“Here,” she said, shaking his shoulder. He strained to open his eyes, recognizing that it was still night. He could see the outline of his mother but not the details of her face. She was waving something white in front of him.
“From your brother,” she said before dropping it on the covers and disappearing from his room. He pulled an arm out from underneath the covers and groped for the white thing. A letter. Still shaking from his dream, Bill crawled out of bed and onto the floor to the night-light by the closet. He sleepily crossed his legs and ripped the top of the letter open with his thumb. Then he held the seemingly fragile paper under the dim yellow light to read.
Camp Schwab, Okinawa, Sept-67
Dear Billy Baboon (just kidding),
I know it’s been awhile since I wrote to you. We’re stuck in the compound this week. It’s been hard to get some time alone here. Seems like when that happens, the guys want to play poker or do something. I told them tonight, though, I had to write to my little brother. How are you doing? How’s Beans? I just got a letter from Mom so I know she’s doing okay. Well, okay enough I guess.
I’m doing okay. Man, you should see the weather here! I’ll never complain about another Wisconsin summer again. It gets hotter than hell here, and so muggy that I feel like I’m wet all the time. If you were here, you’d be running around bare-ass naked—except it wouldn’t be allowed ‘cause you’d be a running target. My sergeant says I shoot pretty good. I don’t give a damn if I shoot good or not anymore. When I come home, I don’t want to see another gun again. Even if I have to bust the ones we have over the old man’s head just to get rid of them. And him too.
Did I tell you they call me Elvis Jr? My buddy, Marv, even painted it on my helmet. I don’t know why they call me that, all my hair is shaved off. Did you hide all my albums like I told you to? If it looks like the old man is getting close to finding them, take them over to the Morriseaus’. Mrs. Morriseau will keep them for me.
I better go. Keep writing and let me know what’s going on there. I’ll write again in a bit—hopefully before they send us up to somewhere near Laos—it’s still a rumor, though. Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon.
Love James
P.S. I sent Mom some money—don’t tell the old man. He’ll take it away from her and use it on a beer dream. I sent you some too. Keep it under your mattress, or better yet, hide it in the barn in case of emergencies.
Bill looked down at the two twenty-dollar bills that had slipped out and fallen to the floor while he read the letter. He picked them up and stared at them. He lifted his head, still in the trance of so much money for an eight-year-old boy, and gazed at the twin bed across from him. James. Bill’s mother always called his brother “Jimmy,” as did their neighbors and the rest of the community, but Bill, looking at his brother’s empty bed, had always called him “James.” Like James Dean, another one of his brother’s idols besides Elvis. Or Saint James, although his brother was anything but a saint before he left. There was the good and the bad James, but the letters Bill had gotten so far seemed full of the good James.
He crawled back to the bed, hefted the mattress up, and slipped the letter underneath with the other letters his brother had sent. This was the first time James had sent money, though. He folded the bills in half and tucked them under his pillow. Tomorrow before school he’d have to think about where in the barn to hide the money and the letters. He climbed back into bed and pulled the covers up next to his chin. Feeling the coldness of the sheets at the spooky end of the bed, he bent his legs and curled his toes. Since James had left, he worried even more about the safety of his feet so close to where something could reach up from underneath the bed and grab them. And no one, not his mother in her few hours of peace, or his father in his Pabst-saturated slumber, would hear him like James.
He turned on his side so he could look again at his brother’s bed, covered with a white crocheted spread and untouched now for five months. He thought about the letters lying underneath him and the ghostly way his mother always brought these letters to him in his sleep. As though they didn’t exist in the daytime. As though his brother didn’t exist except at night, a black inky voice on white paper.
The wind whispered through the pine boughs outside his window. He slowly dropped off to sleep again and waited for the feathers.
The next morning he crept out of the house early, clutching a large blue mason jar in his arms and the letters and money stuffed inside his shirt. It was late October, and he’d forgotten his jacket in his desperation to get to the barn and back before his parents woke up. By the time he reached the creaky old barn door, he was shaking violently from the freezing morning whip of fall temperatures. He put the money and the letters in the jar and buried it deep in a corner of the barn where he knew the loose hay would be untouched by his father. After peeking out of the barn door to check for signs of life and seeing none, he streaked across the barnyard and slipped back into the house.
“Billy, why don’t you want to go outside and play? It’s not that cold!” Sister Agnes questioned him at the beginning of the morning recess.
“Nooo.” He faltered and, swallowing quickly, came up with an excuse. “I thought I’d practice my penmanship.”
The excuse glided across his lips better than he thought, and Sister Agnes beamed with an approving smile. “All right then.”
He watched the long black skirt of her habit glide as smoothly as his excuse out the door to the playground. He opened his notebook and began to write in his usual scrawl print.
Wednesday
Dear Elvis Jr (ha, ha),
I am doing okay to. I hid the money in the barn. Dad hasnt found your records. He has been pretti drunk. Mom and me found him on Saturday in the field sleepng. He ran over Beans to.
Bill stopped momentarily and stared out of the classroom window, the recent death of his dog causing beads of tears to escape. He wiped them away and continued to write.
I buryd him behind the barn. Do you use bombs? Will you teech me how to shoot befor you bust our guns? I am writng this at school. Its been pretti cold. But no snow. We are havng turky for thanks givng. Mom says becase your not here to get a goose. I am going to help Mom bake cookes. So we can send them to you.
He heard the wild laughter of many children fill the hallway outside the door.
Resess is over. I got to go.
Love Bill
He quickly stuffed the letter inside his desk as the room filled with third graders.
“How’s the penmanship?” Sister Agnes’s voice loomed up behind him.
“Getting better,” he answered in a small, tinny voice, and tried to shrink himself further down into his seat.
“That’s good,” she said, patting his shoulder, her long skirt brushing past him.
He let out a deep sigh, relief buoying him back up to his normal size.
When he got home from school, he’d ask his mother for an envelope and a stamp. He’d painstakingly write James’s address in small letters so it didn’t swamp the front of the envelope the way his writing usually did. Under his address, though, in the top left-hand corner, he would write “USA” in big block letters, and he did the same under James’s address with the words “SOUTH VIETNAM.” Then his mother would take the letter and correct the address, and it would mysteriously disappear until he saw her from the frosted bus windows in the morning thrust two letters (hers included) into the pale gray mailbox that said “LUCAS” on the side and jack the red flag up.
Every day, as the bus rumbled down the gravel road toward town, he watched her dwindling figure walk tiredly up the long driveway saluted by red pines until the bus rounded the curve in the road and he could see her no more. She wore the same thing—an old pair of green rubber hunting boots over her slippers and a black-and-white plaid jacket that covered a housedress of faded blue polka dots—and her black hair was still wound in foamy pink rollers that from a distance looked to Bill like newborn mice under the pale blue netting of her ny
lon scarf. The bus became hushed when he got on, and he fervently prayed every morning that she would wait until the bus rounded the curve before she began talking aloud to the pines as she walked back to the house. That she would keep her hands to her sides until then, before moving them through the cold air as if explaining something, as if to touch someone strolling beside her.
Then it would start up.
“Hey, Luuucassss,” Merton Schmidt would tauntingly croon, sometimes putting a finger up his nose. “Hey, Puuccass! How come your mother’s crazee and your dad’s a stinkin’ drunk? Maybe ‘cause yer all LUC-ASSES. Hey! My brother says your brother should get a bullet between the ears jus’ for bein’ a dumb ass and enlistin’! But hey! He’s a LUC-ASS, right!” And Merton would laugh so loudly it resonated through the bus like several jackhammers.
Merton Schmidt was thirteen and supernaturally big for his age, so big that the other kids called him Shit House Schmidt but never to his face unless they wanted to run for the rest of their tiny lives. Bill’s brother called Merton the little Hun, but names didn’t do Bill any good even though his hatred of Merton outdistanced even his hatred of his father on some days. Bill kept his face pressed to the cold bus window and tried to keep the crying safely down in his stomach or Merton would be on him. He vainly struggled to picture his brother’s face, but all he could see was his walking, talking mother in the driveway. He bit his trembling lower lip and gazed out of the window. He ran the same gauntlet of teasing every day.
One morning, after a particularly severe verbal beating from Merton, he turned his face to the window only to see the family’s blue Chevy station wagon lodged into the ditch by the curve and the upper torso of his father hanging out of the driver’s window, a smiling haze over his unconscious face. The bus didn’t stop.
“Hey, Billy,” the bus driver yelled back, “I’ll call somebody to haul him outta there when we get to town.”
A grin broke across Merton’s face, and the shots from his mouth began all over again. Bill’s nine-year-old heart split open with pain. He stayed huddled in the bus seat, his eyes barely level with the bottom of the window. But he continued to peer out of the window, watching a scattered group of crows circle above the pines and wishing desperately that he were one of them.
Thankfully, Merton rarely rode the bus home from school, instead catching a ride with his father, who worked at the feed store. And Bill’s mother did not walk down the driveway to greet him when the rattling black and orange bus brought him home.
Bill ate his grayish brown oatmeal with an island of peanut butter in the middle. He watched as his mother leaned against the countertop, watched her eyes drift toward the kitchen window where she stared at the frozen fields and adjoining swamp and woods. He never forgot what he had overheard their neighbor Rosemary Morriseau say to her husband, although Bill knew it was not meant harshly, just sadly.
“Poor Claire.” Rosemary sighed quietly to herself while she washed the supper dishes and her husband, Ernie, polished his boots. Bill pretended to read a book in their living room, but he secretly watched Rosemary. She tapped the side of her head. “She’s touched.”
He thought he understood what that expression meant but not in reference to his mother. Sister Agnes often said it when she described the various saints. “They were touched,” she said, meaning God touched them. Wasn’t that a good thing? Did that mean his mother was a saint? Is that why his mother behaved the way she did?
On the weekends she wandered through the house during the day, talking and talking, her tired and haunted face appearing in one of the windows every so often when Bill was outside playing. She used to hit him. And shake him until he thought his head would snap off, rolling across the floor like a bowling ball and crashing into the legs of the furniture. That had changed after his brother left. When anger flushed her face, she kept her arms and fists locked to herself now and just yelled at him. Even the yelling had tapered off. She had become, gradually, his ally.
He was being carried again. This time he could look down, and the Chippewa River was a black, wriggly cord in the landscape sweeping beneath him, and everything beside it was covered with snow. The whistling filled his head. The grip was not so tight now, but it held him firmly. He spread his bare toes and wiggled them in the rushing wind. But it was not cold; it was warm, like maple syrup was warm after it settled on his hot pancakes. He spread out his arms to catch the same feeling as his toes. The whistling slowly took on a familiar tune, something he’d heard in the not-too-distant past. He could see his brother’s face, his Brylcreemed hair, his dark, narrowed eyes. What was it? He listened harder. It was ... “My baby does the hanky panky”!
“James!” he shouted. It was his brother whistling “My baby does the hanky panky.” Bill laughed. He laughed, and his heart felt whole. He laughed at the waves of wind pushing his hair off his face. And he began to sing....
“Shshsh. Wake up,” she said, nudging his head. It was close to Christmas, and another letter floated out of the darkness and onto his blanket. He blinked, trying to catch the dim outline of his mother. She caressed his forehead and then was gone. He almost fell out of bed in his sleepy but hurried effort to get to the night-light. Then he opened the letter, the whistling still echoing in his ears.
Dec-67
Hey Bill,
I can’t believe it’s going to be Christmas soon. It doesn’t snow here near Khe Sanh, but it rains. And rains and rains. It’s a lot cooler than being in Okinawa. It looks like there is snow in the highlands, but it is hard to tell—they’re mostly green with a little purple. I had a dream the other night that you and me were down at the river—I don’t know—fishing or something. It was a good dream. I needed it ‘cause it’s been a bad week. I lost one of my best buddies, Rick. We were on recon patrol, and I heard the shot before I saw Rick go down. We all dropped into cover. I couldn’t even cry. That’s how fast it all happened. I know I rolled over twice, and then I lifted my rifle and saw the little bastard. Well, he is no more. I guess you could say that he wasn’t by himself either. It’s like Mom used to say: If you see one mouse, you know you’ve got twenty. ’Course you’re the guy who brought them into the house (ha-ha).
I’m still not feeling so good. I got some kind of shit growing on my toes too—our medic says it’s immersion foot—you know—like athlete’s foot except it’s worse over here. My feet look like Mom’s bread dough. God, I can’t wait to come home.
Say I’m sorry about Beans. Goddamn the old man. He’s got to fucking destroy everything he touches. He should come over here and trade places with me. I’ll bet he’d be one big chicken running through the rice paddies. You know why he’s that way? Cause he’s SCARED. I used to wonder about him, but since I’ve been in Nam, I’ve figured it out. He’s fucking scared of everything, but he’s really scared of Mom. Cause he knows she’s better than he is. When I come home, he better watch out for me cause I’m gonna bust his fucking head.
I’m sorry I couldn’t get you a Christmas present. But I sent along some money. I sent Mom some money too and told her to spend it on herself. Make sure she does it, okay? Thanks for the cookies, they were really good. My buddy Marv’s sister sent him some cookies, but they were as hard as grenades. After I ate one, I felt like my stomach was gonna blow up too. We used the rest for target practice.
Pray for me. Some days I feel like I’m rotting. Probably cause it’s my own damn fault. I guzzle beer over here as much as the old man when I get a chance to. I need to over here, to forget I’m here. Keep writing. The guys think your letters are great. Merry Christmas.
Love you, James
There were splotches in places, where the ink had run slightly. Bill traced a finger across the raised wrinkles in the paper where the splotches were. His brother had been crying. Bill shivered and looked up at the white winter moon framed in his window. Its light reflected off the snow-covered Norway pines next to the house and filled his room with its pale winter glow. He gazed at the moon, absently f
ingering the money James had sent, seventy-five dollars in all. Bill shivered again. His brother talked to him like he never had before. He talked to him like a buddy and not his little brother. He picked up the letter and held it up against the moonlight. It was written in late December, but he didn’t know what day or time, and his brother was changing, and he couldn’t see or touch him.
Bill crawled back over to the bed and lifted the mattress to stash the letter and money underneath until morning. Then he grabbed his notebook and pencil from where they lay on the floor at the foot of his bed and crawled back to the night-light. He would cheer his brother up.
Friday
Dear James Dean (ha-ha),
I had a dreem to. Just you and me and we was flying over the river. And you was singng to. And you had wings. But not chiken wings. Big wings. I saw Bunny at the store. She says hi you good lookng devil. Sister says my spellng is gettng beter. I have ben playng with Angel. He is a good dog and Mrs. Moriso says I can play with him all I want. But I cant bring him home becase you know. I am going to buy Mom some perfum for Christmas. We sent your presants out last week. Mom cut my hair. Now I dont have none to. My ears get cold. Can I have your red hat? I wont wreck it. I promise. I am writing this in the midle of the night. The moon is realy white. I member the foxs you showd me. Well its like that now. We got lots of snow. Me and Mom are going to church to pray for you. I will be good and pray doubly hard. I got to go to bed now.
The Turtle Warrior Page 5
