Decoration for Valor

by Joe Cassilly

  “And I’ve been worrying all evening that I was going too fast for you.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  I could feel my face turning red. “Yes, I would.”

  “And I would like to go to bed with you, which is why we’re not going into my room.”

  “Maybe I’m more than just a little stupid, but is there some kind of logic at work here?”

  She climbed out of her seat and put one leg across me so that she was straddling my lap. The steering wheel pushing into her back pushed her against me. “Listen to me,” she said in a no nonsense tone. “When I was a naïve little coed, I met this handsome graduate student, who was nice and attentive, so I let him make love to me. Then, I thought, well I must be in love because we’re having sex. So—I married him.” She took a big swallow of champagne and went on.

  “In the past couple of months, I’ve discovered I didn’t know a thing about him—not his philosophy, not his ambitions, his religion, his politics, his likes and dislikes, and especially whether I could trust him. If I hadn’t had sex with him, I would have been able to look at our relationship more objectively.” She poured herself some more champagne and went to empty the bottle in my cup.

  I shook my head no. “I don’t feel like champagne after scotch.” She reached in the bag and pulled out a miniature of scotch. She twisted it open and emptied that into my cup.

  “There’s something,” she said, stopping to find the word she needed, “secure about being married, even if it is a lousy marriage. If you’re a woman, you don’t have to put up with men; you just push them away with the explanation that you’re married. You don’t have to worry if sex is a sin or a blessing because you’re out of circulation. But then.” She put her forehead against mine and I could feel her eyelashes brushing mine. “You tell some wise ass you’re married and he looks at you with big blue eyes and says that if he was married to you, he wouldn’t leave you alone on Christmas Eve. And you know why you’re alone, because your marriage and the security are an illusion.”

  I put my hands on her hips and could feel that the hem of her dress had slid up there. I moved my hands around her and up her back pushing her into me as I went up. I slid my fingers up her neck and massaged her hair. She closed her eyes and purred. I whispered, “You’re divorced—you’re free to love who you want.”

  She opened her eyes and shook her head to clear it. She pulled my hands down and held them with hers. “Oh, God, you confuse me. I won’t be divorced for another year or more. This was just a hearing to re-title our property. You’re soon to be six years younger than me, but you’re more responsible and mature than my ex—who’s ten years older than you. You want and need to go to college. I’ve been to college I can’t go back to being a coed.”

  “So what’s with this tease, ‘do I want to have sex with you?’”

  “I was just trying to show you that I feel the same way and if I let you come in,” she said, smiling, “then I’d let you come in. I’m never again going to have sex to prove to myself or anybody else that I love them. It ruins a perfectly good friendship. First, I’m going to fall in love and, when I am certain that it’s love, then—only then—am I going to use sex as an expression of love. Do you understand?”

  “No! I’m confused. Are you saying, even though you say ‘I love you,’ I should think you don’t love me because you won’t have sex with me?”

  “NO!” She leaned forward and kissed me. “I’m saying we don’t really know each other. We know each other’s pasts, but I don’t know your ambitions, who you are, or who you will become. Whether I can trust you? How can I love you before I know you?”

  “I’m a Catholic, Republican, veteran, and I’d never hurt you.”

  “And where are you going from here?”

  “To college.”

  “And then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And I don’t know what I’m going to do. By mid-June, I’ll be out of the Army. I need some time to myself; maybe it is post-divorce shock syndrome. I hope you’ll write to me.” I nodded and remembered that I had already promised to write Cathy and Valerie, and this from the world’s worst letter writer. She poked me in the chest and said, “I’ll write you and, maybe in a few years, we can get back together.” She leaned to my ear and said, “I hope we’ll still feel the same way we feel tonight.” She leaned toward me and we kissed very passionately. She put her tongue into my mouth and it was a warm, soft, wet rush of excitement.

  She pulled back. “Goodnight.”

  “No, no, no, wait, wait, let me get this straight. We need to be apart so we learn more about each other.”

  “No silly,” she said patiently, “so we can learn about ourselves. You can’t ask me to love you until you know who you are. Now, it’s late and I’m tired and a little drunk.”

  “Tell me one thing. If I weren’t crippled, would it be any different?”

  “No! Why do you ask that?”

  “I know that a lot of women are never going to get passed the fact that I’m in a wheelchair. Hell, Suzie, I don’t even know if I can have sex. I mean there’s no therapist over there for that.”

  “Honey.” She gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Right now, it’s very obvious to me that you don’t seem to have any disabilities. I gotta go. I’ll come see you tomorrow.” She opened the driver’s door and climbed out.

  “Goodnight,” I called after her. I was trying to figure out what she was saying to me. I went to buckle my seat belt and found that I had an erection, which, of course, I couldn’t feel. Maybe this was part of my sympathetic nervous system.

  The next morning, I headed to therapy and left a note on my bed telling Suzie where to look for me. Florence had me kneeling up when Suzie came walking in. “Suzie, I want to meet the best therapist in the VA. This is Florence. Flo, this is Suzie, the best nurse in the Army.”

  “Florence, you are working wonders,” said Suzie. “He’s a much better bullshitter now than when we had him at Walter Reed.”

  “Oh, I can’t take the credit,” replied Flo. “Bullshit is a natural product for this one.” The women laughed.

  “Oh, thanks. I’m so glad I made those flattering introductions.” Flo asked Suzie if she could keep me from falling off the mat and busting my head open. Assured that Suzie could handle it, Flo left us alone.

  “Well, I guess you got a good night’s sleep without me in the bed,” I whispered.

  She smiled and shook her head. “You little bastard.”

  “I resent that ‘little’ remark.”

  “If it makes you happy, I laid awake thinking about you, about us.”

  “I had a dream about us.” I caught myself.

  “So don’t keep me in suspense.”

  “It was a sad dream.” I looked away from her.

  “Tell me.”

  I sighed. “We were walking along the beach; I could walk in the dream. Sometimes we would run and wade into the surf.” I got a lump in my throat.

  “Please, tell me the rest,” she urged.

  When I could speak, my voice was hoarse. “My legs collapsed and I fell on the beach. And you kept walking away like you didn’t notice what had happened. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.”

  “Jake, can you understand that I want to make sure that the feelings I have for you aren’t simply because I’m on the rebound?”

  “Would I be premature in proposing marriage?”

  “You’d get a punch in the mouth for proposing marriage. Take my word for it. You’re too young to get married—to me or anybody.”

  “Yes, Mommy.”

  “I don’t see why I drive all this way for this abuse.”

  “You love me.”

  “Yes, I love you.”

  I sat back and then scooted around so I could lie on my back. “You want to help me do some sit-ups?”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Sit on my legs and hold my knees down.”

  She
knelt over my legs and froze. “Are you sure this isn’t some kind of a scheme to get between my legs?”

  I felt my face going scarlet. “I am learning a lot about you. You are a raunchy broad.”

  “ME! You’re the guy trying to maneuver me into these compromising positions. Hey, Flo. Come here please?” The therapist walked over. “Look at this,” said Suzie, indicating her position on my legs. “Does he ever ask you to sit on his legs like this?

  “No, but I might be interested.” I could feel more blood come to my face and thought my pores might bleed. I did a set of sit-ups— aware of how close I came to her.

  When I finished, I laid back to catch my breath. “Are you going to Cathy’s graduation?” I asked her.

  “No, I arranged to work that evening. I am afraid there would be too many memories of my own graduation. What about you?”

  I lied, “I haven’t decided.” I did not want to say I would and then have something go wrong to keep me away. We sat looking around the therapy room for a few moments and occasionally catching each other’s eye.

  I grew uneasy and said, “I thought about us for a long time last night before I went to sleep.”

  “That’s what gives you the bad dreams,” she said, trying to make light of my remark.

  “I can see we’re not going to be serious any more.”

  “I don’t think we should.” I got back in my wheelchair and we went out to the visitor’s area where she had pushed me the first night she came down. We got coffee from a vending machine. We had said all that could be said. She drank the last of her coffee. “I need to go home and clean house and pick up some uniforms from the cleaners.” We went to the parking lot beside her car. She sat on my lap and we kissed goodbye. She wiped a tear from the corner of my eye. “What’s wrong?”

  “Is this our last kiss?”

  “No Jake—trust me, this is not our last kiss.” She got in her car and disappeared from sight.

  39

  Flo’s Determination

  Sunday, Ann and Hank drove down. Hank was a student of civil war history. We spent the afternoon visiting Petersburg and Appomattox Courthouse. As usual, I was worried that we would not find a bathroom I could use. I sat watching the countryside, listening to Hank talk about the events that had scarred this part of Virginia. “Hey Jake. Jake!” Hank’s voice called me from my thoughts.

  “Yeah, Hank.”

  “Ann tells me you were thinking of teaching history. Are you a history buff?”

  “I am interested by it. Mostly, I think we study the past to understand what our motives for decisions in the future are. It might be interesting to study the lessons of Vietnam with someone who has been there.” We stopped at a Confederate cemetery. Rows of white markers, rows and rows and rows of gravestones making a monument of a green field. I wondered how many of the men had been eighteen and nineteen and twenty years old when they died.

  The week began. Flo was stretching my hands. Flo was chipper and chatting with the other therapists. She looked down at me stretched out on the mat. “Did you and your nurse friend have a nice time on Friday?”

  “Well, let me put it this way; I don’t have any stories like yours about wild weekends.”

  “You seem kind of far away.”

  “Just thinking.”

  “About Suzie?”

  “Some, mostly about leaving.”

  “I heard you were leaving.”

  I nodded. “Flo, I read in the Sunday paper that there’s a little circus in town at the end of the week. Would you and your son like to go to the circus with me this weekend?”

  “I don’t date patients, but thanks for asking.”

  “Not so fast now. You see, I’m leaving here next Thursday for good. That means, after this Friday, I’ll only have three more sessions. If I were to spend those sessions with another therapist, then I wouldn’t be your patient anymore. Besides, it is something I’d like to do to say thanks. Come on, break a rule once in awhile.”

  “What day you want to go?”

  “Is Saturday afternoon all right?”

  “Okay.”

  “Write your address down and I’ll pick you up.”

  “You!” she said with mock alarm. “You want me to risk my child’s life with you behind the wheel?”

  “Actually, I was thinking of riding up on an elephant.”

  “Sex on the back of an elephant would make a great story.”

  When Miss Adams was working that week, I went back to the swimming pool twice. The first time, I let her know where I was going in case I did not come back in a reasonable time. By the time I got out of the pool, I was so tired I needed a nap so I slid onto a bench and took a nap. The next thing I knew, Miss Adams was hollering at me because I scared her to death thinking I had drowned. The next time, I invited Dave to keep an eye on me, but that was the last time.

  It was before two on Saturday when I drove up to Flo’s house. She and her son were sitting outside waiting for me. I was surprised how small the boy was for seven years old. He was a Mongoloid child. He had a grin and a twinkle in his almond shaped eyes that was a blessing to the beholder. His mother good-naturedly squeezed into the back seat with the wheelchair, because the little boy wanted to ride up front.

  “Jake, this is my son, Tommy.”

  “Hi Tommy, I’m Jake,” I said, and the little boy shook my hand and said something. I had difficulty understanding him. I looked over the seat at Florence and raised my eyebrows for help.

  Flo leaned forward between the seats and said, “Tommy, what did you ask Mr. Jake?” I listened very hard and was able to make out something about the circus.

  “Yeah, Tommy, I like the circus. Are you glad we’re going?” The little boy nodded yes and settled back in the seat for the ride. I started the car and congratulated myself for a clever answer that should have taken care of at least four questions.

  As we drove along, Tommy began a discussion that was kind of one-sided. Flo helped out by answering some of his statements or prompting me to say the right words. I began to understand speech patterns and many of his words. I gathered that we were talking about the fact that Tommy had mentioned to his teacher that he was going to the circus and that had led to a class discussion of circuses. Tommy was saying that he wanted to ride a horse in the circus. I drove into a large fairground where the circus had set up a tent. The cars were being directed to park at the far end of a grassy field. I stopped by the turn where a man was waving the cars on. When I stopped, the man began waving harder. I rolled down the window and called into a stiff breeze, “Hey, I’m in a wheelchair. Can I park a little closer?”

  The man did not hear me. “You see me wavin at ya? Move that thing. Follow dem cars! You’re blockin traffic.”

  I tried again. “Do you have a parking spaces for people in wheelchairs? It’s impossible for me to push through this grass.”

  The man was not listening. He started toward me in an impatient fashion and yelled, “Hey, mister, there’re no special places!” By now, he was near enough to hear me.

  “Even if I am in a wheelchair?” I yelled back and jerked my thumb toward the wheelchair in the back seat.

  The man was humbled. “Hey, we never get no handicaps.”

  “Maybe it’s the warm welcome they get,” I said so Flo could hear. The man waved me into a space near the tent.

  Tommy was sitting watching the exchange. “He was mad,” the boy said.

  I reassured him, “He’s just having a bad day.” I shoved the chair out and climbed in. I looked at the shabby tent with its tears and patches. “Well, this ain’t no Ringling Brothers,” I cracked.

  Flo smiled. “This ain’t even one Ringling.” The circus was mostly carnival and sideshows. There was an elephant harnessed to a large wagon for which they charged twenty-five cents for a ride. I bought tickets for Flo and Tommy to take a ride but Tommy wanted to go by himself. So he took two rides. As the beast and wagon rumbled past us, Tommy would wave enthusiastically. Flo
squatted beside me and put her hand on my arm. “Are you understanding Tommy?”

  “I’m getting the hang of it.”

  “He gets frustrated when people don’t understand him, but he gets upset with me if I start explaining what he’s saying to people.”

  “He just wants to be treated like normal folk. I understand that.” I watched Tommy leaning over the side of the wagon watching the elephant’s backside.

  Flo noticed the change in my face. “Is something wrong?”

  “I was just thinking how happy he is now. Someday, he’ll know that somebody is ignoring him or talking down to him because he is different. I was thinking how that will hurt.”

  “Jake.” She squeezed my arm and I looked from the boy to the mother. “They have already treated him like that and he is such a sharp little guy that he feels the hurt. I sometimes find myself not wanting to take him out and risk the insults, but then I think that people do it out of ignorance and that if they could meet Tommy, they’d know.” There was a rage and a tenderness in the mother’s voice. There were no horses to ride, so I bought Tommy a large stuffed horse to which we tied a helium balloon. We shared a cotton candy, which covered the horse with wisps of pink.

  Flo had to help push me through the sawdust spread around the tent. It was more difficult because Tommy insisted on helping her push and got between her and the wheelchair. We entered the tent. Bleachers were set up on either side of the aisle. The lower rows were already packed with people so Flo and Tommy had to leave me sitting in the aisle and climb to the top row of seats. A man with the circus came up to me, “You can’t sit in the aisle. You’re blocking it if there were an emergency.”

  “Your people sold me the tickets, you show me where I’m supposed to sit.”

  “Can’t you get in the bleachers?”

  I was aggravated. “Why do you think I’m in this thing? Because it’s a fashion statement?”

  The man went to talk to the ringmaster, who shrugged. The man came back to me. “If anything happens and we have to get everybody out fast, I’ll just grab the chair and back you out, okay?” The circus was mostly a two man show. One man juggled, rode a unicycle, walked a tightrope, and stood on his hands at the top of a ladder. The other man had trained dogs, ponies, apes, and a seal. After each act, the ringmaster pitched another toy or gimmick for the parents to deny their children. I turned around every once in awhile and looked to see how Flo and Tommy were doing.