In other words, I had done to myself almost exactly what my sworn enemies in D.C. had done: I’d trapped myself in a script. The Megafarce script reduced me to either an expendable military part or a traitor to my country, while my own script puffed me up into a hero so essential to its plot that on sunny spring strolls he was greeted as many as 207 times per two miles. But to be scripted at all is to be prepackaged, programmed, pinned to a page.
Only the unwritten can truly live a life.
So who I was, what I was, had to be unwritten.
CHAPTER THREE
Linda
That he did not finish his studies is true, but to say that he was stupid or dull would be a great injustice. He entered upon this path only because, at the time, it alone struck his imagination and seemed to offer … a means of escape for his soul from darkness to light … He was to some extent a youth of our past generation—that is, honest in nature, desiring the truth … believing in it, and seeking to serve it at once with all the strength of his soul, seeking for immediate action, and ready to sacrifice everything, even life itself. These young men unhappily fail to understand that the sacrifice of life is, in many cases, the easiest sacrifice of all.
—Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
On the afternoon of April 14, 1970—a couple of days after Papa had returned to Camas from spring training—he got a phone call from Irwin down in Eugene, asking when the Tugs’ first road trip would begin. “Today,” Papa told him.
“Oh God!” Irwin said. And it was nearly a sob.
“What is it?” Papa asked.
“Oh, nothing.” And now he laughed. “Just … just a couple weird emergencies is all. I just … needed to talk to you … pretty bad … is all.” Another sob.
“Is your car running?” Papa asked.
“Have Nash, will travel,” Irwin said.
“What does it take, three and a half hours to get here?”
“’Bout that.”
“Well, start driving. We’ll have supper, and talk, and I’ll catch the late flight to Phoenix and join the team tomorrow.”
Still another sob! And a broken “God bless you, Papa.”
“Fine by me,” Papa said. “See you soon.”
Four hours later Irwin, the twins, Mama and I bowed our heads, and Papa reeled off his old GiveusgratefulheartsourFatherandmakeusevermindfuloftheneedsofothersthroughChristourLordAmen—a moment’s balm. Then Irwin let fly with a “Hear! Hear!” that sounded so silly yet heartfelt that we all turned to gape at him. And seeing us staring, he let loose with a terrible abrasive laugh. He sounded like a stranger. He sounded completely self-conscious. And he sounded scared.
“Listen,” Papa told him, “if this is going to be … if your situation is too … we can go talk in private, if you like.”
Irwin drew a breath, and seemed to consider it. But then he shook his head. “The things I have to say, and the things I need to ask, they’re for everybody. Everybody that lives here.” He let out another strangled laugh.
We waited. Nothing happened.
“All right,” Papa said finally. “What’s the first thing?”
The awful laugh. Then: “Just that there’s this girl, Mama met her—you remember Linda, Mama? I brought her to church once last fall.”
Mama half smiled, then cocked her head as if she expected to round some corner in her memory and run into Linda any second now. But when her head stayed cocked it was obvious the girl wasn’t showing up.
“Well, we love each other,” Irwin said. “That’s the main thing. And we, uh, wanna get married too.”
“Why … that … that’s great!” Papa said, with an understandably sprained but quickly splinted enthusiasm.
“Congratulations,” Mama said, still half smiling, still with her head cocked, and nearly dripping sweat now in the effort to recall who the hell this Linda was.
“The thing is,” Irwin said, “it’s happening tomorrow.”
“Pardon?” said Mama, still faintly smiling.
“The wedding,” Irwin said. “It’s tomorrow. At the Clark County courthouse, at two. It’s all set up.”
We looked at each other—the twins, Mama, Papa and me—perhaps to see if anyone seemed to find what Irwin was saying comprehensible. It was a relief to me that no one else did either. “You can come,” Irwin said, “if you want.”
“How kind!” remarked Freddy.
“We might like that!” Bet snorted.
“The thing is,” Irwin said, without a hint of a smile, “we hate springing this on you like this, and Linda’s really embarrassed and all, but she’s uh, we uh, well … the thing is, we’re expecting a baby.”
Very quietly, with no inflection, Papa said, “Wow.”
Then Freddy turned to Bet, and in the same inflectionless tone said what sounded like “Ants.”
Perhaps to avoid the main topic, Mama spun on her and snapped, “What? What are you saying?”
“Bet and me,” Freddy said calmly. “We’re aunts … Grandma.”
Papa smiled at this, and Bet burst into mild hysterics, but Mama just re-cocked her head and resumed her mental Linda-hunt. Then Irwin said, “That’s not quite all, though. I’m afraid there’s bad news too.”
Papa audibly gulped. Bet stopped tittering and gaped.
Peering down into his plate, Irwin mumbled, “I got my papers today.”
No one spoke or reacted—perhaps because only I knew what he was saying. But my stomach was in my throat.
“I don’t understand,” Mama said finally. “What paper?”
Irwin started to laugh, as if she’d really cracked a good one. “Not paper!” he wheezed. “Papers! It’s not about school. Mama. I dropped out, remember?”
“Get a grip,” Papa snapped, “and explain.”
“They’re my draft papers.” Irwin paused, blushed, fretted, sighed. “Except the bad thing is, the real humdinger, see, is that I tried for CO status, being a Christian and all. And weird things happened. And … well … I didn’t get it.”
“Jesus Christ!” I whispered.
“I don’t understand a word you’re saying!” Mama snapped, obviously hoping that as long as she remained ignorant Irwin could come to no harm.
“Conscientious Objector status,” Papa told her. “But why not, Irwin? I thought it was automatic for Adventists.”
Keeping his eyes on his plate, Irwin said, “So did I. But Linda’s been pregnant a couple months now, and we’ve been real busy and all, so, well, I just sort of piled up the draft crap when it came. But the week before last Linda read enough of it and checked enough dates to see we better do something quick. So I went to the draft counselor at U of O and applied for CO status, and we started phoning up references. But Elder Anders, our Eugene pastor, was on vacation. So I picked Randy Beal, of course, and Elder Babcock and Elder Barnes. And two days ago Brother Beal called and said they did me. So now I’m afraid I’ve got … it looks like the Good Lord intends for me to head on over to—”
“Wait!” Papa interrupted. “They did you? What the hell does that mean?”
“It was Babcock’s idea, I guess,” Irwin said. “But he talked Barnes into it, and tried for Beal too, which is how Randy knew. What they did, anyhow, was tell the draft guys I left the Adventist Church years ago. They said I was some kind of drugged-up hippie dropout running around getting girls pregnant and that the whole CO thing was a lie to keep out of the Army with.”
“I’m still not understanding,” Mama said. “There’s been a mistake, surely. Elder Babcock wouldn’t do anything of the sort.”
Freddy snorted. Irwin just shook his head. But Papa shouted, “They can’t get away with it! You’ve gone to church every damned Sabbath of your life!”
“Yeah.” Irwin nodded. “But when Linda and I started living together last fall, Elder Anders wasn’t—”
“You lived together?” Mama was flabbergasted.
Irwin blushed. “We wanted to get married, Mama. But there were problems, see. Linda
’s young, and needed her parents’ legal permission, and they—well, I’m coming to that part. Anyhow, once we were shacked up, so to speak, Elder Anders wasn’t so thrilled to have us at his church anymore. So for quite a while now we’ve been going to Descent of the Dove, up on the McKenzie River, which is just a falling-down barn and old apple orchard pretty much, but a beautiful place to worship, and quite a few of the younger Adventist types go there. Except we worship on Sundays. Which Elder Babcock now claims is the Mark of the Beast. And—”
“The what?” Papa asked.
Irwin smiled. “Sorry, Papa,” he said, “but I need to tell this story in order or I’ll mix it all up.”
Papa nodded.
“When I found out what Babcock and Barnes had done, my draft counselor and me called Elder Anders, on his vacation down in San Diego, and asked him to help us. But Anders pointed out that I had no recent church attendance record to fight Babcock with, which is true, I’m afraid, ’cause Descent of the Dove doesn’t keep attendance, since we’re tryin’ to be more like the fowls of the air and all. Then Elder Anders asked if Linda was pregnant, and I told him yes, but that she’d finally found her mother—which is another story, don’t ask yet!—and we were getting married right away. Well, pregnant was pregnant, he said, which was all Babcock had told the Army. So I couldn’t fight him on that point either. And how about drugs? he asked. ’Cause he knew I’d tried peyote with Ev—uh, one time, many moons back—because it scared me so bad I wanted him to baptize me all over again, though he said I didn’t need it. Anyhow, if you looked at it one way, Elder Anders said, everything Babcock and Barnes said could be called a fact. So though I wish you well, he said, I’m afraid this thing is between you and Babcock.”
“Holy shit,” I muttered.
“You shuttup!” Mama snapped.
“So I called Babcock,” Irwin said. “And it was amazing. He said if I wanted a different kind of letter I should have lived a different kind of life. I told him I’d made mistakes, sure, but that our situation was tough and Linda and me were trying our best to walk with Christ every step of the way. I told him I’d always loved his church, and him too, and couldn’t believe he wouldn’t want to help me. But all he said was that he wasn’t about to perjure himself for scum like me.”
“He said no such thing!” Mama burst out.
“Those were his exact words,” Irwin said. “But he did better’n that. He called Everett terrible things.”
“Well, he told me what Everett said to him!” Mama retorted.
“I know, I know, they hate each other. But Papa and Peter, Freddy and Kade, Babcock laid into all of ’em, Mama. And he said getting Linda pregnant was proof I wasn’t a Christian, and that I had the Mark of the Beast now, because of Sundays, and that my brothers and father and me were ‘hell-spawn,’ that we turned our back on God a long time ago, that we’ll burn in the hell of blasphemers, and that that was exactly what he’d told the U.S. Army. Then he said never to call him again and slammed down the phone.”
“That bastard!” Freddy shouted. And this time Mama didn’t object.
But Papa said, “Now hold on. Slow down. They just can’t do this. They can’t just up and draft you because of one pompous preacher’s lies.”
“Two pompous preachers,” Irwin said, then caught himself. “Sorry, Mama,” he laughed. “I just mean that Elder Barnes wrote the same sort of letter.”
“They can’t do it,” Papa repeated.
“It’s done, Papa. That’s what I’m here to tell you. I had my physical. I’m 1-A. My shoulder’s okay, unfortunately. And I’m going to—”
“Laura,” Papa said. “Call Babcock. We’re going to see him now. All of us. He’s got to retract every goddamned word! You talk to him first! And if that won’t work I’ll … This is wrong. It’s a lie.”
From the look on Mama’s face it was obvious that she wasn’t going anywhere. Which threw Papa into a fury. But before he could speak, Irwin said, “Listen, Papa! It’s too late. Beal and me, my counselor, we tried everything. We went to the draft board, phoned a senator, Beal argued with the Elders over and over. Nancy did too. But it’s over and done. I’m in the Army, Papa. Starting day after tomorrow. And I’m going to Vietnam.”
“No!” Papa said.
“No,” murmured Mama.
“Which brings me,” Irwin said, “to a whole ’nother world of hurt.”
Everything he’d said up till now was a nightmare I’d had many times myself, so even though it made me sick it didn’t quite surprise me. But when I heard there was still more, I entered, we all entered, some kind of dream-zone, some realm of numbness and inertia in which we could do nothing but stare at his mouth. And the sentences it produced began to form bodies now—vague but tangible bodies that floated, naked, into the room. “I’ll be in Vietnam when the baby comes,” he said, and in it drifted, minuscule, helpless, wrinkled and red. “It’s going to be tough,” he said. “Especially on Linda. She’s only seventeen, but her life’s been rough.” And now the body was barefoot, faceless, with pale skin and swelling belly. “Her parents will be no help,” he said. “I mean, it’s a hard thing to say, but they’re not the kind of people who are going to understand any of this. At all.”
At this point Mama suffered a spasm of normalcy. “Of course they will,” she told him. “You and your father and I will just sit down with them, like we’re sitting here with you, and we’ll all have us a talk about how we can best deal with—”
“Mama,” Irwin interrupted. “Two years ago Linda’s dad beat her up and raped her …”
And now the naked body had muscle and genitals—genitals, and an erection from which we were still recoiling when Irwin said, “And her mom’s a drunk. If not worse. Linda just spent all the money we had, finding her, because we needed a notarized permission slip to get married. She stays in a county home in Florida when she’s not wandering the streets. And she’s as crazy as the dad, at least. So. We won’t be sitting down to talk.”
We were all drunk now, not just Linda’s lost mommy. “The dad’s the main worry,” said the magic mouth. “He hurt her bad. He’s hurt lots of people. He’s in jail for it.” Drunk as skunks. “He’s the real reason, well … he’s the serious reason we’ve been living together. And the thing is, another real doozy is, he gets out while I’m gone.” Blitzed. Zoned. Smashed. “And she’s got nobody … Nobody but me … And the baby … When it comes … And each of you guys, I hope.” How did we get into this? “Because I love her a lot …” Ah. So that’s how. “But my Country calls, so to speak … And I have to—”
“Wait!” Mama burst out. Another spasm of sanity. “Wait just one minute here. Isn’t there some special kind of—is ‘deferment’ the word?—that the Army gives in cases like—”
Irwin’s laugh was nearly a shriek. “I can see it now, Mama! Front-page headlines! PENTAGON SAYS: JUST GET YOUNG GIRL PREGNANT AND THERE’S NO VIETNAM FOR YOU!”
Freddy managed a titter. Bet and Papa and I just stared. Then Irwin, in seconds, went from laughter to a gasp to a silent stream of tears. And even though Mama was still blushing, she was somehow able to reach out, take his hand, and with no sign of paralysis say, “You’ve got a life of work cut out for you, you and your Linda. But the important thing is you love her, and she loves you. And I’m sure that, in time, we’ll grow to love her too.”
“Oh, Mama!” Irwin cried. “I’m so glad you said that! Because here’s the other thing. Here’s the biggest thing …”
We all stiffened, and my parents grabbed both arms of their chairs; we were jet passengers now, coming down into the fog for an announced crash landing.
“Linda’s got nowhere to go. With me gone, she’s got nowhere …” He left us a pause—the kind you’d just about have to call “pregnant”—then finished: “… unless she can come here.”
I don’t know how she could speak, let alone move, but before I could even focus Mama had jumped to her feet, wrapped Irwin’s head in her arms, and with tears
in her eyes was crooning, “Irwin, Irwin, Irwin. Of course your Linda can stay here!” And I have never heard her, let’s face it, not so lovely voice sound more soothing than when she began gabbling on about how the girls could move up into Everett and Peter’s old room, how we’d fetch the Beautyrest down for Linda (“Everett and his back!”), and the twins’ baby things were still in the attic, weren’t they? and wasn’t that bassinet still up in the garage rafters? “And I’ll move my sewing things into our bedroom when you’re on road trips, Hugh, so the sewing room can be the nursery. Then I’ll just pop the sewing stuff back in our—”
“Move anything,” Papa said fiercely. “Move anything of mine anywhere you want,” he said. “Except my son.”
Mama’s lip began to quiver. Freddy started to cry. Irwin turned to face him.
“Not you,” Papa said. “Not in Vietnam.”
Irwin smiled. “It’s the quickest way through.”
“Through what? Your life? This goddamned vale of tears?”
“Hugh!” Mama gasped.
“Through this trouble,” Irwin said earnestly. “Through this giant screw-up. I’ve messed up big-time, Papa. And the Army, like it or not, is the fastest way back to Linda, and the baby, and all of you.”
“Go to jail,” Papa said.
“Hugh!”
“Stay out of it, Laura! Irwin, I’m serious.”
“But why, Papa?”
“You’ll survive jail.”
“Hugh!” Mama burst out.
“You shuttup!” he roared.
“Please don’t fight!” Irwin’s smile was huge, strained, pleading. “I won’t die, Papa! Not with all of you praying for me!”
“This war is no fantasy,” Papa said. “No Babcock hell or heaven. It’s real, Irwin. And boys like you die in it every day while their families are praying otherwise.”
“Don’t say it, Mama!” Irwin pleaded, seeing the red rage in her eyes. “Papa!” he said. “I’ve thought hard about this. I know I don’t always think, but listen. You get three, four, even five years in jail for refusing induction, you come out with nothing, and you make ex-con wages for life. But just two years in the Army, maybe just twelve months of that in ’Nam, and I get paid the whole time, get help with college when I get out, get a GI loan for a house just like you did. And there’s a good pension for Linda and the baby if … in case something terrible happens.”
The Brothers K Page 45
