“Are you home?” Harvey asked over the phone last night.  I had breathlessly called him to recount my unsettling travails in the woods, expecting him to emit a more emphatic response than weird.  “I need to come over,” he said.
      He was in the doorway a half hour later, sporting a stiff camouflage getup complete with oversized boots.  “Nice,” I said.  “Is that your dad’s?” 
       His face was stern and earnest in a way that echoed very rare occasions.  “Ali, I’m leaving.”
       I raised my eyebrows.  “Where you going?”
      “Florida.”
      “Nice.  With whom?”
      “The Air Force.”
      “What?”  I dropped the plate I was washing and watched it drown beneath the suds.  Meanwhile, Harvey stood uncertainly by the door, his hands clasped behind his back, as if he were acting as the beaux in a World War I film.  The performance was so rich, I suddenly hated him.  His scrappy little face looked mouse-like, and I wanted to feed it the fastest poison.  “No, you’re not,” I said.
       “I joined the Air Force.”
       “If you really had joined, you wouldn’t have told me this way.”
       “What do you mean?”
        I sighed.  “You’re making some big show out of it, like it’s a big deal.  You should have told me when you signed up.  Did you just enlist this morning?”
        “Well, no.”
        “Well.”  I looked down.  My hands suddenly felt cold, so I slipped them in the warm dishwater.  “Congratulations.”
        “Congratulations?”
        “Didn’t you have to pass a test or something?”
        “Hey, Al, I just came over to say good-bye.  We’re headed out tonight.”
        “Tonight?  What if I hadn’t called you?  You were just going to disappear quietly like a fish that slipped the hook?”
        “Well, you did call.  And I would have stopped by.”
         “Sure.”  I wiped my wet hands on my jeans, and stood facing him.  It was important that he understand how little I was bothered by his ridiculous decision.  We stared at each other like children daring the other one to start poking. An involuntary swallow betrayed him.  A short moment later, we were hugging and I was shooing him out into the cold.