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45 FORTS, DEATH, AND BEDTIME 6 The Civil War was not my introduction to the whole idea of “sides”— that had been formed by fighting with my brothers. But the fact that grown-ups had once broken off into warring groups so clearly defined they even had uniforms, well, this was fascinating: conflict institutionalized. On top of that, these guys had forts. And forts were cool. My very first forts were sculpted on my mother’s dinner china. Fort Mashed Potatoes was indeed a mighty structure, its high ground commanding the entire plate. Bristling with baby-carrot cannons and staffed by greenpea army guys, it was impregnable to all but the Giant Fork. Little boys who lived in the quiet Midwest of the 1950s were, of course, under constant attack by armed hordes, and so forts had to be constructed everywhere. A ring of pillows in your bed. A blanket over a card table. And no matter where the fort went up, that outer wall was key—it separated Them from Us. Inside the wall you had sovereignty. A room to hide in and outlast any siege (provided you’d put up enough Kool-Aid and Hostess Sno Balls). Along with the idea of forts, the Civil War introduced serious weaponry. Did cowboys and Indians have artillery? We think not. Bayonets? Please. The Monitor and Merrimac? No and no. The Old West’s dusty little skirmishes and scalpings were playpen fights, we thought, compared to battles big enough to have names. In a letter to RJL, Mom wrote about my nascent interest in the Great Rebellion: In Luke’s kindergarten class, we divided the children—three into the Northern group and two for the South. Luke Longstreet was tickled to be General Longstreet, saying “That really is me.” I made battle flags for Chancellorsville, Manassas, and Fredericksburg. But history FORTS, DEATH, AND BEDTIME 46 dealt a hard blow to Luke and General Lee. They couldn’t understand how they could win so many battles and yet lose the war. Luke said, “Let’s do it over again next week and this time we win.” Seeing my interest in the Civil War, my mother poured in as much history as my little teacup would hold, but I was in it for the blood. Winning was everything. One side had to lose. Or more precisely, one side had to be “the Loser.” In a just world, right beat wrong like rock beats scissors, and not being on the winning side set one’s whole world crooked. Not winning an argument, unthinkable. Not winning a game of Civil War (or “Army Guys” as it came to be known), that was catastrophic. Perhaps worst of all was being shot by a soldier you had already killed. This was injustice itself. In fact, the issue of authenticating death in all games of Army Guys was a sticky wicket given that our ordnance was invisible bullets fired from imaginary guns. “You can’t shoot me! You’re already dead!” “I was just wounded! You’re the one who’s dead!” “How can I be dead? I didn’t fall down.” Everyone knew that proper machine gun deaths were officially identified by a herky-jerky marionette dance and a full face-plant in the turf; this was agreed-upon play action. Our backyard version of the Geneva Accords required adherence to this agreement; otherwise, what did you have? A universe without rules, where any fool could just jaywalk through your hailstorm of hot lead? Unchallenged, such heresies lead to anarchy, as it did on occasion when someone would secretly switch from Army Guy rules to Superhero rules. (“The bullets bounced off me so I’m not dead.”) This kind of nonsense was shut down on the spot. Army Guy rules were fairly specific, one of which required you to produce a realistic machine gun noise. In fact, having the best rat-a-tat-tat was another thing your side could win at. Individual bragging rights, however, went to the guy with the most realistic noise, a sound we each created with various success behind a spitty mist of grape-colored Kool-Aid. If you were out in the open and you heard the ack-ack-ack, you were dead. Since losing was unacceptable, you made your peace with being killed by winning in the Best Death category. Nobody died as good as you. You flung yourself to the ground, overacting a death rattle that could be heard...

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