“But the Army needs you in artillery. Here are your deployment papers. They’re waiting for you in Tan Son Nhut, where you’ll get advanced training. Good luck.”
Midafternoon in the Haight. Among the beatniks, hippies, and mods; among the flower children and potheads; among the bell-bottom pants and tie-dyed shirts, walked two men. One was clean-shaven, wearing a well cut dark-gray suit with a matching tie, a disapproving fedora sitting stiffly on his head: clearly, in the parlance of the street, a fuddy-duddy. The other was a bit more interesting. Clad in the boring suit of an older generation, he sported a large, black silk beanie on his head that set him apart from the squares, from the establishment that the neighborhood had turned its much-tattooed back on.
Reb Yeruchum Freed and Mr. Fred Burton walked through the crowded streets, Burton nervously grasping a postcard in his sweaty hand like some kind of talisman.
Maybe it was just fatigue. After all, Marjorie had slept perhaps five hours in the last 36, subsisting on Danny’s sandwiches and endless packages of chips. Whatever the reason, this off-the-wall optimism that something would work out, that she’d somehow find the way to wherever it was she wanted to be, wrapped her in a misty and yet warm cloud of hope as the Mustang roared its psychedelic way back to the Haight.
IT was quiet today on the base hospital, with just the usual background noises: the growl of the generator, three nurses chatting while taking a break, the occasional groan from a soldier whose bandages were being changed. From outside came faint noises of soldiers throwing a ball around in a pickup football game and the even fainter pop-pop sound from a nearby shooting range.
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