“Tell the revolution we won’t be ready for another half hour, unless you want leftovers,” Uncle Dan shouted from behind the counter.
With her usual flourish, Jill pulled off her Greek fisherman’s cap and swung into the booth, Maddie close behind.
“Isn’t this a school day?” I asked.
“Yes, but we’re blowing off school to prepare for the occupation. Tonight, the beach is ours!”
“Your mother is okay with that?”
“Well …” Jill said. “I think so. I didn’t really ask. Ever since you guys got back from that road trip, she’s been a mess. Did you have a fight or something? She drank too much wine last night and fell asleep on the couch. She was still in her PJ’s and her hair was a wreck when I left so I’m guessing she called in sick. You really should marry her, you know—she’d be happier, I think.”
“You’re going to scare him away,” Maddie whispered.
“No, we’re like family. She’s my mother, and I’m the star of his new play.” She took the fisherman’s cap and set it on my head. “Maybe you and Kelly can both move in, and it’ll be like this giant free love experiment. I think my Mom’s done some freaky stuff.”
“He doesn’t want to hear that,” Maddie said.
“Not sick freaky, good freaky. I found this Tumblr once with photos of couples who—”
“Let’s talk about something else, okay?” I said, handing back the hat. The news that Amy was a mess seemed predictable, but still had me worried.
“The whole idea is to perform an act of civil disobedience, to show that we won’t always follow their rules,” Maddie said. “Beth says that we need to develop ourselves through communal action so we’re ready—psychologically, socially—when the revolution is for real.”
“You know, like a dress rehearsal,” Jill said. Beneath the table the girls held hands.
“Most of the time we’re like machines,” Maddie said. “Go to school, go to college, get all this debt so you can get a job with some evil corporation to pay off the debt, and then buy more stuff and just go along with everything and never think. We don’t even know that another world is possible because we’re programmed to live in this one. Like the SAT…we study and stress over it but there’s nothing on the test about how the world really works. Beth says occupying the beach, and not doing what we’re supposed to do, will help us develop a new consciousness. She says you can’t grow when you’re stuck in your same old role.”
“Where is Ms. Manifesto?” I asked.
“She’s trying to get some African-American kids to join us. We’re too white and privileged.”
“We need some old people, too, if you want to join us,” Jill said.
“It’s good to know we geezers are still in demand.”
“I didn’t mean old old.”
Uncle Dan must have heard them. He wiped his hands, pulled off his apron, and rushed over to the table. Through the door I saw a cop car parked by the entrance, Clyde’s creepy partner Mike idling in his cruiser, staring through the window as if searching for perps. What should have seemed harmless felt sinister instead, the black steel battering ram on the cruiser’s front bumper a reminder of how easily something can be crushed. Jill and Maddie slouched in the booth holding hands, expecting the worst; Uncle Dan saw their fear and leaned out the front, one hand on the door as he caught Mike’s eye and waved. “Have a good day, Officer!”
Mike rolled down the window, flashed a salute, and said, “Thank you for your service!”
The window raised shut, and the cruiser resumed its crawl down the block, Uncle Dan turning his back and flipping his middle finger.
“Twerp. You only salute officers. I’m an enlisted man.”
He joined us at the booth. Jill and Maddie sat up, relieved.
“He’s such a perv,” Jill said. Maddie, shoulders still hunched, patted Jill’s wrist.
Uncle Dan glared out the window, his jaw clenched. “You need to be protesting these goddamn wars,” he said, turning to the girls. “All this ‘thank you for your service’ crap is a scam to make everyone shut up and cheer. When I came back, nobody thanked me for my service, and I’m glad. Making pizza, wiping off a table and bringing a diet Snapple to somebody, that’s service. We weren’t doing service. We were killing people, like we’re still doing.” His face blanched. “When I started taking care of this little guy here…” Meaning me. “…people joked about staying up all night with a crying baby. With me it didn’t matter—I was up anyway, thinking about what I’d seen, what I’d done. I still know every inch of that goddamn ceiling. I didn’t sleep through the night until 1982.”
The girls looked up at him, surprised, the old guy behind the pizza counter suddenly off on a tear. From her booth Nancy watched closely, no longer humming, her face caught in a long frown over her brother’s agitation.
“You know why this place is called The Jaybird?” he asked.
They shook their heads. Nobody knew.
“I’ve been waiting forty years for people to wake up in this goddamn town. Maybe you girls are finally doing it.” He rubbed his neck, as if soothing an old wound. “The best person I ever knew, PFC Jason Bird, from Brattleboro, Vermont. The Jaybird. Killed in action, November 4, 1972, in a firefight outside of some piss-poor peasant village. Friendly fire. You know what that means?”
We sat there like stones.
“One of us shot him. Maybe me. It was dark, and something moved, and the whole damn war was like that—you never knew what the hell you were shooting at. I pulled the trigger just like the other guys. It could have been me who killed him. I’ll never know.” His eyes grew dark. “He died over a piece of land the size of two football fields. An old buddy told me there’s a McDonald’s there now, so I guess the Jaybird’s life was worth it.” He looked away, toward the wall, maybe
