Out of the Wilderness

by Steve Stroble

for the studio, Gil slept in a small bedroom that adjoined it. After breakfast he would open the studio and take his place behind the control board as Dave guided an aspiring solo artist or group unable to afford the higher rates of the studios in and around LA. When someone needed an acoustic guitarist, Dave offered his services; if a bassist, he recommended Gil.

  The living arrangement also allowed the two brothers to communicate on a level that they had not since they had lived together as youngsters in their family's modest house. But instead of the kind of talk that goes on between boys, the talk now was what goes on between men.

  "Maybe I shouldn't ask but?"

  "Go ahead."

  Dave exhaled and continued. "Why did you start using heroin?"

  Gil dropped his gaze and stared at the floor and then closed his eyes. "It was easier to hide than pot. I thought I could quit anytime because I never shot it up. I only snorted and smoked it."

  "What do you think made you start? Was it that bad over there?"

  "Best and worst year of my life."

  "Huh?'

  "I met some great people and made some friends I'll never forget. There's something about when you've gone through combat with someone. There's some kind of bond that's unreal."

  "Pretty strong?"

  "Yeah. More than one guy saved my life and I guess I saved a few also."

  "Really?"

  "No big deal. Just doing our job. The worst part was when someone got hit and the medics couldn't save them. Charlie's AK-47s can really do a number on you. Then there were the booby traps?.Jesus! Most of the time you didn't know the trip wire was there until it was too late."

  "So some of your friends didn't make it?"

  "Yeah?"Gil's voice cracked and tears started to fall.

  "Maybe we shouldn't talk about it?"

  "It's okay." Gil grabbed a napkin and blew his nose. "Every counselor I've had has said I need to talk about what I went through before I can kick the heroin."

  Dave shifted nervously. "Maybe you should talk to the counselors about it."

  Gil reached out and grabbed Dave's shoulder. "You don't understand, bro. You're all I got. You're the only one I know that I can talk to and you won't hate me or think I'm crazy or something."

  "Okay."

  "Anyway, it wasn't just the enemy. They would terrorize the civilians into helping them. They'd go in and kill the village chief and tell the rest of the villagers that they were next unless they gave them shelter and food. The bastards would use the civilians as cover when there was a firefight. They didn't care how many of their own people got killed."

  "I never knew that."

  "It wasn't just a battle against people. We had to battle nature. There were snakes called Charlie one-steps. If they bit you, you might take one more step before you were dead."

  "Man."

  "Think that's bad? There was a patrol going through this real tall grass, so tall that each man couldn't see anyone else. All of a sudden they hear this terrible scream. By the time the rest of the patrol found the guy, the tiger that had made him scream had killed him and carried off a chunk of his body."

  Dave shook his head. He was relieved that Gil was finally opening up but unsure he wanted to hear any more.

  "The worst part was when someone died. We'd have to take one of his dog tags and put it between his top front teeth. Then you'd kick the dog tag so it wouldn't break loose on the trip back to the fire base." Gil paused. "They'd go back in body bags."

  "Maybe it would have been better if you had been in the Navy or Air Force."

  "I don't know. Some of them had it just as bad as us grunts."

  "But weren't they away from the fighting?"

  "Not always. I met a guy who was on a B-52 crew. He was stationed in Thailand. On one bombing mission over North Vietnam they got hit by a missile."

  "Did they all bail out?"

  "That's the last thing you wanted to do if you could help it. The prisons for American POWs in the North are hell. Some of them won't live through it."

  "Oh."

  "Anyway, the missile blew a hole in the fuselage of the plane. The crewman I talked to said he would have been sucked through the hole but a piece of shrapnel went through his shoulder and pinned him to the wall of the plane. He said the pilot had to drop thousands of feet because everything was depressurized. They were able to limp back to their base."

  "The whole crew lived?"

  "Yeah. They called the guy I met the six million dollar man because of all his surgeries to fix his wounds and all the artificial parts inside him."

  "But weren't the Navy guys all on ships? Weren't they safe?"

  "Not always. A lot of the pilots that went down were Navy flying off of aircraft carriers."

  "Didn't think of that."

  "Well, they weren't the only ones who had it hard. I met a guy that ran patrol boats up the Mekong Delta."

  "Why'd they do that?"

  "This guy said that their job was to put intelligence people in enemy territory and then go back days or weeks later and pick them up."

  "So what did their boats look like?"

  "Remember when Dad took us to see that movie about World War II? PT-109?"

  "They looked like that?"

  "Sort of. The ones now have bigger and faster engines."

  "Oh."

  "The guy told me that everyone looked shipshape as they pulled out on the missions. But that all changed once they were out of sight from the base."

  "What happened?"

  "He said once they got down river the chief petty officer would pull out a bottle of booze and the lower ranking guys would start smoking their pot."

  "But how would they be in any condition to fight?"

  Gil laughed. "At least they could get away on their boat most of the time. Ground troops weren't as lucky. I heard stories about some infantry patrols who would get stoned at night. The guards on watch would nod off and Charlie would waltz in and do wipe out the whole patrol."

  "No way."

  "I kid you not."

  "So the guy you knew that was on the patrol boat didn't see much action?"

  "More than he wanted. He said they got caught in some bad crossfire one time. He got blown off the boat and had to swim to shore. While making his way back to friendly territory he came across some Vietcong who was taking a crap. He had to kill him with his bare hands because the guy turned around and saw him."

  For the next two hours Gil poured out all the memories that had been bottled up inside of him for years. When his brother finally stopped talking, Dave shook his head.

  "I'm glad you told me all of that, Gil."

  "Why?"

  "Because now maybe I can stop judging you for how you turned out."

  So began Gil's healing of the soul. Slowly, his mind, will and emotions returned to a functioning condition as Dave and his family loved him for who he was instead of hating him for what he had done. Four months passed, Gil gained back twenty of the forty pounds he had lost due to heroin use and Dave breathed a long sigh. "It's working." He hugged Nancy. "I can't believe it's working."

  The next morning when Gil didn't come to the house for breakfast, Dave followed the stone path to the studio and banged on the bedroom door. When Gil didn't answer, he looked inside and saw that the bed was unslept in with a note on the pillow. It read:

  Dave:

  Last night an Indian I met earlier while living on the streets stopped by. He's from a reservation over in Arizona and wants me to visit it. So we're on the way there. It was late last night so I didn't wake you up. See you in a week or two!

  Gil

  Three weeks went by before Gil called.

  "Hey, bro. Miss me?"

  "When are you coming home? I can't run the studio myself."

  "Uhh. I don't know. I kind of like it here."

  "You haven't been on a drunk, have you?"

  "No way. I'm not even taking my methadone."

  "You think tha
t's a good idea?"

  "Don't worry. I joined a church. Something called the Native American Church."

  "But you're not Indian. Do they let nonIndians join their church?"

  "My friend said that Mexico was full of Indians before the Spanish showed up. So I'm probably at least part Indian. Anyway come check it out when you get a chance!"

  "You're not coming back?"

  "Not for awhile."

  "Okay. Send me your address and I'll check it out sometime. See you."

  "Bye, bro."

  "That Gil?" Nancy put down her son and sat down by Dave.

  "Yeah. He said he joined the Native American Church."

  "Oh, oh."

  "What's wrong?"

  "They take peyote as a sacrament."

  "What?"

  "I studied about it in a comparative religion class at college before we got married."

  Dave shook his head. "Well at least he's not doing heroin again. Maybe we should count our blessings."

  "Maybe."

  14

  Some have their big crisis at midlife; Dave's came sooner. For 7 years he had run the studio alone and that supported his wife and two kids. Word of mouth had helped his studio grow into a small success. A few musicians even returned to record a song or two after making it onto the charts with albums recorded years earlier under Dave's direction. Though the fees were low at the studio, the royalties Dave earned as a producer of the albums sustained his family. When expenses outpaced income, Dave sold one of his many coin collector books that he had put together years earlier.

  His was a comfortable life but also an empty one. He still meditated occasionally, but his devotion to the practice had faded. Nancy had begun taking their son and daughter to a nearby church.

  "The kids need someone to tell them about God," She had said. "Neither one of us are doing it."

  Trying to set an example, Dave attended the church on Christmas and Easter but slept in or watched