On Blood Road

by Steve Watkins

  “It’s not his fault,” I mutter, though maybe it is, but I’m fading out again and I’m not sure the words come out clearly enough for her to hear me. I don’t know if it will make any difference even if she does.

  Mom insists on a chartered jet to bring me back to New York. The best hospitals, she says. The finest doctors. The top surgeons.

  “What about Dad?” I ask. “Is he coming, too?”

  “Maybe,” she says. “We’ll see.”

  It takes another week to arrange, and by the time we get back to the States I’ve developed an infection in my leg. I’m flush with fever, hardly aware of anything, forced into ice baths when my temperature spikes, heavily sedated with painkillers. The New York doctors do everything they can—operation after operation, antibiotic cocktails, a river of morphine—but in the end have to amputate. I’m beyond caring by then. I just want my life back—that’s what I tell myself, anyway, when I’m lucid enough—though even in my delirium I know that isn’t going to happen.

  When I wake up, my leg is gone. The stump is just above where my knee used to be, flaps of skin they saved sewn together to close the wound and provide some padding over the end. There doesn’t seem to be anything they can do about the phantom pain, coming from parts of my leg and foot that don’t exist anymore, that are just ashes in a hospital incinerator somewhere. But it hurts so bad down there that I beg for more morphine, anything to make the pain go away.

  Mom keeps telling me everything will be all right. She says they’ll fit me with a prosthesis, and nobody will be able to tell from a distance if I just wear pants, that I’ll have a slight limp, that’s all, but I can’t hear any of that. I cover my face with the crook of my arm. Nothing will ever be okay again.

  I don’t know how Geoff finds out I’m back in the States, but he sneaks into intensive care one night to see me, a week after they take my leg. I wake up to his whispered voice, calling me up from the deep recesses of whatever medication they have me on.

  I start crying before I even open my eyes. He’s crying, too.

  “Man, I was afraid you were dead,” he says. “We heard all kinds of crazy stuff.”

  “I was,” I answer, which doesn’t make sense. Or maybe it does. That kid Taylor Sorenson—maybe he did die in Vietnam. Maybe I’ve come back as somebody else.

  I try to say that to Geoff, but it doesn’t come out right. I try harder but can tell that I’m being incoherent.

  “It’s okay, Taylor,” he says. “We can talk another time. You can tell me everything then. You want me to just sit here with you for a while? I’ve missed you something terrible.”

  I nod. I’ve missed him something terrible, too.

  Mom still blames Dad for everything that happened—for my being kidnapped and spirited away on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, for all the trauma, for me getting shot in the rescue, for losing my leg. I know none of it is his fault, not directly, anyway, and keep telling her that, but she won’t listen. “I’m leaving him,” she says. “He can stay in Vietnam until they drop an atomic bomb for all I care. I’m through. We’re through.”

  Dad follows us home and gets a room in a hotel near the hospital. He times his visits for whenever Mom isn’t here and around his frequent trips down to Washington for meetings at the Pentagon. I guess he’s killing two birds with one stone—looking after both me and the war at the same time. We don’t talk about what’s going on with him and Mom. He doesn’t bring it up, and I don’t ask.

  “I’m here for you, buddy” is all he says. “The only thing that’s important right now is getting you back on your feet.”

  “You mean foot, don’t you?” I say, but he scowls, not liking the joke.

  “There’s nothing you can’t do with one good leg,” he says. “Don’t let anybody tell you different. I’ve seen plenty of good men come out of Veterans Administration hospitals in a lot worse shape than you. Some give up. The best ones refuse to let it stop them.”

  I want to yell at him that I bet plenty of those guys do give up, even if they’re “the best”—and how can Dad know what’s going on inside of anybody who’s just lost their leg?

  But I’m too tired, and it would make him mad, and it’s just not worth the effort.

  Dad goes with me to rehab, pushing me harder than the therapists. It’s like I’m in boot camp and he’s the drill instructor. If I cry from the pain, or out of frustration, or because I’m feeling sorry for myself, he tells me I have to knock it off, that I’m never going to get my strength back if I don’t keep trying, and crying isn’t trying.

  My leg has to heal more before I can get a prosthesis, but in the meantime they want me up on crutches and building upper body strength to be ready. I hate every minute of the exercises, but Dad won’t let me skip a single session.

  “You just have to buck up,” he says. Over and over. “You just have to buck up.”

  So I buck up, even through continuing bouts of phantom pain—and real pain, too, when I stumble and crash into things, which is a lot. I can tell he’s proud of me for sticking to it. But I also suspect that once the project is over—my rehabilitation—he might not have the patience to stay. His trips down to DC get more frequent, sometimes two or three times a week. Mom still comes. Geoff comes, too, though he also tries to time his visits for when she’s not around.

  One night, after a particularly grueling day of physical therapy, I’m lying in bed, bathed in sweat, when Geoff comes in. “Quick shower and then we’re out of here,” he says. “You got some pants around here you can wear?”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I say. “I’m too tired. Plus I haven’t left the hospital since I got here.”

  “Oh, come on,” he insists. “You remember those girls we were with that night at the Moby Grape concert? They’re waiting for us in my car. They want to see you. Especially the one you hooked up with that night, Beth. Remember her? ’Cause she sure remembers you.”

  “No way,” I say. “I’m not ready.” The idea of Beth, of anybody, seeing me like I am, makes me so anxious that it’s all I can do to keep from yelling at Geoff and kicking him out of my room.

  But he won’t take no for an answer and somehow wears down my resistance. And the next thing I know we’re on an elevator heading down to the parking garage.

  “Relax, man,” Geoff says. “You’re, like, a cult figure at Dalton. You’re the Kid Who Got Kidnapped in Vietnam.”

  “Not funny,” I say.

  What I am, as it turns out, is a freak show. Things start off okay with the girls, but pretty soon all I can think is that they’re staring at what’s no longer there, just an empty leg of my pants hanging there, useless, not even pinned up or anything, and Beth and Cassandra, the other girl, are doing everything except ask me about it, or about what happened in Vietnam. It’s like when somebody has a blemish or scar or deformity on their face. People try to look anywhere but at the person’s face, which only makes it that much more obvious what’s on their minds. And pretty soon it’s clear that it’s the only thing on their minds.

  The truth is that Beth and Cassandra can’t be nicer. But that’s part of the problem, too. They’re working so hard to be nice that nothing’s natural. And I feel tongue-tied and awkward and self-conscious about not just my leg, but about how emaciated I must look to them, about how tight I have to cinch my belt to hold my jeans up, about how pasty I am from all this time in the hospital, and my ragged hair. I’m self-conscious about how little I have to say to anybody. How little of me is left. Finally I tell them I have to go, that I have an early rehab session in the morning, which isn’t true.

  “Will we see you again?” Beth asks.

  I hesitate for a second before answering: “No, I don’t think so.” It’s about the only honest thing I say all evening.

  They fit me with my prosthesis a week later, but it takes a long time to learn to walk on it without falling on my face. Once I get the hang of it, though, Dad tells me he has to go back to Vietnam. “I’ll come home again,” he
says. “As soon as things are stable over there. Sooner. I promise.”

  But we all know it’s a war of broken promises. And I must have known all along, deep inside, anyway, that Dad being here with me was only temporary.

  There’s one thing I have to ask him before he leaves. I know he’s going to get mad, but I have to know.

  “Dad,” I say on his last day. “What you do in Vietnam. Your job. The people who kidnapped me said you were CIA.”

  “People say a lot of things,” he says.

  “So are you? And they also said you’re one of the Architects—that that’s what they call you and the others.”

  “What others?” he asks. “What architects? Not sure what you’re talking about, Taylor.”

  “The Trail,” I say. “The Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Reunification Trail. Blood Road. They said you’re responsible for planning the bombings, the land mines, the bouncing bombs. And Agent Orange. The commando raids. Even stuff like seeding clouds to make it rain more and mess up the trails.”

  Dad doesn’t get angry and I’m relieved. He just shrugs. “Like I told you, people say a lot of things. What you’re describing, that’s the war, son. Things happen in war. Things have to be done. Tough decisions have to be made. There’s always a cost.”

  “I saw little kids, Dad,” I say. “Bodies. Burnt. In pieces.” I can’t seem to get out what I want to say. If I try to describe what I’ve seen, I know I’ll start crying again, and Dad hates it when I cry.

  “Look,” he says, “you didn’t question me like this about the Second World War. You know I fought in that war. You know I was responsible for people who died in that war. Because I shot them or ordered my men to shoot them or when I called in air strikes and artillery. I was responsible for the loss of a lot of lives on our side, too, good men I ordered into battle who didn’t survive. That’s just something I had to live with. People die in war.”

  “I know, Dad,” I say. “I know you did what you had to do.”

  “Do you know how many people died in that war?” he asks.

  I shake my head.

  “Eighty million, that’s how many. Give or take ten million or so. It’s impossible to know exactly.” He pauses to let that sink in, then he says, “And do you know how many of them were civilians?”

  He doesn’t wait for me to answer. “Sixty million. Three out of every four who died in World War II were civilians. And do you know what? It’s always been that way. And when they add up all the casualties in Vietnam, it’s going to be the same there.”

  “It’s always been that way,” I repeat. “That’s the only explanation for what I saw over there? Dad, I carried body parts out of a hospital. Arms and legs and heads and torsos, torn up every way bodies can be torn up. Bodies burned so bad they were just skeletons and dust. And those kids who died. What did they ever do to anybody?”

  Dad stares up at the ceiling. I can tell he’s getting mad now. He doesn’t want to have this conversation. He’s exasperated with me. He thinks I’m soft. Despite everything I went through, everything I survived, everything I just told him, or tried to tell him, everything I witnessed.

  “One day you’ll understand,” Dad says, and that’s the end of it.

  He flies back to Saigon the next day. I’m heartbroken again, because how many times and in how many ways can you lose your dad?

  Mom and I move into the guest cottage in the Hamptons at my grandparents’ estate. They’re never home—always off on cathedral tours, European river cruises, spa weeks, their villa in Tuscany. Mom gives away her furs and jewelry and enrolls in nursing classes.

  “I prayed every day back in Saigon that God would keep you safe,” she tells me the night we move in. “I prayed that He would deliver you back to me, and if He did I promised I would devote my life to service for others.”

  She tells me that one day she was sitting on the veranda at Dad’s compound, and she had what she called a “vastation.” Bathed in heavenly light. Angel choir. Stuff like that. She was sure it was God answering her prayers, sealing the deal. A week later, I was rescued.

  So she has to make good on her part of the bargain.

  “What about Dad?” I ask.

  “What about him?”

  “Did you pray about him? I mean, was there any divine guidance or whatever for you and him, staying together or getting divorced and all that?”

  “Not exactly,” Mom says, not catching on that I’m joking. Or at best just maybe half-serious. “I just felt that if your father was going to continue the course he’s on, it wouldn’t fit with the new direction I’m supposed to take in my life. And it’s not right for you, either. You need a father who will be here, and not a father who keeps choosing the war over his family.”

  I’ve never heard Mom talk like this. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a conversation with her that involved much thought about, well, anything, except how it related to her. This new Mom is going to take some getting used to.

  Geoff drives out every other weekend, and he and Mom actually get along with each other. On his third time down, I’m sitting on the veranda, not doing anything, when he throws a pair of swimming trunks in my lap. “Found these in your bedroom,” he says.

  I hold them up with two fingers, then fling them back at him. “So?”

  He tosses them at me again. “So we’re going swimming,” he says. “Gotta get you in shape for the swim team.”

  I shake my head. “Never going to happen.” But he won’t take no for an answer and bugs me until I agree to at least go in with him. It’s a struggle wading through sand with my prosthesis, and by the time we get down to the water I’m dripping with sweat. I leave the prosthesis on the beach and lean on Geoff as I hop down to the ocean. We wade in together, but as soon as he lets me go, a wave knocks me down. More waves crash over me until I push off with my one leg and knife through the breakers to calmer water.

  And the next thing I know, I’m swimming. I don’t really need my flutter kick to stay afloat, though once I start my freestyle stroke I miss being able to do it. Geoff keeps close, in case I have trouble. He doesn’t say that’s why he’s doing it, but I know.

  The funny thing is that after all the physical therapy I did to build up my upper body strength, I can almost keep up with him, even just kicking with one leg. Geoff can’t believe it.

  After ten minutes swimming parallel to the shoreline, we head back in.

  “Dude, we’ve definitely got to get you on the swim team again when you come back to school,” Geoff says when we drag ourselves up onto dry land.

  We’re toweling off back on the beach, and I’m trying to figure out how to reattach my leg without getting sand inside the prosthesis.

  “I kind of don’t think I’ll be going back,” I say. “I’m planning to just do some night classes down here and get my GED.”

  “That’s crazy,” he says. “We have senior year coming up. We’ll rule the school.”

  “I doubt that,” I say. “And anyway, I don’t really want to be a walking freak show, people staring and everything.”

  “That’s just temporary,” Geoff says. “People get used to anything. It’s just because it’s new and different. I hear girls dig guys with scars. They think you’re tough or something.”

  “First, I don’t think that’s true. I think you made that up. And second, what I have isn’t just a scar.”

  “So it’s a war wound,” he says. “That’s even cooler, if you think about it.”

  I don’t say anything else. I always thought Geoff knew so much more about everything than me, knew how to talk to girls, knew how to win arguments, knew how to get along with teachers, his parents, just about everybody, while still being true to what he believed. I still think that about him. But today, sitting here at the beach, having this conversation, I realize there’s a gulf between us that we’ll never be able to close, or even fully cross. He thinks this is about meeting girls and fitting in. But I’m still having flashbacks, waking up in the middle of the
night, caught up in dreams about the MPs murdered right in front of me in Cholon; Trang blown apart by the land mine; Le Phu, her face destroyed by a bear; the little boy who lost his hands, and his life, playing with a bouncing bomb. I’ve been beaten and tortured and shot. I lost my leg. And I don’t think I can say this to anybody, but I miss Phuong.

  Today three astronauts orbited the moon. I guess it was just a matter of time. Next thing you know they’ll have somebody landing on it, walking around, collecting rocks. Maybe they’ll start a moon colony and if things get too bad on Earth, people will start moving in.

  It’s been a hard year.

  Back in the spring, President Johnson announced he was halting the bombing of North Vietnam, and he wouldn’t run for reelection.

  Somebody assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, and it sparked riots all over America.

  Bobby Kennedy was killed on the campaign trail. My mom always loved the Kennedys and was broken up about it for a long time.

  Richard Nixon was elected president, which means the war isn’t going to be ending anytime soon.

  There were stories in the New York Times about destroyed villages, burned crops, terrorized civilians, and inflated body counts in Vietnam. The chief of police in Saigon shot a captured Viet Cong spy in the head. Somebody took a picture the second the bullet struck. It was on the front page of all the newspapers.

  The American commandos I met in the bamboo cage were officially declared MIA–Presumed Dead. Nobody wrote anything about that.

  I’ve felt lost for the longest time, like I no longer speak the same language as the people around me. Sometimes I dream in French. I dream about Phuong and the Trail just about every night. The war in real life rages on; even with a halt to the bombing there’s still no light at the end of the tunnel. I watch the nightly news, read the Times, check out books from the library on Vietnam. A few times back in the fall, I slipped out of the cottage at night and slept under a tree. The ground made more sense to me. Like I belonged there. Like I was back on the Trail. Mom begged me to tell her what’s going on, but I couldn’t talk about it—not with her, or with anybody, really. Even the therapist she insisted I see. After a couple of months Mom let me quit. The therapist told her our sessions weren’t going anywhere, mostly because I just sat there silent.