Carry Me Home (17 page)

“What’s her name?” Crocco asked.

“I don’t know,” Tony answered.

“She’s a real cutie,” Chris said. “Here, have another beer.”

“Thanks.”

The band played another song. Tony drank half the beer, resisting the urge to turn and look at Linda. At the table Linda finished her second drink. Bill remained somber, still, clutching his beer, seemingly concentrating all his attention on the tabletop. When the next song started Tony asked Linda to dance again, and when the song was over he again escorted her back to her table.

Tom was at the bar. “Tom’s friend had to go,” Judy announced as Linda and Tony reached the table. “He’s on call, or something.”

“Oh,” Linda said suppressing a sigh of relief. The band slowed the tempo, began The Shirelles’ “Tonight’s the Night.” Linda turned to Tony. She had no idea what to say, what would come out as she began to speak, but she began anyway. “Why don’t you—” she laughed a little girlish laugh, “sit.”

“I’d like that,” Tony said.

Tom returned before either could sit. “Hey, where’d Bill go?”

“Can we dance this one?” Linda asked softly. She touched Tony’s hand lightly. Low voltage current seemed to come from her fingertips.

On the dance floor Tony held her gently, gentlemanly.

“So,” Linda said as they slow danced, “what are you?”

“Me?!” Tony extended his arms, held her at arm’s length. He was aware that this girl was pretty, not high-fashion pretty, but excitingly pretty. “I’m a dago. What are you?”

“That’s not what I mean.” Linda stifled a laugh. “I mean, are you a sailor? My girlfriend’s fiancé is a petty officer. Something like that.”

“Oh, I thought you meant, you know, like what’s my sign. That’s why I said I’m a dago.”

“Come on,” Linda smiled.

“I’m a Marine. I’m a sergeant in the Marine Corps. And I like to dance. You’re a good dancer.”

“So are you. I thought all the men here were sailors.”

“We’ve a detachment of Marines to stand guard. Do you come here often?”

“Oh God, No! I mean ... I’ve never been here before.”

“Sure.”

“Sure what? I’ve never been here before. I only came because my friend wanted me to meet her fiancé.”

“Yeah.”

“Really.” Linda stopped dancing and stepped back.

“Yeah.” Tony said mock sheepishly. “I believe you.”

“I really never have been here before,” Linda blurted defensively.

“I believe you.” Tony couldn’t suppress his laughter.

“I’m not the kind of girl that would come to a men’s club,” Linda said. “This is out of character for—”

“No. No. Look. I’m not saying that you are. I’m just saying, ‘Sure.’”

“Hhmmm.” Linda pursed her lips.

“What are you?” Tony asked. They resumed dancing.

“I’m studying to be an LPN,” Linda said. Tony looked quizzically at her. “A nurse,” she said.

“Oh,” Tony said. The song ended. They walked back toward the table. “That’s great. I’d like to do that someday. We had a corpsman once who cross-trained all our squad leaders and platoon sergeants in emergency medical aid. I’ve started IVs, given shots of morphine.”

“You have! Look at this. Where’d they go?”

“Who?”

“Judy and Tom. Great! She gets me over here to meet her guy then she just about sits on him from the moment we come in and now they leave....”

“Is that her? Over by the door.”

“You must have really good eyes,” Linda said.

Judy came back to the table. “I’ll see ya later,” she whispered to Linda. “We’re going to a hotel downtown.”

“Do you believe that?” Linda looked at Tony, shook her head. “Some friend. Oh well, tell me, how is it that you got to start IVs if you’re not a medic? Who would let you do that?”

“Ah, when it’s necessary, whoever can do it does it.”

“Sure.” Linda laughed.

“Sure.” Tony chuckled back.

“Come on. Where did you get to do that?”

“Around Dong Ha.”

“Where?”

“In Viet Nam.”

“Oh. I see. Oh!”

The tempo changed—Isley Brothers, “Twist and Shout,” then “Twistin with Linda.” For an hour Tony and Linda danced. They paused for a drink, exchanged names, a few comments. And they smiled. Linda was surprised. She was enjoying both the dancing and the presence of Tony Pisano. For Tony, the more he looked at Linda, the more beautiful and exciting she was to him.

“Ah, can you drive me back to my barracks?” They had exited the club, were standing at the edge of the parking lot.

“Sure.” Linda laughed. “If you can guess which car is mine.”

Tony scanned the lot. There were about thirty cars. “That Plymouth.” He pointed to a close-by late-model sedan.

“No.”

“Uh. The Tempest?” He indicated a car halfway across the lot.

“Noooo.”

“Oh no. Not that one?”

“Um-hmm.” At the center of the lot there was a battered, cream-colored two-door coup of indeterminable age or make. And it was covered with large daisies. In the petals of the largest daisy, painted on the hood, were three lines making each petal a peace symbol.

Tony took a deep breath. He looked around to see if anyone was about. Then he looked at Linda. “Well, Ma’am,” he said in John Wayne imitation, “let’s go.”

“Where’s your barracks?” Linda asked after she’d started the engine.

“There.” Tony pointed across the lot.

“There?” Linda burst out laughing.

“Well, Ma’am, you wouldn’t want to make a Marine walk real far in the night air, would ya now?”

Linda drove across the lot and parked. Alone with Linda for the first time Tony felt awkward. And he felt very awkward before his barracks in the daisied car. But there was something about her that he liked, something different, he thought, something he wanted to understand. Her eyes were different, but it was more. For one thing she didn’t seem to feel the least bit awkward or shy, defensive or aggressive. It’s like we could be friends, he thought. Good friends.

Their talk alternated between serious and playful. Tony spoke quietly, sincerely, passionately about the Marine Corps in Viet Nam. Linda listened attentively, asking a few questions about the Corps but gracefully avoiding anything to do with politics and the war.

“Then a lance corporal is like a seaman or a PFC?” Linda asked.

“Oh no,” Tony said. “They’re the same pay grade but it’s altogether different. Lance corporal in the Marine Corps is a very prestigious rank. It comes from the Latin
lancia spezzata
which is what the Romans labeled their best fighters, the ones who had the most broken lances. PFC in the army’s nothin. They all make PFC. Really, a lance corporal in the Corps is more like a sergeant in the army.”

“But you’re a sergeant in the Marine Corps. Then that must truly be a prestigious rank.”

“Well,” Tony said modestly, “I’ve been in for three years. Today’s my anniversary date. I’ve been to Cuba and Norway, plus Viet Nam. So I’ve been around.”

“I guess so.”

“Hey,” he brightened up. “What color are your eyes? They’re different.”

“They’re hazel,” Linda said.

“Let me look.”

“Boy, if that isn’t a line!”

“Naw. Naw. I’m serious. I was tellin my cousin ... Geez Louise ... you got em.”

“What?”

“Naw. I’m not goina say anything cause you think I’m feeding you a line.” Suddenly Tony was feeling eerie, intimidated. He almost asked her about her hair but he decided to wait.

“Tony,” Linda said, “I’ve really got to go now. I have that exam tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Tony said pensively. “You told me that before.” He wanted to stay with her a little while longer but he wasn’t sure how to keep her. So he said, “I think it’s really neat that you’re going to be a nurse. When you were telling me about that, about wanting to save people or lessen their suffering, you know, I think if I—I mean—when I get out—I think I’d like to go to school and do something like that. I think I’d be good at it. I’m good with people. Maybe be a teacher. I could teach high school or something.”

“Then you should do it,” Linda answered him.

“I probably will. I could go on the GI Bill and I think if I needed it, my father would help me. He put my brother through school and he’s paying most of my other brother’s tuition. My brother Joe is starting medical school in September. We could be, you know, like the Mayo brothers. Open our own clinic. The Dago Brothers’ clinic.”

Linda didn’t answer. She missed the joke and was doubtful that a combat marine from Viet Nam could ever be a nurse, much less a doctor. She was skeptical but not to the point where she dared question him. After all, at twenty years old he had reached the rank of sergeant in the Marine Corps and she was now convinced that was a real accomplishment. Perhaps she was going easy on him because she kind of liked him.

Tony took her quietness as pure skepticism, as a put down. “You know,” he began. He stuttered but he decided to speak his thought. “I ... this may sound weird, but I, I feel the same way about being a Marine as you do about being a nurse. I wanted to save people. I wanted to lessen their suffering. And if I saved one other human being’s life in my lifetime, never mind just if I ever reproduce myself with kids, but if I save another human’s life, I’ve more than justified my existence. And—and—and I have. I was with the greatest fighting force in the world and what we fought for was to save lives. You know, ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic,’ third verse? There’s a line there. ‘As He died to make men holy; Let us live to make men free.’ That’s what we were doing. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll get out.”

“No.” Linda reached over and touched his hand. “No. Not ... I mean ...” She withdrew her hand. “Tony, that’s a very beautiful thought. You, you’re really a very special person. I can see why they made you sergeant. You seem really to care about people.”

“I do. I think I do. Part of me always wanted to be a medic. That’s why I thought I’d be a good nurse or technician. I don’t think I could stand to spend so much time in school to become a doctor.” He changed tone suddenly. “Hey, how long is your hair?”

“What?” She laughed.

“You’ve got it all knotted up in back. I was wonderin how long it was.”

Linda smiled. She reached back to pull the pins out. “I’d expect that line from a sailor,” she joked.

“See, you have been here before, huh?”

“No, I haven’t!”

“Okay. Here let me.” Tony reached over and pulled out the last hairpin.

Linda shook her head. “I had it up because I haven’t washed it since this morning.” Auburn hair fell to her shoulders.

Tony sat back, stared. Eyes, hair, right height, he thought. He tilted his head, closed his eyes, thought a second, then looked at Linda. “Somebody someplace took that order.”

“What?”

“Oh, nothin. Nothin.”

“Tony, I really do have to go.”

“I know,” he said. He wanted to end the night right. Wanted it to end with the assurance it was only the start. “I know,” he said, “that you’d like me to kiss you good night. But, ah, I never kiss a girl on the first date.” With that he opened the door and got out.

Linda Balliett did not hear from Tony Pisano for three days. It was not a matter that he was not thinking of her. Indeed, even during the two notifications and one burial at which he’d assisted he could not stop thinking about her. Christopher Crocco had noticed it the moment he’d walked into their cubicle. He noticed it as Tony sang and even danced his little jig while he dressed in the morning. He noticed it the following evening, in the weight room, as Tony went through his routine twice, pumping more weight, doing more reps.

On the second morning Crocco said, “Well, are you goina tell me about it?”

“No,” Tony answered.

“Damn,
paesan
. You’re floating like an airhead and you’re not going to talk!”

“Nope.”

“At least tell me her name. You did get her name, didn’t you?”

At Linda’s dormitory the scene was quite different. Though at times she found herself thinking of Tony, she spent the first two hours back reviewing blood gas theory and equations. In school the next day she concentrated hard during quiz and classes. And not until she had lunch with Judy Reardon and two other student nurses did she think about Tony.

“Who was the cute guy who picked you up?” Judy asked.

“Listen,” Linda said. “He was the biggest jerk. I mean, he was a good dancer but do you know what he did?”

“What?” All three girls leaned closer.

“You’re not going to believe it. This guy was so presumptuous ...” And she repeated for them Tony’s last few sentences.

“I can’t even believe you went over there,” one of the friends said.

“Neither can I,” said the second.

“I didn’t expect you to stay,” Judy said. “I thought the band was terrible.”

“No it wasn’t,” Linda said. “It was good. And he
was
a good dancer.”

“But when you found out he was a Marine,” Judy said, “why didn’t you ditch him. Ucck! A Marine.”

“‘I want a good luck charm, hangin on my arm ...’”

Chris Crocco looked up as Tony came bopping into their cubicle, bopping, singing, snapping his fingers, knees bent and torso swinging in Elvis imitation. “Hey,
paesan
...”

“‘... to have, to hold, tonight.’” Tony drew out the last note.

“You keep singing and the dudes in the next room are goina buy
us
that stereo. Man, there’s one I saw with a built-in eight-track that’d—”

“Fuck!” Tony snarled, irate.

“Now what the hell is it?”

“Burials, motherfucker.”

“I swear, you’re like Jekyll and Hyde except worse. You’re like Jekyll and Hyde in one breath. Simultaneous schitzo-fuck. Mulhaney?”

“No.” Pisano plopped down on his cot. Two letters at the foot bounced on the tightly tucked blanket.

“What then?” Crocco was angry. Tony’s mood shifts made the continuum of conversation impossible.

“Promiscuous bitch.”

“Who? That chick?”

“Old bitch, Man. Death, Man. Takin another Philly boy, Man. Fuck it! But we keep linin up ... a billion of us ... a billion boys carrying on their generation’s wars, generation after generation after
ad inf-
fuckin
-nitum
generation. I don’t wanta bury em anymore.”