by Joe Cassilly
§ § § § § §
She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off her socks. Tomorrow, he would get in the Pontiac and drive back home. In three weeks, she would be out of the Army. All of the structure, direction, and stability she had known would be gone. She had met thousands of men in the military. This one had said he knew her better than any man she had known and it bothered her that he was right. He talked to her differently. She liked it when he was with her; she looked forward to it. But was that love? Did she even know what love was?
§ § § § § §
I rolled onto my stomach and lay there looking at the light under her door. It went out. I turned and looked over through the sliding glass doors at the glow of the lights over the city. I heard her door open. She was moving past the foot of the bed. She walked in front of the window and pulled down the blankets on that side of the sofa bed. She crossed her arms in front of her body and took hold of her nightshirt. My eyes followed the hem as she drew it over her head. I saw her naked silhouette in front of the glow. She lay down and moved to me. I rose up on my elbow and reached for her. My fingers moved slowly across her thigh and up her side to the middle of her back. Her nipples pressed against my chest. We kissed, softly at first, then I tasted the lobe of her ear and I moved down her throat. I whispered, “You said you wouldn’t have sex with a man until you decided you loved him?”
She slid her hand across my chest and up to the back of my head. She pulled my ear to her lips. “I know I love you.”
42
A Last Goodbye
Twenty minutes had gone by since she had gotten into the bed. The parts of my body that could feel Suzie’s caresses and kisses were telling my mind that I was ready to make love to her. It was the half of my body that had no feeling that I wanted to react. I slid my hand down my body to find out what was happening. “Damn it to hell,” I said softly but angrily. Sudden cursing during foreplay has a way of disrupting the tenderness of the moment.
“What, what did I do?” Her eyes grew big in the dark wondering what she did wrong.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, sweetheart,” I reassured her. “For the past seven months, at every embarrassing, inappropriate, inconvenient, unappreciated opportunity, I have had an erection. I have them during bed baths, catheterizations, and when people were helping me get dressed. I’ve had them in front of nurses, orderlies, students, even my mother and aunt. I’ve been mortified and humiliated by them. After all those times, when I want one—nothing.” I laid back.
“You’re not going to give up,” she said in exasperation. “After all the soul searching I went through to decide I wanted to make love to you.”
“Well darling, I’m the young innocent. What would you suggest?”
“Improvise! You’re the one who is always figuring out new ways to do things.” The only thing that came to my mind was a night in the barracks when a soldier, just returned from his honeymoon, recounted 251 great detail all the ways he had made his bride happy with his tongue. “All right,” I said, “I’ll improvise. I’ve never done this before so you better…”
“I better what?”
“You better like it. I have a very fragile ego.”
She laughed. “Fragile ego, my ass.” I kissed her mouth and moved down.
§ § § § § §
At dawn, she had helped him get into the bathroom; she put on a pot of coffee and closed the curtains. They went back to sleep. Now, daylight blazed around the edge of the curtains. She moved her hair back from her face. It had been two years since she had awakened with a man beside her in bed. She had never had sex like that. He got an A for improvisation. She thought someone calling her name had woken her, but it was quiet. Then, it started again—a soft, singing whisper. “Wake up a little Suzie, wake up. Wake up a little Suzie, wake up.”
She started laughing, “You are a maniac.” She tried to tickle him.
“You can’t tickle me,” he scoffed. “I can’t feel it.” She slid her hands to his neck and he started laughing and trying to push her hands away. “Stop, stop I can feel it.” She pulled herself up so that she was on his chest and kissed him. “Good morning. What time is it?”
He looked at his watch. “Almost ten. Do we have to get up?”
“Not right away.” She kissed him and enjoyed the feel of his hands massaging her back. She whispered into his ear, “You know what you were upset about last night, well it’s not a problem now.”
§ § § § § §
She sat up and moved the blankets down. I looked down my body. I was hard. She knelt over me and took me in her hands. “Can you feel me touching you?”
“No,” I answered, “but my eyes are telling my brain I’m being touched and my imagination is taking care of the rest.” She moved down on me. I watched with fascination as I disappeared. I’m doing it, I thought, I’m making love to her. She leaned forward and dug her fingers into my chest and started moving up and down. I put my hands on her hips. She must love me, I thought.
Later, she put on a white satin robe. She pulled open the curtains and went into the kitchen. Then, I started arguing with myself. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Why?” The other me asked. “I love her.”
The conscience said, “It’s still a sin.”
The other me blurted, “I’ll marry her.”
“You idiot,” said the conscience, “you hardly know her.”
“But at least I know I can have sex,” said the other me.
“Who are you talking to?” Suzie asked. I blushed. I didn’t realize I was talking aloud. She handed me a mug of coffee.
“I was working up the nerve to ask you to marry me.”
She lay beside me and I put my arm around her. “I won’t be divorced for a few more months and I need time and you need time for school.”
“But now I know I can make love to you.”
“And I know I can make love to you.” She scooted around so she could see me. “We both needed that to heal.” She looked me in the eye. “Are you feeling guilty?”
“Yes,” I admitted. She shook her head. She kissed me on the forehead. “I believe there are guardian angels who, at the darkest time of your life, when you think you don’t want to go on, touch you with the right person. You were that person on Christmas Eve, who changed my life, but I don’t owe you and you don’t owe me.”
I was lying there feeling very contented. She snuggled her head on my shoulder. “Suzie? What are you going to do when you get out of the Army?”
“A couple of days ago, a partial property settlement came in, a check for over twenty thousand dollars. I’m going to take off and hike around Europe until the money runs out.”
“Now I am really envious. Sure you don’t want company?’
“I just want to be Suzie Donovan for a year. No one trying to make decisions for me or criticizing my choices.”
“What happens when the money runs out?”
“I move back in with my parents and get a job. What about you, what next?”
“I got a letter from my cousin Sheila in Tucson. She’s already been apartment hunting for us. She wants to fly into Philly and drive out with me. I thought I’d take summer classes and get used to going to school. I haven’t told my mother yet. Sheila wants to catch up with family so we’ll probably head out at the end of June. She told me some of the houses she has looked at are huge. If you get back from Europe and you want a warmer climate, you could come out.”
“I’ll think about it.” She helped me back into the bathroom. She had to help me to shave because the mirror was too high for me to see what I was doing. We got dressed and had breakfast. I was aware that our time was growing short. She handed me my dried jacket and I shoved it into my knapsack.
“Suzie, there’s something I want you to have.” I pulled my beret from the knapsack.
“Not your beret?”
“I can get another. Please, take it to remember me by.” She sat in my lap and I fixed it so t
hat it did not fall over her eyes. She handed it back to me. “I can’t keep it. Another beret won’t be this one.”
“There’s something I’d like from you. A photograph.” I looked toward the box by the couch. “Maybe one of those over in that box.”
“Not those, they’re another part of my life. I don’t want to share them with anyone else. They are my memories. I have one for you, the way I’d like you to remember me.” She reached up on a shelf and pulled down an album. She opened the cover and removed a 5 × 7 photo and held it against her chest. She walked to me and held it out. It was Suzie with very short hair wearing her Vietnam style fatigues and seated on some sandbags.
“You are really cute; I’ve always had a thing for women in uniform.”
“I want a picture of you,” she said, taking an instamatic camera from a drawer.
“I wish we could get a picture of both of us,” I said.
She nodded. “I can arrange that,” she said, crossing to the door. She opened her front door, crossed the hall, and knocked on that door. A small woman with bright orange hair (with gray roots) answered. Suzie took her hand. “Misses Hochberg, could you please do a favor for me?” asked Suzie, leading her across the hall. Suzie pushed a flashcube onto the top of the camera and explained to the lady how to hold it and push the button. “Now you have to hold it still. Here, lean against the wall.” Suzie skipped over to me and sat in my lap and smiled for the camera, but Mrs. Hochberg did not snap the picture right away.
She looked through her glasses at us. “So this is your young man?” Her Brooklyn accent was so thick that the words rolled into your ears like waves.
“This is Jake, Mrs. Hochberg.”
“Hi Suzie’s young man. And how long have you been in a wheelchair?”
“About four months.”
“My husband, Saul, God rest his soul, used a wheelchair for about six years. He broke his hip on the ice. I told the super there was ice and he said no. Well, I told him, ‘My Saul was lying on the sidewalk and I was calling my son the lawyer to sue.’”
“Excuse me, Mrs. Hochberg, but her sitting on my lap is cutting off my circulation. Do you think you could snap the picture?” Mrs. Hochberg brought the camera to her eye but kept talking during the whole process. “You should have such bad circulation as I have.” We managed to get her to shoot four photos between a complete recap of the progress of her husband’s hip operations, the incompetence of the surgeon, and the efforts of their son the lawyer to set them up for life. After the last photo was taken, Suzie gently steered Mrs. Hochberg back to her own apartment.
When Suzie got back into her apartment and closed the door, we burst out laughing. “Now that is a character,” I said.
“What’s this crap about me cutting off your circulation?” she demanded and shoved my shoulder.
I pushed toward her, chasing her into the kitchen and cornering her. “I had to say something to hurry her along or we would have been there all day.” I started trying to tickle her, but she straddled my lap and it became an embrace and a kiss with a lot of tongue and heavy breathing and moaning.
“You did not answer my question and, before I leave, I have to know the answer or I’ll spend my whole life wondering what it might have been.” I put my hand beside her cheek so she would not look away. ‘Will you marry me?” She put her hand over mine and held it against her cheek.
“I am so honored that you would ask me. I know what your feelings are for me and I have the same love for you; otherwise I would not have come out of my room last night. But I can’t marry you now.”
“Later?”
“Maybe.” We held each other very tightly. She gave me her parents’ address.
It was silent in my car as I drove her back to pick up her car. The lump in my throat was making it difficult for me to breath. When I stopped beside her car, I wanted to say anything but goodbye. I sobbed and then the dam broke and I cried. I felt my heart breaking in my chest. She slid into my lap I saw that her face was also streaked with tears. I hugged her and rocked back and forth until I had gained control of my emotions.
One last kiss and then she slid across the seat and got into her car and started the engine. She looked over to wave and she drove away. I checked the urge to follow her. “I know what love is,” I whispered.
43
A Father and a Son
I sat in that parking lot for another thirty minutes. Suzie had pulled me back from despair and made me believe in myself. She had helped me start loving the cripple I am and made me realize others could too. Now her support was gone; I was unsure what to do. Flo, Sam, Miss Adams, Cathy, and Suzie. Maybe I should not have said goodbye to so many friends in such a short time. I shivered and took a breath. I turned the key and started driving.
I found the parkway and headed north. I was going to do one more thing today. I must not lose my nerve. I stopped and paid the toll for the tunnel that ran under the Baltimore harbor. I drove from the bright sunshine into the dim coolness of the tunnel. It was that tunnel that triggered a memory that I had long buried. I was twelve. My teacher had sent a letter home to my parents. At eight o’clock in the evening, my father came into the dining room where I was doing my homework on the table. He seized the upper part of my arm in a grip that gave voice to rage. He pulled me off the chair and led me to the basement stairs. At the top of the stairs, he took hold of a yardstick.
In the center of the basement he had placed a stool. He sat on the stool. There was no expression on his face. My throat was dry and my heart was pounding with the dread of what I knew was coming. “What did I do?” my trembling voice asked. He made no answer. He pulled me across his lap and extended his arm above his head and brought the stick across my buttocks. I flinched but I did not cry out. When he struck me the third time, the stick broke. He glanced around for something to replace it with and seized on a six-foot length of hose he siphoned homemade wine with. He grabbed the two ends. He stood and brought it down with all his might across my back.
For a second, I thought the pain was going to make me lose consciousness. I struggled to get away from him, all the while pleading with him, “Tell me what I did. What did I do?” He continued to swing the hose, striking my back and legs. I screamed and pleaded with him to stop. Finally, when he figured he must have accomplished something, he pushed me in front of him upstairs and sat me in the chair in front of my homework.
“I don’t want to get any more letters from your teacher,” he said as calmly as if nothing had just happened. He walked from the room.
At about ten o’clock, my mother came into the dining room and found me still sitting there. She took my hand and led me to my bedroom. I stood in a daze and felt her unbuttoning my shirt. She took it off. Then, her hands began to tremble when she saw the stripes of blood on my undershirt. She took off all my clothes; blood that had dried to the clothing pulled away with the clothes and wounds started to bleed again. My back, bottom, and legs were criss-crossed with welts of purple and black and red.
I shivered as the car drove back into the sunshine. “What the hell did I ever do to deserve that?” I asked aloud. I never knew what was in the letter from the teacher. All I had learned from that was to be intimidated by my father and to avoid confrontation with him. I crossed the Susquehanna but I did not turn toward home. I continued past Wilmington and followed the signs for Philadelphia. I glanced at the map on the passenger seat. I located the red dot that I had marked on it and where I had to get off of the interstate. I was not looking at the scenery.
I was rehearsing, one more time, a speech I had been practicing for almost two years. It was bound to be a tough audience. The closer I got to the stage the more nervous I became. I spoke aloud to the empty car. I repeated the lines but changed the timing, the tone, the volume, the cadence of delivery. I looked for reasons not to go, but I kept on. I found myself pulling into the parking lot of another VA hospital. I parked and sat looking up at the building. Then, slowly and deliberately, I pu
shed the chair from the car and then slid back into the driver seat. Then, I sat looking at my wheelchair, a prison cell I would occupy for life. I hated this inanimate, mindless device, the symbol of my helplessness, of the effects of war. I wished for a gun, my machine gun. I would shoot it, again and again, until it disintegrated into bits of metal and vinyl.
I pushed up the sidewalk and into the building. The first thing was to find a bathroom; I must not forget my body’s schedule. Then, I rolled to the information desk. Two men wearing V.F.W. hats were sitting there. They smiled at me. “Can I help you?” asked one.
“Do you have a patient named Scott?” I felt as if I were asking for myself.
“Scott who?”
“No, his last name is Scott.”
He flipped open a directory. “David?”
“Yes,” I said, “that’s it.”
“Room 226.”
“Thanks.” I took the elevator and followed the signs down the hall. I found the room and paused outside. I summoned my courage and rolled in. There were two beds, both empty. The lucky bums, they had semi-private rooms, no sharing your privacy, your guests, and everything else with nineteen other guys. There was a cleaning woman backing out of the bathroom, dragging a mop.
“Are you looking for somebody?”
“Is there a guy named Scott in here?”
“Down in the dayroom at the end of the hall.”
“Thanks.” I pushed down the hall slowly, not anxious to arrive. I could see through the open doors into the big room and through the windows on the opposite wall. I stopped at the doors. In the center of the room sat a man in a wheelchair. The brown hair was almost completely white and he sat slouched in the chair. I knew him. Maybe it was the shape of the back of the head, but I was sure it was him. I pushed cautiously toward him, expecting him to turn suddenly and confront his offspring. There was no movement but the rhythmic rise and fall of the shoulders. I stopped to the side and slightly in front of the man in the wheelchair. There was still no movement; no turn of the head, no shift of the eye. I pushed in front of him and turned to face him.
