So I did. I gave him a couple of dollars. I was glad to do that much for him and was ready to do more, although I couldn’t have said then what it might have been. He folded the bills I gave him and put them away in his jeans pocket. I watched him for a while longer. But when he didn’t say anything more I left. He was still lying on the couch watching somebody else win money in a California studio. That seemed to please him.
Then on Friday, when his hearing came up, the student judiciary found against him. It was an open-and-shut case and after they had heard the evidence they recommended that he be expelled from school. There had been a number of thefts on campus already that fall. Consequently the administration accepted the students’ recommendation and decided to make an example of him. But it didn’t matter to Jack what they did; he didn’t contest the charges or even defend himself. In fact he didn’t even attend the hearings. Instead that morning he had gone to the Army recruiter on campus and had enlisted; so now he was obligated to two years of military service, and the Army was glad to have him swell their numbers.
He came over to see me before he went back to Holt. He said he didn’t have to report to boot camp until the end of October and he thought he’d go home in the meantime and work at the elevator and see Wanda Jo Evans. He wasn’t dissatisfied by the turn of events at all.
“Well,” I said. “Maybe it’s for the best.”
“Why not?” he said. “I might even learn something in the Army.”
“Take care, then.”
“But just a minute. You got any more money?”
“Probably.”
“Because I could use something to get home on.”