The American Café

by Sara Sue Hoklotubbe

  “You can't blame yourself, Charlie. Lance wouldn't like it.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Charlie excused himself and walked to the men's room.

  Sadie realized that Charlie was hurting. His friend had almost died in front of him, and now he was blaming himself. She wanted to help him, tell him it was going to be okay, but she knew any words she had to offer were inadequate. There was nothing she could say to make him feel better.

  Charlie returned and they both flipped through first one magazine and then another, to pass the time until one of them could visit Lance. Sadie began to feel uncomfortable. Her very presence at the hospital made her feel uneasy. She had not hesitated to run to Lance's aid, but now that she knew he was going to be okay, she wondered if maybe she should leave. She knew she would be embarrassed if he showed up uninvited at her hospital bedside.

  She rummaged through the stack of magazines, found an abandoned newspaper, and tried to distract herself with any article she thought might provide a hint of interest. As she passed over the obituary page, a photo of a soldier caught her eye. The young Indian man in the picture looked familiar.

  She caught Charlie's attention. “There's an article here about a soldier's remains being returned from Vietnam. Well, Cambodia it says. Do you know him?” She handed Charlie the paper. “They are going to bury him at the national cemetery at Fort Gibson,” she added.

  Charlie looked at the paper, shook his head, and handed it back to Sadie. “No, I don't think so.”

  “I didn't think Cambodia was part of that war,” she said.

  “Well, that just goes to prove your government doesn't always tell you the truth, doesn't it?”

  Sadie looked at Charlie. “What do you mean?”

  “They said we weren't in Laos, either. But that was a lie. When you get a chance, ask Lance about it. He was over there.”

  Sadie dropped her nose back into the paper. “Well, if we had a soldier missing in action and his remains were found in Cambodia, then I'd say someone was in Cambodia.”

  “That's what I mean.” Charlie rose and walked toward a Coke machine. “Want something to drink?”

  Sadie shook her head. “No, thanks.”

  Charlie detoured by the nurse's station, returned to his seat, and placed his soda can on a nearby table. “I'm going to go back and check on Lance. You want to go?”

  “No, I'll wait here. You can tell him I said hello and that I hope he feels better soon.”

  Charlie disappeared down the hallway and Sadie continued to stare at the dead soldier's photo. Something gnawed at her gut. Why did he look so familiar? Finally she dismissed the obituary page and had moved on to the comics just as Charlie reappeared.

  “What happened?” asked Sadie.

  “He's still pretty out of it from the morphine they're giving him for pain.”

  Sadie thought for a moment. “I changed my mind. I think I will go back and see him…for just a second.”

  “Go ahead. It's the second room on the right. If anyone says anything, just tell them you're his next of kin. I don't think they really care. I'll wait here.”

  Sadie nodded, made her way down the hallway from the small waiting area, and slipped into the room Charlie had indicated. Lance lay sleeping in the bed closest to the wall, his head turned as if he were trying to look out a nearby window. Several wires and tubes connected his body to various machines and hanging bags of liquid. An oxygen hose ran from the wall to his pillow, circled his ears, and disappeared into his nose. His left shoulder and upper arm were encased in white bandages.

  Sadie quietly approached the bed and watched his chest swell in measured movements. Her eyes traveled to the machines where the rhythm of his heart etched a continuous graph across a small screen.

  She moved to the other side of the bed, bent and softly kissed his forehead. He opened his eyes, smiled, and closed them again. Overcome with emotion that ripped at her insides, she backed quietly away and left the room. She took a few moments to regain her composure, then rejoined Charlie in the waiting room.

  “Is he awake yet?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “The nurse says he's out of danger and needs his sleep, so I think I might as well go.” Charlie rose and lumbered toward the door. “There's not a lot I can do here and I've got a mountain of paperwork to do.”

  “I think you're right. It's getting late and I need to get back to Eucha before my aunt and uncle send out a search party.” Sadie stood and then stopped. “Wait.” She returned to the newspaper, found the article about the soldier, tore it out, then limped as fast as she could to catch up with Charlie who had already disappeared down the hall.

  27

  Rosalee carefully maneuvered her red Jeep down the steep dirt road, trying to dodge the large rocks. When she reached the bottom she stopped and pulled out the piece of paper on which Junior Wilson had scrawled the directions to the Mobley place.

  When she got to the mailbox that read “Mobley” and looked across the pasture at her destination, she almost changed her mind. But something deep inside steeled her resolve, and she gave the accelerator a nudge. She followed the path across the field, pulled up outside the trailer, and sat with the engine running while she surveyed the run-down dwelling. She honked her car horn twice.

  She could see movement behind a window curtain before the door opened. What she saw next caused her to think she had made a terrible mistake. At that moment, she would have given anything for a stiff drink.

  A military man stood in the doorway. His pink bald head glistened with perspiration in the morning sunlight. In his dark-blue uniform he looked like he had stepped right off a movie set.

  She lowered her window. “I'm looking for John Mobley.”

  “What do you want?” The man's voice reeked with hateful intimidation.

  “I just want to talk to him.”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Rosalee Singer. It will just take a moment.”

  The man looked at his watch, then stared at her before he spoke. “Hold on.”

  The man disappeared, and Rosalee decided to turn off her engine. She didn't need an overheated radiator in the middle of nowhere. A few moments later, the man emerged from the mobile home. He had put on a white hat and gloves and carried a rifle.

  Oh God, could this be John Mobley?

  She'd never seen the man up close, but this individual looked nothing like the one she had seen from a distance riding around town on a Harley motorcycle with a bandana tied around his head.

  Suddenly the seriousness of her situation struck her like a blow. John Mobley was probably crazy. Just like they all said he was, just like his mother. And isn't that what crazy military men do? Get all dressed up to commit suicide? Or, worse yet, here she was and would herself probably fall victim to his craziness. What a fitting conclusion to her own miserable existence now that she had managed to catch a glimpse of sobriety.

  She grabbed for the keys in her ignition but it was too late. He stood at her open window, leaned down, and looked inside.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “Uh, I'm sorry,” she stammered. “I think I've got the wrong house.”

  “If you're looking for John Mobley, then here I am. But you'd better hurry up and state your case because my ride ought to be here any minute. In fact, I thought that's who you were when you drove in. Did Jack send you out here?”

  “Jack?” Rosalee's fear began to grow.

  “Don't play innocent with me. I saw you sitting in the front row at the AA meeting last week. My sponsor sent you out here to check on me, didn't he?”

  “AA? You're a member of Alcoholics Anonymous?” Rosalee felt a tiny bit of relief. At least they had something in common. “No, nothing like that. I don't remember seeing you there. I came here to ask you some questions, about your mother, your family.”

  “There is nothing to talk about.” John dropped his head and looked at the ground. “She committed suici
de. What else do you people want? Are you some kind of lawyer or something?”

  “No, no. I just want to know if you ever had a sister, a sister who was maybe put up for adoption.”

  John frowned. “What the hell are you talking about, lady?” He moved slowly away from the vehicle.

  Rosalee froze, remembering the rifle he had had earlier, afraid she might have triggered the mechanism that would bring on her own demise. “I'm sorry. I think I may have made a mistake in coming here.”

  He stood up tall, his feet shoulder-width apart, and began to speak. “The only real family I ever knew was the one that issued me this uniform. Do you know that the Marine dress blues are the only uniforms made up of all the same colors as Old Glory?” He held up his elbow. “Blue stands for bravery.” Lowering his elbow, he pointed at the stripe on his trousers. “Red is for blood and sacrifice.” Then he adjusted his hat and stuck out his chin. “White is for honor.” He lowered his eyes to meet hers. “I wear this uniform because I'm a Marine. People stop and stare at me in this uniform. They respect me because I have on this uniform.” Then he lowered his voice. “No one respects a man because he's Pearl Mobley's son.”

  Rosalee's heart jumped into her throat. He really was crazy. But maybe she could talk herself out of danger. She didn't have a lot to lose.

  “Why is it exactly that you have on that spiffy uniform today?” she asked.

  John turned and raised his eyes toward the road. Rosalee quickly checked her rearview mirror. Relief flooded through her veins when she saw a car turn off the road and drive toward them.

  “Time's up,” snapped John. “I've got to go.”

  The car rolled to a stop not far from Rosalee's Jeep. She could see the driver wearing the same uniform with the same blue jacket and stand-up collar. Without another word, John got into the passenger's side and slammed the door. The vehicle backed up and roared toward the road.

  Rosalee let out a sigh of relief, but her hands were trembling when she turned the key in the ignition. She backed up, turned the Jeep toward the road, and swore she would never ever approach John Mobley alone again. At that moment she decided she couldn't possibly be his sister, after all.

  Red looked in the mirror and tried unsuccessfully for the third time to tie a square knot in his tie. He pulled the tie from around his neck and let it drop to the floor. He unbuttoned his white shirt, pulled it off, and let it fall on top of the tie.

  He sat on the edge of his bed, his left ankle resting on his right knee, and thought about the impending ceremony. After a few moments, he stood, went to his closet and, reaching to a high shelf, retrieved a worn shoe box. He carried the box into the adjoining room where he placed it on a wooden table and sat down to examine the contents. He gingerly removed the lid, set it aside, and shuffled through a dozen old and yellowed envelopes. Choosing one, he leaned back in his chair and pulled out the short letter and several black-and-white photographs it contained.

  As he read the letter, a feeling of sadness and helplessness came over him like a stifling fog. He laid the letter on the table and arranged the pictures beside it so he could see them all at one time. Slowly, he studied the young Indian man in each photo—shirtless and dirty, in baggy green pants and heavy-duty boots, with a cigarette dangling from the side of his smiling mouth and an M16 rifle in his hand.

  In one of the photos, the man stood at attention, no cigarette, fully dressed in clean, starched fatigues, sporting polished boots and an eagle feather attached to the epaulet on his shoulder. This photograph captured the man's unique expression, as if he were about to say something amusing.

  Red dropped the picture and picked up the final one. There were no people in the photo, just a heap of ashes, with pieces of a helicopter's destroyed rotor blades the only distinguishable items. He scooped all of the photos together, shoved them back into the shoe box, and returned to his earlier dilemma.

  He walked to the closet, pulled his favorite shirt off a nearby hanger—colorful and long-sleeved—and put it on. Next, he stepped into a pair of neatly hand-pressed blue jeans, fed a tooled leather belt through the loops around his trim waist and attached a beaded buckle. He picked up a shoe brush, carefully shined the best pair of boots he owned, and sunk his heels into them.

  Standing back, he looked in the mirror. His silver hair made him look old, he thought, even though, at the age of fifty-five, his body remained relatively fit. Today, the wrinkles in his tired face reflected the painful memories of every battle and fire fight he'd fought all those long years ago in Vietnam. He shook his head. It had taken too long for this day to arrive.

  He picked up his hat, carefully removed the hawk feather, and placed it gently on top of the dresser. From the bottom drawer, he retrieved a rectangular cedar box, opened it, and pulled out an eagle feather identical to the one on the man in the photo. Carefully, he secured it to his beaded hat-band. Then he placed the hat on his head and stood tall. Thirty-six years after the last date on the letters in the shoe box, on a Sunday afternoon with gentle breezes blowing from the south, under the clear and cloudless Oklahoma skies, Red was finally ready to welcome his brother home.

  28

  The Monday morning crowd at the café had come and gone like a spring thunderstorm. Sadie leaned against the counter wiping her face with a paper napkin. Rosalee perched on a nearby stool and thumbed through the only morning newspaper Liberty had to offer, the one that came seventy-five miles from Tulsa. She had been carrying on all morning about her experience at John Mobley's place, continuing to insert bits and pieces of the story between each and every breakfast order she delivered. Now she began to recite the experience again.

  “Why did you go by yourself?” asked Sadie. “I told you I'd go with you. You should have waited.” Sadie filled a glass with ice water for herself and placed it on the counter. “Besides, why don't you just get a copy of your birth certificate and see what it says?”

  Rosalee sipped cold Dr Pepper through a plastic straw. “I tried that.” Then she took the straw out of her glass and chewed on one end of it. “You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get an original birth certificate unsealed in Oklahoma if you've been adopted.”

  “Really? I would think if it's your birth certificate, you would have the right to look at it.”

  “You'd think so, wouldn't you?”

  Sadie picked up a wet cloth and absentmindedly wiped at the edge of the counter. “You'll probably find that lawmakers in Oklahoma rarely use logic when they pass legislation if it isn't going to benefit them personally.”

  Rosalee turned the straw around and began chewing on the other end. “How's your friend Lance doing?”

  “Remarkably well, I hear.” Sadie dropped the cloth next to the coffee pot. “I haven't actually talked to him, but my friend Charlie McCord told me this morning he's making a fast recovery because he was in such good physical condition. He may get to go home tomorrow.”

  “That's good.” Rosalee laid the straw on the counter and took a gulp of her drink. “I can't believe he belongs to the same AA group I do.”

  “Who?”

  “John Mobley. He thought someone from AA had sent me.”

  “Maybe you should offer him a ride to your meeting sometime. You could get to know him better and ask him about Pearl and if he had a twin.”

  Rosalee smirked. “I don't think so.”

  “What about the tribe? Don't they have to keep track of all tribal citizens' adoptions?”

  “Actually, I went to the Cherokee Nation when I was in Tahlequah the other day. My name is nowhere in their database, and they told me I would have to access my original birth certificate and prove I was a descendant of someone listed on the Dawes Rolls before they could help me. They said that was the original list of Indians living in Indian Territory when Oklahoma became a state, or something like that.”

  Sadie nodded. “It was for the land allotments.”

  “Besides, I don't think Pearl was Indian.”

  “You're con
fusing me, Rosalee. I thought Emma said your real mother was an Indian woman.”

  “Well, yeah,” Rosalee smirked. “But, I think she's lying. You can't believe anything she says.”

  Sadie didn't answer. She knew all too well how it felt to have a mother who possessed absolutely no skills in communication.

  Then with a troubled look on her face Rosalee asked, “Sadie, do you think I'm Indian?”

  The door opened and Red entered, giving Sadie a welcome diversion from her conversation with Rosalee. He took his usual place at the end of the counter against the wall.

  “Coffee?” asked Sadie as she reached for the coffeepot.

  Red nodded, placing his hat on the stool beside him and smoothing the top of his hair.

  “Where have you been?” Sadie plopped down a cup and saucer in front of him and poured. “I haven't seen you in a while.”

  “I had some personal business to attend to,” he said and began his ritual of spilling coffee into the saucer.

  Sadie replaced the coffeepot. “Want something to eat?”

  Red thought for a moment. “Yes, I'll take my usual.”

  Sadie headed for the kitchen. “Emma, give me two eggs over medium riding high on a short stack, and a side of bacon.”

  Emma acknowledged the order and went to work. Sadie picked up an armful of clean coffee mugs, carried them to the counter, and began stacking them near the coffeepot. A moment later, the front door opened again and Tom Duncan headed straight for Sadie.

  “Get away from me,” warned Sadie. “I'm not talking to you.”

  “Come on, Sadie.” Tom looked distraught. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Oh, all right. But don't even think about asking me to work for you ever again. Got it?” Sadie turned and dipped a glass in the ice machine, then began filling it with water. “Want something to eat?” she asked as she deposited the glass in front of him.

  “No. I need to talk to you,” he repeated, then gave her a wide-eyed look and emphasized his words. “In private, Sadie.”