10.

When Charlie got the Saxon he was more surprised than anybody. He hadn’t even wanted to apply. His thesis advisor had cheerfully told him that Part One could not only get him a Saxon, but if submitted with the proper recommendations, could get him a scholarship to Iowa’s writing program, the most prestigious in the country. “Paul Engel will love it,” Dr. Wilner said. Charlie knew that Part One wasn’t ready. It had all the people and all the stuff, but it was crude as hell and irritated Charlie every time he read it over. Part One had taken him years to get on paper, even in its roughest form, and now, after all his teachers and friends had worked it over, it still irritated him. It was not good.

But a long time ago, when he had first decided to become a writer, he sat down and thought about the various ways to go. He could just start writing. Put down his experiences and what he thought about them. That was what had gotten him into this in the first place: the things he had seen. The way they made him feel. Or another way to go would be to sit down and doggedly read through all the war novels and see what had already been done. The drawback being that he might end up imitating the other war writers, and that was not what he wanted to do. Hell, he wanted to write the Moby Dick of war. Or at least try. The third option was to get a college degree, though he had not graduated from high school. Just learn what they could teach. He did have a GED certificate, given him by the army when they thought they were going to make him into an officer, so he could get into some college that didn’t have too high standards. He ended up doing all three.

Funny how things happen, though. Here was this ten-thousand-dollar gift, the same amount the army would have paid his father if he’d been killed. All he had to do for it was finish his novel, which he intended to do anyway. But here he was, unexpectedly in love with a girl who was unexpectedly pregnant. Just at the exact moment in history when he could afford to get married. He could even afford to quit parking for El Miranda and settle down to full-time writing and reading.

He had read all the war novels he could stand, just to find out what was left for him to say, from The Gallery, by John Horne Burns, and Guard of Honor, by James Gould Cozzens, all the way to War and Peace, by Guess Who. He read Hemingway and Dos Passos and Mailer and Jones. He read The Red Badge of Courage. They all had two things in common. They were great books and great writers, all far beyond anything Charlie Monel could do even if he spent the rest of his life writing. Two lives. Especially that fucking Tolstoy, who almost made it worth Charlie’s while to commit suicide. You want to talk about your Moby Dick of war, Jesus . . .

The only thing left for Charlie, should he decide to continue his meaningless career, was to say what went on in Korea and Japan while he had been there. What had happened in Kim Song. What his fellow POWs had been like. What he had been like. That stuff was left to him. Otherwise he would have quit long ago.

Now the only problem he faced was talking Jaime into getting married. He’d fallen in love a fraction of a second after he first saw her, he decided. It wasn’t quite love at first sight. But she was acting skittish, one minute ready to spend her life with Charlie, the next minute wanting to go off somewhere by herself. She was perfect for him. She was much better looking than he had any right to expect, and she was smarter, funnier, and a far better writer than Charlie. They could live together and raise their children and she could teach him to write as well as she did, while he taught her to jump out there a little more in her writing. And he could protect her from the harsher forms of reality. She shouldn’t work. Work, being a waitress or something, would break her down. She’d been talking about running off to a small town and getting a menial job, so that her writing would take on more reality. Charlie doubted it. There was nothing wonderful about working at a menial job. The wonderful part of his working day, like any working stiff’s, was getting off work. She romanticized work the same way she romanticized writing. Of course so did he, but in a different way.

When Charlie told Jaime about the Saxon Award she seemed to take it well, not getting too excited, giving him a nice kiss and telling him that he of all of them deserved it.

“Really?” he asked. “Why?” He wanted to know.

“Because you have such promise.”

They were side by side in The Coffee Gallery, drinking beer. It was a Saturday afternoon and the place was filling with tourists, not ordinary tourists but low-lifes, motorcycle types, bad-guy types. He didn’t like these new people who were jamming North Beach. They drove up the rents and filled all the good bars.

“How long could we live on ten thousand dollars?” Jaime asked.

“Oh, two, three years,” he said.

“You’re such a monk,” she said. “But you’re going to Iowa, aren’t you?”

That was the question. Should he go ahead and apply for that greased-up scholarship? Did he want to arrive in Iowa City with a pregnant wife? Did Jaime want to transfer to Iowa? Could she get into their undergraduate program? Was he willing to leave her behind? He imagined sitting in a snowbound dorm in the middle of nowhere, getting a letter from Jaime where she tells him about going to Tijuana for an abortion. It made him shiver. If she’d do that, she didn’t really love him. He didn’t know why he felt this way, but he did.

“You wouldn’t get a fucking abortion, would you?” he asked her. There was a table of guys next to her. A big black character in a sleeveless tee with a big chromed length of chain over his shoulder was grinning at his remark. Every time he and Jaime had a private moment, some asshole interfered. He glared at the guy, who smirked insolently. They could have been out in the street in about twelve seconds, but instead Charlie smiled and said, “Have a beer!” He signed the waiter for rounds for both tables.

“No,” said Jaime.

“No what?”

“No, I won’t get an abortion.”

He moved his head down closer to hers. “Then let’s get fucking married.”

“Let’s get fucking married,” she mocked. He didn’t like her swearing, but since it was him that taught her, what could he say?

“If we get married, I won’t go to Iowa,” he said. “We can get a place here in North Beach and live on my grant and write.”

“Sounds like heaven,” she said. Something was wrong. She loved him. He knew it. Or hoped he knew it. But she was holding back. She had him by the nuts, of course. She knew he’d do anything she asked. So, what the hell.

“What’s bothering you?” he asked. He inwardly cringed, waiting for something awful. But after draining her glass of beer she burped gently, excused herself and said, “My mom. If I move in with you, she’s all alone.” She squeezed his hand. “I could keep living with my mom and have the baby while you went to Iowa.”

“Fuck that noise,” he said. “Your mother can live with us.”

“No, she can’t,” Jaime said sadly. “My mother’s a drunk.”