After signing into his new unit Doc rushed over to the base housing office to make the most of the afternoon. The office provided a list of enlisted-friendly apartments nearby marked in yellow highlighter on a complementary map of the nearby neighborhood. Before the afternoon was out, he used the rest of the money John put in his pocket plus part of the money from the Honda as his first and last month’s rent on a small two bedroom apartment near the pool at Skyview Village Apartments.
As an added bonus, he had a great view of low-level military planes and fighters on takeoff and landings from the sidewalk in front of the complex. Amelia would later fail to see the bonus when the thundering engines woke her baby, but for the moment Doc was ecstatic to be the master of all comings and goings within his own four walls of white, freshly spray painted sheetrock.
The new red SUV was unloaded in record time since he brought so few worldly good with him. He aligned the folded clothes along the edges of the six drawer dresser with military precision, and hung the rest of the clothes in the closet of the master bedroom. Since both rooms were about ten feet square, he assumed that the master bedroom was the one with the larger closet. Amelia would later be livid that her clean clothes were put away before amply scouring their prospective receptacles.
A priority was to move the furnished yellow and brown striped couch and chair into place for maximum viewing satisfaction from the small television he brought from his old room in Spokane. The coffee table seemed sturdy enough for two pairs of feet, so he centered it in front of the couch so he and Amelia could both watch television in maximum comfort. There were even two end tables to place at either end of the couch for individual caches of drinks, chips and sandwiches. He sprawled out on the couch to telephone home to Spokane as evening settled in. The reception on the other end of the line was tepid.
Mrs. Donelson was balking at letting Amelia fly so late in her condition and suggested that Amelia delay moving to Texas until after the baby was born. This made perfect sense to the prospective grandmother. Amelia would be close at hand if complications arose, she wouldn’t be changing her medical care, and Mrs. Donelson would be the first to hold and spoil her first grandchild.
Amelia was torn between her obligation to be with Doc and knowing that she was in capable, familiar hands in Spokane. Capable, familiar hands won out. The conversation ended suddenly as Doc began to cry quietly without letting her know. Amelia was relieved to relinquish the line. Doc knew that soldiers don’t cry, but he was very alone with only his battered heart for company. Maybe soldiers only cried within the confines of their own despair, he reasoned.
Nightfall dragged in, interrupted by the careless parking lot lights intruding through the living room windows. About four in the morning Doc woke up hungry. He had brought no food into his new residence on the first day. He remembered seeing a twenty-four hour Dawg House fast food restaurant up the street and shuffled out the door pausing to appreciate the significance of his first apartment key as he turned it in the lock with an audible click. The shiny brass deadbolt and key contrasted with a scratched and worn knob, but Doc had a bittersweet joy of holding the freedom of his home in the front pocket of his jeans.
He wished that he had brought a jacket as the chill of the night contrasted sharply with the temperate warmth of the afternoon. Hustling on foot the couple of blocks to the Dawg House generated enough body heat to ward off the cold.
“Cold enough for you?” asked the middle aged woman behind the counter. Doc nodded counted the remaining bills in his wallet and ordered a ninety-nine cent hotdog and a cup for water.
“Ain’t seen you in here before. That haircut tells me you’re probably new up at the base. You must be all of twenty years old at most, I reckon.”
“Almost nineteen, ma’am. Just moved into my first apartment this afternoon.”
“My boy, Rudy, he’s about your age. He’s over in Germany now. God bless him, I miss him so. I bet your mama does, too.” Doc nodded in agreement. “You’re not gonna eat that for breakfast in my restaurant, no sir, that’s no kind of breakfast.”
Doc protested as she changed his order to a large breakfast costing five times what he budgeted. “The first breakfast in on the house for all my new soldiers,” she lied gathering together the fattening grub that made her the woman she was. “I’m not sending any of my soldiers to work hungry.”
Since company supplies were at stake, she could afford to be extravagant to a fault. Doc failed to protest further. She set the food down at the table closest to the counter along with her own coffee and corpulent frame. The plastic chair wheezed from the stress as she parked her posterior.
“Now, where was I? Oh, yes, my Rudy. He scraped by through high school by this much,” she squeaked holding her thumb and index finger close together, “then he up and joins the military. Next thing you know he’s off to boot camp and I’m crying my eyes out like a silly old woman. His father says Rudy done it just to get away from my chattering, but old Rudy Senior wasn’t laughing so hard when he caught that tub of Ben and Jerry’s Rocky Road upside his head, no sir. Then I had to practically fight him for it to get it back. I tell you what.” She shifted her body to give the numb parts a break.
“There are four good men in my life - Rudy Senior, Rudy Junior, Ben and Jerry. Don’t eat so fast like you’re going to a fire. You sit there and relax and enjoy your food.”
“Where was I? Oh, yes, my Rudy. I am so proud of that boy. Did I tell you he was stationed in Germany? When he told me that, I pulled out the world globe from his room, and you could never guess where Germany is? You have to either take an airplane or get on a boat to go there, you know what I mean?”
“Yes, ma’am, it’s a far piece,” Doc agreed trying out a fake Texas accent.
“I don’t reckon I’ll ever afford to go see him over there.”
“Reckon not,” Doc agreed.
“It seems like a cat’s age he’s been gone, but he’s coming home on leave over Easter,” she said testing his sincerity.
“I’ll bet you can’t hardly stand it,” Doc replied.
“Are you being cheeky with me?” she glared.
“No, ma’am.”
“Well, you’re just a little scamp like my Rudy,” she smiled as her face softened again.
“I probably better head home to get ready for work. Thank you for breakfast.”
“You can just come back anytime. If you get lonely, just remember Rudy’s mama is always here to listen. Or talk.”
Doc was surprised to often find himself at the Dawg House for encouragement over the next two months when sleep was elusive and loneliness infringed on his isolated world. The Dawg House population varied widely from large nocturnal litters to times when the crackle of the deep-fat fryer could be heard from the far side of the dining room.
Doc ran into Gar and his new love interest, Rebecca, at the Dawg House one cold night. Gar was jumping into the fire with his new girlfriend on their upcoming three-day leave to Las Vegas. Rudy’s mom was listening to their scheme from behind the counter and rolling her eyes as she did every time she heard a young couple making spontaneous, devastating plans for the future. Gar could not be deterred, so Doc wished them luck.
Rudy’s mom and the cook had a lottery pool every Wednesday and Saturday. For risking fifty cents each, twice a week, they dreamed of millions and millions of dollars for friends, relatives, homes, cars and travel. It was well worth a couple quarters each on every chance to share their dream of what could happen with a big win. Doc was always taught that gambling was a waste of money.
“You only have a one in twenty million chance of winning. You are more likely to be hit by lightning than win. You might just as well throw your money out on the parking lot.”
“You don’t understand, child,” Rudy’s mom explained gently. “We know that we’re never gonna win. Us two will be working here until our old bones give out. This is the way it is for most of us folks, but it’s not a bad life. We’re happy. We’re
content, anyway. You see, the magic in life is not always the precious gold you can put your hands on, but rather the precious people you can put your arms around.” She waddled over behind Doc and threw her solid, thick arms around him from behind in a humongous bear hug.
“You can’t buy these kinds of riches, child, and these are the riches that will see you through a lifetime.” With one last squeeze, she released his neck and waddled back to the counter. “But sometimes, Doc, you need something a little more tangible to keep you hanging in there, to keep you dreaming. Twice a week we harbor that little spark of hope that we’ll win and become somebody else - somebody rich with maids and servants, wearing beautiful clothes and going to the spa every day before lunch with all of our famous friends. The drawing comes and our ticket’s not a winner, but that’s okay because we already have everything important in life…we have food to eat, a roof over our heads, and family and friends who love us. When we’re feeling down, that fifty-cent dream is only a couple days away, so we can hold on. Then we say ‘next time’ and a couple days later we’re all excited, standing at the edge of our dreams again until the wrong numbers come up.”
Doc interrupted, “But you don’t want the reality of winning big, you just want to feel the dream once in a while to get you over the rough spots?”
“We already have our dreams - just look around at all the blessings in your life. The only thing we don’t have is the money!” she laughed fetching a refill on her coffee.
One cold mid-February morning, Doc stomped into the sparse apartment after the night shift, ran through a hot shower, and hunkered down under an extra blanket. He was brain-dead from a mind-numbing guard detail and wished that he was dead in his transient stress. In spite of his depression he easily drifted off to sleep.
When the cell phone rang, he considered ignoring it. He was not in the mood to pick up an extra shift or wrestle with a conversation regarding Gar’s impending annulment from Rebecca. Gar’s first marriage lasted for the entire long weekend before they realized that they were acquaintances rather than friends. The embarrassment hurt worse than the breakup. The world could wait until Doc woke up.
A few minutes later the cell phone rang again, so he stretched out his arm to the nightstand to see who was calling so insistently. The return number was from John and Anna in Spokane.
“He’s here and he’s beautiful,” Anna started the conversation with fresh grandmotherly pride. His son Benjamin arrived that morning eighteen hundred miles away. Instead of elation Doc felt a searing pain in his heart from being so alone and far away. All his life-changing excitement was happening over halfway across the country without him, but he couldn’t let his hurt show on the telephone to Anna.
In the small Texas apartment, life was on hold. Over a month earlier John and Anna offered a round trip airfare if Doc could get leave in February, but Doc had not asked for leave since Amelia didn’t seem to need him. After Anna’s surge of verbal adrenalin, she set him free to call his wife.
He quickly punched in the numbers to at least hear the miracle he was missing. Mrs. Donelson answered Amelia’s cell phone and reported that she was finally resting and would call Doc back when she woke up. He felt as if he had fallen off of a cliff, falling endlessly without reaching the ground below. An emotional thump on solid ground would be an improvement over the endless falling.
Amelia called later in the day to repeat the basic information that his parents announced earlier. He managed the illusion of enthusiasm only to be crushed when Amelia laid out her plans to delay joining him for eight weeks until after the Easter holiday. The logic of life had no concern for wounded hearts.
Eight weeks later Doc met the two strangers at the airport in Fort Worth. Amelia’s face seemed to register disappointment as she caught sight of him while the baby cried, oblivious to the presence of his new dad. The reunion scene that rehearsed in their imaginations turned out to be a mundane exercise. There was no emotional crescendo of separated souls once again joined. They were an average young family transitioning into their new lives.
Getting reacquainted with Amelia was not as foreboding as Doc imagined. She too was a victim of time and geography and was anxious to experience a semblance of normalcy in their lives together. She quietly hated the apartment, the yellow and brown fabric of the couch, and the cheap dark imitation woodgrain furniture, the neighborhood and the drone of aircraft overhead shaking Skyview Village day and night.
Amelia allowed herself one initial outburst when she discovered her clean possessions lined up in drawers and cupboards that had not been scrubbed and lined with shelf paper. She later allowed herself long sighs, grimaces and derogatory comments under her breath when mighty shows of airpower woke up the baby.
The pace of life at Skyview Village soon became blandly routine. Doc had friends from work at the base while Amelia tried to make new friends while trapped in the apartment complex. Gar was a frequent visitor as he had been before she arrived. At times Amelia felt that she was the guest since the two men were already established in their surroundings. During the shifts that Doc worked, Amelia felt invisible save for the baby’s needs.
Several months later Doc’s world was rattled by an unfamiliar voice calling after him as he unlocked his SUV to drive home after an evening guard detail.
“Hey, little brother.”
Doc checked the nametag of the thirty-something soldier with a crew cut and a smile. It read ‘Harrison’.
“It’s been a long time. You don’t recognize me, do you?”
“Can’t say that I do after fifteen years, Steve. I was only five when you enlisted and you never came back.”
“Sorry about that, Doc. I really meant to come home a million times, but it never seemed to be the right time.” They exchanged small talk about assignments, the girlfriends who came and left Steve’s life, and Doc’s new wife before exchanging e-mail addresses. After about fifteen minutes Steve had to leave, so they set up a time to meet later for dinner at the base bowling alley.
In the late afternoon Doc called Amelia to let her know that he would be having dinner with Steve on base. She seemed apprehensive about rekindling a relationship with his older brother, but held back in hope that the two brothers would not find much common ground anymore. She knew very little about why Jack and Steve disappeared from Doc’s life except that Doc had lionized Jack’s death as a hero. She carried the distinct impression that Steve’s resurfacing was bad news.
Dinner was a hamburger and soda, almost yelling over the drop and roll of bowling balls and the resetting of the pin machines. After forty minutes they left the building. Doc was unsatisfied that there was no depth in their renewed brotherhood and was ready to shake hands and head home to Amelia.
Steve slapped the side of the bed of his pickup, “I got a couple six packs of cold ones in the cooler and couple poles if you want to do a little fishing at the dock in the rec area.” Doc was intrigued by the perception that Steve might be about to open up the vault of family secrets that had been sealed since he was a child.
He remembered Jack and Steve as tall young teenagers who joined the military abruptly after high school. Jack and Steve never aged in Doc’s mind. Everyone who abandoned Doc’s life from his father down to Rachel remained frozen and timeless in the recesses of his mind. The thirty-something man claiming to be his older brother bore little resemblance to the memory. Perhaps it was time to start renovating his family tree starting with Steve.
They drove down to the dock and lugged the cooler to the water, but left the poles behind. Doc mimicked Steve as they removed their boots and socks, rolled up their cuffs and swished their feet in the cool, still water.
“How’s Mom doing these days?”
“She and John have a good life. Nice house in a nice part of town. Rose and Patty and the grandkids come around once in a while, but they talk on the phone all the time. Neither of them can keep a husband for any length of time. You ought to call Mom once in a while.”
> “Yeah, Doc, I think I might start doing that. I just don’t know what to say.”
“Like Rose and Patty call to discuss world events?” Doc laughed. “Just call and it will come to you. She doesn’t expect high drama. She would just like to hear your voice.”
“I don’t know about that,” he said with a long sigh and looked intently into the distant darkness hovering above the water. Doc felt the hairs on the back of his neck warning him not to open the door to Steve’s silence.
“What is it I don’t know, Steve?”
Steve popped open his third beer for courage. “How much do you know about when Jack died?”
“I was just a kid. Everybody leaves kids in the dark. All I could ever get out of Mom and John was that Jack was killed on a training mission when his Jeep rolled.”
“Maybe we should leave it at that,” Steve said aloud to himself. Doc was afraid to hear more, but a gaping tear already exposed the existence of the family lie. Doc was proud of Jack as a hero who died in the service of his country, but John and Anna had never celebrated his heroism. He remembered the gray metal military casket at visitation in Spokane, and a small group of friends and relatives giving embarrassed condolences to Anna.
He always assumed that Jack’s heroic memorial was at his home base with his Dad and Steve, followed by the simple service and graveside gathering back home in Spokane. The subject of Jack’s death was closed in advance of the moist, brown earth tapping, tapping on the thin metal casing. It would be hard for Steve to tarnish the memory of Jack, but Doc had to know the truth.
“After we enlisted, we located Dad in Mississippi at Keesler when Jack was in tech school there. Jack stayed on at Keesler as his first assignment and I went down to visit a couple times a year. At first we’d all buy tickets on a deep sea fishing boat or Dad would drive us over to New Orleans for fun, but pretty quickly we got into a rut of binge drinking every time we got together. Dad was a fish, and Jack was a growing minnow. They hit the bars pretty hard every weekend until Jack could hold his own against Dad. We were young and stupid then. I flew down one Labor Day, and Dad and Jack and I partied pretty hard in New Orleans. Dad was soused and Jack was three sheets to the wind, so I was the designated driver. I only had two beers,” Steve said holding up three fingers.
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