert needed but did not have was a family physician, someone trusted, who cared about his future. But he didn’t have that and couldn’t pay to bribe the other kind.

  Gwendolyn poured herself a shot of scotch from the bottle on the table. The phone rang but he didn’t answer it. His parents. He let it ring and ring, while Gwendolyn stared at him helplessly, until the ringing finally stopped. He could not listen to the fear in their voices. Only Barry was calm and focused these days. The 1969 draft act had transformed him—specifically the announcement that by 1971 the draft would take only nineteen-year-olds. Barry would turn nineteen in 1971, and he was determined not to get stuck. Robert had never seen him so focused—sending away for applications, researching scholarships, writing essays; he was determined to have that educational deferment in hand by September. He had always wanted out of Oxford Circle, but now he had added incentive: he didn’t want to die. Meanwhile Stacia and Vishniak drove Robert crazy with their endless suggestions—as if he and his draft counselor had not explored every possible avenue of escape, from starvation diets to felony convictions. The week before, his mother had called to tell him to come home; the Pennsylvania draft board was slower, she insisted, citing the example of a neighbor who’d been out of school for two years and still hadn’t been called for his physical. Robert could transfer his residence. Then Vishniak got on the phone and told him to ignore everything his mother had just said. “What does she know? Boston’s gotta be the most crowded, all those kids, and the most liberal, the most likely to cut you a break. Stay where you are.” And then, as Robert heard Stacia yelling in the background, Vishniak hung up.

  “—they have a potion, the shamans, sort of like LSD,” Gwendolyn was saying. “You drink and vomit and supposedly you can see all the lives you’ve had, and all the lives you’re going to have. Isn’t that fascinating?”

  “All you need is more drugs,” he snapped. “And I’d never survive the air in the high altitudes!”

  “Don’t talk to me that way, please. None of this is my bloody fault.”

  “I know,” he said. “I just wish you wouldn’t get ahead of yourself. Right now, we’re in Boston and my life is in the hands of a Republican congressman from New York. Can you stay down here with me in this life for now? Just for tonight?”

  He was a coward; he still hadn’t told her about the thin envelope that had come the week before, which he’d immediately shoved into his jacket pocket, disposing of it later in a public trash bin. The first rejection letter of his life. Perhaps the Peace Corps had sensed his ambivalence, though by the time the letter arrived he would have taken any offer that spared him from having to depend on the capriciousness of a drawing. The letter had suggested he apply again after acquiring additional skills, but he didn’t need to get in later; he needed it now. Jerry had been right about one thing—the Peace Corps didn’t want any more draft dodgers. How could he tell her, when she had made the last year of her life about this? How could he even begin?

  “Darling, for the last time, would you please sit down?” she said. “You’re blocking the screen. And here it is.”

  Alexander Pirnie’s face had a hangdog quality, made worse by the presence of thick, black plastic glasses. His salt-and-pepper hair was arranged in a way that looked as if he’d been growing out a crew cut for the last twenty years, and he wore a black suit and frowned.

  “At least he’s properly solemn,” Gwendolyn said.

  But there was nothing solemn about this process. It played more like a dull game show where the winners got nothing less than their very futures and the losers were taken off in chains. The eligible birthdays, 366 of them, had been placed in individual blue plastic capsules. The congressman plunged his hand into a large cylindrical bowl and then called out the first birthday. An announcer then echoed the birthday for clarity’s sake: September 14. The date was now posted on a large tote board next to the number one. Robert’s birthday was May 9. He poured himself a shot of whiskey. Safe. He did the same for numbers 2 and 3. He was so tense that the alcohol seemed to have no effect at all. More numbers. They were up to 10, 11. Safe.

  Gwendolyn took a joint out of her pocket and lit it. “Bruno gave it to me. For you. For tonight.” She held it out to him.

  “Bruno’s not worried?” Robert said, taking the cigarette.

  “Bruno?” she asked. “Whatever for?”

  “He’s young enough to go, isn’t he?” Numbers 21, 22, 23. Still no May birthdays.

  “I don’t know how old he is, but he’s a Communist.” Numbers 26, 27. “The poor Commies,” she added. “Nobody wants them. Except when everybody wants them.”

  He inhaled, shallowly, hardly able to get much into his lungs.

  “Try it again,” she said. “You know what happens when you get upset. You stop breathing. Breathe, Robbie.”

  He inhaled more slowly this time, holding the smoke in his lungs. What was in this stuff? Within minutes he felt calmer, could hear the numbers as if from far away. Numbers 39, 40, 41. She took his hand and massaged the joints of his fingers, like she’d done that time last winter after he’d gone with her to the bookstore.

  “They seem to be taking a lot of fall and winter birthdays. Don’t you think?”

  “Don’t say that,” he replied. Old superstitions. He’d grown up with them. Don’t ever think you’re safe or lucky or privileged in any way; you invite the evil eye. Women would spit three times to keep it away. His heart was still pounding. She passed him back the joint.

  By the time his birthday was called, he lay on the floor, so drunk and stoned that when he sat up the room tilted. “Was that me?”

  “You’re safe, Robbie. Number 197. It’s 1 to 122 that has to worry.”

  “I’m safe?” He lifted his head cautiously.

  “Yes,” she said, and kneeled beside him, kissed his cheek. Then she helped him up and they walked to the window. The snow had dusted the lawns, houses, and railroad tracks in a comforting, uniform whiteness, illuminated by the streetlights. Across the street, a group of young men had formed a conga line and were dancing their way down the street—Robert and Gwendolyn had never seen them before. A few others wandered aimlessly, as if shell-shocked; one boy in a wool hat and scarf, jeans, a flannel shirt, and no coat got down on his knees in the middle of the busy avenue. At first the cars didn’t see him, and whizzed by. “Is he—?” Gwendolyn asked, as a car obliterated their view for a moment, and then his kneeling form was visible again. “Thank God,” she whispered. The next car had spotted him and stopped. Others were honking, backed up, but the boys on the lawn still danced, hardly able to hear above their own screams of happiness. Suddenly, two men rushed out—one of them was Tommy, their doorman—and yanked the boy up, carrying him by his arms and legs. He’d gone limp, like the protesters carried away by the cops on the news.

  “Poor sod,” Gwendolyn mumbled. “It’s so awful, isn’t it? I sometimes feel like this war is all there is.”

  “I’m safe, Gwendolyn.” He whispered the words into her hair and hugged her hard, feeling both guilt and relief, repeating again and again, “I’m safe, I’m safe.”

  BUT AS IT TURNED out, he wasn’t so safe after all. Within twenty-four hours of the lottery, the papers began to report a different story. Those who drew between 1 and 100 were said to be making plans—escaping to Canada, or exploiting a medical condition. The Defense Department wou
ld likely need more inductees by summer, would call up those with numbers between 120 and 200. Men in that category, men like Robert, were deemed to be in something called “the sweat zone” because they would have to sweat it out for another year.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The sweat zone

  January arrived; it was now 1970, the start of a new decade, and Gwendolyn never stopped talking about the Peace Corps. Each morning she rushed to the mailbox, convinced that his acceptance had come. “Isn’t January the month for acceptances?” she asked him. “No, that’s April,” he replied. “The month of college acceptances and income tax.” Each day that the letter didn’t arrive, she moped around the house for a bit, but by the time he got home at night, she’d talked herself back into optimism, chatting at him a mile a minute, as if driven by a motor. He tried to prepare her, asking what she would do if he got rejected. “You won’t get rejected, Robbie,” she said, looking up at him, her expression utterly trusting. “You never get rejected from anything.”

  Had anyone ever believed in him so much? And then she went on again, speaking about a travel book she’d read, and how guinea pig was a delicacy in Peru and Ecuador, but she didn’t think she could eat guinea pig, but then, she supposed, if she were hungry enough she might. On and on she went, and he had not the heart to stop her.

  By the first Saturday night in March, when he still hadn’t told her, the gods took their revenge, or so it seemed to him. The head chef and one of the waitresses at the restaurant had broken off an affair, and the chef seemed determined to wreak havoc, resulting in an evening where orders were filled late, if at all, and tips were terrible. The manager screamed at him in front of a customer. The waitress who’d broken off the affair sat outside the kitchen sobbing. He got to the T stop past midnight, just missing his train, and had a long wait in the freezing cold.

  When he arrived home, exhausted and wound up all at once, with a terrible headache, he found her in the kitchen, spooning yogurt into a dish. She began to say something and he stopped her. “Don’t say another word to me about the Andes, please,” he said. “There is no letter of acceptance. My rejection came months ago and I hid it from you. They rejected me.”

  She did not reply, only stared at him, still holding the spoon.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I know you heard me.” He went to the refrigerator and poured himself some orange juice, then added a shot of vodka from the freezer. “Didn’t it strike you as strange that I’d applied almost a year ago and still hadn’t heard?”

  “You didn’t apply in March of last year or in April, either. You applied in July. I found the application in your jacket,” she said casually. “Anyway, we don’t need the Peace Corps. We can go off ourselves. I have money and we can live on so little in Peru. I’ve been reading all about it.” She put the lid on the yogurt, returned it to the refrigerator. Then she went to the sink and began to wash dishes.

  “We’re not going anyplace,” he said, coming up close to her. “Except maybe Canada, where I speak the language and can get a job. And that’s only as a last resort. I don’t want to be a fugitive and neither do you. And I won’t live off of you, not anywhere.”

  “The world is falling apart. There has to be some way. If I don’t find someone to help…” Her words trailed off.

  “Then what?” he asked. “Can’t we just take care of each other? Isn’t that enough?”

  “No,” she said quietly. “It’s not enough for me. If I can’t go to South America, if I can’t help the poor, what am I left with? You can’t imagine what I’m left with.”

  “You’re left with me,” he said softly.

  “You don’t understand.”

  “No, I don’t,” he said. “Because I’m selfish and greedy and afraid and you’re the only person I want to take care of. That’s who I am. That’s me. I can’t be someone else.”

  She had no reply. Finally, what felt like hours later, she asked: “When did you find out? About the Peace Corps? When did the letter come?”

  “December,” he said. “Or late November.”

  “Tomorrow is March eighth.”

  “Actually,” he said, looking down at his watch—it was two in the morning—“today is March eighth.”

  “Go to hell.” She walked away from him, and into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

  THEY STAYED AWAY FROM each other all day Sunday; she went shopping and he went to Alston to watch a basketball game at the home of a bartender he knew from work. He came home late, and drunk, and slept on the couch. She was angry, and he was afraid of her anger because he had never really seen it. On Monday she was gone all day, and he stayed home, his day off. But when she didn’t come home by midnight, he became concerned. The doorman, Tommy, had not seen her in days. There was no one to call—Bruno had no phone. He checked the listings for Jerry Stiles but found only a Millicent Stiles, an old woman who barked that it was late and she’d never heard of the man, then hung up. He hardly slept that night and was out of the apartment early. Robert walked the streets of Cambridgein the timid March sunshine, going down alleys, searching in the co-op and the cafés, and then in other shops around the Square. When he got to the bookstore, at 10:00 a.m., the owner had not yet unlocked the door and Robert had to pound on the glass and yell until the man finally undid the bolts. Bruno wouldn’t be in all week, and the man hadn’t seen Gwendolyn—she had missed work the day before. Anyway, she wasn’t on the schedule today. “I’m not responsible, you know,” he said, as if Robert had said he was. “Not for any of them.”

  “That’s a fine way to talk about your employees,” Robert replied.

  “Hey, I do more than my share!” he yelled, as Robert left the shop.

  He went to the church in Arlington and found a bunch of girls making phone calls, and another working a mimeograph machine. A little boy played with blocks on the floor. No one there had seen her in weeks. “We figured she just got tired, needed a break,” said the girl at the machine. “The war will still be here when she gets back.”

  Not knowing where else to try, he took the T to Boston University, where he wandered the campus, such as it was, a conglomeration of shops and buildings along the northern end of Commonwealth Avenue, full of students and student housing, and he asked random men and women if they knew her, but none of them did. He looked futilely around in the library and finally went to the admissions office, where he was directed down a hall, and he charmed a young girl into checking on which classes were currently in session and who had signed up for them. If Gwen was in class, he might wait outside and grab her when it was over. The girl worked hard for him, smiling and assuring him all along that she could help. But after much checking of files and a few phone calls, she called over an older man, conferred with him, and informed Robert that there was no foreign student named Gwendolyn Smythe enrolled at Boston University. In fact, there was no Gwendolyn Smythe attending the university, not even the night school, not even as an auditor.

  When he got home from work that night, she was in bed and offered no explanation of where she’d been. He was so relieved that he didn’t ask, only stripped off his clothes and got in next to her, pulling her toward him. She didn’t smell like herself, needed a shower, and when he tried to kiss her she pulled away. “I don’t want to make love, Robbie. I want to die.” And then she rolled over and went to sleep.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Cambodia

  For the rest of March she remained in bed. He got a coworker to cover his shifts for a week and stayed home, trying to get her to eat something, making her tea, spoon-feeding her chicken broth. But he was an impatient nurse and soon grew frustrated, demanding that she get up, and then apologizing for demanding. Whenever he asked her what she wanted to eat, or if he might get her a book from the library, she had the same refrain: “Leave me alone. I want to die.”

  “Well you’re not dying, not on my watch,” he said finally. The dark bedroom smelled stale, like a sickroom. He needed to change the
sheets. “It’s almost spring. Don’t you want me to open the shades? Don’t you want to walk in the park? Or by the water?”

  “No,” she replied, turning her back on him. The next day he called the maid, Dana, and asked her to sit with Gwendolyn while he went to work. Dana agreed, continuing the cleaning that she’d always done, and at his request she cooked, too, and he paid extra for all these things, so that she was nurse and housekeeper all in one. If she had other customers’ houses to clean, she did so in her off hours. She was a hard worker, a strong, broad-backed woman of fifty with wide-set watery blue eyes and chiseled cheekbones, pale brown hair that was graying, and an immigrant’s stoicism. She was not taken aback by Gwendolyn’s sudden lethargy. “Happens all the time in my country,” she told him after the first day. “People go to bed. They do not get up. Here everyone tries to be happy, happy, happy.” She pulled her lips apart comically but he didn’t laugh.

  Dana made Gwendolyn soups and fancy cakes, squeezed orange juice for her every morning, and read to her from magazines and novels. Still, Gwendolyn didn’t get out of bed. In April, Dana mentioned to Robert that a doctor had called the house several times.

  “What kind of doctor?”

  “Gwendolyn said he’s a chiropractor,” Dana replied. “Dr. Moses. Wants to come to the house.”