“That’s very cool,” said Donny. “But I have to see her. I need her.”
“I need her too.”
“Well, she hasn’t given you anything. She’s given me her love.”
“I want her to give me her love.”
“Well, you’ll have to wait awhile.”
“I’m tired of waiting.”
“Look, this is ridiculous. Go away or something.”
“I won’t leave her unguarded.”
“Who do you think I am, some kind of rapist or killer? I’m her fiancé. I’m going to marry her.”
“Peter,” said Julie, coming out of the tent, “it’s all right. Really, it’s all right.”
“Are you sure?”
Julie looked tired; still, she was a beautiful young woman, with hair the color of straw and a body as lean and straight as an arrow, and brilliance showing behind her bright blue eyes. Both boys looked at her and recommitted to her love again.
“Are you okay?” Donny asked.
“I was in the lockup at the Coliseum.”
“Oh, Christ.”
“It was fine; it wasn’t anything bad.”
“You killed a girl,” said Peter.
“We didn’t kill anyone. You killed her, by telling her being on that bridge mattered and that we were rapists and murderers. You made her panic; you made her jump. We tried to save her.”
“You fucking asshole, you killed her. Now, you’re a big tough guy and you can kick the shit out of me, but you killed her!”
“Stop screaming. I never killed anyone who didn’t have a rifle and wasn’t trying to kill me or a buddy.”
“Peter, it’s okay. You have to leave us alone.”
“Christ, Julie.”
“You have to leave us.”
“Ahhh … all right. But don’t say — anyhow, you’re a lucky guy, Fenn. You really are.”
He stormed away in the darkness.
“I never saw him so brave,” said Julie.
“He loves you. So much.”
“He’s just a friend.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t get here earlier. We were on alert. There was a lot of shit because of Amy. I’m very sorry about Amy, but we didn’t have a thing to do with it.”
“Oh, Donny.”
“I want to marry you. I love you. I miss you.”
“Then let’s get married.”
“There’s this thing,” Donny said.
“This thing?”
“Yeah. By the way, I’ve technically deserted. I’m UA. Unauthorized absence. I’ll be reported tomorrow at morning muster. They’ll do something to me probably. But I had to see you.”
“Donny?”
“Let me tell you about this thing.”
And so he told it: from his recruitment to his attempts to enter into a duplicitous friendship with Crowe to his arrival at the party to his strange behavior that night until, finally, the action on the bridge, Crowe’s arrest and tomorrow’s responsibilities.
“Oh, God, Donny, I’m so sorry. It’s so awful.” She went to him and in her warmth for just a second he lost all his problems and was Donny Fenn of Pima County all over again, the football hero, the big guy that everybody thought so highly of, who could do a 40 in four-seven, and bench press 250, yet take pride in his high SATs and the fact that he was decent to his high school’s lowliest creeps and toads and never was mean to anybody, because that wasn’t his way. But then he blinked, and he was back in the dark in the park, and it was only Julie, her warmth, her smell, her sweetness, and when he left her embrace, it was all back again.
“Donny, haven’t you done enough for them? I mean, you got shot, you lay in that horrible hospital for six months, you came back and did exactly what they said. When does it end?”
“It ends when you get out. I don’t hate the Corps. It’s not a Corps thing. It’s these Navy guys, these super-patriots, who have it all figured out.”
“Oh, Donny. It’s so awful.”
“I don’t work that way. I don’t like that stuff at all. That’s not me. Not any of it.”
“Can’t you talk to somebody? Can’t you talk to a chaplain or a lawyer or something? Do they even have the right to put you through that?”
“Well, as I understand it, it’s not an illegal order. It’s a legitimate order. It’s not like being asked to do something that’s technically wrong, like shoot kids in a ditch. I don’t know who I could talk to who wouldn’t say, Just do your duty.”
“And they’ll send you back to Vietnam if you don’t testify.”
“That’s the gist of it, yeah.”
“Oh, God,” she said.
She turned from him and walked a step or two away. Across the way, she could see the Potomac and the dark far shore that was Virginia. Above it, a tapestry of stars unscrolled, dense and deep.
“Donny,” she finally said, “there’s only one answer.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Go back. Do it. That’s what you have to do to save yourself.”
“But it’s not like I know he’s guilty. Maybe he doesn’t deserve to get his life ruined just because—”
“Donny. Just do it. You said yourself, this Crowe is not worth a single thing.”
“You’re right,” Donny finally said. “I’ll go back, I’ll do it, I’ll get it over. I’m eleven and days, I’ll get out inside a year with an early out, and we can have our life. That’s all there is to it. That’s fine, that’s cool. I’ve made up my mind.”
“No, you haven’t,” she said. “I can tell when you’re lying. You’re not lying to me; you never have. But you’re lying to yourself.”
“I should talk to someone. I need help on this one.”
“And I’m not good enough?”
“If you love me, and I hope and pray you do, then your judgment is clouded.”
“All right, who, then?”
Who, indeed?
There was only one answer, really. Not the chaplain or a JAG lawyer, not Platoon Sergeant Case or the first sergeant or the sergeant major or the colonel or even the Commandant, USMC.
“Trig. Trig will know. We’ll go see Trig.”
Bitterly, from afar, Peter watched them. They embraced, they talked, they appeared to fight. She broke away. He went after her. It killed him to sense the intimacy they shared. It was everything he hated in the world — the strong, the handsome, the blond, the confident, just taking what was theirs and leaving nothing behind.
He watched them, finally, go toward Donny’s old car and climb in, his mind raging with anger and counterplots, his energy unbearably high.
Without willing it, he raced to the VW Larry Frankel had lent him. He turned the key, jacked the car into gear and sped after them. He didn’t know why, he didn’t think it would matter, but he also knew he could not help but follow them.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Peter almost missed them. He had just cleared a crest when he saw the lights of the other car illuminate a hill and a dirt road beyond a gate, then flash off. His own lights were off, but there was enough moonlight to make out the road ahead. He pulled up to the gate and saw nothing that bore any signal of meaning, except a mailbox, painted white with the name WILSON scribbled on it in black. He was on Route 35, about five miles north of Germantown.
What the hell were they up to? What did they know? What was going on?
He decided to pull back a hundred yards, and just wait for a while. Suppose they ran in there, and turned around and collided with him on the road? That would be a total humiliation.