By the autumn of my junior year, October 1966, the American troop level in Vietnam exceeded 325,000. Operation Rolling Thunder closed in on Hanoi. The dead were hopelessly dead. The bodies were bagged and boxed. In Saigon, General Westmoreland called for fresh manpower, and at the State Department, Dean Rusk assured us that rectitude would soon prevail, a matter of attrition. Yet the dead remained dead. For the dead there was no rectitude. For the dead there was nothing more to die for. The dead were silent on the matter of attrition. So what does one do? Among the living, Richard Nixon peeled his eyes and bided time. Robert Kennedy waffled. Richard Daley ruled a peaceful city. Beneath the surface, however, premonition was evolving toward history. I was a witness. Like déjà vu in reverse, lots of backspin. In Los Angeles, Sirhan Sirhan came into possession of a .22-caliber Iver Johnson revolver. I watched the transaction. In Minnesota, Eugene McCarthy reviewed his options; in Washington, Robert McNamara entertained misgivings; in Hollywood, Jane Fonda began setting an agenda. Hawks were at the throats of doves. It was a fitful, uncertain autumn, but the dead kept dying. They died on the six o’clock news, then they died again at midnight, and now and then I could hear the shearings of a great continental fault, I could feel the coming fracture.
In a time of emergency, the question will not be begged: What does one do?
I made my decision on a Sunday evening.
Politics, I thought.
On Monday morning I purchased some poster paper and black ink. The language came easily. In simple block letters I wrote: THE BOMBS ARE REAL.
Trite, I realized, but true.
At the noon hour I took up a position in front of the cafeteria. The place was crowded but there was the feeling of absolute aloneness. I lifted the poster with both hands. As people filed by, nothing much registered, just background noise, a brisk wind and giggles and wisecracks. That was the price. I knew it and I paid it.
Weird William, I thought.
In hindsight, it might seem silly, a kid holding up a sign that announced the obvious, but for me it represented something substantial. I felt proud. Embarrassment, too, but mostly pride.
I’m not sure how long I stood there. Twenty minutes, a half hour. I remember how bright the day was, no clouds, very crisp and clean, that wind off the river. I remember the sound of clanking plates in the cafeteria. There was laughter, but it didn’t bother me. In a sense, I suppose, I wasn’t entirely there. Drifting, maybe. The faces seemed to blend and dissolve. There was a war on—they didn’t know. There was butchery—they didn’t know. “Shit,” someone said, but they simply did not know, they had no inkling, so I smiled and let my sign speak sign language: the blunt, trite, unarguable truth. Real. The guns were real, and the dead, and the silos and hot lines and Phantom jets. The war was real. The technology was real. Even that which could not be seen was real, the unseen future, the unseen letting of unseen blood—and the bombs—the fuses and timers and tickings—and the consequences of reality, the consequences were also real. But no one knew. No one imagined. “What this brings to mind,” a voice said, “is shit.” And that, too, was real. And Sarah Strouch, who paused at the cafeteria doors, watching me with cool black eyes. Real, I thought. She wore blue shorts and a pink T-shirt scooped low at the neck. There was a hesitation, then she tilted her head sideways and said, “Such true shit.”
I was in control. Over the next two months, every Monday, I stationed myself at the same spot in front of the cafeteria. It was a feeble exercise, I realized that, but in conscience what does one do? Take a stance—what else?
I was alone until early December.
A frigid Monday, another noon vigil, then Ollie Winkler tapped me on the elbow and said, “Bombs.”
I knew the voice.
A couple of years earlier, back in chem class, we’d shared a Bunsen burner, but that was the full extent of it. Ollie was not my kind of person. Very short, very plump. A Friar Tuck facsimile in a white cowboy hat and fancy high-heeled boots.
He gestured at my poster with fat fingers.
“This bomb shit,” he said, “a catchy tune. Who do we assassinate?”
He straightened up to his full height—maybe five foot two. His smile seemed thin. “Just narrow it down for me. Plastic explosives? Time bombs? You got to name some names.”
I was candid with him. I told him to fuck off.
Ollie flicked his eyebrows. “A sense of humor, ace, it goes a long way. Bombs, though. I guess you could say I’m halfway intrigued.” He winked and tipped up his cowboy hat. Circus material, I thought. Not quite a midget, but there was obvious evidence of a misplaced chromosome. “What I mean,” he said, then paused again. “I mean, you’ve had your one-man show out here, but maybe you could use a helping hand, so to speak. If I’m interested, that is.”
I nodded.
“That’s wonderful,” I said, “just don’t get interested,” then I turned and left him standing there.
But ten minutes later, in the cafeteria, he waddled over to my table and put his tray down and made himself at home. The wise thing, I decided, was silence. I opened up a book called Minerals of the Earth and studied the cubic structure of thorianite.
“The problem,” Ollie said cheerfully, “is nobody likes you.”
Thorianite had a specific gravity of 9.87. It was soluble in nitric and sulphuric acids. It had a hardness factor of 6.5.
“I mean, you prance around with this holier-than-thou outlook. Don’t even talk to nobody. And this bombs-are-real bull—people just laugh. You want results, you best retool your whole piss-poor attitude.”
I took a sip of lemonade.
Thorianite, I noted, often contained traces of cesium and lanthanum. The largest deposits occurred in Ceylon and the Soviet Union.
“You want to be laughed at?” he asked. “You want that?”
“Morons,” I said.
Ollie rubbed his nose. “Don’t I know it? Hayseeds. But like I said, results is the bottom line.”
“And?”
“Kick ass. Find yourself some allies and start punching tickets. Riots, maybe. Whatever’s necessary.”
“Allies,” I said. “Like you, I bet.”
“Maybe. First we talk.”
I snapped the book shut. The cafeteria was jammed with the usual lunchtime crowd. Behind me, a radio was booming out House of the Rising Sun, and there was the clatter of silverware and triviality. No one knew. At the next table Sarah Strouch was showing off her thighs to a linebacker named Rafferty.
I folded my arms and said, “So talk.”
“Straight?”
“However,” I said. “Quick would be nice.”
Ollie straddled his chair and spent the next several minutes outlining my character flaws. Too conceited, he said. Too wrapped up in myself. Too smug and pompous and high and mighty.
“I could go on,” he said, and smiled, “but you get the drift. And now this bomb nonsense.”
“The truth,” I said.
“Oh, yeah. Truth. The war, right?”
“Partly. Other items, too.”
He shrugged. “Shrapnel, I know. You made your point, that’s why I’m here.”
“The point, Ollie.”
“Action. We team up.” He waved a pudgy hand at me. “In case you haven’t noticed, you and me got a lot in common. Two birds of the same fucked-up feather. Losers, that is. But I’ll tell you a basic fact. Losers sometimes get pissed. They get impolite, sometimes. That’s how revolutions happen.”
I put my coat on.
“Well,” I said, “it’s been fun.”
“Like in Moscow, 1917. Losers banging on winners. They didn’t wave no signs, they cut throats.”