Spirit Me Away

by Aaron Paul Lazar

  My heart caught in my throat. It was all I could do to look straight ahead and not bump into people, for I didn’t want to take my eyes off her. Watching her made my heart soar, and made my body even more eager than usual. And I hardly thought about that thing…that dreadful thing that happened to her. I’d been successfully talking myself out of the gloom, explaining to my judgmental self that she had not intended to get drugged up—except for a little pot—and that she had only wanted to keep an eye on her friend. So far, it seemed to be working.

  Or, maybe it was the aura of excitement in the air. Was it the thrill of discovery, of sharing something much bigger than ourselves? Could it be the pure joy of soaking in brilliant colors that filled the sidewalks and overpowered our senses?

  Maybe it was just love, pure and simple.

  Speaking of love, I glanced at Porter, who was still completely besotted with Valerie. He touched her arm frequently and leaned close to her when she spoke. His eyes rarely slid away from her face, and he actually did collide with a bearded guy wearing tie-died everything, from tee shirt to shorts to a swirled bandana. Both men apologized to each other, with several exchanges of “Peace, man,” passing between them.

  Valerie reciprocated, falling gratefully into the warm cocoon of Porter’s attentive behavior. Today she wore hip hugger jeans, a pale blue peasant blouse, and the ubiquitous orange granny glasses. Her hair flowed loose on her shoulders, and while we walked to the concert, she’d woven a daisy flower ring to wear like a crown. Although the loss of her baby would likely wound her for life, I was hopeful she would heal, given time.

  We reached the Cambridge Commons, a mini-version of the Boston Commons, where long ago sheep had grazed on huge rectangles of grass situated between muddy streets, and where horses had pulled wagons and new businesses had sprung up every day. During the Revolutionary War, General George Washington had even gathered troops here, which I found fascinating. We walked where he walked, where the soldiers who fought for our liberty struggled into ragtag companies of united men. It was very cool, and I talked with Elsbeth about it while we walked along the sun-splattered grass.

  The multitudes swelled around a makeshift stage erected for the free “Love In” concert. While our ladies seemed to blend perfectly with the vibrant crowds, Porter and I sort of melted into the background with our straight leg jeans and pocket tee shirts. I almost felt like I should have grown a beard for the occasion, or worn a necklace with a peace sign on it, like so many young men did that day.

  Almost.

  I spotted a familiar face through the swarming masses. Carol, the woman who’d greeted us at the commune in Lakeville, was speaking to a group of young girls, her long, straight hair swinging as she leaned forward and spoke animatedly to the group. The girls looked to be about thirteen or fourteen. She draped her arm around one girl’s shoulders, whispered something in her ear, and offered her an item in a small baggie that she held in her outstretched palm.

  What is she giving the kid? Drugs?

  The girl looked around nervously, and then snatched the bag from Carol’s hand. As the crowd shifted and moved, I lost sight of them. I stood on my toes, trying to spot them again, but they’d vanished. I sighed, realizing that the lofty ideals Carol pushed on us at the commune were likely seductive tools of induction.

  I remembered the way Carol had looked at Elsbeth and Valerie. If I read her right, I’d seen a slight tremor of longing in her eyes. It was the way she fingered Valerie’s hair and how she held Elsbeth’s hand just a few seconds too long.

  Had I imagined it?

  Elsbeth pulled on my arm. “Honey, come on. Let’s move up closer to the stage.”

  We stepped between hippies sprawled on blankets, squeezed through an assembly of Hell’s Angels, slithered through the tightly packed crowd near the stage, and found a spot on the right side where we could stand in relative comfort. We’d arrived part way through the show, after the first two acts had already performed. I heard the guy next to us raving about Boston’s own band, Eden’s Children, and their amazing lead singer and guitarist. I mentally noted the name of the band and planned to bring it up in my next conversation with Arnie, my pal who played acoustic guitar but was a wannabe rock star. Chatting with him about what was “happening” in town was the only way I could keep up with my wife and friends, since I didn’t have a lot of time to listen to WBCN or read the Cambridge Phoenix, the coolest paper in town. No, even though it was summer, I only had time to study dry-as-dust theory and practice piano for three hours or more every day. But that was a breeze compared to the normal school semesters, where I played at least six hours every day in the hot, stuffy practice rooms of the conservatory.

  After waiting about ten minutes, an aura of anticipation rose around us, and the crowd roared when Alice Cooper suddenly leapt onto the stage.

  Alice was a man, which I’d figured out just a few weeks ago. In the newer trends toward androgyny, it was now hip to blur gender lines. He swaggered onto stage with his group, dressed in torn black tights, a black leather harness-type affair, and black face makeup reminiscent of the joker in a deck of cards.

  Although his lyrics were clearly intended for shock value, the music was actually rather good. It had strong melodic lines, tight harmony, and a fast, driving beat. In spite of all the talk of dead babies, which was totally inappropriate for Valerie to hear, I really loved the band. Fortunately, the girls had gone in search of a restroom when Alice romped around stage with the doll whose head he pulled off while grinning sardonically at the audience.

  After several outlandish acts, the group transcended into a well-orchestrated takeoff of a West Side Story melody. We laughed at the references to The Jets and The Sharks, and I found the music surprisingly complex and unique. It seemed like these guys had some formal training in music composition.

  The girls loved it. They danced together and swayed to the music. Finally, as the afternoon sun settled low in the sky, the show was about to end. The crowds began to disperse after the band played one more encore. For the most part, I believed that this “hippie” audience ambled back to their establishment homes in suburban neighborhoods, where their parents complained about their long hair and loud music.

  Apparently, the band had summoned a helicopter to whisk them back to the hotel or airport, because they congregated with security men on one roped-off spot in the far corner of the field.

  Porter froze. The whirring of the helicopter’s blades murmured in the distance, causing his eyes to widen in fear. He tensed and grabbed my arm. “The chopper’s drawing fire. Hit the ground.” In a flash, he pushed Valerie to the grass and covered her with his body.

  She stared at him over one shoulder. “Hey, what’s going on?”

  Porter looked around in terror and tried to drag her under the stage platform. “Move it, move it, move it,” he screamed. He gestured to all of us frantically. “C’mon. Take cover under here.”

  The music-loving mob bled away from us, murmuring phrases like “bad trip,” and “brown acid.”

  “Porter? You’re okay, we’re not in the war anymore,” Valerie said, trying to reason with him.

  He ignored her, clambered under the stage, and emerged on the other side, searching the skies. Yelling at Valerie to stay put, he ran hunched over, across the Commons, skirting between the lingering groups of people and ducking for cover behind the fountain.

  I raced after him. “Porter! Wait.”

  He jumped over a black wrought iron fence, and began to climb the Civil War statue looming high above us.

  “Porter, stop,” I yelled.

  He ignored me and kept climbing until he perched high above the ground, his arms wrapped around Abraham Lincoln’s neck.

  I tried again. “Porter? Hey, buddy. Everything’s cool. Come on down.”

  He clung to the statue and craned his head as if searching for the helicopter. As it drew nearer, he became more agitated, waving his arms and trying to call attention to the folks on the gr
ass below.

  “Enemy fire! Take cover, men.”

  Elsbeth and Valerie caught up with me, panting and worried.

  “Honey, what are we going to do? He’ll kill himself up there,” Elsbeth said.

  In spite of her injuries from last week, which I knew hadn’t completely healed, Valerie hopped the fence and approached the base of the statue. The helicopter landed on the far side of the field, and the band climbed into it.

  Before we could stop her, Valerie climbed halfway up the statue, speaking softly and slowly to Porter. “It’s okay, Porter. It’s okay. The war’s over.”

  I couldn’t help but compare this to my recent experience climbing the tree to try to talk down the drug addict who recognized Valerie.

  She repeated her words over and over again, in a soft, mesmerizing tone, extending her hand to him, entreating him to come down. “Come on, honey. Come on down, Porter.”

  After several minutes of cajoling, he finally seemed to return to his senses. Slowly, shakily, he descended.

  Elsbeth and I joined Valerie at the base of the statue, holding hands and watching Valerie bring him back.

  She sat on the grass with him, rocking him in her arms, muttering soothing words to him.

  “It’s okay, sweetie. You’re safe. It’s just a bad memory. You’ll be okay. Shh.”

  Sweat ran down his face and he trembled all over. His head snapped left and right, nervously checking the area.

  The helicopter took off and within minutes, the rumbling softened to a distant hum.

  He came out of it slowly. Disoriented, he looked in confusion between us. “What happened?”

  “I think you had a flashback,” I said gently. “The chopper seemed to set you off.” I squeezed his shoulder and looked into his worried eyes. “But it’s okay now. You’re safe here.”

  We slowly emerged from the fenced area and were greeted with surprised looks from the band’s crew who coiled wires and stacked equipment into the back of a white van.

  When Porter seemed to recover enough to walk and talk with us, the four of us wandered through Harvard Square as the sun lowered in the sky, glinting off store windows.

  After stopping for a while to look at albums and books in The Coop, we stumbled upon a health food restaurant. With tired minds and hungry bodies, we enjoyed The Golden Temple’s tempura battered cauliflower, stir-fried peapods with pine nuts, and miso soup. Valerie encouraged Porter to talk about his experiences in the war, and for the next hour, we listened to his story.

  Chapter 34

  “More?” I lifted the pot of jasmine blackberry tea in Porter’s direction.

  “Sure. Thanks.” He pushed his cup forward, focused somewhere in the distant past, and began to speak.

  “My tour of duty was six years. I volunteered for the first two, and then signed up for four more years. I believed we were fighting for freedom, and that seemed the most important thing in the world at the time. After basic training, they sent my unit over and dropped us into the middle of a nasty swamp battle. We lost half of our men in the first hour. I dragged one of them out of there—over two miles—and he made it. But two of my best friends died that day. That first, awful day.”

  We sipped our tea and waited. Porter stared out the window into Harvard Square, where the light had started to fade, speaking in a low voice.

  “They trained me to go into the tunnels to find and kill the Viet Cong who were hiding underground. It was hell. The fear, the stench, the feelings of claustrophobia...I can’t describe the tension and the endless waiting. I never knew what I’d see around each corner. Sometimes there was nothing. Sometimes there was a guy with a knife, ready to gut me.”

  Valerie winced and put her hand on his arm. He glanced at her, smiled haltingly, and went on.

  “Before long, I was struck by fragments from a bomb dropped on our unit. It killed three of my pals, and put a gash in my side. I still have the scar. They let me recuperate away from the action in a makeshift hospital. That’s where I met Mae Nguyen.”

  Sympathy flooded through Elsbeth’s eyes. “You really loved her, didn’t you?”

  He nodded slowly and took a worn Polaroid from his wallet. The girl was lovely, with high cheekbones, earth brown eyes, and a sublime smile. She and Porter posed for the shot before a rundown hut, their arms around each other’s waists.

  “Yeah. We planned to go back to the States to get married for real. Until the raid that killed her. She was so vulnerable...so delicate. Like a flower that needed support in the wind.”

  He choked up, stopped for a while, sipping his tea. “It happened on a Sunday. I remember, because it was the worst day of my life. She was killed while I was on a foray in the north. Mae Nguyen and her whole village were dead by the time we returned. All of them. Gone.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”

  We were silent for a long time.

  “Truthfully,” he said, stretching back in his chair, “I don’t know why I climbed the statue today. I might have thought I was getting in the chopper. Our helicopters often drew enemy fire when they approached a hot landing zone. That’s why I shouted at everyone to get down. I’m sorry. I must have looked like an idiot.”

  We assured him he was wrong. Porter closed his eyes and put his head in his hands.

  The waiter cleared our dishes and laid the bill on the red tablecloth with a sidelong glance at Porter. “He okay? Food okay?” he whispered to me.

  “The food was wonderful, thanks,” I said, pulling out enough money to cover the bill and to give him a decent tip. “He’ll be okay. He’s just feeling a little sick.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Sick?”

  “No, not from the food. From the war.”

  As if he instantly understood, our waiter clucked in sympathy and disappeared into the shadows, shaking his head.

  No, Porter wasn’t sick in the conventional way. He was heartsick, devastated, and destroyed. That was more like it. I couldn’t imagine losing my sweet wife to the torture of a raiding Viet Cong patrol. Although she had been violated a week ago, she still slept by my side, night by night, with her soft breath on my pillow and her dark curls against my face.

  We refilled the teacups yet again and talked for a while longer, letting Porter get it all out. The atrocities he’d seen were painful for him to share, but with our encouragement, he talked until it seemed there was nothing else to wring from his heart.

  Finally, after walking back to the car, we drove slowly back downtown and dropped Porter at his apartment above the diner. Back at our apartment, we said a few words to Byron and Lana, and soon tumbled exhausted into bed.

  Chapter 35

  “Gu…usss.” Byron called my name as if he were haunting a house.

  I opened one eye and grunted. He stood above me with a pink and yellow box kite in his hands. The homemade rag tail trailed out to the hallway.

  “Come on, lazybones, it’s almost ten,” he said, shaking my arm.

  I bolted upright. “Oh, no. Oh no! I overslept,” I moaned, picking up the alarm clock and jostling it.

  I turned to Elsbeth’s side of the bed. She was gone. “Damn. I forgot to set the alarm.”

  Byron perched on the side of the bed. “You missed your class?”

  “Yeah. It started at nine. It’s almost over now.”

  He rattled the kite and smiled. “Well, it’s not too late for a little fun in the park, old chum. What d’you say? Hell, the girls took off to go shopping. No reason why we can’t have a lark.”

  I smiled, scratched my hair vigorously, and finally stood up. “Okay. Let me jump in the shower real quick and then grab some eggs. I’m starving.” I stretched, stood up, and padded toward the bathroom.

  Byron sauntered into the living room and placed the kite on the couch. “Eggs? Rubbish. Today we’re going wild, dear chap. We’re going for donuts.”

  “Donuts?” A ridiculous thrill raced through me. The idea of eating something Elsbeth and I had classified as “unhealthy” was
oddly appealing.

  “Absolutely, dear man. It’ll be my treat today. Now shake a leg and get dressed. The day’s a wastin,’ my good fellow. Chop, chop.”

  I’d used my last few dollars on the meal at the Golden Temple the night before, so I nodded, thankful he’d offered to pay for breakfast. “Great. Be out in a sec.”

  I showered quickly. A range of emotions ran through my brain as I soaped up. I pushed down the memories of Elsbeth’s assault, and came face to face with images of Alice Cooper mixed with the appalling scenes of Viet Nam that were painted so graphically by Porter last evening.

  Strangely enough, the face of the monkey man flashed elusively before me, only to be replaced by Byron’s toothy grin. He’d actually poked his head into the shower.

  “Good heavens, how clean do you have to be? Let’s go!”

  I splashed some water at him, chuckled, and finished up quickly, jogging to the bedroom with a towel wrapped around my waist. I changed into khaki shorts, a worn red tee shirt, and sneakers.

  We grabbed the kite and walked to the White Tower Restaurant on the southwest side of the Commons. Byron bought a half dozen donuts—two sugar-powdered lemon-filled, two honey-dipped, and two crusty crullers. I ordered two pints of milk and Byron bought a cup of coffee. He added sugar and creamer to it and handed the kite to me while he fished for his money.

  The young man behind the counter smiled, because Byron—ever the generous tipper—had left him a whole dollar in the jar on the counter. The boy grinned and packed our breakfast into a white paper bag. “Thank you, sir.”

  Byron’s eyebrow flew up at the “sir,” obviously taken aback. “Am I a sir?” he asked, leading the way to a bench in the park.

  I looked at him and laughed. “Hardly. You’re barely twenty years old.”