14SAN MARTIN, CALIFORNIA, 29 April 1971—Bobby’s stomach bounced. The stairs were higher than he remembered. Josh loped lazily as if taunting him, Get the lead out, lard-butt. Five eleven, 208 pounds—thirty pounds heavier than at induction, sixty pounds more than when he’d DEROSed, sixty pounds in twenty-three months—208 on his twenty-fifth birthday and much of it heaving and dropping with each step and him thinking, vaguely, maybe I’ll catch a glimpse of Victoria, and, I don’t want to be seen by her looking like this, and how did I get so fat in the first place? Blump-blump-blump. Jiggly belly bounce.
Halfway up the stairs beside the lower dam he stopped, bent at the waist, panting. The morning was warm, the sun strong for not-yet-May. He could feel its rays penetrating his neck and shoul
