The Next (21 page)

“Eh…dunno…just the way it was.”

“Did they hate each other?” I asked.

“They were soldiers. Feelings were for pussies.”

“They merely respected each other?”

He hesitated yet again. “They saluted each other.”

Surprisingly juicy reply. If he had been reluctant to go into details, he ought to have given me a brief yes. Palmer, instead, directed me to an outward demonstration of respect, suggesting the inward manifestation of respect did not match. At some level Palmer needed to drop this breadcrumb, and I needed to pick it up.

“Which war?”

“Your Grandfather reported to Graves in World War II. Then in Korea. I met them in 1951 when I was transferred to Korea from the reserves, eh, Camp Irwin, where I’d enlisted ’bout half a year before.”

Errg. I did not know which direction I should pursue. What caused the disconnect between respect and a salute?

I placed my forehead against the window where the curtain was cracked open. The sharp coolness on my temple focused my thoughts and roused my energy. I breathed out and a circle of fog had formed on the pane. As it evaporated, I saw the Little Old Man cross to his front door and open it. In the light of the hallway, the Old Black Man with the White Mustache appeared dressed in black from head to foot, holding a black duffle bag that seemed to be flattened out as it accommodated something wider than the bag.

Their expressions were somber, and their exchange was wordless. Not hurried, but not relaxed either. What object could possibly be so important it had to be delivered at four in the morning?

He placed the bag gently on the bed and then retreated to the vicinity of the doorway again. This balancing act of helpfulness and remaining noninvasive in the Little Old Man’s life struck a chord with me.

Their relationship was that of tacit respect, comprised of decades of infrequent but consistent small transactions. Perhaps they had themselves been united at one point in their younger lives during a war or even at work. Regardless, the dissolution of that catalyst gave way to an ongoing codependence in which their brief monthly visits over the years bore witness to the gradual withering of muscle tone, the slow fading of eyesight, the increasingly receding hairline, and the slowing of speech. They mirrored each other; they needed the mirror to mark the distance covered in their lives.

Was this the relationship between Grandfather and Graves as well? Is that why the curtain was left open? Was it their mirror? Was their view into each other’s dwellings a silent acknowledgement of a partnership that fortified them against the weathering of time? Yet all the while remaining at a respectful distance, compromised occasionally by a random crossing in the woods?

I asked, “What was it like to serve in the war with them?”

“I didn’t really serve with them. I was a mechanic. Just a kid. Graves was a lieutenant, and your Grandfather was a corporal. They fought in the field together and sat together in the mess hall. My division barely left the garage.”

“Then how did the three of you end up side by side in a trailer park in Placerville?”

Palmer fortified himself with a large gulp of liquor. Good. The breadcrumbs were dropping again.

“When the three of us were discharged, we all went home. But returning to civilian life after…”

His voice trailed off.

After what?

“…eh…our home lives took a toll. We all divorced. I don’t think your Grandfather and Graves ever planned on leaving the army. But I…I was glad. I...eh…I just wanted a garden.” Palmer chuckled briefly to himself. “These trailers were dirt cheap in 1954. I told them about this park, and they bought the trailers next to mine.”

Since I had a bead on the mystery of their history, I felt no reason to beat about the bush.

“Why were the three of you discharged?”

“The long and short of it was…were…eh…the Mark 4’s. The U.S. had nine of ’em.”

“Mark 4’s?”

“Eh…they were bombs. Nuclear.”

As the Old Black Man watched from the shadows, the Little Old Man slowly unzipped the black duffle bag. With trembling thin fingers, the old man revealed a painting about three feet by four, with a thick ornate gold frame. The luster of the frame seemed to gild his studio as the lamplight hit it and refracted everywhere. He propped the painting in front of the television screen, but I could not see the actual painting. For the first time ever, I saw the Little Old Man’s eyes water. His look was not one of sorrow, but one of complete relief…and hope…and joy. Whatever it was, the painting penetrated deeply and resonated.

I heard Palmer breathe heavily, as if he was preparing to place a filthy toe in a sacred pool of holy water.

“Truman’s finger had the red button halfway depressed. They viewed Hiroshima and Nagasaki as, I dunno, a success. Yup. They saw no reason why atomic warfare wouldn’t shut the North Koreans up too. Had they dropped them…um…it probably
would
have ended North Korean insurgence. Maybe not China’s insurgence, but definitely put a lid on North Korea.”

“Wouldn’t that have been good?”

Palmer took a breath.

“If,” he explained slowly and deliberately, “you intended to spend your career in the army…eh…especially if you served in World War II…the Korean War was Happy Birthday Merry Christmas. The rank and file gave your life a hell of purpose again.”

“Graves?”

“And maybe your Grandfather. The last thing they wanted was an A-bomb to rain on the parade. So when there were skirmishes that ended American soldiers’ lives, they were reluctant to report it. Not with the trigger fingers in Washington being so itchy. They hid the small defeats. The casual atrocities. They attributed newer deaths to older pre-tallied attacks. Until…”

The memories were obviously so invasive, he would not proceed unprompted.

“Go on.”

“At twelve-fifteen a.m., I got a call to take a Jeep seven miles away where your Grandfather and Graves were stuck with a flat. That’s what I was told. A flat tire. Our base was just south of the Thirty-Eighth Parallel. Dangerous territory. Only seven miles, but I wet myself three times en route.”

He laughed under his breath, but his tone remained dark.

“When I arrived, I found the clearing strewn with body parts. American corpses. They’d hit a landmine chain. One went off, triggering the next and the next and the next. Messy. Limbs. Torsos. Twitching. Forty-three men. The red grass. The red, red grass…I’d never…ever…” I heard Palmer swallow another large gulp. “…and there was your Grandfather…his stomach had a hole straight through it. He looked like he’d taken a bath in his own blood. And Graves had his hands pressed against him to stop the flow. Your Grandfather should have been a goner, but Graves saved him. The whole ride home, Graves had his fist halfway submerged in your Grandfather’s stomach, and your Grandfather survived. Damn miracle.”

He took another swig.

“Your Grandfather owed Graves his life, and your Grandfather never forgot.”

“Did they report the rest? The forty-three dead?”

“Labeled M.I.A. Matter of fact, the reports said all were missing in action three months before I saw them blown up in bits in the grass. According to the report, I never saw anything. Just a goddamn flat tire.”

“Why didn’t you report the truth?”

“Graves asked me not to. Not that there would have been any retaliation on Graves’ part. But he persuaded me not to say anything.”

“How?”

I immediately regretted asking this. How Graves persuaded Palmer was completely incidental and personal.

“I’d had some past incidents of…eh…misconduct that Graves would erase from my records…eh…that’s all.”

Had he been caught stealing and selling car parts to the South Korean locals, I saw no reason Palmer would choose to conceal this after all these decades. I imagined the kind of scrappy men that voluntarily enlisted as mechanics in the army post-World War II were as destitute during the Korean War as they had been prior. Hardly enough to constitute a lasting injury to his pride. But since his silence indicated shame to a certain degree, my brain filled in the blanks. Barracks brawling or, possibly, barracks balling.

I could not imagine Palmer to be a troublemaker with his fists balled and his lip bloodied.

Therefore…

Since Palmer would volunteer no more, I pursued no more.

“I just wanted a garden,” he mumbled meekly. He laughed at himself again. “But the dead men had families, and the families had questions about why they weren’t informed three months sooner that their husbands and sons were missing. Graves got lucky—the misinformation was blamed on a clerical error. But all the same we were let go. The three of us were discharged. Honorably, but…eh…quietly.”

Palmer seemed lost in his thoughts, which gave me an opportunity to add to the ingredients of Grandfather and Graves’ interactions the idea that Grandfather owed Graves his life. Ultimately, it made little difference if Grandfather liked, trusted, or enjoyed Graves as a person; he was beholden to him. Grandfather owed his very heartbeat to his superior, who lived in the trailer right next to his.

I heard Palmer swig the last of his drink and concluded, “So, have you got your answer?”

“Was it worth it? Conspiring with Graves and my Grandfather?”

“The Mark 4’s were never dropped.”

In spite of his chuckle, it was the most wry his tone had yet been.

Unmooring himself from the threshold of the door, the Old Black Man with the White Mustache approached the Little Old Man, raised his right hand and put it briefly on the Little Old Man’s right shoulder. He held it there and smiled briefly. The salutation wasn’t particularly joyful, nor was it routine. The brief motion carried a sadness and finality, sounding the final bar of a long cadence of transactions over the years. Perhaps all their lives. I was hesitant to even use the word friendship. Regard…certainly regard for each other over the years for merely being alive. For merely being familiar with the minute participation in each other’s lives decade after decade. For all the years of brief transactions that added up to some unspoken but significant value, climaxing in the resting of the black man’s hand on the Little Old Man’s thin shoulder, and the Little Old Man allowing the contact to remain for two seconds longer than necessary.

My throat tightened. I was witnessing the bittersweet goodbye between two men who barely knew each other yet had sustained their relationship longer than anyone I’d known. I knew I’d built no such connection with anyone in my life. Not one single person. Not even Marzoli would return my call. Who would rest his hand on my shoulder if I said goodbye for the last time? Who regarded me?

Johanna needed my junk to get pregnant. Rebecca needed my next song to sell. New York Fucking City needed me to sell songs to pay taxes. But the Black Man with the White Mustache needed almost nothing from the Little Old Man aside from chump change taken from a Chock Full o’ Nuts can once a month. Yet still he regarded him.

This…
this
…was this the connection Grandfather had with Graves. Distant, respectful, enduring, and somehow necessary for their survival. A link on which to anchor their lives.

The Old Black Man with the white mustache departed, closing the door behind him gently. For the last time.

“What happened to Graves?” I asked.

There was a long silence.

“W’dya mean?”

I didn’t understand why that was a complicated question. Did he wind up in jail? Have a heart attack? Was he run over fixing his tire on Highway 50? What did Palmer mean
w’dya mean?

My lack of response seemed to deepen Palmer’s concern.

“Son, d’ya not know what happened?”

“Am I supposed to?”

Palmer remained quiet. This was exasperating. I’d had enough cryptic conversation with one Puerto Rican Sicilian let alone this hick from asscrack California.

Suddenly it dawned on me why Palmer’s hesitancy was completely substantiated. What memory lodged in my brain could I not drum up? What had I buried?

I stuttered, “I…can’t…there’s nothing…I can’t remember…anything…”

“Huh.”

That was his only response. No deep launching into the exploration of psychosis. No forthcoming volunteering of information. Just a brief, trailer park “huh.”

Fan-fucking-tastic.

“Are you going to tell me?”

“I’m thinkin’…eh…you forgettin’ might be good.”

“I’m not thinkin’ that.”

“Son…” he began with a tone of resolution, taking a swig of what sounded like the entire drink he’d poured and placing it on the table. “I wish I could I forget too.”

All at once it occurred to me that Palmer had participated in whatever needed to be forgotten. That my request for him to expound was asking him to account for his own guilt, or neglect, or shame. That a trailer park edging a man-made pond in a pocket of the foothills of the Sierra Mountains would provide its inhabitants with little to nothing to do but think and brood. There’d be little but evening frog croaking and cricket stridulation to draw you away from lugubrious thoughts and hand wringing regret. My request for him to refresh those nightmares was an unfair knife-twisting and would naturally encounter resistance, even from a warm, tolerant soul like Palmer. If anyone could relate to obsessive thoughts imprisoned in isolation, I could.