“Do you speak English?” he asked the girl who was watching them intently.
She yelled, “No boom-boom.”
He was sober enough to know what the hell she just said. No matter how desperate he was for some action, he was not interested in action with little girls. He was no pervert.
He grabbed what he thought was a scarf. “How much?”
“Fie dollar.”
Kenny was surprised by that. Five dollars for a piece of cloth? He knew the deal. These street vendors were like street vendors everywhere. Suggest a ridiculous price for something cheap and hope that the sucker will go for it. Or haggle. Either way, the vendors would make their money.
“Five dollars?” Kenny laughed out loud. He felt bad because the girl was obviously very young and was probably instructed to take advantage of any soldiers on leave. She stood up and handed Kenny a bag. It was soft and hand sewn with bright colors and small stitching.
“For lady?” she asked him. “Fie dollar. Number one.” Her voice was high-pitched and still sounded like a small child, almost cartoonish.
Before Kenny could answer, there was an excruciatingly loud noise, his ears were deafened, and his body flew up and over the curb on the street, landing hard next to the girl and her table. There was smoke everywhere, and slowly, as his hearing returned, he could hear all the screaming…the kind of screaming that you don’t even know exists until it happens.
People were running and sirens were blaring and the girl’s head lay next to his chest. She wasn’t moving. Teddy was nowhere to be seen. Kenny couldn’t move, almost like he was pinned down by something large, but he wasn’t able to see anything keeping him in place. Except for the girl’s head and body.
Kenny tried to sit up. He looked down at the tiny human being, limp and crumpled on him. Her eyes were open, and she stared into his own, full of fear and pleading. As he moved her head slightly to the side, he saw she had no right arm below her elbow and there was something sharp jutting out of the side of her head. His eyes were wild, welling up and filling with tears like a stopped-up bathtub. He quickly came to understand what had happened to her. Her lips were plump and a shade just below ruby. She had a pin prick sized mole near her mouth. Just a young girl. Somebody’s daughter.
Starting to panic, his heart racing, Kenny held on to her tightly. He didn’t know what to do. Should I go for help? Should I look for Teddy? Should I just flee and leave her here? She was dying anyway. What if another bomb went off, and this time, instead of it just missing me, I lose my arm and take something to the head?
Kenny knew the deal in Vietnam. He was an American in Saigon during an unpopular war. No one would help him, that was for sure.
The girl started to speak with a slight gurgle to her voice. “Han,” she said.
Kenny soothed, “It’s gonna be okay. I’m gonna take you to the hospital.” He was overcome with emotion, engulfed with fear, operating only on instincts. He had never felt so overwhelmed before, bordering on helpless. Protect. Help. He started crying, almost a panicked cry, tears finally making their escape from his eyes, a primal kind of stress triggered aloud inside of him. All this time in Vietnam, all the carnage and atrocities he’s seen…and this was the first time he cried. This was the first time he moved with desperation.
“GI,” she said.
“Yes,” Kenny blurted. “I’m a GI.”
“Han,” she said again.
“What’s Han? What’s that mean?” he shouted at her, still panicked.
With her left hand, she brought it up to her chest. She pointed at herself. “Han.” Then she softly touched Kenny’s face, right along his left cheek. “GI.”
Kenny, now losing himself in an uncontrollable sob, yelled, his voice cracking, “Your name? Your name is Han?”
He held her closer, knowing deep down inside of himself that she was going to die and that there was nothing he would be able to do for her. He should just run and try to find Teddy and get the hell out of this place. But he would not allow himself to leave her behind. And he had no idea why. She became still and looked to be at peace. In their mutual silence, there were sirens and the echoes of chaos all around them.
He pointed at her chest and said “Han.” Then he pointed at his own chest and uttered, “Kenny.”
Han smiled slightly right at the corners of her mouth. “Kenny,” she repeated.
“Han, I’m going to get you to a hospital, okay?”
Kenny rose to his knees while lifting along with himself the petite girl’s body. She couldn’t have been much more than seventy-five pounds. She groaned but was likely in shock and could not feel a thing. There was blood coming from the side of her head, but unlike most head wounds, it was a slow flowing wound, as if the piece of metal sticking out kept it from gushing, serving as a dam of life for the moment. Her arm, now mangled and in two pieces, needed a tourniquet. Kenny grabbed one of the beautiful linen pieces that she had been trying to sell to him for five fucking dollars only minutes ago, and wrapped it tightly above the wound, just as he learned in Basic Training.
He grabbed another piece of linen and tried to stop the bleeding from her head. Her white dress was sopping wet and full of her own blood. Kenny had plenty of it on him, too, but it appeared for now that he was spared any real injuries. Screams and blowing horns were all around him, the smoke was beginning to dissipate, and Teddy was nowhere to be found. A few minutes ago, he was happy and drunk. But right now, he was as awake and as in control as he could possibly be…as if he never had a drink in his life. His senses were heightened in a way that he only ever experienced in combat. Something took over. Something surreal…but focused and strong. He could lead a charge up a hill. He could take a medical school entrance exam. He could perform any number of songs with a guitar on a stage. His confidence soared in this moment, and he believed – just for a moment – that it would save little Han from her early death.
Carrying Han in his arms, he started to jog down the street and toward somewhere that would lead him to the closest hospital or to some medics tending to other casualties. People were running about, frantic, chaotic, and confused. Kenny saw a man in the street with his head half blown off, a woman in a deep red and orange traditional Vietnamese getup picking up the pieces of the other half, trying to affix the brain matter to his missing side. She was strangely calm about it – like in a slow-motion video – almost as if she were Jackie Kennedy picking up the pieces of the President’s skull in the back of that convertible in Dallas several years ago.
A stray dog was barking and a pedi-cab was on its side with a wheel blown off, the driver pinned underneath by his legs. One of the food vendors had a huge gaping hole in the side of its wagon with food strewn everywhere, falling over and onto the street. Kenny continued to run amid the noises and the shrieks of an unconventional wartime in a populous city. Everyone always talked about how the fighting was in the bush. Not much was said about the bombs from Charlie hiding out in the city – using the civilians as shields – blowing up the places which gave refuge to the easy money of American GIs helping the South Vietnamese economy.
As tears streamed down his nose, Kenny looked down at Han. Life was draining from her face; her stare was vacant.
“Han! I’m taking you to a doctor! I’m taking you!” Kenny shouted at her.
She blinked. “danh từ,” she said, her mouth dry and voice gurgling.
Kenny didn’t know Vietnamese. He had no idea what she just said. Trotting along with her flopping body in his arms, his heart was pounding. If he could just get her to a doctor, he could save her. Her wounds were bad, but they could be fixed. She was too young for this nightmare, too young for this kind of brutality by her own people. Her softness and willingness to trust him in this brief catastrophic moment had moved something inside of his heart unlike anything that life had shown him so far. All the harshness of his upbringing and the sadness
of his family’s own poverty and the challenges of combat made him tougher than most; but this girl, this simple hard working innocent child on the streets in this God forsaken place, touched him in a space he had no idea resided inside.
As he neared a meat wagon on the side of the road, he saw a medic helping a lady sit down on the side walk. “Help! Help me, please!” he screamed as he ran as fast as his big long legs would take him. Han moved her head slightly to the side, like she wanted to see the side show going on around her. He brought her to the short Vietnamese man who immediately reacted to the emergency brought to him. He pointed to an empty stretcher lying off to the side.
Kenny gently put Han down on the ragged stretcher. It looked like it had been lifted from the Army at some point in its history – olive drab green and with US stamped on the side in black ink.
Han’s almost lifeless body was devoid of form. Kenny leaned over her, peering down into her coal black eyes. His hulking American frame dwarfed Han even more that it had before. “Han, they’re gonna help you,” he whispered, trying to calm his own nerves.
Han moved her good arm and pointed to Kenny’s chest. “Cảm ơn lắm,” she said.
With tears, he hollered, frustrated, “I don’t know what that means…what does that mean?”
She whispered, “cảm ơn lắm.”
The medic left the lady on the curb and came over to tend to Han. Another medic ran by, helping a man by his arms who appeared to be bleeding profusely from his ear.
“What does that mean?” Kenny shouted again. He wanted to know. He wanted to understand what she was saying to him.
The medic spoke in rapid Vietnamese, and Kenny felt like he was now an outsider to this rescue. Han’s face watched him, and her mouth moved slightly into a half smile. “Cảm ơn lắm, Kenny,” she uttered slowly in broken speech. His heart filled up when she said his name. Maybe she had a chance. Maybe in all this horrible haze, one good thing would happen. Maybe instead of being a part of killing another Vietnamese person, he might be a part of saving one.
Han reached for Kenny’s hand and held it. She wrapped her tiny fingers around his huge thumb. “Cảm ơn lắm, Kenny,” she said one more time and then closed her eyes forever.
Part II
“we were together—all else has long been forgotten by me,”
—Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
Chapter 8
June – November 1998
Gabrielle
Loretta and Joe sat in the waiting room of the maternity ward at Harper Hospital with nine-year-old Molly Saint. Molly sat on a chair with her legs swinging back and forth, drawing a picture of a rather detailed elephant breaking free from an evil circus master underneath a colorful big top in her sketch pad. A pink helium balloon, which read “Welcome home baby girl” over a brown teddy bear, sat at her feet. Molly’s brown hair fell way beyond her shoulders, and her tank top straps barely covered her shoulders, which were peppered with some large, some small freckles.
A nurse wearing light blue scrubs walked by, whispered something to an old man sitting alone next to a vending machine, and then walked back down the hallway leading to the birthing rooms. Just then, Buddy came around the corner. He was wearing black shorts and a green and black striped collared shirt with “Mid Pines” written over the left side of his chest. His face was freshly shaven and his blond-brown hair neatly trimmed, the hairline beginning to show its recession. He was smiling – without actually smiling – that odd phenomenon which seemed to describe Buddy’s entire personality best. However, this time, it was all shown through his eyes. The cobalt color in his irises was brighter, and his eyelashes seemed even longer than usual. Instead of the tell-tale pregnancy glow, men who became fathers of baby girls seemed to get an eye color glow.
Buddy walked up to Molly and hugged her tightly. He kissed her forehead. “Do you want to meet your baby sister now?” he asked.
Molly, having at last outgrown her hopping phase, jumped up and down only once. “Yes!” she shouted.
Loretta and Joe were beaming. They were so excited for the arrival of this new member of their family. Loretta had been so happy to have Molly as her granddaughter when Buddy and Julie got married, but this new little life resting in a plastic hospital bassinette inside of a nursery just feet away, was a feeling she couldn’t put into words. Over the years, other women would tell her that there was just something different about becoming a grandparent. It was its own special experience that you can’t understand until it happens to you. Well, she understood it now.
Buddy escorted his family back to where Julie and the new baby sat in a huge hospital bed. Molly walked in, hopped onto the bed and looked at the small bundle wrapped in a white blanket. The baby was wearing a small pink hat on her otherwise peach-fuzz bald head. Julie rested back on pillows and wore a hospital gown. Her blond hair, messy and in serious need of a brush, fell scattered down her back. She held her baby like the delicate new being and precious life she was. She would protect her as she had protected Molly. Her heart was full.
“Is she sleeping, Mom?” Molly asked, not allowing herself to touch her new sister. She was in awe of how teeny-tiny she was.
“Yes, she is,” Julie answered, smiling down at her. “And look at those eyelashes. She sure didn’t get those things from me!” She looked over at Buddy, who was blushing, a lifetime of eyelash-related bashfulness.
“What did you guys decide to name her?” Loretta asked, watching the pure joy emanate from the only woman who ever held her son’s heart.
Buddy stood at the foot of the bed. “We decided to name her Gabrielle. Gabrielle Loretta.”
Loretta started to cry. Joe pulled her into himself.
“Do you want to hold her?” Julie asked Loretta.
Loretta, trying to maintain her composure, walked over to Julie, who handed to her Loretta’s firstborn grandchild. She pulled Gabrielle up into both arms and looked down at her scrunched up little face. Honest people say that newborn babies look like featherless chickens. But grandparents think that honesty is over-rated. They don’t see a featherless chicken. Instead, they see another beautiful branch of their own personal legacy, reaching up into the sun to breathe.
Joe and his first wife never had children. She had been saddled with an unfortunate and tragic cancer when she was only nineteen years old, forcing her to choose between losing her uterus or dying young. She chose childlessness and not dying, which brought with it its own particular suffering, underneath the surface, for the rest of her shortened life.
When Joe married her, he understood that he would never have a child of his own. And that was okay with him because he loved his wife dearly. Then she got sick again in her thirties and passed away despite her bold choice. It wasn’t until after Buddy and Loretta moved onto his property a few years later, Joe felt for the first time in his life that he genuinely felt the pain of something he never realized he endured…the loss of something he never had…his own child.
Buddy was not his son. He knew that. But Buddy coming into his life gave him a small piece of fatherhood, and he knew that he indeed loved him like a son. In his own way, he helped raise him. And now Buddy gave Joe not only that feeling but also the experience of being a grandfather, something he would never otherwise know without first Molly, and now, Gabrielle. Family is blood and family is bond. Sometimes you get both and sometimes you get just one…but one isn’t any less than the other.
“Will you call her Gabby?” Loretta asked.
“Yes, we think so,” Julie replied.
Several weeks ago, when Buddy and Julie were lying in bed and talking about baby names, Julie held a book full of them. She read through meanings and origins and spellings and a list of famous people who had them. As they shared with each other what different names meant to them, they came across the name “Gabrielle.” Buddy, who had been silent during most of Julie’s name-rela
ted musings, said suddenly, “That’s it.”
Julie, a bit surprised, asked him, “You don’t think that’s weird?”
Buddy was on his back, shirtless and in his tighty-whiteys. He looked up at the ceiling. “Not at all. It’s perfect, actually. A name should mean something. Something strong, something powerful, and it should have depth. It connects us all in some ethereal way.” He rolled onto his side, put his head along Julie’s massive baby bump, and then his hand on top. “And you know what I normally think about words like ‘ethereal.’”
Julie laughed. She knew.
“Gabrielle means ‘God’s strength.’ And it means just a little bit more than that in this house,” Buddy added.
Julie put her hand on Buddy’s hair, running her fingers through the thinning rows. “I guess…” she started.
“Gabe is Molly’s father. Without him, I would never know either of you, never have either of you as my life now. Gabe didn’t leave his family because he’s an asshole. He left because an accident, while serving his country, took him away. He was an honorable man. I feel like we have some kind of bond.”
Julie was a little taken back with this confession from her sweet husband. She never heard him speak like this about Gabe. She had no idea that he felt anything this profound toward him. In fact, other than the few times she talked about Gabe earlier in their relationship, Buddy never discussed anything related to him before.
He continued. “Gabe trusted you with his daughter. You trust me with his daughter. I have taken over for him because he can’t do the rest of this…the rest of the fathering. And it sucks because life is not always fair to good people. I know how that feels. But now it’s on me to finish what Gabe couldn’t, to do right by him as a man who loves you and Molly. I have taken on his daughter as my own – and I have taken his wife as my own – kind of picking up where he left off. And now we are going to have our own baby, a sister for Molly.” He paused and put his hands on his forehead. “It’s just important to me that Molly understands that she matters just as much as this baby. I am just as much her father as this baby’s father. And I want Molly to feel like no one has forgotten her real father either, just because he can’t be here anymore.”
Good Buddy Page 16
