A Song Called Youth Read Online Free PDF Page B

only a matter of time and pretty soon it will escalate into a world war, and then we’ll all get killed, so I don’t know why I’m writing this, except so I can stay in school to make my Mom happy until we’re dead . . . 
    A photocopy of Barbara’s poem and essay was sent by her teacher to her school guidance counselor. On it the teacher wrote, “I am very worried about Barbara and a lot of other students who seem to have despaired of ever growing up. There is also another group of students who seem to be reacting to the danger of a wide nuclear war by sliding into a jingoism which I also find disturbing . . . ”
    They were lying in the dark, each wrapped in his black-market US Army blanket. The cardboard pallet under Smoke’s blanket was cold, slightly moist, enough to give him chills.
    Smoke said, softly, “Hard-Eyes.”
    “Yeah.”
    Sure, the guy was awake. No way he trusted Smoke yet. Lying there with his old-before-their-time eyes wide open and smoldering in the darkness.
    “Hard-Eyes, there are some who are worse than others. Some Armies.”
    “That right?”
    “Yeah, The Second Alliance.”
    “You call that an army? More like multinational MPs.”
    “Uh-uh. SA’s run by the Second Circle. You know what that is?”
    “I saw the NR leaflets. Say they’re fascists. Maybe, but no one takes them seriously. Just another gang.”
    “That’s what a fascist army is, a big gang. The SA’s the Second Circle’s army. NATO’s using them, but they’re using NATO . . . You heard about the new war front?”
    “No.” The cardboard rasped on the concrete floor—the looters had torn up the carpet—as he got up on an elbow. Hard-Eyes asked, “You been outside?” An edge of accusation. A traveler from outside the city was expected to share news, and rumors—which were indistinguishable. Survival protocol.
    “Haven’t been outside Amsterdam except once this year,” Smoke said. “I’ve been mostly over by where the port used to be. Last time I was outside I got indentured into the NATO logistics line. Supposed to’ve been a ‘civilian freight porter’ with a salary.”
    Hard-Eyes snorted.
    “But you know,” Smoke said, “we ate once a day. Guaranteed.”
    “That’s all right. Not bad. And you were behind the fighting.”
    “Except some of the camp got a dose of forty-four.”
    “Neurotoxin forty-four? I think that’s what’s wrong with Pelter. Got a dose of forty-four. He was raving, on and off, when we first found him. It shot his immune system to hell.”
    “You took in a sick guy? You don’t seem like Red Cross volunteers . . . ”
    Two-second hesitation. Then Hard-Eyes said, “Jenkins knew him. Jenkins is a little limp-dicked in some ways. And it was like taking in a sick cat, nurse the cat to health and in gratitude the little fucker gives you ringworm or something . . . You said ‘we’ a while ago. About coming into town with someone.”
    “I came in with . . . ” He almost said the name. “A guy who still has connections with the Allies. But they don’t run him.”
    “As far as you know.”
    “As far as I know,” Smoke agreed.
    They were quiet for a couple of minutes, because of a spasm of coughing from Pelter. He wheezed for a while and then it subsided. His lungs rattled when he inhaled.
    Smoke shivered and pulled his grimy army blanket more closely around his shoulders.
    “So how’s the front moving?” came Hard-Eyes, suddenly, a sharp question out of the darkness.
    “It’s moving completely out of Western Europe.”
    Silence, except for the dull patter of raindrops in the tub.
    “Did you hear me?” Smoke asked.
    “I heard some horseshit.”
    “The guy I mentioned, he got it straight from the Allied commander’s radio code officer. NATO’s leaving a skeleton force in Amsterdam, Paris, Dresden . . . They’ve pushed the Russians back, and the story is the Russians are regrouping to hold the line along their traditional borders and