Machine Dreams (31 page)

Danner opened the paper. There was a picture of
Eagle
descending for a landing, a metallic beetle with four red legs drawn up at the knees, and silver discs on each foot. Danner scanned the type. She’d been interested in the moon landing but not fascinated; it was just machines. Instead, she’d kept track of details the astronauts told reporters later, small things. The dark moon dust, when you held it in your hands, was heavy and fine like black flour. In the capsule, they could smell the dust and it smelled like gunpowder or—Danner remembered the exact phrase—“spent cap-pistol caps.” Also, Neil Armstrong’s mother had said he’d had a recurrent childhood dream of hovering over the ground.

Danner had repeated that story to a boy she was dating. He’d smirked. “I wonder if all the guys flying Hueys in Nam had the same dream.”

In the bedroom, drawers opened and shut softly. Mitch walked back through the short hall to Danner, holding a set of coasters. He spread three of them out over the newspaper; they were white plastic coasters imprinted with antlered deer. The deer were unearthly and colorless, a memory of deer. He touched one of the raised images.

“These are from over at Blackwater Lodge, where I used to go hunting with Clayton. You have any use for these?”

“Sure,” Danner said. She heard him breathing, standing over her. His breath sounded labored. “They’re real pretty,” she told him, “I’ll take them up to school with me.”

He nodded once. “Well then, that takes care of that.”

Riding the bus in from South Campus, Billy looked at the University’s new indoor athletic stadium. Its overhanging roof dominated an expanse of green field like the giant fluted cap of a cement mushroom. Long sidewalks led over the hill to the med school, to married students’ housing, to the four towers of the dorm complex where he’d lived for two months. He balanced his biology text and spiral notebook on his knees. Touching the face of the notebook, he thought about his parents’ handwriting on birthday cards he’d opened that morning. Words in his mother’s cursive hand contained modest loops, the writing was large, and the sentences ran on to comprise one form, one image. It was a funny card, a dog on the front with big eyes and a gap-toothed grin; couldn’t picture it exactly but the thought bubble referred to some pun on doggone it etc. your birthday. Inside, a check for twenty dollars and her message, which he remembered exactly:
I wish I could do more, honey, but things are a little tight this month. When you come home next, I’ll make you a special birthday dinner. Things all right? Need anything? Love, Mom.
Mitch had sent him fifty dollars. Since the divorce he’d tried to give Billy too much money; Billy would have to persuade his father to take half the fifty back. The card was a money envelope from Central National Bank in Bellington. A paper flap lifted to reveal an oval cutout and the face of Andrew Jackson; near it Mitch had printed
Happy Birthday
and underlined the words. At the bottom, under the money,
Love, Mitch.
And he underlined his name. Lately he signed himself “Mitch” in letters, one every couple of weeks, Bess’s address printed in the top left corner of the envelopes as return. Each letter was neatly typed and nearly telegraphic in nature.
Fall has arrived here, nights are cold and fog of a morning. Better to winterize your car before snow, here is a check. Upshur Drill bought the County Bldg. & are adding on, tore hell out of East Main.
He typed one-fingered on the big manual Billy had moved from the basement on Labor Day weekend; the typewriter sat on top of his metal desk just as before. His bedroom at Bess’s easily held all his possessions: his clothes, the Formica-topped desk in the corner. A swivel desk chair, a file cabinet. His construction manuals, loose-leaf in vinyl-covered notebooks, displayed between steel bookends. Small graduation photos of Billy and Danner in a plastic frame Mitch must have bought at the five and ten on Main Street. A metal nameplate that read
MITCH HAMPSON
in white letters on fake wood. This was his father’s room and it had existed all along, unacknowledged by anyone, in the basement—in the same cement-block room as the ironing board and the single bed where Jean used to sleep.

Despite the awkward pain of his father’s anger, Billy was glad Jean and Mitch finally lived apart. Purposefully, Billy stayed out of the cross fire. Bess was his father’s ally, silently, constantly, in companionship, in their familial bickering over when to bring in more coal, over how warm to keep the fire that had burned in the grate of the sitting room since October. Mitch sat in front of the color television in a big-seated upholstered rocker, stoking the fire with a poker. He sat forward, elbows on his knees, feet flat on the floor, his hands touching contemplatively. Or he
leaned back, the chair in motion, one arm extended on the broad oak armrest, the other crooked as he stroked the back of his neck. Bess sat in the corner in a small white rocker with her handwork, out of viewing range of the picture constantly beamed by the TV.
I don’t watch anyway
, she confided to anyone, telling a joke on herself,
I only listen to the stories
—the stories being several afternoon soap operas. She sat in near darkness doing cross-stitch, a kind of touch braille, Billy thought, since she couldn’t possibly see the patterns. Her glasses were thick and their lenses made her eyes seem too large for her thin face. If Billy stood close enough he saw pale blue whorls in her brown irises, a milky flaring of age near the tight dots of her pupils. She stood up from her chair carefully, touching the top of the warm television for support.

They didn’t talk about the divorce in front of Billy.
Lord save us
, Bess would comment good-humoredly while Mitch complained about potholes on Main Street or prices at the grocery store. When Billy went by the house on weekends home, they had Saturday lunch in the kitchen: chicken baked in the oven until it was hard and salty, mashed potatoes, soup beans. Flour gravy Bess made at the stove, Mitch pouring the milk into the pan as she stirred. Afterward she insisted on cleaning up alone.
You go on and visit with your father.
Back to the sitting room, Billy rolling his sleeves up in the warmth. Mitch taking his usual seat, then talk, generalities with specific meanings. Long pauses, expected, not uncomfortable. Crackling of the coal fire. Billy never mentioned his mother; Mitch never asked. Jean did discuss the divorce; Billy knew it was final in February.

They all wanted to put Billy somewhere safe while things settled and time passed, but he couldn’t cooperate any longer. He’d thought carefully and wondered for weeks; this was the day to go ahead. Withdrawal from the University wasn’t difficult. He’d fill out the form and decide what to do next. At home they’d think it was the divorce, or Vietnam and the times, or Kato—or maybe they thought she was out of the picture.
Gone but not forgotten.
Whose phrase was that really, who first said it? The bus pulled at a crawl across crowded Stadium Bridge, a one-way wooden lane, and the Student Union was in sight.

Yesterday he’d taken most of the money out of his checking account at a downtown bank—$400. Tuition at the state school was inexpensive, less than two hundred, but Jean must have paid nearly a thousand for room and board at the dorm. He’d get a job here or in Bellington and pay the rest before he went south, or into the army. The army. Supposedly the first few minutes of the lottery drawing in December were going to be broadcast on television. Just like TV, catch it on film up to about number 30.

Well, numbers were pure if television wasn’t. Now it was a matter of numbers, published in a newspaper list. No more dodg’em plans or IS deferments: fuck up, drop your grades, and you’re gone. He’d know once and for all in December; he wouldn’t have to argue it out in his head. It was a joke, really. His birthday—today—written on a white plastic ball and bounced around in a machine. Exactly whose hand would touch the machine? Sometimes Billy dreamed about the lottery, a close-up interior view: hundreds of days of white balls tumbling in a black sphere, silent and very slow, moving as though in accordance with physical laws. A galaxy of identical white planets. No sun. Cold, charged planets, simple, symmetrical, named with months and numbers.
Nov. 1, no. 305 of 365.
Universe stops. Hand reaches in. Suddenly everything in color, and the black sphere turns midnight blue. Crazy dream. The black and white beginning, when the balls moved around and through each other slowly, must be a Bio I flash: all those films of microorganisms, bacteria, swimming shapes.

Billy wasn’t worried about the lottery, he wasn’t hassled. The lottery was an ingenious system, better than the draft. Having your birthday picked early in the countdown was a completely coincidental happening, like being struck by lightning. Your birthday had been all those cakes and bicycles and new shirts: now pay up. The government could claim near innocence. Of course, they’d set up the system. Supposedly they’d set up the war, too, but Billy wasn’t sure. He didn’t know histories or politics—he didn’t need to know. Knowing wouldn’t change what was going to happen. It had no more to do with him than this bus ride, but maybe it would hurt him a lot worse. And it was two years.

His roommate joked over beer and pretzels.
December 1
you’re going to see me drop acid and park in front of the tube in Towers Lounge, watch it all on the big screen.
Then, more seriously:
Look, Vietnam is practically over. Suppose we do get drafted, might not even go to Nam. Might go to Hawaii. Be fun. Surfboards.
That was DeCosto, the loony Italian from Scranton, Pa.

Some of Billy’s friends had talked to draft counselors. Various tables were set up every weekend outside the Student Union: sorority and fraternity rush sign-ups (
GO GREEK
), Environment Club ski trip sign-ups (
PRAY FOR SNOW
), Mobilize Against Strip Mining sign-ups, Draft Counseling (
PLAN NOW
). DeCosto said he planned every Friday so he could get dates with older women on Saturday nights: most of the draft counselors were women grad students. They wore baggy clothes; they looked pale and studious in their wire-frame glasses, or they were clean and energetic, like campers. Occasionally the counselors were men, a hippie law student or a vet. The Vets were usually skinny, long-haired, never glossy. One guy sat there in a wheelchair at the side of the table. Always—in the milling of students, honking of traffic, barking of mutt dogs wearing bandannas—short, intense conversations took place at the draft-counseling tables. Billy never went near them. He would take his cue from the numbers. He thought he would. Numbers were his plan while the holding pattern held.

The bus pulled up to the Student Union steps. Billy knew that General Studies students had to withdraw from the Dean of Students offices upstairs in the Union. As he left the bus and walked into the building, he wished himself a happy birthday. This might not be his best birthday—not like his sixteenth, the day he took his driver’s test in a blue secondhand Falcon he already owned. Or his eighteenth, when Kato made him a chocolate cake full of melted M&Ms and gave him a watch she must have saved all year to buy. He checked the watch on the way upstairs: one o’clock. But this birthday would be okay; he was doing exactly what he wanted to do. He opened the door marked
DEAN OF STUDENTS.

The woman behind the counter looked up expectantly. She was alone in the room. Behind her a carpeted hallway led out of sight. “Can I help you?”

“I want to withdraw from school,” Billy said.

“You want to withdraw now, in November? There’s no refund on tuition this late.”

“I know. Which form do I use?”

She put both hands flat on the counter. “Wait a minute. Mind if I ask—it’s my job to ask—why you’re withdrawing? Are your grades bad?”

“They’re not good, but they’re not bad.” He didn’t think his grades were any of her business. “I’m withdrawing for personal reasons.”

She folded her hands and smiled. “Perhaps I can help you.”

“No, I don’t think so. I’d just like the form, please.” He put his books on the counter near her hands and stood waiting, watching her. He wouldn’t let himself look away.

“Would you like to come into the office? If you’re so sure about doing this, would it hurt to talk it over?”

“I don’t want to talk it over, thanks. If you’ll just give me the form, I’ll fill it out right here.”

She gave him the form, one white sheet in triplicate. He filled in the blanks, signed it, and handed the form back to her.

She looked at his name. “You’ll receive official notification in the mail, Mr. Hampson.”

He nodded. At least she hadn’t called him Billy. “I wanted to ask—will I have to move out of the dorm right away?”

“Well, you’re paid up. If you don’t turn in your key, I suppose you’re free to stay until the end of the term.” She paused. “Look, I hope you’ll re-enroll at some point. Please phone here at the Dean of Students office if we can assist you in any way.”

He thanked her and walked back downstairs, then out the double doors of the Student Union to the street. He waited for some precise feeling to wash over him, but nothing came. Almost out of habit, he crossed the street and entered Sumner Hall for bio class. He was a little late.

The room was a sort of tiered concrete arena, with semicircular rows of desks bolted in place on descending levels all the way to the bottom. There, a graduate proctor sat silently behind a long table, reading a book. Far above him, suspended in both forward corners of the ceiling, were the two thirty-inch televisions that taught the course. MITOSIS, said the screens in black and white.
Notebooks shuffled open, lights dimmed slightly. The screens were brighter now, more exclusively boring. Billy resolved to pay close attention, not to “mitosis” but to the room, the people, what they did. He’d watch the screens as well. Maybe bio was interesting and he hadn’t noticed because he hated the whole setup—or didn’t hate it, thought it was silly. He always sat in the back row; now and then he smoked a joint, which didn’t prevent him from taking notes. Actually, he took more explicit notes when he was a little stoned.