“Come on, let’s go,” the second cop said to his partner—the one who’d asked us if we knew Lucy. It was clear they weren’t going to find the girl, nor would they try very hard to look for her.

“Never mind—thanks,” the first cop curtly said to us. Then they moved on; we didn’t watch where the cops went next, as if Lucy were still instructing us not to look at them.

Five years later, Mr. Barlow would be living in New York City. One day, I would try living there, too. But that Sunday in 1968, we were both beginners in Penn Station. On the station platform, we didn’t know which train car we belonged in; one of the conductors had to show us where to board.

Then there was the awkwardness of all my luggage, from Austria—the giant duffel bag with my winter clothes, and the two heavy backpacks with my writing notebooks. When the well-built young man in the business suit spoke to me, the snowshoer and I were laughing. Mr. Barlow had been teasing me about the Canadian stickers I’d plastered both backpacks and my duffel bag with. If you were an American in Europe at that time, you knew you would be better treated by the Europeans if they thought you were Canadian. The Vietnam War was increasingly unpopular in Europe, if not yet as unpopular in the United States. “I hope you’re an actual Canadian,” the fit-looking young businessman said to me. The snowshoer and I were struggling to lift my giant duffel bag onboard the train. “Or are you just another fucking draft dodger?” the business guy asked me.

The bully patriotism was somewhat new then, or it seemed more surprising. I was taken aback by how well dressed the guy was, more than by his aggressiveness. The snowshoer, standing on the station platform, just bent both knees and shoved the duffel bag up to me; the bag drove me backward on the landing between the coupled cars of the train. Mr. Barlow’s small bag and one of my heavy backpacks were already aboard.

“I’m talking to you, pal,” the business guy said, pointing at me.

“He’s not your pal—he’s my pal,” the little English teacher told him politely but firmly.

Where the snowshoer was standing on the station platform, he blocked me from getting off the train—he also blocked the businessman from climbing onboard. “Get out of the way, you flaming fag,” the fit young man said, pushing Elliot out of his way. I just stood there, on the landing between the coupled cars. Not everyone is cut out to be the good shepherd Lieutenant Matthew Zimmermann was, I was thinking.