Getting Out of College
ONE
I read about your death today,
it happened just in passing.
It’s been at least a couple of years
since you left us behind.
The little baby blue Ford coupe, pulled up in front of the double-wide mobile home and honked. Shane was driving. He always drove. “Let’s get this show on the road; they ain’t making anymore daylight.” he fumed. His red-headed pal come busting out of the trailer carrying a backpack, a battered pillow and a bulging paper sack. He jogged over to the passenger side and opened the back door and tossed his bags in the back seat.
“I sure am glad that you talked me into this trip, I would have just sat home all weekend alone. Speaking of home, thank God, I’m outta Arizona. Tell me again why we are going to St. George anyway?” Mike begins talking before he even gets in the passenger seat. Talking is something he does best. “It was damned hot down there, whoever said that it don’t rain in the desert sure hasn’t been in that one. 100 degrees one minute, downpour the next, here comes the flashflood, then out comes the sun, I swear it was just like the sauna at the gym. Kinda took your breath away. Slept naked as a jaybird with the air-conditioner blowin’ right on me, thought I’d die!”
“Geez, Mike take a breath. I’m getting outta college and I need to get my tuition money back. I’m not going back to school this year.” Shane put the car in gear and they began the road trip. They made small talk for a while and as that wound down, Mike reached over and turned the radio on. He pushed the channel changer buttons, one after the other looking for a suitable station. They were a long distance from the radio stations so the signal was pretty weak. Finally, as the miles rolled by the scratchy static overpowered the music and Shane twisted the knob and turned it off. The scenery was pretty bleak. It was late summer in the western desert of Utah, and the only visible green for miles was the olive drab juniper trees that dotted the hills. The road was bordered with tumble weeds and rabbit brush that was showing the yellow of new blooms. The rumble of the road had allowed Mike’s mind to wander and his eyes to slide closed. His head had just begun to droop when Shane let out a yell.
“Damn” he twisted the steering wheel to the left and then right, there was a double thump.
Mike’s eyes flew open, startled he asked, “What’s that?”
“Another one bites the dust. Them jackrabbits have got to have suicide on the mind. I think this road is fur-lined, have you ever seen so many rabbits? Arizona was hotter than home then?” Shane answered as he looked in the rearview mirror at the dead rabbit.
“Hell yes! It never cooled off even at night.” Mike grimaced at the thought. Shane thought about that for a minute then offered a positive comment.
“Just gettin’ you in shape for Viet Nam. You won’t be sleepin’ naked over there. You’d get caught short, or shot in the ass. Wouldn’t that make a hometown article for the folks to read ‘Local kid stuck in the Butt with Punji stick’ or ‘High school hero shot while sleeping naked, film at eleven’.”
Mike pretended to be outraged, “Sure, rub it in smartass, Mr. Smarty pants who got only a 278 lottery number, best one in our class. Even Don got better’n me, 35; the only luck I got is bad luck.”
“Yea, 17 is pretty low. Has the draft board said anything to you?” Shane was kind of solemn as he replied, he started to say something else, but stopped before any word slipped out. Mike didn’t answer the question. He just stared out of the windshield. The miles kept flashing by. In the distance a red and white rectangular sign caught Mike’s attention.
He sat up and leaned forward trying to read it. As the sign zipped by he read it aloud, “Hey...look at that, an ol’ Burma Shave sign...”Even tho’ your car is flyin’ “ ...where’s the next one, do you see it?”
Shane tried to calm Mike down and get an answer to his earlier question, “It’s up here, hold your horses, what are you going to do if they call you up? Going to Canada? Stay outta the Army?
Mike was now focused on the highway advertising, using it to divert Shane’s probing question. He spotted another sign in the series and leaned forward to read it as it went by, “Wait! There’s the next one...’the miles rolling beneath your wheels’ ...I don’t know, maybe, just maybe. What would you do?”
“You know if they would let me fly one of them Cobras, I would join in a heartbeat. But they won’t let me fly with my glasses. Look here comes the next sign...’make sure you don’t leave your girl a’cryin’ “. Shane dodged another jackrabbit that jumped out at the last second, daring fate.
Viet Nam was on everyone’s mind, it seemed that it had been forever. Several of the upperclassmen that they had gone to school with had either joined to avoid the draft or had been drafted. Several stories had circulated around town from those men, besides the news stories. They had taken on legendary proportions. So far no one they knew had been killed, though a couple had been wounded.
Mike had taken several of those stories to heart. He had a definite opinion of what he might face. “Yea, I hear you, just the thought of being a grunt in that damned jungle sends shivers up my back...them little slant-eyed Commies popping out of the ground, or the shit-smeared punji sticks, I heard that ol’ Jimmie Ray gotta leech on his dink, ohmigod,(shuddering) anything but that. And the snakes, oh shit, I’d fight a hundred wars in the desert and not have to go to that jungle, if I could...can you picture me, the original desert rat, in Viet Nam?”
Shuddering at that thought, Shane recalled a heroic TV show that he liked, “Yea, remember “Rat Patrol” on the tube? The jeeps with the .50 cals were pretty cool. Here comes the next one...’the rasp of whiskers the last thing she feels…”
“I wonder… where were the whiskers that make her cry? I don’t want to go to no Viet Nam! I been shot at before, stupid Californians during the deer hunt, hear a sound, and blooey, shoot the noise before it gets away. My cousin heard ‘em talking about it at the store, ‘didn’t get one, but had a couple of sound shots’... damned fools anyway. The bullets sound like buzzing bees before the boom gets to you.” Mike shared that bit of information. “I could of reached out and touched the bullet, they were that close. I hit the ground and laid down behind a log. I wanted to shoot back at the bastards, but I just yelled at them instead, they shagged ass outta there when they heard me holler. I should’ve shot back, seen how they liked hot lead flying at them.”
“At least you heard ‘em, you don’t hear the bullets that hit you. At least, that’s what they say.” Shane added. He was thinking about the last sign, just what did they mean by that…the rasp of whiskers left her crying? Shane wasn’t sure, but he saw another sign coming, “Here the last one comes....Get ready! Together they yelled, “BURMA SHAVE!”
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