The Train of Small Mercies

by David Rowell

  “War tends to change you a little bit. Look at the great change I got.”

  Roy looked at Jamie’s leg—or at what wasn’t there. Jamie was wearing a pair of khaki shorts, and the leg ended just a few inches past the cuff. It was perfectly rounded off—like a watermelon, Roy thought. He had seen this type of injury before, but not up close. He could see the purple traces of scars from the amputation surgery, but they were disappearing already. In most ways, the leg looked as if it had never extended any farther.

  “I really am sorry about that, Jamie,” Roy said. “I know that must be really difficult. I just can’t imagine.”

  “I guess a missing leg makes a newspaper story around here.”

  “Oh, I don’t think we were thinking of it like that. Not at all. But what do you think? Can I turn this on?” He held the little microphone between them, and he was embarrassed to see that his hand was shaking slightly. Jamie stared at it for a moment, and it reminded him of all the times he had passed Murphy in the hallway—Murphy keeping his head down, always averting his eyes. Murphy couldn’t have weighed any more than Claire back then. Murphy the pencil. Now here he was these years later, but who had the upper hand? Jamie glanced out beyond the fence and could feel that old resentment toward him once more.

  “Sure.”

  “So here’s how it works,” Roy said. “If there’s anything you don’t want to answer, just say so. Otherwise, we’ll say that everything you say is all on the record. Which just means that would be part of what I could consider using for the article. Quotes.”

  “So college has changed you, too, you’re saying. You mean you’re not still that All-American listener? That’s what Claire used to say about you. What a good listener you were.”

  “Yeah, that was me,” Roy said. “The man on the sidelines.”

  “I guess you knew a lot about me through Claire.”

  “Not really,” Roy said. “Sock hops. Proms. Doesn’t that feel like a long time ago to you?”

  “Yep.” Jamie swatted at something buzzing near him.

  “We were talking about changing. Besides the injury, how would you say that being in Vietnam has changed you? Or do you think it did at all? Or maybe you feel like it’s too early to know.”

  Roy leaned over the tape recorder to make sure the cogs were spinning.

  “I wrote Claire when I was over there,” Jamie said, “even though I’d heard she had a boyfriend. She wrote me two letters back. The first one was all about the classes she was taking, her sorority, how hard she was studying. Like I was some kind of pen pal or something. Guys around me are getting sexy pictures of their girlfriends, letters about how they’re waiting for them to come home. I guess I was kind of hoping for something more than reports from Biology 101 and English Literature.”

  Roy offered a nod of compassion. He understood he wasn’t going to get answers to his questions until he let Jamie say everything he wanted to about Claire.

  “You probably saw all that coming, didn’t you?” Jamie said. “You probably saw it long before I did, Claire finding some slick Joe College after high school.”

  “Well, Claire was complicated,” Roy said quickly. He realized his mistake too late and shielded his eyes from the sun, though they were sitting in the shade.

  Jamie almost smiled at Murphy’s nerve. What Murphy said was true, but Jamie knew it must have brought some satisfaction for Murphy to be the one to say it. Murphy probably had spent more time with Claire, in the end. But she had dropped him, too. In most ways, it was like she didn’t exist anymore—no one had seen her, no one had heard from her. There was another guy from their high school who had gone off to Vietnam—Barry Yarborough, nose tackle on the football team, always singing Beach Boys songs, his little brother killed in a school bus accident—and as Jamie had heard it, no one knew whether he had been captured or killed, or whether he had simply run off. The last anyone had seen him, according to Sutton, he was with his platoon in Hue. Missing in action. That was how he thought of Claire now.

  Pennsylvania

  Delores would meet her friends and possibly their husbands just a mile from Arch’s shop. Until then, Delores would have to entertain Rebecca in out-of-the-way places.

  Delores put her sign and Rebecca’s pictures in the backseat of their car. Rebecca sat in the passenger seat and clutched her one-eyed doll named Millie. Delores backed them out of the long driveway without knowing where they were going.

  “Was that fun?” she asked. “Did you like painting?”

  “Yes,” Rebecca said.

  “We’re good painters, aren’t we?” Rebecca nodded. “Your brothers used to like to paint, too. Now if it’s not a football or a BB gun, I can’t get them to touch it.” In the last six months Delores had lost all inclination to censor herself with Rebecca. She talked about how difficult Rebecca’s brothers had become, how intolerant Rebecca’s father could be of the things that Delores wanted to do or believed in. She even told Rebecca when she had insisted that Arch sleep on the couch, which on average was about once every couple of months. Once she told Rebecca that deep down her father was a good man, but that he could be oppressive, and then she explained what that word meant. On such occasions Rebecca had learned to arrange her face in some pensive expression, which Delores willed herself to see as sympathetic comprehension. Rebecca had learned to nod at the right moments, say, “Yes,” when Delores finished her thoughts by asking, “So do you see how that would make me feel?”

  Delores thumped her fingers against the rubber-covered steering wheel.

  “You and I are going to see a train today, sugarplum. Would you like that?”

  Rebecca studied her mother. In truth, Rebecca had no particular fondness for trains—or for anything with wheels on it—but to her mother, and she shook her head vigorously.

  “Well, good. It’s going to be going really fast, and it’s not going to stop for us, but we can wave bye-bye to all the people on board, and maybe they’ll wave to us. But that’s not for a while. Not until after lunch. Meanwhile, we just have to decide what we want to do. Today everything we do is going to be our secret.”

  New Jersey

  In the days since he had been back, Ty, Daniel, and Walt had not asked Michael about his time with his father, since their parents had drummed it into them to treat Michael as if nothing unusual had happened. But they very much wanted to know the story. In the early days of his absence, they knew only that he was missing. From the way their parents shook their heads with concern while saying so little in front of them, the boys came to wonder if they would ever see their friend again. When their mothers said, “We just have to hope,” the boys took that to mean the situation was beyond hope.

  By the end of that first week, the tone of discussions had shifted. The rumor was that Michael’s father had taken him, and now when the subject of Michael came up at the dinner table, there was a brightness in their parents’ voices.

  “Sooner or later, they’re going to find that father of his,” Ty’s mother had said. “And Michael will be just fine.”

  “I’ll bet Michael has no idea of all the trouble his father is in,” Walt’s mother said.

  “Michael will be home soon,” Daniel’s mother said. “And then his father can get what’s coming to him for putting his mother to such worry.”

  As the four boys walked through the tall grass, Daniel looked at Walt, and then both of them looked at Ty. Michael was whistling the melody to “Walk, Don’t Run.” When they reached the group of trees they intended to climb, they surveyed the freshly cut grass and stared up at the potential branches on which to perch themselves.

  “Here it comes!” Daniel called out. “Here comes the train!”

  The boys looked down the tracks.

  “Made you look,” Daniel said.

  “Hey, I knew it wasn’t,” Walt said.

  “Hey hey hey,” Ty said. “Don’t be such morons.” He spit convincingly, the way his older brother had taught him. “It’s hot as h
ell. We should be swimming.”

  “Well, they’re not bringing his body by boat,” said Daniel. He had a new strategy lately of countering Ty’s insults with his own, but this didn’t seem to have any discernible effect.

  “They’re going to bring your body by boat,” Ty said. “A tugboat. I was just talking about the heat.”

  “Hey, you want to go to the pool later and see Marianne Las-siter?” Walt said.

  “Why would I want to see her? With those hairy arms. Her arms are hairier than a gorilla’s.”

  “Then her bush must be like a jungle,” Daniel said.

  “Like you know about her bush,” Ty said.

  “I know it’s hairy,” Daniel said.

  “You don’t know crap,” Ty said and flicked Michael on his forearm to make sure he was not the only one incredulous that Daniel could know anything about any girl’s privates. “She doesn’t even know who you are. You swim in the kiddie pool, anyway.”

  “I was just playing around that day,” Daniel said. “I wasn’t swimming in it.”

  “Michael, we were at the pool the other day,” Ty said, “and Daniel was over there trying to swim laps in the kiddie pool with all these moms and their babies all over the place, and the lifeguards told him to get out.”

  Michael offered the obliged snicker. He had not been to the pool yet and wondered which of the lifeguards were back from last year.

  “Hey, what are we going to do?” Walt asked. “This is boring, just waiting around.” He checked his watch. They were expecting the train to come by at one-fifteen.

  “All right, I know what,” Ty said. “I’m going to be Sirhan Sirhan, and someone be Kennedy.”

  “I will,” Walt said.

  “Okay, Walt’s Kennedy in the hotel, and he’s coming through the kitchen of that hotel.”

  “Who are we?” Daniel asked.

  “You be the guys that grabbed Sirhan and wrestled the gun out of his hand. Rosey Grier and Rafer Johnson.”

  “Who’s Rafer Johnson?” Daniel asked.

  “Some athlete who won a gold medal in the Olympics,” Ty said.

  “Oh. I’m Rosey Grier,” Daniel said. “Michael, you be Rafer Johnson. But other people got shot, too.”

  “Well, do you want to be the woman instead?” Ty said. “A woman got shot.”

  Daniel pulled his T-shirt out at the chest and sang in a girlish voice, “I’ve just been shot in my boobies.”

  “Shut up,” Ty said. “You’re Rosey Grier.” He paced around, trying to conjure up what he had heard Walter Cronkite describe on the evening news that Wednesday.

  “Okay, I’m here in the corner,” Ty said, crouching. “You don’t see me, though.”

  “Hey, we won California,” Walt said. “Whooooo.” He strutted with his arms stretched above him. He then put them down to shake someone’s hand. “Thank you, thank you.”

  Daniel and Michael walked uncertainly behind him. “Congratulations, Senator,” Daniel said at last.

  “Blam!” Sirhan Sirhan had taken fire, and Kennedy collapsed to the ground, clutching his head. “Blam!”

  “Who’s shooting?” Daniel called out. “Over there! Get him!”

  Ty got off another two shots before standing up and running from Daniel. Michael quickly followed. Ty eventually curled his body against himself and froze, holding out his shooting hand while Daniel tackled him and reached for the weapon.

  “Get the gun!” Daniel cried. “Johnson, help me. Get the gun.”

  Michael climbed on top of the two and grabbed Ty’s hand, which was shaped with his pointer finger out and his thumb cocked back as the gun’s hammer. When Michael wrestled the gun free, Ty’s other fingers sprang to life, trying to reclaim it.

  Michael stood up, his hand now the gun, and looked around uncertainly. Walt lay on the ground, watching the scuffle but otherwise admirable in his posture of death.

  “What do I do with it?” Michael asked.

  “I guess you hold it,” Walt offered, “until you can give it to the police.”

  Daniel was still wrestling with Ty, but Ty was ready to get up and pushed him off. “Let’s do it again,” Ty said. “Only this time, both you guys need to come get me at the same time. Michael, I could have shot you, too, if I wanted to. You’re supposed to charge me as soon as I shoot.”

  “Okay.”

  In the second effort, Walt relied on more theatrics, drunkenly staggering before slumping to the ground, and once on his back, he rolled around, moaning at the pain. Daniel got the jump on the assassin faster this time, as did Michael, but Ty managed to keep the gun out of their reach by holding it inside his belt as they pried at his arm. In the third attempt, Ty got off a shot at Daniel, which brought the insurrection to a brief pause when Daniel pointed out that Rosey Grier wasn’t, in fact, shot.

  “You’re too technical,” Ty offered. “He could have been. Besides, we’re just playing. Doesn’t have to be one-hundred-percent accurate. I don’t look like an Arab, but that doesn’t matter.”

  “Actually, you kind of do,” Daniel said, and Walt laughed.

  “Blam!” Ty said and shot at Daniel again.

  After another assassination it was time to switch roles. And then they switched again. When they had exhausted the possibilities, they generally agreed that Michael had been the best Kennedy because of the way he managed to collapse so violently, his arms flying behind him as if he were a bedsheet being snapped into the air, and on the ground he managed to be completely still, indifferent to the capture of his assassin. Walt had had trouble tackling anyone as Rosey Grier or Rafer Johnson, and Daniel had a particularly good turn as Sirhan because he had remembered what the shooter was overheard to shout while being pinned to the ground: “I can explain! Let me explain!”

  Delaware

  The water in the pool was turquoise, and the smell of chlorine was strong, but to Edwin it was thrilling, like smelling a woman’s perfume in the first minutes of a first date. All his life he wanted the smell of chlorine to fill his backyard. Lolly wore her one-piece swimsuit under a pair of terrycloth shorts and her long T-shirt with the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine on the front. She had not purchased a new suit, much to Edwin’s disappointment. For the last two years she had settled for her green one-piece, with black stitching on the side and unusually wide shoulder straps that made Edwin think of overalls; the suit had turned almost purple from the years of washing. She had become too self-conscious to wear a two-piece; her stomach had been flat all her life, but by her early thirties it had curved outward, and sometimes in profile she thought it looked like she was hiding a small dinner bowl under her shirt. Edwin had gained exactly five pounds since she married him, and they had settled mostly into his behind without much fanfare. He wore a pair of black-rimmed glasses that at first glance resembled a mask; Lolly sometimes kidded him that they made him look like the Lone Ranger. But his blond hair had remained the same, parted to one side, longer over his ears and collar in a way now that Lolly found slightly unbecoming.

  Between the two of them, Lolly had dated more and had more romantic flings before they got married. She had been a pretty bride, and even now it wasn’t uncommon for men at parties, when Edwin stepped away, to flirt with her and make suggestive comments. The flirting made her feel sexy, and she wasn’t rude when she let men know she wasn’t available. Sometimes she lifted her ring finger and said in a playful voice, “Ring-a-ding-ding,” then walked through the crowd knowing the man was taking a last, lustful gaze at the swing of her derriere.

  But that attractive spark she could sometimes feel about herself dimmed around Ted’s girlfriend, Georgia, who, with her overflow of auburn hair and Amazonian curves, could have been a Raquel Welch impersonator. That morning, as Lolly got dressed, she could already imagine how slight Georgia’s bikini would be, and she knew that at all times of the day Ted and Edwin would be staring at her.

  In the kitchen she began chopping vegetables when the smell of chlorine drifted through the back-door screen�
��sharp and acidic. Edwin came in and surveyed the preparations. The train would be coming through town at three-fifteen, but Edwin was only thinking of the party.

  “Music!” he said. “We gotta have music. I’ll get the eight-track out there.”

  “Let’s just not play it so loud, though,” Lolly said. “We don’t have to play it for the whole neighborhood.”

  “Lol,” he said. “Please don’t bum me out.”

  New Jersey

  Seven hours after they had left Michael’s school, his father had found the radio broadcast of the Tigers–White Sox game. “Tigers could use a win,” he said. Michael was resting his head against the cool glass of the window, his eyes too heavy to keep open. It occurred to him that he should say something to his father’s remark, or just nod, since he was unsure of what passed for an acceptable silence between them. In almost everything his father had said during the long drive, Michael had worked hard to show him that he couldn’t agree more, or that his father had just pointed out some colorful fact that Michael would surely make use of at some time.

  “Priddy has two men on and two men out, and he’s not out of this yet. Now he steps off the mound. He wants to think over this first pitch to Oyler.”

  “Hey, sport,” James Colvert whispered. “Sport, wake up. We’re going to pull in here for the night.” Michael was aware of the neon lights before he opened his eyes, the vibrant red turning his darkness into spots, and he thought he heard the crunch of gravel. He righted himself and put his head against the vinyl headrest.

  “Okay,” he said, squinting into a motel’s dark-paneled office, where he could see a man leaning over a desk, flipping through a magazine.

  “We’re still a few hours away from the cabin,” his father said. “I’m going to go in and get us a room. You stay put.” Michael nodded only after the car door shut and watched his father’s long stride to the office. The man at the desk reached over to turn a knob on his transistor radio and waved him in. The man glanced out at their car as James Colvert spoke. When he came back out, key in his hand, his lips were puckered, as if he intended to whistle.