Memorial Day

by Paul Scott Malone

  "Yessir. Thank you."

  "And we got plans for you, Dal. You know that don't you?"

  Dalrymple almost shook his head but then nodded. And for an instant his heart lifted with the thought that perhaps Mr. Darnell knew of some way to get him out of this fix too; perhaps he knew somebody on the draft board, or a Congressman or somebody, somebody who would see the absurdity of sending a man like Dalrymple, a man with a future, to a deathtrap like Vietnam. But Mr. Darnell said nothing about that.

  "I've figured two years, Dal, three maybe, here on the floor and then a couple of years as an assistant manager somewhere, and then we'd find a store to put you in. As manager, I mean. Your own store. Can you see it, Dal, can you imagine it?"

  "Oh, yessir, I sure can. It'd be fine."

  "You bet it would. It's what you work for, Dal. It's what all this adds up to. And it's a good life. The money's only part of it. It's the other that's important, the other, you see. The respect from people, the honor of it. They look up to you, you make a difference. It's a responsibility, you see, and we're very careful about who we select. Do you hear me, Dal?"

  "Oh, yessir, I sure do."

  "I know you do, Dal, I know you do. It's where you belong, Dal, it's where you belong. It's what God intends for you, Dal. I can see it. I know. Do you hear me, Dal? Are you listening?"

  "Oh, yessir, I sure do, I sure am."

  "I know you do, Dal, I know you do. 'Cause you're a smart boy, Dal, the kind of man we need for the future. We need leaders, Dal, we need men who've been tested by fire, who've shown their mettle, who can hold up to what's ahead, men we can trust. We need captains, Dal, strong men at the bridge. Do you hear me?"

  "Yessir."

  "Are you listening, Dal?"

  "Yessir."

  Mr. Darnell nodded his head and went silent for a moment as if caught up in the emotion of his rhetoric, and Dalrymple found himself leaning forward, waiting.

  "Now, this business with your wife. . . ."

  "Angie."

  "That's right. And that little old bit of trouble you had with the police last year these are unfortunate, very unfortunate, Dal. Drinking and womanizing, Dal, these things can lead to a man's downfall, bring a captain right off his bridge."

  "It wasn't me, Mr. Darnell, it was her."

  "Yeah well . . . what's the point of nitpicking, Dal? It's the idea of it, the idea of it in a marriage that'll ruin a man, Dal. It's the same with boozing behind the wheel of a car, son, you just don't do it, you see, you just don't."

  "Yessir."

  "Now, these things were unfortunate, Dal, very unfortunate, but cripes if you can't make your mistakes when you're young, I mean, when can you make 'em. We understand this. We're modern people and we're willing to let it go. It's water under the bridge. It's the past. And now you got to look to the future."

  "I sure will, Mr. Darnell."

  "I know you will, Dal.

  "I sure will "

  "Now, Dal . . . ?" He paused for a long moment.

  "Yessir?"

  "Dal, I know there's a lot of talk about this war over there and let's be frank, it's a war and I know a lot of people are against it. To be perfectly honest I have my own doubts but that's neither here nor there. The thing is, Dal, the thing is, you've been called. Your country needs you, Dal, and it's an honor to serve. You know all of that, I'm not going to go into it, the duty and all that, 'cause you're a good man, Dal, a man who knows his responsibilities. I believe that, Dal. It's unfortunate, I'll hate to lose you by gosh, even for two years, but when the country calls we expect our men to serve."

  Dalrymple blinked his eyes and nodded his head.

  "It's what we expect, Dal, it's what we expect."

  "Yessir."

  "Now, Dal . . . ?"

  "Yessir?"

  "Now, Dal, I know there's a lot of young men, these draft dodgers and card burners and what have you, there's a lot of 'em don't see it that way. They think they're smart, you see. They think there's something wrong with serving, they think they're above it all, they think the communists ought to win this thing. They run off to Canada or some such place and hide out. They abandon their own country in its time of need. I know you know all about it, Dal, and I won't go into it but listen to me, Dal.

  "Are you listening?"

  "Oh yessir."

  "Listen, Dal. Listen. These guys are scum, Dal. They're traitors, they're defectors, they're like spies, that's what they are. You know what I mean? They're just like spies. They ought to be rounded up and shot. Disagreeing's one thing that's dissent, and it's healthy, I guess, protesting it's called, but you know all that defecting's another. It's wrong, Dal, it's wrong. It's a crime, it's a sin just like adultery, just like thieving. It's a sin, it's wrong. It leads to hell, Dal, do you hear me?"

  "Yessir."

  "Are you listening?"

  "Yessir."

  "Now, Dal . . . ?"

  Dalrymple leaned forward to listen. His palms were moist, his armpits, his forehead; his heart beat loudly.

  "Now, Dal, I don't want to hear of you getting involved in anything like that. You know what I mean? I don't want to hear of it. 'Cause once you get started it's just like dope, you can't stop. It'll take you over. And the next thing we'll hear is that you're up in Canada living on an iceberg or something, living with the polar bears or the Eskimos."

  He tried to grin over his joke.

  "Now, Dal, what we got here, down here in Texas . . . well it's like Paradise, you could say. It's like Eden, you could say. The weather, the land, the bounty of the sea, the rich oil under the ground and . . . and . . . and the people, Dal, the people by God. The best in the world. It's like Paradise and why anybody would want to leave it, why . . . well I'll never know. But sometimes we got to, Dal, sometimes the country calls us. Sometimes the troubles of the world are just bigger than we are and more important and they call out, Dal. They call out. 'We need you, Dal,' they say. 'We need you.' And we expect our men to serve, Dal. Do you hear me? Are you listening?"

  Dalrymple nodded his head gravely.

  "Of course you are, Dal. 'cause you're a smart boy, Dal, a man who knows where his duty lies. I want you to know how proud I am of you, son. And I want you to know something else, Dal. When it's over, when you're out, when you've done your duty, as I know you will, this job'll be waiting for you, this job and then everything else we talked about. We'll welcome you back with open arms. We'll kill the fatted calf. We'll make you a manager, Dal."

  The Old Man paused, waiting for something from Dalrymple who, after a long moment, nodded and smiled halfheartedly.

  "Don't mention it, Dal."

  "Thank you, Mr. Darnell."

  The Old Man's pleasant face took on a self-satisfied look, and he sat forward in his seat. It was nearing its conclusion now; he had said what he had to say, it was well after five o'clock and he wanted to be finished, he wanted to be gone.

  "When do you leave, Dal?"

  "Don't know, Mr. Darnell."

  He nodded his head and sat quietly for a moment, deep in thought, the benevolent god spent. He took a deep breath.

  "I hope this helped you, Dal. I hope it made things easier for you. We're like a family around here, Dal. We take care of our own and I just wanted you to know that we'll take care of you too when the time comes. You go, you do your job, you come home . . . and then the sky's the limit. You hear me, Dal?"

  "Yessir I sure do."

  There was another moment of silence, punctuated by a long sigh on both sides, and then without warning the Old Man stood. Dalrymple followed his lead. Mr. Darnell smiled in a fatherly way and put out his hand to be shaken. Again he pulled Dalrymple up close; he draped his arm across the younger man's shoulders, looked right into his face as if to seal a pact and then led him away through the groupings of living room furniture toward the center aisle. The ceiling lights at the back of the store had already been turned out. It was a gray and gloomy place now, full of shadows and uncertainty, though up a
t the front wall the TVs were still flashing: the evening news now, the forty faces of Walter Cronkite then forty scenes of hot and bloody combat, napalm exploding in thrilling orange balls above the other-worldly green of Vietnam, frightened faces screaming, the chaos and smashed concrete of steamy Saigon, the press conferences at the Pentagon, the release of body counts . . . the same old stuff. It was all so familiar to them by then that it was like a forgotten backdrop on the cafeteria stage from last year's school play.

  The office girls were filing out the front, where McCleary had posted himself to lock up behind them, and Mr. Darnell led Dalrymple in that direction. McCleary was waiting. He smiled sadly at Dalrymple and smiled brightly at Mr. Darnell. McCleary and the Old Man exchanged a few words as he was passing out, and then he stopped and turned. He said, "Dal?"

  "Yessir?"

  "You take care of yourself, son."

  "I will, Mr. Darnell."

  "I know you will, Dal."

  Dalrymple and McCleary waited and watched through the glass as the Old Man paused for a moment on the broad expanse of sidewalk out front of the store. He looked up at the still-hot summer sky, still bright. He looked at the parking lot, a narrow burning shimmering hellish sea of black asphalt and baking automobiles two rows deep. From a pocket he took a pair of sunglasses and put them on and then lifted his gaze to the sky again. He stood perfectly still in the dark shadow of the awning, the only hint of oncoming evening, his hands in his pockets rattling his keys and his change. From the back he looked pensive and kindly and large, a thoughtful man, a conscientious leader burdened with awful responsibilities, one of which he could now put out of his mind. They kept watching as he unlocked his white Lincoln and eased himself inside. Everything he did he did with careful majesty. He backed off from the curb, paused as a Ford pickup passed by and then he put the car in motion. The Lincoln moved through the parking lot with the elegant lumbering grace of a great yacht departing a harbor crowded with lesser craft.

  McCleary gave Dalrymple a sideways glance. "Was it rough?"

  "Naw. Not too rough," said Dalrymple with a strange kind of vengeful bluster. "What's it matter anyway?"

  4

  Dalrymple was living with his parents again at that time, and when he told them about it that evening they showed that absurd kind of parental concern, exaggerated and shocked, which always made him regret telling them anything. They asked him dozens of questions, sought all the particulars, none of which he knew.

  "What, you think I work in the defense department or something?" he said. "All's I know is I'm gonna be drafted. Next week, next month, next year, I don't know."

  His father kept grabbing his head or shaking it in perplexity and his mother asked, "Can't you get a deferment, Clydie?"

  "Ah, Mom! I'm way past that now."

  The three of them stared at each other as if the Spirit of Grim Fortune had just swept through the Dalrymple kitchen and touched them all with the spiky finger of mystery. Why us? Why?

  Then his mother wept; she took him by the arm and forced him to kneel with her on the kitchen floor for a prayer. On his knees, trying for a little dignity, hoping it wasn't flattening the creases in his pants, Dalrymple stared at the nasty gash in the cupboard door where, years ago during an argument over something he couldn't remember, his father had tried to kick it in. The scar was like a leering smile on the face of an amused god as he watched this little scene. His mother prayed for guidance and deliverance and honor and justice and mercy. She asked what they they! had done wrong to deserve this. She prayed for strength and wisdom on the part of her youngest, who hadn't shown much wisdom in his life thus far. It was all embarrassing and Dalrymple later wished his father hadn't been there to see it.

  When it was over, once Dalrymple had jumped up and started brushing off his clothes, his father asked just what Ripley had asked: "So, what are you gonna do?"

  By then he had at least come up with an answer: "I don't know, just don't know."

  "Well listen, don't do anything stupid that you'll regret later, like that business with Angie. Think it through, son."

  They gazed at each other in cruel misunderstanding before Dalrymple muttered something under his hot foul smoker's breath that ended with, "What the hell do you know about it?"

  His mother said, "Dal, your language."

  "Ah, Mom!" But she'd never understand.

  "Use your head, son. That's all I'm saying. This is one responsibility you can't shirk. Be a man, now."

  It was all so expected! Why had he mentioned it?

  He escaped; he went to his room at the front of the house, small like a closet and cluttered with the junk of his childhood and his few manly possessions a Browning over and under, his collection of pocket knives, the keys to his Camaro, a few magazines and books. He dropped onto his narrow bed to think. In a moment he was up again. He hurried out and down the hall to the bathroom with its faint odor of potpourri and with a good loud gag of relief he deposited his afternoon snack of a Snicker's bar in the toilet. His mother knocked and asked if he was okay.

  He said, "Yes fine," and she shuffled away down the hall.

  Back in his room he stripped off his sport coat, his light summer slacks, released his neck from the grip of his paisley tie and hung it all neatly on the back of his desk chair. At the front window he looked out and saw his father watering the young pine trees he had recently planted in the yard. He held the hose as he would hold a snake, his thumb over the hole forcing a spray like a silvery fan from the snake's mouth. Still dressed in his suit pants and white shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, he stood rigid with one foot extended a bit for balance, and he gazed steadily at the base of the slender tree trunk. What was he thinking about? This was a habit of his father, this watering, a ritual, and he did it every evening whether the plants needed it or not. It was a kind of meditation, Dalrymple believed, a putting away of the day, a chance to relax. His father glanced up, saw Dalrymple standing almost naked at the window. He seemed to frown but then glanced away as if he hadn't recognized his own son and didn't want to make eye contact with a stranger. His hair, graying but still thick, caught some of the remaining rays of the sun and glowed sternly for a moment.

  "You wish I'd go away, don't you, Dad," said Dalrymple.

  He lay on the bed then in nothing but his underwear and socks as the air conditioner hummed in the side window and the gentle evening shadows slowly darkened the room. He had a lot to think about and he was confused. When his mother, standing outside his door, called him for dinner, he called back, without moving, "I'm not hungry." After a moment she shuffled away.

  There was always Canada. It was an option, something to think about. Clyde Dalrymple was anything but a radical; he was more an agnostic when it came to the war and to politics in general. He had never burned his draft card, never participated in a protest march, and because his parents were such adamant Republicans, such believers, he even assumed that Richard Nixon was a great statesman. He'd never really thought about it; he'd never voted, wasn't old enough and didn't much care. He was a patriot, sure, a good American, and from his perspective the country just seemed to run itself as if by perpetual motion, as if it were some fabulous machine that would chug along forever with the infinite precision and the breathtaking power and the illimitable sources of renewal of a great and unconquerable star.

  It was America, after all, the USofA and if as so many seemed to think it was being threatened by the communists then, sure, somebody ought to go do something about it; they ought to kick some butt. But hell . . . they'd been trying to do something about it for ten ever-loving years already and see where it had gotten them. A mess. A massacre. It was lost.

  No. He didn't want to go to the war, he didn't care to fight anybody and he certainly didn't want to die. He didn't want to be a mop in the mopping-up process; he didn't want to be lost in a lost cause. It had nothing to do with courage, he told himself; he was certain of it. He was certain that if he had to go, if he foun
d himself there, in country, carrying a weapon and humping it and fighting for his life, he would comport himself with enough dignity and guts and good sense to avoid at least the horrors of disgrace. It was in his blood; his dad had gone to his war and his Uncle John to his and to hear them talk they were better men for it. But this was different; this was Vietnam; this was a shoddy gray area in the morals of humanity. Isn't that what all those protesters were saying?

  No. He didn't want to go, he wouldn't go, he told himself a thousand times in the weeks that followed. He'd be lying in his bed at night, the clock radio whispering beside him, his parents asleep in their room down the hall, or he'd be driving his car on the steamy freeways of Houston, talking to himself out loud as if there were two of him there in the car . . . and it would suddenly come to him: a decision. "I ain't going," he'd mutter to the quiet ceiling of his room or shout to the waiting watching world out there in the city. "Goddamnit I ain't going. By God I got things to do, places to go, people to see. I ain't got time for soldiering, for killing, for dying. I got a future."

  School for instance; he was hoping at last to get started that fall at the junior college downtown. Some night courses. Get the basics out of the way before transferring out to the university next year. And there was . . . well just some living to get done too. Now that he and Angie had ripped the blanket he had dreams of fair women and nights on the town. If not this town, if not Houston, then some other town, Toronto or Montreal, such grand cities, he'd heard. They were in Canada, weren't they?

  So there was always Canada. But what then? He didn't want to be a Canadian for the rest of his life. He was a Texan, by God, a child of Paradise as Mr. Darnell had put it, and he couldn't fathom the idea of never seeing it again. Of never again seeing the Gulf or hearing its peculiar sluggish roar, of never seeing the Hill Country in springtime with its fields of bluebonnets, never again smelling the sweet, dry desert air out west. And what about his family; what about his son? (Why had they named him Josh? He regretted it now. Why not Sam or Bill or Charlie?) When he grew up what would Josh think of his father, the Canadian?