I didn’t care. It was still Peter.
“Thank you,” I murmured. Probably to God.
The general reaction to Peter’s sudden arrival was what you might call biblical: even the non-Adventists seemed to consider it the semimiraculous return of some sort of Prodigal Son. Linda, who’d never met him, was all eyelashes and blushes. Freddy was in bliss. Mama was in prayer. Truman loved his short hair, Marv his shiners, Elder Joon his Oriental bow of greeting. The one exception to the overall mood was Papa. After a brief greeting hug he moved back out of the hubbub, lit his zillionth cigarette, and began to watch Peter very closely and, it seemed to me, morosely. He didn’t ask a single question. Not even about the black eyes.
Peter’s own reaction to the enthusiastic welcome was just embarrassment at first: he kept saying, “Never mind me” and “Yes, Dolores told me the situation” and “I don’t deserve this” and “I’ve been an idiot” and “I’ll tell you that later.” But when the questions and exclamations just kept coming—“Why the short hair?” “My God you’re skinny!” “What happened to India?” “Thank God you’re here!” “Who did what to your face?”—he finally grew almost angry.
“Forget me!” he said sharply. “It’s a long story. We’re here to help Irwin, right? So let’s get back to it. Would somebody fill me in on your rescue plan?”
For the first time since we’d arrived, I thought I saw Papa smile. It faded fast when Uncle Marv blurted, “We were about to start making signs,” Mama snapped, “Like heck we were!” and the argument was off and running. But Papa didn’t wait for it to resolve. He just stomped out his cigarette, stepped into the center of the circle, grabbed Peter by the arm, nodded toward the Dodge, and in the two of them climbed.
“What are you doing?” Marv asked.
Papa started the car, backed it out, pulled up beside us. “Kincaid. Bet. Mary Jane. Elder Joon,” he said. “Get in.”
The request was so unexpected, and the selection process so incomprehensible, that we obeyed without thinking.
“We’ll be back,” Papa said as he whisked us away.
His first question, as we started down Van Buren, was to Elder Joon. “Kim,” he said irritably. “You know this country. Where the hell’s a mountain? We need out of this used-up air.”
“How big a mountain?” Joon asked.
“The biggest we can get to fast.”
“Mount Baldy has snow in winter. It has a trout pond. The road goes to the top.”
“Perfect. Which way?”
“Take a right on Euclid. Just follow it north. It isn’t far.”
Papa nodded, then lit another cigarette. “I asked you four along,” he said a puff or two later, “because this is a thinking expedition and you’re all smart. I’d have asked Freddy, but she’s got a crush on Kim that might put a crimp in her thinking. I’d have asked Laura, but she’s so scared I think she’d rather just pray. I’d have asked Nancy Beal and Ethel Harg, they’re bright ladies. But they need a rest. So I asked you.”
He turned to Peter. “The tuth,” he said, “if you haven’t guessed it, is that we have no plan. Or no plan that isn’t idiotic. We don’t know what the hell we’re doing here, Peter. And if that doesn’t change soon, we’re finished. We can’t keep these good folks together for no reason. We’ve got to make some kind of move, fast.”
He said nothing for a quarter mile or so. Neither did the rest of us.
“What I have to say now might worry some of you. But it’s time I came out with it. I don’t know what’s wrong with me—maybe it’s just fear, like with Laura—but I haven’t had a good clear idea in my head ever since I got here. If it’s up to me to get Irwin out, I’m afraid the fight’s over. I’ll never leave him. After what I’ve seen, I could never live with that. But I can’t save him either. So I want you all to know that I step back. That I’m not in charge. I’ll answer questions if you’ve got them. I’ll ask you to stop if I hear you wandering. I’d like Peter to lead us, or at least keep us organized. But whatever it is that needs to happen, I can’t find it in me. So I leave the finding up to you.”
Given my own feelings, I expected silence after this announcement; maybe some awe, or sadness; a little trepidation. What happened instead was that Elder Joon burst out: “Wait! Stop! Papa! Joon is so stupid!”
Mary Jane and Bet started to giggle. The Elder calling Papa “Papa”—I guess that’s what got them. But Joon didn’t care:
“Your other son, Everett! Don’t you remember? He had an idea during his sermon, and started to boss us all around with it, but then had a deep feeling and let the idea drop. Nevertheless it was a good idea, don’t you think?”
“No one but me even goes to church,” Bet told him.
“Forgive me!” Joon cried—an interesting reaction, coming from an Elder. Then he scowled and said, “A shrink. This means a psychologist?”
“Or psychiatrist,” said Peter.
“Well, just before Everett prayed, for his brother, to the God he cannot believe in—most unusual, most interesting, this prayer. But before he spoke it, Everett suggested that Adventist shrinks and doctors should try to gain permission to examine Irwin. Being professionals, he thought perhaps permission would be granted. Yet being Christians, he felt they would understand Irwin’s mind. Joon does not know where such an exam would lead. But might it not lead to something?”
When the Elder saw the way we were looking at him he started clapping his hands like a little kid. “He did it again, didn’t he! Elder Everett did it again!”
“Stop at a store when you see one, Papa,” Peter said, issuing his first order. “I need pen and paper. Then I’ve got about a hundred questions to ask you.”
It was probably more like five hundred. By the time we reached Mount Baldy his questions had fascinated, then dumbfounded, then irritated and exhausted us. At first he’d drilled us about sensible-seeming things: Did we have Irwin’s Vietnam letters? His sanity trial testimony? How much did we know about his attack on Captain Dudek? Could we get records of his treatment at the asylum? Could we get his mail? What did we know about Major Keys—his personality, his clout, his superiors, his rules and regs?
But as the cross-examination went on, his questions seemed to grow decreasingly purposeful: How many buddies did Elder Joon still have around Loma Linda University? How many could he round up on short notice? Could Bet cry on cue? Could Mary Jane? What did Joon know about the Elders on the board of the Southern California Adventist Conference? Had he met them? Did he like any of them? Did any of us know how to operate a TV camera? Did Joon know where could we rent or borrow one? Could Sister Harg perform, “you know, act—like an actress”? Could Uncle Marv? Could Mama? Could every member of our group convincingly pretend to believe a useful lie?
He’d filled most of a spiral notebook with our answers and guesses when Aunt Mary Jane spotted the U-Catch trout pond that Elder Joon had predicted. “Pull in there, Hugh,” she groused. “Pete’s got some questions for the trout.”
We laughed. But Papa really did stop. And he and I had a beer and watched Elder Joon, Bet and Mary Jane catch our Camas contingent a fresh trout dinner. But Peter just strolled off to the furthest picnic table from the pond, and went right on scribbling furiously in a second, smaller notebook—
so when we finally climbed back in the Dodge, I naturally asked what was in it.
Pete just shrugged, and said, “A rough prospectus.”
Papa’s face fell. “You’re doing school work? Here? Now?”
Peter laughed. “It needs fine-tuning from all of you, and lots of help from al-Khizr. It’ll take at least two days of coaching, and two more to play it out. But here. Listen. Tell me what you think.”
With that, he opened his little notebook and began to lay out a rescue plan. It was astoundingly meticulous, given the amount of time he’d had to concoct it. It had an alternative B, an alternative C, and emergency ploys and backup schemes. It had weaknesses too, and took unavoidable risks. It was going fo
require a symphonic effort by all of us, some deft conducting by Peter, a couple of daring impromptu solos by Elder Joon and an RV-load of luck. But when Peter finally closed his notebook and said, with surprising shyness, “Well?,” Elder Joon laughed—and threw his arms, not around Peter, but around Papa. “Where do these sons of yours keep coming from?” he cried.
Papa blushed at the hug, and coughed a little. But he was smiling at Peter. “You’ve gotten sneaky as an old spitballer,” he said. “What happened?”
Peter shrugged. “I met these characters in India, Grayson and Dessinger, who were spitballers of sorts. I guess they rubbed off a little.”
“A scheme this schemey ought to have a name,” Mary Jane said.
“How about Operation Squeeze Play?’ Bet suggested.
“Perfect,” Papa said.
11. Hicks
Peter was in the Nomad, talking strategy with Elder Joon. He’d been describing Operation Squeeze all morning to groups of three and four of us, and had spent a quarter hour talking fine points alone with me. But Joon’s role the next day was going to be so central to our hopes that the two of them had been talking for over an hour.
The rest of us were sitting on the strip of lawn between the street and the cyclone fence, just staring at the asylum and waiting for tomorrow. The sun was getting hot, but things weren’t as smoggy as the day before. There were four or five quiet conversations going, and for quite a while I’d been basking in all of them, and staring up at the sky, when I noticed Papa telling Sister Harg about the customized greeting cards that Bet and Freddy used to make. My family knew these card stories backwards and forwards, but something about the old pitcher telling them to the old Sabbath School teacher made me want to eavesdrop anyway. Then I noticed the other conversations were all dying off too. By the time Papa reached the punchline of Bet’s famous Christmas card, “Joy to the Wordl! The Savior Resigns!,” he got a roar of laughter from everybody but the person he was telling the story to. “You find that funny, do you?” Harg growled. But she was wearing the grimace she used for a smile.
“I got a one-of-a-kind card from Miss Winifred once,” Mary Jane remarked.
Freddy flopped down on the grass and covered her head with her arms.
“She was seven or eight at the time, and couldn’t have had too many big worries. Because the thing that troubled her most, she decided one day, was how unfair it is that some holidays get tons of attention, while others get none at all. It was one of those problems that was gonna take a lot of solving. But Freddy got a start on it—one March, or April, or whenever the heck it is—by sending Marv and me our first-ever Palm Sunday card.”
“Oh God!” Marvin groaned, remembering the card at once.
“It was a picture of Our Lord,” Mary Jane said, “in what must have been Hawaii. Wearing a pair of gold swimming trunks” (she started wheezing and whacking the ground) “and a grin so big it wrapped clear around His face …”
“Whoa Jesus!” groaned Marv.
“He was just lying beneath this palm tree—’cause that’s what Sunday it was, you know …” (Now she started pounding on Marvin.) “With a big pile of coconuts, in case He got hungry. And the carefullest little red crayon holes in his hands and feet …”
“Oh God!”
“And the caption! The caption!” (Mary Jane lost it completely now, and had to sort of squeak the rest into Marvin’s shoulder.) “The caption said, ‘After Everything He Did for Us, Jesus Gets a Well-Deserved Tan.’”
We howled.
Except for Bet. Who said, “Well, look who’s comin’.”
Major Keys had stepped out of the building and was marching toward us across the lawn. But it’s odd what a difference a little strategy can make: yesterday Keys’s approach would have filled us with panic. Today, according to our schedule, it wasn’t yet time to deal with him. So he suddenly didn’t matter. “Irwin made a batch o’ cards too once,” Marvin said, “when he was visitin’ us on the farm. I can’t think how old he was, but his front teeth were missin’. Christmas cards, they were, the usual Jesus and Mary and shepherds and cows. Except there was one we just couldn’t figure out. ‘Merry Christmas,’ it says across the top of the page. But the picture below is just this crayon drawing of a bloated-up, brown-bearded fat guy in a blue shirt and green trousers.”
“That was us!” Nancy Beal blurted. “I mean he sent that one to Randy and me! We never figured it out either!”
Marvin held up a hand. “Then listen! ‘Who the hell’s this guy?’ I ast ’m. ‘Geth!’ Irwin yells back. ‘This poor schnook’s got somethin’ to do with Christmas?’ ‘Yeth!’ he yells. ‘Santa in his youth?’ I ast. ‘NO!’ ‘Joseph on vacation, dressed for golf?’ ‘NO!’ ‘Give us a clue then, dang ya,’ Mary Jane says. ‘He’s from “Silent Night!”’ Irwin yells. Well, that left me outta the race. Janey’s the expert there. So she mumbles her way through every blasted verse, but doesn’t turn up a word about any overweight schnooks in blue shirts and green britches. ‘We give up,’ we finally tell’m. ‘Dummies!’ Irwin yells. ‘It’s Round John Virgin!’”
There was another roar of laughter—till we noticed that Major Keys had joined right in. “Who invited him?” Uncle Truman muttered.
“Mind your manners,” Mama said. But I sided with Truman. It irks me to see people enjoying the very things they’re destroying.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Keys said. “But seeing you out here—and noticing a pregnancy, and a senior citizen, and the baby and all—I wasn’t sure you were familiar with our Southern California heat. You know, sunstroke is not uncommon here.”
“We appreciate your concern,” Mama said.
“One other thing.” The Major was wincing now, as if it physically pained him to inconvenience us in any way. “I’m afraid the grounds-keepers are about to turn on the sprinkler system. Not to force you back into the parking lot, you understand. We just need to keep things spruced.”
“If you were familiar with our Southern California heat,” Nancy Beal said, “you might water after dark so as not to scorch your grass.”
“Please mind your manners, Nancy,” Mama said.
“It’s how I treat my own lawn,” she muttered.
“Your group’s health and comfort in this heat, ma’am,” the Major told her. “That was my concern.”
“You should be concerned,” Sister Harg growled. “She’s nine months pregnant, I’m eighty-three years old, driving down here wore us out, and it is hot. We’re not sleeping nights either. But we were Irwin’s Sabbath School teachers, Major. We believe what we taught him. He believes what he learned. And knowing what you’re doing to him for holding to that belief, we couldn’t leave here if stayin’ killed us.”
“I doubt that staying is going to kill you, ma’am,” Keys replied. “But in a moment I’m afraid it’s going to get you wet.”
He’d begun to make me furious, but my fury was feeling impotent, when an odd thing happened. Apropos of nothing, Uncle Marv said, “There was a fine major named Keys, who thought love for the Lord was disease …”
I was so surprised that my mind went blank—and Mary Jane just spun around and glared at Marvin in disgust. But Sister Harg, hardly missing a beat, growled, “Till a bunch of dumb hicks from the Washington sticks came and brought the big lug to his knees.”
“Amen,” said Papa. And there was a fresh roar of laughter. And this time the Major didn’t join in. Papa looked around in the grass, located a sprinkler head, scooted right over next to it, and lit a fresh cigarette. Nancy Beal found another head and aimed her big round belly at it. The Brother set his little blue football on one, and got ready to try to catch it. Harg and Mama didn’t move. Neither did the rest of us. It was pure childishness. But childishness seemed appropriate to an army drafted by love for a guy like Irwin.
“You’re holding us captive, Major,” said Sister Harg. “You’ve got something that belongs to us. We can’t leave without it.”
“Believe as you choose,
ma’am,” he said. “But don’t blame me for the consequences.”
He spun on his heel, and marched back the way he came. But he was looking less and less the smug autocrat, and more and more a thrall to regulations that had utterly failed to take the likes of us into account.
“Mighty quick with the ol’ limerick there, Ethel,” Mary Jane remarked when he’d gone.
Sister Harg shrugged, and glared innocently off across the lawn.
“I think we got ourselves a little security leak,” Marvin said, grinning.
The Sister managed to keep glaring, but her mouth had begun to twitch wildly—when the sprinklers came on, and saved her.
12. Allies
The following morning we gathered our troops and transportation early, donned our best duds (which wasn’t saying much), drove to the headquarters of the Southern California Seventh Day Adventist Conference down in Anaheim, made a rickety but memorable mass entry into their lobby, and listened with utter earnestness (“as if you’re sitting in church, but liking it” was the stage direction Peter had given us) while our spokesman, Elder Joon, told a gaping secretary, then a stunned Elder, and finally one Dr. Bryce Brumfeld, president of the Conference, that he was himself an ordained Elder from Loma Linda University, that we’d come to them with a life-and-death crisis, that we believed no one but the Conference could help us, that time was of the essence, and that we would like to describe our difficulty to as many distinguished churchmen and Elders as could conveniently be convened.
It was not your ordinary business greeting. We were soon jammed, again en masse, into Dr. Brumfeld’s office, where we attracted four glowering Elders, a couple of deacons, and one nervous secretary. Elder Joon tried to be quick but hard-hitting in outlining Irwin’s situation. Puffing himself up like a rooster, he painted for the Elders, in their own pompous vernacular, a picture of a war which virtually all of America’s conscientious congressmen, clergymen and churches now publicly opposed, then portrayed Irwin as a young man who, “thanks to the admitted confusion of an esteemed but tragically mistaken clergyman” (Babcock), had been sent “directly from his wedding to this fine Adventist girl” (Linda blushed beautifully, right on cue) “straight into that un-Christian chaos in Vietnam.” At this point Peter handed each Elder and deacon a xeroxed copy of Babcock’s letter of retraction. He then had Bet illustrate the result of Babcock’s mistake by reading a few passages from Irwin’s “Zaccheus” letter. With that, Elder Joon moved on to the present crisis. He briefly described the capture and execution of the Vietcong boy. He described Irwin’s toothpaste attack on Captain Dudek. He scrupulously avoided mentioning that Irwin’s Army peers and Captain Dudek were united in their claim that the Cong boy was a nonexistent delusion. He then handed the Elders copies of Irwin’s sanity-trial testimony, pointed out that Irwin had been sedated, admitted that the testimony might have been somewhat difficult for military judges and “secular psychiatrists” to interpret, but majestically concluded that “to unbiased Christians such as yourselves, Irwin’s words and actions can clearly be seen as a devout Adventist’s misguided but courageous attempt to stand by his faith in an impossible situation.”
The Brothers K Page 73
