Carry Me Home

by John M. Del Vecchio

  Nittany Mountain College was a small school with a reputation for excellence in engineering fundamentals and architectural design. Bright high-school students with average scholastic transcripts often used Nittany as a stepping stone. Get accepted, buckle down, maintain a 3.0 average for two years, then transfer to Penn State. In 1963 that had been Wapinski’s plan too, but he never made a 3.0, only once in five semesters broke above 2.5, and twice had dropped below 2.0. He had enjoyed a lot of parties.

  Wapinski nipped from his bottle, smoked more cigarettes, crossed the street. He felt fire in his arms and in his eyes. He did not know where it came from, did not know why he felt anger, contempt for the freeness, the easiness with which the students moved. He felt something awful lurked inside, something he would have to confront. Alcohol numbed his skin, his thoughts, yet he felt wary, aware of every breathing thing, every inanimate object near him.

  “Hey, hey, RJ. Well, shit it’s been a long time.” Joe Akins had been sitting in the darkened TV room waiting for him, nodding from the early effects of too much beer.

  “Joe.” Wapinski smiled. Joe rose. They embraced, slapped each other’s back. “You ol’ rattlesnake, how are ya?” They gripped each other’s shoulders.

  “I’m great,” Akins said. “Good job, good wife, nice house. I started at seventeen thou a year and got a company car to boot. I’m doin great. Gahhddammmm! You’re the only one to show. They all punked out. How are ya, RJ? I mean, really. Yer arms are hard as steel.”

  “I’m hangin in there. You know.”

  “Yeah. Where you been, anyway? You look terrible. You been on a diet? And where’s yer hair?”

  “I’m hangin in there,” Wapinski repeated.

  “You been in the army, huh? Yeah, I remember them guys tellin me you got drafted. You gotta excuse me. I’m looped. Me and Tayborn were tryin to drain the keg. You still in?”

  “Naw, Joe. Discharged a couple a weeks ago, ah ... I guess about ten days.”

  “Let’s go down en get some beer. Tayborn’s down there with about ten loose dollies. Gahhd, you oughta see the tits on the one in the yellow T-shirt.”

  The basement was divided into a poolroom and a barroom. The pool table had been pushed against one wall and covered with a plastic sheet. Both rooms were packed. Half a dozen people were dancing on the pool table. The music was loud, the floor was wet, sticky with beer. People were dancing barefoot in puddles, gyrating their bodies without lifting their feet. Akins squeezed through; Wapinski followed. He didn’t recognize the song, the dance, or any of the people. People kept banging his shoulders and arms. To him the students looked young. “Let’s get in there,” Akins shouted and pointed to the doorway to the barroom.

  “What?”

  Akins squeezed between two girls standing in the doorway. They squeezed back against him brushing their breasts on him. The three laughed. He grabbed one by the ass and squeezed and one pinched his ass hard and he jumped into the next room. Wapinski slid between the girls. They were both braless. He hesitated, smiled. The girls slipped past him into the poolroom. He looked over his shoulder, down at them, at their butts. One had her mouth at the other’s ear. He sensed they were talking about him. Fuck it, he thought. Drive on.

  “What?” Wapinski shouted back at Akins. Akins had pulled him to the far end of the bar where the music wasn’t so overwhelming.

  “I said, ‘Are you deaf?’ Ha. This is Rick Tayborn. He’s house president. Mickey’s little brother.”

  “Pleased to meetcha.” Wapinski nodded. The bar was less crowded than the poolroom, and the speakers were smaller but it was still tight and noisy. Against the far wall a group of students were passing a joint. Through the ceiling lights, the haze glowed. Wapinski was taken by the long straight hair of several of the girls, put off by the length of Tayborn’s.

  “You met him before,” Akins shouted. Tayborn handed them each an overflowing red plastic cup of foamy beer.

  “You’re the guy who’s a green beret, aren’t ya?” Tayborn asked.

  Several people at the bar turned, caught by the words. One very drunk, very large boy, maybe a defensive tackle, put his arm around Wapinski and kissed him on the forehead and laughed good naturedly, almost elfish except for his size. “Welcome to my house,” the big boy said. “Ricky, gimme more beer.”

  “He just got outa the army,” Akins shouted to Tayborn.

  “Not green beret,” Wapinski said, “101st.”

  “What’s that?” Tayborn asked.

  “Hundred and First Airborne Division.” Wap could see that that didn’t register either. “Screaming Eagles,” he tried. No recognition. “I commanded an infantry platoon and then a company,” Wapinski said. A few more people pushed in close. Someone turned the music volume down. It was still loud but not so loud that they had to shout.

  “Is that right?” Akins asked. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Where was that?” An older man to Wapinski’s right asked.

  “Huh? Ah, Three Corps and I Corps.”

  “Viet Nam?!” Akins said.

  Wapinski’s head snapped to Akins, back to the man at his right, back to Akins. Again he was caught off guard. “Yeah.” He was shocked that Akins didn’t know.

  “Holy shit, no wonder you look so messed up,” Akins said. “That musta been horrible.”

  “What did you do over there, Mr. ah ...”

  “Wapinski.”

  “Mr. Wapinski. I’m Professor Tilden. Arnold Tilden.”

  “Bob Wapinski.” He extended his right hand. The professor either didn’t see it or ignored it. “Commanded an infantry platoon down along the Cambodian border until they moved us up north. I worked in operations and as a liaison to the ARVN and to the Marines. Then I commanded a company out along the Laotian border.”

  “Weren’t you afraid,” Professor Tilden began, “of being shot by your own men?”

  “Ah ...” Wapinski floundered. He found the question very odd. He knew there were circumstances of officers being shot by their own men, but he knew also that it was rare. “No,” he said. He did his best to sound professional, sincere, to hide his drunkenness. “We were a pretty tight unit.”

  “Did you see much action?” the professor prodded.

  “I saw some,” Wapinski answered warily.

  “An awful lot of American boys are being maimed and killed over there for some rather vague reasons. Is it true that battle casualties are five times higher than what’s being reported?”

  “I don’t think so. You know what—”

  “I’ve seen the figures of the number of men hospitalized and matched them against the reported wounded and killed. It’s five times higher, Mr. Wapinski.”

  “Of course it is, Professor Tilden,” Wapinski said. He drew himself up to his full height. The condescending tone of the professor grated like an awl being dragged down his spine, but he knew he was on solid ground here. He knew the figures inside and out. “Our battle casualties account for a little less than one-fifth of our hospitalizations,” he said simply. “What really drains manpower from operations are infections, like those caused by insect or leech bites, or just grass cuts. Those, malaria, diarrhea, funguses—”

  “Fungi,” Tilden corrected.

  “Fungi,” Wapinski repeated, not knowing that either was correct.

  “You know a lot about the war?” Tilden asked rhetorically. Wapinski didn’t answer. He sipped his beer, tried to hide his anger, his disgust at what seemed to be a setup. “It’s something we can’t win, you know,” Tilden said.

  “Why, Professor, can’t we win?”

  “That nation is historically predestined to be reunited. We can’t win. The people will rise up and kill every American.”

  “What people?” The statement was so distant from Wapinski’s experiences that he felt bewildered. “The South Viet Namese?! If they wanted to rise up they would have during the Tet offensive last year.”

  “Maybe our bombers were too much for them.”

&nbs
p; “No. No. You don’t understand. Two years ago the fighting was in and around the cities and the villages but the invading army and the guerillas were pushed back. Last year they staged one major coordinated assault at Tet and they were trounced. Now most of the fighting’s in the border regions.”

  “And you can take responsibility for that?”

  “Mr. Tilden, I took responsibility for myself and my men. And I’m proud of what we accomplished. I’m proud—”

  “Tell me about that responsibility. Pushing conscripted men up foreign hills to their deaths while you stay behind the lines—”

  “Wait. Wait. It’s ... I can’t tell you how tremendous the responsibility of being an officer is. That’s almost impossible to describe.” Wapinski lowered his shoulders and head, paused for a moment, calmly said, “When you command a platoon or a company in combat, you’re responsible for every man’s life. Very few of my men were drafted. Very few. Most were volunteers. Almost a third were on their second tours. When you’re in charge of a man in combat, it’s not like in business or something. We’re not talking about his job or his grade. I’m talking about his life. Do you know what that means? If you hiccough wrong you might get that guy killed. When I got there I was twenty-two years old. I thought I’d get a platoon of old-timers and I’d be the kid. Half of my platoon was nineteen. Sir, after one fight, I knew what responsibility was. Do you have any idea what it’s like to have one of your men killed? Not flunked, Professor. Killed. Not even killed from somebody making a mistake. Not from bad tactics. From combat. It eats at you.”

  “Exactly,” Tilden said condescendingly. Several of the students laughed. Wapinski felt humiliated, angry. “It should eat at you because you caused it. What it is really all about, Mr. Wapinski, and I’m sure you must agree, is the institutional rot and corruption of the Army’s officer corps that allowed men like yourself to win promotions using conventional tactics to claim imaginary victories when the enemy, in reality, simply withdraws without you knowing it. It should eat at you even more when innocent villagers are napalmed. You see your one tiny segment and you think you know what’s happening.”

  “Do you want to know what I did over there or do you want to hear yourself speak?” Wapinski charged back.

  “You’re being provincial,” the professor retorted.

  “And yer a fucking jerk,” Wapinski snapped. “If you don’t understand what’s going on over there, keep your mouth shut. You’re getting good people hurt.”

  “I believe, in this country, we have a right to speak our opinions,” Tilden said smugly. “You’ve heard of the First Amendment?”

  “You’ve got the right to your opinion,” Wapinski said, “but you don’t have the right to be wrong in your facts.”

  Tilden switched tactics. “Would you like to attend an antiwar rally with us next weekend?”

  Wapinski stared at him. There were about a dozen people listening. “I’m not against our efforts ov—”

  “Hey,” a student called from behind Wapinski, “how was the dope over there?”

  “I talked to one guy,” another student called in, “who says everybody’s stoned all the time. He wants to go back just for the grass.”

  “What about them Viet Namese women?” A third student said.

  Wapinski turned. The students were not looking at him. “We didn’t see very many—” he began but was cut off.

  “This guy got the clap four times,” the second student called across the top of the crowd.

  “What about them Viet Namese women?” The first student pressed.

  “How many babies did you burn?” A coed shouted from the other end of the bar. “How many women did you leave pregnant? How many children don’t have parents because of you?”

  Wapinski stammered. He knew at this point he should simply withdraw. He could not get a word in edgewise. He’d come for beer, not for debate. He turned toward Akins and was about to say, “Let’s go,” when an older coed yelled, “Hey, that’s my brother.” Wapinski turned. A smile hit his face, both because he had not yet seen Joanne and because she was relief, his tie, his legitimate ticket to the present. He was about to call to her when she said, “My brother the army captain.” She did not disguise her hostility. Her breasts held out a T-shirt epigram—I SAY YES TO MEN WHO SAY NO. Again he began to speak, was about to say, “Hello Kid. I tried to call but your phone’s disconnected.”

  “He kills people for a living,” Joanne announced. “Mother didn’t tell me you were back. When did you return?”

  His teeth clenched. “Do you give a shit?”

  More students were now snickering at him. The big elf staggered up in front of him, smiled, asked Tayborn for three beers.

  Joanne snorted, pronounced, “We spend billions of dollars on big bombs to drop on little people while you turn every decent girl in the country into a whore. Then we spend billions more for their politicians to stuff their pockets. Pigs!”

  The big elfish student drew up tall and stepped up to Wapinski. He towered above him and everyone else in the room. “Pig.” Spit sprayed from his mouth.

  “Tell em, Montgomery,” someone shouted. The room reached low-level hysteria. “Pig,” three or four students shouted. “Pig,” a dozen joined in. Wapinski looked from face to face. He saw they despised him, that he’d entered a foreign den, an alien camp, that he was the alien and he had not known it when he’d entered. He reared back. Akins was behind him.

  “Pig.” Montgomery glared at him. The big boy put his beers down on the bar. He clenched his left hand. He balled his right, squared off to Wapinski.

  “Throw im out,” someone screamed. Students closed in. Someone screamed, “Get him, Monty.” Montgomery shot his left hand hard at Wapinski. Wapinski blocked the arm, hit the big boy without thought. He hit him with such force the boy toppled. Wapinski hit him twice more as he crumpled. Skin above the boy’s left eye split open. On the ground his face erupted in blood. Instinctively Montgomery raised a leg to protect himself. Wapinski, intent on the kicking foot, stomped the leg with his heel then smashed three lightning kicks to the bloody face before Joe Akins, screaming, “RJ! RJ! STOP! RJ!” and Rick Tayborn and two others could grab him. Wapinski flicked their gripping hands off like gnats. Punched, counter-punched, two of them to the floor. A girl in cutoffs screamed. Another girl shrieked. “Montgomery!” She knelt bravely, horrified, behind the boy. Everyone else backed off. Tilden had already left. The room imploded in silence. Wapinski glared at them all, looked at the bloody boy, walked through the crowd in disgust, disgust at their unthinking self-righteousness, their youthful naïveté, their rejection of him. And disgust at himself for not knowing, for once again entering uninvited, unexpected, unannounced.

  “Sit down, Josh. Sit down.” Wapinski turned the ignition key. The Mustang roared to life. He drank straight from the bottle as he drove, sped back toward Mill Creek Falls. “Fuckin home,” he shouted out the open top. “Fuckin home. What the fuck for? Home? Eat shit. Eat shit and die.” He banged the shift through the gears, holding the bottle between his legs. “Home sweet home, Josh. Buddy, me and you make a good team. They all eat shit. That’s what you already knew, huh? We haven’t gotten up to Grandpa’s yet, Josh. If he shits on us....”

  Wapinski sped east on 220 to Williamsport at speeds to ninety miles per hour. He exited in Williamsport, raced through the city streets, drinking, sideswiping a parked car, finishing the bottle and tossing it, allyoop, out the car, not seeing it crash into another parked car.

  He raced up the new section of 15 trying to see how fast the Mustang would go. Then he took the back road to Loyalsock skidding and sliding, then up 87 to Forksville where he went off the road but saved it only to launch the car a few minutes later over a dirt embankment on the side of 154, tossing Josh like a rag doll first to the floor then up against the dashboard base, then almost out the open roof, landing in a small clearing, narrowly missing a previously battered oak but not missing several large rocks that seemingly in slow
motion tore off the oil pan, ripped away the left rear axle, the car finally coming to rest by bludgeoning a thick tree, crinkling the grill and hood like aluminum foil, springing the doors, breaking the windshield.

  Noise and motion ceased.

  Wapinski startled, woke to Josh whimpering and licking his temples. He stared forward. He reached down, checked the ignition. He’d already turned it off. He didn’t remember. His vision was blurry. He couldn’t tell if the blurriness was from focusing on the shattered windshield or if he’d damaged his eyes. He felt his face. His nose hurt, was swollen, maybe broken. Slowly he moved his toes, ankles, knees, then fingers, wrists and elbows. His left hand was stiff, the thumb sprained. Cautiously he moved his head a little to the right, a little to the left, then farther, then looking up, then down. His eyes cleared somewhat. He checked his watch. It was two thirty in the morning.

  Josh licked him again. “You okay, little brother? Oh God, we done somethin bad.” Wapinski tried his door. It was jammed in a position about two inches open. He climbed over the door, reached down, lifted Josh out. “We can walk this,” he said to the dog. “No sweat. I do it all the time. Walked five times this far last week. Geez! One week. Aw, Josh, look at our Mustang! Aw shit! I’m an asshole. I’m a drunk fuckin asshole. Look what I done. Shit! Better en bein put in the corner to cool! Ha. Aw ... there’s gotta be an unbroken bottle here somewhere.”