Decoration for Valor

by Joe Cassilly

  “Hello, Jake.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Robinson.”

  “Young lady, it is a school night.”

  “I’ll be right in Mom.” Her mother stepped back inside. Valerie put her arms around my neck and we kissed again. Then, she got out and ran inside.

  Ann was waiting up for me when I got home. “Is that pink lipstick smeared all over your face?” she asked with an impish smile. “You sly dog, wipe that smug grin off your face.”

  Then I really grinned.

  Thursday, Mom, Ann, and I went shopping. I wanted a knapsack and Mom convinced me to buy a blue suit for the Robinson’s party. We had lunch and then drove to Longwood Gardens, a huge botanical display with water fountains. I pushed as long as I could and then Mom and Ann took turns giving me a boost. When it was time to leave, I was too exhausted to drive. I slid over and let Ann drive. When she pulled out of the parking lot, the tires screamed and she laid rubber.

  “Hey!” I yelled in fright. “Wild woman, take it easy.”

  “It has a little more power than I’m used to.”

  36

  A Thanksgiving Party

  Friday, I spent the whole day obsessing about how I would be accepted at the Robinson’s party and worrying about how I would get around. There were steps up the front. The living and dining rooms were down two steps from the rest of the first floor. There was a bathroom in what had been a first floor closet. The door was too narrow for me to get through. The door opened in; even if I could get a small chair in the bathroom and transfer on to it from the wheelchair, I could not get the door closed. Suppose they went to all the trouble to carry me up the steps and I had to go to the bathroom or the hose pulled off the leg bag. The inaccessibility of the place was becoming overwhelming. I began to think up excuses why I could not go or might have to leave early.

  Around five o’clock, Hank drove up to the house in a black Lincoln Continental. He strolled onto the porch shook my hand and I said, “Hey, Easy Money, where’s ja get dem wheels.” Hank muttered an answer. I put my hand behind my ear and pushed it out.

  “It’s my mother’s car,” he said, digging his toe into the gravel.

  I had to keep teasing. “And she trusts you with it?”

  “I happened to mention I was taking Ann out and she threatened to disown me if I drove my truck to the opera. You think she’s trying to tell me something?”

  The sound of the spring on the screen door stretching made us both turn. There stood Ann. She was wearing a jade colored strapless silk dress with a string of pearls and pearl earrings and carrying a matching wrap. Hank made a long, soft whistling sound. Ann and I both heard it. I rolled over to her, licked my finger, touched her arm, and made the sound of escaping steam. “Whoa, hot stuff.”

  “Well now that you gentlemen have embarrass…” She looked at the Lincoln. “You got Mafia connections?”

  “Hey,” I said, “didn’t I tells youse da guy is lousy wit class?” Hank opened the door for her. I looked at my watch. “Now children I want you back here in time for confession Sunday morning.” They both blushed. Hank walked briskly to the driver’s door and waved to me. I gave him a thumbs-up and a wink. As they drove out, I thought, at least somebody’s going to have a good time tonight.

  I changed into my blue suit, but I shocked my mother’s fashion conscience by wearing my boots instead of my father’s black dress shoes. My mother nearly strangled me buttoning the top button of my shirt. Then, she tied the tie she had chosen for me and buttoned my collar buttons. I was not going to manage to stay home for long if she insisted on running my life. I went to the porch to wait while she dressed.

  It was peaceful and cool. Birds were darting in and out of the garden. The sun was hanging out over the river. I thought of the long drive to Richmond and wished I had another week. “Suzie is a single woman again,” I reminded myself. I rolled into the house and let the phone ring about twenty times. I did not want to take the chance that she was in the bathroom and got there just as I hung up. I looked at the desk calendar, April thirtieth. There was less than a month to get my act together if I was going to go to Cathy’s graduation. I heard my mother’s heels on the stairs. I rolled into the hall. She was wearing a gray dress and the sweater she wore when she came to Walter Reed.

  I drove into the Robinson’s drive and was relieved to see that it was a lawn party. They had even reserved a parking place for me on the lawn. I got the chair out and started toward my hosts but the wheels kept sinking into the soft lawn and I needed two rest stops before I made it. When I reached them, I said hi. Mr. Robinson said, “I saw you struggling, but I didn’t know whether I should go offer some help or not.”

  “That wasn’t too hard,” I said, still panting. The tight collar was making it difficult to breathe and for the blood to get to my head.

  “Why don’t you rest here and I’ll bring people over to you?” volunteered Mrs. Robinson.

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  She took my mother by the arm and went toward the drinks. “Maybe later you’d like to see the office I put in my garage,” Mr. Robinson offered.

  “Hi Jake,” said a voice behind me.

  “Hi Betsey,” I said and I struggled to turn the chair so that there was a tree behind me and people could not come up behind me.

  She gave me a kiss on the cheek. She turned to the man with her and gestured. “This is my fiancé, Tad Lawrence.”

  The man took my hand. “How do you do,” he said, but his tone told me he did not really care.

  “Fine, thanks,” I said.

  “That’s funny, you don’t look fine,” he said, snorting at his attempt at humor.

  “That’s because I just had this sudden urge to throw up,” I replied with my best sarcastic smile. He turned and walked off. “It’s none of my business,” I said to Betsey, “but isn’t twenty a little young to be getting engaged?”

  Her eyes flashed. “Well it’s worse for me, then, I’m nineteen.” She swung her shoulders and her upturned head followed and she went to hang on Tad’s arm.

  Mrs. Robinson came walking over with a large man whose bulging eyes were surrounded by puffy flesh. “Jake, you remember Mr. Cooper with Merchants Trust?”

  “Sure he does,” he said with his booming voice and he reached out with his fat sweaty hand and patted me on the head and rubbed my hair out of place. I was stunned; no one had patted me on the head since I was a little kid.

  The man had started toward Mr. Robinson. “Mister Cooper,” I called just loud enough for him to hear, “could I tell you something?”

  “Sure, son.” He stepped closer. “Could you bend over a little?” I asked, speaking more softly. “A little more?” Then, I reached out quickly and rubbed him on the head. “I’m just fine, sir,” I said in a loud voice. Unfortunately, Mr. Cooper’s hair didn’t take rubbing well; in fact, it all came off in my hand. The crowd around us went silent and then went into hysterical laughter.

  “Hey boy!” shouted Cooper, snatching the hairpiece from me. “What the hell’d you do that for?”

  “Because I don’t like the way you say ‘boy.’ I’m a grown man and I don’t like being patted on the head any more than you do.” Cooper blustered into the house.

  “Jake, how could you,” my mother said sternly.

  “Relax,” said Mr. Robinson, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. “Cooper had that coming, funniest damn thing I ever saw.” He was still chuckling when he pulled a folding chair beside me and sat down.

  “I don’t think I’m getting off to a very good start with your guests,” I said. “I’ve also insulted Betsey and her boyfriend.”

  “Really,” said Mr. Robinson with a touch of admiration in his voice. “You’ll have to tell me later.” Someone inside the house turned up the stereo and played “Stars and Stripes Forever.” Then, the side door opened and out onto the porch came Valerie wearing a dark blue mini-dress with white stars. To her right were Julia and Diana wearing mini-dresses with red and white ho
rizontal stripes. They walked down the steps with their arms around one another and sparklers in their hands. The crowd broke into applause. “They put that together in your honor,” said their father proudly.

  Betsey came hurrying over. “Father, they’re acting like children,” she said petulantly. I understood that I was not the only one who had changed in the past two years. The Betsey I had known would have gotten a kick out of her sisters’ antics if she hadn’t actually been part of them. Now, she was only worried about impressing Tad with the “right” family image. I said hello to everyone else without any other incidents. Valerie and her sisters brought me a punch and food. They were a matched set and the younger two felt obliged to be by Valerie’s side all evening. The crowd began to say their goodbyes.

  “Jake, you ready to see my office?” reminded Mr. Robinson.

  “Well, I need to see what time my mom wants to leave.”

  “I’ve already taken care of it. My wife is going to run her home.” He gave me a push up out of the lawn onto the drive and we said goodbye to the rest of the guests. Then, he led me to a door at the rear of the garage and into his office. A dozen beautifully detailed model planes hung from the ceiling. “Recognize any of them?” he asked.

  “That’s a Flying Fortress, that’s a Liberator, and that’s a Lightning,” I said, pointing to the three I recognized.

  “There’s a B-25,” said Mr. Robinson, pointing to one directly over my head, “and there’s a Mustang and a Thunderbolt. Look around.” He took great pride in the contents of this room. There was a large map on the wall showing the Allied campaigns in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. On another wall were photos. I moved closer to get a better look. Mr. Robinson came out from behind a bar in the corner with scotches and handed me one. A group of American GIs was posing on a captured German tank. A young dirty-faced sergeant looked familiar. I turned and looked at Mr. Robinson. “Yeah, it’s me,” he grinned.

  I looked over the desk at a shadow box. It was filled with patches, medals, and a pair of captain’s bars. “You were a captain?”

  “Eventually, I was a sergeant when we took Sicily, then the unit went to Italy. We had a command post take a direct hit from German artillery. I was supposed to be there, but our patrol was late coming back. We were out of touch with division for a couple of hours and when we got back in touch, someone told me to take command of what was left of the company. A few days later, I was a lieutenant. By the time I got hurt, I was a captain.” He held up his scotch. “Here’s to the guys who come back alive and keep on living.”

  I raised my glass. “Here’s to us.” We tossed down the scotch. I took my jacket off; it was getting warm. “I didn’t know you got hurt?”

  There was a knock at the door. Valerie put her head inside. “Daddy, can I come in?”

  “Sure, sweetie, join the crowd.” She came in and flopped in a chair. “Valerie! Wouldn’t you like to change first,” said her father uncomfortably.

  “Why, Daddy?”

  “I think what your father is trying to say is that your dress wasn’t designed to sit down in.” I laid my jacket in her lap. She stood and put it on and it came down farther than her dress. She went and leaned against the bar.

  “You were going to tell me about being wounded,” I reminded.

  Mr. Robinson smiled and shook his head. “Some sniper with a sense of humor shot me in the backside. The bullet shattered my pelvic bone. When the war ended, I was still in an Army hospital in England recovering from a series of operations. Between operations, I was on crutches and worked in a supply unit stockpiling stuff for D-day. Then, they shipped me to a hospital in the States and we finished the war in the Pacific. I missed all the dancing in the streets, the parades. When I got to my parents in Missouri, I was just one more out-of-work veteran. I guess that was why I wanted to have this party for you.”

  I had a lump in my throat and could only nod. Valerie broke the silence. “I didn’t know any of that, Daddy.” She walked over and gave him a hug.

  Mr. Robinson stood with his arm around his daughter and looked at me. “What do you think about Vietnam, Jake?”

  Valerie turned to me. “Do you want me to leave?”

  “No.” I closed my eyes and collected my thoughts. “I think we should be there. I think the North Vietnamese will kill thousands of those people in the South, especially some of the mountain people and enslave the rest if the U.S. doesn’t help. To me, the peace demonstrators are saying that it’s okay for the communists to be able to kill and terrorize the Vietnamese people. I don’t understand their position. I just don’t know. We have a bunch of politicians running the war. The soldiers are fighting and losing lives, but we know with the tactics we’re using, we can’t win that war. I just don’t know,” I said, shaking my head and staring at my scotch. “I don’t understand. One time, I saw a young Viet Cong rolling around on the ground after he’d been shot. I figured that he was about fifteen or sixteen. I wondered if either of us understood why he was dying.”

  “Fifteen or sixteen,” said Valerie with concern in her voice. The office grew quiet.

  When I tuned back in, I realized that I had to drain the leg bag. “Do you have a bathroom out here?”

  “Yes,” my host pointed to a door that was obviously too narrow.

  “I’ll just roll outside.” I went into the darkness behind the garage. As it was draining, I thought, All the world is a toilet.

  When I got back to the door, Julia was coming out with her father. He held out his hand to me. “Betsey and her friend are getting ready to drive back to college. My wife wants me to come say goodbye. If I don’t get back, thanks for coming.”

  “Thanks for thinking of me,” I responded. He leaned forward and hugged me and I returned the hug. When I went into the office, Valerie was seated facing the wall looking down at herself. When she heard the door close, she pulled my jacket around her and stood up. She had some color in her cheeks.

  “I wanted to see why my father did not want me to sit in this dress.”

  “Apparently, you did,” I said, pointing to her cheeks.

  She walked over and looked at the photos while I looked at some handwritten notes on the map. When I looked around, she was watching me. “Did you have to kill anybody?”

  I thought for a second how to answer that, the corners of my mouth turned down, but I couldn’t talk. I crossed the room, picked up my glass, poured some more scotch into it, and drank. Then, I rolled over to her. “Sit in my lap?” She took my coat off and laid it on a chair. She turned her back to me, lifted her leg, and came back onto my lap. She put her face close to mine and brushed her hair back. I slid the tip of my finger back from the corner of her mouth, across her cheek, and to the back of her head into her hair. We kissed and I slid my tongue across her lips. Then, I looked at her with a serious expression. “How much older than you is Betsey?”

  She gave me a puzzled look, “Two years.”

  “You’re seventeen?”

  “Yes,” she said, lifting one eyebrow, “is that a problem?”

  “When’s your birthday?”

  “December, I am not too young for you if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Come here, mind reader.” I slid my arms around her body and kissed her for a long time, until our combined weight on my poor butt made me uncomfortable. “I gotta head home.”

  “Can I come over tomorrow?”

  “Please. In the afternoon, I’m going to five o’clock church so I can get an early start back to Richmond Sunday morning.”

  My mother was waiting up to help me. It seemed weird sitting there naked in front of my mother and I wished she would stop trying to reassure me or deal with her own embarrassment by saying, “I’ve seen all this before when you were a baby.”

  Sunday morning came too quickly. My mother and Ann were wiping away tears when I left. “I’ll be home for good by June,” I promised.

  “Hank said maybe we could come down,” said Ann.

 
; “Great, I’ll call you and we’ll pick a day.” I drove down the lane. I was surprised that I was not sad at leaving. I knew the time would fly before I came back. I made it to a rest area in Virginia before I had to take a nap. I was at the hospital by 4:00 p.m. It did not look as depressing as when I had left.

  37

  Against Medical Advice

  Monday morning, May 3, 1971, I started the countdown to getting out on my own. As I was getting dressed, Burnie asked how I had done and I was telling him. I noticed he was using an external catheter. “Hey, who decides what kind of a catheter a patient can use?”

  “You have to see a urologist.”

  I went to Miss Adams and she had the ward doctor write a urology consult. A couple of days later, I went to the urology clinic. The doctor was a visiting specialist from the Medical College of Virginia. He was a tall man with thinning red hair and a hooknose. He helped me onto the examining table. He began, “I guess the doctors here have told you about your sympathetic nervous system.”

  “Are you kidding? The doctors here haven’t told me a damn thing about what’s happening to me.”

  He went on as if he had expected me to say that. “You see, even though your injury is fairly high on your spine, your internal organs are still working. For example, your heart is beating, your diaphragm is pushing and pulling air, your stomach, liver, kidneys, and other organs in your gut have kept functioning. What we don’t know is how your bladder will work. A lot of that may depend on the level of the injury. Some low level paras regain bladder control. Others will spontaneously void when their bladder reaches a certain level. The key thing is not to have any urine left in your bladder that bacteria might grow in.”

  He handed me a pitcher of water with a straw. “I’m going to remove your catheter and give you a lot of water and see what happens.” After the catheter was out, I sat around with a towel in my lap, drinking and drinking and flipping through old magazines. After two hours, the doctor came back. “Anything happening?