by Jan Karon
“Easter is never deserved,” she said. “I’d never before given anyone Easter; if I gave it to you, it was by grace alone.”
He studied his wife intently. He must tell her how terrific she was looking in red. General Henry…“General Henry E. Williamson!” he exclaimed.
More laughter. He was liking this machine with its double-barreled thingamajig.
“You’re far too much fun, sweetheart. I’m going down for coffee, want some?”
“Not in Styrofoam, please.” As a clergyman, he had paid his dues with coffee in Styrofoam.
“In Royal Worcester, then? Or Spode?”
“Meissen, if they’ve got it.”
He heard his wife speaking to a nurse at the door. “I’ll have what he’s having.”
He wondered if Jack Sutton knew he had a half sister and was an uncle to three children in Manhattan. Perhaps he knew, but never spoke about it.
It stood to reason that there were lots of half sisters and brothers out there. Miss Sadie had had two of her own, one from each parent, and both entirely unknown to her. By an extraordinary turn of events, her much younger paternal half sister now rented the rectory next door to him in Mitford. He remembered that Miss Sadie, who thought herself an only child, had longed for family, when all the while, family abounded.
He was examining the ceiling with some interest when the door pushed open. “You in here, Tim?”
“I’m in here.”
“How’s it goin’?”
“Couldn’t be better. Glad to see you, buddy, thanks for coming. Pull up a chair.”
Tommy moved a chair next to the recliner. Like everyone else in their age category, Tommy Noles was shrinking. And white-haired. And wrinkled, to boot. It was very odd to see Tommy with wrinkles.
“How fast will that thing go?” asked Tommy.
He mashed a button on the remote, and was suddenly sitting upright. “Goes like a scalded dog.”
When Tommy grinned, his blue eyes disappeared, just like old times. “I can’t believe this, Tim. My wife can’t, either. She’s heard all about you. This means a lot.” Tears dimmed Tommy’s eyes. “A lot.”
Life was short; ask questions. “How come you ran out on us all those years ago?”
“Had to.”
“I understand,” he said. “I ran out on people, too.”
“You probably know what happened to my mom and dad—they drank themselves to death. It was already pretty bad when we lived up the road from your place. By the time I went to college, they were goin’ off the deep end—and so was I. I never talked about what went on at my house; I was always tryin’ to protect them, and myself. I thought if you knew how things were, you wouldn’t let me be your friend anymore.”
“You were the best friend I had,” he said. “Nothing could have changed that. Actually, we were both hiding something—you, because you knew what was going on with your parents, and I, because I had no idea what was going on with mine. Kids didn’t know how to talk about such things back then, and probably still don’t.”
“I felt there was a kind of hell in me all those years,” said Tommy, “and the only way to get it out was to get it scared out. I joined the Army and ended up a foot soldier in the ten-thousand-day war—Twenty-fifth Infantry Division.”
He inevitably felt shame when talking with a Vietnam vet, as he had been openly opposed to the war.
“Military could get anything they wanted in ’Nam, and what I wanted was alcohol. I didn’t mess with other drugs; alcohol was the familiar ease, it ran in my blood, it was milk for a cryin’ baby. I figured I’d drink myself to death, it was the family way. But it seemed like a chicken way out in the face of all the suffering we saw.
“I was pretty cocky, I’d do most anything. ‘Get Noles to do it,’ they’d say. ‘Noles’ll do it.’ Fed my ego.
“We started lookin’ at what th’ Vietcong did with tunnel systems. You wouldn’t believe it—a lot of ’em were multi-level, constructed with wood an’ clay, an’ they ran all th’ way to Saigon. Huge, some of ’em, hard to locate, an’ so deep you couldn’t destroy one with artillery or air strikes—a good many survived th’ B-52 attacks. You should’ve seen what they had down there—hospitals, kitchens, sleepin’ chambers, weapons storage, food bunkers, you name it. Some were like towns.
“A commander couldn’t order a man into a tunnel, it was strictly volunteer, and out of th’ volunteers he handpicked his teams. I’d heard plenty of stories from guys who went in—they called ’em tunnel rats—an’ knew that a lot of ’em never came out. But I figured I could do it; I was th’ right size for it—a hundred and twenty pounds drippin’ wet—an’ th’ kind who didn’t give a rat’s ass.
“I knew there’d be pit vipers down there, scorpions, fire ants, spiders, bats—I hated th’ bats, they’d fly right at you, get all over you. Man. I still dream about th’ bats. But what scared us th’ worst was gettin’ buried alive in a cave-in. It happened a lot, and whoever made it out had to go in an’ recover th’ dead.
“But th’ cave-ins were a maybe. What we knew for a fact was sooner or later we’d meet somebody down there; we’d see his eyes shinin’ in th’ dark an’ hear th’ pin bein’ pulled out of his grenade.
“First thing I did was resign myself to th’ fact I was goin’ to die. I was older than th’ rest of th’ guys, but so what—they say the oldest soldier killed in ’Nam was sixty-two.
“One day, we located a trapdoor; th’ commander wanted a team to investigate. I volunteered.
“It was like droppin’ into hell. I knew if I could survive th’ first one, I could probably make th’ next one. I worked th’ tunnels for two years with my buddy Rance Ortega. He was half Mexican, half Brit, an’ a hundred percent gung ho. Rance was my rabbit’s foot, th’ best in th’ division.
“Non gratum anus rodentum: Not worth a rat’s ass. That’s th’ motto they gave the boys who worked th’ tunnels, and that pretty much nailed it. If you thought too much of yourself, you’d better stay on solid ground. You had to go down th’ hole as a nothin’, a zero, or you’d never make it out.
“Course, what got a lot of th’ guys wasn’t snakes or grenades or th’ VC, it was panic. We hauled ’em out screamin’, sometimes totally gone, totally.
“I remember one of our rats crawlin’ in to investigate a tunnel. We attached a rope to him. He got a little ways in, we felt the rope jerk, that meant he wanted to come out. When we pulled him out, he’d been decapitated.”
Tommy’s hand was shaking as he took a tissue from the box on the nightstand and wiped his eyes. “I don’t talk about this, not to anybody. But I wanted you to know. It was important for me to tell you why I left an’ you never heard from me. Thank God you climbed in my backseat th’ other day. I thought I might have to die without tellin’ you what went down.
“I knew the tunnels were where I’d been headed all my life. It was either goin’ to scare hell out of me an’ save my ass, or they’d be ship-pin’ me home COD.”
“What kind of protection were you going in with?”
“A knife, a standard-issue Army flashlight, and a Colt .45. Later, I traded up to a nine-millimeter German Luger. Big difference.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. Most of the time I went in with Rance, but sometimes I worked alone, against th’ rules. You know what I thought about a lot when I was workin’ a tunnel? You.”
“Me?”
“I was crawlin’ horizontally, but it was like you an’ me goin’ up th’ tank ladder. You were bustin’ up that ladder like a monkey, not lookin’ back. I stayed right behind you, but I was scared to death—th’ wind was rattlin’ us around like a couple of old socks. So I played this head game in th’ tunnels, that I was followin’ you up th’ ladder, an’ it made me feel safe—don’t ask me why.”
“Don’t ask me why, either. I was scared out of my wits climbing that ladder.”
“But you never seemed to be scared, you seemed to have it all together all
th’ time. I was always th’ one haulin’ my scattered parts around in a basket.”
“I don’t understand that,” he said. “You were the best Indian fighter in the fort, you would do anything.”
“I would do anything because I was a zero. You were a ten.”
“No, I was never a ten. A four, maybe. Maybe.”
“It probably won’t surprise you to know that my whole life was turned around in a tunnel—in a rice bunker fifty feet below th’ Iron Triangle. I’d gone in with Rance; I had a hunch that somethin’ was goin’ to happen that night—we pretty much went in at night because the VC occupied th’ tunnels pretty heavy during the day. They’d made me a platoon leader, it was a big deal for me. Maybe I figured I didn’t deserve it, that somehow I’d have to pay for it. Maybe it was my time to hit a booby trap, maybe trip the wire that opened the door on a crate of snakes, or hit a mine that would blow both of us to Saigon an’ back. I could feel the panic comin’ an’ knew if I lost it, if I went mental, Rance would drag me out of there an’ I’d never work a tunnel again. Nobody would ever say again, Send Noles, or Noles is th’ best rat we got; they’d be sayin’, Poor sonofagun, he’s too old, he can’t cut it anymore, send th’ bugger home.
“That’s when I called out to God. And he answered.
“Since I didn’t know then that God is everywhere, I was pretty blown away that he was in th’ tunnels, just like some guys found him in a foxhole back in the two big ones.
“In a way, it was kind of like a cave-in—this great big peace just kind of dumped in on me, washed in on me like a wave. It was powerful; it was like nothin’ I’d ever known or felt in my life. Rance felt it, too. ‘It’s God,’ I said. He said somethin’ I won’t repeat, he didn’t want anything to do with God; ol’ Rance was enough for Rance.
“That night I told God if he’d get me out of th’ jungle alive, I’d straighten up. I got to tell you, I didn’t know what I was talkin’ about, I didn’t know how to straighten up. It was foreign to me.
“When I came home from ’Nam, I was hookin’ Johnny Walker hot an’ heavy for about five years. Looked like I was gon’ to kill myself, after all. In World War One, they called it shell shock. Second time around, they called it battle fatigue. After ’Nam, it was post-traumatic stress disorder. There was help back then, but it was hard to find—nobody wanted to mess with th’ guys comin’ home, and I wouldn’t have taken help if they handed it to me on a silver platter.
“But no use runnin’ on about it. What happened was, he hung on to me. I knew he wouldn’t let me go. And he didn’t.
“I go to AA every Wednesday,” said Tommy, “an’ meet once a week with four guys who served in ’Nam, one’s a chaplain. It helps a lot.
“Things are pretty good now. But I’ve got to confess somethin’, Tim. I’m th’ one who told we climbed th’ tank; I was about to bust, I couldn’t hold it in. I leaked it to Jimmy Swanson an’ he blabbed it all over town. I’ve always felt rotten that I broke my word to you and you took a really bad whippin’ for it. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I forgive you. But don’t let it happen again.”
He knew what laughter was: It was manna.
Tommy took a small box from his jacket pocket. “I wanted you to see this,” he said, lifting the lid.
“The Bronze Star?”
“That’s it.”
He wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand. ‘Or every man be blind,’ he thought. “I’m proud of you, Tommy. Thank you.” He couldn’t find words. “Thank you.”
“An’ I’ve got somethin’ for you.” Tommy took an envelope from the breast pocket of his driver’s uniform. “To you from me; no need to open it now. I want you to use it and give me a report.” Tommy’s blue eyes disappeared in the old Noles grin.
“Consider it done,” he said.
“I talk to people sometimes when I’m drivin’; talk about God, what he can do for us if we let ’im. You made a whole career out of talkin’ about God—except you get to talk to bigger numbers.”
“Numbers don’t matter. One soul at a time is enough. Is plenty.”
“I’ve got to bust out of here, I’m pickin’ up a rock band at the airport. They booked my stretch through Wednesday; I don’t get a stretch job every day. If you get back to Memphis, I want you to meet my wife, Shirley, she’s a lifesaver. An’ my two kids an’ grandkids. And what th’ hey, I’d like you to meet my dog, too.”
“We’ll be back,” he said. “We’ll do it. We’ll keep you faithfully in our prayers. God be with you, brother.”
Tommy Noles. Lost and found. He didn’t want to let him go.
At the door, Tommy turned and held up his thumb. “That’s where I whacked myself with my knife, remember?”
He wiggled his thumb. “I remember.”
They spoke the secret word.
THIRTY
He’d read the newspaper editorials, gotten hooked up to a calcium drip, called for the urinal, had his blood pressure taken, and eaten a cup of yogurt. There was only so much you could do on Reclining Day, especially if your wife had taken herself off to the Maternity Ward to gaze at infants.
“Maybe someday, but only maybe, I’ll do a book about babies,” she said before leaving. He saw the look in her eyes, and knew exactly what the look meant—she would definitely be doing such a book.
He tried to feel his blood running around in a circle, but he didn’t feel anything different. He felt a nap coming on.
“Hey, Tim.”
“T! Hey, yourself. What in the world are you doing in Memphis?” T’s pompadour was looking good. Shiny.
“Had to come up for shutter hinges, a couple of light fixtures, this an’ that. When you called an’ said you’d be strapped in a chair a few hours, thought I’d drop by. What’s goin’ on?”
“Not much. They’re just running my blood around in a circle, that’s how they collect stem cells these days.”
“How’s Henry?”
“Have a seat, T. Struggling.”
“Sorry to hear it. Keep us posted.” T paused, respectful. “Ray’s in th’ hall.”
“What’s he doing in the hall?”
“Said he told you how he’d never come to Memphis again, no matter what; said he didn’t want to give you a heart attack while you’re hooked up to machinery.”
“Ray!” he hollered. “Get in here!”
Ray walked in, grinning. “This my las’ time in Memphis.”
“Right. Good to see you, buddy, thanks for coming.”
“We got to look out for our first big customer,” said Ray.
T stooped over the chair and pointed to the top of his head. “Feel this,” he said.
He raised his forefinger and felt it.
“Fuzzy.”
“Dern right. Fuzzy as a peach. About a week, an’ we got fuzzy. It’s gon’ work.”
“Good timing. I might have a name for you.” He’d finagled it out of his feeble brain one night at the hotel.
“Shoot,” said T.
“But remember I’m a preacher. I’m no marketing maven.”
“Yeah,” said Ray, “but bein’ a preacher puts you in sales, an’ that’s good enough for us.”
“Let’s start with packaging, so when I get to the name, you can, you know, imagine the way the name will look to the consumer.”
“Good deal,” said T.
“A white tube.”
“We’re with you,” said T.
“Blue lettering. I read a study that said men like the color blue—has authority.”
“What about women?” said Ray. “We don’t want t’ lose out on that demographic.”
“I didn’t get that far,” he said. “But I’ll keep it in mind. For the lettering, I’d use bold type. Sans serif.” He’d done pew bulletins, he knew this stuff. “Sans serif is more contemporary, though I’m a serif man, myself. Okay. Here’s the name…”
You could hear a pin drop.
“Mo’ Hair.”
“I don
’t get it,” said Ray.
“Try again,” said T. “If you don’t mind.”
“Okay. You’ll like this. Hair to Spare.”
“Man!” said T. “Hair to Spare. That’s it. I like it. I really like it. What do you think, Ray?”
Ray’s grin displayed the majority of his recent dental work. “Got your Kudzu King an’ Marketin’ Maven right here in one room.”
“Ship me a case,” he said.
“Hair to Spare,” said T. “Right on th’ money. Glad I asked you t’ think about it.”
“Cast yo’ bread on th’ water,” said Ray, “an’ some days it come back buttered toast.”
“We need t’ bust out of here, my brother’s comin’ tomorrow with a SUV full of lawyers and fishin’ rods.”
“There ought to be a joke in that.”
“We got shutters to hang, light fixtures to put up—”
“But first, we got barbecue to eat,” said Ray. “Right down th’ street.”
“Aw, man, I wadn’t gon’ tell ’im that,” said T.
“You’re breakin’ my heart, boys.”
“Chopped,” said T.
“Baby backs,” said Ray.
“Get out of here,” he said.
A nurse flew in. “Grand Central Station,” she said, none too pleased.
“No rest for th’ wicked, an’ th’ righteous don’t need none.”
“You’re chipper.”
“How do I turn on the TV?”
She snatched the remote and hit a button; the screen displayed what appeared to be a tractor-pulling contest.
“No, wait,” he said. “I don’t want to watch TV, I never watch TV except for 60 Minutes. How do you turn it off?”
She hit a button, the screen went black.
“How much longer?”
“Two hours,” she said. “Forty-five minutes if you’re lucky.”
She jiggled something, plugged in something, hummed to herself.
“Is that ‘Delta Dawn’?” he asked.
“Is what delta dawn?”
“What you’re singing.”
“I’m not singing.”