MEREDITH
I dreamed I saw Mark walk out of this ward, on out that door. He was wearing a flight suit. And across the room, that stupid asshole that keeps saying I’m going to die, he said they had money on it—that I won’t going to make it.
There’s a leg and arm been knocked out—knocked off—but there’s a good, alive great big peach pit in me somewhere, about the size of a baseball, that ain’t going nowhere. And the doctor told me I was going to make it. He said all my vital signs are strong, but there’s a head-wound problem, giving me paralysis, and a talking problem.
I don’t remember what happened, but some of them have been in and told me. Starnes come by a couple of days ago… or, I can’t remember his name, and told me that Hux and Mattherson and Hickman were all killed. He looked pretty shook. Hux. Hux is toughest to think about. Hux was my buddy.
If I could talk I’d tell that son of a bitch across the way to keep his goddamn mouth shut and I’d get somebody to set his fucking mattress on fire. There’s plenty of guys in here would do it. Burn his ass up. Ass his burn up. Something.
What is odd is that I ain’t felt a lot of pain yet, except my ear mainly. It’s all numb—the ends of my leg and arm. My head. The doctor told me I’d get some odd sensations. I do grip things with my left hand—the one that’s gone. I grip. I look down there, like I’ll look down there right now. I look down there and see where the bandages end. And beyond that in the air I grip with my hand. I grip onto something. Anything that I want to think about, I grip onto. Usually it’s a cold metal bar and I can feel the cold in my hand. And I read the newspaper in my head. It’ll come up in my mind and I read it but it don’t make no sense. I can’t stop it from happening, and there are all kinds of things I can’t remember.
What I wish is there was some way I could grab my dick, which thank God is all there.
It was the realest dream I’ve ever had. Mark just walking, stopping, looking up at that light, walking out the door with jerkhead over there mouthing off.
God knows I could’ve died. And I’d end up at the graveyard. It’s in my papers and I wrote it to Bliss in a letter and talked to her about it, and told the others. Bliss would make them do it. Whatever there was of me left would be in the graveyard.
We picked pieces of bodies off a fence one time. I got a piece we couldn’t tell was a big elbow or a little knee.
What a dicked-up thing. It’s like what Hux wrote on his helmet—SHIT HAPPENS. What I’m glad about is I got my brain, mostly. I can think, but you get shrapnel in your head, man. Lead head. Now whatever used to be there to pull the words out of my head and stick them in my mouth to spit out—whatever that was—is gone. Adios. So I get the words and stick them in a wheelbarrow and start walking forward with them and they roll over this cliff into nothing, into thin air, and if it’s the doctor listening, he’s okay; he carries a piece of paper with “yes” on one end, “no” on the other end, and “maybe” in the middle. And I can look at the word I want. He says it’s good I’m continent. That means I can shit and piss on my own. Lucky me. A cow bends her back when she pisses, curved like a new moon.
I get a hard on in the night and want to jack off, but I can’t.
Rhonda ain’t going to be happy just jacking me off. And she ain’t going to stand for me just sitting around, shitting in a pan. I know that. We’ll have to figure out something. But whatever we figure out, I feel it in my bones that she’ll skip.
One thing, I ain’t going to be in the field again. I ain’t going to eat no more C-rations; see nobody blown up with red and blue insides hanging out; ain’t going to see no more leeches; and neither one of my tattoos got blown away.
The worst thing is not being able to talk. I’d rather be blind, and get around, than like I am now. I’d rather be anything but dead than the way I am right now, except if I couldn’t think straight. I can’t think straight, exactly, all the time. But that don’t bother me. You don’t have quite so much to think about if you can’t go nowhere.
I’m getting letters from everybody, and Aunt Esther has got them writing from the church. The Red Cross volunteer who brings them to me is about the same age as Bliss and she’s from Tennessee and the way she talks, her accent—she’s mighty good looking too—makes my blood run hot.
Blood blockage in the brain. Can you believe the good luck in that? I get a arm and a leg blown away and why couldn’t that be the side that gets paralyzed? Why not? Six, half a dozen. Seems like a good God could have done that.
Bliss tried to tell me. She was the only one. I wish I had gone to Canada. I could be in Canada in a cool breeze, swimming. There are plenty of fools ready to get blown apart for what they believe in about this mess over here. The hell they are. Nobody’s ready to get blown apart. The only reason they do it is they know they’re not going to get blown apart. I knew better than anything I won’t going to get blown apart. I would have bet my life on a butcher block.
Every morning when I wake up I try to remember the day it happened and I can’t, so I try to remember one day in my life at home. I get a piece of it, like me and Mark frog-gigging, or hunting at Uncle Hawk’s, or playing ball, and I try to remember everything in that piece of day. I put it all together, little piece by little piece. I hold it there and get the pieces together like a puzzle, then I run my fingers smooth over the pieces four or five times and by then breakfast is over—a nigger feeds me—and Miss Clairmont is on the way with a big smile and letters and she takes her time with me, like she’s got all day. I want her to take her hair down so bad I don’t know what to do. I could eat every inch of her with the half of my mouth that works. Yankee Doodle.
THATCHER
Meredith got his arm and leg blowed off by a tank mine. All we can do is thank God he didn’t get killed. Two guys I went to high school with have gotten killed. Sam Bartlett and Alton McAllister. They were good guys, too. I looked up their pictures in the yearbook to see what sports they were in. Sam Bartlett wadn’t in the first thing. There was just his name there.
Bliss is beside herself—standing at the window looking for the mailman. Mark sends a postcard or letter everytime he hears from Meredith’s doctor.
Rhonda is jumpy. Pregnant, throwing up, and crying at everything. She had to stop singing in her rock-and-roll band and God knows I’m surprised she didn’t have an abortion so she could keep singing. Bliss said they shouldn’t have gotten married and she was right. Meredith needed to be about forty before he got married.
And Papa has started working on the floatplane again. It was disassembled and piled in the back of the shop but now he’s got it all back together again. The notebooks he’s kept going. He’s got all the stuff we’ve heard from Meredith in there. He says the first thing he’s going to do when Meredith gets home is give him a ride on the lake. Good luck. He may give him a ride on the lake, but not in the air. He’s on his third set of engines and there’s no way that damn thing will ever fly. It’s too ugly for one thing.
He ought to be spending some time working on Noralee’s ass. She’s dating a hippie and word was, a couple of years ago, that she had the hots for a nigger. It’s like she’s just hanging around, soaking up how things are going crazy, especially with all this marching against the war. I sure as hell can’t talk to her, and I thank my lucky stars that Taylor ain’t but seven—with all this crap going on.
I’ve got Taylor hitting left-handed like Papa tried to do with Mark and Meredith. He helps me wash the car too. And I got him shooting a rifle.
Me and Bliss had a big fight about him shooting the rifle, but hell, it don’t kick. A rifle don’t kick.
Bliss is odd that way. I think this whole thing about Meredith and Mark going off to war influenced her somehow. She’s touchy about stuff. And now with Meredith getting his arm shot off and all, she’s more jumpy than ever.
MEREDITH
The flight from ‘Nam seemed like around the world. I was on a stretcher and couldn’t sit up. Straight out as the ace of spades.
A lot of other guys were on the plane, too. Except most of them could sit up. And sip soup.
This is one goddamn hell of a big mess, and I’ll be in one goddamn hell of a big mess for the rest of my life, and I don’t know why somebody couldn’t have sat down and figured something out over there, beforehand. If they all had to go through this theirselves or either figure out how to stop it, then it would have stopped because nobody is going to choose to go through this kind of goddamned worthless condition. But the Communists won’t compromise is what they say. Them little shits are tough. I know that. The oddest thing is seeing a head gone and just a Adam’s apple left. We shot one with a pocket full of letters. Hell, I don’t know what to think. It pisses me off worse than I can even feel, and if I could talk I couldn’t say it, because my voice could never get loud enough to yell it as loud as I’d want to.
I might can walk in a year, they said. It don’t feel like it now. I’ll have to get an artificial bank. Lank. Bank.
Across the Pacific seemed like forever, but from Randolph to Fayetteville, which is a whole lot shorter, seems twice as long. For one thing we’ve stopped four times. It’s like a carrot in front of a donkey. It keeps pulling away.
At least this time I’m in a wheelchair. Those stretchers suck. There’s an Air Force airman who’s in charge of three of us. The other two are in a hell of a lot better shape than me, so the airman spends most of his time with me.
We all three have got our uniforms on.
I got a Purple Heart. And two purple nubs.
When the feeling started coming back, they stung and tingled like crazy, and people look at you like what’s wrong with you. But I figured out the way to do it is don’t try to talk unless you’ve practiced something over and over because you try to say it and can’t, you come across real stupid. It comes out like a goose barking sometimes. It’s like you can’t control it.
They got my coat sleeve and pant leg pinned up nice. They got a little book on all this for AMPUTEES. Man, I’ve thought that word a thousand times, and I ain’t got the nerve to try to say it.
So they got this little book for all the Mr. Nubs. It shows you a couple of ways to fix your shirts, jackets, pants. I’ll have to do it the easy way: put my jacket sleeve in my pocket. Rhonda don’t sew. And the book goes into all this stuff about artificial limbs. It says that for most people, artificial arms never work out, and only about half the ones that need it end up with an artificial leg. The rest rather do without it. I ain’t made up my mind. I’ll have to see what I think.
There’s going to be a therapist for me at home and all that, and I’ll be able to try out several different styles of artificial limbs in about two months. Something I look forward to.
I got my voice back and I can say a few words. I got a little movement in my right shoulder and right hip.
I had one wet dream, and when they cleaned me up I didn’t give a shit because it was worth it. One thing I could use is a warm, soft hand down there. Jackie, Jackie, Jackie, Jackie, Jackie.
The problem with me screwing Rhonda is that Rhonda will have to screw me and how the hell are you supposed to hold onto somebody with a nub and a paralyzed hand. Grip her shoulders? This is going to be a tough part of readjustment. That so-called counselor at Da Nang was in the wrong tree. He talked about all the wrong stuff. Emotional adjustment and all that. I ain’t worried about the emotional stuff. Frankenstein. I’m worried about jacking off, or somebody else jacking me off, and fucking; and I’m worried about when Rhonda’s going to leave, before or after the baby’s born, and I’m worried about how I’m going to look like I’m supporting a family; the government is supposed to take care of that, thank God; and one of the things that galls me and scares me is holding the baby. Without dropping him, or her, whichever: Floatplane Jack, Floatplane Jane. What kind of daddy am I going to be? Whoopee. Time to play catch, time to play marbles, time to jump rope, time to talk, sing cowboy songs. Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie.
It’s amazing how much time you get to think when you can’t talk or go nowhere. And you start to figure out what life is, which is doing things. Things you’ve already done, or are getting ready to do. Like I am, you can’t do nothing but think.
If I can ever get to the place I can drive, then I can buy some kind of van with a lift. They had them in the pamphlet, too.
The plane engines are cut back; we’re floating into Fayetteville. This thing hadn’t got any windows so I can’t look out at the trees. There’s a knot been coming up in my throat. The pilot announced North Carolina. Damn if I want to start crying. It’s going to be Rhonda, Mama, Papa, and Thatcher picking me up, and the rest will be waiting at home. My home dog, Fox, died. He was too old. Papa had him put to sleep. Bliss has wrote me more than Rhonda has.
My shoe—Johnny One-Shoe—is spit-shined. I look pretty good actually, considering.
We touch down, hard. Taxi. This knot in my throat. We stop. The ramp in the back of the plane is lowered. The Air Force guy rolls me out, slower than he needs to. There are other Army guys coming on board to roll some of the others out. There’s a strong breeze. My hat’s in my lap. We’re rolling across the ramp, toward the terminal. No bands. I see people through the glass. Not Rhonda, Mama, Papa, Thatcher. But they’re there, I know. Shit, I’m losing it. I’m going to be crying like a baby. No loud noises, please. I’m going to be crying like a baby. I hate it. They might as well be carrying me in a goddamned cradle. Rock-a-bye baby, in the tree top. When the wind blows, the cradle—
In through the doors. I straighten up.
There they are. Rhonda in a white dress. She’s gained weight. Besides in her stomach. Her face. I say out loud to myself: “Hi, Babe.”
Here they come. I practice: “Hi, Babe. Hi, Babe.” God, Rhonda’s crying, too. Thatcher, shit, Thatcher looks like he has every day of his life. Mama looks great. Papa looks old, tired.
Rhonda’s arms come out toward me. Okay—loud, loud and clear:
“Hi, Bake.” Goddamn it.
Oh, her arms.
Tight. No, no, LONGER. I WANT YOU TO HOLD ME A MINUTE. Standing back now in that white dress. And Thatcher standing there patting me on the shoulder. I can’t get the arm up yet.
Papa.
I work it up from the upper stem of my spinal cord, through my tongue and spit it out: “Papa.”
He reaches down and grabs my hand. Shit, he’s crying, face all jerked around. I try to squeeze back. Useless.
Mama gives me the longest hug, and she says something in my ear but I don’t understand it. I think about asking her to say it again but I can’t.
Thatcher rolls me. Rhonda walks on one side, Mama on the other, Papa behind. The Air Force guy, I’d forgot him, is carrying both my bags. The other two fellows, I wanted to say bye to them. I got “bye” down pretty good.
They roll me out into the parking lot. The bright sunlight does funny things to my right eye. Try to explain that when you can’t talk. “… the sunshine in. Take it with a grin.”
Thatcher takes my bags from the Air Force guy—who’s got leave now. He told me on the trip. He’s going home to his girlfriend, and his boat, and his ‘62 Chevrolet, and his daddy’s sheep farm, and three shotguns, and a rifle, and a guitar. “Bye,” I say in my Golden Tone.
We roll up to the jeep. Same old goddamn jeep. And a dog. Oh yeah. Mark’s new dog, but I can’t remember his name.
Son of a bitch if Papa ain’t put a shell over the truck bed and he’s—damn if he ain’t rigged it for head room, and him and Thatcher’s pulling out two boards, and they got a rope and—shit, watch this:
Papa ties the rope to the front of the wheelchair, between my legs—leg. Get it in the center, Papa. I’ll guarantee you nobody in the U.S. Marines today calls their papa Papa except me.
Thatcher is behind me. Papa gets up into the truck bed, holding the rope. They start me up. I look over at Rhonda and Mama standing there. Two or three other people have walked up, a soldier too, and are looking. The soldier is l
ooking at Rhonda. Rhonda and Mama are looking a little worried about me making it. Well, what the hell might happen? I might break my goddamned arm or something. I might FALL for Christ’s sake, and break my goddamned arm—whoa—and THEY MIGHT SEND ME TO VIETNAM. This is a major risk operation. I wish I could holler. I wish I could holler that it’s good to be home, even with old Thatcher around. Glory be.
Shit, that was pretty easy. They turn me around and back me up against the bed and fasten the back of the wheelchair to the damn truck bed—something Papa rigged. Right on, man. If I were a carpenter and you were a baby. Or something. And Rhonda’s got a lawn chair back here and is going to sit with me on the way home. Shit, Rhonda, you’d be riding with that goddamned sergeant if things were a little different.
While we ride, I spend most of my time looking at Rhonda and her fat stomach. Cars come up behind us and people look in.
Rhonda tells me over and over that they got a banner and everything for me at home. And that I look good.
I dreamed I was home in the graveyard twice, and then that dream about Mark that was the realest I ever had.
The cab shell has got crank-out windows. I watch Rhonda and then the pine trees. It’s pretty noisy to talk. I can’t hear her sometimes. The dog is laying down nice. Rex, that’s his name. Fox died.
We turn in the driveway, and then Papa backs out into the road and turns the truck around and backs in the driveway and across the lawn right up to this sign: a sheet drooped over a badminton net that says WELCOME HOME MEREDITH.
It’s real good to be here, but I want to jump out and hug everybody, and go out to the dog pen and yell at the dogs.
There they all are—standing at the steps. There’s Bliss. Who is—Noralee? God, she’s a hippie. Good for her. I bet old Thatcher’s pissed.
Bliss. Bliss has got that look on her face. Bliss could take care of me forever and wouldn’t think twice about it.
The Floatplane Notebooks Page 14