'I'll hold off a day, maybe two. But get inside before May Day or I'll sweep them all up and off to Portsmouth and you to the 'Nam. Do you copy?'
'I copy, sir,' said Donny, blushing at the dressing down.
'Out,' said Bonson, signifying the interview was over.
'''You okay?'
'I'm fine,' Donny said.
'You look not-cool.'
'I'm cool.'
'Well, a bunch of us were going over to this party in G-town, Donny. I found out about it from Trig.'
Oh Christ, Donny thought, as the solicitous Crowe loomed over him in the upstairs barracks room where the off-base men kept their huge gray lockers and were now stripping down after a hot afternoon in the boneyard.
'Crowe, you know we may be on alert at any time. Is your riot gear outstanding? What about steaming and pressing your tunic, washing out your dark socks, and spending an hour or two on that spit shine, which has begun to look a little dim. That's what you ought to be doing.'
'Yeah, well,' said Crowe, 'believe me on this one, I know. We're not going on alert till 2400 tomorrow night.'
Donny almost pointed out that if you said '2400' you didn't have to say
'night,' but Crowe wasn't stoppable at that point.
'And we'll just hang around here. We may get on trucks and, probably on Saturday, we'll deploy to a building near the White House. But it'll be a short deployment.
All the action's going on across the river. The whole point of this one is to converge on the Pentagon and close it down. Trig told me.'
'Trig told you? He told you about the deployment?
Man, that's classified. Why the hell would he know?'
'Don't ask me. Trig knows everything. He has entree everywhere. He probably is having cocktails with J. Edgar himself right as we speak. By the way, did you know Hoover was a fruit? He's a goddamn fruit} He hangs out in Y's and shit.'
'Crowe, you're not telling Trig shit, are you? I mean, it might seem like a joke to you, but you could get into deep, serious green crap that way.'
'Man, what do I know? Little Eddie Crowe's just a grunt. He knows nothing.'
'Crowe, I'm not kidding.'
'Is someone asking about me?'
'So where's this party?'
'Shouldn't you be trying to find your girl? She didn't look too happy when you bailed out on her last night to hang out with us. And if I know my horny hippie peace freaks, that bearded guy hanging on her shirttails has a serious case of the please-fuck-mes. You may have to call in a fire mission on him. Hotel Echo.'
'Nobody's asking about you.'
'
'Cause if they are, here's my advice: give me up. I ain't worth shit. Seriously, Donny, roll over on me in a second. If it's you or me, buddy, choose you. It would be a shame any other way.'
'Eddie, you're full of shit. Now, where's this party? I need a fucking keg of beer.'
'Maybe Trig can find your girl.'
'Maybe he can.'
They showered and dressed, and signed out with a warning from the duty NCO to call in every couple of hours to make sure the company hadn't gone on alert.
Sure enough, Crowe's obedient buddies waited just outside the barracks' main gate, on Eighth Street. They climbed in the old Corvair.
'Hey, Donny.'
'Cool. Donny, the hero.'
He could hardly remember the names. He had a splitting headache. He had told a lie, direct and flat out. Nobody is asking about you.
But goddammit, how had Crowe known so much?
Why had he asked Donny the other day where they'd deploy?
Why was all this bad shit happening anyway? And what about Julie? She was camping in some muddy field with what's his face, and he hadn't even really talked to her. She hadn't called and left a number, either. Man, it was all coming down.
But when they got there, Trig came over and greeted them, and when Crowe told him Donny's situation, he said it would be no problem.
'Sure,' he said.
