Only the first four numbers were announced before CBS cut to a commercial for Norelco electric razors. I was drinking a can of Dr. Brown’s black cherry when Mudd came back on, and the camera zoomed in on the board, where the draft numbers were posted next to the birthdays.

“There you are,” Glenna said, and I heard the trembling in her voice.

“Number five,” I said.

There was something shocking about a TV image’s possessing such power over your life. Television was the kingdom of make-believe, homeland to the likes of Rocky and Bullwinkle. That colonel playing bingo with boys’ lives couldn’t possibly be real.

The phone rang in the kitchen, and Glenna got up to answer it.

“Gordo,” Glenna called out, “it’s your mom.”

I went to the kitchen and took the phone. “Hi, Ma.”

“Gordon …” Her hesitation alarmed me. I thought something had happened to my father. “Gordon, have you signed up for your classes next semester?”

So she had been watching the tube, not rushing my father to the hospital. “I haven’t finished my exams for this semester.”

“Should Dad write you a check?”

“I’m all set, Mom. I’ll register for classes in January.”

“Honey, if you need a check from Dad, let me know.”

We said good night, and I returned to the couch. Glenna looked up at me. Her eyes were wet.

“It’ll be all right,” I said.

“Drafted is not all right. The war’s not some comic-book adventure. You could get killed over there.”

“Could also get run over by a cab.”

“There’s a higher probability in Vietnam.”

“Not likely,” I said. “There are more cabs in New York.”

“Gordon, number five is no joke.”

“I still have my Two-S.”

Glenna was studying me and smiling her knockout smile, but her look was something else. There was love in her look, though it wasn’t the bubblegum variety they sang about on AM radio. This love was laden with doubt and fear.

Glenna said, “At least there’s some good news for you.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m as worried as your mother,” she said, and took off her peace-symbol earrings and tossed them on the coffee table.

Chapter 25

TWO WEEKS AFTER the lottery, I stopped by my folks’ at noon to grab some winter clothes. Luckily, my mother wasn’t home, because there it was, on the floor under the mail slot, an envelope marked SELECTIVE SERVICE SYSTEM: OFFICIAL BUSINESS.

I tore it open and read the letter: You are hereby directed to present yourself for Armed Forces Physical Examination by reporting at: armed forces examining and entrance station bldg. no. 116, Ft. Hamilton, Bklyn., N.Y.—on December 22, 1969 at 7:00 a.m.

The letter was undeniably more real than the TV colonel, and I raced out to the GTO, sped to my draft board in downtown Brooklyn, and presented the letter to the kindest-looking person I saw, an elderly lady who bore an uncanny resemblance to Mrs. Santa Claus.

“I have a student deferment,” I said. “Can they draft me?”