by Joe Cassilly
Just as quickly, they were back in other rooms and the hall was silent. I came up to the office. I talked to the secretary and gave her the list of colleges to mail my transcript to. She was new and I did not recognize her.
“Hi, Jake.” Valerie Robinson had come in behind me.
“Hi, Val. Somebody send you to the office?”
“I’m here to see Mrs. Swenson,” she said to me and the secretary.
The woman went over to a door labeled “Guidance Counselor,” knocked, and looked inside. Then, she closed the door and looked at Valerie. “She’ll be with you in a moment.”
Mrs. Swenson was still the guidance counselor. I mumbled. “What was that?” Valerie asked as she sat beside me.
“I said, what a flake.” Each senior had had to see a guidance counselor before graduation. I had gone in and told Swenson that I was going into the Army. She told me I was wasting my life. I walked out. She set up other appointments, at which times she declared that I was going to waste my intelligence and my education. She presented me with alternatives. To get her to leave me alone, I told her that I would consider the alternatives, and I did.
Our last confrontation took place in front of the Army recruiting office in Lancaster. It was the Saturday after my eighteenth birthday. I was going to sign the papers. I would report after graduation. Swenson and six other people were demonstrating against the war in front of the office. I waited until I thought that she would not see me approaching the door and I started. She saw me.
“Mr. Scott. Where are you going?”
She knew damn well where I was going. I made a gesture toward the recruiter’s door. “Those people are lying to the American public,” she spat. She shoved some leaflets in front of my face. I tried to step around her, but she grabbed my arm. The other demonstrators and passers-by had stopped to watch us. “Do you want to be taught to fight and kill?” She asked me again and again; each time, her voice grew louder until she was screaming. The recruiting sergeant came out of the office and a police officer stepped beside me. The policeman explained to the crowd that they could demonstrate, but they could not interfere with people using the sidewalk. Swenson was glaring at me and either did not hear him or was ignoring him. The sergeant took both of our arms and pulled her hand from my wrist. Another demonstrator told the officer that there would not be any problems and they began marching again, except Swenson, who kept looking at me through the window as I went over the paperwork.
“Mr. Scott!” Swenson called. She walked from her office, leaned across the counter, and looked at the wheelchair. “You insisted on going to war, didn’t you? Look what has happened to you. Do you see this, Miss Robinson? This man would not listen to me. He went off to kill people. Do you know what I think, Mr. Scott?”
“I don’t care what you think.”
“I think you got just what you deserved. I see you in that wheelchair and I think it serves you right.” Swenson turned on her heel and retreated to her office. “Miss Robinson, you can come in now.”
I sat there, face burning, throat tight, a flood of tears trying to push past my eyes. It all came down to this—I was being punished for serving my country, for being patriotic, for all those ideals I learned in this school. I wanted to scream, but I turned the chair and pushed to the door. I fumbled and fumbled with the knob. Valerie came around and opened it. I pushed the chair as hard as I could. “Jake? Jake,” I heard her call softly after me. I pushed harder. Outside, heavy, dark clouds were blocking the sun.
I drove to the river. I got out and sat contemplating the broad expanse of water slowly parading by. I kept forcing thoughts of rolling into the swirling waters from my head. I remembered the bottle under the seat. I took a swallow of the scotch and concentrated on the burning sensation.
It was about six when I got to the house. I went to the sun porch. The wicker furniture was gone and my weights and bench had been set up. I carefully slid from the chair onto the bench and laid back. I started pressing the weights, up and down, until my arms would not do it.
“Jake?” My mother and Ann walked in. “We thought we heard you come in. Do you like this set up?”
“Yeah. Thanks.” My voice was tired and flat.
“Did something happen?” asked my mother.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Did it have something to do with Valerie Robinson?” asked Ann.
“What do you mean?”
“She’s called here twice looking for you.”
I grabbed the weights and started pushing again. At dinner, my mother and Ann talked about the latest gossip from town. “Oh, by the way, Ann.” My mother gestured with her knife. “I meant to tell you that we’ve been invited to a cocktail party at the Robinson’s Friday night.” As she finished, she looked at me to make sure I remembered. Ann and I looked at each other in the same instant.
“Ann,” I rushed. “Isn’t that the night you have tickets to the opera?”
“Yes,” Ann gulped, trying to hide behind her forkful of salad.
“Oh, that’s nice,” said my mother. Then, she put on her mother-daughter face. “Who are you going with?”
It was up to me. “Hank Drier asked me if I knew anybody who would like to see an opera and I introduced him to Ann.”
“Hank Drier,” my mother spat with sarcastic disapproval. My mother could only be happy if her sister got involved with the doctor or lawyer type. It would not hurt if he were an Ivy League graduate from an old, rich family.
“Mom, I just want you to know that Hank Drier is the nicest guy in this town, a friend of mine, and my guest for dinner here last night.” That ended the conversation; my mother got up and started clearing the table.
Ann watched her go into the kitchen and whispered quickly, “Why did you tell her about Hank? Why did you think I was kicking you under the table?”
I burst out laughing, “Honey child, you could set fire to me under the table and I wouldn’t feel it. Besides, she had to know sometime. Now it’s out. Enjoy it.”
She stood and was deliberately folding the napkins. “What have you and Valerie got going?”
“Nothing.” My mood raced back to sullen.
“Aren’t we friends?”
The phone rang. My mother answered it in the kitchen. “Jake, it’s Valerie.” Ann raised her eyebrows.
“Tell you later,” I said. I rolled into the living room and picked up the phone. “I got it, Mom,” I said into the receiver and heard the other phone get hung up.
“Hello?”
“Hi.” The voice was husky and sultry; she was suddenly older, but then there was silence. “It was good to see you yesterday at church, umm,” she said, inhaling, “and at school.”
“Yeah, I guess I should have just phoned the school.”
“Where’d you go?”
“I drove to the park by the river.”
“I’m sorry she said those things to you.”
“Yeah, well, what can I do?”
“Could I stop by Wednesday after school?”
“Yeah, if you want.” Then it struck me what she was asking and I perked up. “That would be nice. I’d like that.”
That night, my mom came onto the sun porch. “Jake, do you need anything?”
“Mom, how did you get Dad in and out of the tub?”
“Well, we didn’t exactly. I put a chair in the tub for him to sit on.”
I got undressed and rolled into the bathroom. I pulled the chair straight toward the tub, swung the footrest out of the way, and sat on the side. I lowered myself in and turned on the water. It felt fantastic to lie in a tub, the hot water relaxing my muscles. I slid down and put my head under water and my butt floated and I had to roll sideways to get my head up. I was in there until the water started to get cold and I let it drain. Then, I tried various approaches to getting out, but I was too slippery.
“Anybody! I need some help.” Instantly, the door swung open and Mother and Ann came in. I laughed. “Were you guy
s listening at the keyhole?” I grabbed the washcloth and spread it over my groin to preserve some modesty. After a quick discussion of the options, Ann grabbed under my arms and my mother under my knees and they sat me back in the chair.
After I was in bed, the house grew quiet. Then, I heard someone coming down the stairs. Ann walked in and sat on the edge of the bed. “You found the pajama pants,” I observed. She blushed. “I’m sorry you found them.” She blushed more.
She took my hand. “You want to talk about what happened today?”
“Somebody called me a criminal and said I should be punished for going to Vietnam.”
“Who?”
“Nobody important.”
“Then why were you upset?”
“Because there are a lot of other people just like her.”
“Not Valerie?!”
“No.”
“What did she say should happen to you?”
“I should be sentenced to a wheelchair for life.”
She leaned toward me and held me. “I’m sorry, Jake.”
I hugged her tightly. “I only hope I find a woman to love me who is as great as you are,” I whispered into her ear.
She pulled back and looked at me. “I can be a good listener if you want to talk about what happened over there or anything that’s bothering you.” I leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Goodnight,” she whispered.
“Thanks,” I returned. She turned off the lights and I heard her climbing the stairs.
35
Growing Older
Tuesday morning, my mom and I drove to an athletic supply house and bought a gymnastic tumbling mat. Then, we stopped and got a non-skid bath mat. When we got home, she spread the tumbling mat on the living room floor. I got down onto it and stretched and exercised. I sat up, grabbed my feet, and pulled them back to my butt so that my knees were under my chin. I put my hands on the floor behind me and pushed forward until I was squatting on my feet.
“Hey, mom!” She came in. “Will you please move that footstool beside me and hold it?” I put one hand on the stool and then started lifting with both arms and bouncing on my feet and lifting higher until I could get my butt to the height of the stool and then throw my butt onto the stool. This involved a good number of misses and I would fall to the side or back. My mom put a big chair against the stool to hold it. I managed to get on the stool and then did it again and again until the maneuver went right almost every time. Once I was on the stool, I could lift into a higher regular chair and then back up into the wheelchair.
When Ann came home, I explained to her and my mom the purpose of all this. The bathtub was a challenge. They put the bath mat in and I got in with my clothes on but with my feet bare. I went through the same procedure and ended up on the side of the tub. It may not work as well when I was naked and wet, but at least I had a solution.
That evening, I asked Ann if she had taken off for the next day. “No,” she said, “I wanted to see if you still wanted me to. I can call in tomorrow.”
“I forgot and told Valerie to come over after school.”
“That’s okay, how about Thursday?”
“It’s a date.”
On Wednesday, I practiced lifting from the floor again because I realized it would be important to be able to get up if I fell. When Valerie arrived, I was on the mat trying to do a sit-up. I had my hands under my butt but I kept lifting my legs. “Hey, Valerie. How’d you like to do me a favor?”
“Sure. What?”
“Put your hands here above my knees and hold my legs down.”
She straddled my legs and knelt down, which caused an already short mini-skirt to slide a little higher. I looked up at the ceiling until she was sitting on my legs. Most of the sit-up was accomplished with my arm muscles. When I sat up, my face was only inches from hers. I could smell her scent. My eyes were looking directly at her lips. I did ten sit-ups. “Talk about putting a carrot before a mule,” I muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing, nothing, just talking to myself.”
She looked out the window. “Is that your car out there?” I shook my head but my eyes never left her throat. “It’s neat. Would you like to take a ride after dinner?”
“Sure, I’ll pick you up at your house.” I did two more sets of sit-ups before she left. With her as my therapist, I could be ready for the Olympics in no time.
I was a little surprised when I pulled into the Robinson’s drive and saw four teenagers: Valerie, two other girls, and a guy who was seeing one of those girls. They walked up to the car.
“Hey,” said one of the girls, “we can’t all get in with this wheelchair in here.”
The other girl said, “We could just leave it here and you can pick it up when you get back.”
“Yeah,” said the guy, “how do I get it out of here?”
“I got a better idea,” I growled. “The wheelchair can stay where it is and I can leave you all.” I slid the car into reverse and started backing out the drive.
“Jake, wait, please,” pleaded Valerie. I stopped and she stooped beside the door and looked at me with her beautiful eyes.
“Hey,” I said, still pissed, “I ain’t no chauffeur and this ain’t no limousine.”
“I didn’t know they were coming by.” She spoke softly so that the others could not hear. “They just stopped over and asked me to go to a bonfire by the river and I mentioned that we could all go in your car. I forgot about the wheelchair. Don’t be mad, they can ride in their car and I’ll ride with you. Okay?” She ran her fingertips over the hairs on the back of my arms and sent chills up my arm. There was no way I could stay mad with those big hazel eyes looking into mine.
“All right,” I whispered.
We followed the others to the river. They weren’t speaking to me. The area was flat so, with Valerie’s help, I rolled to the fire. There was a crowd of about twenty. She introduced me around. I had gone to school with several of their older siblings. I sat for an hour and a half listening to them talking about their plans for the prom, for graduation, summer jobs, and who was dating or breaking up with whom. Somebody brought a jug of rum and Coke. They gave me a cup but it was too sweet and I sat it aside. When the sun went down, it got chilly. I took off my camouflage jacket and wrapped it around Valerie’s shoulders. She was still shivering when we drove home.
The lights of the instrument panel dimly lit her face when she leaned over so she could look at me. “You’re not angry, are you?”
“No, why did you ask that?”
“You were really quiet back there.”
“Sweetheart,” I sighed, “surrounded by those kids, I suddenly realized how old I’ve become. I felt nothing in common with them. I probably have nothing in common with the kids I went to school with. They’re talking about all the fun that comes with the end of high school. I couldn’t exactly stir up the conversation with, ‘So what d’ya think of the M-16?’”
“You could have told me about Vietnam?”
“From what I’ve seen, the people back home don’t want to talk about the war. They just want it to be over with. They want people like me not to remind them of where I’ve been or what I’ve been through. They don’t want to know if I have bad dreams or head problems.”
“Do you?”
“What?”
“Have head problems or bad dreams?”
“Yeah.”
“Would you like to talk about it?”
“Yes, but not to you.”
“Why not to me?” Her feelings were hurt.
“Darlin,’ I want to talk about shit that’s going to bother me forever, stuff that you can’t even imagine. How can I talk to you or any of these nice folks?”
“Is the war all you ever want to talk about?”
“I guess it sounds like that, huh? I want to talk about going to college and having a normal life too, but sitting there and listening to those kids.” I looked at the still dark streets of the town, the traffic lights changing for no on
e, the empty shops. “Not only am I different, but this town’s different from when I left and it’s not going to go back to the way it was because I came home. I don’t know the people they’re talking about, it isn’t my graduation or summer vacation, and I’m not going to the prom next weekend.” I turned the car into her driveway.
“Jake, stop. Please.” I stopped and put the car in park. She sat looking out the window while she spoke. “All the years we grew up next to each other, I had such a crush on you. In high school, I tried so hard to get you to look at me and you never noticed me. I was so jealous when you asked my sister and not me to the prom. I remember when you came to pick her up. I sat in my room looking out the window at you in your tux, wishing I could get you to look at me. When I saw you at church on Sunday, I almost cried. I’m so angry for what they did to you.”
I was stunned by what she had said. She was the first person to tell me that what had happened to me made a difference to her. I laid my hand on her shoulder and she started speaking in a hoarse whisper.
“When I heard you were hurt, I wanted to go see you, but I was scared that it wouldn’t be you anymore. If I had known you were coming home,” she said, turning to look at me, “I would have asked you to take me to my prom.”
“I’m afraid we wouldn’t gotten much dancing done.”
She sat back and put her hands in her lap. There was silence for two minutes. “Where are you going to college?”
I shook my head. “To be truthful, I haven’t decided yet. What about you?”
“I am going to Notre Dame in Baltimore.” It got quiet again for a few minutes. I slid my hand across her shoulder and up her neck.
“I’m looking at you now.” She slid toward me and I pulled her onto my lap. We kissed and I slid my hand down her back across her short skirt and along her stockinged leg. “I must have been blind before,” I whispered into her ear. She smiled. Suddenly, the light on her front porch went on. “I have the distinct impression we’re not alone.” She slid back into the right front seat and I drove the car up the rest of the drive to the bottom of the front porch steps.
