Authors: Lynn Austin
“Gee, thanks. I feel better already,” he said, squeezing my hand.
“Sorry. This is hard for me too. We’re in this together, you know—Canada or bust.” I glanced around to see if the housemother was watching, then gave him a quick kiss. “What is the cutoff number again?” I asked.
“The magic number is 195. If they assign me a number lower than that, I’ll have to leave for Canada before I’m drafted. If my number is higher than 195, chances are I won’t be drafted and we can go to graduate school next year like we planned.”
I saw my roommate and her boyfriend enter the lounge, and I waved them over to sit on the floor near Jeff and me. We listened as all the other couples who had gathered around the television set discussed their options.
“I heard that we’d be better off enlisting if we get a low number,” someone said, “rather than waiting to be drafted. At least you can pick your own service branch.”
“I think I’ll audition for one of the military bands,” my roommate’s boyfriend said. “If I practice my horn day and night, I could probably get in.”
“Do you suppose going to jail is worse than going to ’Nam?” someone else asked.
“Not too many people die in jail,” came the grim answer. “Thousands are dying in ’Nam.”
“Listen, you’d all be better off in Canada,” Jeff said. “I have friends up there already. They say it’s not too bad.”
“Hey, shut up, everybody!
It’s
starting!”
The laughing and joking turned to eerie silence as we watched Congressman Alexander Pirine of the House Armed Services Committee reach into the jar to draw the first birthday—September 14.
“No!” my roommate’s boyfriend cried out. “Not the very first one!” He sprang to his feet and stumbled blindly out of the lounge, heedless of the people he stepped on. My roommate followed him, weeping.
“This is worse than torture,” Jeff mumbled. I clung to him, my stomach churning.
When they drew number 20 and said “June—” my heart stopped beating until they said “—four.” June fourth, not eighth. Jeff and I held our breath and each other as the numbers slowly climbed toward 195. Sweat poured off of him, soaking the back of his T-shirt, while I sat in the same room and shivered. From time to time, one of the other students watching with us would
groan or cry out as his birthday was called. The lounge slowly cleared, the lucky ones, like us, left behind to wait.
A long time later, the lottery finally reached number 194. They still hadn’t drawn Jeff’s birthday.
“What a cruel twist of fate it would be if you’re called now after making it this far,” I said. “I can’t watch.” I closed my eyes and buried my face in his chest, waiting for number 195.
“September 24,” I heard the announcer say. I went limp. Jeff was probably out of danger.
“Well, maybe we won’t have to move to Canada after all,” he said shakily. I lifted my face and kissed him, more relieved than he would ever know. With each successive number after that, I felt Jeff’s body relax a little more. By the time they called number 300—March 12—he was actually smiling.
Jeff’s birthday—June 8—was the very last one called. In the order of induction for the year 1970, he would be number 366.
“I guess we won’t need those down parkas and snowshoes after all,” he said, grinning.
Now that the fear of going to Vietnam or Canada had been removed, Jeff and I applied to the same state university for graduate studies. It had excellent programs in both journalism and art. We were both accepted. We would have to wait two more years before we could be married, but at least we would be together during that time.
I was in my room studying one afternoon when I heard the roar of Jeff’s Volkswagen below my window. He couldn’t afford a new exhaust system, so the sound was unmistakable. I abandoned my Shakespeare notes and ran downstairs to greet him.
“You’re not going to believe this!” he said, waving a sheet of paper. “I was one of only two students, nationwide, selected to study at the American Art Institute under the world-renowned artist Jacob Krantz.”
“The Art Institute? In New York City?”
“The
world famous
Art Institute!” he said, laughing. He lifted me off the ground and swung me around in a circle, the way the handsome hero always did in the movies.
“You have to accept it, Jeff,” I said when I could stop laughing. “It’s the opportunity of a lifetime!”
We were creating a scene in the lounge. Jeff took my hand and led me
outside. We climbed into the front seat of his car so we would have a small measure of privacy. “I know it’s an incredible opportunity,” Jeff said, “but you’ll be in graduate school hundreds of miles away. You’re my inspiration, Irish. I can’t paint without you. I can’t even eat or breathe without you.” He leaned across the gearshift and nuzzled my neck, not caring who walked by and saw him.
I stared out at the bustle of students hurrying to and from classes and felt empty inside at the thought of going through the grueling routine of graduate school without Jeff. I needed him too.
“Let’s get married this summer. I want to go to New York with you. I want to wake up beside you every morning.”
He rolled back to his own side of the car and stared at me, his face somber. “I can’t ask you to give up graduate school.”
“You’re not asking me, I’m volunteering. I can wait two more years for school. I can’t wait two more years for you.”
“What about your parents? Your father doesn’t want you to marry me.”
I smiled. “I have a secret weapon—Grandma. She’ll fight Daddy for us. She already told me she would.”
“But your father won’t pay for your Master’s degree if we’re married and-”
“Jeff, I don’t care! Aren’t you listening to me, you crazy hippie? You’re more important to me than graduate school!” Jeff looked at me as though I had just offered to die for him. I began to laugh. “Oh, wow! I can’t believe what I’m saying! This is the reason I broke up with Bradley Wallace!”
“You’re really serious, aren’t you?” Jeff wasn’t laughing. “You’d really lay aside your education and your career to support me?”
I kissed the palm of his hand. “Yeah. I really would.”
“I love you, Irish! I can’t believe how much I love you!” He pulled me into his arms and hugged me so hard I yelped. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise,” he said. “I’ll make sure you get your journalism degree if I have to rob a bank to do it!”
“I believe you would, but let’s try applying for a student loan first.” With that hurdle crossed, my next challenge was confronting my parents. Having Grandma on my side gave me the courage I needed. I waited until graduation day later that spring. Then with Jeff beside me, still wearing our caps and gowns and clutching our brand-new diplomas, I blurted the news.
“Mom, Daddy, Grandma . . . Jeff and I are going to be married this summer.”
“But . . . but what about graduate school?” Mom asked.
“I meant what I said about not paying,” Daddy said. “The day you marry him or anyone else, you become your husband’s responsibility, not mine. That’s why you’d better think twice about this. Finish your schooling first.”
“We’re not waiting,” I said. “Jeff has the chance of a lifetime to study at the Art Institute under Jacob Krantz. I’m going to New York with him.”
“Are you pregnant?” Daddy asked with his customary tact.
“No, Daddy, I’m not pregnant. You can give me the rabbit test yourself if you don’t believe me.”
“Well, don’t just stand there, Gracie,” Grandma Emma said, “give them your blessing!” She gave me a big hug first, then kissed Jeff on both cheeks. “What a handsome groom you’ll make!” My parents didn’t move. They might have been carved from wax.
“Listen,” I told them, sounding braver than I felt, “you can either celebrate with us or disown us. But either way, we
are
getting married this summer.”
“I can’t say that I’m pleased,” Daddy finally said, “but I can see that it’s useless to argue with you. You’ve been stubborn all your life, Suzanne.”
The economic and cultural gaps between our two families turned our wedding into a balancing act. The reception had to be classy enough for my parents and their wealthy friends without overwhelming Jeff’s family, who could barely afford to travel from Pittsburgh, much less rent tuxedos. Once again, Grandma Emma saved the day. Whenever Mom started to get carried away with plans for an elaborate reception, I called Grandma on the telephone and cried, “Help!”
“Have you forgotten how poor we once were, Gracie?” she told Mom. “You’ve got to keep things in perspective, dear. Do you want that sweet young man’s parents to think you’re a snob?”
“You’re right, Mother,” she finally agreed. “I suppose the Pulaskis would be more comfortable with an afternoon reception on the country club lawn than with a candlelight dinner and a string quartet.”
Grandma arrived the weekend before the wedding to attend my bridal shower. From the moment she walked through the door until the big day finally arrived, she lectured Daddy relentlessly about social prejudice and young love—at the dinner table, in his study, when he tried to watch a golf tournament on TV—until even I began to feel sorry for him. “All right, Emma, all right,” he said, waving his white handkerchief in surrender. “I admit I was once young and in love with a pauper too. I promise I’ll be on my best behavior.”
At the rehearsal dinner, Grandma sat at the Pulaskis’ table, singing songs in German and Polish. Jeff’s father swore his undying adoration for her. “That settles it, Emma,” he said when the evening finally came to a close. “You’re coming back to Pittsburgh with us!”
But Grandma’s
coup d’etat
came at the reception when she somehow got steelworkers and surgeons to mingle on the country club lawn. She punched holes in all the socialites’ pretensions, entertaining them with racy stories about rum-running during Prohibition. The hospital administrator’s wife wanted to sign Grandma up to entertain guests at her next dinner party. “I’m having some people over next week, Mrs. Bauer. I wonder if you would be free to come?”
After Grandma taught the country club’s band to play the “Beer Barrel Polka,” none of the guests wanted to go home. “We’re playing for another wedding next weekend,” the bandleader said. “Come back and join us, Emma.”
As Jeff and I prepared to leave on our honeymoon in the Poconos, we didn’t know how to thank her. “You did it, Suzy! You defied them all and got married!” Grandma’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Seeing you two together is all the thanks I need. I only wish . . . I wish that Patrick and I had been as courageous as you two. We could have made it work.”
Jeff and I climbed into his Volkswagen and drove away, trailing a string of tin cans. I was Mrs. Jeffrey Pulaski at last, the happiest woman in the world.
Jeff may have won a full scholarship to art school, but the cost of living in New York City was outrageously high. I couldn’t even consider going to school part time because we needed my full-time income to live. I took a job as a receptionist at the Art Institute so we could commute from our apartment together and meet for lunch once in a while. We were poor—starving-artist poor—but so deeply in love with each other that we didn’t care. The only piece of furniture we needed in our two-room apartment was a bed.
I loved watching Jeff create. I joined him in his studio after I finished work each day, bringing him deli sandwiches or Chinese food or sometimes a pizza. He made a glorious mess while he worked, flinging paint on the canvas with wild abandon. When he finished a piece, he would be both exhausted and elated. I would fill our ancient, claw-footed bathtub with water and scrub him clean, tenderly wiping the paint splatters from his face and beard with paint thinner.
Jeff excelled in his studies. Several of his pieces won awards. But when I saw price tags on his paintings at his gallery showing, I wept. “You can’t sell these, Jeff! They’re your children! How can you sell your children?”
“In the first place,” he said, wiping my tears with his shirttail, “those price tags are wishful thinking. I probably won’t sell any of them. And in the second place, we could use the money. If by some miracle they do sell, I can always paint more, you know.”
“I’ll bet you a week of kitchen duty that they all sell,” I said, pouting.
“And I’ll bet you two weeks of kitchen duty that they don’t!”
We never decided who had won the bet because, much to our astonishment, all but one of Jeff’s paintings sold—and that one hadn’t been for sale. It was a picture of me, asleep in the chair in the art studio. He had worked on it all night in secret, then surprised me with it for our anniversary. “I’ll never sell this painting,” he said. “It reminds me of how you waited for me, how much you gave up for me.” He entitled it
The Sacrifice.
Jeff’s paintings earned good reviews from the critics as “an artist to watch.” I was proud to be Mrs. Jeff Pulaski. His two years of study flew by quickly.
One month before Jeff graduated, I was home alone on a Saturday morning when someone knocked on our door. When I answered it, I barely recognized the man who stood there. Jeff had cut his long wavy hair well above his shoulders and combed it off of his forehead. He had trimmed his beard short too.
“Oh, Jeff!”
“You don’t like it?”
“You look so . . . so different. Is it really you?”
“Come here and kiss me, and find out.” He pulled me to him. It was definitelyJeff.
“Where did you get the sport coat?” I asked when I had a chance to look him over. “The only other time I’ve seen you in a coat and tie was at our wedding.”
“I borrowed it from a friend.”
“Was his name Bradley Wallace?”
“Ouch! That hurts! I did this for you, you know.”
“For me? But I loved your hair the way it was.” I tried to grab on to it like I used to, but there was barely enough to grip.
“Yes, for you.” He turned in a circle, like a fashion model on a runway. “Recruiters for all the big-name advertising agencies will be on campus Monday. I’m just trying to look respectable for my job interviews . . . Why on earth are you crying?”
You’re giving up part of yourself . . . for me!”
“It seems only fair. You gave up graduate school and all your father’s money for me.” He let me cry on his shoulder for a minute, then said, “Careful, don’t get the tie wet. It’s borrowed too.” I laughed and cried at the same time.