It’s weird how cemeteries are actually nice places, if you don’t count the gravestones. The smell of fresh-cut grass breezed over the grounds. Huge trees cast pools of shade over the sloping lawns. I shivered against the morning chill, but already the sun touched my arms, a promise of the heat to come.
I stood next to my dad in the cemetery. He wore his crisp dress uniform. Army, air force, and marine veterans—young guys and old-timers—mixed in with a crush of people from town. I spotted Mark in his dress blues. He looked different somehow. It wasn’t just the uniform; he carried himself differently. While the rest of the people his age bent their heads to talk or slouched with their hands in their pockets, Mark faced forward, eyes level, hands at his sides, his back ramrod straight. I fixed up my posture.
So many people turned out for David Kowalski’s burial that the crowd curved around the open grave, a dark hole with boards and lashes laid over it. Dad and I somehow ended up sort of facing the family. I tried not to, but my eyes kept returning to them. Is that how Dad and I had looked? Skin sagging off our faces, eyes dim, unseeing? The lady I pegged as the mother sat shrunken into herself. I looked away from her.
As a bugler played “Amazing Grace,” army soldiers marched to the hearse and hefted out the coffin. Mrs. Kowalski’s shoulders started to shake. She pressed a tissue to her mouth. A man, her husband, laid his hand on her arm.
They had played “Amazing Grace” at Mom’s funeral, too. She picked it out herself. Picked out her own dress to be buried in. Told Dad what prayers she wanted for the service. Everyone said she looked like she was sleeping, but I didn’t think so. That body in her coffin didn’t look like her; it looked like a statue of her.
I flexed the muscles in my jaw and faced David Kowalski’s casket.
When the preacher got done talking, the army pallbearers stepped up and folded the flag. They had white gloves on, and the last guy to hold the flag pulled it to his chest like he was hugging it.
Mrs. Kowalski groaned and shook her head as he walked up to her with it. “No, no, no …” Her husband wrapped his arm around her. Together, they took the folded flag from the soldier. She clutched it now in her lap, rocking. The girls behind me let out little sobs.
Dad and Mark and the other veterans held their salute.
Off to the side, I heard, “Ready!” and the cocking of guns. Seven army soldiers held their rifles. “Aim!” A silence. “Fire!”
Boom! I flinched big-time. Seven military-issue rifles firing at the same time … it was a sound that commanded my whole body to attention. As a group, they fired two more times—a twenty-one-gun salute. Then a bugler played “Taps.” I could see houses across from the cemetery. Could they hear the bugler? Did they sit in their kitchen listening to those lonely notes and wonder Who’s being buried today? I would not want to live in any of those houses.
When it was all over, people went up to the family; some got in their cars. Mark shook hands with the father and said a few words to the mother; then he came over and joined us.
“You shaved!” I said. He’d gotten a haircut, too.
He gave me a sharp nod. Military mode, I recognized it immediately.
Dad asked, “How are you holding up?”
Mark looked straight at him. “He was two years ahead of me in school. I can’t—” He clenched his jaw, swallowed.
I watched Dad watch Mark, and I saw him make a decision. “You wouldn’t mind taking Joshua home for me, would you?”
“No, sir.”
“But, Dad!” My response came automatically. I didn’t know why. It wasn’t like I wanted to stay at the graveyard or talk to the family, and Jack was probably busting to get outside anyway. It made me feel better to think of Jack. “Okay, never mind.”
As Mark and I climbed into his Mustang, I saw Dad shake Mr. Kowalski’s hand and grip his shoulder. Then we took off.
“Cool car,” I said, rolling down the window.
“Thanks, I got it before.” Before Vietnam.
I stuck out my hand and let the wind push it up and down.
“Man, that was heavy.” Mark had his sunglasses on, but his voice gave him away.
“Were you guys friends?” That’s the hardest thing, if it’s someone you know, someone you care about. I didn’t know David Kowalski.
Mark shook his head. “Didn’t know him that well.” His chest rose with a big sigh. “But some of my friends—” He swallowed noisily a couple of times before going on. “Guys I met over there, they bought it. They died. My sergeant was only twenty-one.…”
“My mom was thirty-two.”
He glanced at me, then looked back at the road. “Man, I’m sorry. I just—I don’t know—how do you get over it?”
I felt that familiar sting at the back of my eyes. “You don’t get over it,” I said slowly. Mom was still alive in movies I kept in my head. I thought about her every day. “You never get over it. You just …” I didn’t know how to explain it, so I used Dad’s words. “You learn to live with knowing they’re gone.”
We rode ahead, both of us lost in our own thoughts. The valley was farm after farm with black-and-white cows and old barns. We passed by rows of corn and straw-colored patches of land. The wind carried the sweet field scent into the car along with the heat.
“You want a Coke or something?” Mark asked. “I’m dying of thirst.”
“Me, too.”
As Mark paid for our drinks at a drugstore, a guy and a girl got in line behind us.
“Hey, G.I. Joe!” The guy snorted. The girl giggled, covering her mouth.
Mark pocketed his change and handed me my drink.
“Did you have fun in Vietnam?” the guy said. “Did you kill any babies?”
I looked at him with horror, then at Mark. Mark’s eyes hardened, but the only thing he said was, “Come on, Joshua.”
My mouth dropped as he pushed open the door and walked out. I couldn’t believe he wasn’t going to do anything. Just as I was about to follow him, I heard the guy inside snort.
“Big tough guy,” he said. The girl punched his arm and told him to stop, but she laughed.
I gritted my teeth and stood back in the doorway. My neck and face burned with anger. “Shut up,” I said.
The guy tilted his head like maybe he didn’t hear me right.
“Shut up!” I said again.
The girl raised a hand to her mouth.
The guy put his stuff down on the counter and sauntered over. My eyes narrowed. I squared my shoulders. He stood almost as tall as Dad but looked about Mark’s age. When he planted himself in front of me, he said, “Your buddy’s a killer—you know that, right?”
I stared at him hard.
Behind me, the bells jingled and the door opened. The guy startled.
“Joshua.” It was Mark.
The lady at the counter backed up. “I don’t want any trouble in here,” she said, but it was Mark she looked at.
“There’s no trouble here, ma’am,” Mark said, then he directed himself to the guy. Their eyes locked for a moment.
The guy didn’t say anything. Mark gave one sharp nod, then turned to leave. As he pushed through the door, the guy’s body relaxed.
I pierced him with my eyes. “Big tough guy,” I said.
When we got into the Mustang, Mark wedged his Coke bottle against the cigarette lighter and flipped off the cap. He tilted the bottle up and drained about half of it before starting the car.
I popped mine off, too, but I held it at my side. “Why didn’t you say anything to him?” I asked. “Why didn’t you do something?”
He cranked the wheel and took us out of the parking lot, onto the freeway. Wind whipped through the car as he accelerated. Staring straight ahead, he answered, “I won’t disgrace the uniform.”