FOR THE NEXT SEVEN days the heat and humidity increased. Thunderstorms erupted over Mill Creek Falls then vanished without having cooled the air or lowered the humidity. The waters of the Loyalsock raged with runoff, crashed against the high rock mounds in the creek’s center, swirled in the natural stone kettles. For seven days Robert Wapinski stayed drunk. He had not yet hit bottom, wasn’t even close. The homecoming whirlpool had not yet sucked him down to its greatest depths, would not until he was sickened, horrified, not by the behavior of others but by his own.
The two days after seeing Stacy, Wapinski was stupid sloppy exhausted falling-down drunk. Brian and Cheryl bickered about it, Brian telling her to give him time, yet after only two days he told Rob that his presence was wearing thin. Wapinski hit his stride with the bottle on Tuesday and for the next five days he was standing up controlled drunk, the kind of self-medicated drunken state where one no longer is aware of his feelings or thoughts yet can still function. Sunday morning would find him looking up to see the top of the curb.
“What’s this?” he asked his mother.
“Your bankbook,” she answered passively, as if the obvious should not need asking.
“I sent you four hundred dollars a month,” he said.
“And that’s what I deposited.”
“What happened to the rest of the money?”
“Well, you owed us some money, you know.”
“God damn it! No! No, I don’t know. There should be five grand in here.”
“You did maintain a room here.”
“What?!” This was too incredible.
“We kept your room for you. All your clothes and other possessions are there.”
“There’s only three thousand dollars here.”
“I talked it over with Doug and he said that we could get a hundred and fifty dollars a month for a room in this part of town. That’s what some of the men at the mill pay, and their rooms aren’t even in the Lutzburgh section. It’s only fair. Besides,” she said flatly, “the money went right back into the house. Those cabinets are all wood and—”
“And you bought a fuckin TV too.”
“Don’t talk that way in my house.”
“You can keep your fuckin house and your fuckin room.”
“You’re just going to throw it away on some stupid car, aren’t you?”
“That’s my business.” He’d picked out a car at Lloyd’s Autoland. He wanted to pay cash.
“You’re just like your father.”
“Wha—? That again! God damn. I’ll come back for my shit.”
“I’m not going to say it again,” she screamed. “Don’t you ever talk to me that way!”
Wednesday morning. The car brought back his smile. It made him feel like High School Harry but it was a good feeling and it was his first car and it was dazzling. He had never owned a vehicle before: in high school because he was saving his money for college; in college because there simply wasn’t enough money after tuition, room, board and books. Carefully he guided the used black-and-red two-door convertible from the lot at Lloyd’s. His legs slid on the red Naugahyde of the front bucket seat as he blipped the throttle and the hopped-up Mustang 289 torqued over, the posi-traction rear end dropped and grabbed, the radials grabbed the pavement.
His smile spread. The waxed and polished finish gleamed in the early day sun. He unleashed the Mustang’s power on Mill Creek Road, roared past the New Mill, climbed the hill past the junkyard and the town dump turnoff, slid into the ninety-degree left below the Old Mill and the cascade at the falls before throttling back for the esses. Then feeling elated, he again punched it, zooming northwest through pasturelands toward Grandpa Wapinski’s. He cooled down a mile before the family farm, stopped, turned around, headed back toward town. One surprise appearance was enough. He drove his new car to the dog pound behind the town dump, parked, went to the door, looked back and felt good. He went in, checked out the animals, left, drove to the unemployment office, registered, gazed at the girls. Then he drove to the state store and bought two bottles of scotch. He bought beer and cigarettes, groceries for Brian and Cheryl and a sleeping bag.
On Thursday Bobby went back to the dog pound. He cuddled two Newfoundland-mix pups, an Old Yeller dog, a large black lab-terrier mix. In one cage, by himself, was a four- or five-month-old German shepherd-husky mutt. “Hey boy,” Wapinski called. The dog growled. “Well, fuc—What’s the matter?” Wapinski stepped forward. The dog leaped at the cage door, barked viciously, snarled. “Come on, boy. What’s yer name? Come on.”
Wapinski laughed. The pup was ferocious, yet he looked so soft and cuddly to Bobby the incongruity was hilarious. “Come on,” Wap said, going to the door and raising the latch. The dog backed up to the middle of the eight-foot run. Wapinski went in, closed the door behind himself without taking his eyes from the pup. The pup backed to the rear of the cage, still growling, twitching his head quickly, not taking his eyes off the man but searching for an escape route. Wapinski squatted, spoke softly. “What’s yer name, pup? What’s your name? Is it Sally or Sue? Come on. How come you’re so defensive? Sally or Sue or Stacy? You a bitch? Who needs em, huh? You’re a boy, aren’t ya? Oh yeah, I can see. Have you been beaten?”
Wapinski talked to the dog for ten minutes without trying to move closer. A warden’s assistant came into the kennel room, saw Wap, said, “Are you nuts? That little bastard bit me the first day—”
“Sssshh.” Wap had risen when the boy came, though he had not removed his eyes from the dog. Now he backed out of the stall and re-latched the door. The pup flew at him, snapping his teeth just as Bobby pulled his hands out. “What’s his story?”
“I don’t know,” the assistant said. “They found him and two others downtown in a box. You know them hick farmers all a time bringin dogs to town, dumpin em in front of the stores and figuring town people’ll just give em homes.”
“That right?”
“Yeah. We end up destroying three-quarters of em. That one’s goin next. If I’d had my way, they woulda injected im the first day we got im.”
“When are you going to kill him?” Wapinski asked.
“Friday. Maybe.”
“He got a name?”
“Yeah. Jerk.”
“Hmm ... Jer ... Joe ... Josh.”
“What?”
“I’ll take him. His name is Josh.”
“Hey, RJ,” Joe Akins said over the phone. He was a college friend of Wapinski’s who had stayed in school, had graduated in June ’67 as Wapinski would have had he remained. “Half dozen of us from our class are going back to the house for a party,” Akins told him.
Wapinski looked at Cheryl’s back as she washed the dinner dishes. Brian was reading the paper. They had barely spoken to him since he’d brought Josh home. “Geez, Joe,” Wapinski said. He massaged Josh’s ears. The pup almost purred. “I haven’t been there since ... shit, it’s three and a half years!” Josh nuzzled his head against Bobby’s leg.
“That’s okay, RJ,” Akins said. “The guys who are going back are all guys we graduated wit—ah, I mean, you know, guys we pledged with.”
Lights shown from the open door of the fraternity house and from the basement windows. The rest of the house was dark. Wapinski slowed his car. Music blasted from the cellar barroom, up through the house, out into the sticky evening air. Wapinski parked the Mustang half a block away, left Josh curled up in the passenger bucket on the sleeping bag, walked in the shadows from tree to tree up the side of the street opposite from the house. Cars were parked in all directions, both sides of the street, up the side roads. Big party, he thought. He stood against the trunk of a large maple across from the house. The music was so loud he could feel vibrations in the ground. I should have met Akins somewhere, come with him, he thought. He lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, caressed his lighter. There was someone upstairs in the house. He knew it, felt it. Two barefoot coeds in cutoff shorts and T-shirts came down the inner stairs. Through the open door he watched them emerge from the darkness, walk across the large hall, disappear into the depth of the house. A man emerged from the dark stairs to the upper floor. Wapinski felt a pang of bitterness. He walked back to his car, grabbed a pint bottle from the back seat, patted Josh, returned to his observation post.
Nittany Mountain College was a small school with a reputation for excellence in engineering fundamentals and architectural design. Bright high-school students with average scholastic transcripts often used Nittany as a stepping stone. Get accepted, buckle down, maintain a 3.0 average for two years, then transfer to Penn State. In 1963 that had been Wapinski’s plan too, but he never made a 3.0, only once in five semesters broke above 2.5, and twice had dropped below 2.0. He had enjoyed a lot of parties.
Wapinski nipped from his bottle, smoked more cigarettes, crossed the street. He felt fire in his arms and in his eyes. He did not know where it came from, did not know why he felt anger, contempt for the freeness, the easiness with which the students moved. He felt something awful lurked inside, something he would have to confront. Alcohol numbed his skin, his thoughts, yet he felt wary, aware of every breathing thing, every inanimate object near him.
“Hey, hey, RJ. Well, shit it’s been a long time.” Joe Akins had been sitting in the darkened TV room waiting for him, nodding from the early effects of too much beer.
“Joe.” Wapinski smiled. Joe rose. They embraced, slapped each other’s back. “You ol’ rattlesnake, how are ya?” They gripped each other’s shoulders.
“I’m great,” Akins said. “Good job, good wife, nice house. I started at seventeen thou a year and got a company car to boot. I’m doin great. Gahhddammmm! You’re the only one to show. They all punked out. How are ya, RJ? I mean, really. Yer arms are hard as steel.”
“I’m hangin in there. You know.”
“Yeah. Where you been, anyway? You look terrible. You been on a diet? And where’s yer hair?”
“I’m hangin in there,” Wapinski repeated.
“You been in the army, huh? Yeah, I remember them guys tellin me you got drafted. You gotta excuse me. I’m looped. Me and Tayborn were tryin to drain the keg. You still in?”
“Naw, Joe. Discharged a couple a weeks ago, ah ... I guess about ten days.”
“Let’s go down en get some beer. Tayborn’s down there with about ten loose dollies. Gahhd, you oughta see the tits on the one in the yellow T-shirt.”
The basement was divided into a poolroom and a barroom. The pool table had been pushed against one wall and covered with a plastic sheet. Both rooms were packed. Half a dozen people were dancing on the pool table. The music was loud, the floor was wet, sticky with beer. People were dancing barefoot in puddles, gyrating their bodies without lifting their feet. Akins squeezed through; Wapinski followed. He didn’t recognize the song, the dance, or any of the people. People kept banging his shoulders and arms. To him the students looked young. “Let’s get in there,” Akins shouted and pointed to the doorway to the barroom.
“What?”
Akins squeezed between two girls standing in the doorway. They squeezed back against him brushing their breasts on him. The three laughed. He grabbed one by the ass and squeezed and one pinched his ass hard and he jumped into the next room. Wapinski slid between the girls. They were both braless. He hesitated, smiled. The girls slipped past him into the poolroom. He looked over his shoulder, down at them, at their butts. One had her mouth at the other’s ear. He sensed they were talking about him. Fuck it, he thought. Drive on.
“What?” Wapinski shouted back at Akins. Akins had pulled him to the far end of the bar where the music wasn’t so overwhelming.
“I said, ‘Are you deaf?’ Ha. This is Rick Tayborn. He’s house president. Mickey’s little brother.”
“Pleased to meetcha.” Wapinski nodded. The bar was less crowded than the poolroom, and the speakers were smaller but it was still tight and noisy. Against the far wall a group of students were passing a joint. Through the ceiling lights, the haze glowed. Wapinski was taken by the long straight hair of several of the girls, put off by the length of Tayborn’s.
“You met him before,” Akins shouted. Tayborn handed them each an overflowing red plastic cup of foamy beer.
“You’re the guy who’s a green beret, aren’t ya?” Tayborn asked.
Several people at the bar turned, caught by the words. One very drunk, very large boy, maybe a defensive tackle, put his arm around Wapinski and kissed him on the forehead and laughed good naturedly, almost elfish except for his size. “Welcome to my house,” the big boy said. “Ricky, gimme more beer.”
“He just got outa the army,” Akins shouted to Tayborn.
“Not green beret,” Wapinski said, “101st.”
“What’s that?” Tayborn asked.
“Hundred and First Airborne Division.” Wap could see that that didn’t register either. “Screaming Eagles,” he tried. No recognition. “I commanded an infantry platoon and then a company,” Wapinski said. A few more people pushed in close. Someone turned the music volume down. It was still loud but not so loud that they had to shout.
“Is that right?” Akins asked. “I didn’t know that.”
“Where was that?” An older man to Wapinski’s right asked.
“Huh? Ah, Three Corps and I Corps.”
“Viet Nam?!” Akins said.
Wapinski’s head snapped to Akins, back to the man at his right, back to Akins. Again he was caught off guard. “Yeah.” He was shocked that Akins didn’t know.
“Holy shit, no wonder you look so messed up,” Akins said. “That musta been horrible.”
“What did you do over there, Mr. ah ...”
“Wapinski.”
“Mr. Wapinski. I’m Professor Tilden. Arnold Tilden.”
“Bob Wapinski.” He extended his right hand. The professor either didn’t see it or ignored it. “Commanded an infantry platoon down along the Cambodian border until they moved us up north. I worked in operations and as a liaison to the ARVN and to the Marines. Then I commanded a company out along the Laotian border.”
“Weren’t you afraid,” Professor Tilden began, “of being shot by your own men?”
“Ah ...” Wapinski floundered. He found the question very odd. He knew there were circumstances of officers being shot by their own men, but he knew also that it was rare. “No,” he said. He did his best to sound professional, sincere, to hide his drunkenness. “We were a pretty tight unit.”
“Did you see much action?” the professor prodded.
“I saw some,” Wapinski answered warily.
“An awful lot of American boys are being maimed and killed over there for some rather vague reasons. Is it true that battle casualties are five times higher than what’s being reported?”
“I don’t think so. You know what—”
“I’ve seen the figures of the number of men hospitalized and matched them against the reported wounded and killed. It’s five times higher, Mr. Wapinski.”
“Of course it is, Professor Tilden,” Wapinski said. He drew himself up to his full height. The condescending tone of the professor grated like an awl being dragged down his spine, but he knew he was on solid ground here. He knew the figures inside and out. “Our battle casualties account for a little less than one-fifth of our hospitalizations,” he said simply. “What really drains manpower from operations are infections, like those caused by insect or leech bites, or just grass cuts. Those, malaria, diarrhea, funguses—”
“Fungi,” Tilden corrected.
“Fungi,” Wapinski repeated, not knowing that either was correct.
“You know a lot about the war?” Tilden asked rhetorically. Wapinski didn’t answer. He sipped his beer, tried to hide his anger, his disgust at what seemed to be a setup. “It’s something we can’t win, you know,” Tilden said.
“Why, Professor, can’t we win?”
“That nation is historically predestined to be reunited. We can’t win. The people will rise up and kill every American.”
“What people?” The statement was so distant from Wapinski’s experiences that he felt bewildered. “The South Viet Namese?! If they wanted to rise up they would have during the Tet offensive last year.”
“Maybe our bombers were too much for them.”
“No. No. You don’t understand. Two years ago the fighting was in and around the cities and the villages but the invading army and the guerillas were pushed back. Last year they staged one major coordinated assault at Tet and they were trounced. Now most of the fighting’s in the border regions.”
“And you can take responsibility for that?”
“Mr. Tilden, I took responsibility for myself and my men. And I’m proud of what we accomplished. I’m proud—”
“Tell me about that responsibility. Pushing conscripted men up foreign hills to their deaths while you stay behind the lines—”
“Wait. Wait. It’s ... I can’t tell you how tremendous the responsibility of being an officer is. That’s almost impossible to describe.” Wapinski lowered his shoulders and head, paused for a moment, calmly said, “When you command a platoon or a company in combat, you’re responsible for every man’s life. Very few of my men were drafted. Very few. Most were volunteers. Almost a third were on their second tours. When you’re in charge of a man in combat, it’s not like in business or something. We’re not talking about his job or his grade. I’m talking about his life. Do you know what that means? If you hiccough wrong you might get that guy killed. When I got there I was twenty-two years old. I thought I’d get a platoon of old-timers and I’d be the kid. Half of my platoon was nineteen. Sir, after one fight, I knew what responsibility was. Do you have any idea what it’s like to have one of your men killed? Not flunked, Professor. Killed. Not even killed from somebody making a mistake. Not from bad tactics. From combat. It eats at you.”
“Exactly,” Tilden said condescendingly. Several of the students laughed. Wapinski felt humiliated, angry. “It should eat at you because you caused it. What it is really all about, Mr. Wapinski, and I’m sure you must agree, is the institutional rot and corruption of the Army’s officer corps that allowed men like yourself to win promotions using conventional tactics to claim imaginary victories when the enemy, in reality, simply withdraws without you knowing it. It should eat at you even more when innocent villagers are napalmed. You see your one tiny segment and you think you know what’s happening.”
“Do you want to know what I did over there or do you want to hear yourself speak?” Wapinski charged back.
“You’re being provincial,” the professor retorted.
“And yer a fucking jerk,” Wapinski snapped. “If you don’t understand what’s going on over there, keep your mouth shut. You’re getting good people hurt.”
“I believe, in this country, we have a right to speak our opinions,” Tilden said smugly. “You’ve heard of the First Amendment?”
“You’ve got the right to your opinion,” Wapinski said, “but you don’t have the right to be wrong in your facts.”
Tilden switched tactics. “Would you like to attend an antiwar rally with us next weekend?”
Wapinski stared at him. There were about a dozen people listening. “I’m not against our efforts ov—”
“Hey,” a student called from behind Wapinski, “how was the dope over there?”
“I talked to one guy,” another student called in, “who says everybody’s stoned all the time. He wants to go back just for the grass.”
“What about them Viet Namese women?” A third student said.
Wapinski turned. The students were not looking at him. “We didn’t see very many—” he began but was cut off.
“This guy got the clap four times,” the second student called across the top of the crowd.
“What about them Viet Namese women?” The first student pressed.
“How many babies did you burn?” A coed shouted from the other end of the bar. “How many women did you leave pregnant? How many children don’t have parents because of you?”
Wapinski stammered. He knew at this point he should simply withdraw. He could not get a word in edgewise. He’d come for beer, not for debate. He turned toward Akins and was about to say, “Let’s go,” when an older coed yelled, “Hey, that’s my brother.” Wapinski turned. A smile hit his face, both because he had not yet seen Joanne and because she was relief, his tie, his legitimate ticket to the present. He was about to call to her when she said, “My brother the army captain.” She did not disguise her hostility. Her breasts held out a T-shirt epigram—I SAY YES TO MEN WHO SAY NO. Again he began to speak, was about to say, “Hello Kid. I tried to call but your phone’s disconnected.”
“He kills people for a living,” Joanne announced. “Mother didn’t tell me you were back. When did you return?”
His teeth clenched. “Do you give a shit?”
More students were now snickering at him. The big elf staggered up in front of him, smiled, asked Tayborn for three beers.
Joanne snorted, pronounced, “We spend billions of dollars on big bombs to drop on little people while you turn every decent girl in the country into a whore. Then we spend billions more for their politicians to stuff their pockets. Pigs!”
The big elfish student drew up tall and stepped up to Wapinski. He towered above him and everyone else in the room. “Pig.” Spit sprayed from his mouth.
“Tell em, Montgomery,” someone shouted. The room reached low-level hysteria. “Pig,” three or four students shouted. “Pig,” a dozen joined in. Wapinski looked from face to face. He saw they despised him, that he’d entered a foreign den, an alien camp, that he was the alien and he had not known it when he’d entered. He reared back. Akins was behind him.
“Pig.” Montgomery glared at him. The big boy put his beers down on the bar. He clenched his left hand. He balled his right, squared off to Wapinski.
“Throw im out,” someone screamed. Students closed in. Someone screamed, “Get him, Monty.” Montgomery shot his left hand hard at Wapinski. Wapinski blocked the arm, hit the big boy without thought. He hit him with such force the boy toppled. Wapinski hit him twice more as he crumpled. Skin above the boy’s left eye split open. On the ground his face erupted in blood. Instinctively Montgomery raised a leg to protect himself. Wapinski, intent on the kicking foot, stomped the leg with his heel then smashed three lightning kicks to the bloody face before Joe Akins, screaming, “RJ! RJ! STOP! RJ!” and Rick Tayborn and two others could grab him. Wapinski flicked their gripping hands off like gnats. Punched, counter-punched, two of them to the floor. A girl in cutoffs screamed. Another girl shrieked. “Montgomery!” She knelt bravely, horrified, behind the boy. Everyone else backed off. Tilden had already left. The room imploded in silence. Wapinski glared at them all, looked at the bloody boy, walked through the crowd in disgust, disgust at their unthinking self-righteousness, their youthful naïveté, their rejection of him. And disgust at himself for not knowing, for once again entering uninvited, unexpected, unannounced.
“Sit down, Josh. Sit down.” Wapinski turned the ignition key. The Mustang roared to life. He drank straight from the bottle as he drove, sped back toward Mill Creek Falls. “Fuckin home,” he shouted out the open top. “Fuckin home. What the fuck for? Home? Eat shit. Eat shit and die.” He banged the shift through the gears, holding the bottle between his legs. “Home sweet home, Josh. Buddy, me and you make a good team. They all eat shit. That’s what you already knew, huh? We haven’t gotten up to Grandpa’s yet, Josh. If he shits on us....”
Wapinski sped east on 220 to Williamsport at speeds to ninety miles per hour. He exited in Williamsport, raced through the city streets, drinking, sideswiping a parked car, finishing the bottle and tossing it, allyoop, out the car, not seeing it crash into another parked car.
He raced up the new section of 15 trying to see how fast the Mustang would go. Then he took the back road to Loyalsock skidding and sliding, then up 87 to Forksville where he went off the road but saved it only to launch the car a few minutes later over a dirt embankment on the side of 154, tossing Josh like a rag doll first to the floor then up against the dashboard base, then almost out the open roof, landing in a small clearing, narrowly missing a previously battered oak but not missing several large rocks that seemingly in slow motion tore off the oil pan, ripped away the left rear axle, the car finally coming to rest by bludgeoning a thick tree, crinkling the grill and hood like aluminum foil, springing the doors, breaking the windshield.
Noise and motion ceased.
Wapinski startled, woke to Josh whimpering and licking his temples. He stared forward. He reached down, checked the ignition. He’d already turned it off. He didn’t remember. His vision was blurry. He couldn’t tell if the blurriness was from focusing on the shattered windshield or if he’d damaged his eyes. He felt his face. His nose hurt, was swollen, maybe broken. Slowly he moved his toes, ankles, knees, then fingers, wrists and elbows. His left hand was stiff, the thumb sprained. Cautiously he moved his head a little to the right, a little to the left, then farther, then looking up, then down. His eyes cleared somewhat. He checked his watch. It was two thirty in the morning.
Josh licked him again. “You okay, little brother? Oh God, we done somethin bad.” Wapinski tried his door. It was jammed in a position about two inches open. He climbed over the door, reached down, lifted Josh out. “We can walk this,” he said to the dog. “No sweat. I do it all the time. Walked five times this far last week. Geez! One week. Aw, Josh, look at our Mustang! Aw shit! I’m an asshole. I’m a drunk fuckin asshole. Look what I done. Shit! Better en bein put in the corner to cool! Ha. Aw ... there’s gotta be an unbroken bottle here somewhere.”
He was very drunk now. It was dawn. He’d vomited on his shirt, his pants, his shoes. He sat in the gutter. Josh sat on the curb. “What the fuck av ah done?” He looked up at the grimy brick of warehouse walls. It was Sunday, Father’s Day. The machine shops and offices were closed. “What’d I do to that kid las night?”
He thought about Joanne. He was hurt, deeply hurt, shocked by his sister, by the professor and the students. And he was disappointed, bitter with himself for having lost control. He’d beaten up the big jerk, he thought, and he’d thrown Akins and two others into the walls before he’d realized what he’d done. “I didn’t mean to hurt em,” he mumbled to the gutter. “I didn’t want ta hurt em. Why’d they attack me? I just wanted to be left alone, maybe talk to Akins. And our car, Josh.” Tears welled up in Wapinski’s eyes. He tried to sniff them back but his nose was clogged with blood. “Why? Fuckin why?”
He pulled the cigarette lighter from his pocket. He was out of cigarettes. His stomach retched, bile burned his throat. “All this shit, Josh. It’s melting on me.” Again drunken tears rushed out. “This was a mistake. There’s somethin wrong. Somethin wrong. I gotta get back where I belong. We left three guys on a hill. Four guys. I gotta go back. They were blown up and charred and bloody fuckin messes. Blood, Josh. More blood than ever. Right on that kid’s face. I gotta go back where I was good. Where I did good. I gotta find Doc.”
Wapinski fondled the lighter, belched. The belch caused him to lose his balance. He fell back on the storm drain, rolled, looked into the drain, retched a thick mixture of bile, saliva, postnasal blood and mucus. He coughed, spit between the bars of the sewer grate, watched for the splat in the black water below. Then he brought his hands before his face. He still held the lighter. He stared at it. On one side there was a list and an inscription:
DAU TIENG
CU CHI
GO DAU HA
TRUNG LAP
VEGHEL
A SHAU
DONG AP BIA
I SERVED MY TIME IN HELL.
On the other side there was an outline map of Viet Nam and the inscription: THANK YOU, SIR. YOU SAVED LIVES. MEN OF 1/506.
Wapinski stared at the lighter. He held it with both hands. The sewer grate cut into his elbows. He rolled onto his side, toward the street, held the lighter in his right hand, then between his right thumb and index finger. He couldn’t feel the engravings. He lowered his hand to the grate, held the lighter between two bars, then purposefully, slowly, opened his fingers. Then he passed out.
Wapinski woke at midmorning. He was still in the gutter before an alley separating machine shops and warehouses. He was broke: without his wallet, cigarettes or lighter. An old man was cleaning the blood from his nose. Before them was a familiar 1953 Chevrolet sedan. Wapinski’s head hurt. His hands were bloody. He felt guilty but his head wasn’t clear enough to understand why.
“This your dog?” the old man asked. “And what’s this paper ... Bea Hollands? This pup here, he’s been watchin over you since I came. Nice looking animal.” Concentration slowly seeped back to Wapinski. “How come you haven’t been up to see me?” the old man asked sternly. His hands were gentle on Wapinski’s face. “When I finally heard you’d made it back, I came down to your mother’s place. Imagine that. I haven’t been inside there since she chased your father away.”
Wapinski focused in on the old man’s face. It was a beautiful face, he thought. Wrinkled like a happy bulldog’s. He could not hold the thought, nor keep his eyes focused.
“Come on up,” the old man said. “I’m not strong enough anymore to lift you.” He remained kneeling by Wapinski. “Well, how do they say it,” he said slipping a hand under Wap’s head. “If Mohammed won’t come to the mountain, the mountain’ll have to come to Mohammed.”
“Gran—” Tears flooded Wapinski’s face.
“Don’t do one any good to cry and say you’re sorry, now.” Tears were in the old man’s eyes too. “Come on home, Bob. There’s fresh garden greens and corn fritters with syrup waiting.”
“Granpa.”