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I’d given him back the watch, and I guess he wanted to do something for me. His folks were with him, a tall, sunburned man and a little woman in a flowered dress who was hanging onto Benson’s arm like grim death. I could see that they weren’t really wild about having a stranger along on their reunion.
    â€œNo thanks,” I said, waving him off. “See you tomorrow.” I hurried on so he wouldn’t have time to insist. Benson was a nice enough kid, but he could be an awful pain in the ass sometimes.
    The bus crawled slowly toward Tacoma, through a sea of traffic. By the time I got downtown, I’d worked up a real thirst. I hit one of the Pacific Avenue bars and poured down three beers, one after another. After German beer, the stuff still tasted just a wee bit like stud horsepiss with the foam blown off even with the acclimating I’d done on the train. I sat in the bar for about an hour until the place started to fill up. They kept turning the jukebox up until it got to the pain level. That’s when I left.
    The sun was just going down when I came back out on the street. The sides of all the buildings were washed with a copperykind of light, and everybody’s face was bright red in the reflected glow.
    I loitered on down the sidewalk for a while, trying to think of something to do and watching the assorted GI’s, Airmen, and swab jockeys drifting up and down the Avenue in twos and threes. They seemed to be trying very hard to convince each other that they were having a good time. I walked slowly up one side of the street, stopping to look in the pawnshop windows with their clutter of overpriced junk and ignoring repeated invitations of sweaty little men to “come on in and look around, Soljer.”
    I stuck my nose into a couple of the penny arcades. I watched a pinball addict carry on his misdirected love affair with a seductively blinking nickle-grabber. I even poked a few dimes into a peep-show machine and watched without much interest while a rather unpretty girl on scratchy film took off her clothes.
    Up the street a couple girls from one of the local colleges were handing out “literature.” They both had straight hair and baggy-looking clothes, and it appeared that they were doing their level best to look as ugly as possible, even though they were both not really that bad. I knew the type. Most of the GI’s were ignoring them, and the two kids looked a little desperate.
    â€œHere, soldier,” the short one said, mistaking my look of sympathy for interest. She thrust a leaflet into my hand. I glanced at it. It informed me that I was engaged in an immoral war and that decent people looked upon me as a swaggering bully with bloody hands. Further, it told me that if I wanted to desert, there were people who were willing to help me get out of the country.
    â€œInteresting,” I said, handing it back to her.
    â€œWhat’s the matter?” she sneered. “Afraid an MP might catch you with it?”
    â€œNot particularly,” I said.
    â€œForget him Clydine,” the other one said. That stopped me.
    â€œIs that really your name?” I asked the little one.
    â€œSo what?”
    â€œI’ve just never met anybody named Clydine before.”
    â€œIs anything wrong with it?” she demanded. She was very short, and she glared up at me belligerently. “I’m not here for a pickup, fella.”
    â€œNeither am I, girlie,” I told her. I dislike being called “fella.” I always have.
    â€œThen you approve of what the government’s doing in Vietnam?” She got right to the point, old Clydine. No sidetracks for her.
    â€œThey didn’t ask me.”
    â€œWhy don’t you desert then?”
    Her chum pitched in, too. “Don’t you want to get out of the country?”
    â€œI’ve just been out of the country,” I objected.
    â€œWe’re just wasting our time on this one,