“This stuff sounds angry,” he told her.
“It is,” she said. “And I am too.”
“Don’t be mad at me,” Gpa said. “Please. Not on my last day here.”
“I’m not mad at you, Charlie. I’m mad for you. I’m angry for you.” This was rock ’n’ roll for her. She’d play it to think of him and why he was there and how she wanted him back. “Tell me you’ll look for music like this while you’re there, and tell me you’ll think of me, angry for you at home.” The song was “For What It’s Worth,” by Buffalo Springfield. “It’s about some protest in LA,” she told him. “But it makes me think of Vietnam.”
And when he got there, and when opportunity allowed, and after he’d met other soldiers who were now listening to this kind of music too and who were getting it shipped to them, he heard the music go electric, he heard the darkness in the chords, and he grew angry at the distance and more determined than ever to do what it would take, as best he could, to stay alive and get home to her.
“So cool!” Corrina said when he finished, and in the hours that passed as we made our way across the rest of California, and I turned my notes from his oral story into a newly written chapter of the HFB, Corrina made fast friends with Gpa, talking about good rock versus shit rock, singing songs with him and finding others she didn’t know, but he partially did, on her phone. I knew none of them. Sly and the Family Stone. “Me and Bobby McGee.” The Lovin’ Spoonful. Grace Slick. “Cloud Nine.” “Eight Miles High.” “Easy Wind.” Thunderclap Newman. The Meters. Gpa and Corrina would say things back and forth so quickly I didn’t know which was a song and which was a band. When Corrina found the song on her phone, sometimes I recognized a little of it. Maybe snippets from movies or commercials, but not as music I knew, because we’d always listened to the news at home or in the car, and I was that weirdo who went looking in old library catalogs online for recordings of Maya Angelou talking about how she knows why the caged bird sings, or Carl Sandburg reading about fog coming in on little cat feet.
But shortly after we crossed the border into Nevada, I interrupted them. “Hey,” I said between songs. “Did she keep introducing you to music after the war too?”
“Of course,” Gpa said. “I didn’t want to get in her way. She loved it. Then I loved it because she did.”
“So my father must have grown up listening to a lot of rock ’n’ roll,” I said. I didn’t know why I’d asked. Or maybe I did. Maybe it was all that talk of home that got me thinking about Dead Dad. Maybe as Gpa had brought the photo along, I’d dragged the ghost of Dead Dad along too, or maybe he was chasing me, that wet hand rising out of the water, a voice calling me to join him.
Gpa was quiet for a moment. I looked back at him and he put his hand on my shoulder. “Yes,” he said softly. I thought he was going to say more, but he turned and looked out the window.
“Like what?” I asked. “What were some of his favorites?”
“I don’t know, Teddy,” Gpa said. “I don’t really know what he liked.”
“Didn’t he have records, though? What did he play?”
“I don’t know, I told you,” Gpa said. “Don’t badger me.”
It was a tricky line. Of course it wasn’t right to badger Gpa, but it hurt, because I thought, especially now, that he did know more and he was holding back on purpose. He was my dad. What was his favorite song? What was his favorite flavor of ice cream? What color was his Little League baseball jersey? These stupid things mattered—they just did.
Vietnam must have still been on Gpa’s mind, however, because as we crossed the border into Nevada, and Corrina turned up the volume when Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” came up on her playlist, instead of singing along this time, Gpa remained quiet. He stared out the window into the Mojave dust and kept one hand on Old Humper’s head, rubbing at it aimlessly. “We’re passing through Vegas,” he finally said. “I want to stop and see the Raconteur.”
I turned down the volume so I could hear him better.
“The who?” Corrina asked.
“The Raconteur,” Gpa said. “We’re driving right by him. I haven’t seen him in years.”
“We have to get as close to Denver as we can today,” I said. “We shouldn’t stop unless we have to.”
“We can stop,” Gpa said.
“Who’s the Raconteur?” Corrina asked again.
I turned around in my seat to look at Gpa. “It’s already late afternoon. We don’t know where we’re staying tonight.”
“He’ll find out we drove right by him. He will. He just knows things.”
“No one is going to know we’re driving by. No one is supposed to know, Gpa. That’s the point!”
“Seriously,” Corrina asked. “Who is this guy?”
“I’m worried about time,” I said.
“You’re worried about time,” Gpa said. “You? We have time, Teddy.” I could hear the anger rumbling deep within him. There was no need to let it explode all over again. The In-N-Out had been enough for one day. The incident had exhausted me and I probably could have gone to sleep instantly in the passenger seat, but I was afraid of what might happen as soon as I closed my eyes. I worried about what might happen when I did eventually have to go to sleep that night and in the days to come.
“Okay,” I said, turning back around to face the road. I slumped down in the seat. “But just a short visit.”
“Woo-hoo!” Corrina pumped her fist in the air. “Viva Las Vegas!”
CHAPTER 9
THE RACONTEUR
The Raconteur was the guy next to Gpa in the photo on the beach, the man standing tall and shirtless, broad shouldered, thick head of dark hair thrown back, laughing like he was howling at the moon. I’d never met him, but I’d heard stories, sad ones—the Raconteur had gotten smashed in the back after a grenade blast and had been paralyzed from the waist down. They’d stayed in touch, but Gpa hadn’t seen him in years.
We were going to Vegas to see him, but not the Vegas Corrina imagined. It took us a while to find our way off the 15 and down into the streets of the city, keeping the glittering megahotels from the Strip to our left and behind us. Gpa remembered more and more, and finally, after we’d circled the Boulder Station Casino a few times, he remembered the beige, red-trimmed hotel that wished it was a set in a Wild West movie, if fifteen-story buildings had a place in old Westerns, and knew that the Raconteur lived nearby because he worked at Boulder Station and he wheeled himself there every day.
The houses in the neighborhood were all so much smaller than mine, some of them only trailers, or the size of one, with little squares of dust and dirt for front yards. The neighborhood was empty and desolate, which made me nervous. I wanted to get in and get out, because we had a road to stay on and too many miles to go.
As we curled around those depressed streets, the bent and twisted fences, missing slats and wires, I thought of all the times I’d complained about my house, thinking it was small, wishing I lived in one of the colorful, tree-shrouded mini-mansions on one of the nicer hills in Venice or back up behind the promenade in Santa Monica.
Eventually, after creeping along Avondale Avenue, Gpa pointed to another one of the houses, a faded pink rectangle. This one had a chain-link fence in perfect condition, though, and it sparkled in the blinding desert sun. “That’s it,” Gpa said. “That’s where he lives.”
It was a little past three thirty in the afternoon, and as we parked out front and turned off the ignition, we could feel the heat seeping into the car as soon as the AC shut off. I leashed Old Humper before I let him out and the four of us stood there in front of the gate.
“Are you sure?” Corrina asked. She fanned herself with her hand. “I’m a little worried whoever lives here is going to greet us with a gun.” The air was heavy and anxious, and a distinct mechanical chugging and droning came from somewhere back behind the house. The two front windows and the glass on the front door all had shades drawn, and for a moment, one of them h
ad its corner lifted, but it dropped closed as quickly as it had opened.
Old Humper paced back and forth, sniffing near the fence. “Well,” Corrina said. “Let’s see who’s home.”
As I stepped forward and reached for the gate, the front door opened and a man in a wheelchair waved his hand at me frantically. Old Humper barked. “Wait!” the man yelled, but it was too late. My finger had just grazed the latch on the gate when a shock jolted through me and left me feeling dazed and weird and tingly.
Everyone stepped back, and the man in the wheelchair leaned down outside the front door and flipped a switch in an electrical box on the stoop. “Okay!” He signaled us to come in, but I remained still, or sort of, as I thought I was swaying, and Gpa put his arm around me. He unlatched the gate and led us all in.
“Sorry about that,” the Raconteur said. “Just a little something to keep the neighborhood kids away. You get it bad?”
I shook my head, because what else are you supposed to do, cry? I had little tremors of volts still in me, but I told him I was fine.
He nodded, and then he stuck his hand out to Gpa. “Charlie! You didn’t tell me you were coming. What the hell, man? Get in here.”
He led us inside to the air-conditioning and closed the door quickly. His home was a warren webbed with wires crisscrossing the walls and leading to various keyboards and monitors and a scattered collection of computer parts and consoles and entertainment units that must have spanned four decades or so. There were Apple computers I didn’t recognize, an old Nintendo console wedged between books on a low shelf, screens everywhere, including one on an oversized armchair and another tucked into a corner of the couch. An ancient Atari system perched on a stool, the game Pong still in it, rising from the console like an altarpiece. There was a big two-tone cartoon duck flapping slowly across one of the screens, and the Raconteur picked up a gray Nintendo gun and blasted the duck as he rolled past toward the far end of the living room where the carpet ended and the kitchen tiles began. He didn’t have to go far. I was amazed how quickly and deftly he wheeled through the mess.
“Me, here,” he said, gesturing to the room around him. “This is what I call the Nest. Welcome,” he added to us. Then he frowned up at Gpa. “It’s been how many years?”
Gpa glanced around and followed the Raconteur carefully. “I don’t know,” he said.
“Got to be at least four, maybe more. Jesus fuck!” The Raconteur shot a look back at me and Corrina and shrugged. “Sorry. My manners are all fucked up—I mean . . . Well, hell, you know what I mean. Sorry.”
I’d frozen in the middle of the living room. Even Old Humper was at attention. He was sniffing around the wires and computers, wary of another electric jolt. Or at least that was what I hoped he was doing, since I was still moving slowly and blinking and yawning and breathing deeply, just trying to make sure my body was working the way it should.
Corrina stepped around me. “Doesn’t bother me,” she said.
“No,” the Raconteur said. “You look like the toughest one in the bunch.”
“I am,” she said, hoisting herself onto the counter that doubled as a bar. There were a couple of empty stools, but she ignored them. Perched like that, she was basically eye level with me, and she looked at me, smiling.
“I think she’s right,” Gpa said. He looked tired, and he slumped down onto one of the stools. “I’m too old.”
“All right,” the Raconteur said. “You didn’t drive all the way out here to tell me that. What’s going on? I’d say you brought the whole family,” he said, but then looked up slyly at Gpa. “Except you didn’t.”
“My son’s trying to help me,” Gpa said, and I looked up from my daze to see what might be coming next, because I was worried he was going off the rails. I walked over to him and leaned up against the bar-counter between him and Corrina. He took his hat off and hooked it over his knee. “I mean, my grandson.” He rubbed his face and looked up at the wall. The Raconteur had a black-and-gold marine Vietnam vet baseball cap just like Gpa, hanging on a peg nailed to the wooden slats on the wall.
“And I thought I was the one with all the stories.” The Raconteur smiled. “This calls for a drink.” Judging from the collection of empty bottles in the barrel by the door, the Raconteur was a big fan of Basil Hayden’s. He saw me looking. “Pricy bourbon for a guy on a pension, but like Abe Lincoln said, a man with no vices has few virtues. And hell, this is Vegas. Charlie, a glass of the good stuff?”
Gpa shook his head. “I can’t.”
The Raconteur frowned. “That fucker,” he said, and we all knew he was referring to Gpa’s disease.
“You two?” He pointed two fingers at us.
“Whatever you’re having,” Corrina said to him. The Raconteur laughed. She took off her sunglasses and hooked them on the neckline of my T-shirt, and I hesitated, saying nothing because I wasn’t sure if it was the shock from the fence or the gentle brush of Corrina’s fingers at the base of my neck that scattered little sparks of electricity inside me.
As the Raconteur wheeled over to his hutch to find some glasses, Gpa shook his head. “Lou,” Gpa said. “They’re kids.”
The Raconteur looked back at him as he poured himself a short shot from a newly opened bottle. He knocked it back quickly and poured himself a fuller glass. “One more squeeze of the balls for you, isn’t it?” he said. “Uncle Sam’ll sign you up for a year, send you to the other end of the earth to have your back busted in a thousand different ways, and you can’t even have a bourbon when you get home. Fucked up, isn’t it?”
“Fucked up,” Corrina echoed. She swung her legs back and forth under the counter, clearly enjoying everything that came out of the Raconteur’s mouth. “Unfair, unjust, unloving,” she continued.
“And not a damn thing we can do about it,” the Raconteur said.
“Yup,” she said. “Which all seems kind of lonely making.”
He laughed. “Lonely making. I like that. Damn smart. Hey, you two an item?” he asked, waving his fingers at me. “A pair? Dating? What the hell do you call it these days?”
“No,” Corrina said quickly.
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked me.
“Uh, she has some say in the matter too,” I said.
“Damn right,” Corrina echoed.
“Yes. Yes, of course. I got that.” This made him laugh again. “Well, I notice who isn’t here with you.” He sniffed. “The optimistic one in the family.”
“Please,” I said, stepping away from the bar top. “She doesn’t know we’re here.”
The Raconteur nodded as he heard the force in my voice. “Look, kid, I understand. Your secret is safe with me.” He added more to his glass and then wheeled around to where the television showed a few more silent ducks in the air, and a dog with the same shade of hair as Old Humper blinking back, waiting for something to happen. The Raconteur turned off the TV and repositioned himself in front of us. “Like I said,” he continued. “Stories.”
“All right, Lou,” Gpa said. “I just wanted to stop in here to see how you’re doing. You’ve got more shit in here than the last time.” I liked when Gpa swore, despite what the folks at Calypso thought. It made him sound like he was trying to make a comeback, like he was holding on to something tightly and wouldn’t let it slip away yet.
“Four years ago, five,” the Raconteur said.
“I know. I’ve just had some troubles.”
“I know,” the Raconteur said. “I know.” He wheeled up to the armchair and lifted the monitor to the floor. “Take a seat, Charlie. You look exhausted.”
“I am. But I’m going home,” Gpa said. “Driving out to Ithaca. That’s the point.” He sat down heavily in the chair and tilted his head back. “Finally.”
“Oh,” the Raconteur said. “Well, got to respect the road trip. Yup. Everybody respects the road trip.”
“That’s right,” Gpa said. “Everybody respects the road trip.” They nodded like they were referring to s
omething from the past.
The Raconteur looked at me. “Look, bucko, your secret is safe with me, but”—he glanced to Gpa, who was looking a little droopy-eyed—“you need to tell me a little more about what’s going on. I want to help. It’s a long road.”
“It is,” I said. “But we have to make it.”
The Raconteur frowned and shook a finger at me. “Don’t be a drip, nobody likes a drip. Strap on a pair and listen up. I want to tell you a story about your grandfather. Guy probably never told you about the time he saved half of us in the midst of a fucking shelling, right? If there’s someone who can make it, it’s that guy.” He pointed to Gpa, who, while he might have been a war hero once, now was a small man in clothes that were too wrinkled, and who sank in a chair that was made for a man much larger than he was now. “Look,” the Raconteur continued. “Make yourself comfortable. I probably have a can or four of the Beast in the back of the fridge. Find something to wet your whistle and hunker down. Grab one for your friend there too. She looks thirsty.”
Gpa gave him a look.
“What? Tell me you weren’t drinking beer at that age. Tell me it wasn’t legal, for God’s sake!”
“He’s fifteen.”
“Seventeen,” I corrected.
“Still a kid,” Gpa said to me.
“Ahh,” the Raconteur said, waving off Gpa. “A year away from hell. Ignore the old man,” he said to me. “Go find a couple of beers.”
But he didn’t tell us one story, he told us five or six and they all blended into each other, the horrors of being stationed up north on the high plateau near the DMZ in the first four months of 1968, how the boys all loved Gpa, how they loved that he didn’t talk much, but that when he did, he was no bullshit, and how they loved that he was older than the other sergeants but still did every damn chore and tedious task with them, side by side in the mud and the reeds and the rain, so the most important word spoken between them was we, the Raconteur said.
The Last True Love Story Page 7