by Kirk Landers
“You make it sound like a nightmare.”
“You worry too much.”
They smiled and began the slow paddle back to the island, quiet, Annette still worried about Pender’s anguish.
It was nearly 3 AM when they got back to camp and stumbled through the shadows to Annette’s tent, so tired that even Chaos was dragging.
“Do you need privacy to change?” Pender asked as Annette unzipped the entry to the tent.
“Will the sight of me in a bra and panties drive you to acts of depravity?”
He started to answer, then stopped. “You put that in a way there’s no right answer. Let’s just say I understand you are not inviting me in for sex. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I’m somewhat civilized and fully housebroken.”
“I bet if someone made you just answer yes or no to a question, it would drive you stark raving mad,” Annette snickered as she entered the tent and flipped on a small battery-powered lantern hanging from the top of the tent.
Pender followed and set to inflating his sleeping pad and setting up his sleeping bag even as Chaos tried to lie on them. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of her just as she was getting ready to put on her sleeping clothes. Even in a quick glance in the vague light of the lantern, even trying not to invade her privacy, trying not to see her as a woman, Pender saw the plump fullness of her breasts, the curve of her waist, the feminine roundness of her hips and butt. The sight aroused him. He tried to erase the vision from his mind. It wasn’t fair to invade her privacy like that, he thought. But it was nice to be so fully aroused again. It had been a long time.
Pender slipped into a pair of swimming trunks, then reached up bare chested to snap off the lantern. Annette watched, lying on her side, noting his well-defined abs. “You’ve taken good care of your body,” she said.
“So have you.”
“No, I really mean it. You look good.”
“I really mean it too.”
“You don’t have to patronize me. I’m not some Rush Street bimbo.”
“Well, how about that. I didn’t think this was Rush Street. How about just accepting what I say at face value. Have I ever lied to you? When did I ever patronize you?”
After a moment of silence, Annette answered sheepishly. “Okay. Sorry. But I’m, you know, a grandma. Gray hair. Wrinkles.”
“You’re still beautiful,” he said quietly. “Seriously beautiful.”
“Thanks,” she said. She waited to see if he’d make a pass, thinking a kiss would be nice, see where it leads. But he didn’t.
“Thanks for giving me a chance today,” he said.
“Don’t mention it,” said Annette.
“Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Chaos, you dog-breath cur.”
19
They slept well into the morning, even Pender. He stirred awake and checked his watch around 8:30, and Chaos nudged him impatiently. He let Chaos out, and followed him out of the tent quietly, muffling an involuntary grunt as the first movements of the day set off the pain in his stiff back. He couldn’t resist a glance at Annette before he closed the tent. She was deep in sleep, her face a study in peace and beauty. He sighed. She still did it to him, after all these years.
He was bare-chested and barefoot, wearing just a pair of swimming trunks, and the air was cold. Last night’s clear skies had given way to partial cloudiness, with darker clouds visible to the west. He waddled tenderly across the rocks and sticks and pine cones to his pack, slid on a fleece sweater, and swapped his swimming trunks for underwear, quick-dry pants, and hiking boots. He got a wood fire going, put water on to boil, and pulled his coffee-making kit and a pancake breakfast from his pack. He had packaged the meal himself, adding small containers of margarine, jelly, and pure maple syrup to the pouch. Luxury.
The fire cracked and snapped in the chill morning air. The sight of flames and the smell of burning pine was invigorating. Pender sat in front of the fire and soaked in the warmth, gazed out on the Canadian Shield vista before him, took a few deep breaths. Chaos came to sit beside him, nudging his head under Pender’s arm like they were old buddies. Pender petted him, scratched behind his ears. Chaos luxuriated in the scratching, his face forming a canine smile. Pender gave him a full ear massage, both ears. It made them friends for life.
When the water came to boil, Pender poured a cupful through a filter filled with finely ground coffee. As it dripped slowly into the cup, he scribbled a note to his daughter in his journal, about seeing the universe last night. Annette emerged from the tent just as he finished. He put the journal aside and served her the first cup of coffee and set up to make the second.
“You two make a lot of noise in the morning,” she said, her voice still sleepy. She glanced at his journal, then at him, her eyes blinking from the daylight, her hair cascading down around her face and shoulders in sexy tangles. She was wearing quick-dry pants and a T-shirt, standard tripper clothing, but the pants clung to her bottom in a way that Pender noticed, and her T-shirt was snug enough that he could tell she wasn’t wearing a bra. Pender stared at her nipples for a moment, arousal trumping manners. He caught himself, raised his eyes to meet hers, blushing. She caught him at it and blushed, too, liking that he looked at her that way. At twenty-one it might have put her off, a man openly sizing her up sexually. At sixty, his lust made her just a little giddy.
“I hope you like coffee,” he said, offering her the cup.
She took it, smiling, still sleepy. “I love coffee.” She inhaled its aroma. “Mmmm. This is really good. Something tells me this isn’t instant.”
“No. Coffee is one of my last vices. Wine, too.”
“What about sex?” She smiled coyly at him.
“Sex has never been one of my wilderness vices,” he stammered. He was trying to be funny, but he was aroused and felt like he shouldn’t be, and words weren’t coming easily. “I could pack in coffee and wine, but, you know, a willing woman . . .” His ability to speak left him. He stared at her, her eyes, her cleavage, her eyes.
Annette put down her coffee and stood in front of him, their faces close enough they could feel each other’s breath on their skin. She put her hand on his penis. It was rigidly erect. She murmured suggestively and looked him in the eye, a small smile on her face. She moved her hand up and down on his erection. She placed one of his hands on her breast and rubbed against him, breathing softly, putting her lips to his, and kissed him long and soft and slow. They embraced, their bodies flush against each other from lips to knees.
“Gabe Pender,” she whispered in his ear, “Where have you been all these years?”
They dropped to their knees, groping and clinging, helped each other get naked, clung to each other in the morning chill. Pender gently lowered their conjoined bodies to the ground.
* * *
“You must think I’m a nymphomaniac.” Annette smiled self-consciously as they uncoiled from a postcoital embrace. They rose slowly, Pender grunting a little from his back pain. They sat side by side on one of the log benches, fending off Chaos, who wanted to sniff their crotches.
“That’s not what I think,” said Pender.
Annette waited for him to explain. “And?” she said.
“And . . . I wasn’t thinking like that. I’m sixty years old, and I’ve been making love like a teenager for half the morning. I’m sitting here wondering how I could let forty years with you get away from me.”
“So you’re saying you could have gotten the sex anywhere but you wish we’d been married all these years?” She laughed as she said it, but the vulnerable part of her was afraid it was true.
“No. I’m not saying anything like that. You’re the hottest woman I’ve been with since the last time I was with you—”
“Good answer,” she interrupted.
“—but part of me is mourning that I lost all that time with you. Fucking Vietnam. Corporate bullshit. A two-million-dollar-house with all the warmth of an
igloo. White-on-white-in-white, for Christ’s sake.”
He went quiet again, head in hands. She put an arm around him and hugged. “Lou Rawls Live,” she said.
“Huh?”
“White-on-white-in-white. It’s from Lou Rawls’s monologue on the Live! album. ‘Street Corner Hustler’s Blues.’ It was your favorite record. We played it all the time. I’ve thought about that album so much I actually bought it. ‘The Shadow of Your Smile.’ I can sing that with him, word for word.”
Annette began humming, then sang soulfully off-key, sweet and sad until she broke into tears. She threw her arms around Pender and squeezed with all her strength. Her body racked with sobs, she felt his tears mingle with hers. They embraced as if their lives were ending.
“I sang that song all the time,” she whispered in his ear. “And I always thought of you. You colored all my dreams. I never stopped loving you.”
“Me too,” said Pender. “I sang it and I always thought of you.”
“Why did we do that to ourselves?” Annette asked.
Pender shook his head sadly. “Yeah.”
* * *
Annette’s last ration of bacon just started sizzling on the fire when the misting rains began, fine and warm, falling from clouds drifting low and lazy over the Canadian Shield. It could be over in fifteen minutes, or it could be a precursor to a more serious rainfall.
“Maybe we should set up the stove under a tarp,” said Annette.
“Ah, let’s live dangerously,” said Pender. He ran to the tent, grabbed the poncho he had used for a pillow the night before, and returned. He spread the poncho behind his back and lifted his arms as if trying to impersonate a bat. He stretched and shifted until one arm sheltered Annette and the other shielded the fire.
“I always wanted to be your protector,” he joked.
“What were you writing when I got up?” she asked.
He blushed. “Oh. Uh, I’m keeping a journal.
“That’s nice.” She said it in a way that let him know she’d like to hear more about it.
“My anger management counselor said I should reconcile with my daughter and suggested I write to her.”
“So you’re writing a journal for her?”
“Yeah. Don’t read it. You’ll lose all respect for me.”
“Why?”
“It’s a feelings thing. She’ll laugh her butt off reading it. But I feel better for having tried.”
Annette touched him. “I’m sorry things are so difficult between you two.”
“Thanks,” he said. He looked away, then back at her. “There are a few entries written to you. If I die before I wake some morning, read ’em, laugh, and use them to start your next fire.”
Annette laughed softly. “I’d never do that.”
“You have my permission.”
They ate side by side on one of the logs, the poncho draped over their heads. As they finished, the rain began in earnest.
“You take the poncho and do the dishes,” said Annette. “I’ll put up a tarp.”
By the time Pender came back up to the camp, Annette had fashioned a lean-to from the tarp and positioned the packs to form a wall of sorts at the low end. They huddled under the crude shelter, using the packs as backrests, and talked through the morning squall.
“What happened to you after graduation?” Pender asked.
“You know what happened to me,” Annette replied, frowning at him. “Rob and I got active in the peace movement. The revolution, right? We organized protests at different places around the country. Until his draft notice came. Then we came up here.”
“But right after graduation, what did you do?”
“The day after graduation we packed my car and headed to Chicago for an organizational meeting. Three days later we went to Madison. I think it was Ohio after that, or maybe Indiana. It’s kind of a blur. I remember four or five days in San Francisco, but mostly we were in the Midwest. Why?”
Pender shrugged. “I spent about three days trying to work up the courage to call you. Your roommate said you were gone, left no phone number. Your parents said the same thing. I always wondered if I had called right away if things might have been different.”
“No,” said Annette. “I was committed. Like a nun in a convent. I was devoted to peace and love, to ending the murder and mayhem in Vietnam. Rob was one of the high priests of the movement, so it just kind of happened.”
“So you went back to Rob the Throb because he was the booming voice of morality in our times?”
“You’re still a sarcastic son of a bitch. And snotty. Very snotty. Yes, I went back to Rob because we were committed to the same things and he made it known he was interested in me.”
“Interested in you. That sounds so . . . what? . . .. debutante’s ball.”
“He wanted to get laid and so did I, okay? And I admired him and we liked each other and we did good work together.”
“Did you really think all the people coming to your rallies and protests cared about the war?”
“Of course. Why else would they be there?”
“That’s where the party was.”
“You know this? How many protests and rallies did you attend?”
“Not one. Not a single one.”
“You might have learned something if you had.”
Pender turned his head to look directly at her. “Now you’re being grandiose. There was no discovery at those things. No one ever brought up a new set of facts or a new philosophy. Your movement never got beyond ‘Make love, not war’ intellectually. People just came out to be part of something. Smoke some dope, sing some songs, and get laid.”
“We helped raise the conscience of the nation,” said Annette. “It was important work. Not everyone bought into it, but lots did and we accomplished something important.”
Pender snorted. “The conscience of the nation lasted about as long as a politician’s promise. As soon as the draft went away, no one cared about the morality of wars and killing anymore. They just wanted to watch it on TV, and they wanted it to be over quickly.”
Annette shook her head in resignation. They weren’t ever going to agree on the war. They fell silent for a while.
“Did you get into drugs?” Pender asked.
“More than I should have,” said Annette. “Marijuana, of course. In San Francisco we dropped acid. At Woodstock we did acid and speed, a little hashish. I gave it up after that.”
“Why?”
“It was getting out of control. We were sleeping around. People were starting to shoot heroin. It was getting dark.”
They were silent again for several minutes.
“What about you? What was your drug of choice?”
“Me?” Pender smiled his wry smile. “Nada. Nothing. I didn’t do drugs. Not even marijuana. I drank some bourbon, had some Asian beer on R&R, but mostly I stayed straight.”
Annette poked him in the ribs with her elbow. “I don’t believe you, not even for a minute.”
He smiled again. “It’s true, though.”
“Why? I heard soldiers were always high, the drugs were great and cheap . . .”
“Lots of reasons,” said Pender. “I thought it was stupid, getting fucked up when people are trying to kill you. Getting fucked up to get accepted by the druggies. A bunch of losers. Mostly I just wanted to survive. That meant having my senses intact and going home without a drug habit.” He shrugged.
“My, my. You were a dull boy.”
“Yeah. Compared to big, brave Rob, I was a paste-eating bitch hiding in the school library.”
* * *
The rain intensified, driving them into the tent, where they struggled to get comfortable. Annette’s tent was designed for sleeping, not lounging. There was enough headroom to sit up but no chairs or backrests. They lay on their backs and talked awhile, then drowsed off, then woke and sat up, back-to-back, leaning on each other. Chaos took the opportunity to lie next to them.
“Pender?”
&nbs
p; “Yes, dear.”
“Were you thrilled when you shot someone? Or did you feel remorse?”
“My war wasn’t anywhere near that personal. Most of the firefights I was in were at night. You just saw the muzzle flashes and the tracer rounds. You shot back at the muzzle flashes. Unless it was really hot, in which case you kept your head down, under cover, and just sprayed blindly in their direction, hoping to get lucky, trying to scare them into staying in place.”
Annette was silent for a while. “But you did body counts, right? The news was always about body counts.”
“Yeah. When we could.”
“And how did you feel when you saw the dead?”
“I was a little queasy the first time, but you get over it. You would, too, if that’s what you were doing all the time.”
“I don’t think so, Pender. I think it would make me sick and crazy. It didn’t bother you?”
“I’d rather have played poker with them or toured Saigon whorehouses or learned how they grew rice, but we weren’t meeting under those circumstances. For them to go home, they had to kill me. For me to go home, I had to kill them. We all did what we had to do.”
“You didn’t feel remorse when you saw the dead bodies?”
“Mostly I didn’t feel anything at all, but when I felt something, I felt powerful. Like I had just bought another day on this earth.”
“You never looked at a body and thought, ‘That could be me’?”
“I always thought that could be me. I was always glad it wasn’t. And I always prayed that if I was going to catch a bullet, it would kill me, then and there. The thing that scared the living shit out of me was getting paralyzed or losing my legs or arms.”
“You prayed?”
“Not to God. I just prayed. To fate, I guess. I knew there wasn’t a God when I was five, and everything I’ve seen since then has proven it.”
“I thought there were no atheists in foxholes.”