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During afternoon naptime, in the absence of your husband's snores, you will resort to lulling yourself and the babies to sleep electronically. Moving with all available dispatch, you will open up the balcony screens and lasso the radio's aerial wire across two or three laundry lines, in order to pick up, by way of a morale booster, the signal of the American Forces Network.
You will twist the knob and fill the apartment with the sounds of America, chopped into near indecipherability by the Hueys and Cobras and what-not that hover and strafe in dry maneuvers over the base. Nearly overdosed on Japlish and baby talk, you will find your ears straining in spite of themselves to hear AFN's native speakers of English--such as they are.
They bark about combat-ready pride. America's proud military heritage. Pride as a virtue rather than the cardinal sin under whose influence all others grow heinous. (But that's just the residual Christian talking inside you.)
Army Spec-five Journalist Sergeant Flimbidder Frombisher (or something like that) interrupts the regular programming to announce, in an adenoidal Georgia accent, that the base is on Red Security Condition Alert, which indicates an increased threat of "tarst-acktibbletay" in and around the surrounding environs.
"ID will be checked at any time and under any circumstances. We repeat--" And he repeats, then bows out in favor of scheduled programming.
On comes a public service announcement disguised as a little radio drama, a kind of morality play, squeezed between half-time activities during a foot- or base- or whateverball game that, in turn, preempts Associated Press coverage of the proud smart-bomb extermination of the civilian population of whatever third-world country we have chosen as the backdrop for our latest "manageable war." Or are we flushing demons from caves this time?
Mom is advising little Buffy not to wear her pink and orange ruffled birthday dress for the family's off-base outing because it's too conspicuous: "Being a proud American military family, Sweetheart, we don't want to attract attention, if you know what I mean."
"Gee, Mom," squeaks little Buffy. "That's a pretty heavy trip you're laying down on my head. So, what else can we do to protect ourselves from the threat of increased terrorist activity in and around our overseas military installation?"
"Well, little Buffy, your father has removed and closeted his uniform for the afternoon. In addition, he has memorized all the numbers on our important official ID papers and other tempting documents, so he can keep them under wraps at all times. Plus he has requested that we, as a proud American military family, speak as little as possible in public, for English is a sure-fire attention-grabber for potential terrorists."
"Oh boy, that's swell, Mom! " Buffy takes a deep breath and continues. "Now, may we go on our off-base outing and have plenty of fun and relaxation because we've taken all reasonable precautions and will nevertheless continue to remain proud yet alert?"
"I don't see why not, little Buffy!"
Before you can follow that dimly foreboding train of thought any further, one of the babies will begin elbowing you, to persuade you to roust yourself from this daddyless Eskimo nest and switch off the American Forces Network. From the pointiness of the bones, you will reckon, in the curtained darkness, that it's the littler daughter, the freshly baptized one, objecting to what is being broadcast.
So it's time to kill the radio. Go ahead and tempt fate. Open the balcony screens for the second time today, and quickly reel in the aerial wire.
If the odd neighbor happens to be shirking his/her fitting sixteen-hour-per-day contribution to society, and if he/she happens to be self-indulgent enough to allow him/herself a moment to look up from whatever make-work chore is keeping his/her brain and body occupied, and if, by some horrific coincidence, Usama Bin Laden has chosen this moment to come and pitch you and the babies off the balcony--no problem.
Hiroshimites, already self-conscious about the history with which they've been burdened, value the appearance of social order too much to discuss such sights. A patrol car and an ambulance will be summoned to tidy up the parking lot with a mop and a body bag, and that will be the end of it.
Tom says, "I am a bleeding victim/hero in the never-ending war to make the world safe for Freedom of the Press. My battles have lately been fought in the Pacific Theater, against the mean Shinto fascist pricks. My courageous actions have been featured in Arts and Letters Daily, and are psychoanalyzed in the legendary Exquisite Corpse, where I am diagnosed as suffering from an 'unwholesome Christ complex and a desire for public self-annihilation. I bless you and keep you. I make my face to shine upon you, and give you respite. Amen."