Phantoms

by Jack Cady

  "I know what I saw." Now nurse Johnson whispered about Harvey. "I have to do something. We can’t . . ." and she stopped, because she about said ‘we can’t have any more getting snatched,’ and she about said it while standing between seventy-eight and eighty-year-old guys. She bit her lower lip, tried to grin, made a poor show. "You’re right," she said. "We don’t need social workers."

  We had a doomed situation. Nurse Johnson was going to go through her share of pain and sorrow. No way out of it. No way to break it gently. I decided not to break it at all. At the same time, I couldn’t betray her. "Keep staff off our backs," I told her. "It’s our problem." Not true, nurse Johnson, it’s your problem too. "And if we can’t handle it we’ll give you a ring."

  "You’re really seeing ghosts?" The nice thing about nurse Johnson is her ability to stop being a nurse and start being a woman when anything important happens. "You sound okay."

  "I wish it was d.t.’s," Burnside said, "but it ain’t."

  "You’ve never seen a bad case of d.t.’s," she told him almost absent-mindedly. "What are you guys going to do?"

  "Fight back," I told her, and then lied. "I’m not sure how. Keep staff off our backs. We’ll work it out in a day or so, maybe more."

  "You’ll tell me?"

  "I will." What a liar. I’ll tell you after it’s over, nurse Johnson. News from nowhere.

  She patted Burnside’s bald head, which made him blush, touched the back of my hand, and left.

  "Hard to win a war unless you win the battles," Burnside said.

  "If we just sit still we’ll get picked off one by one."

  "I never made notches on my rifle or my bedpost. Seemed like cheating, somehow."

  "Now I know for certain the world is gonna end," I told him. "You just confessed to being a gentleman."

  "I can stand being decent," Burnside told me, "for as long as we keep it private. Plus, the fickle finger seems to be pointing our way." I could not tell if he understood what he talked about, or if this was more bull. On some level he knew we had to go into this clean, no jam on our face.

  It is a creature of dissolution. It wakes when minds of men become narrow, secular, vengeful; and at some point it turns foul and crawls among us remembering flames of Inquisition.

  I spent my working life patrolling the past. Now I patrolled the future. "One more battle," I told Burnside.

  "If it makes sense."

  "When did any of this crap ever make sense?"

  "It can’t be worse than the Canal."

  It couldn’t be worse than hill seven-twenty. I looked across the terrain. Hill seven-twenty was worse, but the enemy had only been North Koreans. I thought of them, thought of how they banzaied, courageous as madness can make a man, running into the mouths of guns because a politico told them their country was attacked. I wished I had a battalion of them.

  "I hope," Burnside said, and not to me—his voice tight and not conversational—"that being dead has taught you something about soldiering."

  His Japanese ghost stood beside him. It’s amazing about kids, whether nurse Johnson or this kid; how the best of them can stand rosy with ideals and still firm as duty. This kid’s smooth face was serious as combat, yet his lips did not conceal an excited little smile. I looked him over, thought of his record, and was not sure we wanted him.

  "Step up to the edge of the grass," Burnside said. "I won’t let nothing happen."

  The kid stepped forward. Darkness tumbled, reached uphill, but did not manage to advance. On the other hand, it didn’t retreat, either.

  "You better stay out of this," Burnside said. "There’s some real meanness down there." Burnside rolled forward, his chair side by side with the kid. Darkness did not flee, but it rolled backward at a faster rate. "Runs like a bunny," Burnside said, "but it don’t run from ghosties. At the same time ghosties help." He looked up at the kid. "You bringing company?"

  The kid pointed his index finger at his chest. Alone.

  "It don’t pay to be brave and stupid both," Burnside told the kid. "Think it over."

  The kid smiled, then raised a fist without smiling, and then winked out.

  I watched shadows creep across the terrain. Darkness lay beyond the city, but these shadows were natural darkness, which approached with normal things like t.v. news, and supper, and pills. Hurry sundown.

  "I’m thinking about symbols," I told Burnside. "Flags and such."

  "I’m thinking about recruiting posters . . ."

  "Even given help, I don’t see us winning."

  "You’re right about one thing," Burnside said, and no bull shone through. "I miss the Dust Bowl. Who would have ever thought?"

  "The jarheads seem in pretty good shape."

  "I talked to them. They actually turned out right smart. Their brains ain’t never been used for nothing." As we left the terrace, darkness clustered within approaching night.

  Among old men, night and day are interchangeable. Night is only dark, and not even that because subdued light illumes the hallways. We wake to think, or wake to pain. Most do not fear death. Our fears are fears of weakness, of peeing your pants, of becoming senile. The crotch and the brain are the engines of history.

  When I woke I felt slugged. Silence lay between snatches of Burnside’s gaspy breathing. Since he did not snore he was in some stage of waking. Beyond our room the dayroom would be swept, polished, silent as mice. The main desk down the hallway would shine like a halo of heaven above the history of this place, the history of a century . . . in Flanders Field where poppies . . . antique clustering of fear and fight.

  I thought of saying something to Burnside, then thought silence best. As silence became restful, ghostland explained itself. Or, at least I understood how some things fit together.

  The darkness in the dayroom had not been real. It was a message from ghostland about the darkness beyond these walls. The sight of coffins was a warning. The shenanigans of ghosts waving goodbye were also messages, desperate but colorful. The whole show was a hypothetical guidon, a flag, pointing toward foulness that stalked our perimeter. Our ghosts were helpless without us. It seemed that we old men were not only told to protect the future, but also to protect the past.

  "I’m thinking of the disciplinary barracks at Leavenworth," Burnside muttered. "Right now it seems like a warm and happy place, real safe and friendly."

  He understood most of what we faced. I had halfway hoped he did not, there being no sense in both of us feeling doomed. I decided not to explain about Harvey.

  "I worry about my great grandkids," he whispered, and embarrassment almost choked him. "Keep that private. There’s times I think we’re guilty of a teeny bit of b.s."

  Had Burnside undergone conversion and become a fledgling saint? When great grandchildren visited we pretended we were uninterested. We pretended all was well with them.

  I lay in darkness, mute, without an ounce of tears or sweat, although I needed both. I lay in darkness admitting even I had managed to conceal truth beneath a pile of crap. For old men, Hell comes in two versions, lesser and greater.

  The lesser version happens when history is rewritten, their records expunged, no credit given for ideals or aspirations, nothing bequeathed, all tales revised as the Present, turning, points to a false record and accuses the past for Present suffering.

  That’s a stern Hell, but the greater version is worse. Hell for old men arrives at that exact moment when we must admit we can no longer protect our kids, our families, our country, the shards and remnants of our love.

  "I don’t understand why it runs from us. It don’t run from ghosties."

  "We have the power of memory. We have the memory of order, and we still have voices. When memory dies civilization dies." From three or four rooms down the hall, a nurse stepped softly. No, two nurses, because two women murmured. Breeze sighed at the windows. I wondered how many of our people lay awake, listening, wondering about our worth, unable to show our loves, and, like Burnside, settling for feeling guilty.
The soft padding of rubber soles moved away, the murmurs quieted.

  "It’s after a great deal more than us. We’re in the way."

  "I don’t mind a scrap," Burnside said, "but not if it don’t make sense."

  "Flags are symbols. Words are symbols. Steeples are symbols. Red lights in front of cathouses are symbols. The world don’t know it, but the world lives by symbols, some good, some as bad as flags."

  "Dead guys don’t drive wheelchairs. There’s got to be advantages."

  He had never talked about being crippled, except to make a joke. I thought of the tedium, of the many days and years in that chair, of the iron a man has to have in heart and soul in order to face each morning.

  "I got to pee, and I was never one to favor bedpans," Burnside said, no longer muttering. "See you in the funny papers." He swung out of bed, a shadow in the darkened room; the last time I saw him alive, and all I really saw was a shadow.

  Oh, nurse Johnson, you don’t know how fast it can hit, and how hard.

  I dozed, waked, fretted, dozed, then came fully awake with the rough knowledge that Burnside would not make roll call. Awol from the V.A.

  Silent halls filled with echoes, voices of fear and hope. Somewhere in darkness Burnside made his move, and voices of the past sent whispers into that same darkness. Whispers sped like hushed and urgent messengers patrolling against a silent-walking enemy. Ghostland seemed poised for either success or disaster, and with nothing in between. Outside, in darkness, a storm rose on Shakespearian wings. Black feathers of storm rode gusts tumultuous as passion. Darkness surrounded, clasped; a coffin of wind and rain in which a man becomes breathless and shroud-wrapped.

  I sat on the edge of my bed, cussing Burnside. This deal was supposed to include me. I sat with despair of a kind known only during times of total wreckage. Helpless to act, to change matters, helpless—but, I told myself—not doomed. Not without a fight. Meanwhile echoes sighed and whispers moved through hallways.

  I stood, already heavy with grief, and made my way to a window; opened it and listened. Rain rode cold gusts blowing off salt water. Rain hammered on leaves of trees, and water gurgled in drains. Rain pelted its ancient song, and the lyrics of that song say "May God have pity on the Infantry."

  Behind me sounded a rustle of clothing, and the pad of soft-soled shoes. An orderly stood, breathing hard. I had been unable to find tears earlier. I had them now. I did not turn.

  "Where?" the guy said, and said it rough; a guy who already knew his tail was in a sling. No ‘yes sir,’ ‘no sir,’ ‘please,’ or ‘go to hell.’

  "Mind your manners." I still did not turn. My voice choked only a little.

  "Him and them two candy-asses," the guy said. "I’ll settle with you later." He hoofed it, almost running.

  "You win the first round." I spoke into the rain and dark, speaking to Burnside wherever he was. "All hell is about to break. What you need, pal, is a miracle; you and your damn Marines."

  I turned, headed for the dayroom toward people of my own kind. Grief is easier when tough-minded folk stand together and don’t kid themselves about the odds.

  Burnside needed a miracle, okay, but what he got was television. Search parties spread from the hospital, people—scared mostly for their jobs—bundled against rain. Headlights cruised the road, and police spotlights flicked through shrubbery as dawn rose gray and cold above the scene. No searchers imagined Burnside headed through the cemetery and downhill. It wasn’t in them to imagine. They figured he went to town, or, like a senility case, wandered in a fog toward pretty lights and racket. As day broke, and in spite of attempts to keep a lid on the mess, somebody tipped the television. A traffic helicopter churned its course across the backside of the hill; one bumfoozled way to make the morning news.

  The three lay on muddy ground pounded by northwest rain. A camera reported bodies like bundles of soaked rags, small, sprawled, distorted; and although news anchors knew nothing of combat, even they pretended to be impressed. The bodies lay fanned across the lower hill. Burnside made it to the bridge, actually had one hand touching the bridge, but did not get onto the bridge. Burnside lay as small and raggedy as any other dead soldier. No angels sang. A Marine sergeant lay just below the treeline, the body tangled in that awkward shape of corpses that have suffered breaks and fractures. Another Marine sergeant lay at the edge of the ravine. A torn Japanese battle flag tangled in brush within the treeline, hanging like a spot of blood and not a spot of sun; the kid a beautiful kid, but no samurai.

  The man at the ravine still lived, but had become insane; his mind and hands clawed back up the hill, his body weak, powerless to save itself. When medics brought him in he still clawed at air, fingers hooked, his voice gone from screaming.

  We patients looked at each other, muttered, shook our heads. TV showed bodies hauled out by chopper. The Marine lay lumped beneath a sheet, his knees tucked up; stiffened, probably broken. Burnside, with no legs to speak of, made a lump under the sheet like a muffin or a dumpling.

  Patients did not have everything figured, but knew enough to wonder how Burnside got euchred, or how he screwed up. Orderlies watched us as if we were kids on a playground, while we thought of basic infantry tactics.

  Staff looked at each other to find who was guilty. Staff did not believe three old men—one a cripple—could go two hundred yards downhill without help. Staff blamed each other, dug political foxholes, dodged responsibility.

  As this went on, doctors squared shoulders like little men and blamed everyone, patient and staff alike, for betraying some high purpose known only to docs. And, when nurse Johnson came on shift, she took the brunt. Staff blamed the day shift for not giving some warning imagined only by the night shift, and nurse Johnson was lead nurse on the day shift.

  "At least," one little prick said to her, "we’re rid of your main trouble maker." The punk had bad teeth, a manicure, and he smelled the way he looked; which is to say ‘floral.’

  Nurse Johnson did not answer. Nurse Johnson looked to her patients.

  "Good riddance," another said. "Caused me nothing but trouble. Why do I always get the problem cases?" This guy looked like he spent most of his time trimming hair from other people’s noses.

  Nurse Johnson asked no question. Her form was stiff, her face controlled. Unless you knew her well, you could not spot her confusion.

  No one but we geriatrics could understand why those guys went out like that. And we, by God, were not about to enlighten. The far side joined us, and every mother’s son and daughter on that ward felt more in tune with the dead than with the live theater that quacked and moaned around us.

  All through the morning hours spirits of men and women appeared with stony faces, and there were no antics. Burnside lost. It might well be that our last chance was lost. A sense of tiredness, a sense of doom, rode darkly through ghostland. The far side still had feelings, because it did what we were doing; which is to say it hid them. A few women wept, and one Japanese woman seemed shocked beyond all feeling except eternal sorrow. If her name was Yukiko perhaps she wept for Burnside. More likely she wept for the kid. I didn’t want to know.

  And if everybody felt guilty, or felt anger at being trumped, I had them beat. I had not told Burnside about Harvey. At the time I did not want to send Burnside deeper into his funk. Burnside walked into a mousetrap, an ambush, pressing back an enemy more dark and dangerous than even he believed. I screwed up. I should have told him. Should have.

  On the other hand, he was the guy who jumped offsides. I had figured we’d use another day for organization, planning; and then Burnside goes in like a kamikaze, or the Lone Ranger. That one figured easy, and to each his own.

  I would have slowed them up. Either that, or Burnside tried to keep me from walking into it. I think the first, because the man knew how to soldier. If he could have found more guys who could keep up he would have waited.

  During the Hour of Charm I took inventory of our troops. Three wheelchairs, their people mighty frail,
two Wacs, both tough little princesses, one fused spine, three mental blanks who drooled, two bedridden, one goldbrick, two mobile but getting over operations, a bosun mate with one arm and an appliance instead of a hand, and a blind quartermaster . . . the bosun mate looked pretty good, the blind guy didn’t look too bad. I took myself to the terrace to think.

  The terrain lay unchanged. The broken bridge still stood. The broken bandstand in the park remained. I wondered if Burnside had an objective, or if he just drove the enemy ahead of him until he dropped. The whole business lay ringed with mystery, with improbabilities, but also with certainty of total destruction if we failed. There might be total destruction if we succeeded, but that was someone else’s problem. We could only set the standard, write our last will and testament through action, and hope someone could still read deeply enough to raise arms against the encroaching night.

  Darkness glowered behind the city, reaching into the normal light of late afternoon; and it stretched toward the little park but did not enter. The bandstand stood empty in mixed sunlight. Some remnant of battle must remain, something halting an advance. The ghost of a ghost may be more than a memory. It may be a piece of history that refuses to be rewritten.

  Maybe something was still left of those men. Maybe something was even still left of Harvey. Maybe Burnside had not completely failed. One thing was certain. I had very few hours to screw around.

  After a battle there’s a time that lies in between, a time of pause after bodies are collected, buried, or shipped. A vacuum exists between actions. The enemy does not yet arrive although the population may flee. It serves as respite, but it’s not a good time for long range plans, or being born.

  It might be possible to get as far as the park, to establish a position around that little place of order. Burnside and company had already absorbed the initial licking. The whole business was one of symbols, without which we cannot live. Symbols of evil abound. The world needed that symbol of order, a small Victorian park. Maybe the world would not avoid final darkness, anyway, but we could offer the world a chance.