Part Two (Vietnam Fears)
Nineteen-Sixty-Nine. That August, Harvey and Linda drove to Burlington to go see a film that Harvey’s hip cousin told him about. It was called Easy Rider. The word “counterculture” had finally reached Vermont. As they walked out of the theater, Harvey remembered the term wanderlust, which had been his writing topic during the English class exam he took in May.
Like one of the characters in the film, Harvey’s thick hair was now long enough to put into a ponytail. He’d stopped cutting it the previous summer. He’d started growing a beard over the winter, during maple-tapping season, February and March. Edward’s parents didn’t remark on the changes for a while. His sister Hope, who had long, silky auburn hair of her own, wondered if he was trying to look like the hippies. Edward Stapleton had gone bald early. When Harvey’s hair reached his shoulders, Edward asked if he could have some of it and use some special adhesives to glue it his own cold dome.
Harvey spent most of the summer with Uncle Freddy, chopping down dying trees, clearing out the boundaries of the two family properties and rebuilding fences. His hands grew thick calluses. He ended the days with an aching back and a sense of appreciation for the rugged labor his dad and uncles spent decades doing. When he wasn’t working with Uncle Freddy or discovering other aspects of the human body’s capacities with Linda, Harvey was usually reading or journaling.
He read about Vietnam in Time and Newsweek on his occasional trips down to the local library. Penelope had started watching 60 Minutes, while Edward worked on his projects in the basement. Harvey joined her most Sunday nights. Harvey and his friends faced the terrifying prospect of being drafted if they couldn’t obtain a deferment. Few in his class expected to go to college. The twin brothers from down the road, who’d graduated a year earlier, headed north and planned to spend a few years in Quebec. Last Harvey had heard, they got lumber jobs and were learning French. One of his classmates, Sonny, had a father who died in Korea. He thought it was his duty to serve the army.
The high school was small, collecting the children of farmers from various neighboring outposts. Harvey’s senior year began well enough. As always, he got some of the best grades. Linda had an accident while playing soccer, breaking her ankle. Harvey visited her in the hospital. He started imagining himself in a hospital, after being drafted, heading to Vietnam and then wounded in war. As September gradually became October, it was announced there would be a televised Vietnam draft lottery.
Weeks before the lottery was held on December 1st, Harvey began having nightmares. He found himself deep in the jungle, spiders and snakes surrounding him. He was lost. The sounds of whizzing bullets and exploding bombs above him.
Harvey began to perseverate. How would he continue on with any sanity after witnessing violence, mayhem and murder up close? He wouldn’t be forced to kill another human being. He didn’t believe in the propaganda, neither did any of his family, except for Freddy, who’d narrowly escaped death himself and had come to see those as the defining years of his life. Edward only shook his head and muttered, “Poor Fred,” when Harvey told him of Freddy recounting his battles. The government wasn’t interested in protecting its soldiers, or in keeping the casualties down. In the last couple of years, the U.S. military death toll had been rising. Family friends in town had lost sons to the war. The draft was too much. On a weekend road trip through New England that October with Linda, they’d seen homeless and deranged young men, who Harvey thought were probably veterans, wandering the streets in Nashua, Portland and Cambridge.
When the lottery took place on television, Harvey and Linda held hands and Penelope paced nervously around the kitchen. As the ping-pong balls with birthdates were announced, Harvey’s chest tightened. His birthday, September 22nd, was called sixth. His heart sank and his vision narrowed. He leaned back on the couch and the room began to spin out of control. Penelope began to sob. Edward tried unsuccessfully to comfort her with cups of tea and a tin of cookies. Linda was silent. Hope went out for a bicycle ride. Harvey couldn’t move from the couch. He stayed there until the living room was empty and the panic had morphed into a new form of dread.
Over the winter break, Harvey’s nightmares got worse. Harvey’s father encouraged him to claim a deferment due to family hardship. Harvey could claim he was expected to work on the family farm rather than forced off to the army and basic training. With his parents’ help, Harvey collected a set of tax documents that showed family business records and birth records. Harvey and Hope were the only two children of the following generation among the three Stapleton men. Harvey’s school counselor found the location of the nearest Army recruiting office and filed for a deferment. Two weeks later, the letter came in the mail.
Deferment granted.
Harvey and Linda celebrated at a diner with burgers and shakes, a movie, and then made love for the first time. As Linda urged, Harvey pulled out to be safe. The back of the family car wasn’t an ideal location, but they had privacy. Harvey’s own future began to seem like a possibility again.
College had always been Harvey’s dream, but now it became his salvation. With the help of the school counselor, Harvey found a few small schools that offered financial aid. His grades were among the best at his high school, but few of his fellow graduates went to college. The Stapletons simply didn’t have the money. Harvey expected to work and save money first.
About a month before graduation day, Harvey rode a wave of late-spring optimism as he sped down the valley road back from school. When he reached the front door, Penelope met him, with something hidden behind her back. Penelope was smiling coyly. She handed him an envelope. He read the return address, the college in upstate New York. Harvey tore open the package and whooped with joy, finding out he’d been accepted and offered a scholarship, nearly a full-ride. Harvey vowed to put his heart and soul into making the most of his luck. No Vietnam. A chance for a life beyond the maple trees. An education.
A few days before he was due to leave, in August, Harvey drove his mom into Burlington to buy suitcases and clothes for school. On the ride, Penelope revealed to Harvey how badly she’d wanted to attend college herself, but how it wasn’t possible. How glad she was he was getting the chance. As Harvey listened to his mom, he wished there were some way he could reverse time and help her accomplish that dream. He urged her to take classes in Burlington. She said there wasn’t time or enough money.
They walked through the aisles, gathering packages of underwear, socks, Levi’s jeans, t-shirts into the cart. Harvey drove them home in silence, not uncomfortable but somehow potent. Penelope packed the suitcases, adding a thick hand-knitted forest green wool sweater and his long charcoal winter coat. As Harvey lifted the old Smith-Corona typewriter off his desk and placed it in its carrying case, Penelope lay down on his bed, leaned her head back on his pillow and looked up at his ceiling. Harvey sat down beside her and held her hand.
“I don’t want you to leave, but you have to live your life,” she collected herself, forcing a smile while her eyes welled up.
“I’ll be back for Christmas, Ma. Don’t worry. I’ll be back soon.” Harvey replied.
“I wish you could go off to school, and I could take a long nap, and when I woke up, you’d be back for Christmas,” Penelope’s voice was dreamy and strange.
Then Harvey filled his duffel with games and books, including Vonnegut’s Slaughter-House Five. Before Harvey left, he had to bid Hope adieu. She’d been away with a friend’s family, camping in Nova Scotia. When she returned, they had lunch together. Hope admitted she was jealous and more than a little sad to see him go, but wished him good luck. He gave her a new book by Michael Crichton, The Andromeda Strain. Hope liked the darker stuff. She still had two more years of high school.
Edward packed the car up. They all drove down through the valley into town, stopping at the bus station. Edward, ever stoic, told Harvey he knew he’d succeed if he put his mind to it, and handed Harvey an envelope with as much cash as they could scrape together. As he climbed the steps of the bus, a wave of autonomy rolled through Harvey. The bus groaned forward. Harvey extended his arm out the window, waving goodbye as the bus chugged off, heading west. After a moment, Harvey looked down and saw both hands clasping the envelope, and then wiped a sticky finger on his jeans, where maple syrup had caught the edge. He peeked in. A few hundred dollars. Harvey warmed with gratitude.