by F. P. Lione
Stevie, being four years old, wouldn’t eat any of it. He sat there with a disgusted look on his face, saying things like “yuck,” “eeewww,” and “what is that?” Michele put a piece of bread and some salad on his dish, but there was so much vinegar in the salad that his face puckered and his body shuddered. I could see my father was getting angry, shaking his head while he ate, looking like he was barely containing himself.
To give her credit, Michele tried to make polite conversation. She complimented Denise on her outfit, a pair of camel-colored suede pants and a red sweater. Denise dresses provocatively when she knows my father will be somewhere because she knows it annoys him. Denise’s outfit was nowhere near Marie’s as far as being offensive, and I thought she looked nice. She has dark, almost black hair that she had curled at the ends. She has my father’s blue eyes, lined in smoky gray. She’s beautiful enough for a magazine cover, but she has no self-esteem whatsoever.
I could see everyone getting uncomfortable when Michele said it, so I said, “What?” to everyone around the table. “What’s wrong with Denise’s outfit?”
“I got my belly button pierced, Tony, and Dad doesn’t approve,” Denise said matter-of-factly. “But I guess he doesn’t have a problem with Marie’s new implants.”
“Of course not, he paid for them,” Marie said sweetly.
“Why would you mutilate yourself like that?” I asked. Both Denise and Marie looked at me, I guess both of them mutilated themselves.
“What’s moot-moot a wait?” Stevie chimed in, trying to pronounce it.
“I didn’t mutilate anything, see,” Denise said, lifting up her sweater to reveal a rhinestone belly ring. “It’s just like an earring for your belly.” Stevie looked at it in wonder.
I hoped Marie didn’t lift up her sweater to show him her new bra size.
“The kid doesn’t need to see that,” my father barked, his fork echoing when it hit his plate.
“Which, the implants or the belly ring?” Denise asked, deadpan.
I felt Michele stiffen when my father called Stevie the kid, and I felt like jumping the table and bashing him. I squashed the anger, refusing to let him get to me. Part of me wished I still drank so I could chug down the bottle of wine that winked at me from across the table.
“His name is Stevie,” I said quietly. “Don’t call him the kid.” My father didn’t acknowledge that I’d said anything, just continued to eat.
Everyone was quiet after that. I’d been through this enough times to know it was not going to end well. If my father’s in a bad mood, no one can get him out of it. It usually runs its course, and he’s okay the next time we see him. I normally would ignore him, but since Michele and Stevie were there, I wanted to eat as quickly as possible, open up the gifts, and hightail it out of there.
Denise had to open up her trap and say, “I don’t know about anyone else, but this is really uncomfortable. Why don’t we just get everything out in the open, you know, discuss the issues—”
“Denise is in therapy again,” Marie said, her voice flat. She didn’t bother to look up from her plate when she said it.
“Why don’t you stop going to those headshrinkers and grow up, Denise?” my father snapped. “Stop blaming everyone else for your problems. Go get married or something. What happened to Sal?” he said, talking about Sal Valente, Denise’s boyfriend.
“He went back to his ex-wife,” Marie said smugly.
“No he didn’t,” I said. “He’d never go back to that psycho.” Sal would never go back with her. The only reason he spoke to the woman was because she had custody of his children.
I waited for Denise to deny it, but she didn’t. She was glaring at Marie, then she got this crafty smile on her face and said, “How do you know that, Marie? Did Bobby Egan tell you?”
That seemed to shut Marie up, but my father said, “How do you know Bobby Egan?”
“Who’s Bobby Egan?” I asked, suspicious.
“He’s a detective in Chinatown,” Denise said. “A friend of Sal’s. Apparently he’s a friend of Marie’s too.” Denise threw a knowing look at Marie.
Something was going on. My gut was telling me that Marie was up to her old tricks and had a little something going on the side that Denise knew about. That’s probably what the surgery was for. Good. Maybe she’d divorce my father and we’d never have to see her again.
This seemed to make my father angrier; he was chewing his food and guzzling wine at a rapid pace. Stevie, oblivious to the whole thing, was getting bored. He climbed off of Michele’s lap and made his way over to the ceramic lions that guarded the fake fireplace in the living room. They were gaudy statues, five-and-dime stuff that my grandmother loves. He tried to pick one up, but it was too heavy, and he dropped it with a klunk to the floor.
“No! Don’t touch that!” My grandmother was out of her chair faster than any eighty-year-old woman I’ve ever seen. “Get away from there!”
I was so taken aback by the way she spoke to him that I was speechless for a second. Stevie was humiliated, and I rushed over to pick him up. He hid his face against me, and I said, “It’s okay, buddy, you didn’t do anything wrong.” I brought him back to the table and sat him on my lap. He wouldn’t turn around to look at any of them, and that was fine with me. Screw that. I stole a look at Michele. She was staring down with a blank look on her face.
Marie raised her eyebrows disapprovingly, turning her head to scratch behind her ear. Christie and Vinny exchanged a look, and my father stewed some more.
“Leave him alone, he’s four years old,” Denise said, getting out of her chair. “If you’re so afraid of him breaking something, give him something to play with.” She went into my grandmother’s bedroom and came out with a stack of gifts. At least someone was trying to be nice.
“Come here, Stevie.” She patted the floor next to where she sat down. “Want to open the presents I got you?” Stevie nodded tentatively. “Come on, then,” she said, patting the floor until he walked over and sat with her. He opened the first one and yelled out “It’s Scoop! Mom, look, it’s Scoop the bulldozer.” Sure enough, it was Scoop the yellow bulldozer from Bob the Builder, who Stevie loves. Denise also got him a Dragon Tales board game, a Yankee hooded sweatshirt (like the one she has), and a Veggie Tales Junior Asparagus night-light, because he’s afraid of the dark.
She also got him a videotape of the Dragon Tales that had two of the episodes from the TV show. He sat quietly and watched it, probably glad to be away from the table.
There was an uneasy silence at the table. Michele seemed to realize that Denise was her only ally at the table, so she tried again to start a conversation.
“Have you always lived on Staten Island?”
“All our lives,” Denise said.
“Tony was born in North Carolina,” my father threw in without looking up.
“Why there?” She directed the question to me, but my father answered.
“I was in the service,” he said, still concentrating on eating. “Tony was born on the Marine base in West Cherry Point.”
“When were you in the service?” Michele asked him, hesitantly.
“From 1966 to 1970,” he said, putting his fork down.
“Were you in Vietnam?” she asked.
“Yup.” He nodded without looking up.
“You and Mom got married while you were in the service, right?” I asked, almost kicking myself for it. Never mention my mother with Marie around.
“They had to get married, your father came home on leave and knocked her up,” Marie cut in.
“You were what, two years old then, Marie?” Denise asked sweetly.
“Shut your mouth, Denise,” my father warned.
“Why do I have to shut my mouth? Why don’t you get a muzzle for her?” Denise tossed her head at Marie.
“That was right in the thick of it,” Michele said to my father, but he didn’t answer her.
“That must have been hard, leaving a baby behind and going ove
r there,” Michele remarked, looking nervous.
There was a confused silence around the table. We never discuss Vietnam. It has always been understood that the subject is off-limits.
“Was it hard to leave your baby?” Michele asked again.
“No. He wasn’t born yet, and I wasn’t thinking about him at the time,” he said stonily. What a guy.
“That must have been hard for you,” Michele said, turning to Grandma.
“Oh, I didn’t know he was there,” Grandma said.
Michele blinked. “Where did you think he was?”
“Hawaii,” Grandma said, straight-faced.
“Grandma, there was a war in Southeast Asia in 1969. We had thousands of troops there, and you thought Dad was in Hawaii?” Denise asked, incredulous.
Grandma looked confused. “That’s where he said he was.”
“Did he ever write to you?” Denise asked.
“Well, yeah,” she said.
“Did you look at the postmark on the letters?”
Denise waited for an answer, but Grandma fiddled with the crucifix around her neck without answering.
“Were you drafted?” my brother, Vinny, asked. I guess he figured if everyone else could ask questions, so could he.
“No. I signed up with the Marine Corps instead of being drafted into the Army.”
“Where were you stationed?” Vinny asked.
“Da Nang.”
“How long were you there, Dad?” This from Vinny again.
“One tour.”
“Did you count the days while you were there?” he asked, fascinated.
“No, I never counted the days.” His demeanor always softened when he talked to Vinny. “But I knew when it was time to go home.”
“Wait a minute,” Michele interrupted. “None of you knew any of this?”
“We really don’t like to talk about it,” Grandma said bluntly.
“That should give you a little insight into the family,” Denise whispered to Michele.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” my father asked.
“Weren’t you afraid you were never going to see your family again?” Michele asked, trying to steer the conversation away from a fight.
“No.” My father looked at her. “I set my head. I told myself, I’m going home, no matter what. I’m gonna handle this. Guys were lax, I wasn’t. I was at the peak of my performance, and I stayed there the whole time I was there.”
“Were you homesick?” No one tried to interrupt Michele’s questions, we were fascinated by this. We’d never heard anything about it, and we hung on every word.
“Yeah, I was homesick, but I lived day by day. I set my head,” he said again. “I wouldn’t get depressed like the other guys. I mean, I would talk about the food back home and stuff like that, but I didn’t dwell on missing anybody.”
“Did you pray? I would have been praying day and night,” Michele remarked.
“I prayed. And I went to church.”
“They say the country is beautiful. Is it?” she asked.
He seemed to ponder that for a minute. “There were things that looked beautiful, but you couldn’t appreciate it. There were some places that I remember being nice, China Beach was one of them. It was hot. Humid, tropical weather. It would rain hard for an hour and be done with it. I thought the whole place smelled like fish heads being boiled in rice. The food was horrendous, I had the runs the first few days I was there. They gave me some white chalky stuff, and I eventually adjusted.”
“Were you wounded there?” Vinny asked.
“No. I wasn’t wounded, didn’t get post-traumatic stress disorder, shell shock, battle fatigue, or any of that other baloney,” he said, as if that kind of weakness was beneath him.
“Do you keep in touch with anyone from the war?” Vinny again.
“No. There were guys on the job with me that were in Vietnam, but none that I served with.”
“Were there a lot of drugs there?” Denise asked. “I’ve read there were a lot of problems with drugs there.”
“Do I look like someone who would take drugs?” he snapped at Denise. “I don’t know why you ask such stupid questions.”
“I didn’t say you did drugs, Dad,” Denise said, like she was talking to a ten-year-old. “I said were there a lot of drugs there?”
He answered the question, but he looked at Vinny when he answered. “There weren’t a lot of drugs where I was. I mean, everybody drank. I’m not much of a drinker, but we drank. Black Label, Vietnamese beer, Flagstaff, Bud, Schmidts.” He looked lost in thought for a second. “I remember drinking with this one guy, we had watched a documentary film on World War II. This guy’s father had been killed in the World War II Air Corps in one of the B17’s. He thought he saw his father flying a plane in one of the films. He later freaked out in action.”
“Did you see a lot of action?” I asked. He ignored me and directed the answer at Vinny, who was mesmerized by the whole thing.
“We saw a lot of action. I hung with the Italian guys. When it all hits the fan, they’re the best guys to have around.”
“How did you get through it, Dad?” Vinny said compassionately.
“I didn’t think about it until it hit, and then I’d say to myself, I won’t be shot here, I won’t die here, I’m going home. I’m from New York. I’m not like these yokels, I’m smart, I’m tough, and I’m going home.”
That was just like him, so arrogant and sure of himself that he wouldn’t die there. I admired him and pitied him, all at the same time.
“Did you kill anyone?” I had to ask.
He didn’t answer at first. “That’s none of your business what I did there,” he said, his voice deadly. “There’s stuff I’ll take to my grave that I’ll never tell you or anyone else about.”
I’ll take that as a yes.
He shook his head at me. “You live in your little world, and you have no idea what goes on out there. We were in the middle of a war, Tony—what did you think we were doing over there?”
Stevie, who I thought was watching TV, was staring intently at my father. He walked back to the table and onto my lap, as if to protect me somehow. I hugged him close and told him everything was okay.
My perception of Vietnam veterans was of those tormented soldiers who fought a losing war and returned home to the loathing of an unthankful nation. I saw them as the emotionally disturbed and often maimed, wheelchair skells destined to live out their lives in misery. (Skell is our word for homeless, crackheads, prostitutes, whatever we have to clean up off the street.)
I forget a lot of times that they’re guys like my father who came back and lived ordinary lives, keeping their memories of war locked away in a place that couldn’t hurt them.
Michele realized this was getting too heated and switched to another minefield.
“What did you do when you got back, did you go right into the Police Department?” she asked quietly, knowing he had been a cop too.
“It was about a year after I got out that I went on the job. At first I took a job delivering lumber for an outfit in Great Kills.” I thought he would leave it at that, but he surprised me by adding, “I remember making a delivery to a house on Amboy Road in Bay Terrace. I had just gotten back, and I saw a picture of a Marine on the mantel over the fireplace. I asked the woman if that was her son, and she said yes. I told her that I was a Marine and that I’d just come home. She told me her son had died there.” He paused. “I never told anyone again that I was in Vietnam.”
“How did you feel about the war?” Michele asked. “About the American occupation in Vietnam?”
“Spoken like someone who knows nothing about it,” my father said derisively. “American occupation.” He shook his head. “I never thought about it, it never bothered me.”
“How did you feel about Lyndon Johnson?” Denise asked.
“He did what he had to do,” my father spat. “I liked him. I loved Nixon and Spiro Agnew too.”
“What ab
out the protestors?” Vinny asked.
“What about them?”
“Did they spit at you when you came home?”
“Nobody spit at me,” he said, as if they wouldn’t dare.
“How did you feel about them?”
“I wanted to kill them. They did more harm than good. I loved locking them up.”
“There were still demonstrations when you got back?” I asked, trying to figure out the time frame. My father was still a rookie at the time, and he would have caught a detail like that.
“One time there were like four or five days of demonstrations. The protestors were moving past City Hall, standing on the councilmen’s cars, doing damage to whatever they could. This one punk, some rich college kid, burned a flag right in front of me. I knocked him on the ground and put it out.”
I could see the rage in my father’s face as he talked about it. Then he started laughing.
“They protested their way downtown, right into a construction workers’ strike. A little while later they’re heading back toward us, running for their lives, bleeding and crying. The strikers beat them within an inch of their lives, and we were so happy. We cheered the strikers, raised the flag up, and sang ‘God Bless America.’ Then the protestors went into Pace University to hide from the strikers. We went after them and beat them up a little more. A couple of the strikers were gonna throw them off the building, and we were gonna let them. I loved it. As far as I was concerned, they got their due process.” He was seething.
“Dad, they were protesting the slaughter of our American soldiers and the innocent people in Vietnam,” Denise said.
“Don’t tell me about those protestors. They were cowards, rich punk college kids with nothing better to do than cause riots in this country. I served my country, not like those bas—”
He cut himself off when he realized Stevie was watching him, but he had said it with such fire that Stevie said, “What’s a bas?” I hoped my father didn’t say “Technically you are, kid.” Instead he hung his head down and said, “Ah man, I’m sorry.”