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Show 5(2 Nothing I could do - no dress I could put on, no couple I invited for dinner, no conversation or movie or hike - could match the pressure and c r i s i s of Vietnam. Even our love-making, the primary form of communication between us, did not reach the climactic t e r r o r of the war. There, he had explained in an unguarded moment, h i s every sense had been poised for survival; f a c u l t i e s he d i d n ' t even know he possessed were in operation. But here in the city, a l l the learning and the consciousness seemed out of place and useless, a lot of energy contained in a t i n y space with nowhere to go, a time bomb destined to explode at some indeterminate moment. Brian hardly spoke, and i f he did speak i t was to make some oblique reference to the war. He seemed to have a l l i ed himself in s p i r i t with the hippies he had resented so much while overseas. I thought t h i s strange and told him so. "We're freaks, you know?" he r e p l i e d . "All of us freaks. tfe've got to stand for t h a t , if nothing e l s e . I l e t my h a ir grow because i t says how I feel and think. I need more space to be. I need the r i g h t to feel how I feel, to do what I have to do. If I had been given that much in the f i r s t place, I'd never have been over there in that Godforsaken land." "I don't understand." "America i s supposed to be a free country. The new world, where everyone i s free to pursue happiness as he sees f i t, right? The Great Frontier " His mouth b i t and chewed the words, as though t e a r i n g meat. "Well. . . w e ' l l see i f i t 's all they told us i t was." Brian loved to drive, just as my f a t h e r did. But Brian drove when he should have been working at the bank which |