Fatal Light (11 page)

I flew east on a military travel voucher. When the plane came down in St. Louis I went into the airport to eat breakfast at three o'clock in the afternoon. Sitting in front of the second cup of coffee I let the connecting flight time come and go. From where I sat I could look out at the runways, and I thought of traveling on to my grandfather's house but felt fine just where I was, between planes, my own purgatory in the middle of America. Somewhere out there and close by, I thought, was the Mississippi. Some of the same water had run past my grandfather's house, two hundred yards from my grandfather's back door, and I remembered my childhood revelation: the same water, the Ohio joins the Mississippi, together they go to the sea. I was, in the private ways of boyhood, in awe of the Ohio River. I read about the river in a geography textbook in Alma Norfleet's third-grade classroom, and later I stood beside the river itself, abandoned to its simple power. I was sure the river was mysterious, angelic, bound, I was certain, for the outskirts of heaven. My brother and I would fish from the banks, in days when you could eat what you drew from the river, before the shore was a congealed wick of paper cups and condoms and beer cans. My
brother would squat and watch the end of his fishing line drift in the shallows and tell me stories about the river. Wild tales: mermaids and alligators, waterspouts, suck holes.

“You gonna be wanting anything else, honey?” The coffee shop waitress.

“No,” I said. “This'll do it.”

She slapped down an oily slip of paper. “There's your check, honey. You have a nice day.”

She rumbled off with her tray and wipe rag. I took a last sip of coffee.

 

I found a connecting flight into a small city and took a bus from there, south, downriver. I told myself the bus would let me see the land again, the forests, glint of lakes nearly out of sight of the highway. But it was dark for most of the ride and I sat beside an old lady with a battered vanity case on her lap. She clutched the case as if it were a spar from a shipwreck, as if the bus were lost in open seas.

My grandfather pushed the screen door open with one crutch and looked down at me. After a moment he turned toward his rocker on the far side of the porch.

“Hell,” he said, “you look all right.”

Three years since I had seen him, and I did not remember the crutches. He had lost weight, seemed frail as he moved. I climbed the porch steps and leaned my bag against the door. My grandfather let the crutches fall across a glider at the rear of the porch and stood, unsteady, feet apart. As I approached he took me by the arms and pulled me close and embraced me.

We stood holding each other in the silent afternoon heat, and when he released me he said, softly, “I'm OK.” He gripped the back of his rocker, getting around it stifflegged, sliding into the chair. “Just damned glad to see you.”

“What happened?” I said. “What's wrong with your legs?”

My grandfather said, “Sit down, relax.” He leaned forward to work a tobacco pouch out of his hip pocket. “I thought we'd lost you there,” he said. “Couple times there toward the end. Least from what I heard.” He raked a pinch of tobacco between thumb and forefinger, positioned it inside
his left cheek, folded the pouch closed and tossed it onto an end table beside his chair.

It was the pouch I remembered, the one he had carried for what seemed all his life. Leather worn to a sleek gloss and his name on the flap,
Earl McFail,
embossed in gold. I sat to his left, the straightback cane chair that had always been my grandmother's. A chair for people who don't like to sit, she had said. The sweet odor of my grandfather's tobacco drifted against the smell of his roses.

“What happened to your legs?” I asked again.

He looked out, past the arbor to the empty street. “Hardening of the arteries.” He spit tobacco juice into a coffee can. “Nothing to be done about it, I'm told,” he said. “Not enough blood going to the muscles.”

The street was cobblestone, never reclaimed as the western edge of the city declined after the Second World War. I had grown up as Earl McFail's house ran from beautiful old row house to tenement, the neighborhood in its final elegance a studied world of oaks and black maple and evening quiet, ivory doorknobs and brass knockers, stained glass and ivy in the perfumed dusk of Eisenhower's America. The street lost its owners to age and death, ringed finally by used car lots and pawnshops. My grandfather held grimly to his place.

Where his neighbors' homes had stood across the street a parking lot rode open and barren to the loading docks of the new federal building. Trash skittered on an occasional breeze.

“They were just starting to tear down those houses when I was here last,” I said.

My grandfather nodded. “Didn't take long once they got into it.” He turned and looked at me, then reached for his coffee can and spit into it again. The can back in place, he said, “So you came in on the bus?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you were flying.”

“Flew into Wheeling, took a bus the rest of the way. Gave me time to think.”

He turned back to the street. “Hell of a lot to think about, I imagine.”

A paper cup in the parking lot began to roll in front of a column of air. “Well,” I said, “yeah. That's safe to say.”

Earl got rid of his spent tobacco, into the coffee can. “I'll tell you something,” he said. “This war. I can't understand a damn thing about it. You know what I'm talking about?”

I nodded.

“You know what's been going on back here? You hear about all that?”

I looked at him.

“Demonstrations, marches, protests. You hear about that?”

“I heard about it.”

Earl shook his head, resigned. “The whole damn country's scared. Confused.” He massaged the thigh of his left leg, grimacing. “You see that issue of
Life?
The American dead. They had it set up like a yearbook. Faces and names, all lined up. You never saw that kind of thing in the Second World War, Korea.”

The sun was suddenly gone, clouded over. The first heavy drops of advancing rain began to blot the dust in the street.

“Just kids,” my grandfather said. “Naturally. No older than you.”

“Starting to rain,” I said.

He frowned at me, opening his mouth to speak, then thinking better of whatever he wanted to say. Raindrops slapped the canvas awning.

“Time for my rest,” Earl said abruptly. “Hand me the crutches.”

I reached the crutches across to him, helped him to his feet, moved across the porch to open the door.

“If I don't get a nap during the day,” he said, “I'm worthless in the evening.” He stepped toward me. “Wages of age, I suppose.” He paused in the doorway. “I've got you in the upstairs front bedroom,” he said without turning around. “Just like always.”

“Thanks.”

“Enjoy the rain.”

“I will. See you in a while.”

The rain was rising along the street and over the parking lot, misting. I sat in my grandmother's chair and smelled the air and watched the water move. I had loved to watch the rain when I was a boy, my grandmother with me as I stood in front of her at the banister, feeling faint spray stinging my face as the summer rains swept through the streets, across the roofs, against the windshields of cars, waves of cool air and the curtain of haze that held the rain inside it, a dream of pale light. Lightning caught and reached and was suddenly gone.

When the storms gathered over the river in late afternoons after whole days of slow heat I would wait for the water to break, to start with the first pelting drops and grow into the roar that came as the water opened and moved, that filled the air with the smell of cool roses and wisteria and wet wood, that razored the cobblestones, filled the gutters with froth.

Come back from there, my grandmother would say, tugging with a finger through one of my belt loops. You'll get soaked. You'll catch your death.

After the rain I walked out for beer, following the streets I knew so well, the years of coming back to my grandfather's house from the movies, from fishing, from the ruins of a fort on a wooded hill overlooking the river to the south of town. I was the boy lost in myself in riverside forest, establishing imaginary frontier camps with the muffled swallow of creek water riding light-filled over rocks. Earl had given me a tree identification manual for my seventh birthday, taught me to use it, and in time I knew by sight the trees that lined the streets and filled the city parks, learning their habits and stands, thinking I could hear their voices.

I bought the beer at my grandfather's regular bar; the bartender put eight cold bottles in a paper sack. We exchanged pleasantries. Yeah, just out of the service. No, my grandfather doesn't get out much anymore. Sure, he's doing all right, all things considered. I'll pass on the regards. Walking away from the bar as the sun was setting, I felt suddenly tired, as if I were as old as my grandfather, living alone with the hours. I looked forward to the beer's chance to ease me, a night's diversion, Earl's run of traveling salesman and farmer's daughter jokes. Welcome home, son, the bartender had said. Glad you made it back in one piece.

We ate TV dinners by the light of the television in my grandfather's living room. The Dodgers were leading the Braves in the third inning, 2-0. Earl took the Salisbury steak. I had the fried chicken.

“You eat many of these things?” I asked.

“Not many,” Earl said. “You don't like it?”

“Just wondering.”

“Don't eat it if you don't want it.”

I looked at him; he studied the television screen. “Goddam TV,” he said quietly. “It's changed baseball. Nobody knows what the game's about anymore.”

“Baseball's different, now that it's on TV?” I looked at the screen, chewing.

“It's the intimacy that's gone. The subtlety. Baseball's a spectator sport, and I don't mean somebody watching a thousand miles away on a little TV set.”

“You feel that way because you played the game.”

“Maybe. But not entirely.” Earl pointed his fork at me for emphasis. “You take football. It was made for television. You can see every damn thing that happens. There's only two directions
to follow. There's a break in the play every few seconds. But baseball on TV...the essence is lost. You can't see the little things the players do, the signals. You can't really read distance. You never see the whole field at once.”

“But you still watch it,” I said.

Earl scraped the bottom of his aluminum tray. “Oh, that I do,” he said. “Guess I just love the game too much.”

“You want another beer?”

“I'm OK,” Earl said. “Already had two.”

“I got eight.”

“You were thinking of a bigger party than I'm good for.”

My grandfather had played ten years of major league baseball with the Dodgers, when they were still in Brooklyn. I had heard most of his stories. He was scouted out of the southern barnstormers—what Earl called farm-boy ball—and went to the Dodgers' centerfield in 1920. That first season he hit twenty-eight home runs and played in the World Series. Now the Dodgers were in Los Angeles and Earl McFail was seventy-one years old and he stood with his crutches in his living room. “That's it for me,” he said.

“Only two more innings.”

My grandfather crossed the living room saying, “Make sure the front door's locked before you go to bed.”

“I will.”

“And welcome home.” He stopped and looked back. “You're a lucky son of a bitch, you know that? I'm glad you're here.”

“Good night,” I said.

In the morning I came into the living room in a pair of jeans and unlaced basketball shoes. No shirt, no socks.

My grandfather spoke from behind the morning newspaper. “You were going to sleep all day?”

I fell into the cushioned love seat opposite him. His feet were on an ottoman, ankles crossed. “Not all day,” I said. “Guess I needed the rest.”

He flipped one corner of the newspaper, looked across at me. “Left some breakfast for you. On the stove. You'll have to reheat the coffee.”

“Thanks.”

He folded the newspaper, dropped his left foot to the floor, tossed the newspaper onto the ottoman. He was dressed as he had dressed for business: charcoal vest, gray knit tie, pinstripe trousers, starched white sleeves rolled away from the veined hands. “Call home?”

“Tried to call Mary. No answer.” I stepped to the tall windows that faced the porch and the street. A cement truck rumbled by, orange mixer turning a company logo into morning sun. HYDE CONSTRUCTION, round and round.

“And you were relieved.”

I was surprised, looking back at Earl. “Yeah,” I said quietly. “I was.”

He dropped his right foot from the ottoman, leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Better call your folks. They'll be waiting to hear from you.”

“I should get some of that breakfast. Before it's too cold.” I moved to the doorway.

“Listen—”

I stopped, my back to him, thinking I knew what he would say. I waited and he did not speak and I turned to face him.

He said, “Is it hard coming back?” He looked straight into my eyes.

“Yes,” I said. “It is.” I averted my gaze.

He pushed up from his chair, reached his crutches where they leaned against the mantel, positioned them under his arms. “Must be mighty hard.”

“Let's go in the kitchen,” I said.

He nodded. “I'm right behind you.”

 

Earl had left scrambled eggs and bacon and an English muffin face-down in a skillet.

“Put a little fire under that if you want,” he said, following me into the kitchen.

“It's OK. I'll just heat the coffee.” I struck a wooden kitchen match on the side of the matchbox he kept above the stove, lit a burner and put the coffeepot over the flame.

My grandfather settled into a chair at the table. I set myself a place across from him. “You want some coffee?”

“Sure. Only had about half a cup this morning.”

I put a cup and saucer in front of him. Clean spoon on a folded napkin. The way he liked it. “Watching how much coffee you drink these days?”

“Oh, hell. Doc's got me cutting back on everything you can think of.”

I slid eggs, bacon, and muffin onto the plate. The coffeepot was the same dented aluminum percolator my grandmother had used. I poured for my grandfather. “You take milk, don't you?”

“Jesus, boy, what self-respecting person would put milk in coffee?” He waved at the refrigerator. “There's some cream in there.”

I found the cream in a miniature milk bottle with a fluted paper cap. Earl put some in his coffee, stirred. “Coffee was meant to be drunk with cream.”

I grinned. My grandfather studied me. “You don't put on clothes when you come to the table anymore?”

I had a forkful of eggs in my mouth. I stopped chewing.

“Eats cold food and comes to the breakfast table naked. This what war does for a man?”

I swallowed the eggs. “I'll be right back,” I said.

Earl shrugged, lifted his eyebrows. “Common decency.” He sipped coffee.

I took the stairs at an easy run, the dark hall to my bedroom, and put on a fatigue jacket. The manila envelope of pictures was on the bed. I hesitated, picked up the envelope.
Is it hard coming back?

In the kitchen I put the envelope on the table.

My grandfather looked at the olive green T-shirt I'd put on. “Not a hell of a great improvement. But better.” He gestured with his chin at the envelope. “What's that?”

“Pictures.”

“Vietnam? You took them?”

I nodded. “Vietnam.”

He slipped the stack of photos out of the envelope and looked at the first one. After a moment he said, “Christ, are these bodies? Look like legs sticking out. There at the bottom. “

“We threw garbage bags over their heads. Only thing we had at the time.”

He took the picture in his right hand, holding it at bifocal length and angle. “Three men,” he said. “What were they doing there, right in the middle of your camp?”

“They came at us over the wire, yelling and screaming, shooting up the place.”

My grandfather squinted. “Just three?”

“Just three. Strange.”

He looked back at the picture. “Maybe,” he said, “it was one of those last-ditch heroic gestures. You know, three men, don't have a snowball's chance in hell anyway, so they just go on in—”

“—and survive about thirty seconds.”

He shrugged, putting the picture aside to look at the next one. “Well, who knows,” he said. “Hard to say what moves people. Their choice might have made as much sense as anything right at that moment.”

He studied the next picture, and looked up at me. “Why would you take a picture like this?” He turned the photo so I could see it.

I told him it was for proof.

“Proof ?“

“We found him like that.”

“Strung up by his feet in a tree? His head cut off?”

“We knew the guy. Found his head a few feet away. He was a Viet Cong cadre leader.”

My grandfather watched my face. “You're telling me this was done by our people?”

“Maybe not Americans. But yeah, our side.”

He shook his head. “What the hell's going on over there?”

I shrugged. “It's a war.”

My grandfather poured coffee into his cup and mine. “Is that supposed to explain something?”

“Would you have believed me if I just told the story? Without the pictures?”

He pursed his lips, thinking. After a moment he said, “Probably not. War stories and fish stories, right?”

“Right.”

He nudged the picture of the decapitated man. “And maybe,” he said, “you should have just let me go on thinking that.”

I took a drink of coffee as my grandfather picked up another photo. “Hey,” he said. “Look at this.”

I leaned to see the shot of a hooker I took in Da Nang. She had opened her shirt to the camera, grinning broadly.

“Yeah, I went to snap the picture, by the time I got the camera up she was showing me what she had.”

“Which isn't much.”

“Well,” I said, “she's happy.”

He began to study another picture. Through the antique four-paned windows I looked off to boxcars lined under the floodwall. The river rode the Ohio shore, and I remembered my mother standing at the sink during the months my father was gone on his second enlistment, in Korea. She stood pregnant with my youngest sister, blue-print housedress seamed over her grown belly, watching out the window as she washed dishes, across the backyard slot of rusting clothesline and fallow town garden, thin winter sun melting old snow out of the coal gondolas in the switching yard. She turned the dime-store plates and cups in and up and through the rinse, watching two open-end freights jerk slowly toward each other in the frame of the window. SOO LINE. ILLINOIS CENTRAL. CHESSIE. SNOW GOOSE. ERIE LACKAWANNA. CANADIAN CENTRAL. The freights rocked toward each other and she sat me on the drain board to watch.

On one afternoon we saw a derelict materialize out of the blank doorway of an orange boxcar, hesitate, his crushed Borsalino riffling in the slow air the freight made, and he jumped, sliding into a culvert and out of sight. The two trains coupled in a soft but terrible force we felt even that far away in the closed kitchen, rattling the big windows, and then the trains were still and my mother stopped moving her hands in the water and in the silence I heard her holding her breath.

“Now this one,” my grandfather said quietly, nodding down at a photograph, “this one is just plain beautiful.” He slid the picture toward me across the red-and-white tablecloth and sipped his coffee.

In the picture a huge Chinook helicopter came down in twilight mist. Everything in the frame was a ghosted shape except one face, an anonymous soldier looking out at the camera with eyes lit by sunset and angle and deep mystery, one open face watching from a home in chaos and distance.

My grandfather poured more cream into his coffee, stirred twice, and replaced his spoon across the saucer's lip. “Simply beautiful,” he said. “You took that one?”

“Yeah. One of those moments.”

“Damn fine moment.”

I looked at the picture.

“Listen,” my grandfather said. “Tell me something. You plan to show these pictures...to anyone else?”

I blinked. “Haven't really thought about it.”

“Don't do it. Put these in a shoebox somewhere.” I stacked the pictures, returning them to their envelope, and he kept his eyes on his coffee cup, pushing his spoon back and forth on the saucer. The spoon made a small empty sound against the high ceiling.

“They're too damned hard,” he said. “Too...I don't know. Too true.” He looked up at me. “I'm glad I saw them. But I don't know that anybody else would be.” Shifting his gaze to the window he said, “Nobody's ready. You know what I'm saying?”

I watched his face a moment.

“I know,” I said.