by Joe Cassilly
We stopped on the way home and bought a large pizza, although Flo kept saying none of us could possibly eat any more. When we got to Flo’s house, I asked about the bathroom and she pointed down the hall. I went to the door but found that it was too narrow for my chair. “I’m going to leave and head back to the hospital. I have to find a bathroom.”
“No, no wait, try something with me,” she said. She got one of her dining room chairs and put it into the bathroom by the door. She held it while I got from my chair onto that chair. Then, she dragged me into the bathroom and left. It was difficult to sit up straight in the chair with no stomach muscles and handle the catheter and hold the bucket I drained it into. Then, I could not get my jeans buttoned. I struggled for a few minutes. Flo tapped on the door. “You okay in there?”
“I need some help, please.” She came in. “I’m sorry to bother you,” I said.
“Don’t be silly, you’re doing pretty well.” She helped me. “You know, if you improvise enough, you can do almost everything.”
“Thank you. I’m trying.”
We ate pizza. Then, Flo played piano and we sang. She flipped through a large book of songs and we sang for almost two hours. When she got to the end, she looked at me. Tommy was curled up in my lap sleeping. “He is such a heavy load to carry to bed.”
“It’s okay,” I said, turning the chair. “Where’s his bedroom?” She led me down the hall. I pushed, balancing the boy on my lap. When we got into his room, Flo gently slipped off his shoes, slid him onto the bed, and tucked a blanket around him.
Just then, he sat up with a big smile and said, “Fooled you. You thought I was sleeping.”
Flo tickled him, “You rascal.”
“Jake, spend the night,” he said between giggles. It was the first time I remember seeing Flo blush.
“Tommy, I can’t. I did not bring my toothbrush. If your mom says it’s all right, I’ll stop back tomorrow.”
“Yes, Mom, yes, say yes.”
“Okay, okay, if you go to sleep now.” Tommy laid down and closed his eyes, but he had a huge grin on his face. Flo walked with me to the front door. She put her hand out and I shook it. She went to open the storm door, but a gust of wind jerked it from her grasp and slammed it back. “If this keeps up,” I said, “tomorrow would be a good day to fly kites, say around two o’clock?”
“Okay.” She backed me down the one step and I turned and started to push toward the car, but I turned back. “Flo, I want to make sure that I said thank you for everything you’ve done for me and I think Ben would have wanted me to say thanks for him, too. I never meant to try to get you in trouble.” She stepped closer, the wind pulling her curly hair into her face and whipping her jacket out behind her.
“I watched you today, “she said, smiling. “You’ll make a good daddy.”
“I guess. I got to wonder whether I can ever have kids.”
“There are plenty of little boys like Tommy who need a daddy; you’d be great with one of them.”
“Yeah, I’ll think about them.” I remembered the orphanage in Vietnam. She bent forward and hugged me and I reached up and put my arms around her and patted her on the back. The next day, I bought a huge Chinese dragon kite and we drove to a park. It took both Flo and Tommy to get the kite up. Once it was flying, Flo had to steady Tommy as the strong winds and the size of the kite threatened to drag him along. We collected sticks and tried to build a fire in a stone fireplace in the park to cook hotdogs on, but the wind kept blowing it out. We drove back to the house where Flo boiled them on the stove. After dinner, Flo gave Tommy a bath and he came out in his pajamas so that I could read a story to him. I pushed back to Tommy’s room and gave him a ride to bed.
The little boy crawled under the covers and looked back at me. “Do you want to live with us? Take care of my mommy?”
The questions took me by surprise and I didn’t know how to answer him. “Tommy,” said Flo sitting on the edge of the bed, “you can’t just ask people to live with us without talking to Mommy first.”
“Well, I like him. Don’t you like him?”
“Yes, I like him,” she said, glancing at me, “but there are a lot of other things to think about.”
“Do you like me?” Tommy asked me.
“Yes, buddy, I like you a lot.”
“And do you like mommy?”
I smiled at the little matchmaker. “Yeah, I like her a lot too.”
Tommy slid to the side of his bed to demonstrate that there was room for me. “You could sleep in my room.”
“Tommy, my daddy is in a hospital and my mommy is home all by herself. I think she wants me to come stay with her. You understand I have to take care of my mommy, just like you take care of your mommy.” The little boy nodded yes. “I’m going to take your address with me and I’ll write you letters and you can write to me, okay?” I rolled out of the room with a lump in my throat. I pushed to the living room and listened. Flo was saying prayers with the boy. Then, the light went out and she came into the living room. She sat on the arm of an overstuffed chair. She looked very tired. Then, she started crying.
I rolled around and backed the wheelchair in beside her. I put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her toward me. She put her arm around my shoulders and lay her head on my shoulder and kept crying. She spoke in a whisper so that Tommy would not hear her. “It just gets so hard and I feel so alone.” She was a different person from the one who told funny stories at therapy and smiled and cared for her patients. “I have to fight all the time. I have to fight the school system, public attitudes, being a single parent trying to always find time and money.” She cried some more. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to put this on you.”
“I don’t mind if I can help by listening. It makes me feel useful.”
She leaned away and took a tissue off the table to dry her eyes. “You’d better head back to the hospital it’s getting late.”
“You gonna be all right?”
“Yeah. I think all this running around trying to get that four hundred pound kite off the ground wore me out. I’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep.”
I gave her a strong hug and said, “When I’m feeling discouraged, that’s what always works best for me.”
“Thanks.”
For my last three days in the hospital, the clocks seemed to have slowed down. On Wednesday afternoon, I went shopping. I bought cards for Tommy and Flo, Sam and Miss Adams, and I bought a bag of sugar. I stopped by the bank and closed my account. I had several thousand dollars—most of which I put in a bag under the spare tire in my trunk.
That night, I took a shower, packed my knapsack with everything that was left in my locker, and went to bed early, because I had to be up very early.
At 4:00 a.m. on May 27, 1971, my alarm went off. I shut it off quickly, went to the bathroom, shaved, and got dressed. At 5:30, I was sitting outside in the doorway to a furnace room watching the parking lot. By six, all of the employees had parked their cars, especially Levassuer’s Mustang. I rolled up beside it and opened the door to the gas fill spout. I grabbed the cover in both hands and twisted it off. I shoved a rolled up piece of newspaper in it to act as a funnel and then I poured five pounds of sugar into the gas tank. It was not as violent as I would have liked, but I had some revenge.
I went in and got my knapsack and put it in the back of my car. In the mess hall, I got a coffee and sat by myself to write cards. “Dear Flo, I really thank you for everything, especially the chance to meet Tommy. He is a lucky little guy to have a mom like you. I can’t help with a lot of your fights, but I hope this will help. Love, Jake.” I put three hundred dollars into the card. Then, I wrote the other two cards. I ate ham and eggs and toast and juice for breakfast. Then, I went back through the line and got a plate filled with grits. I rolled to the trashcan and let it slide in. It was my way of saying goodbye to this hospital. I rolled to therapy. It was reassuring to see that Flo was her wild and chipper self.
“I’m lea
ving. I just came by to say goodbye. I put a card in on your desk, but do me a favor and read it when you’re alone.”
She handed me a slip of paper with her address on it. “Good luck. Remember you promised to write Tommy. I know he’ll remember.”
“And I’ll remember.” She leaned forward and gave me a kiss on the cheek and a couple of guys whistled and hooted. She started to blush but quickly went into a comic explanation. I figured that was her defense mechanism.
I stopped across the hall and said goodbye to Sam. I pushed back up the hall to the ward. Miss Adams was in the nurses’ station. “Today’s the big day, Scott boy.”
“Yes ma’am. I wanted to say thanks for everything. I swore when I got out of this place I’d never come back, but I might stop back to see you.” I paused. “And to remember Ben.”
She shook my hand. “Goodbye, Scott.” As I turned the corner into the hall, I heard her call, “And you be careful with those women, boy, they’re gonna git you in trouble.” I smiled.
40
Graduation
I was nearing Washington and I had to piss, eat, and get gas, in that order. I got off the interstate and drove over to Fort Belvoir. I was heading for the NCO club. I remembered an evening in Cu Chi. I was waiting in a line outside to get into a club that was crammed full of soldiers. Suddenly, two explosions rocked the area behind the club. All the doors flew open and men were clawing their way out. Those of us in the line started running just to avoid being trampled in the stampede. As I ran past the corner of the building, two pairs of strong hands grabbed either arm and I ran out from under my body and sat down. It was Bumper and Croz from my unit. They dragged me back out of the way of running feet. They were doubled up laughing and I think they’d had more than a few drinks already.
“What the hell is so funny,” I demanded. They tried to get serious but then looked at each other and started coughing, and laughing and choking and crying and wiping their faces on their sleeves.
They pulled me onto my feet and led me to the rear of the club where a window had been blown in from the explosion. “Come on, come on, come on, hurry, hurry,” they were both spouting in a jumble of words that included some profanities. We watched as men came out the window and the door and ran for sandbagged shelters.
“Shouldn’t we be running for shelters?” I yelled over the bedlam. This only occasioned a fresh round of choking guffaws as they dragged me into the club and pulled me to the bar.
“Take this, take this,” they whispered out loud and threw two cases of beer into my arms. They proceeded to grab as many full bottles of liquor off the shelf behind the bar as they could carry. Then they yelled, “Run, moron, run. Don’t just stand there.” Watching these two drunks run with their arms full would have caused me to laugh if I hadn’t been scared to death that we were about to caught and have the crap beaten out of us. We staggered between some darkened buildings and put our booty into a jeep. I grabbed Bumper and pulled him away from the driver’s seat and threw him in the back; the last thing we needed was to have some drunk drive us into a ditch.
One of them handed me an open bottle. I couldn’t see the contents in the dark. I took a swig, warm gin. I pulled over at the end of the airfield. I turned and looked at them. They were hopeless; every time one of them started to tell me what happened, they both went into convulsions. Finally, between snorts and gasps, I was able to make out that they had come into possession of some artillery simulators, which they had set off behind the club with this very outcome in mind. They grabbed me when they saw a chance to have an extra set of arms to carry stuff. Luckily, we predicted the commanding general’s response and hid the loot in a drainage culvert, because, by the next morning, the base was being turned upside down.
When I got to the NCO club, it was two in the afternoon. The club was empty. I headed for the bathroom. I could not get into the stalls, so I hoped no one else would come in, and I used the sink for everything.
There was a heavyset guy stocking the cooler at the bar. I cleared my throat. He looked up, picked up a towel to dry his hands, and asked, “What can I do for you?”
“Can I get something to eat and a beer?”
“I got these ready-made sandwiches wrapped in cellophane here. Let’s see.” He looked in the refrigerator. “You got ham and cheese on whole wheat, roast beef that’s been cooked for a year and a half on soggy white bread, and cream cheese and green olives on a bagel. If I was eating this stuff, which I never do, I’d eat the ham and cheese.”
“You twisted my arm. I’ll have that and a draft.” The man sat the sandwich at the end of the bar at the level of my shoulder. “You are military, right?” I pulled out my ID card and showed the man. The man sat two drafts on the bar. “I only ordered one.”
“I can’t let you drink alone.” He raised his glass. “Here’s to the United States of America.”
I raised my glass. “To the United States.” We drank. I had a hard time finding an end of cellophane that I could pull open, so I bit a hole in the cellophane, but I still had problems.
“Lemme get that for you,” said the bartender, producing a kitchen knife. He slid the knife into the hole I had bitten and cut the wrapping.
I took a bite of the sandwich. “This tastes like cellophane.”
“The roast beef tastes like cardboard and I ain’t never ate no bagel.” The big man talked while I finished the beer and half the sandwich. The next thing I knew, my head snapped back. I had fallen asleep. “You all right, bud?”
“Yeah, I been up since four-thirty this morning and checked out of the VA hospital in Richmond. I gotta go to a graduation tonight at seven in Washington. I better go out and take a nap in the car, then I’ll be all right.” I laid some money on the bar.
“If you want to take a nap, I got a couch in my office. You’re welcome to use it,” the bartender offered.
“You sure? Thanks.” I rolled into the office. I fell from the chair onto the couch and dragged my legs up. As soon as my head was down, I was unconscious. I woke to the sound of men outside the office talking and laughing. The clock on the wall showed a little after five. I grabbed my legs and threw them back on the floor. I sat up and pulled the chair next to me. I went to lift up but the couch was old and when I pushed against the cushions, they sank to the floor. After four attempts, I was too tired to attempt another one. I shouted, “I can use some help in here.” The sound of talking and laughing went on. “HELP!” The door burst open and three guys in khakis stormed in. “Hi guys,” I said sheepishly, “can you give me a hand back in the wheelchair, please?” They swarmed around me, but before I had a chance to explain what help I needed, I was scooped up by the three of them and deposited in the chair.
“You okay?” one asked.
“Yes, thanks.” They headed back to their beers. There was a bathroom off the office. I could get in but I could not close the door so I worked as fast as I could and hoped no one came in to the office.
The club was full of GIs. The bartender looked over, saw me, and threw me a salute. I returned it. I got to my car, got gas, and headed up Route 1. Unfortunately, my nap meant I ran smack into D.C. rush hour traffic. Including a stop for a large black coffee, it took me an hour and a half to reach the graduation.
The wind was picking up and dark black clouds were piling up over the college. It was a long push from the parking lot to where the graduation was supposed to be. I found a crew of men collecting the chairs and hastily pulling down the decorations before the storm hit. One of them directed me to the college theater and explained that the graduation had been moved indoors. It was another long push. When I finally got to the lobby, the graduates, dressed in their nursing uniforms, were lined up to process into the theater; there were only three men. Cathy saw me and threw me a kiss. I waved back.
I waited until they had processed in and then pushed to the door. The capacity of the theater could not accommodate all the guests. Someone from the college invited the people standing in the lo
bby to an area where they were setting up a reception for after the graduation. They had run a loud speaker into that room and you could listen to the speeches and presentations. The ceremony moved along pretty quickly. All the while, thunder was rumbling and the wind was rattling the windows.
By eight o’clock, the graduates and their families were coming into the big room. Tables with red punch and cookies were set up against one wall. A disc jockey started playing records in the corner. I was sitting at a table watching for Cathy; maybe she was looking for me in the lobby. I pushed across the room and was looking for an opening in the flow of people coming in.
“Jake, Jake.” Cathy had come in the door next to the one I was trying to go out.
“I was going out to look for you.”
“Come on over. I want you to meet my family.” I followed her through the crowd to a table of tall, blonde people. Her three brothers were all younger than she. Her parents had streaks of grey mixed through their blond hair, but the family resemblance was eerie. Their children looked more like they had been cloned than born. “Mom and Dad, this is my friend Jake that I met in Walter Reed.” I saw the expression in Mrs. Creel’s face change. I had seen that same expression on my mother’s face when I told her I had orders for Vietnam. It was the expression of a mother who has just found that they are about to send their child in harm’s way.
“These are my brothers, Peter, Michael, and Mark.” I shook hands down the line. Cathy, her parents, and I moved around a table. There were not enough chairs for her brothers so they headed for the refreshment table and loaded up plates with cookies, then they stood by the window watching the storm.
There was an awkward silence at our table. I felt that I was intruding on a family affair. I licked my lips and said, “Um. I think I ought to get going.”
