Chapter 17

“Kiran, women’s wars are always treacherous.”
—Ellen Stellar, Kiran: The Warrior’s Daughter

THANKSGIVING DAY was really the first day since school started that I didn’t fill with school work—or fill Francie. I made it a point to sit with Pey and watch the Thanksgiving Day parade. We munched celery and carrot sticks and laughed at the big balloons. In all my life, I could remember only two parades that seemed to mark the beginning and end of the holiday season. Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade started things and the Rose Bowl Parade ended the season. Everything between those was Christmas.

The parade coverage started at nine and dragged on till noon, but we played cards as well and Em joined us when I tried to teach Pey how to play canasta. Dad joined so we could play partners. Mom kept making appearances from the kitchen to kibitz on Pey’s hand until she finally sat down and played with her.

I looked at my family and felt tears in my eyes. I fought them back. This was so different from 1952. Back then, we had a new television and Mom, Dad, and Peyton were glued to it for the first broadcast of the parade. Dinner didn’t get finished until eight that night. Em didn’t come out of her room all day until dinner was served and then bitched all evening about having to clean the kitchen. Once Dad finally turned off the television, he went to sleep on the sofa. After deciding the parade was boring, I went outside and rode my bike all the way to Potawatomi Park and just watched the river.

In 2018, I had a family I loved and cherished. We were all involved with playing, cooking, laughing, and just being with each other. And as far as I could tell, I’d had nothing to do with it. If anything, the family was this way despite V2’s antisocial behavior. What was so different in this reality than in the one I’d left? And why was I so much happier here?

Mom was still a lousy cook, but it didn’t make a difference. When Dad cut open the turkey and blood ran out of it, he just laughed. He got a big iron skillet out, dumped some oil in it and fried slices of turkey while Em microwaved the dressing.

“I put it in when the directions said,” Mom complained. “It should have been fine!” We just laughed it off. I don’t know what Dad added in the way of seasoning while he was frying slices, but it was one of the best turkeys I’d ever tasted.

Friday morning, Mom and Em were up early and left to hit the sales. It wasn’t that they were going to clean out the stores for Christmas presents. Em’s eighteenth birthday was on the twenty-third. Mom promised to take her to all the sales as a present. I was sure she was racking up the dollars on her credit card.

They didn’t get back until nearly three o’clock in the afternoon. Pey and Dad and I had eaten all the turkey leftovers we wanted while they were gone, so we ordered a pizza for dinner. He’d slipped out and bought an ice cream cake at Bressler’s and put eighteen candles on it to serve for dessert. Once I’d started back to school, I found out that I had a pretty generous weekly allowance of thirty dollars. That was generous to me, though I found out several of my new friends at school had difficulty getting by on fifty or more. I only bought lunch in the cafeteria on Fridays and Mom didn’t make me pay for the food I packed from home on the other days. I’d been eating pretty well since I put together a grocery list of what I wanted for lunches.

All that meant that even though I wasn’t rich, I had enough money to get Em a nice birthday present. I’d shopped for it Sunday afternoon and was pretty pleased with the necklace I found. It was pretty cool. Just a gold chain but it was meant to clasp in front. The closure was two hands held together. On the simple card I gave her, I wrote, ‘Happy birthday, Em. I won’t let go either. J’. When she opened it and looked at the necklace, I was afraid that the kiss she gave me was going to incite a riot at the table.

“You two settle down. Your sister is here and that is not appropriate,” Mom said.

“Later,” Em whispered in my ear.

The other gifts were pretty elaborate. Of course, Mom had been shopping with her all day, so there was a lot of new clothes. Pey presented a certificate for a month of cleaning their room without Em’s help. And then there was one last fat letter-size envelope that had arrived in the mail that day. I saw a look of grim determination on Em’s face as she gripped the envelope and then tore it open. She sighed as she read the contents of the cover sheet and tossed it on the table.

“What’s that?” Pey asked.

“It’s my letter of induction,” Em said. “It has all the instructions on what I have to do.” What? There was a draft? Emily had been drafted?

“Don’t you even get to finish high school?” I croaked. This was apparently something everyone else knew about. I couldn’t find anything in V2’s memories that would tell me what the fuck was going on.

“Of course, I do. I have to fill out an online questionnaire within two weeks and I have to schedule my testing within thirty days. But technically, I can start service any time before my nineteenth birthday. I’ve been thinking right after Independence Day would be good. That way I’ll be out in time to start college in the fall before I turn twenty-one.”

“Two years. Wow,” I sighed. I needed to find out more about this before I let slip that I had no idea what the hell was going on. I didn’t think we were at war anyplace, though the typical blustering about who had the biggest balls was going on all the time. When did we get a draft? “Could I read your letter?” I asked.

“Sure. Don’t worry, though. You’ve got three more years before you get yours.” She handed me the letter. “How do they manage to get those to land right on the eighteenth birthday?” she continued. “The post office just isn’t that reliable. And what if my birthday had been on a holiday, like yesterday? I can’t believe how they do this. What a downer for my birthday.”

“Be thankful you weren’t in the first classes that were inducted for National Service. Since they were mandating everyone between eighteen and twenty-one complete two years’ service, there was a maximum of a six-month window for starting. I understand some people only got thirty days’ notice.”

“That was back when you were in junior high,” Mom added. “I don’t think you were aware of what was happening.”

“Oh, they made us study it,” Em said. “And it’s been featured all term in my Constitutional Government class. That’s required for all seniors and I’ve seen some of the letters others in my class have gotten. Every one of them got it right on their birthday. I was almost hoping mine would be late so I’d have something interesting to share.”

I’d half tuned out what was being said as I read Em’s induction letter.

Congratulations, Emily Marie Hopkins!

You have attained your majority with all the rights and privileges that pertain. With rights and privileges, like the right to vote, come responsibilities. Between your eighteenth and twenty-first birthdays you are required to complete two years of National Service. You must report for basic training on or before your nineteenth birthday. The information booklet enclosed will give you details of the process and options you have.

You will also find a link to the ten-minute online survey requesting your planned service start date (SSD) and schedule for your aptitude testing. At the top of this page is your personal PIN. This form must be completed no later than December 7, 2018. You must report to the Service Testing Center nearest you for aptitude testing no later than December 23, 2018. These small tasks will enable you to more successfully plan your National Service.

Should you have any questions regarding the procedure or these forms, feel free to call the Service Counseling Center. We have counselors ready to assist you and make your National Service two of the best years of your life.

Once again, congratulations!

National Service Board

“So,” Dad said, pulling out his iPhone and clicking the recorder. “Emily, what is your birthday statement this year?” Emily reached out and to both Pey’s and my hands she nodded to us and we reached for Mom and Dad. Dad laid down the phone and took Mom’s hand.

“I am eighteen sitting here with my family, whom I love to the bottom of my heart. I promise to never let go.” There were hand squeezes all around the table and Dad clicked off the recorder.

“Good.” That was all he said.

V1 had never served in the military. In fact, I’d been opposed to military service during a time that was considered ‘safe’ by comparison to wartime. I graduated from college in May of 1960 and was married the next week. By the time Kennedy was inaugurated and committed troops as advisers to Vietnam, I had my first child in my arms. Johnson did not remove the marriage and paternity deferments until 1965 and by then, I was 28 years old and beyond the draft age.

I’d always been a moderate. I decried the stupidity of both liberals and conservatives. I had, however, in my older years had many a discussion about what would be different if we had a mandatory national service for all young people. Philosophically, I agreed that it would be a good thing as long as the mandatory service wasn’t mandatory military service. The biggest drawbacks I could think of were that the rich—like always—would avoid service and have a two-year head start on their contemporaries in college and in life. And everyone with a brain would find some way to be deferred. It was always like that. The poor and disenfranchised would serve. It was never a fair procedure. But in theory, it would be a good thing and teach some of these pussy teens a little discipline and respect.

I just never considered the idea that I would have to put in my two years of National Service. Or Em. Or Pey. I needed more information. If we had a National Service that we didn’t have in V1’s world, what else had changed? I suddenly felt more foreign in this body than I had since arriving.

I couldn’t talk to anyone about this without risking exposure. How could any teen not know he had to do two years of service when he turned eighteen? But I had the Internet and decent search engines. The National Service initiative began after Pearl Harbor in 1941. Nearly ten million men had been drafted during the war and there was a move to make everyone serve whether in peace or in war. If everyone served two years, there would be two million people a year inducted, a number that had risen to over four million by 2018. There were bitter battles over things like deferments, which had been a problem even at the height of America’s patriotism. During the Cold War, an amendment to the constitution had been proposed but had languished for years having only about half the states endorsing it. But then there was 9/11. I was both relieved and saddened that this had defined so much of our contemporary history. As more people became incensed about the terrorist act, a new nationalistic fervor came about. The 28th amendment was passed by the needed two-thirds of the states in 2003. The effective date of the National Service was set as January 1, 2014, giving ten years for the powers that be to pass the necessary laws and design the program so that it didn’t fall apart when implemented.