The Post-War Dream

by Cullin Mitch

  It was on a desolate road leading from Yongdong, where fleeing villagers and townspeople streamed southward to escape the fighting, the long procession repeatedly sent dashing to the roadsides when retreating U.S. Army vehicles barreled past them. Disoriented by the thick dust spun high by military tires, an elderly monk lost control of his bicycle and swerved into the path of a speeding jeep, his peddling left leg struck by the bumper, his body then thrown over the hood — airborne for a second, his gray robe fluttering, landing with a dull thud behind the braking jeep — as the bicycle continued wobbling forward without him. In the upheaval of dust and halting vehicles and startled onlookers, the monk was crushed beneath the front wheel of another jeep, his certain end occurring at the exact moment that the second jeep's horn briefly rang out. The bicycle, miraculously intact, veered several yards beyond the accident, crashing, at last, on the other side of the road — the contents of its saddle baskets dumped beside a sloping embankment, scattered near the boots of a twelve-man reconnaissance patrol from the 2nd Battalion. While horrified refugees on both sides of the road froze in their tracks, and the caravan of army vehicles rolled to a stop, a sudden quiet overtook the clamor, punctuated only by McCreedy's enraged voice rising among the reconnaissance patrol, shouting, “Son of a bitch!”

  Before the dust swirling about the accident had fully dissipated, McCreedy lifted the bicycle, promptly turning it around. With his rifle slung across his back, he straddled the seat, and, shaking his head in disgust, proceeded to ride the short distance to where the monk's slack body was already being dragged from underneath the jeep. But it wasn't the stunned-looking young driver — wiping grime and sweat off his brow with a handkerchief, telling everyone, “Didn't even see him; it's like he dropped out of the sky or something” — who ultimately lowered himself to the body, nor was the monk held by the hands of the white-clad refugees who soon came running from both sides of the road, gawking at the tragedy in hushed voices; instead, it was McCreedy who cradled the old man, bending close to his shaved scalp, briefly uttering something into a bloodied ear, doing so as Hollis watched from afar, a cigarette fuming at his lips, the smoke curling upward into the brim of his helmet.

  The monk's killing was, in fact, the first fatality they were to encounter during the conflict, and, in a way, it would be the most benign of all the deaths they were ultimately destined to witness. Yet many years since then, Hollis found himself wondering what it was McCreedy had spoken to the corpse, though at the time he had assumed it was a prayer, perhaps a blessing intended for the monk's departing soul. Or maybe — he considered when revisiting the accident in his mind — the words weren't as ecumenical or holy as he had imagined, maybe McCreedy had kept it simple, base, and impersonal: “Too fucking bad for you, buddy. Tough break.” He would, of course, never really know, and, as such, he finally concluded that whatever had been said was irrelevant: the act of rushing to the accident — lifting that battered body, holding the dead man while others did nothing — was the meaningful part of the memory, if only because it served to remind him that McCreedy was, after all, a contradiction of sorts and, therefore, more human than Hollis had eventually wanted to believe.

  And so on that road leading from Yongdong, McCreedy stayed for a while with the monk's body — shaking his head again and again, glancing up at the bicycle he left propped against the jeep and the driver who stood beside it with his eyes down. Before trudging forward to get a better look, Hollis finished his cigarette, blowing a final exhalation of smoke at a blue sky which was unfurling beyond fading currents of dust; just then the sun broke through that brownish filter, casting its rays to the ground, illuminating those items which had been in the bicycle's baskets and were now several feet away from the red cloth which had safeguarded them, two bundles wrapped in fishing wire: a packet of flat, slender lengths of polished metal; another packet of narrow, unfinished planks of wood; the metal and wood being of equal size — approximately twelve inches long and two inches wide, fifteen to twenty pieces per bundle — with hanja characters meticulously carved or etched lengthwise upon each one. A few metal pieces glinted brightly in the increasing sunlight, catching Hollis's attention and blunting his sight for a moment when he flicked the cigarette butt at them.

  “Is he a goner?” someone in the patrol asked.

  “If he isn't,” someone else replied, “he's about to be.”

  Then while McCreedy held the monk, Hollis knelt in front of the old man's possessions, inspecting the bundle of metal pieces which glimmered back at him and reflected his ruddy face. Presently, he reached for the wooden planks, studying the ornate, scroll-like writing, the characters filled in with black ink — messages which would forever be impossible for him to fathom, as cryptic to his memory now as the words he once saw imparted into a fallen monk's ear.

  8

  “Wood and metal? What on earth is that going to do to me?” Debra had wondered, upon learning that her chemotherapy infusions were to be a mixture of two drugs: Taxol, derived from the bark of the Pacific yew tree, and carboplatin, from the valuable metal class used to create jewelry. “I'll probably become a robotic tin man with an ax.”

  “Surely a tin woman,” Dr. Langford said. “But right now I wouldn't worry too much about that.”

  Then the autumn after her five-month therapy had commenced was passed in waiting, the slow, indeterminate days initially marked by the long strands of her hair discovered all over the house; sometimes the hairs ended up in unforeseen places — plastered on the TV screen, resting at the bottom of a coffee mug, hanging from the front doorknob — until, as an act of empowering herself, she decided to take control and buzz-trim her head to a fine quarter-inch stubble. “If it's going to happen anyway,” she said, “why prolong the agony of it?” But soon the velveteen stubble also began shedding, dotting their sheets and pillows like benign, identically made splinters. In a further attempt at empowerment, she eventually stripped off whatever was left of her hair with a lint roller, emerging from the bathroom balder than she had been at birth, her eyebrows, too, no longer existing on her face. She stood before Hollis in an untied terry-cloth robe, her naked body lacking a single pubic hair (the absence of which, she realized soon enough, hampered her ability to use the toilet without making a mess — the thick, curling pubes having previously funneled the urine flow into a well-aimed stream). “Just call me Mrs. Clean,” she told him, clutching the hair-matted lint roller in one hand, concealing her self-consciousness with a grin, even as he appeared mortified by just how thoroughly the job had been done.

  “My lord,” Hollis said, rising from where he had sat at the foot of their bed, walking gingerly toward her, his gaze traveling the circumference of her oval-shaped head.

  “Well, what do you think?”

  “I don't know,” he said. “You look like you, but not like you.” He extended a palm outward, bringing it to her tender scalp, letting it glide about on the smooth surface. “You look like a blank canvas, Deb.”

  “If only that were true,” she replied, and at that moment a shiver shot through her body, producing goose pimples on her bare shoulders and arms, as if to signal the premature arrival of the dry, brisk winter months. Then the colder season found her coughing and sneezing more than ever before: surely a weakened immune system, she and Hollis had concluded; for a while, each abrupt wheeze from her mouth or nose — every single hack or sudden nasal eruption — was accompanied by an uncontrollable release of urine, to the point where Debra began relying on what she liked to refer to as adult diapers. “Never saw myself as the depending-on-Depends type,” she'd told Hollis at Costco, after he had lowered two bulk-size packages of the moisture-absorbing undergarments into their shopping cart.

  Since they hadn't yet formed any close acquaintances at Nine Springs, no one sought them out during that first winter, and, for the most part, the weeks between Debra's treatments were spent in relative solitude. Hollis whiled away the hours by doing landscaping in the backyard, cooking their mea
ls, and strolling the aisles of Home Depot or Costco. There was also his increasingly questionable, slow-going autobiography, resumed now and then whenever Debra had urged him to keep writing, given the working title of The Hardest of the Hard: A Young Soldier's Story of Adversity amp; Courage Under Fire; but with only a few pages completed, there wasn't yet the heroic wartime tale or narrative structure he had envisioned — that account of glorified half-truths he intended to composite from the published fictional accounts of others while omitting much of what he had actually seen or done in Korea. However, it was a return to drawing and painting which gave him the kind of immediate satisfaction writing just didn't provide, rekindling a hobby which had been dormant for decades and allowing him the opportunity to engage in an honest form of creative expression.

  So on Friday afternoons, Hollis attended the two-hour Painting Your Life class at the local Funtivities Center, where — for a $58 monthly enrollment fee — he was supplied with colored pens, pastels, oil paints, watercolors, brushes, and large sheets of white construction paper. With a single assignment given at the start of every session (Compose a dream you've had — Depict your favorite place — Make a self-portrait — Sketch something you like to eat) and offering a minimal amount of instruction, the classes were reserved, meditative affairs set around four circular tables which could each seat five to eight participants. Under the roving presence of the soft-spoken and diminutive Mrs. Ambrose, a retired art-history adjunct professor from the University of Arizona, Hollis completed every assignment in less than an hour, always excusing himself before those around him had finished their pieces (his weekly creation carried across the parking lot in one hand, rolled up tightly as he headed for the Suburban, destined to be placed on a garage cabinet shelf).

  But a couple of his paintings had caught Mrs. Ambrose's attention, bringing her to hover above his shoulders, her bifocals dangling from a silver chain and brushing against his neck. “Oh, I like this, very unusual,” she had said while watching him add a light blue sky to a pastel-based image showing a half-naked man and boy, their heads concealed behind gas masks; and then, two weeks later, she repeated the sentiment when gazing down at a self-portrait which had Hollis surrounded by a purple-crimson background, arms at his side as he stood near a white cow and in front of a blackish tree with bloodred leaves. “Oh, I like this, Mr. Adams. I like what you're doing here — the symbolism of the tree, the colors you've used — figurative while also abstract. Now tell me what you're trying to convey in this?”

  Lifting a red pastel he was using from the construction paper, Hollis regarded his self-portrait as if he were viewing it anew. “You know, I can't say for sure,” he said, his words preceded by a faint sigh. “I guess I don't really know. It sort of just came to me, I suppose.”

  Mrs. Ambrose raised her bifocals, holding them at her nose like a magnifying glass. “Well, it seems rather personal, don't you think? Perhaps you're addressing something about your childhood, a longing for days gone by.”

  “Perhaps that's it,” he said, lowering the red pastel to the paper. “It could be, sure,” and with that he began working again.

  Debra, on the other hand, occasionally took tai chi and ceramics classes at the Funtivities Center, although she usually occupied herself with escapist fiction, managing to track down and read the forty-six novels of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe series; at the same time, she could not resist owning another escapist collection of sorts: shunning the typical line of chemotherapy wigs, she acquired instead various specialty hairpieces which added an elegant or humorous touch to her otherwise barren appearance (Illusion by Eva Gabor, Encounter by Revlon, Action by Raquel Welch, as well as a blond beehive, and a Princess Leia wig), wearing whichever one suited her mood when heading to the grocery store or into Tucson for treatment. But she quickly grew tired of such novelty items. In the latter half of that winter, she began leaving the wigs at home, deciding to venture outside adorned only with a bandanna or a purple Arizona Diamondbacks baseball cap, sunglasses, and a charcoal-filtered surgical mask to help protect her lowered immune system; although none of what she wore could hide the lethargy which had finally descended upon her — a deepening lethargy, Hollis believed, not based solely on the effects of the monthly chemo infusions but, rather, because she could also no longer deny a feeling of having been horribly betrayed by her own body.

  Thereafter, their days and nights elapsed in quiet uncertainty, both waiting for the next round of treatment or some clear-cut sign that the infusions were working, hoping for a positive outcome to the ordeal, and for the colder months to conclude so they could at last open up the windows on warmer evenings. During one of those chilly nights when they were sitting together on the living-room couch — speaking very little while the fireplace crackled nearby, lost in their own thoughts as the TV played in front of them — Debra suddenly announced she wasn't the same person anymore, that she had become someone far removed from the woman he had married and the woman she had imagined herself as always being, saying this with the softest of voices.

  “Why do you think that?” Hollis asked.

  “Honestly, take a good look at me,” she said. “Everything about me has changed. I'm not really me, not really me at all. I'm a complete stranger to myself.”

  Meeting her eyes, he shook his head; he wished to counter her view of herself, to let her know she wasn't any different, that she was still Deb, that once the cancer and chemo were gone she would feel like her old self again, that none of the physical manifestations of her illness, or its treatment, could ever completely alter her intrinsic qualities — except he wasn't sure if that was the case. In truth, she had changed dramatically during a relatively short period of time: as opposed to her usual energetic, outgoing nature, she'd grown increasingly listless and withdrawn, her movements were sluggish, she often spent more hours sleeping than awake; hairlessness aside, her skin, too, had a shiny, almost translucent veneer; from maintaining an irregular sleeping pattern, dark circles had formed like bruises beneath her eyes, her voice had a languid, detached tone — and mirroring those retirement-home shut-ins unable to tend to their own basic needs, there was sometimes a yielding look in her stare. Hollis placed a hand on her leg and returned his gaze to the television program, saying nothing.

  Debra's debility wasn't entirely unexpected or alarming; in fact, Dr. Langford had cautioned them ahead of treatment about what was likely to occur. “Chemo brain,” the doctor had called it, smiling wryly while the term was spoken. “The effect is real, but I can tell you now the medical community doesn't totally understand it.” The cognitive condition was, as Dr. Langford explained, only temporary. “You might experience some forgetfulness — dull thinking, mental fogginess, that kind of impairment — most likely during chemotherapy, although some women have reported it lingering for a while once therapy was completed. What you might notice is a difficulty finding the right words when talking, or an inability to write or phrase sentences as quickly as you're used to. If it becomes a problem, my best advice is to keep your mind engaged. Continue doing work-related tasks, reading, whatever your hobbies are. Don't stop doing what you enjoy, that's the most important thing.”

  As it happened, the onset of chemo brain gradually made it impossible for Debra to fully absorb her mystery novels, or stick with the plots of her favorite TV shows, or concentrate while playing a simple game of Skip-Bo. Yet her sense of humor remained, illustrated by the Post-it notes she left scattered around the house — inside the refrigerator (Buy Me Cheesecake Before It's Too Late), beneath the bathroom mirror (It Is a Good Day to Be Bald), at the end of the kitchen counter (Dear, Remove the Enya CD from the Stereo amp; Please Remind Me Again That “Sail Away” Isn't Helping Anyone Feel Better) — and, much to Hollis's amusement, on the breast pocket of her own shirt: Hi, My Name Is Debra. Who Are You? Another saving grace was the absence of several afflictions commonly associated with chemotherapy — nausea, vomiting, constipation, diarrhea, loss of appetite — all of which were kept at b
ay by the antiemetic and antianxiety medication she received just prior to, and then directly following, every round of treatment.

  Even so, for five or six days after each infusion, she experienced other side effects which had little or no remedy: fatigue, numbness in her fingertips and toes, difficulty picking up or holding objects, ringing in her ears, aching joints, blistering inside her mouth. Now and again, her limbs behaved spasmodically — her hands twitched violently for a second at the kitchen table, her knees jerked upward while she sat upright — as if her reflexes had been tested by a ghost. These instantaneous fits weren't without consequences: twice in one evening, the table was disrupted from the swift, hard bounce of her knees — a glass of water knocked over, the salad bowls sent wobbling, the plates and silverware made askew with the earthquakelike jolt she had delivered.

  “Christ almighty!” she said the second time it occurred, pressing her hands against her legs to keep them anchored.

  “It's all right,” Hollis told her, going for the paper towels.

  “This is so stupid.”

  “Don't worry about it.”

  “This is the stupidest thing I've ever known.”

  From where he now stood at the counter, Hollis glanced back at her, seeing a quizzical expression appear on her face, observing how, just then, her body trembled almost imperceptibly beside the shaken table. And so, too, there was an ineffable cold, infiltrating her marrow, keeping her bundled in jackets or sweaters throughout the days — even as the heater was set higher than what it should be, even as Hollis sweated indoors and often lounged in shorts and a tank top. Regardless of the heat, the sight of her shivering, the way she kept herself wrapped up, had a contagious influence. Later that night, he enveloped her on the couch, draping her like a blanket of flesh, warming her with his broad chest. But no matter how hot it actually was inside the house, he couldn't avoid her body's insinuation of winter, feeling his internal temperature drop and his blood thicken — like frigid soil shifting underneath a warmer layer of sand — while, at the same time, his brow glistened in the living room, his forehead reflected the flames coursing above the hearth.