But not no more. To the gooks this war ain’t about communism. If all you been doing for a thousand years is grow rice, what does it matter if your country is democratic or communist? They’re fighting to protect their country from imperialist invaders. And guess what? THAT’S US.

So that’s where it’s at. The gooks hate us here and folks hate us back home. If that ain’t the worst feeling in the world, then I don’t know what is. That’s when you start thinking why bother with a toe or a butt cheek? Why not suck the muzzle and get it over with?

Sorry to lay that on you, man. Don’t worry. I am OK most of the time. I’m glad I got you to write to because I sure can’t write about it to no one else. Be good, Loogs. MAKE SURE YOU DON’T GET DRAFTED AND SENT TO THIS HELL HOLE. And write back soon. OK?

Peace, brother,

Chris

Oh, man. I can’t tell him Goddard rejected me. He’s already got more than enough crap to deal with.

Chris nicknamed me Loogie one afternoon when we were out behind the shed. He’d taken a big hit off a joint and started coughing his guts out. “Gotta hock this loogie, man,” he wheezed, then cleared his throat and spit out a huge wad of gray-and-yellow phlegm.

I burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“What you said. What was it? Hawk a loogie?”

“Hock, not hawk.” He looked surprised. “You never heard that before?”

“Don’t give me that. You just made it up.”

“The hell I did.” Chris laughed. “Man’s been hocking loogies ever since . . . since . . . there was loogies to hock.”

“Bull.”

“Bull, my ass. What rock you been hiding under? From now on I’m calling you Loogie.” Even though he’d just hacked his brains out, he took another deep hit off the J.

And started coughing every bit as hard as before.

“You okay?” I asked, not so much because he was coughing (he’d told me about his mild asthma), but because he was taking such deep hits. It was the kind of thing you did when you wanted to get seriously wasted, and we still had to go back inside and work.

Chris pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. On the letterhead was the round Selective Service System emblem with the bald eagle clasping arrows in one claw and the branch of a holly bush in the other.

“There are ways to get out of this, man,” I said. “I mean, all you have to do is go back to high school.”

“That ain’t the problem.” Chris hadn’t stopped wheezing. “They may not want me.”