The idea of sitting on the herringbone-pattern love seat to look down the barrel of his parents’ 

Zenith, watching his own fate play out between antennas, seemed nothing short of obscene to 

Denny—a gallows game show, auctioned bones the grand prize. He pictured dour men who 

could never be dour enough to account for what they were about to do with their Palmolive-soft hands.

Instead, Denny took a second shift at the liquor store and convinced Phil, the assistant manager 

by way of merely existing as the owner’s halfwit son-in-law, to keep the radio tuned to the new 

WPGC on the FM, rather than the news; he figured listening to the incoming bullet wasn’t all 

that better than watching it.

He called his father from the store to let him know about the extra shift, that he wouldn’t be 

home until late. He said something about needing the extra money, the Chevy stalling out, a new 

battery. It was early yet—still some strained daylight—but Denny thought he already heard a 

warble in his old man’s voice. Not so much a slurring as the hesitance that manifests right before. 

And then an even longer pause that Denny tried to translate, too, until there was a thick exhale 

over the line and a barked, “Yeah.” The voice on the other end cleared its throat, radio squelch. 

“Yeah, that makes sense. Okay.”

Denny could almost hear his father’s nod after that, his head serving as its own punctuation. He 

had the notion that it kept its momentum even after he hung up the receiver, and considered for a 

moment the man half a mile up the hill, still substantial in his way, but shaped more like a block 

than the V of his days in Okinawa—standard-issue uniform with the sleeves rolled, the top buttons 

open absolutely non-standardly. He would be standing, a little hunched, beside his recliner—for 

some unfathomable reason, his father always stood to talk on the phone, even though it sat right 

there on the end table in easy reach from his chair. It was a misplaced formality, like rising to meet 

your ghosts when they troubled to haunt you.

The little bells over the door rang, and then again. Most customers greeted Denny and made their 

purchases with the usual small talk; only a handful stole a deeper gaze, verged on saying something 

heavier. A liquor store like this, settled near the edge of a neighborhood that hadn’t changed all that 

much in twenty years, didn’t make its money off of folks passing through. It was the regulars who 

needed to refresh their cabinets and fridges around here. And maybe it was the familiarity itself 

that kept most from asking the obvious question, or even doing the math. Or maybe regulars 

are just good at small talk, and not making too much eye contact. Like families.

Maybe that’s how you get to stay a regular.

The store was empty by the time the show was supposed to start. The lack of business didn’t

mean that much to Denny—it’s not like he worked on commission—but the slowdown freed 

his mind to wander right into the wall of obsession, which defeated the real purpose of the 

extra shift. Best laid plans and all that.

Big windows ran the length of the storefront and looked out over the main drag that ran 

parallel—it too was mostly empty. Not that it was normally Times Square on a chilly Monday 

night, but it was eerie anyway, the complete silence, save for the scratchy transistor, which didn’t 

so much fight against that silence as emphasize it. Denny figured that, the same way you can be 

lonely in a crowd, a radio playing can be more silent than the silence itself.

Night had long since fallen already, near as this half of the world was to its shortest day, but with 

the quiet and the gloom riding his brain sidesaddle, even the dark looked darker than normal. It 

seemed solid, flat, like a big piece of paneling beyond the wispy reflections caught in the store glass. 

More substantial than just air—a bunching, a gripping of inky canvas collapsing on itself and 

conspiring with his anxiety to mirror the effect in his own chest. A black hole, denser than dense.

He tried and failed to busy himself—mindless work by definition didn’t offer much in the quieting-of-the-mind 

department. He did it anyway. He broke down boxes, took out the quarter-full trash. He lined 

bottles up, dusted off the expensive ones that sat sentry along the top shelf.

The only break was that Phil had the good sense—or absolute indifference—to not pester him about 

any of it. The man didn’t even emerge from the back office for the better part of an hour, maybe more. 

And it couldn’t have been about him or his, either—Phil’s kids were still little yet, and he had no 

figurative—or literal—skin in this particular game of chance. For all Denny knew, the assistant 

manager was back there jerking off on the other side of the particle board door. Which was just 

as well, because frankly he would have rather stood there and watched Phil whale on his own 

pecker, his magnificent combover flapping in the air, than have to suffer through the man’s 

rapid-fire, half-baked interrogation, his questions generated not so much to edify himself 

on the topic at hand or, God forbid, move toward understanding somebody else’s perspective, 

but just to hear his own nasal whine and entertain his delusion of being an undiscovered Uncle 

Walter. “There’s nothing that old asshole can do that I can’t,” the nitwit once had the balls to 

announce on the sales floor, Denny remembered; he had just nodded along then, not in agreement 

with the sentiment, but because he knew that if Cronkite literally did nothing, it would be a more 

and better nothing than any misfired intellectual shot across the hackneyed brain of Philip J. Hinkler.

The little bells over the front door rang again and Denny found himself back in the present. 

Back sweeping the already-swept floor of the liquor store and startled by the red-rimmed eyes 

of Mr. McCallister from 71st Avenue. It was the man’s second visit of the day; Denny had already 

sold him a twelve pack back at the traditional quitting time.

Fear—the real kind, Denny conceded—slithers as contagious as hellfire itself. One look into the 

other’s face—which seemed to have aged a decade in the intervening hours—and he could see fear’s 

alpha and omega: what it looks like when a man sees a ghost, and what the ghost sees back. 

Mr. McCallister’s shifting mouth, framed by desert-dry lips, was curled something downright 

feral, but his voice held a strange calm in its center. There was a tension choking it, or trying 

to, but the effect was a kind of truce. He studied Denny, and then, abruptly, his empty hands. 

“Seems like I didn’t quite grab enough fortification,” he declared into them, almost like an apology. 

Whether to himself or his hands or even Denny, the teenager wasn’t quite sure.

What he was sure of was the fact that Mr. McCallister’s oldest son was three years older than him. 

And his middle one—a year. Both within the net of the night’s festivities.

  

“April 24.” Mr. McCallister shook his head. “Second one out of the canister. Can you beat that? 

Well, I guess one birthday did.” He shook his head again. “Shit.”

“I’m sorry.”

Denny’s apology—for something? To something?—snapped the customer’s head back. 

“Hell, that ain’t even all of it. Both of them.”

“I’m sorry?” It was a question this time, though an empty one, because Denny knew exactly 

what Mr. McCallister meant. He didn’t want to, but he did.

“Harry’s birthday is April 24. But Frank’s is October 5. He was in the twenties. Twenty-four, I think.” 

The man shrugged. “Either fucking way, he’s going to the jungle, too.”

“I think they have deferments for things like that.”

Mr. McCallister turned on Denny. “Things like that?” His wet eyes flashed.

Denny gripped his broom. “Situations, I mean.” And then, under his breath, “Situations. Like that.”

The man took a step forward, narrowed his gaze like he recognized the young man in front of him for 

the very first time. “Wait—you’re in this, too, aren’t you?” His tight face trailed over to the radio 

playing the Mamas & the Papas, the valleys of hippie California maybe a little ill-timed salt in 

the wound. But that was not the man’s main concern, and he turned back to Denny. 

“You’re not even listening to it?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, hell,” the man muttered, suddenly out of sorts again, unfocused. Like not scrutinizing 

the car crash was an option he had not previously considered. “Well, I am. I did. Can’t say you’re 

wrong, to be honest.” He sighed. “But what’s done is done.” With that, he walked past Denny like 

he had forgotten he was there, let alone that he had just been questioning him—straight back

to the cooler. He pulled a case of beer out and they met again at the register.

Again, almost an apology, the man unfurled. “All three of them are back home. I’m having 

the two oldest drink with me for once—instead of around me. The wife doesn’t like it much, 

but I think she likes them dying halfway across the world even less, so she hasn’t nagged us to 

our graves.” He sighed. “Oh, that’s just mean. She’s not wrong. Probably not right, either. 

Wrong and right don’t actually seem to apply to the world these days, do they?” He glared at 

the cash register, the mechanics of its keys, and then at Denny. “It’s almost like we made the 

damn things up.” He looked past the boy, at the small bottles lined up against the wall behind him. 

“You know what? Better grab me one of those pints of Canadian Club, too.” Denny did, and 

handed it over. Mr. McCallister bounced it in his palm. “Kind of looks a little puny, don’t it?”

“Would you like a fifth?”

“I think I might.”

Denny put the pint bottle back. “I’ll go grab one for you.”

“Thank you, son.” Mr. McCallister placed both his hands on the counter, then lifted one 

and started to pull his money from his shirt pocket. When Denny returned with the bottle, he 

found the man staring at the radio again, now playing a commercial for Big Ted’s car lot off of 

Route 450. “Deferments, you say?”

“I think so.”

“Deferments from a lottery. I wonder—do we get to pick which boy? Or is that another lottery?”

Denny stood under Mr. McCallister’s scowl because it was the only manly thing he could think 

to do. He figured that calculation would have to be something he considered going forward. Drill 

sergeants first, then his platoon. Maybe the VC one day. And then, forever after, probably, however 

long or short that would turn out to be. The older man read everything behind Denny’s gaze and 

nodded grimly. “Thank you, son.” He tapped the counter with his knuckles. “And good luck.” A thought 

caught and stopped him as he started his turn to leave. “How’s’ your dad holding up?”

Denny stuttered, not quite sure himself. He hadn’t thought too much about it since he called, and 

looking across the counter, he realized that had probably been wrong in some deep-sea ripple way he 

couldn’t totally get his arms around. A quiet slap. “Okay, I think,” he mumbled, feeling his cheeks 

warm. Afraid there was an expectation for more, he added, “I’ll see him after we close. I’ll talk to him then.”

“That’s good,” Mr. McCallister nodded, again mesmerized by the array of pint and half-pint bottles 

behind Denny, like the whole was something greater than the parts. He turned to the door. “That’s good.”

 

 

 —

 

 

After that, the shift fell back to quiet, but typical distraction was out of the question. Denny 

almost gave in at one point, went so far as to march toward the radio on the shelf, but he froze 

before its dials, its perfect unblinking stillness, Blood Sweat & Tears warbling out of its felt-covered 

mouth. If you squinted, the contraption sort of looked like a monster. Denny stared at it for

a long time, not thinking anything much in particular except that it hadn’t been all that much 

of a life yet to lose. It made him sad, but not afraid. Not really. Maybe it was better this way. Maybe not.

After they closed the store, Denny climbed into the Chevy and turned the key—nothing. It 

sputtered, but the engine didn’t turn. He tried again and was answered the same. He 

mumbled a curse under his breath without even really meaning it. Cursing was just something 

you were supposed to do when your car didn’t start. He figured it was the battery; the same thing 

had happened two days before, and he hadn’t gotten around to replacing it. So, he figured it was 

mostly his fault anyway. He’d have to get the old man to jump it tomorrow after work maybe. 

He knew tonight was off the table.

Phil didn’t have cables, but offered him a ride—they both knew he didn’t really want to drive 

in the opposite direction of his hand-me-down cape cod, though, so Denny waved him off. It 

was only a ten-minute walk, dry and not that cold. It would be a fifty-fifty shot that a little more 

time with his own thoughts would prove a good or bad thing, but the universe was conspiring 

toward it, and Denny was inclined to give in. Whatever was going to happen to him had already 

happened—he just hadn’t caught up yet. He didn’t totally want to catch up yet. The ten minutes, 

in their way, were a reprieve. A deferment.

But time has a way of not stopping, and one foot in front of the other gets you where you were 

heading, whether you wanted to get there or not. Denny soon found himself on the concrete 

threshold of his family home, and checked his watch: ten-thirty in the p.m. of December 1, 1969, 

the night they televised the draft lottery, the night little slips of paper encased in little plastic coffins 

changed the world for a clutch of boys who didn’t even know what it was yet.

He could see from outside that all the lights in the house were on, even at this hour. 

Normally the old man would be long asleep—his mother, too. But from the stoop, he caught 

her shadow flitting around like a large bird in the tiny cage of a kitchen off to the right. Against the 

front door, he could hear the TV blaring from the other side. When he finally opened it, his father 

straightened in the big chair, his shape in stark relief to the reading lamp hardly ever used for reading. 

A cigarette—or rather, the filter of a cigarette, a precarious temple of ash hanging from its edge—rested 

between the old man’s veined fingers.

Denny thought back to Mr. McCallister in the store; his own father also looked aged. The jowls hung 

lower, the mouth—usually a subtle sly grin—frowned flimsy in their loosened grip. His eyes were

water-bearing orbs, unabashedly glassy. Unabashedly drunk. Denny’s mother popped out, drying 

a dish that already seemed bone-dry. She was crying, or had been, but then smiled, which 

made less sense than the old man’s 

strange, erect posture, toggling between a sphinx and W.C. Fields.

Denny opened his mouth to ask the obvious question, the one hanging in the air between 

them all, thick as cigarette smoke, or to say anything at all—but exactly nothing at all came 

out. He tried to couch the aborted effort by quickly turning to press the door shut, 

then inspecting it to make sure it was closed all the way. To make sure he couldn’t 

press right through it, back out into the black-hole night, already a ghost.

He turned around as the ash fell and scattered itself across the side table, across the phone. His father 

stared at the mess for a moment, then shrugged and pulled out another butt to light. “Three-thirty-four,” 

he grunted between his clenched teeth.

“What?”

“You’re number three-thirty-four. March 21 was number three-thirty-four. We watched all the way to 

the end.” He exhaled a plume of smoke, flicked his head back toward the kitchen. “I did, anyway.” 

Denny looked over, but his mother was already gone. He heard a pan move from one burner 

to another, and suspected neither was actually on. His father regarded him with his reflector eyes. 

“You goddamn won.”

“I don’t understand,” Denny admitted. He did and he didn’t, but his old man was glaring at him 

in a hungry way that told him he needed to say something more. Anything. He needed to 

acknowledge his maker’s vigil in some way—the last however many hours of it. “They won’t get to me?”

His father collapsed back into his recliner. “If they do, we’ve all got bigger problems.” He sprang 

forward again, reaching for his can of Schlitz. He usually drank beer while watching sports on TV. 

Denny wondered if that’s what this was in a way. Or what the man was seeing behind his 

beer haze, the memories playing out.

“No, they won’t get to you,” Denny heard his father mutter. It wasn’t relief. There 

was relief in there, of course, but it wasn’t just relief. There was complication. It was 

like his old physics class back at Appleton High, Mr. Ray trying to explain that a thing 

could be a particle and wave at the exact same time. It didn’t make sense if you thought 

about it too hard, but if you didn’t, it did.

And Denny also understood without really understanding the complicated thing his 

father was feeling because he was feeling something like it, too. He was relieved—he didn’t 

want to go to Vietnam any more than anybody else. And, through a stroke of something 

like luck, he probably wouldn’t. But the McCallister boys would. Maybe just one of them 

if Denny was right about the deferment, but what did he know? He was just a dumb kid 

working at a liquor store. He didn’t want that burden, same as he didn’t want the burden 

of being lucky number three-thirty-four. He of course didn’t not want that burden, either. 

The only thing he was pretty firm on was that none of this felt like winning.

He heard his father say something, but missed the first part. He tried to focus. “Who knows 

what I would have been.” Denny heard that.

“What do you mean?”

His father’s grimace bobbed and weaved until it landed on Denny. “The best and worst.” 

Denny thought maybe the old man was thinking of the McCallisters without really knowing it. 

All the McCallisters out there. All the ones, and twos, and threes, and twenty-fours. What 

number meant safety? One hundred? One-eighty something—halfway through the year? 

What was the real winning number? No one would ever really know until it was over, 

all the accounts already paid.

His father was staring through the TV now—through the wall behind it, the next house, 

the one after that, and the hill that started just after that, curling up towards the new Catholic 

church that rested at its peak. He was working his jaw like he was crafting a story for himself. 

Like he was working up to some amends. To someone for something.

Denny didn’t know what was worse when you got to be his father’s age—the things you had 

done or the things you hadn’t. His father had served in Japan near the end of that campaign. 

He too had been spared in the ledger—not by a rolling glass cylinder full of birthdays but two 

blinding flashes, spaced a few days apart. Shadows burnt into walls. A vengeful god from the 

west. A different flavor of lucky. A different kind of canister.

Denny watched his father light another cigarette, then take a long, cavernous drag. What if 

the shadow you were meant to translate was simply your own? The old man started to cough, 

which only made his eyes redder, wetter. It only made everything more immediate. The present 

more present. And, somehow, less.

He was laughing, as serious as a man can laugh and still call it laughing.

“You okay, Dad?”

This startled his father. “Hell, yeah, I’m fine,” he barked. His face darkened, tightened like 

it did when he got mean. Jack Daniels was usually the kickstart, but tonight was a special night. 

They had won a lottery. Together. Apart. “Kid thinks he can go fight a war and he can’t even 

handle a man thinking about a war. A bigger damn war.” He scratched at his thinning hair, the

cigarette wedged between his fingers, the smoke catching the table light, or the other way around.

The old man grunted something unintelligible and stood up. Denny watched for a wobble that 

didn’t appear; he wasn’t sure what was going to happen next, what version hovered beside him. 

Maybe there was a price yet for winning. A toll for the vigil he had put the other through. But 

his father just marched back to the kitchen, grumbling about needing another beer. He squeezed 

Denny’s shoulder on the way by, the son relieved that he mostly didn’t flinch. He heard low 

talking, the fridge open and close.

When his father returned, he carried two cans, one in each hand. He handed one to Denny on the 

love seat and fell back into his chair. Denny watched him, maybe harder than he had in a long time, 

maybe since he was very little. He had learned not to look at things too hard. Especially familiar things. 

Looking at familiar things hard was like asking questions no one really wanted to answer. You learned 

pretty quick to let such things go, not poke those kinds of bears.

Now he could bury questions he didn’t want to answer. He worked the pull-tab of his beer like a 

grenade, a kind of cover, studying his father and thinking he could almost see the soldier shifting 

under the weight of safety, thinner in the middle, thicker over the crown, pomade-heavy, slicked back. 

A jowl-less chin, clear green eyes that saw what was there, not what was expected. The bones, though,

 were encased in the drab plumage of collected years, the casing of a flightless bird.

Denny thought he might see himself flickering in the reading light, another kind of smoke trail, but 

that wasn’t quite it. He saw instead something more like a fellow transient, someone he could have 

shared a foxhole with once. And then he realized there was something thin in the space between them, 

that all the night’s bunching had stretched time in some places and worn it like fabric at the knees; 

he could see not just his father’s past but his own future, something about the Chevy’s new battery, 

him in the driver seat; it’s not running away when you’re running to it. He’d been afforded that much 

wisdom just by playing the game. Highway signs with the names of towns he did not yet know, the 

numbers of western interstates, flashed overhead and past, the whole greater than the sum of the parts.