Read Linger for Free Online Page A

are going to find them very real, unless you get more interested in what’s going on.”
    “I’m interested,” I said. “I did a paper on those babies the Iraqis let die on the hospital floor, remember?”
    “I’m trying to forget that paper.”
    “Because it gave a reason for us getting involved there?” He’d given me a D minus.
    “Because it was copied almost word for word from a newspaper—a., and b., it was unsubstantiated, maudlin, and manipulative.”
    “What about FEEL FOR OTHER PEOPLE ?”
    He said, “Gary, every war has these reports of babies being pulled from their mothers’ arms, or stuck with bayonets or left to starve, or some damn thing. That’s manipulation. Women and children on both sides suffer during a war. But I want your attention focused on the issues, not the histrionics.”
    “You want all for oil,” I said.
    “Or find something that says it isn’t. You could argue that Hussein is developing nuclear power. He probably is. You could argue for Israel. Or you could argue that if we don’t defang Iraq and liberate Kuwait, we’re going to be in for a much bigger war someday. Get me thinking, not crying in my beer over dying babies.”
    That weekend I went to see The Sheltering Sky anyway. Berryville, on a Saturday night in January, has two offerings: the movie, or bowling at Knock ’Em Down.
    Linger was closed two weeks for painting and repair, and Mom and Dad had gone to Sarasota, Florida, where her folks were.
    The Dunlingers were taking off the next day for St. Bart’s.
    I figured Lynn was back at Faith Academy.
    Some guys and I loaded up on popcorn, Coke, giant-sized Butterfingers, and boxes of little Milky Ways, planning on having our dinner in Cinema One.
    We liked to sit practically in the front row and we were heading down there when Fred Schwartz said, “Mr. Raleigh’s in the back row, d’you see him?”
    “Mr. Give-Peace-a-Chance,” Ollie Burns said.
    “Give carrots a chance,” Dave Leonard said.
    “All we are saying,” we all sang, “is give peas a chance.”
    I glanced over my shoulder and saw him sitting back there. I gave him a little salute and he winked back.
    It was a boring movie set in the desert, and it made me miss Bobby, remembering he wrote us the desert sand got into everything…. At one point Ollie Burns came back from the bathroom and said, “I just saw your sweetheart, Lynn Dunlinger, sneak in with Gloria Yee and sit down by Mr. Raleigh.”
    “ My sweetheart!” I said. (Don’t I wish.)
    “Shhhut up!” Dave Leonard whispered. He didn’t care what was up there on the big screen, he went and lived there.
    Some people behind us said, “Shhhhhhh!”
    I couldn’t resist whispering, “Lynn Dunlinger is back in school, so it wasn’t her.”
    “It was her !” Ollie Burns said.
    “Shhhhhhh!” people behind us hissed.
    I turned around and looked up at the back row.
    Gloria Yee was there, all right, but Lynn wasn’t.
    Neither was Mr. Raleigh. Not anymore.

12
    —F ROM THE JOURNAL OF Private Robert Peel
    Saudi Arabia
    Sugar says, “You never say her name. Like what’s her name, Roberto?”
    “Lynn Dunlinger. Okay? Lynn.”
    I don’t think I ever said her name to her face. I always went out of my way not to have to speak to her.
    Sugar says he has no girl and admits he is a virgin. He says he was never in one place long enough to date, thanks to his father, who dragged him with him from one country to another. He wouldn’t even send him to prep school, even though he had bucks. He’d leave Sugar alone nights in strange lands to be with women. Sugar joined up as soon as he was old enough, to get away from him. Never thought there’d be a war. The familiar refrain over here.
    I tell him about my first time, with Cheryl Sledd. What I hated most was driving home after when she said it was too fast for her to enjoy and I didn’t give her time to get in the mood. I said, “Is this a report card, Teacher?”
    “If it is, you get F plus,”