“Well, I do check the mailboxes. Hers is right next to the shop’s, and sometimes our mailman makes mistakes.”
“Mine does too.”
If you would go to hell for lying, my passage was about booked. I quit feeling silly—the air came out of that balloon fast. I hated to sneak, and every time I got involved with Kathy’s life, I ended up doing it.
“Oh, they’re awful,” said Marilu. “I sent a package last month, organic herbs, and it arrived damaged. I had to send a replacement for free.”
“I hope they don’t mislay my Christmas packages.” What a conversation. Now we were commiserating about the Post Office. Well, whatever it took. “Anyway, do you know her family’s address?”
“I’ll get it for you when I’ve finished your reading. Concentrate on your question now. You have to give respect to the cards.”
I was concentrating—on keeping a straight face. Marilu laid out the cards in a cross pattern with another line of cards alongside it. She gazed at the bright pictures as fondly as if they were photos of her best friends.
“Here’s your central theme, in the first two cards.” She turned one over. “It’s the justice card, reversed. You’re doing an injustice, or you’re worried about one. When they’re upside down, they mean the opposite.”
Good lord, and here I’d been sure this was something silly I was going along with so I could pump her for the address. But that was my big question in a nutshell: Was I doing a wrong or righting one?
“Here’s the five of cups. That’s regret, or disappointment.”
I hoped I wasn’t going to regret what I was doing this minute. But maybe the oracle, or whatever it was, could see Kathy’s regrets. By now, I had no doubt she had a good-sized inventory of those. What a mess.
Marilu kept turning over cards, analyzing each one in turn. I could see meanings in some of them, not so much in others. It was like finding shapes in the clouds. Maybe they were there, maybe you made them up. I couldn’t decide if Marilu’s act was mumbo jumbo or not. I came away from the reading no wiser about the future than before, and with twice as much trouble in mind.
Because I came away with something else—an old address of Kathy’s in Gretna, Louisiana. And with two more names and addresses: Sharon Woodbridge Quinn in Baton Rouge—I guessed she’d be Kathy’s sister—and a Richard Johnson, care of Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola.
~ 9 ~
November 1972
Baton Rouge
Kathy
A blue norther cold front rode behind the winter rain. The morning after Thanksgiving, I woke to the clicking of the heating system. I was thirsty and headachy from sleeping too warm, so I padded to the kitchen to get a drink of water.
The rooms were closed-curtain dim, with slices of brightness where the sun sneaked in. The ashy smell of last night’s fire was like the day after a disaster.
I wanted to talk to Richard, but he didn’t have a phone. No classes today, either—I’d have to catch him at home. I dressed quickly and slipped out the back door.
A flash of sunlight caught me as I stepped off the porch. I sneezed. The north wind brought the stink of the paper mill in St. Francisville, the smell of winter. Remembering too late that my gloves were in my other jacket, I pushed my hands into my pockets and picked my way through the mud in the yard to my car, parked on the street.
Richard’s neighborhood was like a ghost town—no strolling students, not even many cars parked along Chimes Street. Right across the street from campus was his building, the Ghetto. His apartment was at the far end.
When I knocked, a shadow passed across the pane of his door, and then I didn’t see anything for a moment. I was sure he was home, so I knocked again. He cracked the door open and peered out.
“Come out and have breakfast with me,” I said.
He stepped out onto the porch, pulling the door closed behind him. I pulled him into my arms and held him to me. After a second, he put his arms around me too, and we stood on the porch in the wind and the bright sun. We were so relieved to have each other back that it didn’t occur to us that anyone might be looking.
“I feel like I’m hugging a teddy bear,” he said, stepping back. “Come in and take off your coat.”
“Let’s go get something to eat. I’m starving.”
“Come in and I’ll fix you some teddy bear food.” He laughed and pushed the door open. When we were inside, he shut it and locked it.
I took off my jacket and laid it on the bookcase. I was trying to be cool about the dinner party. Where do I start? How do I say this?
Since the kitchen corner was too small for both of us, I sat at the table while he fixed coffee and toast.
“Richard, last night . . . . Well, does that kind of thing happen often?” I started fiddling with some papers on the table, then jerked my hand back. He’ll think I’m prying.
“Not anymore.” He rummaged in a cabinet. “I guess I was nervous about the party, and the noise caught me by surprise.”
He set the graniteware coffeepot and two unmatched cups on the table, then went back for the toast. He pulled a couple of paper towels off a roll and laid them carefully beside our places for napkins.
“Not anymore? You mean you used to do stuff like that all the time?”
“Not every minute.” His eyes evaded mine. “Too much, though.”
I didn’t know what to say next. I tried to cover up my confusion by turning my attention to my breakfast. But after we’d eaten in silence for a few minutes, that seemed worse.
Maybe Richard thought so too. He suddenly looked up from his plate and said, “I don’t want to talk about the war.”
I still couldn’t think of a thing to say. Couldn’t find decent words for what I needed to know: Was it something you saw, or something you did?
He seemed to read the question in my face. “Okay, if you really want to know, I’ll tell you. I was in the artillery. I probably did a lot of damage—hell, I was supposed to do a lot of damage—but I never saw it up close. Sometimes I have nightmares where I see what my rounds really do. Sometimes I think I’ll go to hell and have to look at that over and over, forever.”
A picture exploded into my mind. Oh, Jesus. Hieronymus Bosch with guns and uniforms. I pushed it away. “Do you even believe in hell?”
“I was raised a Baptist—they sure believe in it. But I don’t know what I believe anymore.”
“I’m supposed to be an Episcopalian, but I don’t either.”
Richard got up and walked back to the kitchen corner, even though we had everything we needed. Then he turned quickly and faced me.
“Kathy, I swear to you, I wasn’t another Calley. I hurt a lot of people. But I never did it for fun. I never did what I didn’t have to do. I know that’s not good enough. I have to live with that, and I know how feeble it sounds to a civilian.”
The picture flashed around the edge of my imagination again. I made my mind go blank as I looked into Richard’s face. “It doesn’t sound feeble to me. If Dad’s friends don’t have to apologize about World War II, why should it be different for you?”
He turned away, abandoning his unfinished breakfast, letting it get cold. “What if I act like a fool again? You don’t have to put up with scenes like that. You may think now that you can put up with them, but that won’t last.” Without a glance my way, he walked to the door and unlocked it.
If this was a hint for me to go, I wasn’t taking it. I waited.
He stood for a moment, hand on the doorknob. Then he faced me again.
“Kathy, there’s plenty of draft dodgers out there who’ll fit into your dinner parties just fine. Why don’t you find yourself one?”
I didn’t move. “I don’t want them. I want you.”
He hesitated and then crossed to the bed at the back of the apartment and pulled an imaginary wrinkle out of the bedspread. “What if I freak out again in front of your family?” he asked, glancing sharply at me.
“I don’t care,” I
said. I left my coffee and went to him, pulling him into an awkward hug. “If they believe in peace, if it’s not some empty word, let them quit judging everyone. That would be real peaceful.”
He drew a deep breath, hoarse and ragged-sounding. Then he relaxed. “It would be a good start,” he said. “We’re going to have to start there too. Let me show you what I was reading this morning.” He sat on the side of the bed and picked up a chipped old book lying facedown near the pillow.
He fanned through it, showing me photographs of country people in worn-out clothes. Beautiful pictures, clear and stark. We sat sideways on the bed, backs propped against the wall, while he read aloud about poor whites in the Depression in Alabama. About how their neighbors hated them for being different. Both of us knew that these same sad people would have been the first to turn on their black neighbors, on people like Richard’s grandfather, farming behind those mules. As Richard read, his voice was shaky.
When he stopped reading, we lay quietly together. The room had only been heated by his cooking, and it grew cold in the silence. We got under the blankets and warmed ourselves with them, and then with each other.
* * *
Mom looked up from fixing sandwiches as I closed the kitchen door behind me. The table was covered with leftovers, the turkey from last night, still intact in places, but with a keel of breastbone emerging. The dark meat was gone from one side, too. She opened a can of cranberry sauce to replace the beautiful sauce she’d made yesterday, the sauce that was ruined when Richard crashed into the table.
“Where were you?” she asked.
“I went to talk to Richard.”
“Oh. How is he?” She pulled a slicer out of the knife rack and studied its edge.
“Embarrassed. Upset.” I counted out enough slices of bread for Mom, Dad, and me.
“Hand me that sharpener, would you?” She gestured toward the knife sharpener, just out of reach. I passed it to her.
“I’d imagine he would be upset,” she went on. “How long has he been out of the army, anyway?”
“I’m not sure. A year or so.” I watched her hone the knife with an expert air. Any live turkey in its right mind would have gotten out of there in a hurry.
“Isn’t it time he got over the war?” She tried to slice the turkey but the knife still wasn’t right. She frowned at it. Or maybe that frown was for Richard and me.
“I think he is, mostly. He was nervous about meeting everyone last night, and then the bang sort of took him by surprise.”
“Mostly? How long does it take?” She hacked at the turkey, then slammed the knife down on the counter with a disgusted expression.
“Everyone’s different, I guess. You can’t set a timetable.”
“Is he seeing someone about it?”
“I’m sure he knows the VA and the Student Health Service are there.”
“They won’t do much. Why not someone private?”
“He’s going to school on the GI bill, Mom. He can’t afford a therapist.”
“Why don’t his parents pay?” She opened the refrigerator, and shut it hard without putting anything in or taking anything out.
“They’re mad at him about the war.”
“But they’re army, aren’t they? Why would they be mad?”
“His dad wanted him to be an officer. When he enlisted as a private, it was a sort of a slap in the face for his father. They don’t talk too much anymore.”
“I don’t understand. If his son was a draft dodger, I’d get it. But just because he wasn’t an officer?”
“Believe me, Mom, it matters. Especially since they’re black.”
I assembled some messy-looking sandwiches while Mom fussed with rewrapping the bread. She looked at that wrapper as if the answer to all Richard’s problems might be printed on it, right next to the list of ingredients.
“Kathy, are you sure you want to get involved in this? I mean, he’s a nice young man, but I don’t know why you can’t find someone with a little more in common. . . .” She broke off.
“I already am involved. I thought it was you and Dad who taught me to stick by my friends.” Did you mean white friends, Mom? Is that what you had in mind?
“We want you to be happy. And I definitely think he should see a psychologist. Maybe you should too.”
She grabbed the platter and draped parsley over the sandwiches. I didn’t think it made them look much better, but I kept my mouth shut. She shoved the dish at me without another word. Then she left, turning in the doorway only to say, “I’m getting a headache. I don’t think I want dinner after all. Take care of your dad, would you?”
* * *
With Thanksgiving behind us, it was time to start studying for finals. My art classes were graded on projects, but I had tests for the academic classes, and tests scared me. And Richard, majoring in engineering, had a much more difficult exam period to look forward to. We both had a lot to do.
Neither of us wanted to spend much time apart. But trying to study at his place was no good—we needed to talk, to touch each other, to make love. We could only study if we went to the university library, separated by the table—even there, our eyes would meet, our fingertips lightly brush. Sometimes I’d steal a look at Richard as he studied. It was amazing how sexy he seemed when he was concentrating on his book. I stored those glimpses and took them out to savor at home, like cookies from a secret hoard.
I might catch Richard smiling a lover’s smile into his book, or he might turn to me with a serious gaze, as if I were an engineering formula he needed to learn. He was unpredictable, moody. His face changed like a kaleidoscope, first one pattern, then another. Sometimes his eyes were luminous, like an agate in water. Then they’d turn dull as a dry pebble. Sometimes he’s not even here—he’s back in Vietnam.
But he was special and familiar, and all I wanted.
Other couples studied in the library, probably for reasons much the same as ours. They too glanced and touched and then turned back to books. Like them, we had “our” table. Like them, we barely looked beyond it. I stopped thinking everyone was staring.
But one day I had a creepy feeling that I’d never had before. When I looked up, it took a minute to find the reason: a guy in a green corduroy coat. He seemed young, maybe another student. He was half-hidden behind the stacks, but I realized he was watching us, not looking for a book. I wondered if he thought we couldn’t see him. Then I wondered if he knew we could. My skin tightened with a fear so primitive, it astonished me. I forced myself to look away.
Richard seemed down that day, so I didn’t mention what I’d seen. When I looked up again, the guy was gone.
The next day, Richard studied alone in the library while I took an English exam. We met late in the afternoon, and he didn’t say anything about a man in a green coat or anyone else. He looked tired and discouraged.
I didn’t keep Green Coat on my mind either. I had other problems: Aunt Ruth had called and invited us to Christmas dinner. All except Richard. Not, my aunt had hurried to add, because he was black. No, not at all. It was because of his dive under the table at Thanksgiving, nothing more.
“I’m not going if you can’t,” I told him.
“Hang on—I’m not so sure that’s a good idea. If you don’t, you’ll make your whole family angry.”
“So?”
“I don’t think it’s worth it. Do you? What if we could work it out gradually with them? Please go, Kathy. It’s not worth getting into a family fight over just one evening.”
“Sharon and Sam aren’t going.”
“That’s their choice. I appreciate it, too. But let’s give your family a chance to accept us, okay? Maybe all they need is a little time.” He stared off down the quadrangle.
The scared feeling started to come back. “Do you see someone you know?”
“I guess not.” He looked wary. Maybe school is getting to him. Maybe it’s my family. Or maybe he saw someone in a dark coat that could have been green corduroy, about fifty
feet away. That’s what I think I saw, but I’m not sure.
I reached out to hug him and then remembered the long walk down the hill to the parking lot. I wondered if the man in the green coat would be watching me from the shadows.
I drove home so wrapped up in my problems, it’s a good thing no one got in my way.
In the kitchen, Mom looked up from pouring beef stew into a tureen. She pointed the spoon handle at a pot on the stove. “See if the rice is done,” she said. “It better be. I don’t want this to get cold. Sharon and Sam are coming.”
I bit a grain of rice to test it for doneness. It was soft, so I fetched a bowl and ladled it in. The table was already set. As I found a serving spoon, Sharon and Sam arrived. I called to Dad that dinner was on the table.
“Why aren’t you going to your aunt’s party?” asked Mom as soon as we all sat down.
Sharon fussed with the bread basket. “Because Richard wasn’t invited. We didn’t think it was right.”
“Ruth and Joseph didn’t care for him. I mean, ducking under the table . . . .” Mom ladled stew onto Dad’s plate and reached for Sam’s.
“If you’d invited him half a dozen times, and he did something weird every time, they might have a point,” Sharon said. “But isn’t just once a bit extreme? Even in baseball, you get three strikes before you’re out.”
“Ruth and Joseph have a right to decide their own guest list,” Mom said. Her tone was final and—I thought—satisfied.
Sharon wasn’t buying it. “The guests have a right to send regrets, too,” she said. “We don’t think they’re telling the whole story about why he’s not invited.” Her face was red and her voice was high and angry.
Dad glanced at Mom, Mom glared at Sharon. Sam looked down at his plate. No one looked my way. It was probably just as well. The more I thought about the party, the angrier I got.
Aunt Ruth used to understand me better than Mom did. Like the time I bought that bathing suit. The one with ruffles on the front so I could pretend I had breasts. Mom laughed at me, but Aunt Ruth said it was pretty.
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