Beach Music

by Pat Conroy

  Two days later, on December 27, 1985, I could feel no change in the barometric pressure as I paid the taxi driver who helped me unload the luggage at the Rome airport. As far as I could tell, no star shifted a single magnitude of candlepower as Lucy, Leah, and I entered through the middle door, past the armed carabinieri, and made our way to the Pan Am check-in booth. Nothing was different on this trip than on any of the other thousand I had taken in a lifetime of send-offs and journeys.

  I do not remember handing in all the tickets and passports at the Pan Am check-in place nor do I remember looking at my new watch to tell my mother it was two minutes after nine o’clock. We had ten pieces of luggage among us and the ticket man and I had a brief skirmish about whether I should pay for extra baggage. Across from Pan Am, an El Al flight was taking off at the same time and an enormous crowd jostled against each other as they moved through the security checkpoint that led to the flight gates. Above us, armed guards patrolled a steel runway with machine guns and the bored, disinterested faces of guards were everywhere. Leah would reconstruct all of this much later.

  I took our boarding passes and looked over toward the gates when I saw four strangely dressed men walking toward us. Two wore elegant gray suits, two were dressed in blue jeans, and all wore scarves that partially concealed their faces. The men began opening duffel bags they carried and one of them pulled the pin of a grenade and tossed it. Then all four men pulled out machine guns and in a blind, heedless fury turned their deadly fire on those in the eight-hundred-twenty-foot-long terminal. I reached for Leah and threw her over the ticket counter on top of the man who’d just issued our boarding passes. “Stay down, Leah,” I screamed and I then moved toward my frightened, disoriented mother who had drifted out toward the center as security forces began returning a murderous fire and Italian guards closed in fast on the four Palestinian terrorists who were there to kill as many people as possible before being cut down themselves.

  Lucy was standing straight up, openmouthed, when I reached her and tackled her and lay my body on top of hers. It was then that I felt two bullets from an AK-47 automatic rifle, one to my head and one to my shoulder. I heard my mother scream once, then I was overwhelmed by the pandemonium of gunfire and grenades exploding near us and the screaming of those unharmed but paralyzed with terror. “Are you okay, Mama? You okay?” I asked as I watched blood spotting her winter coat; then I lost consciousness. A man and a woman lying beside us were dead.

  What I tell you next I learned later.

  When the shooting stopped, sixteen people lay dead and seventy-four wounded and the airport looked like a sheep’s abattoir. Leah rushed from body to body in a desperate search for her father and grandmother. My great weight had pinned my mother to the floor and Leah had to enlist the aid of an El Al attendant to roll me off her. I would not regain consciousness for three days. Blood covered my head and eyes and Leah began screaming when she thought I had died. But this would be the day she would learn about the strength of grandmothers.

  “Jack’s still breathing. He’s alive. Let’s make sure we get him on one of those first ambulances. We’re gonna need your Italian, darling,” my mother said.

  Leah and Lucy raced toward the main door as the sounds of ambulances lifted all over Rome and they streaked along with camera crews and journalists toward Fiumicino. When the first ambulance team burst into the stricken airport Leah began screaming, “Mio papà, Mio papà, Non è morto. Sangue, signori, il sangue è terribile. Per favore, mio papà, signori.”

  The two men followed the pretty young child they thought was Italian and I was the first one taken out of the airport and into an ambulance and the first victim to appear on Italian television as a camera crew began filming. My head and upper torso were covered in blood and Lucy’s winter coat looked like it had been dipped in the blood of her son as she held on to me. It was an image that was being broadcast all over Italy.

  At that very moment Jordan Elliott was coming out of the class he taught on the limits of dogma at the North American College, near the Trevi Fountain. As he entered the teachers’ lounge, he saw a cluster of his brother priests huddled around a television set.

  “There’s been a massacre at the Rome airport,” Father Regis, a Latin scholar, said. “It looks very bad.”

  “They’re bringing someone out now,” another voice said.

  Jordan did not recognize me because of the blood, but he cried out when he saw Leah and Lucy hurrying to keep pace with the stretcher-bearers. In a daze, he heard the announcer report the location of the hospital near the Vatican where surgeons were already gathering from all over Rome to receive the wounded. Jordan sprinted out of the room without explanation in a headlong dash to a taxi stand. He had been right halfback in the same backfield at Waterford High where I had played fullback, Mike Hess had been the left half, and Capers Middleton had called signals at quarterback. It was well known around the state in 1965 as the Middleton backfield and when the team needed short yardage they went to their huge, pug-nosed fullback, me. But when they needed the long yardage, they went to their big-play back, the one who could turn it upfield, the guy who ran the hundred in ten flat, the swift and elusive Jordan Elliott. No Roman who passed Jordan as he raced toward the taxi stand in the Piazza Venezia ever forgot the speed of that priest, or at least that is what he told me. When he reached the first waiting taxi he jumped in the front seat screaming, “Al pronto soccorso. All’ospedale. Al pronto soccorso.”

  When they unloaded me at Santo Spirito Hospital, Jordan was waiting for us.

  “Go to the waiting room, Leah and Lucy,” he commanded. “I’ll meet you down there later. Trust in the Lord.”

  As the stretcher-bearers began their long run toward the clear hallways, Father Jordan ran beside me making the sign of the cross and giving me the short form of absolution used only in cases of extraordinary urgency. He said it in Latin because he knew I was one of those irritating fallen-away Catholics who retained a strong nostalgia for the Latin service.

  “Ego te absolvo ab omnibus censuris, et peccatis, in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.”

  This performance of Extreme Unction led off the evening news in Italy. As Jordan began making the sign of the cross over my two grievous wounds, he said while holding one of my hands, “If you are sorry for all your sins, please squeeze my hand if you can hear me, Jack.” There was a small pressure from me, he said later, and Jordan went on, “You are absolved of all your sins, Jack. Go into this operation with no fear for your soul. But remember who you are, Jack. You’re Jack McCall from Waterford, South Carolina, the strongest man or boy I ever knew. Use the strength now, Jack. Use every ounce of it. Fight this thing with everything you’ve got. Leah, your mom, and I are waiting for you. Use your strength for us. Fight this one for us. The ones that love you, need you.”

  The door burst open into the brightly lit operating room, but before they took me away, he said, I squeezed his hand one more time and this time harder.

  “Into God’s hands I commend you, Jack McCall,” said Jordan, making a final sign of the cross at the door where the surgeons began to work on the two bullet wounds.

  Much later, when I began to piece together the fragments of any memory I had of the incident, I remembered some of the wild ride from the airport into Rome. Leah was crying and saying, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,” over and over again and I tried to reach out for her, but a sleeping numbness spread through me like a drug and there was silence and darkness again. The next thing I remember is the ambulance taking a corner fast and Lucy shouting to the driver, “Slow down,” and the heartbreaking sound again of Leah crying and my frustration at not being able to comfort her.

  I was in the operating room for six hours. The surgeons managed to save my left eye. The bullet that entered my shoulder lodged near the lung and that was the bullet that almost killed me. I had already bled profusely when I reached the operating room table and my heart stopped twice during the course of the operation. But the
strength that Jordan talked about prevailed and I, because of fate and luck and perhaps because of the prayers of those who loved me, survived the airport massacre in Rome.

  For six days, mirroring my mother’s own recent stillness, I lay in a coma. Later, I could resurrect no dreams from that period of dormancy and stillness. Though I had some sense that it had been a time of vivid, transfiguring dreaming, nothing of it remained that I could hold on to, except a phantasmagoria of bright colors. The assault of colors was the only thing I brought back from my voyage in timelessness as my body concentrated on its task of survival.

  Finally, I awoke slowly to bells. It was as though I was rising like a bird from a cavern in the center of the earth. I could feel that thing called “self” reconstructing in my bloodstream while I formed my first conscious thought since being wounded. I listened to the Eternal City call out my name. For an hour, I listened and wondered where I was and why I could not see. But this was all done calmly and without panic. Then I heard voices talking quietly in the room around me. I concentrated hard on recognizing the voices, but they were low-pitched so as not to bother or awake me. Then I heard one voice and that voice made me struggle to recover my own from wherever it had gone to hide. For another hour, I concentrated on coming to the surface, coming out to the light, to the world of bells and voices, to that world abandoned where I could laugh and talk. For a long time I thought about the first word I would say and struggled fiercely to say it in my blindness and in the pain I was beginning to feel for the first time. Finally, I heard the word forming like a gemstone in my chest. “Leah!”

  “Daddy,” I heard Leah scream back, then I felt my child kissing the side of my face that was not covered with bandages.

  “Daddy, thank God, Daddy, thank God, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,” Leah said over and over again. “I was so afraid you were going to die, Daddy.”

  “No such luck,” I said slowly and the full measure of my disorientation was becoming clear to me.

  “Hello, Jack,” Lucy said to me. “Welcome back. You’ve been gone a long time.”

  “Did we catch that plane?” I asked, and the whole room exploded into laughter.

  “Don’t you remember, Daddy?” Leah said.

  “Help me,” I said. “First, why can’t I see any of you?”

  “Your eyes are bandaged,” Lucy said.

  “Am I blind?” I asked.

  “You almost were,” my mother said.

  “Nice word ‘almost,’ ” I said. “I feel like I’ve been run over by a rhinoceros.”

  “You were shot twice,” a third voice said.

  “Who else is here? Ledare, is that you?” I said, lifting an arm up toward her.

  Ledare took my hand and sat beside me. “Hey, Jack, I came as soon as I heard.”

  “Ledare, that’s so nice,” I said.

  “Leah hasn’t left your side once,” Ledare said. “Your mother and I have taken turns going to your apartment to get some rest and clean up. Leah’s been here the whole time. What an extraordinary child you’ve raised, Jack.”

  With those words of praise, Leah broke down and wept as hard as it was possible for a child to weep. Ledare moved off the bed and Leah crawled up against me. She cried for ten minutes and I let her cry and did nothing to stop it but pressed her tightly to me. I let the sobs run down and the tears dry and I did not speak until she lay silent beside me.

  “Want me to tell you a story?” I asked.

  “Yes, Daddy. Tell me a great story,” Leah said, exhausted.

  “I only know one great subject,” I said.

  “The Great Dog Chippie,” Leah said, brightening. “Did you know the Great Dog Chippie, Ledare?”

  “Yes,” Ledare laughed. “I knew Chippie.”

  “She was a mutt, for God’s sake,” Lucy said, but I pointed a warning finger at her.

  “I want to hear a Great Dog Chippie story, Daddy,” Leah said.

  “You’ve got to pick the subject,” I said.

  “Okay,” Leah said, and she grew curiously quiet and thoughtful. Then she said, “I know the story I want to hear.”

  “You’ve got to tell me,” I said, puzzled.

  “You may not want to tell it, Daddy,” Leah said.

  “I’ll tell anything,” I said. “It’s only a story.”

  Leah began crying again, then got control of herself and said, “I want to hear about the Great Dog Chippie and the Rome airport.”

  “That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard of,” Lucy said.

  But Leah was crying again and I said, “No, Mama. I know what Leah’s after.”

  “I just think it’s nonsense to dredge up bad memories,” Lucy said. “We’ve all been through enough. I’m so upset I forgot I had leukemia with the commotion and all.”

  “Listen, Lucy,” I heard Ledare say as I began my story.

  “On December 27, 1985, Jack McCall and his lovely daughter, Leah, were packing for their trip to South Carolina. Jack’s wicked mother, Lucy, was bawling out the maid, Maria, in English even though Maria only could speak Italian.”

  “I resent that,” Lucy muttered.

  “It’s only a story, Mama,” I said, then continued. “All of Leah’s friends from school had come to wish her a buon viaggio! and they lined up along the piazza singing to Leah as her taxi pulled away into the Rome traffic. I heard something I hadn’t heard for years. It was a familiar bark and I looked behind me and saw a small black dog with a white cross on its throat running after the cab …”

  “It’s the Great Dog Chippie,” Leah said.

  “I thought Chippie was dead because she’d disappeared years before in Waterford and my mother, the evil-hearted Lucy, told me that Chippie had gone off in the woods to die.”

  “I used to have to feed that dumb dog,” Lucy protested.

  “Every story needs a villain,” I explained.

  “Believe me,” Lucy said, “this story’s gonna have some.”

  “I told the cabdriver to stop and then opened the back door. The Great Dog Chippie jumped into the back of the cab and licked me on the face for a full five minutes. Then I introduced the Great Dog Chippie to the Great Girl Leah and Chippie licked her face for the next five minutes. Then Chippie saw Lucy and the hair on the back of her spine bristled and the Great Dog went ‘Gggg-rrrr.’ ”

  “I’ll admit that ratty dog didn’t like me,” Lucy said, “but she sure warmed up to me at mealtime.”

  “Why didn’t she like you, Grandma?” Leah asked.

  “I used to wop her on the butt with a broom when I caught her sleeping on the couch,” said Lucy. “Of course, that was about five times a day. You couldn’t teach that dog doodly.”

  “The Great Dog Chippie was too busy performing heroic acts to learn silly animal tricks. So Chippie rode with us all the way to the Rome airport and I made plans to buy a special cage, so that we could bring the Great Dog Chippie back to South Carolina with us. The taxi pulled up to the main entrance and Leah, the Great Dog Chippie, and the wicked Lucy walked happily with me into the terminal. The first person they saw was Natasha Jones, with her wonderful white dog, Bianco. Leah went over to introduce the Great Dog Chippie to Bianco and it was decided that the two dogs would share the same cage for the trip back to the States …”

  I sensed the room tense and I didn’t know why until I heard Ledare say, “Natasha Jones was killed during the massacre, Jack. Her father and brother were wounded.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I said. “I don’t even remember seeing Natasha and her parents that day.”

  “I didn’t go to her funeral because I wanted to be with you, Daddy,” Leah said, her voice fragile.

  “You did right, Leah,” I said. “I needed you more than Natasha did. Could someone tell me what happened? I’m going to need some help if I’m going to finish this Great Dog Chippie story. I don’t remember another thing. Nothing.”

  Ledare began talking because she saw that neither Lucy nor Leah could speak. “Four gunmen entered the airp
ort with their weapons concealed. They carried thirteen hand grenades and four AK-47 automatic rifles. You were at the ticket counter when the shooting broke out,” Ledare continued. “You picked Leah up and threw her behind the counter where she lay flat on the ground until the shooting stopped. Then you ran and knocked your mother to the ground and shielded her from the bullets. That’s when you were hit. Once in the head just above the left eye. The bullet missed the brain by a centimeter. Once in the shoulder that lodged in your chest, piercing the left lung.”

  “I don’t remember a single thing that happened,” I said.

  “A man in Málaga, Spain, called up a radio station and took credit for the airport attacks for the Abu Nidal Group and the PLO. There was another massacre in Vienna at the same time. Can you imagine the nerve?” Lucy said.

  “Long live Israel,” I said. “Okay. Let’s get back to the story. As Chippie was getting to know Bianco, the Great Dog’s eye started roving around the airport. Chippie had an amazing ability to judge people’s characters just by looking at them. It was an instinct that Chippie was born with. Just like bird dogs have an incredible sense of smell, Chippie had a great sense of sniffing out good from evil. She looked around and saw happy people getting ready to take wonderful trips, until her eyes rested on four men she didn’t like. In fact, we can be brutally honest and say the Great Dog Chippie didn’t like these four losers at all.”