“I don’t know, for Chrissake. Thirty-seven months.” He stood up and walked over to the window. He looked down at the street, scratching his spine with his thumb. “Look at ‘em,” he said. “Goddam fools.”
“Who?” said Ginnie.
“I don’t know. Anybody.”
“Your finger’ll start bleeding more if you hold it down that way,” Ginnie said.
He heard her. He put his left foot up on the window seat and rested his injured hand on the horizontal thigh. He continued to look down at the street. “They’re all goin’ over to the goddam draft board,” he said. “We’re gonna fight the Eskimos next. Know that?”
“The who?” said Ginnie.
“The Eskimos…. Open your ears, for Chrissake.”
“Why the Eskimos?”
“I don’t know why. How the hell should I know why? This time all the old guys’re gonna go. Guys around sixty. Nobody can go unless they’re around sixty,” he said. “Just give ‘em shorter hours is all. … Big deal.”
“You wouldn’t have to go, anyway,” Ginnie said, without meaning anything but the truth, yet knowing before the statement was completely out that she was saying the wrong thing.