“He will, soon enough,” I said. “Besides, I have got to get away from here for a bit,” I said.
“So you said.” My mother picked up her needle and threaded the eye, letting me know our conversation was coming to a close.
“You have no idea.”
“I think I might. Just that some of us can’t pick up and leave whenever we feel like it. We have to deal with what’s in front of us.” She reached for her glasses. She was supposed to wear them all the time but only picked them up for delicate work, maybe preferring the world fuzzier around the edges, as if everyone she eyed had halos or auras. Perhaps she just had no fondness for clarity.
“It’s probably just for a couple weeks, maybe less,” T.J. said. He eyed the newspaper, making us appear guilty of something in which we were definitely not engaged. He always looked this way when we appeared together in front of my mother or anyone else from the reservation for that matter. I think he liked the idea. “I have some things to take care of down there,” he added and for a second I was nearly certain I had been the one to speak.
“I bet,” my mother said. As we headed for the door, my mother went back into her bedroom. “Annie?” she called from her screen door a few seconds later. I sat in the driver’s seat, letting her know I was not changing my mind.
“Come and get this.” I got out and walked up the steps to her porch, where she reached a hand out the screen’s frame, holding a letter. “I always keep copies, anyway. This one came back. You can read it, if you want, but I want you to give it to him.” I didn’t know what it was, at the time, but I had an idea. The RETURN TO SENDER stamp was smudged but clear enough, and the address was a post office box in Big Antler, Texas. I set it in the glove compartment. I didn’t want to read anything that would potentially change my mind. The letter could be safely read once we were on the road, once we had committed to the destination.
T.J. and I left the reservation long before the sun went down. As the reservation disappeared in my rearview mirror, I noticed my ears, to which honestly I have rarely given a second look, except to try on earrings. These ears I had inherited apparently had little functionality. Who did I inherit that selective hearing loss from? I had asked for amplification and clarification at my mother’s place. All the while, I wandered around this community, harboring only a vague suspicion of what others no doubt openly mocked me for. I was waiting for someone to creep the volume up on me, rather than turning the dial myself. Waiting for a clearer signal.
CHAPTER THREE:
Bit Part
October 31, 1967
Dear Tommy Jack,
I am writing to you between the kids coming for tricks-or-treats. Their costumes are always the cutest little things you ever did see. Some of the little boys, though, they are dressed up like soldiers, and if I see them coming down the drive, I ask Momma to give them their candy. It makes me too sad to see them. One of them had a little burnt cork mustache, and after you said you’d grown one now because your face is breaking out there, well, that little boy especially made me think of you, over there, fighting for us. I’m glad to hear your memory skills are being put to work and that being the radioman makes you a little bit safer than the others. You didn’t mention what a “Romeo Sierra” or a “Whisky India Alpha” is, but I suspicion you’re not supposed to tell me anyway. Your description of Lubbock from the sky, like a giant patchwork quilt, well, I don’t know if I’ll ever see that. I don’t think I was made to be the flying sort. I’ll have to take your word for it.
I know I should have told you this in person, when you were home, but I didn’t want you spending your last free time at home upset. It wouldn’t have changed anything between us anyway, so I thought this was better. This maybe is just me, trying to make things up for not having been able to tell you in person, but I’m telling you now. I am sorry, Tommy Jack, for any bad feelings I have caused for you, or disappointments. Part of it is my daddy’s doing. When you got that draft notice, I know he went down to the draft board with you and your daddy to try to get you a hardship deferment, but at the same time he went looking for other suitors for me. I guess he didn’t want to see his little girl a spinster or a widow. Those are his words, Tommy Jack, not mine. You know I would never say anything like that.
But I have to tell you, because I always want to be honest with you, that after he said those words to me, they got me to thinking, and I sure didn’t think I could bear that heartache at the age of twenty-four. I know it’s nothing compared to what you are going through and I am not trying to make that heartache any smaller by saying that, just speaking my mind, the way you and I always have, over a vanilla shake or a Coke float. You know, it was funny, no matter what I ordered, I always wanted what you ordered as soon as we got it, and you were so sweet, always letting me have some, or even switching with me, whatever I wanted. I always thought that was darling of you, Tommy Jack.
Daddy says the war might be over soon, and you’ll be back safe and sound, and will be able to get on with your life. He even thought he could possibly swing a job for you when you come home, teaching history at the junior college, what with your high school teaching experience, if you make some agreement that you’ll finish your master’s in a year. But he said that’s future thinking and we need to concentrate on the present and those things that are best for us. Which brings me to why I am writing you, now.
I am sorry I couldn’t take that ring, Tommy Jack. I did think it was pretty, if that’s any help. Well, that shouldn’t be a surprise. Even though you didn’t present it, you would have had to be an idiot to not know which one I liked, since I pointed it out any time we walked by the jewelry store display. I know it was the one you would have offered if I’d given you the chance. I could tell by the look on your face that you had not even thought I’d leave my finger unadorned that night, and I could understand your disappointment, but Daddy says I have to look to my future, as well.
I’m glad you have found a friend there. An Indian from New York. Who would have imagined such? And what is this business about you saving his life? Did that really happen? It is good to have people to talk to when difficult things come your way. I have a new very good friend, too. His name is Paul Montgomery. Maybe you remember him. He is a very nice man, and I bet the two of you will be fast friends when you come home. He’s supposed to be the gym teacher at Big Antler Elementary, but really he’s varsity football coach, so the boosters make his life a little better. We might be going to state this year. He drops off lesson plans for his “helper,” the real gym teacher, and then he drops by my office when he is on his free period. He’s been awfully good to me, making sure I didn’t get lonely while you were away, keeping my mind off those terrible things they report on the news each night, going to evening prayer service where we pray for your safety, and the safety of all of our other boys who are with you overseas.
I imagine you know what I am leading up to here, and you have always complimented me on being plainspoken, so here goes. Paul has asked me to marry him and I have accepted his proposal. I have tried to write this letter in many different ways, Tommy Jack. I have even used up most of this year’s stationery but it is coming close to the holiday season, so I want to make sure my momma has reason to give me this gift. It is not so dear, so her savings account won’t suffer so greatly, and it is something I use. Our church has given us the names of other GIs who might want letters, that the Red Cross had given them (I guess not everybody has someone at home to write to them), and there is a big letter-writing campaign throughout the school. Isn’t that the most darling? Maybe someone in your grouping or platoon or whatever it is will get a letter from one of our little boys or girls, and you can tell them all about life in Big Antler, Texas. Won’t that be a hoot? I am writing some letters too, but I wanted to write this one to you first.
I am looking forward to your coming home and us all being the best of friends. I am sure it will all work out. I won’t write to you again while you are over there. I suppose
there is the possibility that you won’t want to be hearing from me for a while, anyway, and don’t you worry, I am not mad at that. I can understand it perfectly. I guess I will sign off here, as there is school tomorrow, and October is the beginning of flu season, and that means the beginning of the busy season for the school nurse. Please look me up when you get home, Tommy Jack. I am not sure where we’ll be living, but definitely it will be somewhere in Big Antler and we will be in the telephone book, Mr. and Mrs. Paul Montgomery. Just give us a ring to let us know when you’ll be coming a-calling, it will be so good to see you. Well, here comes one of those little kids from the school. This one is dressed up like Batman.
Best to you,
Liza Jean
Tommy Jack McMorsey
Yes, that was the letter that started it all. Funny that when I got home from North Dakota and the Big Antler Daily would run that story on me and the Japanese girl, I would be getting the same kind of looks around town I got when I returned from Vietnam thirty-three years ago to see my high school and college sweetheart married to someone else. I could have let it go with those original newspaper stories, where my name wasn’t even mentioned in the syndicated story, but some old boy down at the Big Antler Daily had to read a little more carefully and recognized my name in the full wire service report.
This time, it wasn’t just “Guess who your girl is married to, Tommy Jack?” or “What kinds of things did you see and do over there, Tommy Jack?” their looks were saying at me. This time, the Morse code they were blinking at me with their eyes, even as I bought my quick picks and my dailies and my weeklies, had a different feel, similar, but just different enough. “How come you didn’t save that girl, Tommy Jack?” “Was she another one of those ladies you make time with on the road, Tommy Jack?” “Did you do something you didn’t want her talking about, Tommy Jack?” That last one was probably the one that got me the most. So I just wanted to get it all out in the open, that I tried to save that poor young woman, but then that stupid article got this whole other ball rolling.
Who would have ever thought anyone read the Big Antler Daily besides the folks living in this pissant town, anyway? I never realized the larger syndicate works both ways, and once a story gets out there, well, it carries on. All I wanted to do was stop those people looking and whispering again, like they had over thirty years ago. A small town like this, it has got one big and long memory. I’ve never totally been the shy type, generally willing to do whatever it is that needs getting done, but I have also never gone much out of my way to draw attention, either, and those stares were working my nerves, all over again.
You know how it is, they knew you probably killed some people in the war, and they just applied that knowledge onto you all the way around, even though they weren’t remotely involved. They never had to do and see the things I did and saw. They were sitting back home, watching the TV, maybe some of them even writing to me, because some of them did, hi-how-you-doing-get-back-safe kind of stuff, but what did they really think we were doing in the jungle, throwing mud balls? Pushing each other in the water? Maybe punching someone in the head if things were particularly bad? They were all well and nice when I made it home, even invited me to the occasional party they were having, once they realized I was back, but the looks were there. Did I do some of those things that were being hinted at in the newspapers and magazines, cutting off ears and wearing them as necklaces? The answer is no, but they thought what they wanted, anyway. Soon enough, this country will be at war again, with that crazy new president. Lord, did he have to come from this state? Seems like he’s trying to drag Iraq in, but no matter where it is he wages war, those young men and women are going to come home to some of those same looks, and I do not envy them one bit. The draft might be gone these days, but I don’t imagine any rich man’s son is eagerly signing up for the military right now, and anyone signing up now, you know that bastard has no other options.
I returned to U.S. soil the very night I zeroed out, left the jungles, arrived back into the shipping depot in Oakland sometime later but it’s hard to remember those things—not because they were terrible or anything, just the opposite, but a jolt is still a jolt, however you cut it. The day before we zeroed, we had been out on patrol, and had been for a month. I had nearly forgotten I was scheduled to be coming home. This was unlike me, as I had been a day counter from day one. That was one of the last times I ever participated in a Fireball game and it was for sure the last time Fred did. He declined to play when I went to visit him at his reservation in New York. Though he didn’t think I noticed, I always pay attention to stuff like that. Just like I could remember everything that happened with the Japanese girl and was getting ready to tell it all and stop these looks around town.
“Tommy Jack, they’re gonna be here soon. Are you dressed? I left a shirt and tie out for you, on the bed,” Liza Jean said the morning the TV crew was scheduled to arrive, coming from her bathroom, where she had checked her makeup for the thirtieth time since she put it on an hour or so before. That bathroom’s off our bedroom, but I was banished to use the one down the hall, years ago, because of splash concerns and poor aim. But in the hall bathroom, I can leave out my floss and sunblock and whatever magazines I want, and if there’s a little splash now and then, I don’t care. It cleans up.
“A tie? What the hell for?” I asked, tying it anyway, knowing this was another argument I would lose if I chose to engage it.
“Well, why are you doing this in the first place? I mean, Tommy Jack, if you want people to just go on believing something happened to you out there in Minnesota, then you might as well just call up those reporters and cancel this altogether, and we can get going to Cascabel now.”
“And you’re thinking this here tie is going to change minds in ways that my speaking the truth doesn’t?”
“Well, is it going to kill you to wear a tie?”
“I’ve got it on.” She came back through, straightened it, kissed me on the cheek, then licked a paper towel and wiped her kiss from me. She ran through the living room, fluffing pillows, moving figurines an inch or two to the left or right, or forward or backward. I had no idea what she was doing, while I stuffed into jeans and tied up a nice pair of brown Rockports with both of the laces matching. She sat on the sofa, going through five or six positions, locking her knees, tucking her legs under, crossing them, leaning one arm on the sofa pillows, one over the cushion, watching her own reflection on the big-screen TV, imagining what she would look like when they finally broadcast this here interview. She was going to break a sweat before they even set up if she didn’t watch out, and it was likely to be hot enough under those lights without doing somersaults on the sofa.
She has been arranging and rearranging the furniture, even the pictures on the wall, ever since that TV news show called me up about a month ago to see if they could interview me about that Japanese girl. I had to tell Liza Jean to relax when she started in about getting new curtains, just for the show. She could act like it was the Home and Garden channel coming to visit us all she wanted, but that was not about to change the fact that this concerned Detroit Lakes and nothing else. I wasn’t for sure why they thought it was interesting enough, but TV makes things way more real for some people than a newspaper clipping, so I understood a way to stop the clucking hens of Big Antler. And yes, secretly, I hoped the boy would be watching, and yes, even more secretly, I wished Shirley Mounter would, as well.
“They’re here, Tommy Jack, are you ready?” Liza Jean said, looking out a side window as this van with a big satellite dish on top of it came down the road. One nice thing about living here—there are no ways for a sneak approach, not like those jungles where you might meet a bullet around the next set of bushes. West Texas is about as flat and wide open as you can get, like God just decided to iron this big patch in the middle of the country. They were still two roads over, riding the grid to the house, but they kicked up a rooster tail of dust that was visible for miles. They wanted to come a day e
arly for preliminary work, which I nearly knew meant that they were up to something, but I agreed anyway. I had come this far, I might as well go the whole of it and see what we would see. “Do you think they’re gonna want some sweet tea?”
“I don’t think it matters much to them,” I said. “They’ve probably got their own, but it might be nice to offer.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so before?” she said, heading into the kitchen with one of those Tommy-Jack-you-are-using-up-my-patience sighs she gave me more and more often as the years got on.
“Well, then, don’t. I don’t give a shit,” I said. And I really didn’t. I thought she wanted to make the sweet tea and was looking for some kind of agreement. Damn, I never get this right.
They knocked on the front door a few minutes later, though I thought it was clear from all the potted plants out front, crowding the stoop, that we generally only used the back door. Maybe that was only clear to those who knew us. They shook hands all around and the reporter took some tea while the technical people set up equipment and started testing places, asking if it was okay to use outlets or if we needed them to use their generator, asking where outlets were when I said it was fine to use them—that kind of stuff. The enormous lights heated the house up fast when they tested them for a few minutes before we started.
Fred Howkowski always said the worst part of being before the cameras was sweating under the lights, knowing your makeup was washing off and they would be coming around to touch you up again, just before filming. He said the makeup was thick and heavy, like the air during a Vietnam monsoon season. When it wasn’t raining but still about a hundred degrees, the sultry air was like a woolen blanket around you. Some guys wore as little as was safe, it was so nasty. Flak jacket, fatigues cut to shorts, boots. Being from here, I could wear a full set of standard issue and be okay, but the heat always troubled Fred.
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