Sons by Evan Hunter Page B

goddamn courtesy.”
    “This isn’t a locker room,” my father said.
    “Okay, it isn’t a locker room.”
    “I’m sure your mother wouldn’t want you traipsing all over the South where you can possibly get your head busted by some rednecked farmer!”
    “The reason I
want
to go traipsing all over the South is so that people
can
traipse all over the South without getting their heads busted.”
    “And if you run into trouble?”
    “I won’t.”
    “Suppose you do?”
    “I can take care of myself.”
    “That’s another country down there.”
    “Is that supposed to be a pun?”
    “What?” he said. “I’m telling you that’s a foreign country down there. I was there during the war, and it’s worse now. You’ll need a passport to get in, it’s a foreign country.”
    “It’s America,” I said.
    “Don’t give me any of that patriotic bullshit,” my father said.
    “This isn’t a locker room,” I said, and tried a smile.
    My father picked up his cigar and began puffing on it. He didn’t say anything. One of De Gaulle’s pictures caught his eye, and he moved it over next to another lovely shot of the general.
    “Well,” I said, “how about it?”
    “The answer is no,” he said flatly.
    “I figured.”
    “You figured correctly.”
    “Why?”
    “Because voter registration in the South is a dangerous occupation for a seventeen-year-old boy.”
    “I’ll be eighteen in October.”
    “Then go in October.”
    “Pop, I have to be in New Haven on September fourteenth, you know that.”
    “Right. So spend your summer on the beach, take it easy. You think Yale’s going to be a lark?”
    “What about Larry?”
    “Who the hell is Larry?”
    “Larry, Larry, my friend. How can I spend the summer sitting on my ass when I know he’ll be down South fighting for his
life!”
    “Invite him to the beach.”
    “Pop!”
    “It’s not your battle,” my father said.
    “Will you at least think about it?”
    “I’ve already thought about it.”
    “I’ll go without your permission, you know. If I have to be eighteen, I’ll lie about my age, I’ll get a phony draft card, there’re millions of them around.”
    “Then why’d you ask me in the first place?” my father said. “Because I thought you’d be proud to say yes.”
    I went out of his office and down the corridor to the elevator, angry as hell. Mrs. Green came from behind her desk and fluttered up to me.
    “Oh, Wat,” she said, “your father told me about your being accepted at Yale, that’s just wonderful.”
    “Yeah,” I said.
    “I guess you’re all excited about graduation.”
    “Yeah,” I said.
    “Do you have something in mind?” she asked.
    “Huh?”
    “Something special?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “For graduation. A present.”
    “Oh,” I said, and suddenly realized she was here on a specific mission, she had been told earlier that I’d be coming up, and had been instructed by my father to find out what I wanted as a graduation gift. In what she had doubtlessly considered a subtle manner, she had led the conversation to the point where she could pop the big question, and now she stood studying my face eagerly, hoping against hope that I would reveal my desire before the elevator arrived. I did not want to disappoint her. and yet I could not think of a single thing I wanted or needed. I began wishing that something extravagant would occur to me, but nothing did, and I stood in mute embarrassment as the approaching elevator whined up the shaft, feeling terribly sorry for Mrs. Green, but feeling even sorrier for my father, who could not
personally
ask his own son what he wanted most for graduation.
    “There
is
something I want,” I said.
    “Yes?” Mrs. Green said, nervously fingering the purple stone on her bosom. “What is it?”
    “Get him to say yes,” I told her. “Get him to say I can go to Mississippi.”

June
    My father said yes at the beginning of June, but Michael and I did not celebrate until the