Beauty Rising

by Mark W. Sasse

  By ten till ten, around thirty people had entered the church for the memorial service. Our neighbors the Dombroskis and Allens greeted me and my mom in the front row and then settled into some pews about halfway back. There were a few people from dad’s work and a couple of his Vet brothers. My Aunt Alice and her two older sons came and sat behind us. My dad was a gruff and vulgar man, though not completely unlikeable outside his own home.

  Precisely at ten o’clock, Reverend Fox ascended to the podium to conduct the memorial service. It no doubt would be short. I had informed him that neither I nor my Mom wanted to say anything, so it was completely up to him. Perhaps it was bizarre to have a stranger give a eulogy, but it would have been insincere to have one of us try to sugarcoat my dad’s life. It was what it was; and that being true, it was better left unsaid.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today to pay our last respects to Martin J. Kinney.”

  Our only respects I thought.

  “I first would like to offer my sincere condolences to Martin’s surviving family members Mrs. Jane Kinney and Martin Jr. When Martin Jr. asked me to say a few words, I couldn’t help but think of the young Martin Kinney I knew many, many years ago. I came to this church as an assistant pastor in 1960. I was just out of seminary only twenty-one years old. Martin was ten years old at the time and faithfully came to church each week with his mother Maggie – Maggie Kinney. Maggie was a rip-roaring soul for Jesus. Her cup runneth over with enthusiasm for church if you know what I mean. She organized the Christmas pageant year after year. She taught children’s Sunday School for nearly twenty years, and she volunteered regularly in the community. The young Martin certainly followed after his mother’s fervor.”

  The Reverend was laying it on too thick for my taste. Mom sat expressionless. I could only imagine what she thought of this line of story-telling. It seemed to be the most obtuse piece of fiction in the universe – out of the mouth of a saint. How unseemly. Yet I appreciated Reverend Fox’s attempt to keep the funeral civil and respectful.

  “I remember my first Christmas here; Martin sang a solo at the Christmas pageant – The Little Drummer Boy. Actually, I was going through some of the church’s old photos, and I came across this photo of Martin singing. I’d like to give this to Martin Jr.”

  Reverend Fox stepped down from the pulpit and handed me the photo. A young Martin Kinney wore a white shirt with a bright red vest over top of it. He stood at a microphone with wide eyes and an open mouth. His light red hair was parted on the side. Mom didn’t even glance my way. I gazed at the boy – the innocent boy of another lifetime – the boy who had yet to experience Vietnam or the girl under the banana tree or the hole through Newbert’s head. He sang Little Drummer Boy; he must have just finished ‘rum-pa-pum-pum’ as someone snapped the picture. The picture engrossed me, swallowed me, overcame me. It drowned me like the B52 hole in Vietnam drowned Johnson. I felt trapped by this picture. It was much too unfair to look at it, to ponder it, and to wonder how he got from there to here. Reverend Fox’s voice slowly faded back into my consciousness.

  “… and I remember young Martin when he turned eighteen. He eagerly went down to the Butler recruiting office and signed up to serve in the army. He wanted nothing more than to be like his father, who spent several years in the Pacific during World War II. The day after Martin signed up for the army, Maggie Kinney came to the church to pray. I remember I was fixing some molding around the window, and she asked if she could pray at the altar. She said that Martin had joined the army, and she wanted to say a prayer of blessing over him. She knelt down and prayed for a while, and then came over to me and said something I’ll never forget. She told me that she knew that war was going to change Martin, but she asked God to forgive him for the mistakes that he would make. She looked at me and said, ‘Pastor, I know that God will forgive everyone who asks for forgiveness. But can he also forgive those who don’t have enough sense to ask for forgiveness?’ I didn’t know how to respond. I was still so young. Then she asked me if I would pray for Martin. I assured her that I would. I gave her my word, and I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t keep my promise very well.”

  Reverend Fox paused and wiped a stray tear from his eye. Why is he crying, I thought. It didn’t make sense. Was he shedding a tear for my dad? For lost opportunity? For admitting pastoral neglect? Then I thought of my grandmother Maggie. She loved the boy in the picture very much. How strange it felt to think this. I never knew my grandmother, and of course my dad never told me anything about her. It began to dawn on me that Vietnam changed everything about my father.

  “Well, the Vietnam era changed us all,” Reverend Fox continued. “Martin’s life drifted away from church after he returned from Vietnam. But I wouldn’t judge him too harshly. On the contrary, he’s a hero. He served our great nation with distinction and honor. He willingly went when many others tried to shirk the draft by running to Canada or burning their draft cards. God loved Martin J. Kinney, and I’m here today to ask God’s blessing on Jane and Martin Jr. as they grieve the loss of their beloved husband and father.”

  Without warning, Mom stood up abruptly, walked right up in front of the podium, pointed her finger directly at Reverend Fox and yelled, “Fornicator.”

  Complete silence. Nobody dared move an inch. Eternity elapsed within a matter of seconds. Reverend Fox stood frozen. Embarrassment would not begin to describe the depths of insanity that ran through my family. Nobody could make a scene like a Kinney. I knew my mother must be completely crazy. Without saying another word, she marched down the aisle with her heels reverberating loudly off the high ceiling. Soft whispers and murmurs added to the echoed chorus of her shoes. Everyone buzzed with excitement except me and Reverend Fox. I was angry and ashamed. It didn’t make any sense. She was out of her mind. The hum of the small crowd continued to fill the sanctuary as my mom slammed the front door and left. Reverend Fox looked distraught, but quickly gathered his thoughts and tried to reassure the crowd.

  “It’s okay, everyone. Funerals are a particularly stressful time in everyone’s life. We must not let the disruption obscure the reason for us being here – to honor Martin J. Kinney. I would like to ask Mrs. Grassley to come and play a closing hymn for us and then I’ll offer a prayer of benediction.”

  My mother accused a man of God of being a ‘fornicator’ during the middle of her husband’s funeral. I was baffled, yet not surprised. I had no desire to chase after my mother, so I stood and gave lip-service to the hymn that I had never sung before. Of course, I didn’t really know what a hymn was. For the present, it was just a filler of time between when I would leave my dad’s funeral and have to face my mother again. So in any case, I kept hoping Mrs. Grassley would play all six verses.

  To Hanoi

  Tan, my taxi driver, wouldn’t let it go.

  “Don’t put wallet in back pocket. You shouldn’t do that.”

  “I know.”

  We left Thai Nguyen as I continued to lament the fact that it was nowhere in the proximity of Tay Nguyen. I felt sick, yet hungry. The only thing I had to eat in this whirlwind of a day when I arrived in Vietnam was a bowl of noodle soup with raw pieces of beef in it, but that was well before the lake or the spilt ashes or the lost wallet or the laughing policemen. This trip had quickly turned into a disaster. I am a Kinney. What else should I have expected?

  “You still have passport, right?”

  “Yes,” I replied to the nosy driver, who as best as I could remember was my only friend in the entire world.

  “Is it in your back pocket?”

  “No!”

  “But you lost all your money? And credit card?”

  “Yes!”

  Tan befriended me in some strange way. I had paid him up front for a full day’s drive, but he must have felt sorry for me. He dragged me everywhere and told me about everything, but nothing sank in. I languished in a foreign land, constantly thinking about my dad’s last wish that I had completely messed up. I looked a
t Tan and saw a friendly guy with a wiry mustache and several black whiskers on his chin. Standing flat in his black dress shoes, he came up past my shoulder only a little – probably no more than five foot six and weighing a slim one twenty. It seemed strange to want to call a man dainty, but that description fit best. I was twice the man he was, well at least physically.

  “So what you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Okay. I help you.”

  “No, no, it’s okay.”

  “No, I help you. I have American friend.”

  “I just need to call my Mom back in America.”

  “But you have no money?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. I help you. Yes, yes. I help you. My American friend help you. You know, my father soldier too. He fight many Americans – kill many Americans – cause Vietnam don’t like when America makes colony in Vietnam.”

  I tried to ignore him.

  “We fight Chinese – make them leave many times. We fight French. Make them leave. Then Americans. We fight Americans make them leave. But don’t worry. I love Americans. I have American friend. I take you there.”

  As my driver droned on about Vietnam’s past, I couldn’t help but picture the wind carrying my dad’s ashes all over the heart of communist Vietnam. What a way to honor him! But, in fact, I was not honoring him. Not really. What was I actually doing here? Why was I so eager to fulfill this request? If dad had told me his story about the girl and Newbert and Johnson in his will, would I have jumped at the chance? Hardly. His voice. The sound of his voice enticed me, brought me close, and gave me a glimpse of how it might have been between us.

  We had been driving for nearly an hour and a half when we finally glimpsed Hanoi from the top of a bridge over a river.

  “This is Song Hong, Red River. And we go over Thang Long Bridge. Built by Russians. You know, America bomb us, but Russia build us bridge. But okay, I like Americans. In the past, I had to study Russian at form two. I hate studying Russian. Nobody wants to speak Russian. Everyone wants to speak English.”

  At least I had a friend.

  “This bridge – Thang Long Bridge. You know what it means? Ascending Dragon Bridge. Long time ago, Hanoi not called Hanoi. It called Thang Long. Ascending Dragon. You know why?”

  I frankly didn’t care why.

  “Why?”

  “Because Vietnam emperor travelled along Red River and suddenly a mighty dragon comes out of the river and flies into the sky. So he called this place ‘Ascending Dragon’ and he made this his new capital. Now almost one thousand years, Hanoi be capital of Vietnam.”

  The river looked muddy – muddy like a flooded B52 hole in a rice paddy. How anything good could rise out of such a filthy, muddy stretch of water I would never know.

  We weaved through the chaotic streets of Hanoi with our taxi often being a stranded, motionless island surrounded by a constant stream of motorbikes, which flowed haphazardly on all sides. I missed my Lyndora streets. Tan continued his lecture on the historical significance of every intersection and building and temple that we passed. After another twenty minutes, we pulled over in front of a large complex of buildings fronted by a massive metal gate.

  “My friend here. Foreign Language University. He teaches English. Come. He help you.”

  I got out of the taxi and walked behind Tan up to the guard house. Tan spoke quickly to the guard who barked out some instructions and let us in. We walked past two four story, mustard yellow classroom blocks which had open windows with wood shutters tied back. Tan taught me all about the Vietnamese education system, but my mind didn’t wander far from the banana trees or the crowded festival with the girl in white.

  “He’s right here.”

  We walked up to a modest looking two story cement guest house painted yellow. Everything seemed to be painted mustard yellow in this country. Tan knocked on the first wooden door and after a few seconds a young, trim, white American peaked out with an eager smile.

  “Tan. How are you doing? I haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “Hello Mr. Jason. I’d like you to meet another American.”

  “Hi,” Jason reached out to shake my hand.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m Martin.”

  “Hi, Martin. Good to see you.”

  “Martin had his wallet stolen in Thai Nguyen. Now he has no money. He had it in his back pocket. I told him he shouldn’t keep it there.”

  “I’m sorry to trouble you,” I said feeling quite embarrassed. “Tan insisted that we come to visit you.”

  “Oh yeah, no problem, man. Come on in. What can I do to help? That really stinks. You do have to be careful around here. Lots of thievery. I used to have this large plant outside, and one morning I came out and someone had climbed over the gate and tried to steal the whole plant. But it must have been too heavy, so they dug out the plant instead and left a big hole in the pot’s dirt. Whatever is not nailed down will be stolen around here.”

  He paused. I tried to look sympathetic, but I hoped he saw a difference in significance between losing my wallet and a kidnapped plant.

  “Yes,” Tan agreed. “Lots of young people using drugs. They need drug money. It’s terrible.”

  “How can I help you Martin?” Jason asked.

  “Is there any way that I could call America? I need to get in contact with my mom so she can wire me some money.”

  “Oh, sure. I can set you up on my computer.”

  “I don’t want to trouble you.”

  “No, no trouble at all. It’s dirt cheap. Come on in.”

  Within minutes I was sitting on the edge of his bed looking at a laptop computer screen which sat on the coffee table in front of me. Jason assumed at first that I knew what I was doing, which I didn’t. He soon caught on that I was computer illiterate and helped me type in my phone number, put on the headset, and told me to wait for someone to answer.

  “It’s ringing,” I said.

  Tan and Jason went over to a small couch and sat down. Jason started cutting some bright purple tropical fruit as they chatted.

  “Hello,” mom answered.

  “Mom, it’s Martin.”

  “Martin, where are you calling from? It’s six in the morning.”

  “Mom, I’m still in Vietnam. I need some help.”

  “What did you do? You get lost? Do you even know where you are? And what exactly are you doing there anyway?”

  “Mom, listen. My wallet was stolen.”

  “Martin, you imbecile. Why did you have to run off across the ocean anyhow? You are such a fool.”

  “Mom, can you just listen? I need you to wire some money to me.”

  “You go against my wishes and have your father cremated, then you betray me by having his funeral in a church, then you run off around the world spending what little money your father left on some crazy scheme you dreamed up. You do all that without considering my feelings once, but now you have a problem and come running home to Mom. I’m tired of it Martin. You want to be grown up? You want to do things your own way? Well do it! I’m not sending you anything. You can figure it out yourself if you are so smart.”

  “Mom-“

  She hung up. I sat quietly for a moment until I realized that Jason had walked over behind the computer.

  “Hey, I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s just… my mother. It’s complicated.”

  “Let me help you.”

  “No. It’s okay. I appreciate you allowing me to make the call.”

  “No really. I want to help. What do you need? You still have your passport, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how long are you staying?”

  “I fly out the day after tomorrow.”

  “So you need a place to stay for two nights, some food, money for airport tax, and transport to airport.”

  “Yes, but,” I tried to stop him but he continued to overwhelm me with hospitality.

  “No I insist. You can stay
here if you don’t mind sleeping on the couch. Food is not a problem, and I am happy to give you some cash for the airport.”

  “That is really kind of you, but,”

  “And don’t worry about airport. I can take you. I go out there every morning looking for passengers,” Tan added.

  Their kindness overwhelmed me. I was a complete stranger with nothing to offer them, yet they willingly offered everything to me while my own mother turned me away in ridicule.

  “Thank you. Thank you.”

  Perhaps I would make it home after all.

  Reverend Fox

  Reverend Fox bit his upper lip, then motioned for me to sit down on the leather couch in his study. He was reluctant to speak, but I could tell he wanted to answer my question if only the right words would come.

  On the Monday after the funeral, I felt very unsettled about what had transpired. Mom hadn’t spoken a word to me since she stormed out of the church after saying that inflammatory word. It didn’t make sense, so I decided to visit Reverend Fox to see if he could enlighten me. I also wanted to thank him for his kind gestures during the funeral. In fact, my mother’s blow-up was the only hitch of the entire funeral service. Not bad at all.

  And so I sat staring back, waiting for a reply from Reverend Fox. He must have been in his early seventies, and he had a very kind, sincere face.

  “Martin, some things in life can never be erased, at least not completely. They can’t be undone, and they can never be forgotten. However, they also aren’t meant to cripple you. They aren’t meant to hold you back or stop you from moving forward. And so as you grow and change and hopefully learn some lessons along the way, you become a better person who isn’t quite as likely to make the same mistakes you did as a youth. That’s the theory at least. And while I believe all of what I said is true, sometimes the pain you have caused – even long ago – is still there.”