Free Lucky Bastard by Charles McCarry

is asking.”
    â€œI know what Cindy’s asking. But I won’t do it. I’m under orders. I’m going to Vietnam, and I want my country to win the war. I do, folks, I do. So let’s drink, dance, and be merry, for tomorrow I’ll be a mass murderer.”
    The band was playing a slow tune. Danny pulled Cindy onto the dance floor. She wept as they danced. Watching them—Danny gazing down into Cindy’s sad face, Cindy smiling back—Jack felt a sob forming in his chest. By the time they came back to the table, he was wiping away tears.
    Jack said, “Danny, listen. I wish I could go with you.”
    Danny gazed at him, wide-eyed. “No shit, Jack, do you? You want to go to war?”
    â€œIn a sense, yes.”
    Danny was grinning, that carefree smile that made Cindy’s heart turn over. “But you’re fighting temptation?” he said. “Jack, I know you. You wouldn’t go to war if the other side was an all-girl orchestra.”
    The tension broke. Jack laughed. “Don’t be so sure about that.”
    â€œThe question is, does it work both ways? I don’t care how many Communists you fuck, but will you still love me if I kill one?”
    Jack said, “Danny, cut it out.”
    â€œNo, you two started this. Let’s let it all hang out. The difference between you and me is simple: You’re afraid of getting hurt. You’ve been that way all your life. Isn’t that right?”
    Jack looked to Cindy, as if for help. She returned his look with a cold stare. But she intervened. “Danny,” she said, “the subject of this conversation isn’t Jack. It’s you and me. If I could, I’d hide you in the attic till the war’s over.”
    â€œI know,” Danny said. “That’s because you just don’t get it, Cindy. There is no choice.”
    â€œBut, Danny, there is a choice. You don’t have to do this. Jack isn’t doing it.”
    â€œI’m not Jack. I love Jack, no shit. I do, I always have. But I know him. Jack, you’re a coward.”
    Cindy said, “Come on, Danny. Cowardice isn’t the subject under discussion.”
    â€œIt’s not? What is—good old common sense?”
    â€œYes, for Christ’s sake!”
    Jack was fascinated. He said, “Wait. Let him finish.”
    â€œThank you,” Danny said. “To continue, Jack is yellow. He always has been. We all know it. Me especially. I’ve been fighting his battles all his life. But Jack can’t help that. He was born the way he is, smart as a whip, backbone like a noodle. Me, I’m good at sports, fast as a striped-ass deer, brave as a fucking lion. Dumb as a stone. I’ll crash into anything—three hundred pounds of doped-up motherfucker in football pads, stone wall, chain saw, doesn’t matter. I don’t give a shit about physical danger. I never have.”
    â€œMachine gunners and defensive linemen aren’t the same thing,” Cindy said.
    â€œTo me they are. I can’t help that. I was born that way. Just like Jack was born the way he is. Get the point?”
    â€œNo,” Cindy said.
    â€œThen good luck to you both.”
    The blind tenor was singing “Good Night, Ladies.”
    Danny said, “One more boilermaker.”
    Danny sank his shot glass into the beer, steelworker style, and drank. In the singer’s mirrored sunglasses, Cindy saw Danny’s reflected image, drinking from his glass with one hand while playfully mussing up Jack’s hair with the other.
    The two boys were looking into each other’s eyes, smiling faintly, as if they knew something that no one else could ever know. Cindy realized that she was out of the picture, that she had no place in this moment. These two really did love each other, and Jack was just as afraid of losing Danny as she was, and for the same reason: Danny was his other half. Nothing could possibly be the same