The Great Santini (6 page)

In the back seat, brimming with hidden intentions, Ben drifted like a cloud into secret prayer leaning back on his pillow and silently turning his thoughts to God.

When he returned to the rosary Lillian was speaking the first part of the angel's greeting to Mary. Her enunciation was flawless as she spoke with such reverent clarity that it seemed like she was speaking the words for the first time. "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus."

The whole family bowed their heads at the spoken name of the Lord. But their response was given in breathless haste: Holymarymotherofgod, prayforussinnersnowandatthehourofourdeathAmen. The words were packed together in an unintelligible lathered herd. As Lillian's fingers circumnavigated the beads, Ben's mind wandered and the prayers became thoughtless, untongued words whose meaning was bled out of them by repetition. Mary Anne kicked him with her bare foot and shot him the finger, making sure that the sign was too low to be intercepted by her father's omniscient eyes scanning the rearview mirror. The upraised finger almost caused Ben to laugh aloud, but sterner laws of self-preservation prevailed. Ben did remember the scurrilous version of the Hail Mary Mary Anne had written the year before that Lillian had overheard. "Hail, Benny, full of shit, a turd is on thee, blessed art thou among farters, and smelly is the corpse in the tomb. Cheeses. "Lillian had not been amused and she restricted Mary Anne to the house for two weeks. Since Mary Anne never went anywhere, the punishment did not seem to compensate for the heinousness of the crime. Mary Anne enjoyed shocking Ben about religious matters. Several days before Colonel Meecham returned, Mary Anne claimed to have read that the Vatican was reconsidering its position on Mary's virginity. When Ben fell into the trap, Mary Anne explained with the casualness of a disinterested theologian that St. Joseph had appeared to a shepherd near Padua and claimed that he had gotten it from the Virgin Mary at least twice before Christ was born. Because of these obscene forays into the realm of the supernatural, Ben was positive that his sister was not a favorite in the stern eyes of the Lord. He looked at her across the car, strangely saddened by the deep beauty of her smile. Glancing forward, he shot the finger back to her and smiled.

The car moved deeper into the Georgia countryside, prayer breaking out of the windows in wavering harmonics spilling into the ditches and moccasin strung creeks of the pine counties outside of Atlanta. A truck pulled suddenly behind the station wagon filling the car with light. St. Christopher, muscled like a weight lifter and crossing a stream of bronze, winked in the sudden light, giving fierce definition to an outsized staff and a Gerber baby Christ. Colonel Meecham disliked the intrusion of other vehicles in his post midnight dashes when he was moving his family to a new home. In the rearview mirror, Ben saw his father's eyes cast a glance of primal defiance at the lights that challenged their aloneness in this desolate stretch of road and at the very instant he heard his mother end a decade of the rosary and begin the first words of the Lord's Prayer, Ben felt the car respond as his father's foot pressed the accelerator. Lying on the mattress he felt as though he were part of the car's engine, that his father was stepping on some vital organ inside of him, that he was the cause of the sudden leap forward as the wind hissed through the back seat knocking some of the clothes and uniforms from the hangers. The truck fell behind them, the lights grew smaller, then disappeared forever in the middle of the third decade of the rosary. Night returned to the car and the foot relented gradually, then relaxed against the accelerator. The car sang with its solitude. Christopher and his enduring spine crossed the stream invisibly again. The wordless words of the rosary continued like the heartbeats of birds.

Finally, seventy miles outside the city, an hour and fifteen minutes into the heart of the journey, the rosary ended and Colonel Meecham asked rhetorically and unspecifically," Who's on duty first?"

No voices answered him. Eyes strained almost audibly in the back seat as the brothers and sisters questioned each other wordlessly.

Finally, Lillian spoke. "You taught them never to volunteer for anything."

"Why don't you help your poor old husband stay awake, honey?"

"You taught me never to volunteer for anything too. Besides I'll perish if I don't get a little sleep. Tomorrow's a long day with the movers coming and everything."

"Ben," Bull cried out to his son in the darkness behind him. "Ben, don't pretend you're asleep already."

"I was asleep."

"Get up here. Right behind me. You've got guard duty first."

"Yes, sir," Ben said, moving lightly over Matthew, and pushing Okra to the back of the car. He rested his arms on the front seat and leaned forward so he could whisper to his father without disturbing the sleep of the others.

"Well have a little man-to-man talk while the leathernecks get some sack time."

"Sure, Dad," Ben said hesitantly. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Let me ask you a question first, sentry. What are the responsibilities of a man on guard duty?"

"I don't know them all, Dad. I forgot some of them."

"Yeah, yeah. Your mother always slacks up on you when I go overseas. Give me the ones you know."

"To walk my post in a military manner, keep always alert, and observing everything that takes place within sight or hearing. To spread the alarm in case of fire or disorder."

"You skipped about a hundred of 'em. You ought to know those if you're going to be on duty. I'll give you a week to relearn 'em once we get to Ravenel."

"I haven't looked at them for a long time, Dad."

"Never make excuses."

"Yes, sir."

For the next ten miles the car was silent. Colonel Meecham chewed gum belligerently and Ben watched the white lines until he was mesmerized by their repetitiveness. Both of them wanted to speak but could find no common ground to bridge the abyss that separated them as father and son.

"The Red Sox won," Bull said finally.

"How did Williams do?" Ben asked.

"Knocked three runs in with a double."

"Good."

"I flew with Ted Williams in Korea. You knew that didn't you?"

"Yes, sir. Dad?" Ben said, beginning a conversation he had fantasized when his father was flying from the carrier off the French coast. "Are you ever afraid when you fly?"

"That's a good question. Yeah. I'm always a little afraid when I fly. That's what makes me so damn good. I've seen pilots who weren't afraid of anything, who would forget about checking their instruments, who flew by instinct as though they were immortal. I've pissed on the graves of those poor bastards too. The pilot who isn't a little bit afraid always screws up and when you screw up bad in a jet, you get a corporal playing taps at the expense of the government."

"What are you most afraid of when you fly?"

"Most afraid of Hmmm," Bull whispered, plucking at his left ear lobe. "Good question, sportsfans. When I'm flying a jet, the thing I'm most afraid of is birds."

"Birds?" Ben said letting a quick girlish giggle escape in his surprise.

"Yeah, birds," his father answered defensively. "You hit a bird going five hundred knots and it's like being hit with a bowling ball. Do you remember when Rip Tuscum was killed in a plane crash about five years ago?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, he had his head taken off when he hit a buzzard."

"Birds, eh, Popsy," Ben intoned. "I can see the headlines now. Bull Meecham killed by a parakeet. War Hero Brought Down by a Deadly Sapsucker."

"Go ahead and laugh, jocko, but I break out into a cold sweat when I spot a flock of birds up yonder. The bad thing is that they're usually past you by the time you see 'em. I mean they are behind you before your brain registers that you've just passed a bird. You'll know what I mean some day."

"How, Dad?"

"When you're a Marine pilot flying your own plane."

Ben knew he was in familiar terrain now, old territory where the teasing had grooves and furrows of ground that had been plowed before.

"I think I'm going to be an Air Force pilot, Dad."

"If you want to fly with pussies it's O.K. with me," Bull flared, then remembered that his son had teased him about the Air Force many times before. "But if you want to fly with the best, you'll fly with the Corps, simple as that."

"What if I really decide not to go in the Marine Corps, Dad?"

"I want you to go in for a four-year hitch at least. If you decide not to make a career out of it, it's your decision. But I want to pin the wings of gold on you after flight training. You'll be a good pilot, son. You're athletic and have the quick reflexes. The coordination. The only problem I see is you have a little too much of your mother in you, but Quantico will ream that out of your system."

"I'll have plenty of time to decide whether to go into the Corps or not when I'm in college, Dad."

"That's negative," his father replied. "I've already made that decision. You'll decide whether to stay in after four years."

"That's not fair, Dad."

"Who said your ol' Dad's ever been fair? Look, Ben, you'll thank me one day. Christ, the way the world's going now you may even luck out and get your wings when there's a war going on."

"That's lucking out?" Ben exclaimed.

"Shh, not so loud. If you're trained as a fighter pilot you'll never be happy until you test your skills against an enemy pilot. That, boy, is a law."

"What if I get killed?"

"Then you're a lousy pilot. Only lousy pilots get killed in combat. That's another law."

Ben thought for a moment, then said," What about Uncle Dan? Your brother, the one killed in the Solomons. Was he a lousy pilot?"

The massive shoulders tensed beside him. Then slowly they relaxed, but the car lurched forward, moving faster and faster until Bull answered by saying," Yes, Dan was a lousy pilot. But he was a brave one and he earned that K.I.A. on his tombstone. He earned it."

"Would you like to be killed in action, Dad?"

"If he has to go, every pilot would like to be killed in action. It's better than dying of the piles."

"But only lousy pilots are K.I.A., Dad. It's a law."

"That's right, sportsfans. Good thinking. That's why I'm telling you that I'm more afraid of birds than enemy pilots."

"It would have to be a great pilot who shot you down, wouldn't it, Dad?"

Bull turned toward his son and winked," Inhuman, Ben. The bastard would have to be inhuman. Now go on and get some sleep. I'm wide awake now. I'll get Mary Anne or your mama up if I need company."

"Good night, Dad."

"Good night, sportsfans."

Alone now, the car voiceless, Bull strained to follow the white lines of the highway snaking through Georgia. Butterflies by the thousands fluttered maniacally before the headlights then exploded like tiny half-angels on the windshield leaving a scant yellow paint and the dust of broken wings as a final signature. The further into the journey Bull went, the harder it became for him to see through the windshield that was stained with the prints of so many inconsequential deaths.

Periodically, Bull would spot a turtle crossing the highway and with an imperceptible movement of his arm he would position the car expertly and snap the animal's shell, which made a scant pop like the breaking of an egg. It kept him from getting bored on the trip; it kept him alert. He always did it when his wife and children were asleep. But when he pulled clear into the other lane to kill a turtle almost on the shoulder of the other side, Lillian awoke.

She whispered at him, her eyes still closed but her lips tightened in a thin line," It takes a mighty brave man to run over turtles."

"Who's running over turtles?" Bull asked innocently.

"I've been on enough trips to know when you're getting your jollies running over turtles. I think it's sick."

"Well, they shouldn't be on the road. They're a safety hazard."

"Sure they are, darlin'. You're always reading about car wrecks caused by marauding box turtles attacking defenseless Chevrolets."

"It's my only sport when I'm traveling. My one hobby."

"And you're such an all-American at it, darling. Maybe I should dress in a cheerleader's costume and shake a pom-pom every time you run over one of those dangerous turtles."

"Ah, Saint Lillian. Do you think I should drive real slow so I won't kill any butterflies?"

"I don't care what you do."

"Thanks, Saint Lillian. I'll be a good boy as soon as I pick off this next turtle. OOOOeeeee. He's a big mother. "Then Bull laughed as the wheel made a short pop. "Yeah, we're in Georgia sure enough, sportsfans, I'm starting to see a lot of dead dogs on the highway. That ought to be the nickname of this horseshit state. The Dead Dog State. Now I'm gonna quit yappin' and start makin' some time."

"Making time. "The phrase came back to Ben as he entered into an unsteady threshold of sleep, a sleep that wasn't quite, the groaning of a truck that passed them by in a vision of light, passed them in a momentary assault as the car ate its way through Georgia, consuming miles as Bull Meecham carried on imaginary conversations with phantoms only he could see. Ben saw his father stabbing the air with his fingers, saw his lips move and his face grimace as someone responded to his interrogation improperly. Making time. Yes, as this inch of highway is past now, or then, as the sea draws nearer, smelling the sea, while sleep comes during the dying hours, the corpses of miles past, the pale memories of towns seen dimly—the pilot is moving, moving, moving toward a home they have never seen.

An hour before dawn, a long, timber-loaded train that smelled sweetly of pine resin stopped them at a country crossing. Colonel Meecham got out of the car and stood watching the train silently reciting the names of the railroad lines tattooed on the sides of the freight cars. Trains released strange lyrics in Colonel Meecham and though he could not articulate what he felt as he watched the great trains roll in passage along warm, silver rails, his children knew that whatever poetry might lurk in their large, often unreadable father, it surfaced whenever he heard a train whistle. The destiny of his family in Chicago was wedded to the movement of trains through the Midwest. If the potato was symbolic of the Meecham family's flight from Ireland, then the freight train was the lucky talisman of their redemption in the new world.