Soldier Doll

by Jennifer Gold

  There was a buzz about the café. Did Karen have a strategy? What did people plan to do? Someone waved their hand and stood up.

  “Steve?” Karen pointed to him. “You have any good ideas?”

  Steve shrugged and fiddled with his baseball cap. “I heard that if you’re in college, like us, you can use that as an excuse to get out of the draft. That’s what my cousin said, anyway. That it can buy you some time at least.” His voice was tentative.

  “Steve Mason!” Karen’s voice echoed loudly. She shook an admonishing finger at him as he slinked back into his seat looking mortified. “How can you even suggest such a thing? So you get a pass while your brothers who don’t have the opportunity to attend college, who don’t have rich parents—they should die in the jungle instead of you?”

  A low hiss of disapproval sounded throughout the room. Mike glanced over at poor Steve, who looked now as if Vietnam might be a reasonable option, so long as it got him out of the café. He felt a pang of sympathy for the guy. He had been gutsy enough, at least, to vocalize what a lot of them had been thinking. But Karen was right. It wasn’t fair. He thought of Buddy and Donny and Sam and all the guys he’d grown up with who hadn’t gone off to college, who now worked construction or in the quarries or painted houses. Heck, he might have been doing that kind of work if he hadn’t been offered the music scholarship.

  “Mike?” Scott was looking at him. “Earth to Mike. Come in please.” He grinned as Mike blinked and jumped slightly. “Where were you, buddy?” he asked, amused.

  “Just thinking about the draft. I don’t know…I don’t know what I would do if my birthday came up.”

  Scott looked at him queerly. “What do you mean? You wouldn’t go, would you?”

  “I said I don’t know.” He felt uncomfortable. “Why, what would you guys do? The college thing?”

  “No, you heard the lady. That’s wrong.” Scott grinned, mocking. “I was actually thinking about some kind of medical exemption. Like if you have asthma.”

  “You don’t have asthma, though.”

  “Not yet.”

  Mike felt surprised at his friend’s reaction. He turned to Howard. “What would you do?”

  Howard shrugged. “Canada, maybe,” he said tentatively. “My family all live in Detroit. It’s right on the Canadian border, and they could come and visit. You do what you have to do, right?”

  “I guess.” Mike thought about his parents. They didn’t live near the Canadian border, and they didn’t have a lot of money to travel, either. Not to mention that his father would probably disown him if he was called to war and fled to another country. He sighed; it was a lot to think about.

  “You could go to Canada too,” Scott suggested.

  “I don’t think I could.” Mike tried to vocalize what he was feeling. “It’s like Karen said. Why should I be able to use college as an excuse when others can’t?”

  “Because it’s a stupid war? Because we shouldn’t even be in Vietnam?” Scott’s eyes were hard and cold, like the ice that had begun to form on the Charles River. “We shouldn’t be fighting the communists. We should be joining them, man.”

  Mike frowned. “I don’t know about that,” he said. “Maybe we shouldn’t be in Vietnam, but I don’t know about the communists. Like, think about my parents—the communists were pretty bad in Prague.”

  “What are you, some kind of fascist?”

  “Go to hell.” Mike jumped up. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. You want to talk about fascists? You remember a guy called Stalin? In charge of a big communist country called the Soviet Union?” He gripped the edge of the chipped table to control himself from lashing out at Scott.

  Scott stared at him. “Are you going to hit me, Stepanek? At ease, soldier.”

  Mike took a deep breath. He wouldn’t lose his temper, not so that they could all dismiss him as another violent Southie, a bad boy from the wrong side of town. He picked up his guitar. “I’m leaving,” he said. His voice was calm now.

  Howard tried to interject. “Come on, guys. Forget it.”

  “I’ll see you later, How,” said Mike. He ignored Scott and quickly left the café.

  . . .

  Outside, he felt immediately better, the cold air penetrating his lungs, slowing down his racing heart. He walked quickly, feeling the tension decrease as he breathed in the night air. He clenched and unclenched his fists thinking of Scott and his arrogance and the draft and the war. It was snowing now. He watched as the snowflakes landed on his guitar case and then succumbed, melting.

  It was cold, but Mike had grown up with the cold, and it was in his blood; it didn’t bother him. He settled down on a bench that had been forest green, once, but a succession of winters had worn it down, chipping away at its paint to reveal the weathered wood underneath. He took out his guitar and began to play, letting himself become consumed by the music.

  As often happened, other thoughts left his mind, and he forgot where he was. Nothing mattered but the song. He closed his eyes and let himself be completely absorbed by the melody and rhythm of his fingers.

  Mike opened his eyes and found himself staring into the eyes of Karen Markham: bright green, like a cat’s.

  “That was groovy,” she said. She twisted a lock of long dark hair around her index finger. She was wearing a hat now, a little white one. It was covered with a fine dust of snow. “Did you write that yourself?”

  “Yeah.” Mike felt his cheeks go red despite the cold. He offered her his hand. “Mike Stepanek,” he said. “I’m a music major.”

  “Karen Markham.” She shook his hand. “I’m pre-law.”

  “That’s cool.” Mike was impressed.

  Karen nodded. “Thanks.” She settled down next to him on the bench. “I noticed you with your friends at the café.”

  “Yeah.”

  “They were still there when you left.”

  “Uh-huh.” Mike changed the subject. “I agree with you that you shouldn’t use college as an excuse,” he said firmly. There was noise behind them: students, heading back to campus from a nearby subway stop. He turned and watched them. They were carrying posters.

  “I know.” Karen’s voice was full of passion. “It’s just so unfair. But I bet a lot of people here end up doing that.”

  “I could never do that.” He turned back to Karen. “My friends from high school, right? I was pretty much the only one to go to college. I could never take a pass while all those guys were shipped out. You know?”

  “Absolutely.” She was gazing at him with admiration. There was a pause, and they both laughed, a nervous sort of laughter.

  Karen stood up. “I should get going.” She brushed the snow off her jeans. “Lots of poli-sci work.”

  “Sure.” Mike watched a snowflake land on the tip of her nose and felt his heart speed up for the second time that night. “Say, do you want to maybe grab some coffee or something sometime?” It came out as a rush of words, and Mike mentally flogged himself for sounding overeager.

  Karen smiled easily. “I’d like that.” She took out a notebook and scribbled something. “My phone number,” she said, tearing out the page and handing it to him.

  “Thanks,” he croaked. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  Karen swung her book bag over her shoulder and turned to leave. “Great!” she said. Her eyes twinkled and looked very green. “See you, Mike.” She waved and swept through the park toward the subway station, her hair flapping behind her like leaves dancing in the wind.

  . . .

  “I’m gonna die.” Boots was panting. Mike could feel him about five paces in front. He was whispering, but in the relative quiet of the bush, his voice was like an exotic shrieking parrot.

  “Sh.” Mike swung his rifle nervously from side to side. There was a rustling off somewhere to t
he left. He held his breath, waiting, but nothing happened. An animal of some kind, no doubt. He shuddered.

  “Course you’re gonna die.” Red now. “Do you know what the average lifespan of a ’Nam trooper is? Twelve days.”

  “Why you still alive, then?” Miles now, from the front of the line. He was on point.

  “Luck. I don’t expect to make it back to LA, unless it’s in a rubber bag.”

  “LA? Aren’t we shipping your sorry ass back to the president?”

  “I wish. That useless dumbass.”

  “You voted for LBJ?” Fries asked.

  “I didn’t vote.”

  “You didn’t vote?”

  “I’m an anarchist.”

  “You like pain?” Miles, sounding baffled.

  “That’s a masochist. An anarchist doesn’t believe in government.”

  “That’s a lost cause, man. You believe in them or not, they gonna screw your ass.”

  “Government is like slavery. It’s violent. It’s—”

  “He’s off again, with the Tolstov.”

  “It’s Tolstoy, you dolt.”

  “Who gives a rat’s—”

  An explosion. Like the Fourth of July, only with less of the spectacle and none of the joy. Mike dove for cover, terror and dread competing for his attention. A booby trap or a mine. Damn it. He braced himself. “Who was it?”

  “Me, College.” Red. His voice was quiet now, with none of the earlier bravado. “Booby trap.”

  “You hurt?”

  “You might say that.”

  Mike scrambled for his flashlight. He didn’t like to use it, in case the enemy was nearby, but he had little choice now. He crawled back to Red and shone the light over him.

  It was difficult to tell what had happened. The darkness and the mud made it hard to see the blood, but the spattering on the tree behind Red suggested it was more than a flesh wound. Mike waved his flashlight up and down Red, searching. Where was the injury?

  Then he saw it.

  “Can you give me a hand, College?”Red smiled weakly. “I seem to have misplaced mine.”

  In place of where Red’s left arm had been was now a gaping hole. Blood gushed out on the ground beside him.

  “Boots.” Mike called him over. “Apply pressure to Red’s arm.”

  Boots nodded automatically, in shock. He pressed against the wound to staunch the bleeding. His eyes met Mike’s, but neither of them spoke.

  Choking back vomit, Mike shone the flashlight over Fries. “Get Doc over here. And we need a Medevac. Now!” He turned back to Red. “You’re getting out of here,” he said. He gave him a wan smile. “Home, man. Back to the World.”

  “Right.” Red was staring at the hole where his arm had recently been.

  “Back to LA. No bag.”

  “Right,” he said again absently. His eyes were unfocused. “Do you think it’s hard to switch hands?”

  “Sorry?”

  “I’m left handed. Was.”

  “Oh.” Mike tried to think of a reply, but couldn’t. “Doc’ll be here any second.”

  It was hours before they heard the rhythmic drum of the chopper.

  . . .

  “You can’t go. I forbid it.”

  Karen was wrapped in a white sheet. She was sitting up now and had turned to face him. Her teeth were slightly bared, the way they always got when she was angry. She looked fierce.

  “I haven’t got a choice, Karen. I’ve been drafted.” Mike was still lying down. He’d waited until after they’d made love to tell her; he was worried she wouldn’t want to once she knew.

  “You have a choice. Everyone has a choice. You could go to Canada.”

  “I don’t want to be a fugitive.”

  “You want to go kill little kids?”

  “I’m not even going to answer that.” Mike turned away and looked instead at the wall. A map of the world hung there haphazardly. It was an older map; instead of Vietnam, the country was labeled “Indochina.” Mike stared at it, then searched for Boston.

  “Well, that’s what’s going on over there. US soldiers killing women and children while the people of the Republic of Vietnam fight for equality—”

  “Cut the republic and equality crap, will you, Karen?” He turned back to her and scowled. “My family escaped Czechoslovakia on foot to get away from the communists there. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He stared again across the room, where he caught sight of the little soldier doll. It had escaped communism, too, had been witness to the violence of war. Silently it watched them now, debating the merits of another war in another place.

  “And you do,” she shot back.

  “Maybe I don’t, but I don’t think it’s so black-and-white as you make it out to be.”

  “You just don’t want to admit you’re going off and being forced kill innocent people in another country’s war. You don’t want—”

  “Enough.” He sat up now and grabbed her arm. “Stop it. Please. You think this is easy for me? You think I want to go off to some jungle in the middle of nowhere?”

  Karen pounded the bed with her fist. The cheap dormitory mattress groaned and squawked. Mike wondered briefly if it might split open.

  “So don’t go! Go to Canada! We could go together, maybe. We could go to a school there, and—”

  “No. We’ve gone over this. My dad would kill me. And it would be…” Mike’s voice trailed off. He clenched his fists and looked up at the ceiling, searching for the right word.

  “What? It would be what?” asked Karen, exasperated. Her hands were on her hips.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Kind of…dishonorable.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me, Mike. Dishonorable?” She stared at him in disbelief.

  “Yeah. I’m not a coward.” Mike met her eyes.

  Karen kicked her feet in frustration. “What is this? Some kind of macho thing?”

  “I just couldn’t face the guys in the neighborhood. Like this guy, Buddy O’Brien. He was my best friend growing up. He’s an apprentice plumber. You think he could get a deferment for that?”

  “Was he drafted?” Karen demanded.

  “No, but—”

  “He hasn’t even been drafted! So what are you talking about?”

  “You don’t get it. It’s an honor thing.” Mike shook his head.

  “You’d rather go get killed in Vietnam.”

  “You just can’t understand it, Karen.”

  “Obviously.”

  They sat in silence for a moment. Karen wrapped the sheet around herself tighter. “When?” Her voice was quieter, with a hint of resignation.

  “I have to check in Thursday.”

  “Thursday.”

  “Yeah. After that there’s training and stuff, I think, out in California.”

  “California,” Karen said dully.

  “Yeah.”

  Mike reached for her. She didn’t pull away, but she didn’t respond either. She felt cold.

  “It’s only a year.”

  Karen made a noise.

  “I’ll write you.”

  “Mmmm.”

  “Please, Karen.”

  “What do you want me to say?” She looked at him, her arms spread out helplessly, and the sheet fell. She grabbed it to cover herself back up. Mike watched as she struggled with the bedding and knew what was coming.

  “Will you at least write?” His voice was quiet now.

  “I guess.”

  “Will you wait for me?” He caught the note of pleading in his own voice and cursed himself for his desperation.

  Karen didn’t answer. She turned away and looked at the map. He watched her eyes travel to Asia. After a while, she s
poke up. “I don’t think so, Mike.” She looked at him. “I’m sorry.”

  “Right.” Carefully avoiding eye contact, he reached for his jeans. He turned away as he dressed, suddenly embarrassed at his nakedness. He gritted his teeth until his temples throbbed; he wouldn’t cry in front of a girl.

  “I do love you, Mike.” Karen was crying as he made for the door.

  “You have a funny way of showing it.”

  He didn’t see her again.

  . . .

  The sun was hot. As it beat down against his back, Mike contemplated how that fiery orb was in fact a star millions of miles away. In another universe. Or was it a galaxy? He couldn’t recall; his brain felt cooked, as if it had been doused in oil and set ablaze. Dazed, he shifted his pack and wiped away a pool of sweat that had accumulated on his upper lip. He caught a taste of salt, and his hand drifted toward his canteen.

  “Don’t do it, College,” warned Miles. He was about five paces behind Mike. “Not yet.”

  Mike willed his hand away, letting it drop back to his side. Miles was right. He should save his water. If he started now, he wouldn’t be able to stop. That first taste, that first trickle that you could feel right down to the base of your spine, it was like a drug. It made you want more, until your canteen was empty and you were left to swelter in the furnace of the jungle without water. When that happened, you got crazy. He’d watched guys—guys who were ordinarily sensible—plunge face-first into rice paddies or streams without thinking, gulping down the untreated water with gusto. Spaceman had done it. He’d ended up in Okinawa where the docs had yanked out a white worm roughly the length of the Mississippi River from deep inside his guts.

  “Where we going again?” Boots was on point. He turned back to look at Mike, his voice taking on its now-characteristic whine.

  “What does it matter?” An irritated Fries shifted the radio equipment to his left shoulder and made a face at Boots’s back. “Who cares?”

  “What do you mean?”