"I kept thinking that too."
"But it, like, made me crazy, Father." Wiley dropped his eyes to his hands.
Michael had to prod him. "How do you mean, Nicholas?"
"I walked into the city."
In the rain? Michael thought, From the airport?
"I guess I was in kind of a trance. What hit me last night was that when I became a C.O. I sort of washed my hands of the war, like Pontius Pilate. After I got out of the army, I thought I was home free, that all I had to do was, you know, keep my own nose clean. So I went to the Worker where, I mean, down there everybody's a saint, you know? Voluntary poverty, feeding the hungry, the brotherhood of man, all that stuff. And as for war, well, we're just against it period, you know? But so fucking what? We can feed the hungry until there's no food left, and that's just fine with the army. They don't even know the Catholic Worker exists. It just hit me last night that the Worker is completely irrelevant, because nobody down there is doing anything to stop it. God knows what the army is doing to those kids! But what are we doing to stop it?"
"Did you say these things to Dorothy Day?"
"I did, yes."
"And she didn't like it?"
"I walked all night. Finally I got back to the Worker this morning. It was later than I thought. I had no idea what time it was. I mean, that's stupid..." He laughed. "The sun was up, but I didn't even notice. When I showed up, the morning soup line was almost over. At seven we serve oatmeal and cornbread. I'd forgottert that it was my turn to work the line. Dorothy was there and she sort of criticized me. She said—right there in front of all these old derelicts—that I was thinking too much of myself lately and not enough of others."
"What did you say?"
"I asked her if I could talk to her in private. And she said no, that I should just get into the kitchen and do my job. But I didn't move. I think I just stood there looking at her. Everybody in the room got real quiet. And then I just said what I had to say about the Worker."
"That it was irrelevant?"
"Yes, and that everybody who didn't work to stop the war was just as guilty of it as McNamara and Johnson." Suddenly Wiley started laughing bitterly. "What an asshole! Can you picture it? There I am surrounded by these poor old farts who only want to eat their cornbread so they'll have something in their bellies to soak up the shit-wine they drink, and I'm preaching a sermon to Dorothy Day about resistance! What an asshole!"
Michael didn't laugh. All this time his hand had rested on the kid's shoulder. Now he withdrew it. "But you had a point to make."
"Oh, and I made it. Do you know what Dorothy said when I finished? She said, 'Now go in the kitchen and do your job.'"
"And did you?"
"No." He stopped laughing. "There's the rub. I said I was going up to my room to write the story of the wounded children who couldn't get out of Vietnam. I told her that I was coming to see you about it. And I told her that from now on everything I did was going to have one aim—stopping the war. And she said that was fine, but it wasn't how things went at the Catholic Worker. And I said, 'You mean I'm out?' And she just nodded her head, her fucking head, like she was the queen of England. And I saw that as far as she was concerned I was just gone. I didn't even exist anymore. And you know what's funny? I thought she loved me."
Michael was stunned. "You know what, Nicholas? I felt after last night very much like you did. You called it 'crazy.' I don't think it's crazy at all."
Wiley raised his head sharply. "But you didn't take it out on some poor old bum."
"What do you mean?"
"There was a guy sitting there, just one of the street people, an alkie. I knew him. His name was Slate. He started yelling at me not to talk about America like that. I ignored him. Those old guys are all right-wing lunatics if they're anything. But he picked up his bowl and threw it at me. It hit me on the side of the head. It didn't hurt that much, but, well it made me snap, I guess. I don't even remember thinking. I just went across the table at the guy. I mean, an old wreck who can hardly climb stairs, and there I was pounding the shit out of him, as if he was McNamara. There I am, the great C.O., the pacifist, the would-be war resister, beating the shit out of the poor bastard. They couldn't pull me off him, and the next thing you know..." He lost control of himself for a moment, crying, then regained it. "...there's blood all over his face, and he looks like one of those people in my dream or in the pictures I carry, like a bomb has hit him. But it wasn't a bomb. It wasn't the army. It was me."
"You know what, Nicholas? I didn't pound somebody, but I might have. We both have strong reactions. You know who we remind me of? Peter. Saint Peter." Of all the characters in the New Testament, Michael was drawn to Peter. And in that way—for his contradictions, flaws, extremities, for his brio —he was drawn to this boy too.
Wiley snorted. "Speak for yourself, Father. I feel like Judas." Michael shrugged. "Same difference. Judas and Peter both did the same thing. They both betrayed the Lord. The difference between them was in what happened next. Judas refused to let go of what he had done. Peter allowed Jesus to forgive him."
"Peter didn't beat the shit out of anybody."
"Oh, really? He cut the high priest's servant's ear off with a sword. Who are you, Nicholas? The worst son of a bitch to ever come down the pike? Come off it. So you lost your temper. So you beat somebody up. Hell, he asked for it. Obviously, who you wanted to pound was Dorothy. Maybe you did a pretty good job of redirecting your anger. I mean, I'd say she really let you down. I'd have been damn pissed if I was you. So you're capable of anger. Big deal. You're capable of violence. Welcome to the human race."
"I think maybe I broke Slate's nose. It was bleeding bad."
"He'll survive."
"I'll find him. I'll make it up to him."
"Good idea. And while you're at it, why not make it up to yourself?"
"What do you mean?"
"People like you and me, Nicholas, we tend to take the weight of the world on our shoulders. Like the wounded children; we have the same reaction. You carry your pictures around. In my own way so do I. As if we're the ones dropping napalm on them. Don't get me wrong. I think we have to feel it, and I think we have to do something about it. But we shouldn't beat ourselves for it. We're not burning those children. Look, I have a certain history, and so do you, and maybe we both feel some guilt about it—you for getting out of the army, me for not getting out. Bonhoeffer says guilt is an idol. We cling to our bad feelings and beat ourselves with the past when what we should do is let go of it, like Peter did. Once you let go of guilt, then you go out and change the world."
"But how?"
"By daring to live as a forgiven man."
"I don't know how to do that, Father."
"You start by listening to me when I forgive you. Would you like to call this 'confession'? Would you like absolution?"
"Yes. I'm really sorry for what I did."
"I know you are. Bow your head, Nicholas." Michael put his hand on the kid's head and pronounced the Latin words. He was thinking, It's the people who don't care about the war who are the sinners. The moderates, the balanced ones—they're the crazies. This kid, he thought, is decent and brave. I should be more like him.
After making the sign of the cross, the priest was silent and his usually churning mind became calm and then, as it were, empty.
Neither acknowledged it, but they were praying.
"What's my penance, Father?"
"Some breakfast, now, with me. Let's blow this place." They went down sixty-five floors to the coffee shop in the mezzanine. They took a booth. Michael insisted on Nicholas's eating, and to encourage him he ordered bacon and eggs himself, despite his obligation to fast before Mass. Nothing provoked the Lord's wrath more quickly than the heartless observance of ritual law. The people who'd left the wounded man in the ditch were on their way to church.
Nicholas touched a napkin to his mouth. "You were going to tell me why you called Dorothy."
"I wanted her to pul
l you off the story. I guess I didn't need to bother, huh?"
"I'm still on it, Father. I want to find out what happened to those other kids."
"You won't find out from me, Nicholas."
"I have an appointment with Monsieur Hurot this afternoon. He said last night he'd tell me everything he knew. I'm also meeting with Doctor Levine."
"They won't talk to you. They were stunned last night like I was. But they're still committed to the project. Publicity now will wreck it."
"Well, I'm committed too. I think America should know what's being done in its name. We have to get people's attention, and I think this will do it."
"But who would you write it for?"
"Don Thorman." The publisher of the National Catholic Reporter.
Michael calculated. He had met Thorman in Kansas City. In fact, Thorman was on the Midwest committee for the Children's Relief Fund. He was a gruff, amiable man, jealous of his prerogatives as a layman and a publisher, but also a responsible journalist and, beneath the irreverent mode, a traditional Catholic. Michael would talk to him. He smiled at Wiley. "You know you guys have been causing trouble since New Testament days."
Wiley looked at him quizzically.
"'Jesus was speaking to the multitudes when his mother and his brothers appeared. They were anxious to have a word with him, but they could not draw near in that crowd, because of the press.'"
Wiley laughed, but only briefly.
They sipped their coffee in silence.
Nicholas said eventually, "I have to admit I'm disappointed. I thought we had a deal." He eyed Michael steadily, demonstrating, given what he'd been through, a remarkable resilience. Michael had not expected to be called to account for his broken promise.
"All deals were off after what happened."
"You mean because the army reneged on you, you could renege on me?"
"It wasn't the army, first of all. We were dealing with the government of South Vietnam."
"You're not responding to me, Father."
"Frankly, Nicholas, I'm not interested in a relationship with you that's defined in terms of an issue, even this issue. I'm aware that something personal has happened between us."
"I am too. And I'm grateful for it. You have me back on my feet. But now that I'm there, you've got to deal with me."
"Do you know what Jesus said to Peter after he forgave him?" Michael lit a cigarette, then gestured at the dishes on the table between them. "They'd just finished breakfast on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus said, 'If you love me, feed my sheep.' He said it three times, once for each time Peter'd denied him. 'Feed my sheep. Feed my sheep.'" Michael stared hard at Wiley. He wanted very much to win him over. "He didn't talk about issues or about saving the world or about converting Rome or about ending wars. He talked about a concrete, immediate, simple need. Someone's hungry, feed them. See, Nicholas, you and I can go on until we're blue in the face about the war. But meanwhile there are these kids with an immediate need for medical care, and I'm going to get it for them. And you know what? I've got three problems: I've got the government in Saigon, and I've got the U.S. Army, and I've got you. All three of you do the same thing. You put issues—whether it's stopping Communism or stopping the war—before people. Take those pictures out of your bag again. Look at those kids. Don't stop me from getting them to a doctor, Nicholas. Don't use them to make a name for yourself as an antiwar reporter."
"That's not it, Father."
"Are you sure?" Michael realized that now he was doing to the kid what Dorothy Day had done, accusing him of thinking only of himself. Michael knew, like Dorothy did, how vulnerable Wiley was. Before Michael had been urging him to let go of his guilt, but now Michael was using it against him. But he had to. At bottom, for all his Karl Rogers, he was just another Catholic priest controlling the behavior of a boy by undermining his belief in himself.
Wiley looked away. "Well, who does that make you, anyway? This isn't exactly the shore of the Sea of Galilee. And you're not Jesus."
"I know that."
"Am I the sheep you're feeding, is that it?"
"No."
"Well, you want me to act like one. You want me to just close my eyes and forget about the war."
"No, I don't. I want you to go after them, Nicholas, aggressively, responsibly. I think you're right to raise questions and to try to make people think about it. But find another way into it, that's all I'm saying."
"A way to make people pay attention, because it has to stop."
"You can do it. Write about your experience as a C.O. People need to hear that story."
"What are you going to do?"
Michael hesitated. He had to overcome an instinctive reluctance to tell him. "I'm going to Vietnam. I'm going to organize the rescue operation myself."
"Let me come with you," Wiley said instantly.
"No," Michael said. "You wouldn't help, Nicholas. I'm going to be dealing with the army. You'd have to get your hair cut."
"Why the army? I mean, Christ, they're the ones who are dropping the shit on them."
"Nicholas, I'm not coming back until it's army policy to care for the civilian casualties they cause."
"No way, Father."
Michael shrugged. "It's the only way we can fight a war like this and not lose our souls."
"Father, I don't believe you! A war like this can't be fought, period. What, first the U.S. spends a fortune dropping napalm on people, then it spends a fortune flying them back to the States for good old Blue Cross-Blue Shield? You're wacky! I thought I was wacky! The thing is to just stop it!"
"They won't just 'stop it,' Nicholas. Like it or not, that's the fact. Given that, what do we do? We have to conduct ourselves as humanely as we can."
"You'll be their window dressing. They might just latch on to your idea. It would be the perfect way to whitewash what they're doing. Jesus! At first I thought you were naive, but now I get it. You're right. They just might do it! A humanitarian airlift of wounded women and children. It would be brilliant!"
"That's right."
"But they'd be using you, Father."
"I'd be using them, Nicholas. I don't give a damn about anything but those wounded people."
"You're pretty sure of yourself, aren't you."
"I'm going at their jugulars, at their weak point. The commanders in Vietnam learned to think of themselves as soldiers in the war against Hitler. They're the original boys in white hats. They'll kill you, but only if they can think of it as an act of virtue. Honor, Nicholas. That's the deal with these guys. Honor, duty, country. And that's where you go after them. Honor, not guilt. Think of them as soldiers, not Catholics."
"You love soldiers."
"When I read about the V.C. assault at Bien Hoa, it was easy for me to imagine it: the shouts, the chaos, the absolute terror you feel at a burst of explosions right by your head, and guys you ate breakfast with falling over in front of you with their guts spilling out in the mud. At a moment like that the orders officers give don't mean shit. Soldiers just react, and you know what? They react for each other as much as for themselves. In a battle, soldiers have an instinctive generosity. Each man's own survival includes as the same thing the survival of his friend. The whole world should live that way. We should all be like soldiers in the heat of battle."
"But you're talking about killing."
Michael studied him. "Which makes it bullshit, doesn't it?"
"I guess. Except..." Wiley pushed crumbs with his little finger.
"Except what?"
"I wish I had friends to look out for, friends to look out for me."
Michael nodded. The kid wanted to go with him to Vietnam. But it was impossible. Nicholas Wiley belonged in Vietnam less than anyone. He had just been kicked out of his womb, the Worker, and now he was wandering around with his umbilical cord in his hand, looking for another to plug into. If not a womb, a cause.
Why then was Michael ambushed by the urge to take him along? Come with me, kid. Write the sto
ry. Be my partner. Let's take them on together.
But Michael knew. Through his shirt he fingered the cross that Wiley had made for him, that had so soothed him once. Michael was going into combat of his own, and he could have used a buddy too, someone whose survival was intertwined with his. A Lennie Pace.
Lennie Pace. Michael hadn't thought of him in years. But Lennie, despite Michael's explicit promise—"I'll take care of you! Depend on me!"—had not survived. Was that when Michael had begun going his way alone?
He nearly asked Nicholas to come. What adventures they'd have shared! How different things would have been for both of them!
"Look," he said. "I'll tell you what. We can watch out for each other in another way." Michael grasped Nicholas's forearm across the table. "We can pray for each other. Let's pray for each other every day. You know that line of E. E. Cummings? I'll carry your heart, Nicholas. I'll carry it in my heart."
TWENTY-TWO
ON the Vietnamese calendar, 1965 was the Year of the Snake.
That year saw the first outbreak of racial violence in American cities and the beginning of the massive rejection by American young people of their parents' values and prejudices. It was one shock after another. In the spring the American embassy in Saigon was blown up and we saw in that flash the fate of the entire enterprise. In the summer James Meredith was shot on his walk through Mississippi; how familiar such fire from ambush would become. In the fall David Miller burned his draftcard at a demonstration in New York, and with it our traditional assumption that the Law was the friend of Justice. In the winter was held the first large, celebrity-studded antiwar rally in Washington; those pioneer marchers would not have believed—so momentous did the occasion seem to them—how little they and their millions of successors would affect the course of the war.
Nineteen sixty-five was the year in which Pope Paul VI visited the U.N., crying, "No more war! War never again!" But that year also, as if to remind us what else he stood for, he formally absolved the Jews of blame for the death of Jesus.
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