Road to Paradise

by Max Allan Collins

  Michael, however, knew that the odds for their son’s survival were poor. He wondered—deep in sleepless nights, particularly—whether it was wrong of him to withhold from his wife the complete truth. He had thought that the eventual news (if it ever came) that Mike had been killed would be better handled by Pat after she had at least adjusted to the MIA status. That the process of letting go of her son would be better if a gradual one.…

  Now she was so deep in denial, caught up in (what was probably) the illusion, even the delusion, that Mike would certainly return to them (“any day now”), that her husband wondered if he might have done her more harm than good.

  Perhaps only harm.…

  That first afternoon—when the young staff sergeant had come around, Pat passing out, Michael rushing home to her side—their physician (and country club friend) Dr. Keenan, who was home just a block away, had hurried over to give Pat a sedative.

  And Michael had ushered the young staff sergeant into the living room, where the boy had stood in stiff respect and—with the faintest tremor in his voice—delivered to the father the dreadful news.

  “Mr. Satariano, as a representative of the president of the United States and the United States Army, it is my duty to inform you that your son, Lieutenant Michael P. Satariano, Jr., was declared missing in action after a military action on January 7, 1973, in the Republic of South Vietnam in the defense of the United States of America.”

  Michael could see the discomfort in the young soldier’s face, much as the boy tried to hide it, and as squared away as he was in his crisp uniform, the sergeant was just a boy, a kid…like Mike. Even looked a bit like him, even the baby face…though Mike’s eyes were dark, and the staff sergeant had disquietingly beautiful green ones.

  Michael had prepared himself for this moment, although—like his wife—he had thought the war was over, and their son would soon be coming home to them, alive, well, in one piece, and not in a body bag.

  Still, he immediately banished his emotions to the background of his consciousness—he had experience controlling his feelings, and his priorities were his wife, his daughter, and finding out as much as he could about Mike’s status.

  “Did you serve in Vietnam, Sergeant?” Michael asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Please…please sit down.”

  The young sergeant said thank you, took off his cap, and sat on the edge of a chair, a geometric painting behind him making him the bull’s-eye of a yellow-and-white target.

  Michael sat across from the soldier on the couch; he, too, sat on the edge. “How long have you been doing this duty? Making casualty notification calls?”

  “This is my first week, sir. My first call.”

  “Your primary duty is as a recruiter?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “…Hard assignment.”

  “Yes, sir. Mr. Satariano, your wife.…She mistook me for your son.”

  “Hell.”

  “You’ve been expecting him?”

  Michael nodded.

  “I’m so sorry, sir. You will be receiving a telegram, with the official notification.”

  Michael almost smiled. “This seems fairly official.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  “Do you have more information you can share?”

  A curt nod. “I have a document I’m going to leave, which details the military action.”

  “Have you gone over it yourself?”

  “I have, sir.”

  “Give it to me in your own words.”

  The boy did.

  Michael said, “Do you know why this took so long? This was months ago—we’re supposed to be notified in a matter of hours.”

  “With a death, sir, you would be. And, in fact, your son has been designated ‘Missing in Action’ only since yesterday.”

  “Yesterday? Do you know why?”

  The boy’s eyes tightened and widened, simultaneously. “Sir, I.…”

  “What is it?”

  “The document—”

  Michael sat forward so far he all but fell off the couch. “What do you know? What did you hear?”

  “Sir, please.…”

  Michael stood. He looked down at the boy. “I was in the Pacific War, son. You don’t have to pull any punches. I was on Bataan.”

  “I know. You won the Medal of Honor. I’m.…Frankly, I’m in awe of you, sir. And after you served so honorably, to have to.…”

  “Lose my son? Why, if Mike has been declared MIA, do I sense you consider him a KIA?”

  The boy’s chin jutted. “I can tell you this—you and Lieutenant Satariano may be the first father and son both to have won the Medal of Honor. His heroism is being considered in that light.”

  “You heard that?”

  “I did.”

  “What else did you hear?”

  “I’m really not at liberty to—”

  “If my son were sitting where you are, Sergeant, and your father in my place? Mike would tell your dad what he wanted to know.”

  The boy gave up a tiny smile—suddenly human—and said, “You’re some interrogator, Mr. Satariano.”

  “I’m a sergeant, like you, son. Spill.”

  The soldier had heard his CO talking on the phone to someone in Washington. The reason for the delay in classifying Michael Satariano, Jr., “Missing in Action” had to do with conflicting eyewitness accounts. An investigation and a hearing had finally resulted in Mike’s current designation.

  “Apparently at least one of the men on that Huey,” the sergeant said, “claimed to have seen Lieutenant Satariano raising a handgun to…I’m sorry, sir…to his own temple as the enemy were about to swarm over him.”

  Michael, pacing as he listened, stopped. “Saw this from the Huey? The departing helicopter?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Michael returned to the couch, and sat, leaning back, shaking his head. “I don’t believe that, Sergeant.”

  “Apparently the army’s official decision was to disregard that testimony, as well, sir. The night was dark, the helicopter was stirring up dust—”

  “No. I mean, Mike’s a good Catholic boy. He would not commit suicide.”

  “Oh.” The boy swallowed and sat forward. “That’s another thing, Mr. Satariano. We’re supposed to bring a minister along on these calls, but I couldn’t round up a priest in Reno, to make the trip. And there aren’t any in Crystal Bay, and I do apologize for—”

  “Was there any reason, other than saving himself from captivity or torture, that my son might have taken his life?”

  “I don’t understand, sir.”

  “I mean, did he have any strategic knowledge—mission orders, current troop numbers, deployment information—that would have endangered his men, should it be tortured out of him?”

  The soldier swallowed. “I only heard half of the conversation, Mr. Satariano. It was a phone call, remember, and—”

  “Did Mike have any such info?”

  Another swallow, and the boy nodded, glumly.

  And Michael’s certainty that his son would never commit the sin of suicide had slipped away from him; he could well understand this sacrifice—and the hope that judgment on the other side would be tempered by mercy and understanding—coming naturally to his son.

  The soldier stood, and though his hat remained in hand, he was rigidly at attention. “Sir, I hope I have not overstepped, sharing this information with you. The document I’m leaving with you contains the pertinent information, and represents the army’s, the government’s, position on your son’s status.”

  Michael rose, said, “Thank you for your candor,” and ushered the boy out the front door.

  The sun had gone down, and the subdivision’s blue-tinged streetlamps were glowing against a dark night—no moon, the stars doing their best against misty cloud cover.

  Michael walked the young man to his car. At the curb, he put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Rough duty.”

  The boy had tears in his eyes,
and a nervous smile flashed. “Yes, sir. No fun being the angel of.…Sorry, sir.”

  “What were you going to say?”

  “Nothing, sir.”

  Michael fixed his eyes with the soldier’s. “Sergeant, have I come unglued over what you’ve told me?”

  “No, sir!”

  “Do I strike you as an hysterical ninny?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Then tell me—what were you going to say?”

  A long swallow later, he said, “That it’s…no fun being the angel of death. That’s what they call it, around the recruiting offices, where we get stuck with the job…angels of death, showing up at the doors of the families of soldiers.”

  “I see.”

  The boy, possibly responding to a perceived coldness in Michael, blurted, “I didn’t mean ‘stuck’ with the job, just that, well, it’s.…”

  Again Michael placed a hand on the young man’s shoulder; he squeezed. “I asked you to be frank, and you were. Thank you.”

  They shook hands, and the soldier drove off.

  How could this kid know that the phrase “angel of death” had an odd resonance for Michael? That this had been what his father, the enforcer for the Looney mob, had been called back in the ’20s and early ’30s, due to the mournful cast of his expression when he dispatched his victims? Violent death, and an angelic acceptance of it, was part of Michael’s heritage.

  And his son’s.

  Michael had decided not to share with his wife or daughter what the young staff sergeant told him about the military’s own indecision over Mike’s “Missing in Action” versus “Killed in Action” designation; and the weight of that had its consequence. He had been strong for Pat and for Anna, and—other than that once, with his wife—did not break down in front of them; he professed a belief in Mike returning to the fold one day, and for the first five days, he’d dealt with the burden in his own way.

  He would try to go to sleep, knowing it would not happen; then he would wait for Pat to drop off into her mildly drugged slumber, and repair to his study to read a western or mystery novel, nothing overtly violent—mostly Max Brand or Agatha Christie. If he couldn’t get engrossed, he would remove his sixteen-millimeter projector from the closet, and set it up, and the little silver screen as well, and go to the shelves to select canisters of film from his collection.

  He had about thirty movies—Stagecoach, various Laurel and Hardy features, Hitchcock’s Lady on a Train, a couple of the really good Abbott and Costellos, Swing Time with Fred and Ginger—the kind of movies he’d seen and loved as a kid. He had never cared for Roy Rogers or Gene Autry; singing cowboys didn’t make it for him, but he had several old westerns with Buck Jones and Tom Mix he could watch again and again.

  By three in the morning or so, he’d have read a paperback or watched a film to the point of tiredness, and would then take a steaming bath, and lie back and think about his son and weep for perhaps fifteen minutes…then finally return to bed and fall to sleep rapidly.

  For the last two days, he had followed this same procedure successfully, but the crying had finally stopped. He felt he was getting hold of himself.

  Anna, however, could not seem to come out of her funk. And she was mad at him. For the first time in years—first time ever, really—his daughter was clinging to her mother, helping her out in every way possible, cooking meals on her own, even assisting with the dishes (well, putting them into the dishwasher, anyway) and offering to do the laundry (though her mother never took her up on it).

  For the first two days, following the news about Mike, Anna had done all her crying, all her hugging, her consoling with her mother. She had barely spoken a word to her father, and avoided eye contact, even to the point of looking away with a jerk.

  Finally, last night, he had knocked at her bedroom door, behind which her stereo blared Carole King’s Tapestry, an album that had been his daughter’s favorite for some time, but which Anna had never previously listened to at such Led Zeppelin decibels.

  “Yes?” she called noncommittally.

  He cracked the door—with a teenage daughter he had long since learned not to barge in—and spoke: “Okay I come in?”

  “Yeah.”

  Carole King, who Michael liked also, was singing “It’s Too Late,” but the volume made him cringe.

  “You mind turning that down a little?” he asked.

  Sitting Indian-style on the daisy-patterned bedspread, Anna—in a pink top with puka-shell necklace and blue bell-bottoms and no shoes, toenails pink also—was leafing through Rolling Stone. The furniture was white and modular, and the pale-yellow walls were largely obscured by posters of recording artists (Janis Joplin), musical plays (Hair), and favorite movies (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid); unlike most girls her age, Anna’s posters were framed, as they tended to be autographed.

  Anna had her mother’s apple cheeks and heart-shaped face, but her eyes were big and dark brown, and her hair—which was straight and went endlessly down her back—was an even darker shade, a rich auburn. She wore a blue-and-yellow beaded headband. She often affected heavy eye shadow, but right now she didn’t have a trace of makeup, not even lipstick—and yet was stunning.

  He pulled a white chair away from a small desk area recessed within a white unit of closets and cupboards decorated with signed eight-by-tens from their Hollywood trip, and sat near her bedside.

  “No homework?” he asked, hands folded in his lap.

  She flipped a page of the newspaper-like magazine, not looking at him. “Done.”

  “Expected you to be poring over your script.”

  She was Maria in The Sound of Music.

  “Know it,” she said, flipping a page.

  “Is it my imagination?”

  No eye contact. “Is what your imagination?”

  “The deep freeze treatment I’m getting from you.”

  She shrugged.

  “I want you to know I do appreciate what you’ve done for your mother…the support. You’ve always meant a lot to her, but right now—”

  She gave him a long, slow, cold look. “You don’t make it as Ward Cleaver, okay, Dad?”

  “You’d prefer Archie Bunker?”

  She almost smiled, but caught herself, and looked down at a picture of a hippie-ish Jane Fonda at a peace rally. “I’d prefer privacy.”

  He leaned forward, hands clasped. “What is this about, Annie?”

  She shot a glare at him—eye contact, at least. “Please don’t call me that. It’s a kid name. I am not a kid.”

  “Anna. What have I done?”

  She gave him another sharp look, dark eyes accusing. Suddenly he realized tears were shimmering there. “Don’t you know?”

  “No, sweetheart. I don’t.”

  Her lip curled. “You did this. You encouraged him.”

  Now he got it.

  “You blame me,” he said, “for Mike?”

  “He worshiped you. All you would have had to say was, don’t go. Tell him you’d rather see him in Canada than Vietnam. But he had to prove himself to you, walk in your footsteps. The big hero.”

  “I never encouraged him. I asked him not to do it.”

  Nostrils flared. “Don’t give me that shit! Once you said you were proud of him for it.…” She shrugged contemptuously, farted with her lips. “…all she wrote.”

  He moved from the chair to sit on the edge of the bed. “Sweetheart…it was his decision.”

  Her eyes flashed. “Do you believe in that war?”

  “…No.”

  “That’s right. You and Mom both spoke out against it. And everything Mom said has come true—look at those fucking Pentagon Papers!”

  “Please don’t.…”

  “What, my language off ends you?” She leaned forward grinning sarcastically. “Do I smoke pot? Am I a smelly hippie? A flower child banging every boy at school?”

  “Don’t.…”

  “I have friends who snort coke, Daddy! And I’m so good, I�
�m so sweet, I’m such a straight little shit.…I’m even playing fucking Maria in Sound of Music!”

  Then her anger curdled into something else, her chin crinkling, and she began to cry.

  She held her arms out to him, helplessly, and he took her in his embrace and patted her like the baby she was to him.

  She wept for a good minute.

  Then she drew away, snuffling, and her father handed her a Kleenex from the box on her nightstand, and she took it, saying, “Oh, Daddy, is Mike ever coming home?”

  He couldn’t lie to her. “I don’t know.…I don’t know, sweetheart. That’s why you have to stay strong for your mother.”

  She nodded, blew her nose, reached for another tissue, and dried her face. “…I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m sorry.”

  “I understand. I really do.”

  “I guess I…I had to take it out on somebody.”

  He smiled a little, shrugged. “And I was handy.”

  She smiled a little, too; but it didn’t last long—rage returned: “It’s not fair. The war is over—it’s fucking over!”

  He shook his head. “It’s never going to be over for us. Especially your mother. So stay close to her. Next year…when you’re off at college? You’ll need to come home more often than you’d probably like.”

  “If Mike is…if he’s not ever coming home, if he’s…if he got killed—will we know?”

  “Maybe.”

  “But…maybe not? Maybe we just have to hang in limbo, forever?”

  “I wish I knew the answer, Annie…sorry. Anna.”

  She threw herself at him and hugged him. Tight. “You call me that all you want, Daddy. You call me that all you want.”

  When he left her room, she was studying her Sound of Music script, and Carole King was softly singing “You Need a Friend.” All was right with their father-daughter world again…or as right as a world could be without her brother in it.

  This was Monday, his first day back at Cal-Neva—he had virtually not set foot out of his house since that staff sergeant arrived with the news—and now Michael sat at his desk staring out the picture window at the green pines and sparkling lake and brilliant blue sky, which hadn’t changed at all, despite the Satarianos having their universe upended.