Chris has written about guys going crazy, guys hanging themselves. But like so many things, the atrocity of war isn’t truly real until you see it for yourself. Charles said the odds of being killed or injured were one in five, but what about the invisible wounds? How many guys come back whole yet forever broken?

Karl’s unending horror loop continues: “They tied my wrists behind my back to my ankles and left me lying on the ground for days. Burned me with cigarettes.” He pulls up his sleeve to show us the burn scars — round pink craters in the skin of his gaunt wrist. But there are also dark scabby marks inside his forearm.

“What’s with the wig?” I ask Barry later. We’re alone. Karl had been in the middle of his rap a few minutes ago, then suddenly stood up and wandered away.

“Wants to fit in. Probably just got out of the army and hasn’t had time to grow it.”

The rain collects in the branches and drips with loud plops onto the tarp over our heads. We talk about what’s been going on back on Long Island, about me working on a way to stay out of the army, about Alan going to camp. Barry and I have never shared deep confidences about our families beyond the routine, but here in the woods, in this damp, strange atmosphere that feels so disconnected from everyday life, I tell him that my father asked me how I’d feel if he divorced my mother.

Hippies and freaks tromp past, hair plastered to their heads, clothes soaked. A baby cries somewhere in the clammy mist. Barry takes a drag off a Camel. “About time.”

“What makes you say that?”

“He’s been messing around forever. You think your mom never told my mom?”

“And your mom told you?” I ask, surprised.

“Come on, man, all you had to do was be in a room with them to see how much they can’t stand each other. I mean, separate bedrooms? If it wasn’t for Alan, he would have been out of there years ago. Couldn’t you see that?”

What I saw was Mom’s stoic silence and Musclini’s anger. Was I wrong about where that anger came from? Was it not from the frustrations of business as much as the crappy state of their marriage?

“You know where it all started, right?” Barry asks.

I frown uncertainly.

“Your mom taking the baby out in the cold?”

Brett was born in December. One school of thought suggested keeping babies inside for the first six weeks. Others maintained that as long as the infant was properly clothed, taking him outside was fine. On a cold and sunny day in January, Mom bundled Brett up and took him out in the carriage. A week later, he died of pneumonia.