His reasons for breaking his promise to Freddy were not so simple. In fact, they were complex to the point of incomprehensibility. But I can hint at the nature of what can’t be comprehended by simply reciting the locations of the rest of our family that day:
Irwin was in Vietnam, learning at last how not to laugh.
Mama was at church, asking God to protect Irwin by destroying his enemies—the NVA, the Vietcong and Everett.
Everett was in British Columbia, working at two part-time jobs and trying full-time to figure out how to do things such as think and act like a human again.
Peter was in Massachusetts, studying bodhisattvas, Zen patriarchs and Maharashtran poet-saints, and trying to become one or another of them himself.
Bet was with Mama, for reasons I’ll come to shortly.
Linda was back in what used to be the twins’ room, tending her and Irwin’s newborn baby boy.
There were two letters in Papa’s shirt pocket as he sat at the kitchen table that morning. Both were from the Mekong River delta. Both had been mailed to the private PO box I’d opened in Camas to keep my correspondences with Irwin and Everett secret from Linda, Mama and the twins. But I’d recently decided to share everything with Papa. That was part of his problem. The first letter was dated September 30, 1970. Here is most of it:
… In Saigon on the way in, when we stalled in a traffic jam and our CO got nervous and went to check it out, this little wise-ass from Jersey, Dinky O’Neil his name was, though he changed it real quick back to Rick once he found out “gooks” are called “dinks” too.
Anyhow Dinky, as we knew him then, took it into his head to hop down off our personnel carrier and strut right up to one of those Buddhist monks they’ve got on the streets in those California-poppy-colored robes there. And when they were face to face, just inches apart, Dinky goes, “Hey, bro’! Wuz happenin’?” So of course the monk just freezes, smiles, and looks confused. Then Dinky goes, “No dig? No comprehende? Hey, guy, not to worry! You might not believe this, but we’re actually not from around here.” And we all just cracked up! I mean here is this parade of giant khaki men and machines plowing like sci-fi monsters through this sea of delicate little brown people, and here is one of the monsters touching noses with this poor monk who finds us so outer spacey he never does quit smiling and never does unfreeze. Yet Dinky acts like he’s got to explain the situation, like the monk just isn’t going to believe we’re not local yokels! Funny as hell.
But you know, as the days creep by, inch by, crawl by, I keep seeing Dinky and the monk nose to nose there. And it’s quit being funny, Kade. These were two people who never should of laid eyes on each other, is my feeling now. This was a guy who should of been hustling pool and shooting craps in Trenton and a guy who should of been chanting and begging or whatever in Saigon, and never the twain should of met. I mean, we are so totally “not from around here” it’s like we are outer space monsters. Big alien monsters of the meanest deadliest kind. And there’s just no laughs in that. There’s nothing at all funny about being deadly alien monsters in real life.
Linda, despite our constant coaxing, kept herself and the baby back in their tiny room all night, and most of each day. Sometimes when the baby was napping she would dart out, scarlet-faced, and scurry round the house, cleaning this, scouring that, and apologizing, forever apologizing, for being a burden, or for Irwin’s absence, or for not having money or showing more gratitude or being smarter or prettier or more invisible or less apologetic till the baby started to cry and her breasts started to leak and she turned redder still, apologized once more, and disappeared. In a way she was the opposite of Everett or Mama: rather than place blame, she hoarded it. Irwin’s plight, Mama’s anger, Bet’s new night terrors, Everett’s exile, Papa’s silences—they were all her doing somehow. What I liked best about her so far was that the one thing that was half her doing—the baby—was not on her fault list at all. He was a small but intense little armload, dark-haired like Irwin, loud-voiced like Everett, browneyed like Linda, olive-skinned like nobody. And Linda was unapologetically crazy about him.
His name was Nash, and the etymology was interesting: it seemed that Irwin and Linda read somewhere, or at least convinced each other that they’d read somewhere (Freddy suggests in The Guinness Book of Hilariously Dangerous Superstitions), that if a couple copulates in a fairly upright position with the girl on top, for instance in an automobile, the sperm can’t overcome the uphill battle to the egg and conception is out of the question. They both swore they recalled the words “for instance in an automobile” and “out of the question.” They said it was these words—and maybe some vague expectation of Olympic-style points for degree of difficulty—which convinced them to test the theory out, night after rainy night, in the front and only seat of Irwin’s 1958 Nash Rambler.
The result? A 1970 Nash Chance.
Freddy’s dog, like Irwin and Linda’s son, entered our lives with a bizarre etymology. Shortly after Irwin left for boot camp last April, Freddy went with a girlfriend to help her pick out a kitty from the Humane Society’s death row, and though the friend was unable to find a kitten, Freddy, without consulting either parent, brought home a half-grown, half-breed collie/cocker spaniel whose first two tricks turned out to be piddling with confusion and piddling with joy. Afraid to face the music, Freddy had tied the pup behind Papa’s old pitching shed, pilfered a box of saltines from the kitchen, snuck back outside, and was issuing a chaos of commands and crackers in hopes of perfecting the dog before introducing it to her parents, when a ghastly bawling from the direction of the Fir Haven Apartments brought her crash course to a halt.
“What’s with you?” Freddy asked the little nose and lips she finally spotted bulging like a hemorrhoid through a low crack in the fence.
In the Phlegm dialect the tots all seem to use at Fir Haven, the nose and lips replied that their apartment was “No Goggies Allowed.”
“Tell you what,” said St. Winifred, poking half of a cracker through the crack into the ghastly little cracker. “If you promise to stop crying, you can name my goggie.”
It took a while for the words and saltine to sink in. But once they sank, the gooey mouth vanished, a little blue eyeball appeared, squinted up at the sun, peered down at the dog, glanced over at the bright red Premium Snowflake cracker box, then back popped the mouth, and voilà, Suncracker had a name as inept as the treeless Fir Haven Apartments.
Of course Freddy hated the name as much as any of us. She has better than average taste in such matters. But she would allow no other. As she told us at dinner that night, “What can I do? A promise is a promise.”
Which brings me back to Papa’s. He and John Hultz would be off to Mexico on a scouting trip early Monday. He was taking every winter road job the Tugs sent his way, largely, I think, to minimize his time around Mama. At any rate, this was his first free Saturday in months. And when his old friend Roy stopped by on Friday evening to show off a beautiful bright chinook he’d just caught in the lower Washougal, Papa promised to take Freddy fishing on Saturday “come hell or high water—since both are always possible around here.” So all that evening the two of them knocked around the basement, sorting and mending old fishing gear, laughing at its wretched condition, and swapping stories about the car doors, big fish and muscle-brained brothers that had made it all that way. But judging by the bags under his eyes at breakfast this morning, he and Mama must have had a real knock-down, drag-out battle after they went to bed last night. And Papa has a way, when he and Mama are actively feuding, of behaving as though she and Fate have conspired to put a mysterious whammy on him.
This morning’s whammy was typical. He and Freddy were loaded up and ready to go, I’d dragged myself outside just to wish them luck, and the sight of Freddy almost made it worthwhile: she was wearing a pair of Peter’s hip boots and an old flannel jacket of Irwin’s, both newly patched; her long brown hair was in two thick braids, and the broad-brimmed Amish hat that Everett used to we
ar around town to weird out rednecks only made her look exotic. Suncracker was in her lap, panting but not quite piddling with joy; the day was overcast but calm—perfect fishing weather; it was her first solo outing with Papa in months, and their first solo fishing trip ever. Her smile was radiant. Then Papa fired up the old ’40 Ford, noticed the same puff of tail-pipe smoke we’ve all seen for ages, and decided this was the puff that meant he had to install a carburetor kit he’s been carrying in his glove box for years. Sensing what was coming, I told him to take Irwin’s Nash or my Volkswagen Bug.
Papa said, “We’re already loaded. This won’t take a minute.”
Under whammyless circumstances he’s a competent mechanic. With Freddy acting as a kind of surgeon’s assistant he got the carburetor removed by the time I’d finished breakfast. Then she idly asked how the thing worked, so he held it out, started explaining, twisted it slightly to show her the insides—and four or five tiny ball bearings came bouncing like kids out of a schoolhouse, binked down through the engine, and vanished in the gravel beneath the car. Papa didn’t curse: his whole art is control. But he didn’t smile either when Freddy cracked, “Looks like we lost our bearings.” He just released the parking brake, rolled the car back a few feet, dropped to his knees, and proceeded to spend fifteen or twenty stupid minutes crawling around in the rocks. Freddy helped. She even found a bearing. Papa didn’t find a one.
Whammy.
The sane thing to do in such circumstances is buy a new kit and bearings, or spring for a rebuilt carb. Papa said no need, he had plenty of bearings in the toolshed out back. He then drifted off with a fey look in his eye, returning maybe twenty minutes later with an MJB can of gas-soaked carb parts that looked like something Columbus used in the Santa María. He found bearings in it, though, and when four of them seemed to match the one original he sucked up his courage, dropped them into what he hoped were the appropriate holes, spent a half hour putting the carb back together, another half hour installing it, then started the car and watched without surprise, anger, or any other expression as gasoline spurted and streamed all over the engine till it flooded, sputtered, and died.
When it started to rain just then, Freddy looked at Papa, smiled, and said, “Perfect.” He said nothing back. Ensconced in the Face now, he gathered up his tools, parts and tin cans, and for the first time in our lives carried them not into the garage or toolshed or basement, but into the kitchen, where he spread some newspaper over the table and pretended to set to work. Only now it was obvious. Papa was no longer fixing a carburetor: he was setting up a greasy little Cuban missile base smack-dab in the middle of Mama’s immaculate Washington, D.C. It was a flagrant act of war. And it was probably justified. But only in the context of his endless struggle with his wife. It had nothing to do with fixing cars or fishing with Freddy. He was now breaking his promise, but failing to admit it.
I went upstairs to do homework. Hours passed. The rain stopped. Freddy and the dog began their fly-casting routine right outside Papa’s kitchen window. I tried to ignore the whole show. More hours passed. Papa kept puttering.
The second letter in his shirt pocket, from the same river delta, had been mailed to my secret PO box, which was no longer secret. It was my own fault. Td used the letter to mark my place in a textbook, then left it lying around, and Bet happened to pick up the book and find the letter. It was dated October 12:
I know it makes Mama mad and Linda jealous, but this box of yours keeps me from bursting, Kade. Because what can I really tell them about what we’re doing here? I mean, Linda’s so scared already, and now Bet has this weird Satan thing going, and Mama’s letters all sound as if some sort of Old Testament combat sergeant wrote them. And even Freddy, Kade. I love her so much, and love hearing from her. But in her letter last week she told me that no matter how bad things were here, there must be at least one good thing about it. So “look on the bright side,” she says, “just long enough to tell me what that one good thing is.” And Christ! What that led to! What a simple thing like that can—
well hell. I’ll just tell you. When I sat down to answer her two nights ago, the one good thing I could think of was the day I leave. Then I remembered she said a good Vietnamese thing. Which made it hard. And made me mad. So I told her so. I said we aren’t here to fucking like Vietnamese things, we’re here to kill or be killed by them, and telling me to wander around looking for bright sides and good things is like telling me how to hurry up and get dead. But of course I couldn’t mail it. Not to Freddy. Because one thing we are fighting for here, one thing I think we really are trying to defend, is the ignorance and sweetness of some of the people back home. So I threw the truth away and went back to looking for some harmless answer. And finally decided on stars. There really are good bright stars here most nights, shining just like at home, shooting out their little tracers and flares, hurting nobody. And it’s light that has already shone, right? Like scientifically, what we see twinkling here at night has travelled so far it really happened ages ago, right? So even though the stars are here, they’re not here. Not like we are. Which can only be a good thing, believe me. So that was my answer. “On the bright side, Freddy, ’Nam has got beautiful stars.”
But then I realized I couldn’t name even one. I guess I only knew the two Dippers and Morning Star and Orion’s belt back home, but that was enough, just those made it the home sky. So I figured I should name a Vietnamese star. And just as I thought this I saw a buddy of mine, George Dubash, out strolling and getting loaded. So I went and asked George what he knew about these stars. And he smiled and passed me his joint so friendly I actually smoked some instead of faking as usual. Then he touched the cross round my neck Linda gave me and said, “Lesson One for Bible-thumpers, Chance.” And he showed me the Southern Cross.
Well, you know how locoweed makes me. I must have really thanked the shit out of him, judging by the way he started to laugh. But Dubash was such a nice guy, and you know how I feel about crosses, and this one hung up there so calm and bright that for the first time in weeks I felt like I knew what planet I was on and like I halfway belonged on it. So after thanking him shitless I finished my letter and thanked Freddy too, for making me look on the bright side. And the very next morning, Kade, Dubash’s point man got his throat cut and died soundless, his whole recon patrol walked straight into an ambush, and a stream of 51-caliber NVA bullets sawed my friend George Dubash almost in half.
It’s night again as I write this. The whole sky is spread over me, moonless and starry as hell. But you know how locoweed makes me. I’ve looked all over for the Southern Cross, and it’s either vanished or hasn’t risen or I’m looking straight at it but am too stupid to know. Which makes me feel as if George Dubash died for nothing. Yet I swear by the stars I can’t even fucking find that I’ll never ask another man to point the Cross out to me, in case asking might put the Southern curse on him too. So what to tell Freddy, Kade? See why it’s tough? The truth is I’m in a place without a bright side or a one best thing. I’m in a place where, honest to God, you feel you can kill your friends just by asking the names of stars.
Beatrice, as I said, was with Mama at church. Her reason for going was that Mama was the one family member who claimed she could help protect Bet from Satan, she being the one family member who still believed in him. It struck me as odd that to facilitate this protection Mama would take Bet each week to hear the very man who betrayed Irwin, bellowing out tales of Satan’s most horrific and inescapable powers. But churches always have been the leading cause of the need for churches. And direct confrontation has been Mama’s style as a therapist all her life. Uncle Marv tells a story about her trying, at age nine or so, to cure her little brother Truman of his terror of water by shouting “Just relax!” as she flung him off a dock into Lake Erie. And lately we’d all marveled at her attempts to cure Linda of her Vietnam fears by inviting her each evening to watch Walter Cronkite give the body counts on the CBS news.
So Bet was at church, seeking protect
ion. And whatever their true source, and whatever the cure, her night terrors were no joke. She spent hours, most nights, wandering sleeplessly round the house, and when I’d stay up late to study she’d often notice my light, give a tentative knock, then drift in, plop down on Irwin’s old bed, and start looking through all the motley stuffed animals and athletic awards he left jumbled together on one shelf when he took off for college. Her movements would seem serene as she’d do this, and her face would be calm enough. But her eyes were pure pupil—no iris at all. And even as I’d try to smile and look my most relaxed, I’d be bracing myself against the moment she spoke.
“I used to think,” she began, on one of the worst nights, “that if Jesus came to earth with all his niceness and innocence, but almost none of his brains, so that he was too dumb to save more than one or two people, but every bit as much fun to look at and play with and be with, he would be somebody almost exactly like Irwin.”
I smiled cautiously. “That’s a funny idea,” I said.
She smiled back, and for a moment I thought maybe she was all right. Then she said, “Our nice, dumb, innocent brother Jesus—doing recon in ’Nam. Funny idea.” And the smile twisted away.
This time I made no reply.
“I’m afraid,” Bet said.
“I believe you,” I answered.
Then she began, in the flat, dull monotone she’s cultivated since her visits to the school counselor began, to name the things she is afraid of. To name them is good, the counselor said. To share her fears is good. So we listen. But the monotone never lasts long, and Bet’s midnight fears are such disjointed, unanswerable, terrible things that I can never think of a consoling reply, so instead of dispersing they begin to collect in the air between us, gathering in grotesqueness, gathering in intensity, till my own little childhood room feels as alien and threatening to me as the Mekong Delta must feel to Irwin …
The Brothers K Page 48