Page 49 of Echoes of a Silent Song
“October twenty-sixth ...”
“It’s still going on, Iris.”Victor sounded annoyed.
“Well, yes, of course.But they just called the sixth.There’s no way they’ll call the seventh.Not with over three hundred fifty dates still in there.”
“September seventh.”
What?!
No.No.They didn’t just say that.They didn’t just say September 7.No.They picked the sixth.Just two dates ago they picked the sixth.It couldn’t be the seventh.They couldn’tdothat.Not Victor.No.They couldn’t do that to Victor.
The sound of breaking glass, loud as gunfire, jolted me.Victor’s mother was still standing in the doorway, still holding the towel.But the dish she’d been drying shattered at her feet.Pieces of it flew every which way, skittering across the floor.When they stopped, she clapped her hand over her mouth and started to sob.
That was when I knew this was real.They’d just called Victor’s birthday.He’d been drafted.And unless he got into Whitehall, then the minute after we walked across that stage in June, he’d be shipped off to the jungle in Vietnam.
God, why?Why Victor?Why?
“You can’t go.”I clung to him.“There’s got to be a way to get out of this.”
“And I’ll find it, Iris.I’ll ...I’ll go to Canada.I’ll flunk my physical.I’ll—”
“You’ll go to Vietnam.”
We turned at the deep voice behind us.Victor’s father stood in the doorway, a bottle of beer clutched in his hand.Based on what Victor had told me, that beer was likely not his first.
“No, I won’t.”Victor’s voice was quiet but firm.
“Yes, you will.”
“No, Dad.I’m not going to ’Nam.”He stood, fists clenched, as if ready for a fight.“I’m going to the Whitehall Conservatory of Music in Chicago.I’m a musician.I’m not a warrior.I won’t go be cannon fodder for a war we shouldn’t even be in.”
“You’ll do whatever your country needs you to do.”Mr.Nelson stepped toward his son.“That’s what I did.It’s what your grandfather did.It’s what every Nelson man has done since we arrived on these shores.It’s bad enough you won’t volunteer.No son of mine will be a draft dodger.I manned up and served this country, and so will you.”
“But look what it did to you,” Victor argued.“What you became.You’re an embarrassment.Why would I ever want to become like you?”
With a vicious swear word, Mr.Nelson flung the beer bottle directly at Victor’s head.Victor ducked, and the brown glass burst into pieces against the dingy wallpaper.
Followed a second later by my heart.
Victor muttered something under his breath, crossed the living room in about two steps, and left.He slammed the door behind him, and a picture fell off the wall.The wooden frame split in half.
A second later, I tore out the door after him.“Victor!Victor!”
He was sliding into his father’s beat-up Buick.“Go home, Iris.”
“No.”I didn’t stamp my foot like a toddler, but it took effort to contain the urge.“I’m not leaving you like this.I’m not leaving you alone.”
“But being alone is exactly what I need.”Without waiting for my response, he peeled out of the driveway and down the street at a speed much faster than was proper.His taillights rounded a corner, then disappeared into the night.The rumbly motor faded to nothing.
Frustrated tears pricked my eyes.It wasn’t like Victor to just leaveme standing in the middle of the street.But he wasn’t in his right mind.And now, having seen what his family was like, I knew exactly why.Draft or no draft, the Nelsons weren’t okay.It was a miracle Victor had become the smart, talented man he was.
And now I stood on the street outside Victor’s house in the part of town my parents always told me not to go to.No way could I go back inside, not with Victor’s weeping mother and his raging father.And I couldn’t call my parents either, because they thought I was at the library studying and they would not be pleased to have to come to the wrong side of the tracks, as Mother put it, to fetch me.I could just hear her.Oh, Iris, what will the neighbors think?Have you no shame?
Well.At least it wasn’t raining or snowing.It was chilly, but not as cold as December in Illinois could get.It was only a mile and a half or so to my house.I’d just walk.It’d give me a way to burn off my frustration.My anger.My helplessness that the United States government could just sign death warrants for gifted young men, and for what?
Victor had to get into Whitehall.He just had to.
I didn’t know what would become of him—of us—if he didn’t.
