We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates

picture and read the columns of print. Dwight David Duncan was no one we knew, but the fact that Dad knew him, and was so upset, seemed to bring him into the house with us; into the kitchen, where even the dogs moved about uncertainly, worriedly. Private First Class Duncan was a burly, swarthy-skinned boy with heavy-lidded eyes like Della Rae’s and lank, straight, Indian-seeming hair. He’d been photographed in his dress uniform, his cap tilted back rakishly on his head; a cigarette slanted from his mouth. Dad was saying what a good, hardworking kid, very quiet, not too bright maybe but able to follow orders with no questions asked, and no complaints. “God spare us, Mikey-Junior never gets called,” Dad said, sighing. There was a pause, and he added, as always when he was on this subject, “Still, the war needs to be fought.”
    This was like tossing a lighted match into a can of gasoline.
    Mom said, “ Why does it need to be fought?”
    Dad said, “Darling, we’ve been through this already.”
    Mom said, “Yes, but you never change your mind!”
    Dad said, calmly, with a wink at us kids, “Well, you never change your mind.”
    By this time Mom would be pacing about, arms flailing, eyes hot with anguish. If there were cats in the kitchen they’d rush out, ears laid back. If Little Boots was present, the most anxious of the dogs, he’d dance about clicking his toenails on the linoleum floor and whimpering up into his mistress’s and master’s faces, vivid to him as balloon faces. Mom who’d given impromptu, stammering speeches on the subject to relatives, at prayer meetings, at the P.T.A. and in the A & P, would choke back sobs of frustration, saying that the war in Vietnam had to stop, the killing had to stop on both sides, what a terrible thing, what a tragedy. Tearing the country apart! Turning fathers against sons! It was like the 1850s when the Fugitive Slave Act tore the country apart and led to the Civil War and almost four hundred thousand deaths, such a cruel, inhuman, ignorant piece of legislation, and now in enlightened times wouldn’t you think our leaders would have learned from the past? “First Kennedy, then Johnson, and now Nixon!” Mom cried. “What we need to save us is a true Christian leader, before it’s too late.”
    â€œYes,” said Dad, “—but the fact remains, the war needs to be fought.”
    â€œNo, no it doesn’t! You’re wrong!”
    â€œBecause the Communists have to be stopped, pure and simple,” Dad said. He spoke quietly, stubbornly. His broad handsome face glistened, his curly hair caught the overhead light with a glisten too of oil, the color of wood shavings. He was not a tall man but he was a solid, foursquare man, a man of presence, gravity. You knew that, if you pushed hard against his chest, he would stand firm, unyielding. “—Just like the Nazis, maybe worse. Twenty million men, women and children killed by Stalin and his henchmen! Even more millions killed by ‘Chairman Mao’ and his henchmen! No, darling, the war can’t stop until we push the bastards back, and even if a son of mine has to put on a uniform and fight—”
    â€œWhat! What are you saying?—”
    â€œâ€”or, God forbid, two sons—”
    â€œTwo sons! Michael Mulvaney, are you crazy!”
    â€œâ€” it has to be fought. Pure and simple.”
    Sometimes Mom would stalk out of the house, and go into a barn for the solace, as she put it, of dumb animals; sometimes Dad would stalk out, to smoke a cigarette in the open air; or Little Boots would get so excited he’d have to be placated by both Mom and Dad; or, suddenly, Feathers would begin to shriek, and everyone would turn to his cage in astonishment that so tiny a creature, smaller than the smallest of our hands, could cause such a ruckus.
    Of the Mulvaney boys, Mike Jr. was the patriot