Mrs. Lieutenant: A Sharon Gold Novel (11 page)

She's looking forward to meeting Wendy's and
Donna's husbands. And she wants to see what the men in the class
are like together. Have they formed friendships or is it just
"business" relationships?

Robert holds open the front door at the
Officers Club for her and they step inside the foyer. A band
playing the Lovin' Spoonful's "Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your
Mind?" can be heard from the room to their immediate right. They
enter a swirling mass of people and noise.

"Gold, Gold, over here, man. We're all over
here."

Robert leads her over to the others. Kim and
Jim sit at one end of two tables shoved together. Next to them sit
Donna and presumably her husband, a slim guy with a regulation
haircut and an all-American look that contrasts with Donna's dark
hair and skin. Sharon waves at both women.

Someone drags over two more chairs and makes
room for Sharon and Robert at the other end of the two tables.

Bar glassware litters the tables. Beer mugs,
slender glasses holding liquor concoctions, and small whiskey shot
glasses jostle for space. "It's self serve," someone yells. Robert
flashes a question at Sharon.

"My usual," she says into his ear.

When he gets up to place their orders, she
feels bereft. Or invisible. No one looks in her direction, no one
speaks to her. She watches the band play – five boys all with long
stringy hair and dirty clothes. The hillbilly look.

Robert returns from the bar and hands her a
Whiskey Sour.

The band’s lead singer leans towards the mike
and sings in a loud nasal tone:

In Louisville, Kentucky, all the hippies
say

Come on back to beer

Sharon laughs.

"Pretty silly, heh?" asks the man sitting to
her right. "Who hires these bands, do you think?"

She smiles at the man, not having noticed him
before. Robert, to her left, talks to the man on his left.

"Your husband with this AOB class?" the man
asks. She nods. "Not me. I'm back from Nam. Intelligence."

Robert turns towards the man as if a special
antenna has picked up this broadcast in spite of the loud noise
interfering with any transmission. "What did you do?" he asks the
man.

"Phoenix program." The man looks at Robert.
"Know what that is?"

"Yep." It is unlike Robert to be so
abrupt.

The man watches her face as he says, "Your
husband may not tell you – the Phoenix program arranges
assassinations of Vietcong officials."

Sharon's hands tighten in her lap. Robert has
once again, on the drive here, given her his speech about not
revealing any opinions.

Robert says nothing, just lifts his glass to
his lips for a swallow of beer. Then he says to Sharon, "Come on,
honey, let's dance."

He leads her onto the dance floor and they
try to make sense of the lopsided beat of the song. After a few
minutes Robert pulls Sharon close. "Don't worry about what that guy
said. He's probably drunk."

"You knew what he was talking about."

"Can't believe everything you’ve heard about
the army in Vietnam."

On the dance floor, surrounded by other
couples, Sharon’s mind retreats to spring quarter of 1968 at
Michigan State University:

Hell, no, we won't go!

The chant roars over the clanking manual
typewriters and the shrilling telephones at the office of the
“State News” – the daily college newspaper. Sharon Bloom, whose
desk stands next to the open windows, leans out from the second
floor as her fellow journalists rush to join her at the windows.
The trees below sprout only a few new buds so there’s a clear view
of the action.

"Holy shit!" someone behind her shouts.

Striding across the campus are maybe 30 men
and women, long hair swinging, posters held high.

Sharon studies the protesters. Who are these
people and where are they headed? Can't be Michigan State students.
Too much hair, too hippy clothing, and too vocal.

One protester near the rear of the pack drops
his poster. As he bends to pick it up, his torso twists towards the
windows. Long hair halts right above "University of Michigan" on
his misshapen maize-and-blue sweatshirt. The poster, now facing
Sharon, says "KICK ROTC OFF CAMPUS!"

ROTC? Reserve Officers Training Corps! She
scans the other journalists hanging out the windows. The news
editor stands three people away.

"Lance," Sharon calls, slinging her purse's
shoulder strap over her chest. "I'm going to check this story
out."

Lance turns towards her. "Sharon, you're now
the feature editor. One of my news reporters will go."

"Please, Lance. I want to do it."

Lance eyes her. He knows her politics. Knows
how she feels. "Just be back in time so we don't hold up the press
run."

Sharon grabs a large piece of cardboard from
a bin near her desk. On it she scribbles "NO MORE WAR AT MSU."

No time now to worry whether it's a breach of
journalistic standards to participate in the story you're assigned
to impartially cover. There is no impartiality when it comes to the
Vietnam War.

She runs down the stairs and out the door.
The protesters have a block lead on her, aiming directly at the
university's ROTC field. She runs, closing the distance. The
excitement of something political finally happening on this
apathetic campus spurs her feet.

On the field young men hup-two-three-four in
razor-straight rows. The gold brass buttons on their olive green
uniforms reflect the afternoon sun.

Closer to Sharon, young men and women walk to
classes, the lettering on their green-and-white Michigan State
sweatshirts partially obscured by armloads of textbooks and
notebooks.

"Way to go!" one MSU student yells at the
protesters.

"Get off our campus!" another screams.

The U of M students reach the field.
"Hell
no, we won't go!"
hurtles towards the student soldiers.

"Charge!" yells the leader of the protesters.
In unison they all raise their posters and rush across the field,
their jeans, shirts and hair a kaleidoscope of mayhem.

The commander of the soldiers shouts: "Do not
engage! Hold your positions!"

Sharon races towards the tangle of students
all yelling "Kick ROTC off campus!"

The protesters reach the soldiers, and
without mercy the protesters swing the wood poles of the posters
smack against the soldiers' heads. Screams of pain and triumph can
be heard.

The soldiers break rank. The soldier in the
lead yanks a poster from a protester and bashes the wild hair. The
other soldiers follow, returning blow for blow, as disorganized in
their counterattack as the protesters’ original attack.

Now the protesters hold their arms over their
heads, protecting themselves as they retreat. Their screams pierce
the air louder than the wail of the approaching campus police
sirens. Soldiers gallop down the field in pursuit of the fleeing
protesters.

Sharon whirls away from the melee. Her foot
catches and she stumbles. Above her head a student soldier raises a
captured poster.

The attacker's blow misses her head. He's
been pushed aside by another soldier.

"Come on," the second soldier says, yanking
her to her feet. She hesitates. Her rescuer tugs her forward, away
from the raging battle.

The police jump out of their cars. Shouts and
swear words fly by as her rescuer steers her, aiming towards a
clump of buildings. Other MSU students – attracted by the sirens
and screams –- rush past them, heading towards the action, their
own voices ratcheting up the shouting.

"Up here," the soldier says. "We can take
cover in a booth."

He tugs her up the stairs of the student
union. Inside they collapse on the seats of an empty booth. Her
chest heaves, her sides hurt, she's afraid she'll puke.

"Thanks for saving me," she gasps, looking at
him for the first time. He's lost his uniform hat – blood stains
his exposed forehead.

"You're hurt," she says.

"The world's just swaying."

"Do you have a handkerchief or tissue?"

He shakes his head, the movement sluicing the
blood sideways.

She searches her purse for a tissue to stop
the bleeding. There is none. She hesitates, then yanks off her
brand-new Villager heather mist cardigan sweater, the one she
begged her parents for on their last trip to Philadelphia. She wads
the sweater and presses it against the slash.

“I’ll get blood all over the sweater,” he
says, trying to hand back the sweater. She presses harder against
the wound. If the blood doesn’t come out her mother will kill
her.

“You’re rather dressed up for a protest," he
says as she holds the sweater against the wound.

"I came straight from the ‘State News.’ We
have a dress code.”

"Were you protesting or just covering the
story?"

"I was protesting
and
covering the story."

She removes the sweater to check if the
bleeding has stopped. It has, so she folds the sweater and places
it next to her on the bench. Her senses have returned to normal,
and she gags at the nauseating smell of burning meat on the student
union grill.

She looks at the boy across from her. He’d be
cute if he weren’t in an army uniform. And he seems somewhat lost,
unsure of what to do next.

“I’ll go with you to the school clinic," she
says.

"I don't need to go to the clinic. I should
get back to the field – to my comrades."

"You should at least rest for a few
minutes."

He smiles, a smile that would definitely be
rated “beautiful” by her sorority sisters.

"I could use a cup of coffee," he says.

His blue eyes reflect the overhead light, his
black wavy hair not that much shorter than standard MSU male length
– slightly below the top of the ear.

"Let me get you a cup too."

About to say no, Sharon hesitates. There
should be just enough time for a quick cup of coffee and then write
the story before deadline. She’ll call the campus police for a
statement and to find out what she missed after this boy saved
her.

She smiles at him. "My name's Sharon
Bloom."

"I'm Robert Gold."

While he gets their coffee Sharon checks out
the few students who sit at the Formica tabletops wedged between
wooden benches whose backs form booths. The smell of other frying
foods – onion rings, French fries – joins that of the cooking
meat.

"You didn't even lose your pocketbook," he
says as he slides back into the booth. "Some protester you
are."

"It was slung across my chest." She
hesitates. "Are you from New York?"

"Philadelphia. What made you think New
York?"

"I have a friend who says pocketbook and
she’s from New York. I say purse."

"Where are you from?"

"Highland Park, a northern suburb of Chicago
– near Lake Michigan."

She won't admit this to her parents – ever
since that moment in sixth grade when her life changed forever
she's kept her own counsel – but her decision to go to a college
which wasn't a continuation of her high school crowd has been a
mistake. Michigan State – as opposed to the liberal hotbed
University of Michigan – is so apolitical. There are no marches or
sit-ins or teach-ins. MSU's local chapter of SDS – Students for a
Democratic Society – has almost no campus visibility. She hasn't
even bothered to join.

A few weeks earlier, the head of the local
SDS chapter had perched on her desk at the “State News” office
wearing his starched – rumor said done by his mother; he is from
Lansing – monogrammed dress shirt, a single chest hair poking up
from the partially unbuttoned front. "Can you believe how MSU
hasn't changed in the last few years?" he asked.

"It hasn't?" she said, then felt compelled to
add, "Look at the changes in restrictions on women students – no
more curfews. The dispensary now gives out birth control pills. We
had that entire semester of guest lectures on sex topics sponsored
by the university."

He got off her desk and left without
replying.

Now Robert says, "MSU is certainly different
than the East. I didn't know what I was getting myself into by
coming out to the Midwest."

"Like ROTC?"

His eyes shift to his coffee cup, then back
to her.

"I chose ROTC." Her face must be betraying
her thoughts because he rushes on, "And ROTC has a right to be on
campus just like every other campus organization."

"ROTC supports the war machine! Do you know
how many boys your age may be getting killed right now in Vietnam
as we sit here having coffee?"

"Serving their country."

"Getting killed for nothing."

They stare at each other as other students
brush past their table, carrying trays loaded with fried
substances.

Suddenly he leans towards her and
recites:

The time you won your town the race

We chaired you through the market-place;

Man and boy stood cheering by,

And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,

Shoulder-high we bring you home,

And set you at your threshold down,

Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away

From fields where glory does not stay,

And early though the laurel grows

It withers quicker than the rose.

Sharon flushes. "That's the beginning of 'To
An Athlete Dying Young.'"

Robert nods. "By the English poet A. E.
Housman."

An ROTC cadet reciting poetry? "What's your
major?" she asks.

"Political science. What’s yours?”

“Journalism. I’m a junior.”

"Senior,” Robert says about himself. “I don't
think I've seen you around before. If I had, I'm sure I would have
remembered."

Sharon smiles. "It's a little hard to know
all 40,000 people on campus."