“Tony!”
“Just say fuck it! You’re a big girl.”
“I know I’m a big girl.” Now they were both yelling.
“Then act like it!”
“I am!”
“No, you’re not. You’re acting like a spoiled brat who’s afraid Daddy won’t pat her on the head.”
“God! You know my friend Judy said it was a bad idea to do this on a holiday ... because it’s an emotionally charged time anyway!”
“Is that what’s got you so fuckin up tight?”
“Geez!” She squeezed the wheel hard, stared straight ahead. He clamped up. Finally she said, “Mom’s going to have been up all night cleaning. And cooking. She’ll be a wreck. Dad will probably have slapped everybody for making too much noise and disturbing Mom. You know, that’s just the way it is. And you want me to say, ‘Hi. Meet Tony. He’s a Marine.’ That’ll really blow their minds.”
“You’re really worried about this.” Tony was calmer now. Linda, angry, still looked to him so beautiful—playfully lovely. He burst out laughing.
She looked at him, slapped his shoulder, laughed too, and as they pulled into the driveway they were laughing and poking each other and Linda nearly crashed into her father’s new ’69 Cadillac. They were still laughing as they got out into the crisp November air and Tony wiped pastry crumbs off Linda’s chest, she catching his hands, holding them decently on her shoulders, looking to see that no one saw him touch her and seeing her sister Ruth and Ruth’s new husband Jay McKinney, and her father only feet from them. Her face went pale.
“Well,” Henry said. He was a full four inches taller than Tony, eight inches taller than Linda. “You must be Tony.”
“Yes Sir,” Tony said snappily. He extended his hand.
“So,” Henry said, “you’re Linda Lee’s sexy Italian who’s a sergeant in the Marine Corps.” He grasped Tony’s fingers but Tony rammed his hand in for a proper handshake.
“Yes Sir,” Tony said proudly. “And you must be Hank. And this,”—he turned to Ruth, then glanced back at Linda, stage-whispering “the pretty one,”—“must be Ruthie. And Jay, right?” He shook hands with both.
“Ah, not—” Henry Balliett cleared his throat. “No one calls me Hank. Henry. Call me Henry.”
“Well, thank you, Sir,” Tony said. “I’d like that.”
Henry Balliett smiled. “It’s good to see Linda Lee with a boy who’s hair is shorter than hers.”
“Yes Sir,” Tony answered, matching Henry smile for smile.
An hour later, in the living room with Jay McKinney, Norma, Henry and all the younger Balliett children, Tony explained somberly, “Notification just isn’t good duty.” There was a commercial break from a televised, pregame, Thanksgiving parade and Norma and the children were allowed to speak. “I mean,” Tony continued, “it’s not physically bad but it is very wearing.”
“I don’t know how you children do it,” Norma said. “Really, I don’t. I could never keep up with you. Or Linda. She looks so drawn. I worry about her.”
“Me too,” Tony said.
“Have you and Linda been seeing each other a lot?” Norma asked.
“Yes,” Tony said. “Well except for the past few weeks. Linda’s had this honeymoon cystitis thing.”
Norma’s mouth dropped. Henry’s face snapped from the screen to Tony. “Honeym—” Norma could barely get the words out.
“Oh, I don’t think it’s anything serious,” Tony said quickly. “I’m not even sure I have the name right. I think she said—”
“Oh, it must be something else,” Norma injected.
“Yes’m,” Tony agreed. “It was some kind of influenza, I think. Influenza of—”
“Certainly,” Norma said firmly. Henry turned back to the screen.
“Mrs. Balliett,” Tony said respectfully, “Linda said you’ve gone back to work.”
“Oh, she told you.” Norma’s face beamed. “I used to do it before Linda was born.”
“Did she tell you,” Henry interrupted, “she was born five hours too late?”
“Five hours ...”
“January first at five A.M. Five hours too late to deduct her on my income taxes.”
“Oh, Henry.” Norma laughed as if on cue. “In those years we didn’t make enough to even think about deductions.”
Tony also laughed obligingly but immediately turned back to Linda’s mother. “What do ...” he began.
“I draw art work for the phone company. Yellow pages. You know, when your fingers do the walking, they walk all over my drawings.”
In the kitchen Ruthie whispered to Linda, “Did you see the look on Dad’s face when he said, ‘You must be Hank’? Nobody’s ever said that to him. I thought I’d die.”
“I know.” Linda giggled quietly.
“Did you tell him to say—”
“No. He just came out with it. He’s like that. And I forgot to warn him about Dad’s handshake but I could see—”
“Linda, where did you find him? He really is sexy.” Ruthie pretended to swoon. Giggled. “Oh, ‘My Hero!’” she swayed. “Except he’s a little short.”
Linda winked. “Not where it counts,” she blurted lowly.
“Linda! Have you two been—”
“Ssshhh! Get the yams.” Linda looked at Ruthie, repressed a burst of laughter. She stood a little straighter, shimmied as if to shake the conspiratorial thoughts away and repeated, “Yams. To the table. I’ll get the salad.”
The setting could have been a Norman Rockwell painting; the beautifully glazed turkey surrounded by stuffing and cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, yams, green and jello salads, green beans, carrot and celery sticks, a fruit basket, rolls, wine, and milk—beautiful place settings, beautifully dressed family, mother and five girls with heads bowed, Tony and Jay sprinkled in as table anchors, Henry Sr. saying grace, Henry Jr. looking out behind his father at the TV, the game about to begin.
There was light chatter through the early courses, a bit heavier as Jay and Tony began the second bottle of wine.
“You called yourselves ...?” Ruth began to repeat her question.
“Magnificent Bastards.” Tony said proudly. “That’s two-four ... ah, Second Battalion, Fourth Marine Regiment. We were really a good unit.”
“And that’s where you learned to be a medic?”
“Oh! No.” Tony turned to Linda, said, “IV?” She tapped her lips indicating she had a mouthful, nodded. “Kind of,” Tony said. “I wasn’t a medic but Doc So taught me how to start IVs and inject morphine. Stuff like that.”
“Dr. So?” Henry Sr. asked. “Was he Chinese?”
Tony smiled, swallowed another gulp of wine. “No Sir. I don’t know what his name was. We called him So because he was so neat and so fat.”
Joanie giggled. Cindy got the giggles and couldn’t stop, and it infected Lea and the two youngest girls received The Look from their father.
The conversation rocked back and forth and Cindy, Lea and Henry Jr. were dismissed from the table. Jay talked about the astronauts in orbit, about the upcoming moon shot; Linda told her parents about her financial aid package and its imminent approval. Tony smiled, glanced at Linda who began reexplaining her schedule to her mother.
“I graduate in December with my LPN. Then I move to Boston. That part’s all set....”
Tony felt wine confident, felt in-love confident. He turned to Jay who very seriously said to him, “Mr. Balliett—Dad—he helped me get a deferment, being that I’m married and I’ve got a critical job.”
“Oh. What do you do?”
“I’m ... Dad got me a job with Penn-York. I’m really just a clerk but he had them say I was handling their entire new computer system. I am learning it.”
“Hm.” Tony said. He heard Linda saying her classes would begin on January 6th and rotations two weeks later. To Jay Tony said, “I thought about going back to school too, but my cousin Jimmy’s been sending me info on this new pacification program that’s doing a
lot of good. I might re-up to go back to Viet Nam and ...”
Suddenly the table was quiet. Then Linda said softly, “Don’t you dare.”
And Tony smiled and said, “But then again ...” and Ruth and Jay laughed. “Really,” Tony continued, “there’s word in the pipeline about drops coming down.”
“Drops?” Norma asked.
“Early outs. I’m signed up until next August but there’s talk, if you’ve been overseas, of four- to six-month drops. I could be discharged as early as February.”
“And then,” Henry asked, “what will you do?”
“I could go to school,” Tony said. “On the GI Bill. I haven’t really decided yet.”
“I’ve got an idea,” Ruth said. “Why don’t you and Linda come and stay with Jay and me tonight. Then we can talk about your options and—”
“They can’t stay at your apartment!” Henry Balliett interrupted. “You’ve only got the one bedroom.”
Jay glanced up. Tentatively he said, “They can use the living room.”
“They’re not even engaged,” Henry said.
Immediately Tony turned to Linda. “Would you marry me?” he asked. “Sure.” She answered. “Sure!” he repeated and they both laughed.
“Humph!” Henry snorted. He rose, went to the TV, changed the channel and sat.
7
MILL CREEK FALLS, 4 September 1969: They had been up since five. Bobby had made coffee, Josh had eaten his first-of-the-day MilkBones. Grandpa was already out to his office in the big barn. Bobby and Josh strolled down the long drive to where a dented mailbox hung askew from a rusting steel post. Wapinski looked in. It was empty. He looked up at the sky. It was mostly clear. “C’mon, boy,” Bobby called Josh. “We’ll head on down toward Lutz’s.”
They meandered far down the road, Josh dashing into various fields, chasing birds or butterflies, Wapinski watching his dog, enjoying Josh’s boundless enthusiasm but not concentrating on him, thinking alternately about options or not about anything but making up silly verses to tunes he’d known since childhood. He’d been offered a job selling cars at Lloyd’s Autoland; Mr. Hartley had told him if he’d obtain a real estate license, he would take Bobby “under his wing”; and Grandpa had hinted that the farm was his if he’d farm it. Grandpa hadn’t actually said that. What he’d said was, “Bobby, soil is a living tissue. It’s the skin of the earth and as such it’s very complex. It takes a special person to understand it. And still that person needs to work at it.” “Um-hmm,” Bobby had replied. “Well,” Grandpa had said, “as long as you know.”
They had reached the point on Mill Creek Road where the barren mounds and ridges had been rejuvenated by the big dollars of Adolph Lutz’s horse-boarding ranch, where tons upon tons of fertilizers, natural and chemical, had turned hillside pastures vibrant green. In the field before him were two spotted grays. They looked up. Josh came scampering in from a foray to a distant field. Josh stopped at the three-board fence. He crouched, looked under at the horses. Selling cars, Bobby thought. Josh began barking. Bobby looked absently at him. After commanding an infantry company! Real estate? After planning a brigade-sized assault! He drew in a deep breath. Or farm, he thought. Then he whispered, “Josh, I gotta get outa here. What do you think?”
Josh glanced over, quickly looked back at the grays who had trotted closer. “I—” Bobby drew out the sound, “know what you’re thinkin. But if I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, how can you think that?” He paused. Josh cocked his head. Pensively Bobby continued. “I do have faith. And patience. Faith and patience,” he repeated to himself. Faith and patience in the pursuit of answers, in the pursuit of design excellence, he thought. It was a throw-back thought to his college days, to an engineering fundamentals class. I could go back to school, he thought. But not here. I could work in the trades. But not here. Build some decent houses instead of those wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, don’t-call-me-if-it-settles boxes they put up in Old New Town, or the slap-em-up-overnight boxes they’re still putting up in New New Town. I could go back, become a designer. Maybe a city planner. But not here.
As they walked back to High Meadow, Wapinski thought of one more option—of reenlisting, of escaping by reenlisting—but it did not seem viable. He’d served his time. It was time to get on with his life.
Back at the drive Bobby pulled the morning’s paper from the box. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “Son of a bitch!” he shouted. “Ah ... no offense Josh. Hot damn, look at this! Ho Chi Minh croaked!”
Bob Wapinski was now dating Red full-time. They talked, walked, made love. Seldom did he take her to anything fancier than the cinema in downtown Mill Creek Falls, though on Labor Day weekend they did go to an inn in Towanda. He had little money, no job, except that he labored around the farm and continued to refurbish the house. He had collected two unemployment checks but stopped going, saying, “I’d rather eat dirt than take their filthy handouts.” Mostly he and Red spent weekend days hiking with Josh at High Meadow, and week nights, after Red got off work, lying in the back seat of the old Chevy, parked in the remotest corners of town.
Joanne had called several times in mid and late August and again in early September with the same message as before, that Montgomery McShane was going to press charges. “I’ll take my chances,” he’d told her. He knew there were no charges, no medical bills he’d be asked to pay. He had talked with the boy and Montgomery had apologized to Bob as much as Bob did to him, and he assured Bob that he was okay, no permanent damage. Joanne, however, continued pressing. “You might just as well shoot yourself,” she’d told him. “You should have died in Viet Nam.”
The weekend after Labor Day, two weeks before Jimmy Pellegrino returned, Wap, Red and Josh hiked the long path around High Meadow. The day was hot, without wind. They started at the house, followed the trail through the orchard, over the knoll, across the dam, over the rock crags. Bob never smelled fresh blood and entrails at the crags when Red was along, though he’d smelled it twice again when only Josh was with him. He never mentioned it to her. They followed the path to the fork where they usually continued to the right, around the pond, but this time they went left up into the woods, past the cabin Grandpa had built the first year he owned the farm. “‘Before he built a proper house,’ is what Granma used to say,” Bob said. They followed the trail up the side of the now dry streambed, listened to the birds, kissed. Red followed Bob over an old stone wall in the woods. “Granpa did this. At one time he’d cleared and cultivated this side. With these fields he had ninety acres planted. It’s not a lot but it was a hell of a feat being that he did an awful lot of it by himself. A lot of it by hand.” Bob led Red up the steep embankment and into the sugarbush where they made love in the cool shade of the maples.
It was pleasant sex but not passionate sex. To him it seemed as if she could not let go. He wasn’t sure if it was his insecurities and his lack of direction that were affecting her. It seemed to him she had made love to him today solely to please him, even though she had no desire. It worried him.
For a while they didn’t talk, didn’t move. He thought of Red’s aroma, then didn’t want to think of her at all but of other concerns he wanted to share but couldn’t. He rolled to his side. He looked at her tiny pink breasts, thought of Stacy, about to be married. And he imagined, wished, that somehow the entire time since he’d returned had been a test, a conspiracy designed to stretch to the extreme his true love for Stacy, that at any moment Red was going to say, “Ha. You blew it. We were just testing you to see if you would pass. You flunked.” Except he wished he hadn’t flunked. Had gone after Stacy.
Red was lying on her back, her hands on her stomach. She too was thinking divergent thoughts. In less than two weeks her fiancé would be home. In another she’d be the maid of honor at Stacy’s wedding. She bit her lip, then said, “I got another letter from Jimmy.”
“You told me.”
“What am I going to tell him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Me too.”
“I really love you.” He rolled, kissed her. She continued. “I think I’m going to take the job in California.”
“Oh. Hey, that’s great. In January?”
“They want me there November first.”
“November first? That’s—that’s only ...”
“I know. But I’ve got to get away. I don’t want to spend my life in Mill Creek Falls. I’m twenty-one. I want to live a little before I settle down.”
“Umm.” He didn’t want to brood, didn’t want her to brood, didn’t want their fragile moods to plummet. At once he felt relieved, as if she were letting him go, and hurt, afraid to lose her.
“Will you write to me?” Red asked.
“Um-hmm. Will you write back?”
“Um-hmm. Could you, maybe, come out and visit?”
“Yeah. I could.”
“Could you move out there?”
“Aw, Red.” He sighed. “I don’t know. I ... maybe. You hit me with it pretty sudden. I didn’t even know they’d made you a real offer.”
“I start at ten thousand. That’s nearly double what I make working for Daddy.”
“That’s great. That’s really nice. Ten thousand!?”
“Isn’t it exciting?”
She’d hugged him, kissed him, kissed him passionately as his hands explored her petite body, kissed him a dozen hello, welcome home, I-love-you-so-much kisses. Then she pushed away and announced, “I’m going to move to California.” Jimmy Pellegrino stared at her but didn’t respond. “I’m going to move in about five weeks,” Red said as if she were challenging him, said as if she wanted a conflict to ease the message, wanted him to object, wanted him to be the cause.
“Cool,” Jimmy said. “That’ll be after my leave. You’re comin with me this weekend. To Boston. Tony’s getting married.”
“Tony!”
“Yeah. He met some nurse chick who’s in school in Boston. The whole family’s going up.”
“I can’t,” Red said. She was glad. A clean break. “Stacy’s getting married. In New York. I’m her maid of honor.”
Carry Me Home Page 17
