RTL6764 waited, stared back into the neighborhood at the dark angular forms with only an occasional light illuminating drab curtains hung in drab rooms. He stared at the dark rounded hulks of poorly maintained vehicles that lined the twisting darkened streets of the darkie neighborhood euphemistically labeled “minority homes” in a town much like his town. He turned to the booth, an open booth; they didn’t install the kind with accordion doors anymore, at least not in a darkie neighborhood. The wind gusted. A chill caught him, ran up his back, out his shoulders. He didn’t want to call. The excitement had gone out of it. But he was committed—for his people. For my people, he thought. He turned toward the neighborhood. The wind caught his face, made his eyes water, his lips sting. He eyed the houses, the vehicles, thought of the twisted path that had led his people, “only my people,” into the minority neighborhoods of the north, the south, the east, the west. Led them there, kept them there, he thought. Killin em. That’s what they doin. Nine black children in Atlanta, kidnapped, murdered. Half dozen still missin. Cuttin the hearts outta black men in Buffalo. Right down there in Johnstown, wastin black people. How that man put it? You pick up the paper, you read about blacks being killed here, being killed there. It does somethin to your brain. Tells you it’s huntin season on blacks all over again.
He stared into the closest illuminated window. He could see the forms of people moving, but through the curtain, the dirt-coated glass, he couldn’t tell if the forms were male or female. Yet he imagined an old woman, and children being scolded.
A dry, icy draft hit him, pushed him. He leaned into it. It pressed the cloth of his trousers tightly against his thighs and sucked the heat from his legs and his legs and feet were very cold. I done my part, he thought. I wasn’t no rear echelon mothafucka in Nam. I wasn’t no clerk or jerk diving for a bunker every time a mortar landed half a mile away. I picked up pieces. Human pieces. Policin up bodies, strippin em, searchin em, lookin for documents. Shee-it! Intelligence! Never cut out their hearts. They cut out their hearts in Buffalo. God! I know! I know somethin they don’t know. I know they feelin it. I know they felt it first time. First time you touched somebody you killed, you feel it, you feel it jumpin from them, feel it goin right inside you, right into your body. First time you feel it go in and spread throughout you like electricity, like heavy electric syrup. Then you don’t feel it no more. Then they aint nothin but cold meat. Pieces a cold meat. But it’s in you, takin you apart. Honkey racist murders in Buffalo goina die losin their hearts. And Bobby, dinky dau mothafucka, want “to interrupt my racism!”
“Internal Revenue. Criminal Investigations. Gilmore.”
He altered his voice. “Stan.”
“Yes.”
“R.T.L. 6764.”
“How ya doin, Good Buddy?”
“I’m freezing my ass off.”
Gilmore chuckled, asked, “What d’ya got?”
“Nothing new. They are still taking federal dollars ... ah, indirect recipients of federal funds. Two new guys this week. Both are on VA entitlements. That puts High Meadow in direct violation of the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1972, doesn’t it?”
“Same as before. He’s not screening the participants?”
“He asks. But they’re not going to give up their entitlements. They earned them.”
“Do you have some names for me?”
“Yep. I even have their service numbers.” He turned out from the booth, looked back to the illuminated window. “When do I get paid?”
“Not until the whole thing’s settled.”
For a moment he was quiet. His daughter lived in a house like that, a house with imitation-brick siding, maybe with an old woman like that, scolding. “His attorney says they’re going to beat it,” he said.
“Not a chance,” Stan Gilmore answered.
As things got better, as they seemingly returned to normal, they went from bad to worse. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited High Meadow Corporation with twenty-two job safety violations, and proposed fines of $72,000. Among the “willful” infractions: not displaying an OSHA poster; not training workers how to handle hazardous chemicals (fertilizers); no guardrails on a section of the barn loft (Don Wagner figured they’d have doubled the fines had they ever seen Rick MacIntyre climbing down the Indian ladder at the gap); no safety gates and enclosed safety zone beneath the barn elevator; not using hard hats in the barn; debris on the barn floor; and improperly spliced electric extension cords.
“They might just as well fire me up,” Wapinski said to Mark Tashkor.
“Easy,” Mark told him. “Let me handle it. We’ve got two weeks to negotiate or file a written challenge. Just get something under the elevator, and paper the barn with their damn posters!”
“That’s not it, Mark. They’ll just keep coming back. They want to close us down. They’re killing me.”
“Let me handle it.”
“You know, I had a dream last night. I dreamed I was in supply and that I had two units out by Dak To. One was U.S., one was ARVN. And they were under siege. Both of em. They were being hit. Rockets, mortars, heavy caliber machine guns hidden in caves in the surrounding hills. And I was in supply back in the rear and it was a beautiful day. But I can hear all this activity on the net and these guys are calling for fire support and for resupply. And I was the wagon train; I was the wagonmaster. ‘Move it,’ I’m screaming. ‘Get this show on the road.’ But there’s a glitch. There’s this bureaucratic snafu from higher-higher that’s got us on hold. We can’t move until we get their authorization. We’re raring to go. Calls are coming in for medevacs. These guys are being picked apart and this is going on for days, weeks. And we can’t go out and help. We know they’re out of ammo. Out of food. We’re sitting on tons of it. But we’re not being allowed to go.”
Some things really did improve.
John Sr. sat on the sofa in Tony and Linda’s home. It was noontime, perhaps mid-August. Linda was at work. Gina and Michelle were at a friend’s. Tony was in the kitchen filling two tall glasses with ice, water and wedges of lemon. In an hour and a half Tony would be addressing a growers meeting in Rock Ridge about the expiration of credit reprieves and the deflation of land values. He’d researched the topic in depth, had accepted organizational help from Sara, financial explanations from Vu, and delivery assistance from Gary Sherrick. The example that Tony was using was that of a Midwest farm valued, two years earlier, at half a million dollars. Banks held liens on the land for $260,000 and the owner had been extended $100,000 in credit for improvements and equipment. With 30 percent deflation caused by the recession the farmer was overextended and the bank refused to extend or refinance the loans. Throughout the district others were in similar shape. Ramifications within the community included business closings and layoffs, and the closing of local banks because they had to charge higher rates to cover uncollectables, and new business was going elsewhere.
Tony’s speech and appearance—he was in a suit and tie, had cut his long hair and shaved—to this point had been the topic of conversation with his father.
“Hey Tony, what are these?”
“What’s what, Pop?” Tony reentered the room with the glasses.
“On the wall here?”
“Oh. My certificates.”
“You got three Purple Hearts!”
“Um-hmm.”
“And a Silver Star?! And a Viet Namese Cross for Gallantry?”
“Yeah. It seems like a long time ago.”
“Did you do the frames? These are nice frames.”
“Naw. Linda did em, Pop.”
“This is why you asked me over ... to show me this, huh?”
“Naw, Pop. I wish Mom came too, though. And I wish Linda were here. She’s on call, and you know, if a call comes in ...”
“You know ...” John Sr. said these words slowly. He looked directly at his son but he did not keep his eyes on Tony’s eyes. His throat was tight. “I’m very proud. Look at you. In a suit with
a white shirt. Jo would be very proud of you, too. Tony, our Tony, off to deliver a speech. When I see you up there ... When I see what you and Bobby and all you men have done ... What you men are doing up there ... Tony, Jo is proud of you. And I’m very proud of you.”
“Aw ...” Tony stammered. It was, for him, a lot easier to hear criticism from his father, from anyone, than it was to hear compliments. “You know, without you, without all your help ... All the times you and Mom helped Linda when I wasn’t here ... And with the down payment and all ...”
“Hey. What are families for, right?”
“Yeah.”
“But you’ve done High Meadow on your own. You and Bobby. Since I retired, when I’ve been up there these last few months, for the meetings, I didn’t know any of that stuff about Viet Nam.”
“It seems nobody does.”
“I know,” John Sr. said. “I never said this before. I ... Each time I heard or read about World War Two, where I was on the march north through Italy, my insides would grind. I still get angry. I think, like you say up there, I’m still coming to terms with it. When I hear what those boys describe, I see myself. I can see that progression, the assimilating and reassimilating the experience and each added fact or new story. I’ve heard so much crap ... You boys talk about how good you were and everybody only talks about your atrocities. For me, for thirty-six years, it’s been the opposite. I’ve seen people, civilians, they could have been our family, I’ve seen them butchered. I’ve seen them cut down. I’ve seen them blown up. How do you assimilate that?
“I keep wishing,” John Sr. continued, “that I could do something more. I—I feel so limited. I tried to be the best person to you and your brothers and to your mother—”
“Pop, it showed. It always showed. Everyone always knew you really cared.” Tony checked his watch. “I gotta go, Pop.” He checked his watch again. He moved closer to his father. “Don’t tell Mom, yet, okay? But I’m bursting to tell you.”
“What? What?”
“Ah ...” Tony whispered, “Linda’s pregnant. Three months. We already know it’s going to be a boy.”
There was low murmuring, some coughing. Forty-five vets sat before the collector assembly tables. Bobby, as judge, sat on the edge of table 1. Before him at a small card table was Sal Ianez, the court recorder, then two long tables, one for the prosecution, one for the defense. Beside assembly table 2 there were twelve vets in folding chairs—the jury. Calvin Dee was chairman. In clusters behind the vets were “civilian observers,” including Sara, Linda, Emma, John Pisano Sr., James and Isabella Pellegrino, and Professor Arnold Tilden of Nittany Mountain College with seven of his students. The proceedings had been going on for a hour.
In the jury box Howie Bechtel nudged Kevin Rifkin. “Hey, Blue Dog. How was your unit reunion?”
“Great, Man,” Rifkin said. “We had this one speaker ... an attorney. He said we should all get blood tests for this Agent Orange thing.”
“Fuckin attorneys, Man!”
“I don’t know, Man. But I told Wapinski. Half a dozen of us are going tomorrow morning. Over to RRVMC ...”
Gary Sherrick cleared his throat, smiled, glanced back at Wapinski, returned to face the courtroom. “As per order of this court and per the findings of the grand jury of High Meadow”—his voice was loud, distinct—“this court has set the date of Thursday, October eighth, nineteen hundred and eighty-one as the commencement date for the trial of The People of the United States of AMERICA versus THE MEDIA.”
At that moment he felt very down. For weeks he’d expected the final action, his final reward. He’d dreamed it, dreamed of reclaiming his daughter, of having the means to support her. Yet he’d dreamed too of the legal battle, of the judge saying, “There’s no reason for this court, Mr. RTL6764, to award you custody. We do have your medical records, the record of your cancer. There is no reason for you to be the custodian of this child when you may not live long enough to see her grow up.”
He felt very ill. But it was not the dream, not the delay of the award, reward, not even the cloak and dagger covert running about, spying, passing information on to Stan Gilmore of the Internal Revenue Service. It was something Bobby had said and he couldn’t even remember the words. Something about Judas Iscariot. Something about Hamburger Hill. Something about interrupting his belief that his blackness in white-controlled America was the source of all his problems—“true or not, that’s overcomable”—something about needing to interrupt his need for dismemberment because he wasn’t a Judas goat leading lambs to slaughter.
“Gilmore here. Whatcha got, Good Buddy?”
“I—I—” He felt sick to the pit of his stomach. His breaths came shallow, quick. He glanced over his shoulder, up Third Street, past the new restaurant, past the 7-Eleven, past the intersection with Callar Drive to the T with Crooked Street and the big Victorian with the screened porch. “I—I think something big is coming down.”
“Go on, Good Buddy.”
“I—I need some money to get away from this. He’s getting weird. Remember like Jonestown, like all those people killing themselves with that grape Kool-Aid?”
“Tell me more.”
“I told you about the vow, right? And irrefutable obligations?”
“A regular demagogue, huh?”
“He’s got an awful hold on em. And he’s really—he’s really sick. He looks terrible. He looks ... He’s almost crazy with frustration and anger.”
Gilmore tittered. “He-he. That’s what happens to people who try to screw Uncle Sam, Good Buddy. You’re doing the whole country a service.”
“I don’t know what he might do next.”
“Okay, thanks for the tip.”
“Stan?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ve got to get me some mon—Oh!” He hung up.
“Hey Man.” It was Mike Treetop. “What’s happenin, Bro? Come on in.”
“I ... Oh ... I ... I got ...”
“Johnny and I saw you from the window. Come on. You’ve never been in, have you? Use our phone.”
“I gotta go, Mike. I ... ah ... gotta split. I was just making an appointment.”
“Yeah. Okay. Look, Ty, sometime, huh? We miss you guys.”
“Sure Mike.”
“We’ll be up for the trial. You and Rodney going to do the race war thing?”
“I can’t talk, Mike. I gotta go.”
“Egalitarian inclusiveness,” he wrote. He stopped. There were papers everywhere on the pine desk. It was Friday, 18 September 1981. Most of the vets had quit early. Vu, Mariano, Van Deusen and Wagner had taken Joe Alamont to RRVMC for a second screening. Earlier Joe had gone with Bobby and some others but he’d been denied Agent Orange screening because of a less than honorable discharge. Several dozen guys had gone to Mike and Johnny’s The Apple Fritter—which was becoming their afterwork hangout. Others were at the White Pines; more were in the bunkhouse. Through the window High Meadow looked deserted. Even the grass and weeds seemed lonely, uncut, unkempt, abandoned.
Bobby glanced at the correspondence stack. The very size of it intimidated him. On top was a letter from Jinny Reed, Tim Reed’s wife, a voice seemingly reaching across space and through time. “I remember,” Jinny had written
he told me when he hired you, you were someone who might shake the place up. Henry didn’t like you at all (I think he felt threatened) but Tim insisted. When Henry fired you, Tim was devastated. After his first heart attack he talked about you incessantly, about your windmills and electrified road surfaces, about having an impact, and about how myopic Henry and all the planners were. At any rate, Bob, Tim wanted you to have the enclosed. Sometimes I think the only thing keeping him alive after the first attack was the thought of breaking into Harrison’s cabinets and getting your drawings and proposals. The night after he got them and told me to send them to you was the night of the fatal heart attack ... I wish you and Sara were still here. Your wedding was beautiful.
Love,
/> Jinny
Bobby tapped his fingers. It was hard to comprehend: Tim Reed, dead. He hadn’t yet opened the package, hadn’t yet told Sara. Beside the package was a design file containing Bobby’s sketches for a quadracycle car: twenty-one forward speeds, double derailleurs, very bicyclelike except with four wheels, a light, aerodynamic fiberglass and Plexiglas shell, supine seats for two pedalers, and a clutch-flywheel system for stability (gyroscopic effect) and assistance in hill climbing—all unproven, unprototyped. One more unfinished project, he thought.
There were other projects before him: an outline for a national Viet Nam Veterans Antidefamation League; a revised logo for EES reflecting the new phone number 626-6475—Call Nam-’64-’75; and a 200-year plan. Amid the projects, too, was the ever-expanding IRS file, and the new file on Agent Orange screening.
Bobby’s exam, as cursory as it had seemed, had been distasteful. They’d drawn blood, checked his pulse, temperature, reflexes, and asked about skin rashes. He’d been treated like a ’cruit, like a prebasic trainee. Yet, he’d gone to set an example. On the floor beside Bobby, Josh thumped, twitched in his sleep, opened his eyes, looked up sleepily, sighed, went back to sleep. “How ya doin, ol’ boy,” Bobby whispered.
With the end of a pen Bobby flicked open the IRS file. The latest form, 668(Y) Notice of Federal Tax Lien Under Internal Revenue Laws, stated:
... notice is given that taxes (including interest and penalties) have been assessed against the following-named taxpayer. Demand for payment of this liability has been made, but it remains unpaid. Therefore, there is a lien in favor of the United States on all property and rights to property belonging to this taxpayer for the amount of these taxes, and additional penalties, interest, and costs that may accrue.
This Notice of Federal Tax Lien has been filed as a matter of public record.... Penalty and interest accrue until the liability is paid.
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