“Are you trying to be a father figure to me?”
“I’m your cousin, that would be impossible.”
“My third cousin,” I said.
“You’re splitting hairs.”
I stood and went to the door but turned before I left.
“You’d be a good father, you know.” I shrugged. “Maybe you should fit that into your schedule.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He swatted a hand at me. “I’ve got enough trouble trying to keep an eye on you.”
“See you tomorrow.”
“Yup.”
I left out the back door and walked down the alley toward the main street in town, thinking of one reason I shouldn’t be around Walt that Bernie hadn’t mentioned.
He didn’t want to be with me, necessarily.
He just didn’t want to be alone.
48
We sat in a booth at the Big Boy just outside of Fort Colson. Walt’s southern fried chicken went mostly untouched, the white gravy on top congealed and unappetizing.
“Do you ever hear from Mike?” Walt asked, pushing his plate to the end of the table for the waitress to remove.
“He writes often,” I said, finishing off the last spoonful of my soup. “Weren’t you hungry?”
He shook his head.
“Are you eating at all?” I remembered Frank on his bad days, unable to stomach anything.
“You sound like my mother.” He crossed his arms and stared at the paper place mat in front of him.
“Sorry.”
I leaned back into the soft cushion of the booth, staring out the window next to us. A family climbed out of a station wagon. Two parents and a handful of kids, all wearing what I assumed to be their Sunday best even though it was a Tuesday. The smallest two girls held their father’s hand as they walked across the parking lot to the door of the restaurant.
“Does he ever say anything about what it’s like for him in country?” Walt asked.
“Who, Mike?” I turned back to him. “Yeah.”
“He’s a medic, right?”
I nodded.
“Those guys see everything.” Walt rubbed at his eyes. “Our first medic got hit with some shrapnel. Lobbed his arm clean off. But he got to come home. We called that the ‘million dollar wound.’”
The family I’d seen out the window followed a man in a tie to the large, round table less than two feet from where Walt and I sat. One of the little girls smiled at me before sitting and pulling her chair in.
“The next medic didn’t wear the red cross badge. Said it made him a moving target. You ought to tell Mike that,” Walt said. “Medics and officers are the ones those animals kill off first. They get paid extra for picking them off. They know if the medic’s dead, the rest of us are toast.”
He finished by describing in detail what he would have done if he’d ever caught somebody from the North Vietnamese army or the Viet Cong. His graphic description was peppered with words I didn’t know but could tell were filthy. It turned my stomach, picturing what he described and the way his eyes hardened, the pupils dilated.
The father at the other table turned his head and glanced at us.
“Walt,” I said, leaning forward and nodding my head toward the family.
“Sorry,” he said, then turned toward the father and raised his voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize . . .”
The man put up his hand as if to say it was all right.
“Do you want to go?” I asked.
“I didn’t mean . . .” he started, regret heavy in his voice. “I shouldn’t have said all that. I forget myself sometimes.”
“It’s all right,” I said, looking back at the little girl and smiling at her again. “Let’s go, okay?”
I stood and took Walt’s hand, making sure he came with me. He turned back toward the family as we walked away.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said.
“Don’t worry about it, son,” the man said, his voice deep and warm. “I understand.”
The little girl waved at me before turning her attention to the menu on the table in front of her.
Walt didn’t say anything while he drove me home. He just kept switching through the radio stations, not stopping long enough to even hear what song played on each. When he pulled up in front of my house, he turned the knob, killing the volume.
“Do you hate me?” he asked, keeping his face straight, his eyes looking out into the dark on the other side of the windshield.
“No,” I answered. “Why would you ask that?”
He sniffled. “I don’t know.”
I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to get out of the car or not. The engine still ran and the headlights beamed on into the night, so I thought he was waiting for me to leave. But as soon as I put my hand on the door, he asked me to stay.
“Don’t go yet,” he said, turning toward me. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“Are you afraid?”
“I’m not sure.” He took my left hand, looking at it as if he’d never seen anything like it before. “Do you remember that ring I gave you when we were little?”
“You got it out of a Cracker Jack box, didn’t you?”
He shook his head. “I bought it at the five-and-dime.” He smiled. “Well, my mother paid for it. She said it was sweet that I wanted to give it to you.”
“It had a green plastic stone.”
“Do you still have it?”
“Yes.” In my mind’s eye I could see it in my little cedar box that I kept under my bed. “I outgrew it.”
He smiled. “I really meant it when I said I wanted to marry you.”
“It’s probably a good thing four-year-olds aren’t allowed to make such decisions.”
“Maybe.”
He turned back, facing forward, still holding on to my hand. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the curtains in our living room part and Mom’s face appear between them. I waved at her, hoping she’d see that we weren’t in Walt’s car, necking for all the neighborhood to see.
She pulled them closed again.
“Annie, I . . .”
“Walt . . .”
We said each other’s names at the same time, both facing each other simultaneously.
“Go ahead,” I said.
He licked his lips. “When I was a kid I had a night-light. It was this blue plastic mouse that sat on my bedside table.”
“I had a Raggedy Ann one,” I said.
“There was this little switch on mine that I could flick on whenever I had a bad dream or got scared in the middle of the night. It was never really bright, but it calmed me down. Just knowing it was there always helped.” He drew in a breath. “I put that thing up in a box in my closet a long time ago.”
He bit at his bottom lip and squeezed my hand.
“I had to get it out the other night,” he whispered.
“Did you have a nightmare?” I held his hand tighter. “I won’t think less of you if you did.”
“We had to do things over there. My father said it’s just the way war is.” He shook his head. “The dreams can’t last forever, can they?”
“I hope not.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “Sometimes it was them or us. If I didn’t do something, they would have killed us.” He looked up at me. “You know.”
“You did what you had to,” I said.
“It helped to think they weren’t human. To forget that they had family that loved them or a girl they wanted to marry.” He stared straight ahead. “If I could just pretend they were animals—if I could actually believe it—I could shoot at them and not feel anything about it. Just like hunting.”
“Walt . . .”
“I hate how easy it got toward the end.” He reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes, lighting one and drawing deeply of it. “Who ended up being the animal after all?”
“You aren’t an animal.”
“There’s at least a few men in a shallo
w grave in Vietnam that would beg to differ.”
“What choice did you have?” I asked. “Let them kill you?”
“That’s about it.”
He stopped talking, finishing his cigarette and smashing it into the ashtray and lighting another.
“You’re not there anymore,” I said. “You’re here now. All you had to do over there, that’s not who you are.”
“Then who am I?”
“You’re my friend.”
He blew a lungful of smoke up into the ceiling. “Listen, I better go. Your mom’s standing on the porch.”
Sighing, I saw that he was right. I opened the car door and put one foot on the pavement.
“Take care of yourself, okay?” I said.
“Yeah.”
He drove away as soon as I shut the door.
Somehow I knew he wouldn’t call the next day.
Frank,
I hope all’s well in Bliss and that you’re selling loads of cars. It’s funny, you know, when I was a kid and I’d imagine what you were doing with your time, the last thing I would have thought was that you were selling cars.
I’d always had you pegged as a police officer or a delivery man. It’s funny how a boy’s brain works.
I’ve been seeing lots of action over here in Nam. More than I’d expected, as a matter of fact. It’s downright brutal. But I’m sure you can imagine how it is.
The other day there was a kid that stepped on a booby trap in the jungle and got his legs blown off. When we got to him, I was sure he was a goner. But he surprised all of us and held on.
They rushed him into the hospital once we landed and I went to wash up. The kid’s blood was all over my hands.
It scared me, what was going through my mind. I envied the kid. Actually felt jealous. Because whatever happened to him, if he lived or died, he’d get to leave Vietnam.
Scrubbing the soap on my hands I saw they were shaking and I thought of the tremors you had in your right hand. For the first time I felt that I understood you.
And for the first time, I wasn’t mad at you for leaving us.
I understand now.
Mike
Mike,
Business is going fine. I sold a cherry red Bel Air a couple days ago to a boy who just got home from Vietnam. Gave him a good deal too. When I said my son was over there, he told me to wish you luck.
I’ve tried to stay away from the news reports about Vietnam. Brings back more memories of my own war that I’d rather not recall. But it comes as no surprise to me that it’s as gory as you say. War comes out of a dark part of the human soul, son. It’s shocking what men have created in order to destroy each other.
When I was in Korea and my thoughts threatened to overtake me I’d try to remember what my duty was. To keep my buddies alive, to keep myself from getting killed, and to beat the communists. Not necessarily in that order.
I didn’t do most things right in my life. But I did survive that war and I pray you’ll survive yours.
I’m proud of you, son.
Frank
49
By some magic unknown to me, Joel was able to get away with a multitude of things that Mike and I never could have even dreamed up without Mom getting after us. So, I was unsurprised when, after coming home from work to a house full of boys, Mom didn’t throw an unholy fit over Joel wanting them all to stay for supper.
She’d just written up a list and asked me to run to the grocery store.
“Get some of that macaroni and cheese dinner,” she said. “And some cans of tuna fish to mix into it.”
“Mom, hot dogs.” I nodded. “Trust me.”
“Don’t boys like tuna?”
“Not all of them.” I scratched out the fish on the list. “But they all like hot dogs.”
“Get some Kool-Aid too.” She crossed her arms. “Unless boys suddenly dislike that too.”
I smirked at her and grabbed the keys for Mike’s car off the hook, glad to be leaving the certain odor that had overtaken our house with the occupation of the four teenaged boys.
Huisman’s Market was just a few minutes away, right on the highway that led to Mackinaw City two-hundred-some miles to the north and all the way down to Indiana and beyond in the south. Had I ventured out that way on a long summer day, I might have felt a tug to pick a direction and drive on until I got to the end of the road, wherever that may be.
But it was the close of November and the already-dark evening made me not want to linger. Pulling into the half-full parking lot of the store made me feel lonely. Blue, even. I wanted to get back home, even if the boys were loud and stinky.
I pushed my cart toward where I knew the boxed macaroni dinners were, wondering if two would be enough to feed the ravenous horde back at home. I decided to buy four. Mom could always put one or two of them in the pantry for later if she wanted.
Consulting my list, I saw that Mom had written that I should only get one box.
I rubbed at my eye under my glasses and sighed before grabbing four anyway. I would have thought that if raising Mike had taught her anything, it was that boys had hollow legs.
“Everything all right?”
David stood beside me, his arms full of groceries. So full, in fact, that I was sure he’d drop all of it at any moment. A glass jar of pickles was nestled precariously between his elbow and side.
“Yes,” I said. “Would you like a cart?”
“Oh, I just came in for a few things,” he said. Then, looking at his load, “Maybe I could use one.”
“Just share mine.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course,” I answered, noticing the way the man behind the deli counter watched us. “Here, I’ll help you.”
We put his items in the cart, and David pushed them all to one side. “So we don’t get our food mixed up.”
I took inventory of his things. A package of bologna lunch meat, cheese slices, a bag of chips, loaf of bread, and a box of Little Debbies. And the jar of pickles, safe from being dropped and smashed on the floor.
“Do you have other things to get?” I asked.
“Not that I know of,” he answered.
“Is that your dinner?”
He shrugged. “I hate to admit this to you, but I don’t know how to cook. That’s why I eat at the diner every day.”
“Funny,” I said. “I thought it was just so you could enjoy Bernie’s charming personality.”
I let David push the cart and I nodded in the direction of the aisle where I believed they shelved the Kool-Aid.
“My mother is afraid I’m going to starve to death over here,” he said. “I’m her only son and she’s waiting for me to get married so she can stop worrying about what I’m eating.”
“What if you marry someone who isn’t a good cook?”
“I believe she’d faint.” He chuckled. “Then she’d insist on moving in and taking over the kitchen.”
I picked out a packet of cherry punch and dropped it into the cart.
“Why don’t you come over to our house for supper?” I asked. “We already have my brother’s friends over. You might as well join us.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course.” I pointed him toward the meat department. “If you don’t mind boxed macaroni and cheese.”
“I don’t mind at all.”
“Oh, and which do you like better, hot dogs or tuna?”
He pulled a face. “Hot dogs. Any old day.”
“That’s what I thought.”
David followed me in his Buick. All the way home I felt anxious, antsy. I couldn’t believe I’d asked someone to dinner without checking with Mom first. That was something that only Joel could have pulled off.
But, more than that, I’d asked a black man. And one Mom didn’t know. One she hadn’t even met, as far as I knew.
I wasn’t sure if even Joel could have gotten away with that.
50
Mom was in the kitchen, the water for the pasta already b
oiling on the stove top in the biggest pot we had. She stood at the sink, peeling carrots.
“That took you long enough,” she said, not looking up at me. “Did you buy the whole store?”
I slid the two paper bags of groceries onto the counter.
“Oh, I just ran into somebody,” I said.
“Who’s that?”
“A friend of mine.” I glanced over my shoulder toward the living room, where I’d told David he could have a seat. “Don’t be mad, okay. But I invited him to dinner.”
“You did what? Him? Who’s him?” She lifted her face. “Annie.”
“I thought since we already had company, it wouldn’t matter.” I pulled the macaroni out of the bag, tearing open the tops and dumping the noodles into the water. “The house is clean at least.”
She sighed. “What’s one more? Who is it? Please tell me it isn’t Walt.”
“Good news. It’s not,” I answered. “Do you remember David?”
“The David I still haven’t met officially?” She put a freshly peeled carrot on her chopping block. “Him?”
I nodded.
“Well, at least you didn’t bring Walt home. I don’t think I could endure a meal with that boy.” She smoothed her apron and glanced around me toward the living room. “You’re sure he won’t expect something fancier?”
“He can’t cook,” I answered. “I think he’ll be happy with anything.”
“Well, I guess I should get the leaf for the table.”
Stirring the pasta, I blew out a sigh of relief.
Mom did her best to observe David without being too obvious. From the way she smiled at his stories or offered him another helping of macaroni and cheese, I thought he was winning her favor little by little.
As for Joel and his mop-top–headed friends, they scarfed their food, earning Mom’s cautions about choking to death on hot dogs. Once they’d polished off all that we’d offered by way of dinner, they scrambled their way upstairs, claiming that they had a song to write.
“They started a band,” I told David.
“How about that,” he said. “Are they any good?”
“They’re loud, that’s for sure,” Mom said. “John Tyler—the one with the dark hair—he likes to think he’s the next Elvis Presley.”
All Manner of Things Page 24
