Dear Life

hunched over books and shuffled dutifully between one classroom and another were now transformed. In army uniforms they looked twice the size they had been, and their bootsmade a powerful racket as they galloped around. They were shouting out that school was cancelled for the day, because everybody had to join the war. They were distributing cigarettes everywhere, tossing them on the floor where they could be picked up by boys who didn’t even shave.
    Careless warriors, whooping invaders. Drunk up to their eyeballs.
    “I’m no piker,” was what they were yelling.
    The principal was trying to order them out. But because this was still early in the war and there was as yet some awe and special respect concerning the boys who had signed up, he was not able to show the ruthlessness he would have called upon a year later.
    “Now now,” he said.
    “I’m no piker,” Billy Watts told him.
    Jackson had his mouth open probably to say the same, but at that moment his eyes met the eyes of Ileane Bishop and a certain piece of knowledge passed between them.
    Ileane Bishop understood that Jackson was truly drunk but that the effect of this was to enable him to play drunk, therefore the drunkenness displayed could be managed. (Billy Watts was just drunk, through and through.) With this understanding Ileane walked down the stairs, smiling, and accepted a cigarette which she held unlit between her fingers. She linked arms with both heroes and marched them out of the school.
    Once outside they lit up their cigarettes.
    There was a conflict of opinion about this later, in Ileane’s father’s congregation. Some said Ileane had not actually smoked hers, just pretended, to pacify the boys, while otherssaid she certainly had. Smoked. Their minister’s daughter. Smoked.
    Billy did put his arms around Ileane and tried to kiss her, but he stumbled and sat down on the school steps and crowed like a rooster.
    Within two years he would be dead.
    Meanwhile he had to be got home, and Jackson pulled him so that they could get his arms over their shoulders and drag him along. Fortunately his house was not far from the school. They left him there, passed out on the steps. Then they entered into a conversation.
    Jackson did not want to go home. Why not? Because his stepmother was there, he said. He hated his stepmother. Why? No reason.
    Ileane knew that his mother had died in a car accident when he was very small—this was sometimes mentioned to account for his shyness. She thought that the drink was probably making him exaggerate, but she didn’t try to make him talk about it any further.
    “Okay,” she said. “You can stay at my place.”
    It just happened that Ileane’s mother was away, looking after Ileane’s sick grandmother. Ileane was at the time keeping house in a haphazard style for her father and her two younger brothers. This was unfortunate in some opinions. Not that her mother would have made a fuss, but she would have wanted to know the ins and outs, and who was this boy? At the very least she would have made Ileane go to school as usual.
    A soldier and a girl, suddenly so close. Where there had been nothing all this time but logarithms and declensions.
    Ileane’s father didn’t pay attention to them. He was more interested in the war than some of his parishioners thoughta minister should be, and this made him proud to have a soldier in the house. Also he was unhappy not to be able to send his daughter to college. He had to save up to send her brothers there some day, they would have to earn a living. That made him go easy on Ileane whatever she did.
    Jackson and Ileane didn’t go to the movies. They didn’t go to the dance hall. They went for walks, in any weather and often after dark. Sometimes they went into the restaurant and drank coffee, but did not try to be friendly to anybody. What was the matter with them, were they falling in love? When they were walking they might brush hands, and he made himself get used to that. Then when she changed the accidental to the deliberate, he found that he could get used to that also, overcoming a slight dismay.
    He grew calmer, and was even prepared for kissing.
    Ileane went by herself to Jackson’s house to collect his bag. His stepmother showed her bright false teeth and tried to look as if she was ready for some fun.
    She asked what they were up to.
    “You better watch that stuff,” she said.
    She had a reputation for being a loudmouth. A dirty mouth,