_
Annie bold bid for independence had not gone unnoticed by anyone, especially Luke and Andrew. Both of them decided they wanted driving licenses as well. Luke talked about it excitedly to Maggie the next morning before school.
“You have to take a test -- a driving test, I mean, in a car, ya’ know,” she reminded him. “It’s not very hard but you should practice a little first.” Her mind was churning furiously, trying to think of a way this could lead to spending some time together. It had been three weeks since prom night, and she was disappointed he hadn’t asked her out again. “Why don’t we take my car into town and you can drive it around?” she asked bluntly, not able to think of a more clever way to approach it.
“Wouldn’t that be illegal? I mean, what if we had an accident or something. I don’t have a learner’s permit and you aren’t over 25, right?”
“So what. We won’t have an accident,” she said trying to sound reckless. “You never do anything unless you can do it well. Don’t you want to get your license soon?” That would be so wonderful, she thought. They could drive around town and she’d sit real close to him and be like a regular dating couple – if he’d ever get around to asking her out, that is.
Luke phoned her later to ask if she’d like to go out that night. She knew he meant out driving, but she preferred to think of as going out, like on a date. Her aunt made it very clear she did not approve of them going on a school night but didn’t forbid it, either.
When Margaret picked him up, he was all slicked up from his after-chores shower and jumped in the car eagerly. She drove to the other side of Shannontown and turned the driving over to him. She quizzed him from the driver’s manual as they drove. They laughed at some of his incredibly stupid answers. The radio dial was set on her Grandmother’s favorite FM station.
“I an change the station if you’d like,” Margaret said.
“Nah, that’s okay. I like it. Don’ tell anyone, but I’d take Neil Diamond over Three Dog Night anytime.” There was something else they had in common, she thought.
He drove through the city streets of Dubuque with no trouble just as she had predicted. And when they were driving past the mall on the West end, they noticed that a new movie, Easy Rider, was showing. “I heard it was really different – lots of music,” she hinted.
Luke grinned, knowing full well what she wanted. He pulled into the parking lot and ushered her into the theater. She fairly quivered with excitement. She had never gone to a show with a boy before. She loved movies, especially the old ones on late night TV. Her aunt remarked more than once that for such a sensible girl, Margaret certainly was emotional when it came to Alan Ladd or Gary Cooper riding off into the sunset, or Judy Garland and Bing Crosby crooning some heart-wrenching love song. However, she was also no coward when it came to trying new things either.
“Well, what did you think of it?” Luke asked her as they crawled back into the car. But she was so stunned by the movie’s violent and sudden ending, she could hardly speak.
“It wasn’t as though those two guys were solid citizens or anything. But to just shoot them like that?” she exclaimed, choking back the sobs. “I just wasn’t prepared, that's all.”
“I had heard about the ending,” Luke chided himself. “I should have insisted we see True Grit or something else.” He could see she was deeply affected so he slid his arm along the back of the seat and drew her near. They headed toward home.
“Do you think they’re right? About being free, I mean -- to be that uninhibited and not tied down?” she asked.
“Heck no. Would you really want to be gorked out of your mind on drugs and travelin’ around the country like that? They were so dirty and threatening, people wouldn’t even let them eat in their restaurants. C’mon, Maggie, that’s not exactly your style, is it?”
“Well, maybe not quite like that, but I don’t want to end up like my Aunt Betty – tied to one place for seventy years. She’s hardly been across the state line.”
“You talk about freedom. She is one of the freest persons I know. She does and says exactly what she pleases. It’s about feeling good when you get up in the morning, feeling good about who you are. And having choices – that’s what this country is all about.”
“Well, I guess you really didn’t care for the movie, huh?” she said in a tiny, hollow voice. But then she started giggling and he started laughing, too. She turned on the radio and flipped to another channel. They were talking and not really listening when a newscaster broke in with a news alert. The sense of urgency and drama in his voice caught their attention.
Tragedy on a college campus today. Officials from Kent University in Kent, Ohio, report that there was four deaths and nine young people wounded on their campus today as the result the Ohio National Guard firing into a crowd of demonstrators. The Guard had been called there over the weekend after the student protesters had disrupted the town, burned the ROTC building, and prevented firemen from controlling the fire. Large scale demonstrations have been building on that campus as well as on many others across the nation in response to the president’s nationally televised announcement last Thursday that he was sending troops into Cambodia to destroy Communist bases of operation there. In response to today’s tragedy, administrations of colleges and universities across the country are bracing for what they fear will be widespread rioting. Student organizers at the University of Iowa say there will be a vigil tonight--
Maggie turned off the radio. She was clutching her stomach as though she was physically sick. Luke drove on, staring straight ahead, also shaken by the news.
“They were just kids!” Maggie cried. “They’re probably just a little older than us. How could they shoot them down like that?”
“Maybe there’s more to it. I can’t believe they would shoot into a crowd without some provocation. I just can’t believe that!”
“You can’t? Most college students I know don’t carry guns. Aren’t we supposed to be free? Isn’t that what you said? Can’t students demonstrate without getting killed? Can’t people ride down the highway without getting shot in cold blood? I don’t understand! I just don’t understand any of this!” She sank into her seat, angry and confused. They didn’t talk any more. He drove on home and pulled into his driveway. He turned off the engine and sat there in silence a while longer.
“I don’t understand it either,” he said. “Everything just seems to be changing so fast. Things that are supposed to be important, aren’t any more. No one knows who or what to believe. I’m going to be graduating in two weeks, and this is supposed to be one of the best times of my life, but it isn’t. How can it be when I don’t know what’s real?” His fists were clinched and his mouth, tight and drawn. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
She opened her arms to him and held him tightly. They clung together like survivors in a lifeboat. But then he tore away abruptly and bolted out the door. But after a few steps, he turned and stuck his head through the open window and kissed her hard. And then he was gone.
It was just a moment, really – gone so quickly. She wanted to cry after him to come back, to hold her and need her a little longer. But that was too much to hope for.
_ _ _ _
The memory of that night was still very vivid in Margaret’s mind when she and several hundred others including most of the Winston clan, squeezed into the gymnasium for the high school commencement. Luke marched in with the rest of the Class of ’70, looking somber and ill-at-ease, as seventeen or eighteen year old young men often do at these occasions. Across the wall, above the stage, was a large banner with the chosen slogan printed in three-foot letters.
“We have gone far, but we have further to go,” it said. Maggie studied the words intently, wondering what it meant.
It was a hot, sticky May evening and it was very hard to focus on the tedious lecturing of the guest speaker. He told them this was indeed one of the best times of their lives, so they should enjoy it. The gentlemen lamented his own mis-directed youth in one of those if-I-knew-then-what-I-know-now speeches, pleading with the 64 graduates to work hard to secure a brighter future.
Incredibly, he made no mention of what was happening around them in the world beyond tiny Shannontown, Iowa. It was as though the turmoil and conflict that spread across the country since the Kent incident should have no impact on their lives. The speaker congratulated the many graduates who were planning to enter colleges next fall without commenting on the over 500 colleges and universities that were forced to close early that spring because of student strikes and rampant chaos.
As the arguments and conflict were consuming campuses and political arenas, they also raged across many dinner tables, super market counters, and country fences. Luke was right when he said everything was changing. Perhaps it seemed magnified to him and his peers because they were being thrust into the middle of it, ill-equipped to make decisions and form opinions that would affect the rest of their lives. What they had learned in history classes in those very classrooms no longer applied. It had been easier for earlier generations of American boys in other times, in other wars. Even just four or five years earlier, scores of young men had marched willingly onto Asian-bound transports with the noble ideal of stopping the Communists, once and for all. But the illusion of that notion had evaporated long ago. Now Americans were forced to struggle with the question, do you agree or disagree? Is it right or wrong? The debate raged while mothers, wives, and sisters of young men wept.
_ _ _ _
Annie was glad school was almost over. The daily ritual of getting every one up and out to do their morning work, then fed, clothes changed, and everyone ready for the bus, was becoming progressively more difficult. There was so much work to be done that everyone was treating academics like an inconvenience. And she was tired of fighting it.
What was especially tiresome was the constant arguing. Most of it was caused by internal family matters such as Danny getting into Peter’s things or the endless verbal sparing between Thomas and John. But there were also the external conflicts that intruded into their home every time Matthew turned on the news or picked up the newspaper. Debating the state of national affairs and policies was an ongoing battle between him and his oldest son. Annie was sick of it. She hated the word Vietnam. And she hated the hallow, pained expression that sometimes flickered across Luke’s face at the mention of it. He said very little but she knew the pressure on him was mounting. She prayed fervently that the whole thing would end before he would be forced to make any definitive decisions.
He, at least was spared, the last ten days of school. There is no vaccine for spring fever and they all had it badly. The last two weeks passed agonizingly slow. Finally, all that remained was the traditional awards assembly that last day of school.
John was sorry to see it end -- the track season, not the class work. When talking to Kenny that morning, his friend laughed and reminded him that school would soon start again after three short months. Football practice would start mid-August. “You’re excited about that?” he laughed. “Just wait till we have two-a-days, with a zillion calisthenics with twenty pounds of pads in 90 degree heat.”
“Well, if I want to make the team, I’d better stay in shape this summer,” fretted Johnny.
“Ah, c’mon Winston, you’re gonna make the team and you know it. Coach knows you got speed. And after I’m done with you, you’ll know the patterns and play backwards and forewords. Let’s go to the stupid assembly and get our track letters. And man,” he said, smacking his lips in lusty anticipation, “this is only the beginning.”
_ _ _ _
Perhaps it was an illusion but it seemed as though the strife and hostility seemed to melt away in the warm June sun. Life seemed to settle into some semblance of routine. Boredom breeds contention, but there was no danger of that. Matthew came to the table every morning, armed with work assignments like a drill sergeant. Now that the planting was done, most of the work involved trying to clean up the place and working on the out buildings and fencing. They had to get the barn ready for the bales of hay that would soon be stacked in the haymow.
Annie kept busy with the housework and her garden. They were already eating lettuce and radishes, and the peas and onions were almost ready. The flowers were a particular joy to her. Soon she’d be putting bouquets of fresh pansies and marigolds on the table.
It seemed to her that the baby was blossoming, too. Becky was six months old now and thriving beautifully. Annie bought books and magazines to help guide her. The raising and nurturing of this baby was her highest priority. Becky had been given to her by her mother like a sacred trust, and she did not want to fail.
She was thinking about that one evening while upstairs bathing her. It was still 80 degrees at 6:00 at night and baby was irritable. Annie knew a nice bath would settle her down even though that meant that supper would be late. They would just have to wait.
She came downstairs just as her father came in. He was in a great mood tonight, she thought. He had just been down to the bottom and was telling everyone that most of the corn was a half foot tall already. Sonny and Matthew were discussing how soon they’d have to start cultivating the weeds which were as tall as the corn.
“Is the mail here?” he asked as he sat down at the table with a cup of coffee. Annie handed it to him. There was the familiar manila envelope, which meant their lawyer in New York had forwarded some mail from back East. “Mmmmm, what have we here? An official looking letter for Mr. Matthew MacAlister Winston III. If I am not mistaken, this is from your friendly neighborhood draft board.” The room was suddenly silent as everyone turned to look at Mack.
“Hey, that guy’s a good lawyer. Tell him to take care of it!” He was trying to sound cocky but really he looked more scared and panicked than anything.
“And how is he supposed to do that?” his father countered. “You can’t be exempt for school any more. So what are you going to do?”
Matthew seemed very calm and matter-of-fact about this, Mack thought. “Look, this is serious!” he cried. “I am not going to get drafted! That’s it – that’s final! No way! You’re acting as though this is a joke!” he screamed at his father.
“A joke? Young men fighting for this country? What makes you think that you’re too damn good to do that? Who in the hell do you think you are?”
“I think I’m a guy who’s smart enough to realize that it would be damn stupid to go over there and crawl around in some jungle for no good reason! I could get fuckin’ killed over there, for what? Nothin’!” He was pacing around the table, flinging his arms empathetically. “Hell,” he said finally, “there’s always Canada!”
“Huh!” grunted his father. “You’d find it awful damn cold and lonely up there. No friends, no family, no money.” He punctuated that last word so that the inference would be unmistakable. He threw the letter at his son. “You have until the first of July to reply or they’ll issue an arrest warrant. Maybe you can catch some terminal disease before then.” He lit a cigarette as he stood up to go back outside. “We have a while before supper so let’s get something done.” With that he went outside, the screen door slamming behind him.
Mack stood there, frozen with anger. His father’s attitude incensed him. “Hell no!” he shouted after Matthew. “I’m not doing a damned thing! Why should I bust my butt around here!” He was screaming now, but his father did not turn around to acknowledge him, which was more infuriating. Mack picked up an empty beer can and flung it at the door.
Sonny nonchalantly rose from the table. “Hey!” Mack exploded. “Where in the hell are you going?” Sonny said nothing. He opened the door and walked out.
“Hey! I’m talkin’ to you,” Mack yelled. He ran after Sonny and grabbed his arm and swung him around. “There’s one thing no one’s ever asked you, Mr. High-and-Mighty. What about you? How come you’ve never been drafted?”
“How do you know I haven’t” Sonny replied, meeting Mack’s stare evenly.
“That’s right. We don’t know nothin’ about you, do we? You just come and take over everything – our father, our home, our whole lives, and we don’t know a fuckin’ thing about you, except you’re a stinkin’, arrogant, son-of-a-bitch. And I’ve hated you since the first time I laid eyes on you!”
Sonny showed little emotion and turned to walk away. Again Mack stopped him. “Guess we know one thing about you, you’re a fuckin’ coward!” He grabbed Sonny’s shirt.
Just that quickly, Sonny slapped Mack’s hands away and flung him onto the ground. He seemed to weigh his words carefully before he spoke. “Listen punk, it’s none of your damned business. I came here to do a job and I’m doin’ it. So just stay out of my way!” Again, he turned to walk away.
But it wasn’t over. Watching from the porch, Annie and her brothers could see that Mack was not going to give up easily. Again, he lunged at Sonny, who pushed him aside easily. This time Mack lowered his head and came at Sonny like an enraged bull. They both went down, wrestling and rolling around in the dirt. The others watched horrified, knowing that Mack was badly outmatched. He was trying to slug Sonny across the face but was unable to land any solid hits. Sonny finally brought him under control and yanked him to his feet.
“Listen, you worthless, piss ass jerk,” he said, spitting the words. “Just stay the fuck out of my way and never touch me again!” He flung Mack back into the dirt and walked away.
Matthew watched the whole episode from the barn door. He couldn’t hear what was said, but he could guess. Good, he thought, the kid needed that.
_ _ _ _
Later, just after sundown, Matthew and some of the boys were sitting around the back porch, enjoying the cool evening. Danny and Peter were playing with the puppies, with Mutt sitting nearby.
“I sure wish that dog was more of a watchdog,” Annie called from the kitchen window. “The raccoons are getting the chickens, Dad.”
“Dog’s not the answer,” Matthew said. “You have to shoot the little rascals. And they carry rabies, too, so I don’t like them around the yard.” He sat quietly for a long time, watching the smoke from his cigarette curl up into the dark sky. “By the way, somebody has to go into town early and pick up a order from the lumber yard. It’s been ready for three days.”
“I’ll go,” Mack said, stepping out of the shadows. “Anything’s better than hangin’ around here.” He turned and walked into the house. Ordinarily, Matthew would have called him on his sarcasm, but not tonight. Mack had enough wounds and hurt-pride for one day.
_ _ _ _
