Exposure
30
Lottery
WHEN WE ARRIVED at the Draft Board at ten-thirty, over a hundred people had already arrived on the sidewalk in front of the County Courthouse where the Board had its offices. Dad and Uncle Nate were greeting people and thanking them for coming. Dad peeled off and joined Mom and our little entourage. Uncle Nate stayed outside to organize protesters. I saw a sign on one side that said “Stop draft discrimination!” Another, over near where Uncle Nate was—in uniform!—said “Veterans Against the War in Vietnam.” There were over a dozen men in uniform, including my brother-in-law and our town hero, Billy Lamont, and our new Constable, Stoney Stoneburner. Beside him stood a bewildered-looking Lori.
When we were conducted into the hearing room, it already had a number of people in it. Among them, I saw Dr. Ranger, the Columbia College Provost and Jordan Marsh, Beth’s father. I’d done what I was told to do to prepare for the hearing and had a statement all ready to read that described why I should be deferred. I had two other statements prepared, as well. One was my renewed application for classification as a Conscientious Objector. The other was my charge against Clyde Warren for discriminating and attempting to rid the county of young men of racial minorities and his personal enemies.
The chairman of the Board rapped his gavel and read out a purpose of the meeting notice. Then he called me forward. Lowell went with me.
“Please state your name and age,” the chairman said to me.
“Nate Hart, age twenty.”
“And who is with you?”
“I’m Lowell Graves, attorney at law, representing Mr. Hart.”
“Is that really necessary?” the chairman sighed. “Just state what the problem is that has caused so many people to flood our hearing room.”
“I received notice dated October 13, 1969, indicating that my student deferment was being canceled because the institution I am attending is not accredited,” I said.
“I don’t recall that letter,” the chairman said, looking at the other members of the Board. My attorney stepped forward and handed him a copy which he quickly scanned.
“I believe this never came before the board,” I said. “It was originated and sent by the Secretary of the Board, Clyde Warren. There are many such letters that have been sent over his signature that have not come before the Board. I have the provost of Columbia College with me here to respond to the accreditation issue.”
The Board were busy consulting with each other and didn’t even notice Dr. Ranger step forward. He didn’t wait to be acknowledged.
“I am Dr. Joseph Ranger, Provost of Columbia College Chicago. Columbia College Chicago is Certified by the State of Illinois to grant Bachelor’s degrees in the Arts and Fine Arts. Our accreditation by the Higher Learning Commission is pending. We have discussed our status with the State of Illinois Selective Service Board and they have confirmed that students at our school qualify for deferment under the clause ‘College, University, or similar institution.’ We have a letter on file to that effect and copies of the letters confirming Nate’s status as a student in good standing,” the Provost said.
Lowell stepped forward and presented copies of both letters. The chairman shared the letters around and Warren was scowling at the end of the bench.
“I see no reason your II-S classification should not be continued. It doesn’t seem all this representation was necessary at all. Stay in school and stay deferred. This case is closed,” the chairman said.
“No, sir. That is not enough,” I said.
“You came here to get your deferment reinstated. That’s all that’s on our agenda.”
“The reason for this needs to be addressed,” Lowell said. “The most recently added member of this Local Selective Service Board has been routinely sending out letters changing classifications and requiring young men to appear for induction without review by the Board. This has been done specifically to make sure that minorities in the county are drafted first and to pursue personal vendettas. Such blatant racism has no place on the Selective Service Board. We require that Clyde Warren be dismissed from the Board.”
“Who are you to require anything?” Warren demanded. Before Lowell could respond, the chairman broke in again.
“Are you certain you want to pursue this rather minor matter, Nate? I can appreciate that you had a run-in with Mr. Warren when he was constable in Tenbrook, but you have to put aside your grudge against him.”
“Mr. Chairman, 500 protesters outside your window disagree that this is a minor matter. We are turning evidence of Mr. Warren manipulating the draft to the Justice Department for prosecution and are joining a class action lawsuit against the Board, naming each individual on the Board, as well as against the State Board and the National Selective Service System and its director. That this war is immoral, unjust, and illegal is bad enough that thousands of protesters will join together on November 15. But when it is used to advance the ends of a racist it must be considered and prosecuted as a war crime. We will pursue this in court if the Board refuses to take action,” I said.
“I see,” said the chairman. “You really give us no choice then. Decisions regarding the reclassification of Nate Hart will be postponed until the lawsuit and criminal charges are settled. The reclassification indicated in this letter will stand until that time. Effective January 1, 1970, you will be classified I-A and subject to induction into the army.”
“Then I request an immediate reclassification hearing under my previous petition to the Board which was postponed two years ago to be reclassified as a Conscientious Objector, I-O. I object to all military service of any kind,” I said. Lowell had warned me that the good old boys would rather band together behind one of their own, even when it was obvious he was in the wrong, than consider a just solution.
“You can do that upon receipt of your letter of induction,” the chairman said. “This hearing is adjourned.” He stood up and walked out in spite of the shouted protests from all my supporters in the room. Clyde Warren wore a smirk on his face as he followed the chairman.
“We’ll file the appeal to the State Board immediately,” Lowell said. “There’s no reason for you not to receive a deferment. And I’ll argue the case for your change of status as a CO when the hearing is scheduled.”
“I won’t appear before the Board again,” I said. “If they want to pursue me, they’ll need to visit me at my home in Stratford, Ontario where I own property.”
“Nate, keep that information under your hat. You shouldn’t have even told me that. We can pursue every legal avenue to avoid the draft, but evasion is a felony. You’d never be able to return to the US.”
“It’s a price I’m willing to pay.”
The crowd in front of the courthouse was quiet and orderly, though there was a cordon of local and State Police patrolling to keep them back from the steps. When I stepped out, there was a cheer, though I’m not sure they knew what the outcome was in the hearing. They started a rhythmic clapping and I stopped on the steps to wave. Someone yelled “Speech!” and the crowd took up the chant. I raised a hand and the 500 or so people out there silenced.
“People of Hunter County!” I yelled. I had no microphones or amplification, so it was all whatever I could provide for volume. “The Hunter County Selective Service Board has chosen to protect one of their own in the face of overwhelming evidence against him, rather than to pursue justice, fairness, and racial impartiality. The decision on my reclassification has been postponed until the legal issues regarding Board Secretary Clyde Warren have been resolved.”
There were a lot of boos and I scanned the crowd. Many people were holding photos of men in their families who were either serving of had died. Of those, there was an inordinate number of racial minorities. My uncle, wearing more medals on his uniform than the rest of the uniformed men in the crowd put together, stood with the Veterans Against the War in Vietnam. And near the front of the crowd was a person who nearly made me cry to see.
“We are not done. My personal classification is a minor issue in the larger battle we have before us. We must end this war. We must bring home those who have been forced into a kill or be killed situation. We must stop the brainwashing of soldiers to believe they are protecting their loved ones when all they are protecting is the military/industrial complex and political fortunes of Richard Nixon. Next Saturday, November 15, there will be a National Moratorium Against the War in Washington, DC. If you are able, please join me there to add our voices to others who have been harmed by this illegal and immoral war, and by the war criminal Clyde Warren. If you cannot be there, I encourage you to return to this spot and join in the protest here before our local draft board. This insanity must end. Peace now!”
I flashed a peace sign and fished my peace symbol out of my shirt so it was clearly visible. Then I continued down the steps with my girlfriends. The four of us went straight to the front of the protesters and I crushed Christine to me in a hug.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” I said. Her brother and sister and a whole bunch of students and former students from Tenbrook stood behind her. Kat rushed to Julie and Brian to hug them.
“I was never really a very good girlfriend,” Chris said. “But it wasn’t because I didn’t love you. I can’t be a girlfriend anymore, but neither can I fail to support the ones I loved in a just cause. Good luck, Nate. I always wish you well.”
“Thank you, Christine,” I said.
We were jostled apart as the protest began to break up and others vied for my attention. Ronda got some time to hug Christine, but there were a hundred other people who wanted to thank me for organizing this protest and exposing the corruption of the board.
I hadn’t really done any of it except appear before the Board with my prepared speeches. I hadn’t even intended to go to Washington DC the next weekend until I stood on the steps.
My uncle and Mr. Barkley had organized the World War II veterans in the county. I guess Mr. Barkley was a member of the local VFW. Stoney and my brother-in-law John had organized the Vietnam vets. That included an appearance by several guys who had served with Tony. Of course, they really wanted to see and meet Patricia. She and Little Toni were almost overwhelmed as she was thanked for the photos that had kept morale up within Tony’s company.
Dad, Miss Ludwig, and Jim Kowalski had gotten on the phone to the parents of draftees in the county. Tor and Elise Berg jumped in to join the calling tree. Mom called all the ministers of every church in Hunter County and sent out postcards to all the United Methodist preachers in the district. There was a field of clerical collars, ecclesiastical robes, and suits around where she went to join them. I wasn’t sure how the members of my class and the class of ’69 had been recruited, nor how the kids who were supposed to be in school had gotten out and got to Huntertown.
I owed this community big time. I truly felt like we could win this battle to end the war.
The next Thursday afternoon, Patricia, Toni, and Anna arrived at the apartment. I’d already taken the VW out to get it serviced and filled with gas. The temperature was only in the mid-thirties and I suspected we might have a little rain. Patricia and Anna went straight to work on packing food for our trip. I’d already packed the Nikon and a dozen rolls of film plus all three lenses.
“You should go ahead and prep the back of the van for camping,” Anna said. “Inflate the air mattress and we brought extra blankets and pillows in Patricia’s car. It’s going to be cold. We’ll just have to work around Toni’s little bed over the back.”
“Fortunately, she loves road trips,” Patricia laughed. “Don’t you, sweetheart?”
“Go!” Toni said. It had been one of her first words. I was amazed that she was communicating. Mostly just single words, but she got her message across. When she saw me, she ran across the floor toward me saying, “Dance!”
I finished preparing the bus and when Ronda got home from her classes, we ate dinner, cleaned up the apartment and loaded in the van. Our strategy was to have two people in the front, a driver and a navigator, keeping each other company, and two in the bed in back, supposedly sleeping. We’d rotate on and off driving so we could go straight through. Top speed on the bus was 60 and we’d already proven many times that we simply couldn’t hold it there constantly. It was 700 miles to Washington, DC and between crossing the mountains and getting to points where we just had to park and sleep, we figured we’d be in town Friday night.
We’d already discovered there were no hotel rooms in town. We’d be parked in some parking lot and sleeping in the bus. We’d join the protest on Saturday and be back on the road home Saturday night. Maybe it was all a futile effort. I’d joined the first Moratorium with a number of classmates to march up and down Michigan Avenue on October 15. It didn’t seem like a lot and everyone was wary of police rioting and just beating us to death like they did in front of the Conrad Hilton during the DNC a year ago. Nixon’s response to the October 15 Moratorium, held with tens of thousands of demonstrators in a dozen cities, was to say, “There is nothing you kids can do to change things.” We were out to prove him wrong.
The call that went out had firmly established the Moratorium as a nonviolent protest. Pete Seeger was going to sing on the Mall, as well as several others. Even Senator McCarthy was planning to address the protest from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
The last news we heard before we loaded into the bus to start east was that nearly 45,000 people, many of them college professors, ministers, and entertainers, were marching from Arlington Cemetery to the Mall carrying placards with the names of war dead or Vietnamese villages that had been destroyed. There were people standing in front of the White House reading the names of the war dead aloud.
I took the first shift driving. Patricia and Toni were in the seat beside me and we talked and listened to the radio as we headed out of town and hit the toll road across Indiana. The objective was to get Toni ready to fall asleep in the nest we had for her over the engine compartment. When we reached South Bend, we stopped at the Oasis and took a stretch and bathroom break, and filled the tank again. I was tempted to get a cup of coffee, but Anna had me get in back with Ronda and start my sleep shift. Patricia shifted over to drive while Anna read stories to Toni. I was proud of my girlfriends who had all learned to drive the VW’s bizarre stick shift—even the shortest of them.
The next stop was just across the Ohio border and Patricia moved back to lie beside me and get Toni settled in her nest. Ronda took over navigating while Anna drove.
We pulled into a travel plaza west of Cleveland to get gas. Both Anna and Ronda crawled into bed with Patricia and me. We wanted to make sure it was daylight when we split with I-90 and followed I-80 south of Cleveland and into Pennsylvania where we’d change to I-76. We’d covered three hundred miles and it was nearly three in the morning.
We went into the plaza to get a sandwich for breakfast and make sure everyone was refreshed. I had a fresh cup of coffee and slid into the front seat with Ronda to direct her onto the right route. Anna and Patricia sat in the back playing games and reading to Toni.
We got into Washington DC about six that evening and started looking for a place where we could park. We lucked out with parking just a couple of blocks away from the Mall where there was a National Monuments visitors’ lot. We walked over to the Mall, pushing Toni in the stroller. We definitely didn’t want her running loose. We passed a hotdog vendor who was packing up to go home and convinced him to sell us dinner. It wasn’t all that much, but we were too excited to eat anyway.
Park police had already given up on trying to get people to leave the Mall. There were no tents, but people were definitely settled in for the night. I started taking pictures and Anna had a pad of paper and a pen, taking down the frame numbers and locations of each batch of pictures I took. She kept glancing at her watch and noting the time. When I finished a roll, she handed it to Ronda to label while I reloaded. It was getting dark and I loaded a roll of 400 ASA film and changed all my settings to push it to 1600.
We wandered among the little gatherings on the Mall where people were wrapped in blankets and had guitars out, singing protest songs. When I found a group that looked really interesting, I asked if I could take their pictures and Anna collected names and addresses so I could send them prints. I used the telephoto lens from near the Washington Monument to take a picture of the Lincoln Monument with the silhouettes of people against the lights of the monument.
Toni was getting pretty sleepy and we headed back to the bus, which had already been ticketed for being parked after closing. I left the ticket on the windshield. I figured if it had already been ticketed, they wouldn’t ticket it again. I was sure there were too many parking violators in the city tonight to worry about it.
We crawled into the back of the van and after a little while to get Toni settled and asleep, my girlfriends and I pulled all the curtains on the windows and got naked. I don’t often try to make love to all three in a single night, but this was a special time and I was determined to show each of them how much I loved them. It seemed they were just as determined to show each other.
There were thousands of people on the Mall already by the time we joined the march around the perimeter. We walked from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol and then back past the White House. And we made a plan. We were never to have fewer than two of us together. Ronda and Patricia were paired up with Toni. Anna and I would stick together since she was recording what I took pictures of. We set up meeting times at the VW in case we got separated. We wouldn’t be panicked about trying to find each other.
By eleven in the morning, there was music playing from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. When you looked out from the memorial, the thousands of people who wore signs naming the dead were gathered to the left. Many wore skeletal makeup as well. It was spooky. Patricia and Ronda needed to find a place where they could feed and change Toni, so we agreed on the next meeting time, either on the west side of the Washington Monument at five o’clock or at the VW at six o’clock.
None of us anticipated the number of people who came to the Moratorium. Anna and I managed to make it fairly close to the Lincoln Memorial to get pictures of Pete Seeger and of a couple of the speakers. There had to be half a million people on the National Mall. Nixon had to listen to us. One of the speakers said there were another hundred thousand gathered in San Francisco and smaller gatherings all over the country. Nixon had been making noises about escalating the war in Vietnam. There had even been references to possible nuclear strikes. The guy was insane. He had to hear the voice of the people.
It was closer to seven o’clock by the time we made it back to the bus. There was a second ticket on the window, but at least they hadn’t towed it. We were all exhausted and Toni was cranky. She’d never seen so many people, even shopping on the Loop in Chicago. Once we were satisfied that we were done with the protest, we headed out, joining the slow crawl of cars leaving our nation’s capital.
We weren’t concerned with whether we made it back in exactly twenty-four hours this time. If we didn’t get into Chicago until five a.m. Monday morning, Ronda and I would just go to class and sleep there. I really couldn’t afford to miss any more classes. They didn’t exactly take attendance in college, but part of our grade was based on participation. You can’t participate if you aren’t there.
We took a full sleep break somewhere east of Pittsburgh at a truck stop. We all stripped naked, but we were too tired to do anything but cuddle up and go to sleep. After we got some food in the truck stop café in the morning, I got in the driver’s seat and continued north and west. Ultimately, it wasn’t that bad. We made it to our apartment about eight o’clock Sunday night. Anna had already decided she wouldn’t head back to Rockford until Patricia left Tuesday morning. It was Patricia’s twentieth birthday on Monday and we were determined to celebrate. With Ronda and me both in class most of the day, it was up to Anna to orchestrate the ‘party.’
When I got home about four o’clock, Anna met me at the door in the house uniform—naked. She wasn’t even wearing an apron and wrapping my arms around that soft and willing body was a cock-rousing treat. Then I got my lips on hers and took a good sniff.
“Um… Anna? Have you and Patricia been playing around?”
“Oh, well, maybe,” she teased. “It’s Patricia’s birthday and I didn’t think it was fair for her to have to wait all day for someone to pamper her. When Toni went down for her nap, I went down, too.”
“You sweet girl,” I said, kissing and licking all over her face as she giggled.
“Toni’s playing in the sunroom. You should be able to slip into the bedroom and give Patricia a treat that leaves a little something for Ronda when she gets home,” Anna giggled. “I’ve got dinner under control.”
I kissed her again while squeezing a boob and a butt cheek before she pushed me toward the bedroom. I stripped on the way, staying just out of sight of Toni. My precious girl would preempt any lovemaking to dance if she saw me. Patricia was still sprawled out on the bed, looking like she’d just been fucked. I was hard in an instant. The first she noticed me, I was crawling up the bed between her legs.
“Oh, my God! Are you going to do me, too?” Patricia asked. “I just woke up from the last one.”
“I’m so glad Anna started the party right,” I said. “Should I stop and check things out with my tongue or do you want me to move higher?”
“Higher. Higher!” Patricia said. “Oh, Nate, fill me with your come and make me come on your cock.”
As quickly as we got started, we took our time once the tip of my cock was playing around the entrance to her pussy. She squirmed a lot, trying to get me in her and eventually, I sank into her warm depths with a sigh—from both of us.
“I love you, Baby,” I said once we were joined. “Happy birthday!”
“I’m not a teenage mommy anymore,” she said. “I can’t believe I’m just twenty years old and I have a sixteen-and-a-half-month-old baby. Who isn’t really a baby now. We have to admit she’s at least a toddler who is learning to express herself with more than squalls. I’m sure Anna coached her, but today my little girl said, ‘H’birday, Mommy.’ I cried.”
“And just think, now that channel a little girl slid out of a year and a third ago is home to my cock and I’m going to fill it up with come.”
“Yes. Fill me. One day, you’ll come home from school or from the studio, and I’ll be lying on the bed like this, and you’ll crawl between my legs and put your cock in me like it is now, and you’ll fill my tummy with another little baby—a baby Nate or Natalie.”
“Oh, Patricia, I would love for you to have my baby. Let’s just get stabilized a little and figure out what country we want her to be born in and I will put enough sperm in your vagina to start our own village,” I said.
“Do me now, Nate. Fill me up and let me come on your cock. This is the best birthday ever.”
It didn’t take much longer for either of us to be on top of passion’s peak. As we lay together just kissing and holding each other, I heard Anna greet Ronda.
“Mmm. You stay here during this brief intermission. I’ll go dance with Miss Toni while Act III comes in to join you,” I said.
“I can’t believe those girls are doing what they do to me. Or that I was so slow to figure out how much fun it is.”
I got my undershorts on and went out. I gave a quick kiss to Ronda and helped her out of her clothes before she rushed into the bedroom to make sure Patricia had a triple. I headed for the sunroom to grab my little girl and take her dancing in the living room.
I needed a little decompression time and went home directly after my Photographic Practices class at noon Tuesday. I probably should have gone to the studio and processed the eight rolls of film I had from Washington, but it would have to wait. The protest Saturday was now being hailed as the largest antiwar protest in history. Plans were already being made for another Moratorium in the near future.
Nixon had a press conference about some new legislation congress was working on and he promised to sign and make announcements about a new draft lottery. A reporter asked if this was the result of the massive protests on Saturday. Nixon said, “I didn’t notice them. I was watching a football game on TV.”
Fucker.
When Ronda got home, we ate leftovers from Patricia’s birthday dinner chicken and then sat to study together a while. Ronda seemed a little fidgety and I pulled her to me to sit on the couch. We were both naked, of course, and she pulled my hand to her breast as we kissed.
“I couldn’t believe Patricia and Anna were so receptive to girl-girl loving,” I whispered. “Don’t you love the way Patricia tastes?”
“Mmm. Her flavor is nice but it was kind of hidden behind the flavor of all the sperm you left in her. If we weren’t all three on birth control, I think you’d have gotten us all pregnant with that one load,” Ronda said, nuzzling her face against my neck.
“What’s on your mind, lover?” I asked.
“I was thinking about all that’s happened in the past ten or eleven days. Do you think the hearing before the Board or the protests have done any good? It all seems so futile sometimes.”
“It’s easy to feel that way. With Nixon’s comments and the way Kissinger has taken over escalating the war, it seems hopeless. But it was good to feel a part of things. It was encouraging that Christine came to support us at the hearing. I didn’t get to talk to her long before I got pulled away. But it gives me hope.”
“Don’t, Nate. Don’t hope. She isn’t coming back to us. Yes, it was nice that she came to support us, but she isn’t coming back.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“She has a boyfriend.”
“I’ve never held that against a girl. It doesn’t mean…”
“You’ve never been good at noticing these things,” Ronda interrupted in frustration. “She’s wearing a huge diamond. She’s engaged. I tried to be happy for her, but she just pissed me off even more when she asked if I’d be her maid of honor in the spring.”
“Oh, fuck,” I sighed. “At least you’ll still have that with her. She thinks of you as her best friend.”
“I can’t do it, Nate. I can’t stand with her while she marries a guy who won’t be you and won’t tolerate her being with me. She made it clear that she’s purged her perversions and is going to lead a normal life.”
“I’m sorry, love. That really hurts.”
“Take me to bed and make love to me, Nate. I need to feel you. And I want you to feel me. We’ve lost Christine, but I love you more than the whole world.”
I processed the film from DC on Thursday. I got some really good photos. I knew it was way too late for any Chicago newspaper to be interested in them, but I decided to send a package of photos to the Huntertown newspaper. I used Anna’s log of everything I took to annotate each photo on the back and make sure things were well-documented. Maybe they’d be interested in the local boy angle.
I had a photo session on Saturday, but it proved to be fairly calm, even though we got some great sexy shots of our model. I didn’t find any reason to try to seduce her. She did just great without that. We were near the crunch as far as the school semester was concerned. Ronda would be out in two weeks and I’d be done in four. But first, we headed back to Tenbrook, picking up Anna in Rockford. It was Thanksgiving weekend.
I guess all young couples have difficulty deciding whose parents they should spend a holiday with. We had that times four. Jordan and Nadia had flown to New York to celebrate Thanksgiving with Elizabeth. I felt a little guilty about not joining them, it would take all weekend and at least when I went to Tenbrook, we could visit every family, even if we couldn’t have Thanksgiving dinner with them.
Leave it to the parents to figure it out. My parents had agreed to join us all at Ronda’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. Her sister Nora was home for the holiday weekend and had brought her three dogs with her. Of course, we had to go to the back yard to watch them do their tricks. Someplace along the line, Kat disappeared for a couple of hours to be with Chris’s family—that is with Julie and Brian. We had a great Thanksgiving Dinner all together and no one felt rushed to be someplace else. We even cheered for the Minnesota Vikings as they beat the Detroit Lions 27-0 in a snowstorm.
On Friday, my girlfriends and I went to the Bergs’ house, where we were joined by Ellie and Jim Kowalski and their daughter Vanessa. I agreed to bring Kat up to Tenbrook again, so she could see her friend. They disappeared for a while and when they got back, Vanessa was still tucking her shirt in and Kat was tucking a sketchbook into her bag. I was willing to bet a similar scene had played out at the Evans house the day before.
“I wanted to thank you for all the work you guys did to help organize the protest at the courthouse,” I said to Tor and Jim.
Tor handed me a couple of newspapers. One showed pictures of the protest on the seventh. The second had photos of the local protest on the fifteenth, when we were protesting in DC. The newspaper was coming out pretty strongly as antiwar and was running articles almost daily on the accusations against the local board.
Then Jim handed me last Sunday’s paper. It had a full-page spread of my photos of the DC protest headlined, “Our Man in DC.” The paragraphs I’d written about the pictures and the order I’d given them were exactly the way I sent them. It was amazing.
“The big question now is what this new thing is going to do,” Tor said. “How do you win this lottery Nixon is holding?”
“What’s that?” I asked. I hadn’t really looked at the news all weekend.
“Oh, well, you know congress passed a bill that allows the president to change the way people are selected for the draft on Friday. Wednesday, Nixon signed the legislation into law and immediately issued an executive order that there would be a lottery to determine when people would be called for service. It all seems very fast and kind of hush-hush to me,” Tor said.
“They’re holding the lottery Monday already,” Jim said. I noticed he picked up some of Tor’s accent when the two were together. I didn’t think Jim had any Swedish blood in him at all.
“So, what is the lottery supposed to do?” I asked.
“As far as I can tell, it will determine who gets called up according to their birthdate. As in day of the year. So, if the first date they draw is November 15, people born on that day will be the first drafted. A new lottery to be held every year for those becoming eligible the next year.”
“Crap. You know, we read a short story in high school about that. The whole village got together on one day a year and drew lots. The person who got the marked slip from a bucket got stoned to death. No matter what, they killed someone for nothing. It was just a random choice. Sounds like Nixon read the short story,” I said.
I spent the rest of the day pretty pissed.
Saturday was our Thanksgiving dinner at Anna’s house. I was pretty sure all four of us were gaining weight over the weekend. This was the smallest gathering with just the four of us and Toni with Anna’s parents and younger brother. But it was nice. Mr. and Mrs. Marx were the most conservative of all our parents. It had been quite a long time before I was ever invited into their home. They’d prayed for Anna when she started sleeping with me, but she’d told them I was as close to a son-in-law as they would ever get and that Toni was as close to a grandchild as they would ever see.
They started by welcoming Elizabeth to stay with Anna when she came to visit. I think it’s possible that Beth did something to convince them that our relationship was good. Also, Mr. Marx had helped Anna do my taxes. He might have decided that I could afford his daughter.
After church on Sunday, Anna, Ronda, and I headed back east. Beth would be back home in ten days and we were all excited about that. Anna’s classes got out that weekend as well, so she and Patricia and Toni would be with us. We all planned to decorate our apartment for Christmas but hadn’t figured out where we’d spend the holiday.
Ronda had spent every spare moment over the holiday studying. She had finals this week and then she’d be out for the break. I had three weeks before my semester was over.
We dropped Anna in Rockford and Ronda and I went home. It was a quiet night. I was asleep before Ronda quit studying and came to cuddle up to me in bed.
Monday seemed like a normal day, but there was a frisson of anxiety in the air. Or maybe it was just my anxiety. I hadn’t really talked about the upcoming lottery with my girlfriends. They all knew I was a little edgy over Thanksgiving weekend and wrote it off to the stress of my draft board hearing and the demonstrations, followed by Thanksgiving times three with our parents.
Some guys weren’t fazed by the upcoming lottery. They toked up and went about life as usual. Maybe that was a good idea. Rumor had it that the army didn’t take drug addicts. They preferred to make them. Others of us were concerned.
“What are you going to do if you win the lottery?” one asked. Of course, ‘winning the lottery,’ as in getting drawn first was that random death sentence we all felt hanging over us.
One of my black classmates shook his head and said, “I’ll close my eyes and shut my mouth. Charlie won’t see me nohow.”
“National Guard,” said another. “I picked up the application over the weekend. They’ve got them in the registrar’s office, I hear.”
“Leave,” was all I said. That was my option. I owned a home in Stratford, Ontario and I had a vehicle I could pack all my worldly possessions in. I had three or four girlfriends who had promised to come with me. I could be in Canada by the end of the week.
Of course, I wouldn’t have to leave that quickly. The numbers would determine who would be called in 1970. I might have until the end of the year. I’d at least finish out the semester. I was sure that if my draft board was given a choice, mine would be the first name they sent a notice to.
One of the older guys was taking orders for alcohol. He’d go buy stuff and we could pick it up from him before we went home for the day. Yes, I said ‘we.’ I picked up a bottle of cheap wine from him and paid him twice what it cost. He had a bright future ahead of him if he got drafted.
When I got home, I went about the process of making dinner, wishing Ronda was with me and we were fucking in bed. It was near the time when she usually got home when the phone rang.
“Hey, honey,” she said. “Don’t plan dinner for me tonight. My Russian club is going out to dinner and then spending the evening talking in Russian and studying for our exam tomorrow. I should be home by ten.”
“Oh. Okay. That’s good. Study hard. I can’t believe you’re taking such a hard language. You’ll get food? Or should I prepare a plate you can warm up in the oven?” I said.
“No. Dinner is part of our study session. This term is strictly conversational Russian and we’re going to that Russian restaurant over on Calhoun. We’re going to try to function the whole time in Russian,” she laughed. “I might starve.”
“I love you, sweetheart. Study hard.”
“I love you, Nate. I’ll be home before you know it.”
I doubted that. I looked at the dinner I’d made. It wasn’t really that much. I’d made up a kettle of chili, figuring we’d have leftovers in the refrigerator for tomorrow. I sliced some cheese and fried a cheese sandwich to have with my bowl of chili and glass of wine. Then I cleaned up.
I did something then I hadn’t done in a long time. I went into the bedroom and masturbated. I was too distracted for it to be really satisfying, but I dozed off for an hour afterward. Then I grabbed my pipe and my bottle of wine and plopped down in front of the TV.
CBS preempted Mayberry RFD at eight o’clock (nine Eastern) to bring us live coverage of the lottery.
“Good evening. Tonight, for the first time in twenty-seven years, the United States has again started a draft lottery,” correspondent Roger Mudd said in hushed tones.
Great. Just great. In 1942, we were just entering the war. Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor. The entire world was embroiled in the Second World War. It wasn’t a sign of the end of a conflict. Those few words told us all we needed to know about Nixon’s plan to escalate the war and send even more men to Vietnam.
They started with an invocational prayer.
Dear God, guide our hands that we might select those destined to die for our profit and pride.
I made that up. It was what I heard, not what they said. Some bigwig congressman reached into a jar and pulled out a capsule. They opened it and I gulped when they read “September…” Then they said “…14. September 14 is 001.” They put the date up on a board with places to add the dates for 366 days of the year.
And then they continued. A bunch of teens subject to the draft were called one at a time to draw some numbers. I wondered what would happen if one drew his own birthdate. Then one of them said he refused to draw a number and the war should be ended immediately. Way to go!
I lit my pipe and poured another glass of cheap wine to watch as Mudd periodically had a voiceover explaining how the lottery worked and the history of the last time it was used. The general overseeing the proceedings was the same fucking bastard who conducted the drawings from 1940 to 1942.
I watched for close to an hour and had another glass of wine while I held my draft card, waiting to find out when I was going to be called. I couldn’t believe my good luck when the first hundred numbers had been assigned. I was holding a celebration with another glass of wine and a pipe when the second hundred had been called.
“September 27. September 27 is 233.”
There it was. I grabbed a piece of paper and scratched out some figures. Mudd had said the Selective Service had estimated a call of 850,000 people to be drafted in 1970. The first third of the lottery numbers were sure to be called. The second third was iffy. Might or might not. The last third could pretty much go on planning their lives because they were unlikely to ever be called at all.
I had to figure the numbers twice because I was a little blurry eyed. The first third, 1-122. The second third, 123-244. The last third 245-366. I was eleven short of the last third.
I swallowed the last of the wine from the bottle and looked at my draft card. My board had delayed deciding my classification appeal until they settled the discrimination issue against Clyde Warren, leaving me classified as I-A after the first of the year. I stared at the hateful card and scratched a wooden match from the box I kept for lighting my pipe. I looked at the flame and at my card, then lit the flimsy piece of paper, holding it until it was nearly burning my fingers and then dropping it into the ashtray to finish burning.
Fuck ’em. Now I was a felon.
I passed out on the couch.
To be continued in Book 4: F/Stop.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
