Winged Shoes and a Shield

by Don Bajema

  Now that you’ve got the woman’s attention, close the deal. Remind her of the poor boys who jostled shoulder-to-shoulder to Fort Fucking This or That, going to boot camp and getting brainwashed and gung-ho, blistering their knees praying for a chance to kill a Commie for Christ. Sink the hook. Mention those forlorn, lonely flag-draped coffins hiding the addresses stapled to those boys’ big toes, as they wind slowly down these black roads back to Momma and Poppa. While Brother and Sis watch the television wondering if Cronkite’s box score really matters much anymore.

  Remind the techie types that pieces of the space shuttle passed along these roads, big rigs pulling part by part, rutting the asphalt, warning lights flashing to premature takeoff, while coked-out scientists perfected the fuel mixture.

  If your mark seems patriotic, you got him in the bag. Just mention all the politicians who have been rolling down these roads for the past fifty years, checking their maps for the next shopping mall, sitting behind tinted windows with their trousers and BVDs around their ankles deciding which lie has that statesman-like ring. All those millions of moronic hopefuls racing for the parking lot, smacking their sugar-rushing kids, waiting in the heat like sardines to see a little bit of the history your client is holding in his filthy hand right now. Roads are huge in American politics. Turn to the left, turn to the right. Kennedy got his occipital bone slapped on Elm Street like a slung piece of cantaloupe. You can sell it.

  Entertainment? Lennon answered a cop in the back seat as he departed the Dakota for parts unknown, while rain-singing tires spun a last verse of “A Day in the Life.” You can sell this. You have the foresight to see the value in this black asphalt, from this long, long dark road. A petroleum product. Everything America has to offer. How do I know? I’m glad you asked.

  I saw it myself. I saw a clumsy generation of American dinosaurs dying right here in the middle of the road. Wrinkled knees with ten times the weight of an elephant thudded down on pinkish-raw skin. Scraping for one last time on the hot black grit. I’d been waiting a long time for it. I knew it was coming. I watched as the old giants slowly lifted their fevered heads, saw their eyes go wild with helpless rage. Mouths opening in senile, uncomprehending groans. I could make out their pale faces suspended high in the brown skies, eyes like dim search lights, cataract-blind and tearful. They wobbled over, cursing useless threats, but they coughed up our own young blood. Infecting us. Until we became the same dinosaur ourselves, when the echo of the long hairless necks beating obscenely on the asphalt had time enough to turn into our own nostalgia.

  Death shuffled to the east, shuffled to the west, and over us again. We countered clockwise in a slow, dark circle of power, throbbing to the black bass line of resurrection. We ran blindly on the soft shoulder, screeched around the corner of our ever-present dreams; in a flash, the melted schoolgirl became a white shadow negative.

  Clutching our worthless icons, we fought over channels, tried to oppress the world, lost our souls along the highway, became just a fearful guilty hitchhiker, screamed each other’s names, and jumped eagerly into the fire.

  Ask anyone who was there.

  MY FATHER HOWLED IN HIS SLEEP

  My father’s hands were still shaking, his lips moved in

  silent sentences, his red eyes blurred with the tears of his stolen youth. His language was obscured in the mirthless sound of his gut laugh, and slurred with another Pabst Blue Ribbon. His eyes squinted behind the smoke of another Lucky Strike, his mouth softening from a hard snarl to a weak broken smile in the moments he thought I wasn’t looking. I was looking. I saw a heartbroken boy who walked like a man.

  Snatched off his father’s farm by the events of history, he marched willingly under the rumbling thunderheads and into the sunset slash of brutality. My father allowed himself to be trained like a dog to kill, and in that process lost more than he could afford to lose. My father emerged from the nightmare fractured, his soul in pieces.

  My father returned to us hollow-eyed, death in a shell of skin, obscured by the ill-fitting uniform. My father lived in a junkyard of human wreckage and tried to make the best of it. My father tore his neck raw against the invisible chain of manhood twisted too tightly, cutting off his inspiration. My father was a dog of war.

  JOYCE

  A single Airstream trailer sat shining in the envy of the white trash inhabitants of this U.S. military camp. It was the trailer Joyce lived in with her older brother, David, their mother and their troubled father. There was a newly laid asphalt road that led through overgrown forests, ending in a series of shorter roads and four or five rows of pocked, scraped trailers surrounded by marshland and meadow.

  On a drizzly morning, in one of those meadows, twenty children were watching some older boys shooting arrows straight up above their heads. David, a broken-toothed ten-year-old, was bent over backward pulling his bowstring, aiming for the sky. The bow vibrated under the tension, and the striped, feathered, steel-tipped arrow launched into the mists above us, immediately invisible in the low clouds.

  We stood small in the field, our faces upward, eyes squinted against the filtered sun, silent. Suddenly one of us shouted, and we scattered. The arrow spun downward and embedded itself deeply into the soft earth. Wiping our runny noses, and shivering in our soaking pant legs and shoes, we converged on the arrow like a flock of birds. An older boy pulled the arrow out of the ground, marking the depth it had sunk with his thumb on the shaft. Each older boy took his turn in the contest of whose arrow would drive deeper.

  Joyce and I were five years old. I had just had my birthday; Joyce had hers at Christmas. I was completely enthralled with the older kids as they once again displayed a power and privilege beyond ours. We were charged with an element of danger. We knew that for a few brief seconds we had no idea where the arrow was falling, or where it would punch into the ground. The older girls took it on themselves to guide the younger kids out of the path of the descending arrow.

  As with most of our games, this one began to shift to increasing risk. I watched the older boys rewarded with cheering and backslapping congratulations for standing under the arrow as it descended, delaying their move to safety as the arrow whispered downward on them. I realized the right to remove the arrow was bestowed on the boy who stood nearest the shaft when it hit the earth. I looked at Joyce, slipped my hand from the hand of the older girl between us, and waited for David to launch the next one.

  Another arrow jumped skyward. As it began its climb, an angry adult voice yanked our collective spirit down from the disappearing arrow to the oppression and threat of our parents. The older children looked to the approaching voice. The bow was flung on the grass, the launcher running toward the edge of the woods as his father gained speed and fury behind him. Other hungover adult voices screamed confusing and conflicting directions.

  “Stay where you are, Joyce.”

  “David, you little son of a bitch, STOP or I’ll. . . .” “Come here. No. NO!! Stay right there.”

  My eyes strained for the dot to appear above me. Frozen, heart pounding, face skyward, the arrow falling above me. I could hear a faint, growing whistle and whisper. I felt a feathered breath blow on my face, heard a soft thud and the beautiful arrow stood vertical at my feet, its wet feathers shining at my waist.

  I stared. It had just been so high, so invisible, moving so fast, and now it was within my grasp. I reached for the smooth, polished shaft. My fingers brushed the red and yellow feathers. I began to pull. I got down on my knees, put both hands on the shaft and slowly it began to slide out of the earth.

  I felt a rough hand push me aside. I heard a crack and saw our bow in two pieces, twisting awkwardly on its string in the air. My friend’s red-faced father jerked the arrow out of the ground and snapped it over his khaki-trousered knee. I heard a boy saying, “David’s gonna get it.” Joyce’s voice was crying, “Run, David!” and “No, Daddy!” in an even tem
po.

  The meadow was emptying with stern scoldings, an occasional slap, and tears. My friends’ arms were being jerked, little feet were bouncing in the air beside the stamping strides of enraged parents heading back to the trailers. I sat there stunned, with the crying protests of my friends filling the air, feeling the familiar sense of guilt at another thing I couldn’t understand.

  One of the oldest girls, who made cupcakes of mud for the little girls’ pretend tea parties and usually let me wear her old doll’s blanket as a cape, took my hand. She was smiling, with her warm hand on the top of my head, saying, “Time to go home.”

  A few months later, my mother and I were visiting the Airstream. Joyce was inside watching cartoons. David had brand-new sneakers right out of the box. They smelled great and he was singing to himself under his breath, “Paul Parrot, Paul Parrot, the shoes you ought to buy, they make your feet run faster, as fast as I can fly.” He went outside and sat on the stairs leading to the trailer door. Unsure of myself, I sat on the stair above him. Behind the screen door our mothers sat drinking coffee. Joyce was playing in a chair, watching Bluto make improper advances on Olive Oyl. I watched David and tried to retain as much of his big-boy ways as I could. I watched with envy as he tied his own shoe. I saw him clear his throat like the men and spit a rolling little ball into the dust beside the stairs. I asked where he was going.

  “Jake’s.”

  I asked, “Could I go?”

  He gave the expected answer. “No.”

  I asked the obvious question. “Why not?”

  He gave the only answer. “Because you’re too little.”

  He called into the trailer, “Ma, I’m going to Jake’s.”

  He jumped off the stairs and ran out of the yard, imitating to perfection an internal combustion engine of tremendous horsepower, and buzzed down the dusty lane and around the front of the trailer. I followed, watching as little explosions of dirt jumped behind his feet with each stride. It was the first time I was conscious of running. This led to hours of practice running and looking over my shoulder at the tufts of dirt flying behind me.

  God and country. Joyce and I took the yellow church bus to Sunday school off base. I enjoyed the clean clothes, Graham crackers, metallic-tasting orange juice, and coloring books. Jesus and sheep, more Jesus and sheep. Lights and bushels. Burning bushes. Little Moses floating in his basket. The teacher looked like Peggy Lee, who was at that time singing “Fever” on the Hit Parade. I thought my teacher was Peggy Lee and I began to associate Sunday school with early stirrings of the erotic.

  One early August morning, several parents found themselves sitting under canvas awnings, drinking iced coffee and escaping the oven-like trailers. We’d heard the rumor of a plan to caravan cars to the lake in the afternoon and then to a drive-in movie. The word spread from the woods and yard to yard, until the trailers were streaming with picnic baskets being carried to cars. Suntan lotion was smeared over tiny backs and older kids stood in impatient knots as families prepared for the outing. It was the second time in the summer we were heading toward pine needles, cool shade, hot sun, muddy shores, hot dogs — all to be followed with the miraculous treat of a drive-in. In an hour, six carloads were ready.

  There was a delay in getting under way. The problem was Joyce. We sat silently, sweating in the cars as, one by one, someone went to the Airstream, opened and closed the door and soon reemerged, smiling, shrugging, and shaking their heads. First her mother, then her father, then David, then a neighbor. Then calls from drivers and honking horns. Joyce had locked herself in the bathroom. Just as her father was telling the rest that they’d catch up, my mom disappeared into the trailer. Joyce’s embarrassed mother stood by the stairs; her father sat behind the wheel popping a beer with his “church key.” A couple of minutes later, my mother came out holding Joyce’s hand and smiling. Joyce’s chin was quivering and one fist was rubbing an eye.

  “She wants to talk to you,” Mom said to me. Joyce walked to our Oldsmobile and faced me. I said, “Joyce, let’s go.” She looked at me and seemed very far away.

  I tried again. “Don’t ya wanna go?”

  With a shamed look on her face and a hint of anger in her voice, she said, “I don’t love Jesus.”

  I was shocked. Of course we loved Jesus. We learned that in Sunday school. And He loved us. But more importantly, Jesus had nothing to do with this trip to the lake. I stared at her. She stared at me. I reached out of the window and she extended her hand.

  “C’mon, Joyce.”

  She looked crushed. It was the first time I saw that look that told me I did not understand something very important.

  Mom walked her to her parents’ car. Mom stuck her head into the driver’s window, her chin resting on her folded arms. Three or four men leaning against the car, drinking beer, listened to what she was saying. Then they exploded in laughter. My mom pulled her head back out and reached one arm inside to pat Joyce on the shoulder. The others took turns hugging and patting Joyce through the window, but her expression never changed. She continued staring at me from a million miles away.

  Mom walked over to our car and got into the front seat next to Dad. She was saying, as she slid her bulky hips over the seat, “Joyce had a little problem with Jesus. She doesn’t like him watching her go to the bathroom.”

  Dad laughed a single cough, and switched on the ignition. He turned his shoulder so he faced me, sitting alone in the back seat, as he reversed down the dusty lane, saying, “Jesus.”

  As we passed her, Joyce looked white and more like a painting frozen on a wall than my friend in a car. Her eyes remained on me for a second, and then shifted to the car floor. I thought she looked scared.

  On the drive to the lake, the assorted Fairlanes and Plymouths were filled with kids — except ours, since I always threw up in the car. We parked on a huge grass lot facing the lake. My father said disgustedly, “Go wash off.”

  I weaved my nauseated way to the water’s edge, followed closely by Joyce. I walked into the water, submerged, waded to the shore and sat next to her. I stuck my hands in the warm brown mud. She was sitting with her knees drawn up under her chin. We watched her brother lead a pack of bodies blasting full speed into the shallows and stroking out to the raft anchored in the middle of the lake with a riot of older kids lying around, diving and dunking each other. They were followed a few seconds later by a cascade of whooping fathers.

  “How come you didn’t want to come?” She shrugged. I waited. Nothing. I said, “Jesus sees everything, but He doesn’t care.” She said, “But I do.”

  We sat there a minute more in silence. Then she said, “And at night I see Him looking at me through the roof when I’m trying to sleep.”

  I said, “He looks after us. He loves children.” She said, “Why?” I didn’t know so I didn’t say anything.

  We quit talking and began to play. We played hard through the long afternoon and into the early evening. The only interruption was the period just after lunch when we watched the older kids sitting alone, smoking cigarettes at a picnic table, passing the hour that would keep us from drowning from the cramps in the water. The sun got lower in the surrounding hills and our parents were running low on beer, so we packed up a little early and made our way toward the Lakeside Drive-in.

  We stopped at a Dairy Queen next to a Piggly Wiggly and got ice cream for us and booze for them. At the drive-in we waited in a long line filled with carloads of teenagers and families. We felt a little superior to some of the younger kids since we were still wearing our bathing suits and they were in their pajamas.

  There was a playground under the huge movie screen: monkey bars, swings, teeter-totters, all made of candy-striped pipes and set in sand. While we waited for dark, we played with the kids we knew and challenged the ones we didn’t. I was getting real excited. It was turning darker and darker. We
were with the older kids and no adults were watching us.

  Suddenly the lights blinked on and off rapidly. One hundred kids swooped in a sprint toward their cars. Row after row of elevated blinking lights stretched out before us. I was ecstatic. I couldn’t feel my body. I was swept up in a wave of kids. To my left Joyce’s blond hair was streaming behind her, her legs churning gracefully beside me. I saw kids running ahead of us, being drawn back to our side and then vanishing behind us. We were flying, aware of each other and euphoric in effortless speed. David passed us in a T-shirted, sunburned animal burst, followed by a wake of struggling friends. Joyce and I held our own. Two men were leaning against the side of a car, smoking. As they watched the flock of kids fly by, I heard one say to the other, in a voice with warmth, amusement, and admiration, “Jesus, look at those kids run.”

  My energy doubled and my strides barely hit the ground. My arms cut through the warm summer night. I felt a bursting pride and love of my own life, and for what I would later understand as my generation.

  The older kids crammed into one of the Fairlanes. The huge Plymouth settled under the weight of the men. The women spread out in the other Fairlane. Joyce, David, and I shared a Chevy with the three oldest girls. Our Oldsmobile sat empty. We watched the first war movie and fell asleep during the second, film explosions and Asian screams giving way to exhausted dreams. A long time later, we heard voices gently untangling us in the back seats and carrying us to our own cars. Our parents were stumbling out of the cars they shared. We heard loud voices and laughter as Joyce’s father backed over one of the speaker stands. Joyce’s mother and father yelled at each other for a few seconds, until my mother cursed them and everyone laughed. Our fathers gunned their engines, and we squealed and rocked our way out of the drive-in and onto the black strip of asphalt leading to our colony on the Indian reservation in the woods.