by Hart Rivers
Having decided she was going to politely return the bracelet rather than throw it in his face, Nikki broke the kiss.
“Don, we need to talk.” She said it firmly, taking control of the situation before he could since he had quite a way of doing that.
“But I’d much rather make love, not war. God, you are the best thing I’ve seen since all hell broke loose. I’ve missed you so much.” He was smoothly moving toward the couch, trying to take the conversation in a direction she was not going. “C’mon, baby, we can talk later. About my grandmother’s ring, getting you all dolled up to meet my family, about—”
“Don, I’ve decided that’s not a good idea.” She kept her feet planted. Unlatched the bracelet, extended it. “I’m really sorry, but I shouldn’t have accepted this. You should take it back and ask for a refund. Or save it and give to another girl who can properly return your affections.”
“Return my affections?” His face turned beet red all of a sudden, like a light switch that got flipped. “What, are you kidding? You didn’t have any trouble returning ‘my affections’ on the island. Or the night after that. What’s gotten into you?”
Nikki instinctively backed away, closer to the door. She did not want an ugly confrontation or to put him on the defensive. That much she had learned from her backhanding daddy. She also knew that even if Don hit her in retaliation, she had to end this. She might never have one of them PhDs much less MD’s herself, but she was not so stupid, or so ambitious, as to agree to marry a man she didn’t really love just to shove the equivalent of a Whoopie Pie into her daddy’s face by marrying up into a family who would probably hate her on sight.
When she took too long to answer the sound of exploding glass hit the cuckoo clock with such force it fell from over the door and almost hit Nikki on the head.
She surveyed the burgundy splash of wine, looking way too much like blood, all over the front door, the damaged clock at her feet, and demanded, “Why’d you do that? Margie loves that clock! And that’s a waste of good wine.”
“Did Galt get into you? Huh? Did he get into your pants while I was saving lives in the E.R.? I’ll kill that son of a bitch, I’ll—”
“No he did not, and no you won’t.” Nikki flung open the front door and pointed in the direction of the best decision she felt certain she had ever made. Even if she never got married, Don had just verified she was better off being a spinster than married to him or anyone like him. “You will leave now, Dr. Peck. I tried to do this nicely. You don’t want to be nice. And I don’t want to marry any man who lacks kindness. Or class.” She shot a scathing look at the bracelet he had thrown on the floor. “Good night. And goodbye.”
He stared at her with his eyes kind of wild and his breathing fast, for endless, heart-palpitating seconds. Then he kicked the clock so hard it exploded with a final “Cuck… coo” and died before he nearly took the door off its hinges with his exiting slam.
Nikki quickly locked the door. She shut every open window and locked those too. She didn’t care how hot it got in the apartment.
Then she went and poured herself a tall, icy glass of lemonade and hit it up with a big shot of gin straight from the bottle, no jigger. She would pray for whatever forgiveness was due for her vices or misjudgments later, but for now she was celebrating.
Major Doctor Donald Peck was out of her life, and this time for good. That called for some Elvis on the record player while she reread Rick’s latest letter as proof that a bird in the bush was far better than anything from Donald Peck on her hand.
Izzy had never needed a letter from home more than he needed this one. In the days that had passed since the attack he had been immersed in mangled, burned bodies. He could not even imagine the additional damage and loss of life from an actual ground attack when so much was lost and beyond damaged already.
Margie would physically heal, and she was resilient, but a lot of other damage on top of more damage had been done and he hadn’t been around much to lend what support he could. Mostly he’d gotten his information from Gregg who was in not such good shape himself. Even Robert David seemed to have had something vital leeched from his internal resources. The only thing that seemed to have been spared was their villa; miraculously untouched again. And the mission, but that was “sanctuary” and so Izzy supposed that didn’t count on some level.
The letter from home counted. Thank god the military found a way to keep the mail trucks running since the letters were sanctuary for him and every other GI in desperate need of some assurance that there was still a place waiting for them “back in the world.”
He’d been beyond exhausted until Rachel’s letter arrived. Just the sight of the envelope had the effect of a B-12 shot to keep him going until he could properly enjoy his reward for being as faithful to Rachel as she had been to him.
A few times he had been too desperate to hold off for his little ritual that had expanded to reading the two previous letters to build up to the big event. Today, though, he was doing this right, making it an extra special date.
Izzy showered, shaved, even put on some cologne instead of the usual Coppertone lotion. It was a pleasant early evening at the beach when he arrived, and actually rather deserted. The peddlers and beggars had left. The mama-sans in their woven conical hats selling pineapples, the peanut man, the amazing little man who was a walking BBQ shop with his meats and skewers, he barely caught them before they all went home. Then it was just him and his favorite spot under an Ironwood pine.
Izzy cleared the area of debris, put down a clean towel for his picnic. Then he placed the last two letters on top of the new one, making the moment last.
He already knew where this would take him: in bed, jerking off; at least sometimes, okay often. He had not masturbated this much since junior high. Did war make you horny? He felt a little guilty that somehow Margie kept intruding into these steamy fantasies. He had to try to do a better job of censoring her out; she was a colleague, a friend he truly cared for, and… anyway he had a new letter. And he did not just tear into something so precious.
Izzy opened the oldest of the three letters. While he had tested at reading over a thousand words per minute, the letters he always read out loud, slowly, like a love song. He wanted to feel like he was really with her, listening to her talk about someone named Janis Joplin and…
It made him a little anxious, Izzy realized, not for the first time. Like the picture with the Indian headband, where she looked younger, happier, and this “everybody is against the war now” bothered him because she had never been political before… or maybe what really bothered him was it sounded like the world was changing and he was completely, absolutely out of it while the real world was going on and—
“Stop it,” he ordered himself harshly. “You have to stop this right now. Deep breath.”
He took several deep breaths, got his ridiculous anxiety under control, and then read on, aloud, until he got to the best part at the bottom, “My dear, sweet, brave man. I love you dearly, madly… ”
Izzy relaxed, laughed softly at himself, moved on to the second letter, the one that had arrived before this latest. He pretended he hadn’t read it countless times already and knew each word by heart.
But the new one, ah, it was a virgin letter and the two before it, foreplay.
There was a right way to do this and this was the ritual he had perfected:
He would look over the entire letter. He would look at the way her handwriting was either fast or slow, what pen had she used; he would look at the postmark, the kind of envelope, and his silly APO address where the stamps should be. Every little thing was a piece of her and it was all that he had of her here. He would smell it and sometimes there was perfume or lipstick. He would hold it then and weigh it in his hands to see if it was a big or small letter, if it contained a photograph or a news article. Sometimes she would send him things she knew he would like from the New York Times. Once there had been a wedding announcement of a couple they knew, anoth
er time a book review of a friend’s new novel. There was news of people he had studied and worked with during his internship, appointed to positions at the New York hospitals. He especially liked the ads she circled for apartments they might like to live in someday. Sometimes there were little drawings she made or sketches from Central Park.
He had noticed this new letter was skinny, though. But even skinny letters without drawings or clippings deserved the royal treatment. He was grateful for anything.
So he opened the envelope.
There were many things soldiers all dreaded and Izzy knew what they were: A mine blowing off their legs or, even worse, their balls. Burns from the napalm or white phosphorus. Beyond that though was the “Dear John,” and it was only when he was half way through reading her letter that he realized he was holding a deadly snake in his hands.
First Izzy felt cold and his hands were numb and shaking as if he was going into shock, and maybe he was because he started over from the top because he was sure, he was certain, that he did not understand what he was reading…
“We are so far apart and it is not the distance, it is that nothing is the same anymore, because we have grown in different directions.” What was she saying? “I was in the Village with a friend and heard Bob Dylan singing ‘Mr. Jones,’ and I thought you are like Dr. Jones now. It’s something my women’s anti-war group has really helped me see.” What the hell did Bob Dylan and Mr. Jones have to do with him? And just what was she talking about… seeing what? “I have started seeing a man that I feel is like a soulmate to me.” Izzy looked up and out at the sea. What the fuck is a soulmate? “I have sent both the ring and your classical guitar back to your mother, Israel. I don’t think she was too unhappy with my decision. You know she never thought we were well suited and I’ve come to realize on that much she was right. I’m sorry you were drafted but maybe it’s not entirely a bad thing if it kept us from making a serious mistake. Please know I wish you only the best….” Best? BEST?
“Fucking god!” he suddenly screamed. “Wish me the BEST? The BEST what? Have the best fucking war over there, have the best fucking time ever by yourself over there?” Izzy leaned over and puked up everything in his stomach. He could not believe how much pain he already was feeling, how betrayed and deserted… what was he going to do? He needed to get home and right now. He would talk to Colonel Kohn and say—
Say what, that just like half of all the other poor sons of bitches over here he’d gotten a Dear John and that he was sorry to say that he had to leave immediately, had to get home to straighten all this out and he would promise to come right back as soon as he could? He just had to talk to her, had to—
He made himself finish reading the letter, forced his blurry vision onto the remainder that said: “please do not try to call me, my mind is made up. I have thought long and hard on this Israel. To everything there is a season. Now I need my space and you must accept that the engagement is over. One day you will thank me. With deep affection, Rachel.”
“Affection,” Izzy whispered. Then shouted, “AFFECTION?”
Izzy crumbled the letter in his fist. He sat in the sand. It got dark. After a time, he realized that someone was sitting next to him. It was K.O. He turned and looked into the brown eyes of the big dog. She licked the hand that still gripped Rachel’s betrayal. And he wept.
And then Izzy realized someone else had come to sit on his other side.
“Dear John, huh?” JD passed him a joint. “Welcome again to Vietnam.”
Chapter 23
Izzy destroyed Rachel’s letter with the burning tip of a joint and proceeded to get so stoned and wasted that he didn’t remember much of the night or know how he managed to wake up in his own bed sometime the next afternoon. He had never been so irresponsible as to sleep in late and miss a class, much less rounds, but once he pried his aching eyes open from his pounding head, Izzy saw the note taped to his chest:
Take the day off. We’ve got you covered.
A glass of water was beside the bed. Along with a bottle of aspirin, a bottle of Jack, and a sleeve of saltine crackers.
He eventually managed to make it to the kitchen sometime before dark. There were chocolate chip cookies on the counter. He knew who was responsible for that. And he knew who had him covered at the hospital. Izzy realized then that the one person he thought he could count on at home knew nothing about loyalty or real friendship. He wondered if she had planned this all along, if she had been going out on him while he was in training, before he even got shipped over here. Maybe he was better off without Rachel and maybe he would thank her one day, but now all he felt was stupid and duped and hurt and so extremely hung over that he was grateful to have something to focus on besides the utter bleakness he felt inside because it felt a lot like the day Morrie ended up in the hospital as a quadriplegic.
Izzy looked at his arms. He looked at his legs. All he had on was a pair of boxer shorts so he could see himself pretty good if he didn’t count his still blurred vision. Something had happened to the tone of his body and the color of his pale skin since he had been here and he wondered if Rachel would notice, if it would make a difference. And if it did, what would it matter anyway since she wanted her space with a soul mate that didn’t remind her of Mr. Jones while she went to her women’s anti-war protests and was counting the days to Woodstock?
Days, how many days?
“342 and a wake-up,” muttered Izzy as he bit into a cookie.
When Gregg and Robert David quietly entered the kitchen they simply said, “How’re you doing, man?”
Gregg slapped him some skin. “Margie was in for a few hours today. She asked where you were and I told her you’d been called into the ER at the hospital again but I knew you had a little something for her when you got back.”
Gregg slid a nice box of chocolates next to the cookies.
Robert David followed up by depositing some cheap green, purple and gold beaded necklaces with a coveted copy of the latest Playboy magazine and said, “That will have to do until I take you to a proper Mardi Gras.”
And then they gave him his space.
The next morning Izzy woke up early. He wandered down to the beach, the same place where he had read Rachel’s Dear John, as if he could eradicate her betrayal by greeting a new day where the sun would soon be rising out of the South China Sea. He knew this would be the only cool whisper of breeze there would be, the only peace to be had, until he went to sleep again and woke up early tomorrow.
He was a lucky man to have such good friends in this strange, foreign place that had begun to feel more familiar than home. Izzy knew that, but he still felt like shit. Though maybe he wouldn’t feel quite as shitty if he still had the letter to put up in the enlisted men’s hooch on the Wall of Shame with all the rest of the Dear Johns he had been invited to join. Bayer had trekked over to the villa to issue the invitation with a big slice of lemon cream pie hijacked from the enlisted men’s mess hall, saying that was Hertz’s favorite and he’d want Izzy to have it.
News traveled fast in this fraternity he had never imagined joining, and for once Izzy didn’t regret being in the company he was keeping instead of the company he just might be better off without. If Rachel couldn’t stand by him in the short term, what kind of long term chance for happiness did they have, really?
Just then, Izzy came upon something he didn’t expect. Feeling like a voyeur he softly padded over the sand and closer to the ironwood tree where JD moved in some sort of bizarre slow motion dance choreography.
“Take off your shoes and socks and shirt and copy me,” JD instructed, his back still turned and a good ten feet away. “Come on, Izzy, it’ll do you good.”
“How did you know it’s me?”
“I heard you walking and I smelled your aftershave and you are a mouth breather. So close your mouth, breathe through your nose, be quiet and copy me. We’ll work on the aftershave later but for now, just shadow my moves and see what happens.”
And he di
d. Izzy moved and he moved and he moved and for a few seconds he was not here, not anywhere, he was just present in the silent movement.
In the end, JD bowed out to the sea. Izzy copied that, too.
“Did you like that?” JD asked.
“Actually, I did. It was relaxing. What was it?”
“Something very old, called Tai Chi, something my grandfather taught me.”
“You have a Chinese grandfather?” Interesting. JD had a unique look about him but Chinese didn’t seem part of his genetic composition.
“Maybe,” JD answered, typically cryptic, before pointing to the water. “Let’s swim out and we’ll work on some breathing lessons.”
“I don’t like to swim and besides, it’s deep out there.”
“It’s all deep everywhere and always will be.”
“Since when did you become a philosopher?”
JD grinned. “Since I studied to be a monk?”
“I think your sense of humor is highly underestimated, JD.”
“Who knows, maybe I’ll give stand-up a try if this agent gig doesn’t work out. Until then, though…” JD motioned in the direction of an in-coming chopper. “I hate to tell you this, but we have a ride coming for you, me and Gregg later this morning. Compliments of Rick again.”
“What?” Izzy just started shaking his head no, no, no. “Uh-uh, no way. I am not going back to the Highlands, not after that last trip to see Rick and our nice little tour of the morgue.”
“You and Gregg said you would help.” JD’s voice was firm. “I took you at your word and I’m asking you to step up to the plate now.”
“I’m not going back on my word JD, but we seem to have a little difference of opinion as to what ‘help’ means. I can understand your need to make sense of why some psychopathic monsters might be carving up our troops. I can even understand why you possibly felt the need to drag us to a firebase in an attack helicopter to look at mutilated dead bodies to help figure that out. But Gregg and I don’t need any other visible evidence to assist you in a consulting capacity.”
