May Ellen watched her quiet but feisty friend go from withdrawn and depressed to hopeful and in love, and while she didn’t act like some women in love act around here – all goo-goo-gah-gah and touch-kissy – she was happier than she had been since she learned Danny wouldn’t be coming home alive.
Kenny was good with little Buddy, who was only three years old when his father fell over there in some type of mine explosion. He seemed like he had their best interests at heart. He accepted that Retta once had a husband who she loved and a sweet little boy from that union, and to him, it was preferable to have a widowed woman over a divorced one. Men generally thought that divorced women had some undesirable fault with them…or they wouldn’t be divorced. They carried ugly baggage instead of just a sad story.
He would take them to the new McDonald’s for burgers and fries, and he was sure to give Buddy piggy back rides to and from the car. He was thoughtful with his gifts and compliments, and the other girls who worked in the salon wondered why they themselves weren’t so lucky to have one nice man love them – let alone two – like Retta got to have.
Some days, Buddy would come into the salon with Retta because she had no sitter for him. He’d sit off to the side and color in a coloring book, quietly. He was such a well behaved young man, unlike Donna’s son, who was always climbing on everything and causing a ruckus. May Ellen thought that Retta deserved her good fortune in finding Kenny: a husband and lover for her, a father and friend for Buddy…a second chance. After all, everybody deserves a second chance.
Kenny was so handsome in his dark blue suit, probably the only suit he ever owned in his life. He was a bit mysterious himself, never spoke of any kin or much of his upbringing, but they all knew he was from some place in Florida – not the nice parts, but instead the crevices that nobody really talked about or went to while on vacation. He was just another impoverished boy drafted into the Army out of a rural town, who did his grunt work as best as he could, got injured, and was given a Purple Heart and a discharge as a “thank you” from his government. That was certainly better than the “F you” he got from many of his fellow Americans. And a hell of a lot better than what Retta’s Danny got: a body bag, a folded flag and his dog tag on his cold, stiff toe.
Buddy sat quietly in the Judge’s big brown leather creaky chair. Judge Ewing gave him special permission to do so. He wore a white collared shirt and dark blue dress pants. His buzzed blond-brown hair was a staple of Texan boys, regardless of age. He was a thoughtful and polite tyke who would never quite know the love in which he had been created. He would never see how much his father loved his mother, other than maybe a stray photograph that captured just the right look or moment. Maybe someday he’d find an old letter. But soon, he would probably not remember anything about his father, Danny. And that was the saddest thing of all. That little boy had the gift of someone truly loving him, something so wonderful in life; and yet, at some point, he’ll probably never realize that he ever had it.
After all the kind words between the Justice of the Peace and the young couple in love, the small ceremony started. Mrs. Ewing stood nearby, and along with May Ellen, served as witnesses. Buddy held the rings, just as he was told. The Judge’s secretary, a fat middle-aged woman who wobbled as she walked, stood next to Mrs. Ewing, also as a witness. May Ellen figured that being a witness to civil ceremonies was probably part of her job. Then she wondered how many weddings the secretary had been a part of during her career and if she held an office pool on the couples…an over and under on whether the next marriage works out, using months as point.
“Retta Kaspar, do you take Kenneth Bellinger to be your lawfully wedded husband?” Judge Ewing asked, his bald head shining in the overhead lights of his otherwise darkened room.
“I do,” Retta uttered, smiling at Kenny who beamed back at her.
“I now pronounce you man and wife,” Judge Ewing announced.
Kenny and Retta kissed each other…not in the way they probably wanted to…but in a formal and sweet way, the way you should in ceremonies or in church. They embraced, and Kenny picked her up, her hair falling back in a cascade of curls, her baby’s breath crown staying in place. Buddy stood thoughtfully and still with his hands in his pockets, watching his mother be a new bride, something he had never seen before, other than perhaps in pictures.
Baby Brother
Buddy sat with his stepfather in the waiting room of the big hospital. The walls were high and a mint green color, the chairs were tan and plastic, like big bowls missing an entire side. Kenny smoked a cigarette and leafed through a car magazine. He kept making strange grunting noises that bothered Buddy, but he knew better than to say anything about it. The last time he asked Kenny a question in a way that he didn’t like, he got the back of a hand to his cheek. Buddy knew that he wouldn’t let that happen again. When his mother asked him why his cheek was swollen, Buddy just told her that he accidentally walked into the corner of the door. Since he was a growing boy, apt to get into a little mischief now and then, that was completely plausible.
His birthday was a few days ago, and he was so happy to finally be six years old. He had three friends come over who also lived on his street. They had a cake with yellow icing. They played Pin the Tail on the Donkey. They had party hats with big blue polka dots on it and noise makers that about sent Kenny into a bad headache by the end of the afternoon. Gary gave him a Matchbox car, Freddy gave him a cap gun, (which his mother immediately took away for when he’s older), and Billy gave him a GI Joe. Billy’s gift was the best one by far, but Buddy knew to make a fuss about all of them equally. Being six also meant that he could start school soon and wouldn’t have to go to the salon with his mother anymore or stay home with Kenny while he was off from work.
It’s not like Kenny was a bad stepfather or anything like that. He was usually real nice and a lot of fun. He liked to sing songs in the shower – loud – and Buddy and his mother would laugh in the other room. Kenny was one of those people who thought he was a good singer, and the shower made him think that even more. He also liked to take Buddy with him to look at cars at the car lot place. He kept telling the man in the suit, who’d walk over from time to time, that he was, “Just looking today.”
“Why are we always just looking?” Buddy got up the nerve to ask him one day.
Kenny took a drag on his cigarette and answered, “I am a man who loves cars, son. I’m always just looking. But someday, I’m gonna buy one. I’m gonna buy one for your mama, and when you’re sixteen…I’m gonna buy one for you, too.”
Other times, Kenny liked to play Matchbox cars with Buddy. He’d lay on the floor, like a massive boy himself, and they’d put the cars out like they were for sale in the car lot. He’d ask, “Young man, which is the prettiest car?” and Buddy would answer, “I like this blue one.” Then Kenny would pick up the car that Buddy chose and tell him what kind it was, what year it was and where he last saw one.
Kenny liked to take Buddy and his mother out to a nice dinner at least once a week. He always opened the door for them and pulled out the chair for his mother. If Buddy needed a booster seat, he was always sure to ask the waitress for one. Buddy hated needing a booster seat, but he was at that in between size that five and six-year-old boys tended to be.
He kept promising to take Buddy fishing and to teach him how to catch a squirrel or a rabbit, but his mother made Kenny wait on that. “You can do all that when he’s just a little bit older. Please!” she cooed at him. “He only gets to be small once and then he’s all yours, Kenny.”
Kenny kissed her forehead as she looked all the way up at him and responded, “Yes, Ma’am, I will wait a bit longer just for you.” He winked at Buddy, indicating that he couldn’t wait to show him the ropes of boyhood, just like every other father in Texas who had a son.
But the best game they’d play was truck driver. Kenny had two CB radios that he found at work. No one claimed them so his boss
told him that he could keep them. Kenny would tell Buddy to go out on the back stoop with his CB radio and Kenny stayed in the kitchen with the other one.
“Breaker, breaker, one niner…this is Big Daddy…” Kenny would say into the speaker, as Buddy heard the static flow along. “I got a Grizzly Bear on the left side at exit forty-two…you copy, Good Buddy?”
“Copy that, Big Daddy,” Buddy responded into the static. “Is it a Bear Trap, you think?”
They’d play that trucker game for hours, sometimes making up some of the silliest stories and situations on the side of the Texas highways involving “grizzly bears” and “mama bears” and “choke and pukes.” Kenny taught him the entire phonetic alphabet. Buddy took that knowledge to school and then taught his friends.
“Why didn’t you become a trucker?” Buddy asked Kenny one day after he put the CB radios into a drawer for safe keeping.
“Aw son, I could never be on the road like that and leave you and your mama all alone. I’d miss you both too much.”
As Kenny and Buddy waited patiently for the new arrival in the hospital, a man in a white jacket came out and inquired, “Mr. Bellinger?”
Kenny looked up, put his cigarette out on the sole of his work boot, and replied, “Yes, Sir, that’s me.”
The man looked down at Buddy and then again at Kenny. “May we speak privately?”
“Uh, yeah, sure thing,” Kenny answered, not quite sure what he meant by that. He looked down at Buddy. “Son, you stay here. I’ll be right back. Then we can go and see your mama.”
Buddy watched Kenny and the man in the white coat walk off to the side of the waiting room. Kenny stood silently, listening to what the man was saying to him, his face growing ashen and his eyes starting to sink in. He looked down at the floor and put his hands deep into his pockets, jingling the coins inside with his fingers. The man in the white coat walked away and Kenny faced the wall, his back to Buddy. Standing like that for a few minutes, his shoulders sunk, and he turned back around. Walking toward Buddy, he stated, “Son, your mama gave birth to a baby boy, but he didn’t make it.”
Not understanding, Buddy looked up at Kenny and asked, “What’s that mean?”
“It means that there’s no baby. No baby is coming home with us.”
“But what happened to the baby?” Buddy felt himself starting to get upset. The tears started to come up through his legs and into his stomach and then welled up around the rims of his eyes. He had been looking forward to seeing this baby who had been growing in his mother’s belly for a long time. He had even made plans on all the things he would teach the baby if it were a girl and the things he would teach the baby if it were a boy. If it was a girl, he would teach her how to color in the lines and paint by numbers. If it was a boy, he would teach him how to build a fort and catch a football.
Kenny sat down, and with a cracked voice and subdued tears, he uttered, “He was born dead and not breathing. They call it ‘stillborn.’” Just then, Kenny put his hands on his face, covering his eyes, and Buddy could tell he was crying.
Buddy decided then and there that he was not going to cry for his dead brother. He was going to be strong for Kenny. Kenny lost his son – his real son – and now all he had left was only a stepson. So maybe he had better be the best stepson that Kenny ever had. He stood up in front of Kenny and put his arms around him and held him tight, like his mother would do for him when he was sad about something or scared. Kenny pulled him close and sobbed into Buddy’s neck. It was the only hug they had ever shared.
Retta walked slowly into the house, her body sore and aching. The rolls from her childbirth experience were buried under her shirt, and all she wanted to do was go to bed. Kenny held her bag from the hospital and set it down on the couch.
“Buddy, you go mind your mama. Help her get settled in bed so she can rest,” Kenny instructed.
Buddy followed his orders, walking behind his mother and into the bedroom. She seemed to squeak as she walked, a broken emptiness with each step. Buddy wondered what it must’ve felt like to give birth to a dead baby. And as he turned around, he watched Kenny take the bag of baby supplies, which was full of diapers, blankets, and some new bottles that they had just purchased from the store, and put it deep into the trashcan.
Retta slowly got into bed, rolled up the covers, saying nothing to anyone. Three days later, she had still said nothing and had barely moved in the bed. In the late afternoon, Buddy got into the bed with her while Kenny went to work, and he could feel her crying on the pillow. He looked at her, her dark hair long, unkempt and messy over her face, her small frame stirring slowly, and he asked, “Mother, do you want something to eat?”
Retta opened her eyes and put her hands so that she cupped his small rounded face. Her face became stern and her dark eyes appeared almost wild as she said, “You, Daniel Junior, are my baby. You are the only baby I will ever have. You are all I have left of your father. And that makes you my everything.”
Buddy didn’t know what to think about what she told him, but he felt in his heart that it was very important. He was already close to his mother. Kenny sometimes said that he was “a little mama’s boy.” And while Buddy reckoned that it was meant to be a dig at him because of how he said it, he thought that it didn’t make any sense to him that being a “mama’s boy” was such bad thing. Being a “mama’s boy” seemed like a right good thing to him.
Night Terrors
Kenny went through the thick green brush as quietly as he could. His boots were soaking wet from the rice paddy he walked through by accident. But his boots weren’t the jungle boots that he wore in Vietnam. They were his brown work boots, the kind that announced a man’s station in life: he worked a laborious job, a job where he had to use his hands and his back and was tired at the end of the day. The bottoms of his jeans were soaked as well, but the rest of him remained dry. He approached a small house in a clearing, and it started to downpour.
“The fucking monsoon season in this goddamned place!” Kenny shouted. He was trying to be quiet because he wasn’t sure if he was about to be ambushed, but for some reason, it was okay to yell like that. There would be no ambush.
He kept walking toward the house that rested alone in the clearing. There was no normal vegetation surrounding it and no lights were on inside as far as he could tell. The house looked like it could be a small Cape Cod on some coastal plot of land in Maine, but Kenny knew he wasn’t in Maine. He was in Vietnam. In jeans. In a monsoon.
As Kenny approached the house, he looked down at his hands. He was carrying an M16A1 rifle, but there was no magazine in the clip. He looked inside the chamber and saw no solo round in there either. It was covered in mud, and while it was raining heavily, neither his dry parts or this rifle were getting wet from the weather. Just his boots, his jean bottoms, dragging and heavy with rice paddy water.
The house looked familiar. The steps were made of rotting wood. He carefully walked up and knocked on the door. It swung open. No one seemed to be inside. It was dark. There were no shadows, almost like the house was completely empty.
Then, he saw one. A shadow moved past a doorway, quickly. It was so fast that it was nothing but a blur. Kenny’s chest started to pound. What was he going to do with an unloaded rifle?
“Hello?” Kenny yelled into the void.
There was no answer. He decided to keep going forward toward where he saw the shadow. Like those dumb chicks in slasher movies walk toward the evil killer…and therefore…their own death.
His heart racing, he continued toward the open door and saw something sitting in a corner in the dark. It was a girl, but he couldn’t tell how old she was. Maybe a teenager. She watched him as he crept closer to her. Her hair was black and straight and long like a show horse’s mane. Her face was round and she had slanted eyes. She had a small mole near her mouth. She had to be Vietnamese.
As he got closer, he asked, �
��Who are you?”
She didn’t answer him.
“Do you speak English?”
She glared at him like she was not scared of him at all, her stare almost frightening Kenny into an odd submission. Kenny stood still and then decided to put his rife in firing position, pointing it at the girl.
“Who are you?” he shouted at her.
“Han,” she answered.
Kenny was surprised by that answer.
“You are not Han!” He knew who Han was. He remembered Han like she was in his arms yesterday. This girl looked nothing like Han. Did she? He was now…not so sure.
“Han,” the girl said again.
Kenny, enraged, screamed, “You are not Han! Stop saying that name!”
“Han.”
“I will shoot you, you dumb fucking bitch! Stop it!”
“Han.”
“Fuck you! I will kill you! I will shoot your fucking face off right now!”
“Han.”
Kenny could feel some kind of unseen presence take a hold of him. His throat became tight, like someone put their large hands on it and started to squeeze. He couldn’t see anyone doing it, almost like some ghost was there just choking him, slowly…and growing stronger with each passing second. The girl in the corner disappeared, Kenny’s eyes started to bulge, and then he heard coughing and choking noises. Someone was clawing at his face.
“Stop! KKKKKKennny! Stop!”
He felt the slaps on his mouth and a fingernail scraped his cheek. He opened his eyes to find Retta underneath of him, his hands pressed firmly on her delicate throat. Her eyes were wide and terrified, her dark hair in a nest around her pillow. Horrified, Kenny let go of his wife’s throat and fell back onto the floor.
That was the first night Kenny’s bad dreams started. That was the first night Kenny had ever put anything other than a loving and tender hand on his wife. That was the first night Kenny started drinking something hard…something harder than a beer.
Good Buddy Page 8
