Funny thing, the only kids wearing Army khaki or camouflage were hippies, sometimes painting peace symbols on their back or whatever. Any returning vets going to school on Uncle Sugar wouldn’t be caught dead in military gear, although plenty had been caught wounded in it. Certainly my hair wasn’t long enough to pass as one of the Make Love Not War crowd, so I probably looked more preppie or frat boy in my sweaters and blue jeans and corduroy jacket. Only the heavy boots might have given me away, but in Iowa this time of year, not really.

No one, including you, would have made me for any kind of killer, not even one recently back from Nam. The brown hair, long enough to touch my ears, the baby face, the one-hundred-fifty-five pounds on a five ten frame, were nothing threatening, and mine was a face in the crowd.

Of course there wasn’t much of a crowd in a college town during Christmas break. Only local kids right now, and foreign students, and the handful who for whatever reason hadn’t gone home for mistletoe and holly, by gosh by golly. Older students with apartments might spend a handful of holiday days with Mom and Dad, and would be home soon. But a downtown hopping with bars and boutiques and record stores and head shops that was usually crawling with college kids wasn’t.

I’m not what you’d call a people person, so that didn’t bother me, other than wishing I had additional nonentities around to blend in with. I could have used more hair on my face-these hirsute hippies at least had an excuse in this cold-but if I stopped in for a beer and a burger somewhere, I fit in fine. A university is big enough that nobody, not even a bartender, wonders why they haven’t seen you before.