I. April

Cougar, Zeke’s little brother, will be home on Labor Day weekend. Cougar’s in Iraq, and this lends Zeke an air of authenticity when he marches around campus demanding peace. He has a personal stake in the war. He isn’t some pansy from a long line of liberal professional peaceniks. Zeke’s blue-collar. His father was in Vietnam and made hot dogs at the meatpacking plant for twenty-six years. His mother manages an Old Country Buffet by the mall. And his brother is a Marine in Baghdad. When he waves his sign that says regime change begins at home, it’s about brothers. It’s about blood.

A little over a year since the war started, and Zeke is out with a group of forty people protesting the war. The alternating showers of snow and rain make it feel even colder than it is. One minute Zeke is getting soaked, the next minute his skin glazes up with ice. The protesters are waving signs that demand peace, but the weather makes their shouts seem feeble and empty as they march to the Capitol Square. Zeke’s Carhartt coat, which used to be his father’s, is warm, and he’s wearing long johns under his jeans. He’ll be okay. He’ll get a giant soy latte after the protests are done; he’ll warm up while chatting with some undergrads at Michelangelo’s. It’s an easy, useless life—papers and books and lattes; Zeke doesn’t want to think about it. It seems to him that his job is no more useless than another day packing hot dogs, or restocking the green beans at the buffet, or getting shot at by insurgents.