by Joe Cassilly
“No, no,” said Cathy, getting to her feet. She stepped behind her mother, looked at me, and nodded to her mother. “Come on, Daddy, let’s dance.”
He resisted, “Honey, nobody else is dancing.”
She pulled his hand. “Well somebody has to start.” She led her father onto the floor. She was right; soon other fathers and daughters and other couples came out and danced. I knew she had wanted me with her mother, I looked at her mother. She was trying to ask me something and I knew what.
“She’ll be okay. In Vietnam, I mean. The bases where the nurses are stationed are surrounded with security.” Her mother looked relieved, maybe because she had not had to ask the question. “Just make sure you write her a lot of letters, even if she doesn’t write back. You don’t have to have anything special to write about. Tell her about sunrises and sunsets and the colors of the leaves in fall, how white the snow is and how gray the fog is, and what’s happening to the flowers in Maryland when spring comes. Don’t let her think that a week went by when you didn’t think about her and she’ll come back just fine.”
The woman reached across and took my hand. Her hands were cold and trembled slightly. I knew that it was taking all of her will to control her emotions and not take away from the celebration of her daughter’s graduation. Cathy and her dad came back to the table. Another song began and he invited his wife to dance. Cathy slid her chair beside me. “Is that why you invited me to your graduation, to reassure your mom?”
“No.” she bit her lip and blinked away a momentary tear. “I’m not using you. I don’t have a steady boyfriend and I thought, I mean, we’re good friends.”
I put my hand on hers. “I told her not to worry and to write often.”
“Thanks.”
“Wanna dance?”
She looked puzzled. “I guess?” I backed away from the table and when she stood, I took her hand and pulled her onto my lap. I put my arms around her and she laid an arm around my shoulders and put her face against mine. Although the music stopped, we sat like that until her parents came to the table.
Her dad spoke to me, “Son, we’re going to take our children to dinner before our sons eat another case of cookies. You’re most welcome to come along.”
“Thank you, sir, but I have to get home to Pennsylvania and I have one more stop to make. I better get going.”
When we reached the outdoors, we found the rain had stopped, the sidewalks were covered with puddles, and there was lightning in the distance. They walked in silence as I tried to find the shallow parts of the puddles. My hands and sleeves got soaked and my hands slipped on the wheels. I realized that Cathy was gently pushing the chair to help me. When we reached the parking lot, her mom kissed me on the cheek and her dad and bothers each in turn shook hands with me. No one spoke. They turned toward their car and Cathy said she would catch up to them. She walked with me. The car next to mine was parked too close for me to be able to wheel up to the door. I had to give her the keys and ask her to back mine out. I took a bag from the car and removed a piece of paper. “This is my parents’ address.”
“I know. I saved it from the letter you had me write.”
“Send me your APO and I’ll write to you.”
“Are you going to see Suzie?”
“Yes.”
“Tell her I said hi and I’ll call her.” A gust of wind blew her hair across her eyes and she pushed it back in place. “Maybe I was wrong about you and Suzie,” she said.
“Well you were right that we could not cure one another, but you were wrong because the feelings that we have for one another helped us find the cures in ourselves.”
She sat on my lap and we kissed. Our tears mixed and ran around our lips. I pulled her tight against me. She whispered, “Jake, I’m kinda scared.”
I wiped the tears from her cheeks. “You’ll do all right, kid. You got good people who love you.” She stood and walked toward her parents without looking back. “Look me up when you get back,” I called hoarsely, but I was afraid this would be the last time I would see her. I made the sign of the cross. “Please, God, take care of her.”
41
Looking for a Love
I started the car and turned on the interior light. My watch said nine o’clock. I felt around under the seat and remembered I had drunk the last of the scotch. I headed toward Walter Reed. I had never seen the hospital while sitting up. The only views of the outside I had were flat on my back in an ambulance. I had trouble finding the right entrance. I parked my car across from the door. I wished I had a cigarette; not smoking could be very uncomfortable at times.
Maybe I should not go in. We said goodbye in Richmond. What was left to be said? Did I love this woman? Hell, did I even know what love was? Why did I feel this way about her? What would everyone back home say if I got involved with a woman six years older than me? Back home, there was Valerie—young, beautiful, affectionate Valerie. Not that Suzie wasn’t beautiful or affectionate. Actually, the real problem was that she was divorced. Good Catholic boys did not chase divorced women; not that I was a good Catholic, but my mother did not know that. Damn, I was confused. Did I know what the hell I was doing? It did not make any difference anyway. Now, I had to go into the hospital; I had to go to the bathroom.
I bounced the chair out of the car and I was halfway to the hospital door when the storm, which had been stalking me, caught me in the open. I pushed as hard as I could, but, by the time I got inside, I was soaked. I rolled past the ward and found a bathroom. I used handfuls of paper towels to dry off. I came back to the door of the ward and looked at my watch. She would not be ready to leave for another hour.
Suddenly, I was bothered with a thought; maybe she switched with somebody—maybe she wasn’t even here. I pushed slowly and quietly onto the ward. That was one thing about wheelchairs; they could move very quietly. I looked around the corner of the hall. An aide was pushing a bucket down the aisle, emptying urine. Then, I saw her. She was handing out pills and helping a patient take a drink from a pitcher with a straw. I pushed out and went along until I came to a bank of vending machines.
I made a dinner of a cup of coffee and a pack of peanut butter crackers. I should have taken time to stop for something more substantial to eat. I went pushing to the main entrance and stopped by a large window. I watched the raindrops trying to find paths down the panes of glass. A bright flash of lightning silhouetted the trees. When I was eleven, my parents gave me a bedroom on the third floor. One night, a storm had beaten on the roof of the old house. I sat up half the night, afraid and fascinated by nature’s tantrum.
When I first arrived in Vietnam, I was assigned to perimeter guard duty at the base camp in Cu Chi. A series of forty-foot towers surrounded the base. Two of us were sent into one of the towers for the night. At about ten o’clock, we could see the lightning and dark clouds rumbling across the flat countryside charging straight at us. Once the storm hit the tower, it rocked back and forth. It did not come crashing down. God bless the engineers.
Another rumble of thunder brought me back to the present. It was 10:40. I wondered if I had fallen asleep sitting there. I pushed to the ward. The lights were out. My eyes strained into the dark; she was standing by a set of doors that went out onto a porch. She was watching the storm. I was sitting in the light from the nurses’ station. She turned and stood looking in my direction, but she did not move. I pushed down the aisle and came within ten feet of her when I saw the smile frame her white teeth. I whispered, “You know, if you stand around like this, Santa Claus won’t come.”
“I’ve told Santa all about you; he won’t be bringing you any presents.” She put her hand on my shoulder, leaned forward, and kissed my cheek. “You’re not very wet,” she observed. We went toward the nurses’ station.
“I’ve been waiting down the hall for about an hour.”
“I was hoping you’d come by.”
I gave her a puzzled look. “How’d you know?”
“Elementary, my dear S
cott, tonight was Cathy’s graduation and I was curious if you were going. I called Richmond and they said you’d left.”
“Yeah, for good this time,” I said. We reached the light in the hall and there was a minute of silence. “I was hoping maybe we could visit for a few minutes before I started home.”
“Hi, Suzie!”
Her relief startled us. “Hi Teri. Jake, would you wait out by the door for me?” I pushed away.
§ § § § § §
Teri and Suzie watched him push down the hall. “That’s the one, huh?” asked Teri.
“What do you mean ‘the one’?”
“The one that you traded days off for. The one Cathy told me about, used to be on this ward.”
“What did she tell you?” Suzie glanced at her and went back to straightening papers on a clipboard.
“That you have a thing for him.”
§ § § § § §
I was sitting by the door, pulling a pair of gloves from my bag. I hoped they would help me get a grip on my wheels in the rain and keep my hands from slipping. She was coming down the hall, buttoning her raincoat and talking softly to herself. “Jake.” Her voice got loud enough for me to hear. “You can’t drive home in this weather. Come to my apartment and I’ll pull out the sofa bed.”
“Okay, but let’s take my car and tomorrow I’ll bring you back for yours.” She agreed. Before we went out, I handed her the keys. “Your hands will unlock the car faster than mine. We ran to the car but, by the time I had lifted in and she had helped me load the chair, we were both soaked. She directed me off the hospital grounds. I took a broad street and, in a short time, I saw a sign that said we had crossed into Maryland. “Turn here,” she directed and I followed a drive to the back of a large building. I drove down a ramp into an underground parking garage and she directed me to her parking space, 1015.
I got my knapsack out of the trunk and sat it on my lap. I followed her to the elevator. She had to pop a wheelie to get me onto the curb. Once in the elevator, she selected a button and stood back, watching the floor indicator signal our assent. I struggled to get the chair turned around. I put my hand into hers and she gave my hand a gentle squeeze. The doors opened and I gave several strong pushes into the hall and ran into the wall.
“Damn, there’s something about the weave of the carpet that pulls the wheelchair to one side. Would you please carry this knapsack?” I had to push the wheelchair with one arm; even then, it still kept turning into the wall. She walked ahead and put her key into the lock. When I reached the door, I was out of breath and had to shake some blood back into my arm. We went in and she flipped on a light. She put the knapsack on a table. I rolled up behind her and put my arm around her and pulled her back onto my lap. We kissed until a strand of her wet hair fell across my nose and we started laughing.
“I have to get out of this wet raincoat and shoes.” She hung her coat on a hanger from the top of the open closet door. “Here, give me your jacket.” I twisted and hooked the inside of the top of my sleeve on the wheelchair handle and leaned forward, pulling it off my shoulder and down my arm. She slid her hand across my shoulders. “You’re soaked clean through your shirt.” She took another hanger and put my jacket on the door.
“I’m going into the bedroom to change. Look around if you want. I’ll be out in a couple of minutes.” She walked out of the entry hall and into a long rectangular room and through a door halfway down the right wall. She looked back and pointed to a door beside the one she had gone through. “That’s the bathroom.” I nodded. I was still in the entry hall and to my right was a compact kitchen. I pushed into the big room and maneuvered between the dining room table and a secretary in the corner of the room. Practical arrangement. She could just swing a dining chair around when she wanted to use the secretary. I put my feet against a stuffed chair and pushed it against the wall to get past the coffee table.
I rolled to the sliding glass doors that opened onto a small balcony. Far below, I could see the tops of the trees thrashing about. I backed up by her couch and crossed my leg to pull off my soggy boot. I leaned over and grabbed the heel of the boot between my hands. I was struggling with it when a box of framed and loose photos caught my eye. I edged the chair closer. The first one was in an ornate silver frame. It was Suzie in her wedding gown and veil. She was gorgeous. I looked at the one under it. It was Suzie and a man—her ex-husband, I guessed. I felt jealous. The bedroom door opened and I went back to pulling on my boot.
“What are you doing over there?”
“I’m trying to get this damn boot off.” Suddenly, it gave and slid off and I almost slid out of the chair behind it. I changed the positions of my legs and started on the other boot.
“Want some hot chocolate?” she called from the kitchen.
“Sure, sounds good.”
“Do you want something to eat?”
“I don’t want to put you to a lot of trouble.”
“Peanut butter and jelly?”
“My favorite.” I pushed to the kitchen door. She was wearing a long flannel nightshirt and heavy woolen blue knee high socks. She handed me the sandwich and I balanced the plate on one leg. She kept stirring the saucepan on the stove. It was silent but for the sounds of the spoon scraping on the bottom of the pan and the hissing of the gas flame.
She poured the cocoa into big mugs. “Let’s go in to the couch.” She carried both mugs in and set them on the coffee table. She sat on the couch, tucked her legs up under her, pulled a blanket around her, and picked up her mug. For that instant, she looked like a little girl. I wished I knew how to interpret her body language.
“How was the graduation?”
“I really wouldn’t know. It was so crowded I couldn’t see and the speeches were the usual ‘you have to get out there and save the world.’ I met her family. Had you ever met them?” She shook her head no. I took a sip from my mug. “They seem like nice folks. When her mother saw me in this wheelchair, I think she was two seconds from telling Cathy she could not go into the Army.”
“Maybe she’ll talk some sense into her.”
“Suzie, she’ll have to find out for herself.”
Her eyes blazed. “Don’t you understand?” she said angrily. “She will never be the same after she sees that shit.”
“Sweetheart, she could work in some big city emergency room or on some cancer ward watching children suffer and die in front of their parents and never be the same. You can’t save people from a world of suffering that’s all around us.”
She set her mug back on the table, got up, and walked to the window. She stood looking out with her arms wrapped around herself. “It’s different,” she said hoarsely. “I thought I didn’t need to explain it to you.” I rolled up toward her and she backed away from me into the corner where I could not get closer to her.
“I know what war is. Every morning when I drag my ass into this wheelchair. Every night when I have bad dreams. When I start crying for friends who are dead or memories of the Vietnamese who are still there.” She turned and stared out the window. I waited for her to say something. Nothing.
“I think you’re frustrated because you can’t make Cat see how bad it’s going to be. No one can imagine war.” I turned and started for the bathroom. I felt her hand on my neck. She sat on my lap and laid her head on my shoulder, the same one Cathy had laid her head on.
She reached up and pulled a long blonde hair from the front of my shirt. “Did you kiss her?”
I didn’t know where this question was going, but I thought she already knew the answer. “Yes.”
“Do you love her?”
“Do I feel the same way about her that I feel about you? No. I can’t explain my feelings, but they are different. We understand one another and when I’m with you, I believe I will make it. I love you.”
She stood up. “I better fold out the couch. It’s getting late.” I went to the bathroom. I could get the pedals and the front wheels through the door, but no further. She sli
d the coffee table by the sliding doors and stacked the cushions on it. Then, she grabbed a handle and heaved the mattress out. It folded out almost to the wall. She looked at me. “You want some help?”
“Could you carry one of the dining room chairs into the bathroom and hold it?” Suzie positioned a chair and braced herself against it. Just before I lifted from my chair, I looked at her. “The feelings you have for me, are they the same as you felt for anyone else?”
“Yes, and I got hurt.”
I was slighted that I was not special. Defensively, I said, “You know I would not hurt you.”
“Do you know that you’re the same age that I was when I got married? I’m the age that my husband was when I married him. You’re the young innocent and I’m the one who is wise in the ways of love.”
“I’m not sure I think of myself as the young innocent.”
“Trust me on this, honey,” she said, patting my arm. I lifted onto the other chair. She dragged me into the bathroom. She went out the door into her bedroom. She came around, moved the wheelchair back, and shut the door. Privacy, I thought, from a woman who has already seen more of me than I have. I brushed my teeth, struggled to get the zipper down, and used the catheter. She helped me back into the wheelchair.
The mattress of the sofa bed sunk into gaps in the frame, but it was so good to stretch my back. She went to close the curtains. “Don’t do that. I like to look outside,” I requested.
“Do you need anything?” she asked. I arched one eyebrow. “No sir,” she said, smiling.
“Then a drink of water,” I replied.
She put a glass on the table next to the bed. She sat on the edge of the bed and kissed me goodnight. She went into the bedroom and closed the door. I rolled from side to side to get my pants off. I picked my feet up in front of my face and pulled my socks off. I got my shirt off and spread my clothes across the wheelchair to dry them out. I really needed to break down and buy pajamas. I reached over to the lamp and, after winding the chain around my finger (and having it slide off four times), I turned off the lamp. I could see the light in her bedroom shining beneath the door.
