Will leaves to hunt for Anna May and her family somewhere along Main Street. Dad and Pete start for Hudspeth’s Barbershop. I spy them going and figure on getting Frankie and me some gumballs.
“Cherry, right?” I ask him.
“Right,” he says.
I leave him and Ma and needle my way through the crowd after them.
It’s red, white, and blue banners and flags everywhere I look: stitched into people’s clothes, on their hats, in the tiny American flags they hold and wave. There’s a man in a kilt playing a bagpipe at the corner, though why he’s doing that on the Fourth of July I don’t know.
The sidewalk fills up. The parade will start soon. I dodge out of the way of a group of kids who come running by, ice cream cones dripping in their hands. One of them crashes into a woman holding a red-and-white-striped paper bag of popcorn. That corn goes flying every which way. The kid loses his ice cream cone and starts crying as the pigeons scuttle across the pavement for the spilled corn.
Down Main Street, one of those fire engines gives a blast on its horn. A cheer goes up from the crowd. The parade is starting. I dash across the street and through that barbershop door that’s tied open by a string and into the cool dark. Right away I smell aftershave and newsprint, but it’s a moment before my sight comes back.
The barbershop is packed with men. Men smoking; men laughing. I don’t see Dad and Pete just yet. Gumball machine’s in the back, but I don’t have any change so I wander between the forest of creased trouser legs and big bellies and make my way toward the counter, looking for them.
Suddenly, I hear Dad’s voice. “Can I have everyone’s attention, please?”
Everybody’s talk dies down. I don’t see him just yet, but then a man in front of me steps aside and a hole opens up in the crowd. Through it I see Dad and Pete standing at the counter, Mr. Hudspeth leaning over his cash register behind them. Outside the shop, the first fire truck is rolling by, but nobody pays it any mind. All eyes are on my father and Pete.
“There’s something I’d like you all to know,” Dad says, putting a hand on Pete’s shoulder. “But I’m going to let my son be the one to tell you.”
I smile. Dad’s letting Pete break the news to all his friends that we beat nasty old Kemper at the council meeting. That’s just like my father. I stand on my tiptoes so I can see them better as behind me the fire truck gives a honk on its horn.
Dad looks at Pete. “Go ahead,” he says, softly. “Tell them.”
Outside, the crowd cheers for the fire engines, but it’s quiet inside that barbershop. Overhead, the ceiling fan hums, that metal cord clinking as it does its little dance.
Pete stands up straight and tall. He looks at the men and says:
“I signed up for the Marines this morning. Soon, I’ll ship out for Parris Island.”
My heart stops.
The fire engine gives a shattering blast of its horn.
“Gene’s boy enlisted!” someone cries. A cheer goes up.
Pete grins. When the men keep cheering, he waves. Dad’s hand on his shoulder tightens, and suddenly all the men move to Pete. They fall upon him, shaking his hand, clapping him on the back, tousling his hair.
I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I just stare.
Pete keeps right on smiling and shaking their hands and thanking each one of them, and now all the men are turning to Dad and they do the same to him, only they say, “Congratulations, Gene!” and “That’s three generations now!” and “Chip off the old block!”
Outside on the street, the fire trucks have rolled past. The band starts up. I hear it like I’m underwater. All I can do is stare at my brother.
Another hole opens up in that crowd, and through it, my brother sees me. For an instant, his grin slips. He calls out to me, lifts his hand to wave me over.
Next thing I know I’m running. But not to Pete. To the door and the blazing day beyond it. I burst from the shop and nearly crash into Will and Anna May. The street is packed with people, people cheering, waving, laughing. The band marches past us in perfect step.
“There you are!” Will says. “Where you—hey!”
I rush past them, into the crowd, into the bumping bodies and the heat and the noise.
There’s no need for Uncle Sam to draft Pete now. He’s signed up.
My brother is going to Vietnam.
I turn and run down the alley between the barbershop and the shoe-repair store, past dirty red bricks and crumpled balls of wax paper with mustard smears. Under a rickety fire escape I surrender to my sobbing and look back the way I’ve come. At the alley’s far end the parade streams on, topped with rippling flags on long poles, speckled with reflections of bright sun on brass instruments. The drums are beating. Kids in uniform march in step.