Pacific Avenue (6 page)

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 any
more
?
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.