Spencer
The first time I saw Zoe Wingfield she was standing on an orange metal café chair on the terrace of the Memorial Union, a bullhorn in one hand and a small placard decrying the war in Vietnam in the other. At the time I had no idea that she was the sister of a guy I’d gotten to know through the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, Ty Wingfield. So it wasn’t recognition that made me stop that day and listen to her. It was the sheer magnetism of this compact dynamo surrounded by an impressively attentive—if small—audience. Zoe Wingfield was a presence, a force like a sudden and unexpected shift in the weather that would not be ignored.
I was finishing up my internship after completing med school and I was on my way to the hospital and a double shift in the emergency room. Zoe was using the bullhorn to full advantage, as she exhorted every passerby, including me, to get involved in protesting the war in Southeast Asia, a war that she considered both unjust and illegal. Her East Coast accent was apparent. It was surprising me the number of students from New York and other points east who had decided that a university in the heartland of America was a good choice. The attraction varied—the exceptional curriculum or the reputation the university had as a liberal and progressive institution. Some even made no secret that the attraction was UW’s reputation as a bona fide party school.
Since the woman with the bullhorn did not strike me as anything close to a party animal, I assumed that UW’s initial appeal for her might well have been the academics. I wondered if the campus’s perfect environment for rabble-rousing had figured into her decision from the start or was an unexpected bonus once she arrived. Either way, her intensity was a magnet, whether you agreed with her politics or not.
More students stopped to listen. Among them was a heckler, who taunted her with comments about her looks, her dress and what he assumed were her sexual preferences. She handled his taunts by pointing the bullhorn directly at him and continuing her harangue against the government, the war and those who, according to her, were getting rich off the war.
It was October, and she wore jeans and a thick cable turtleneck the color of split pea soup. Her hair was suede brown and thick—a fact not at all enhanced by how she’d styled it in fat braids wound round her head like skeins of bulky yarn. Although she was not more than five two, in spite of the stacked heel of her laced boots, and weighed not much more than a hundred pounds, she had the aura of a much larger person.
“Get laid,” the heckler shouted, and others who had paused to listen snickered. Some of them took this as their cue to move on.
“Get smart,” she fired back. “What’s your draft number, frat boy? Think you can’t be sent? Think you’re safe? Think again.”
The heckler threw her the finger as he sauntered past her and joined his friends at a distant table.
When I saw Zoe home in on me, I chickened out and took off. I stopped at my apartment building, where I lived in a basement studio and did maintenance chores to offset some of my rent. The mail was in, and as I had hoped, there was a letter from Ty in the batch. After Ty and I met in ROTC, my deferment to finish medical school had been approved, while Ty had received his orders to ship out. Six weeks had passed with no news. I tore open the envelope and read as I walked:
Andersen,
I made it. I’ll spare you the details of the trip over—you’ll have the pleasure of that soon enough, Dr. Deferment.
First impressions? Chopper ride into base was all rattle-your-bones vibrations and eau-de-kerosene. Hot air and fine powdery dust blasting our faces because door has to be open so gunner can sit there at the ready. Charming. On the ground things go from thick jungle foliage to a kind of beige landscape where everything’s been cleared away with napalm to expose the enemy and keep him from establishing positions in the jungle. On the road into base camp, we were always dodging craters left by bombs and mortars. Then we’d round a curve and there would be a burned-out farm or even an entire village blown to kingdom come. In the distance the drumbeat of artillery fire is constant, as is the whup-whup-whup of helicopters.
Hey, Doc, what’s the nutritional value of dirt? You are not going to believe this, but I would happily eat campus food for the rest of my life over the stuff they serve here. Dirt permeates everything—food (even pudding) crunches.
Almost forgot to tell you. My sister, Zoe—the rebel—is there on campus. She got into law school. Could have been at Harvard, but she likes the “political” climate better at UW. Look her up. The two of you could be an interesting pair. I’d love to be a fly on the wall for that meeting!!
Well, Uncle Sam calleth. Later. Ty
It was the one letter I got from Ty. Several weeks after I received that single letter from him, Zoe and I finally met. I had meant to call her as Ty had suggested, if for no other reason than to have some story to tell him in my next letter. But the days had flown by, and between my duties as an intern and the extra shifts I took to cover my bills, I hadn’t found the time. Then I’d gotten word that he was KIA—killed in action—trying to rescue a Vietnamese woman and her children from their burning village. After my duty at the hospital, I tried to find Zoe—to introduce myself and offer my sympathy. But when I called the number I’d been able to get, I was told that she’d already left for New York and the funeral.
So the setting for the introduction that Ty had imagined taking place on campus was the spacious and elegant Upper East Side penthouse apartment that her parents, Mike and Kay Wingfield, owned in Manhattan. The occasion was the gathering of friends and family following Ty’s funeral, and so in some ways he was there to see the meeting—at least in spirit.
Earlier at the cemetery, while keeping a respectful distance from the open grave and watching as family members and friends tossed flowers onto the top of the rosewood casket, I couldn’t help remembering Ty’s laugh the day we parted.
“Big mistake, man, accepting that deferment,” he’d said. “I’ll be back home and you’ll just be getting there.”
“Maybe it’ll all be over,” I countered.
Ty’s perennially boyish features had sobered. “Not going to happen—not that fast. Things are gonna get a lot worse before we can make them better. Zoe’s got that part right.”
His elder sister’s name had been a regular topic in our conversations. Ty idolized her, even if he felt her view of the war out of synch with his own sense of patriotic duty.
On that blustery late-November afternoon I stood off to the side in a cemetery where gravestones soared like monuments to the rich and famous who were buried there. All the mourners had their coat collars pulled close around their throats. Then a woman stepped up to the edge of the open grave, a white rose in one hand. Even though her hair was down and she was dressed like every other woman in heels and a black cloth coat that was at least a size too large for her, I recognized her as the girl with the bullhorn on the steps of the union. I realized that this must be Ty’s sister—this was Zoe Wingfield.
The wind whipped her hair—loose and striped with the waves of days spent in braids, it fell almost to her waist. With her free hand she fought to contain it and keep it from becoming entangled with the frames of her small round wire-rimmed glasses. She paused for a long moment at the grave, staring down at the cold pewter gray of the steel lid of Ty’s casket. Then she tore the rose petals free of the stem and scattered them as she walked slowly around the perimeter of the open grave. Her father shuddered and let out an audible sob and her mother wrapped her arms around him, but Zoe’s eyes were dry.
I had felt compelled to attend the funeral, if for no other reason than to serve as a representative of that part of his life that Ty had devoted to ROTC and serving his country. Most of the rest of our group had already shipped out to ’Nam, so I was pretty much it. But it didn’t take long before I realized that no one gathered around Ty’s grave much cared who I was or why I was there. I could have just as easily sent a card or flowers.
I couldn’t have said why I decided to go to the gathering at the house. I certainly hadn’t planned on it. Following the service at the graveside, I had made my way to the entrance of the cemetery and was figuring out the best way to get to the bus depot for the overnight trip back to Wisconsin. Then a car stopped and the man I recognized as the minister rolled down his window.
“Need a ride, son?”
“Thanks,” I said, and got in, happy to be out of the cold. “I’m catching a bus back to Wisconsin at nine,” I explained. “So, anywhere in the city that’s convenient, sir.”
“You’re not going for the wake?” he asked after we’d formalized the introductions.
“I just came for Ty,” I said. “I never had the opportunity to meet his family. I don’t want to intrude.”
“Spencer, here’s what I’ve learned about things like this. What matters here is that you knew the Wingfields’ son. They are trying to deal with the fact that he’s gone, and frankly, anyone who can give them another little piece of him would be welcomed today. Your choice.”
His logic made a lot of sense, so I agreed to go with him to the wake. After parking in his reserved space at his church, the minister and I walked the four long blocks to the stately building where the Wingfields lived.
The air inside the spacious apartment was close with expensive perfume, cigarette smoke and too many people, even for such a large space. The expansive rooms were jammed with family members, friends and business associates of Ty’s parents, and younger people I assumed to be Ty’s friends from childhood and the private schools I knew he’d attended. It was apparent that this was a close-knit community of people who had some connection not only to Ty but to the rest of the family, as well. The minister was pulled aside to console Ty’s father the minute we walked through the door, leaving me to fend for myself. Once again the feeling that I shouldn’t have come washed over me. I considered making a quick exit, but the door opened and a group of people pressed forward, forcing me farther into the room. I decided the least I could do was take the minister’s advice and share a memory with Ty’s parents that might offer them some tiny measure of comfort.
Bits of conversation floated above the general funereal hum as I moved around the room, trying to think of something meaningful and comforting. The comment I heard repeated most often was “What a waste!” In second place was “He had his whole life in front of him.”
Not really. He had lived his whole life. It ended in a jungle in a country he’d never seen before at the hands of a people he knew next to nothing about as he fought a war that did not follow traditional rules of encounter. In that moment in a jungle made eerily naked by the tons of Agent Orange dropped from the skies, Ty had faced death. That moment and the nineteen years up to it constituted a life—Ty’s life.
I spotted a photo of Zoe and Ty in their early teens. They were on a beach. He was taller. She was older, and in spite of the height difference, she looked it. I remembered him reading me parts of the letters she sent him in the days before he left college for basic training. Letters that used a kind of code urging him to defect to Toronto, where he would live with his Aunt Vivian and Uncle Harry. Her code for Toronto was Toledo.
Auntie Viv and Uncle Harry send regards from Toledo, she wrote. They’ve just finished the papering and the new furnishings are all ready to move into the new space.
“Papering means she’s got fake ID for me,” Ty explained.
“And furnishings?”
Ty shrugged. “Total makeover probably—change the hair color, contacts, that sort of thing. She’s mentioned that I might look good in a beard.”
“Are your aunt and uncle really on board with this?” I asked.
Ty laughed and shook his head. “Man, I keep forgetting just how green you are, having lived your whole life out here in the hinterlands. There is no Aunt Viv. Vivian is a friend of Zoe’s. They met at some civil rights rally and found they shared similar politics related to the war. I assume Vivian is setting up the underground that will spirit me over the border.”
“So no Harry, either?” On some level I was disappointed. Harry sounded like a good guy.
“Harry is the family dog—Zoe’s dog, really.” He grinned and shook his head. “That mutt goes ape if Zoe just walks in the room.”
Ty was right. We were definitely from different worlds. For me it was a farmhouse in the middle of Wisconsin twelve miles from the nearest town. And for Ty it was this penthouse across the street from Central Park—the penthouse where I stood uncomfortably in the background, wondering what had possessed me to come here. Oriental rugs, any one of which might be worth enough to buy my family’s farm, softened the shine on the highly polished original planked floors. Then there were the antique furnishings—the kinds of pieces that would make my aunt Rose hyperventilate—and the priceless paintings, each illuminated with its own little lamp. Interesting paintings, very contemporary but perfectly at home in the company of the priceless antiques.
“Thank you for being here.”
I turned from my survey of a painting to face Ty’s mother, Kay Wingfield, standing next to me. She was tall and slender, with white-blond hair that skimmed her shoulders and a deep tan that one day she might regret. The same clear gray eyes Ty had had met mine. She extended long, perfectly manicured fingers and offered a smile that took some effort to produce.
“Forgive me, but your name…”
“I’m Spencer Andersen, Mrs. Wingfield. Ty and I were friends at UW.”
“Ah, yes. The doctor.”
“Mrs. Wingfield, I am so very sorry for your loss. Ty was—”
She cut me off with a nod, a waver of the smile and a slight pressure on my fingers. “So good of you to come,” she said in a voice made raspy by ceaseless crying, and focused her attention on a gathering of mourners behind her. It was as if she saw her role as one of consoling others rather than the other way round. Manners and breeding, my mom would have said with admiration.
I edged toward the foyer, a good fifty feet and two large people-filled rooms away, acknowledging other mourners. Some of them looked at me—and any young man in the room below the age of thirty—with the clear understanding that it could have been me who’d been killed—it might yet be me.
“Why did you come?”
Without the bullhorn, which had seemed like a permanent extension of her arm during that rally on campus, Zoe’s voice was soft and husky. I leaned closer. She did not retreat. “More to the point, why didn’t you talk him out of going?” she added, stabbing one nail-bitten finger at my chest. “He respected you. He would have listened to you.”
I put down the framed family photo I’d paused to study until I could slide past a group of guests blocking my escape. It was another of Ty and Zoe. The rooms were filled with these images from the family’s past. In this one Ty was in full dress uniform and Zoe was standing next to him, but staring off-camera. He was smiling; she was not.
I saw Kay Wingfield watching us and surmised that she had sent her daughter over. I offered Zoe an introduction and my hand. She ignored both and gave me a mock salute, instead. “I know who you are. Answer the question.” Her features were drawn tight from exhaustion and her eyes were swollen and red, but she was not crying now.
“I came because your brother was my friend,” I said. “You see, Ty was—”
She raised herself to her full height, which put the top of her head just level with my chin until she tipped her head back and fixed me with a glare. “Don’t you ever presume to tell me who my brother was,” she said in a voice that was barely above a whisper but that sounded as loud as a scream. She turned and would have stalked off but that same gaggle of people was still blocking the way.
“Too bad,” I said quietly. “Because my friend and your brother are the same man, and we’d both be a lot richer if we could share what we remember of him.”
The twitch of one shoulder in contrast to the total stillness of the rest of her was her only response before she excused herself and made a path through the group. I saw her head for the foyer, grab a brown corduroy men’s jacket from the closet next to the entrance and leave.
Mrs. Wingfield and I seemed to be the only ones who noticed. Zoe’s mother sighed and focused on her guests, while I—for reasons I thought had something to do with my loyalty to Ty—decided to go after Zoe.
The elevator doors slid shut just as I reached the hall. A second later a service door at the end of the hall opened. First to emerge was a furry wheat-colored dog the size of a cocker spaniel. He was straining at a long bright-red leash. Attached to the other end was a short rotund woman swathed in a heavy wool coat, mittens and a faded striped scarf wound at least three times around her neck, chin and mouth.
She smiled at me as we both waited for the elevator to return. The dog sniffed my shoes and pant leg, then plopped into a sitting position and gave me his full attention.
“Harry?” I said, and the dog’s tail beat out a response on the tiled floor.
The service door opened again, emitting the chaotic sounds of a kitchen in full battle mode as a tall heavyset woman with very flushed cheeks and the voice of a drill sergeant shouted, “Mariska!”
Both the woman by the elevator and the dog shuddered.
“What do you think you’re doing?” the drill sergeant bellowed.
“The dog needs his walk,” Mariska replied in a soft accented voice.
“I can’t spare you now. The dog can wait. We’re running low on glasses and coffee cups. I need you in here.” Half a beat. “Now!”
Just then the elevator arrived. I stepped in front of the doors to keep them from closing and said, “I could take him out. I’m a—I was a—I’m a friend of the family.”
“Mariska!” the voice boomed through the half-open door.
Mariska thrust the leash at me and hurried back down the hall, shrugging out of her scarf, mittens and coat as she went.
Outside I tugged at the leash and headed down the block. Then Harry pulled a sit-down strike. I remembered Ty describing Harry as being just like Zoe. “Stubborn, smart and just petite and cute enough to get away with it.” After my brief encounter with Zoe upstairs, I’d have to think about that one—especially the “cute enough to get away with it” part. She was definitely cute, more than cute really. She was downright intriguing.
“Come on, boy.” I tugged at the leash.
“Don’t yell at my dog.”
Zoe crammed the glowing stub of a cigarette into a sand-filled urn. “What are you doing with Harry, anyway?” She grabbed the leash from my hand. Harry snapped to attention, tail wagging furiously. I—having pretty much had my fill of trying to do the right thing and being treated like a mass murderer—remained silent.
“Well?” she demanded, and I wondered if Ty had ever found her subliminal anger as tiresome as I was finding it now.
I took a deep breath to steady my voice. “I was kidnapping him with the idea of holding him for ransom until someone up there acknowledged that perhaps Ty never thought of his service or his death as a waste. Just maybe he considered doing his duty a real honor, a real part of being an American. He was my friend and I am pretty damn sure that he would have hated it that the sister he loved for everything she was isn’t willing to accept that just like her, he knew exactly what he was doing. Just like her, he chose this path.”
“And it got him killed,” she argued.
“Life happens, lady.” I felt bad about that last crack, but I doubted if apologizing would do any good. I started toward the corner, my hand already half raised to hail a cab. Three of them passed with no results.
“Pretty tough to get an off-duty cab to stop,” she called as I continued to try to wave down yet another of the yellow machines hurtling by.
I glanced back. She and Harry had followed me from the entrance. She was leaning against the corner of the building, one high heel resting on the toe of the other. Harry sat next to her, waiting to do her bidding.
“Are you laughing at me?” I asked, taking a step toward her.
“Why not? Ty would be.” She pushed herself away from the wall and held out the leash—a peace offering or at least a cease-fire. “Take it,” she urged, and I accepted the leash. Harry glanced skeptically at Zoe and then trotted along at my side as if we’d done this a thousand times.
We walked for well over an hour. I discovered that, if you knew where to go, Central Park at night was not the war zone I’d been led to believe it was. I discovered that Zoe indeed had a sense of humor. And I discovered, although I didn’t realize it until much later, that I was starting on a journey that would last a lifetime and give me the kind of wild joyous ride I’d only read about in books.