Sections Above and Below This Page:

Her name was Lucille Collins, and he had gone to grammar school with her and hung around with her brother. "Don't you remember?" she asked Kenny. He remembered and he also recalled he hadn't liked her very much or her brother either but he forgot why. The acid was still making it difficult to consider anything other than absurdity, and he answered her questions with a slight flipness he felt they required--especially when she said her brother was in Vietnam and asked Kenny what he was going to do about the army now that he was back in the country.

He replied that he wasn't going to do anything about the army and added that the next time she wrote to her brother she should advise him to "watch his ass because no matter how good his wages are, those little yellow people have been in the business of war for a long time and they don't consider it employment but rather a co-op in which they all own shares." She got a little snotty after that and countered with a remark about how the draft was going to get him, like it or not. Kenny laughed and blurted out that they didn't even know he existed because he had never registered.

Lucille Collins said something like, "Don't bet on it!" before getting off the train at her stop. The following afternoon Kenny Wisdom remembered why he had never liked her when they were kids: she was a snitch. He remembered this as soon as he answered the bell and the two men at the door, who identified themselves as FBI agents, presented him with two possible choices: he could go into the U.S. Army or to a federal penitentiary. Needless to say, this blew Kenny's mind and he kept protesting the fact.

"This can't be happening! Man, I just got here!"

But the agents simply suggested that the brevity of his return home was his own blues and three days later, on Monday, December 6th, Wisdom was inducted into the army and bussed to CoB, 6th Tng Bn, 2nd Tng Bde, USATC, Fort Gordon, Georgia.

It was only in boot camp that Kenny finally knew, through the haze of his amazement, that he was actually in the service. He also knew he had no intention of remaining. He wasn't about to try some dumb faggot routine, however, or pull a cornball lunacy stunt to get an immediate discharge. No, there was a war on and they would lock you in the stockade before they would let you out if you tried something stupid to fake a Section Eight. He remembered all the stories he heard when he was a kid about all the guys who ended up in Leavenworth after trying to cop out on the so-called police action in Korea. Now, with Vietnam on the stove, they were nab [end page 221]