Lucky Bastard by Charles McCarry Page A

telephone; the other part of her mind told her that it was because he was still angry at her—that he might die in a state of anger. On television every day she saw American boys wounded, dying, dead in their body bags. Danny’s fate and the fate of the child she had wanted to have—but whose existence, whose chance of life, she feared as much as she feared the possibility of Danny’s death—joined in her mind, got mixed up in her dreams.
    She waited, checking for menstrual blood ten times a day, trying not to think about consequences.
    She had never been so alone in her life.
    Cindy loaded her car with clothes, books, her electric typewriter, the unwashed bedding that still smelled of Danny, and drove to Columbus. She moved into her new little house—almost a doll’s cottage—and started her new life as a law student.
    Most of her professors and nearly all of her fellow law students were opposed to the war. In one of her classes the professor humiliated a student who had fought in Vietnam, asking him questions on legal ethics and turning his answers into an argument about the morality of a modern technological society using its machines to slaughter the population of a defenseless primitive society. On the faces of her classmates Cindy saw a certain look of triumph when the veteran, who limped from his wounds, was stricken dumb by the eloquence and ardor of the professor.
    By the first of October, Danny still had not written or called. Cindy watched the evening news on CBS at seven o’clock and ABC at eleven, then woke up early to watch the news segments on the Today show on NBC. By covering all three networks, Cindy hoped to catch a glimpse of Danny, but she was afraid that this would actually happen and the Danny she would see would be the tormented, dying Danny she had seen in her dream. She could not sleep. At night she studied until she could no longer comprehend what she was reading, and then wrote Danny long, half-coherent letters.
    The letters never caught up to Danny, but Cindy had had her telephone in Columbus connected before he left, so he knew the number. On October tenth, a week after her second period had been due, he called her collect from Saigon. She covered the mouthpiece and sobbed when she heard his voice.
    Danny told her how bad the chow was, what lousy movies he had seen. Half the army in Vietnam was smoking dope, the other half was drunk. It was a lot like going to Kent State except that everybody had a short haircut and a gun. The officers were like coaches, full of shit about discipline and game plans and team spirit, and living off other people’s sweat and reputation.
    Cindy said, “Are you in the fighting?”
    â€œNot especially. What we do is go for long walks with guns and grenades hanging off us and try to make friends with the natives. Scares the crap out of them, but you know me—just old John Wayne who wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
    â€œWhere in Vietnam are you, exactly?”
    â€œMilitary secret. But watch out for me on TV. I wrote you a let—”
    The line crackled; he was gone. They had been cut off by a timer. Into the dead connection Cindy said, “I love you,” forming the words, not speaking them aloud.
    A week later she received Danny’s letter. After class that same day she caught up with the limping veteran and showed him the return address: I & R Plt., 1st Bn., 26th Inf., 1st Inf. Div.
    He read it. “So?”
    â€œIt’s my boyfriend’s address. What does it mean?”
    â€œIt means he’s got his ass in the grass.”
    â€œThis is a combat outfit?”
    He snorted. “You could say that.”
    Cindy said, “Look, I just show up for class with that jerk, just like you. Give me a break.”
    The man shrugged. “What Intelligence and Reconnaissance platoons do is, they go out on patrol all by themselves and try to locate the enemy. Draw fire. Then they radio back to