13

SEVEN AND A HALF miles east of town, Sunday, 13 September 1970—It was very warm, very dry, dusty. In the ditches along the road’s edge Queen Anne’s lace bloomed to eight inches across. There was the smell of wheat, the smell of road-kill, of exhaust from two Kenworths pulling tandem rigs, of hot motor oil from the Harley, of his own sweat. The ride in had been fast, roaring through the night and into the dawn, moths and beetles splattering against the headlight and handlebars, forks and every front-facing surface they could possibly smash against. Oil had been seeping for weeks—typical Harley—but with dawn catching him from behind, a line or gasket had let go and hot oil had blown out, then back against his legs, boots, the cylinder heads, exhaust pipes, panniers. He’d stopped, fiddled, quickly realized he needed more than the scant tools he carried. The roadway was flat. He’d begun walking, pushing the 700-pound Harley. With the sun came flies and yellowjackets.

Tony had left another place, another job, had straddled the Harley, felt the guttural vibration, left. He had not looked back. Could not have cared less. For a week he had shoveled sand, stone and cement into the small mixer, hosed in water, mixed, dumped the heavy sludge into a wheelbarrow, grunted, snarled, pushing the wheelbarrow along meandering two-by-six planks to boxed sections of a meandering walkway, working like a horse, an ox, a machine. Working ten, twelve hours without breaks, “Just pay me in cash,” then collapsing with a six-pack and whatever food the woman brought to the “carriage house,” garage really, watching Leave It to Beaver, Ben Casey, The Avengers, avoiding the news, falling asleep to Then Came Bronson or Hawaii Five-O. Then rising early, starting the mixer, shoveling, trudging, one more odd job in a string of odd jobs that lasted hours or days or this one an entire week, then off with a bit of cash in his pocket, gas money, with a little more time behind him, a little less in front, off to the next town, standing outside the local Manpower office, whispering, “I’ll do it cheaper and better.” Working, moving. His hair grew long, curled, frizzed; his beard came in thick, coarse. In Ohio he’d had a run-in with some punk-nosed college jerk whose daddy had bought him a superhawk Jappo bike and probably a deferment as well. He’d kicked ass, taken the kid’s leather jacket with a Marine Corps emblem painted on the back, painted over with flowers, both emblem and flowers now cracking and fading from his harsh wear. In Illinois he’d crashed at a farm commune for three weeks, nice people, easy style, but he’d left because of lack of privacy, intolerance, lack of beer, of grass, of Darvon. He’d ridden south, then west, then north, then west again, stopping, working, gruff, rough, angry, trying to stay one mile ahead of his demons.

In town: “I tell you right now,” Swen Evenden said to his brother, “if she were my daughter I’d go git er.”

“She ain’t your daughter,” Dawen Evenden answered.

“The Lord still recognizes you as responsible for her,” Swen said.

Two other men moved closer, one nodded, one quietly grunted “Amen.” The men were not large, not small, not old, not young, not rich, not poor. They had been to church services, had gathered afterward to talk, socialize, exchange views on the wheat crop; exchange tidbits of local concern—pros and cons about the construction of a Dogs and Suds Drive-In, feelings about the hippie commune east of town: “Least they’re downwind en downstream.”

Dawen Evenden shook his head. “She’s nearly seventeen,” he said. “You really think I can tell her—”

“If she were mine, I’d tell her,” Swen interrupted. “En if she didn’t listen with er ears, I’d tell it to her backside.”

“Ey,” agreed the other two.

“And you wouldn’t have a daughter eny all, Swen. Not in this day and age.”

“Well, it wouldn’t hurt to head out there for a Sund’y visit,” Swen said. “Dawen”—he pronounced the name Dah-ven—“you maybe should have Lottie make up some chicken and bring that out.”

“I’ll go too,” said Calvin Eckhardt. “I’ve never seen the place. We’ve been makin jokes about em for a year but we don’t know, eh?”

“You sure Lauren’s out there?” Roger Minnah asked.

Swen pursed his mouth. These men were his older brother, his good friends, his neighbors. To admit that his daughter had joined John H. Noyes and his following of Iowa (they pronounced it eye-oh-way) hippies was to admit that he and Lottie had failed. Still, he was worried.

Dawen spoke for him, spoke in Swen’s silence. “She been out there a good part a the summer. She en the Arlen girl.”

“Melissa!?” Roger shied back.

“Ya.” Dawen said.

“She came home every night,” Swen said, justified his family. “She didn’t stay. When school started she went right back. Just went out Friday night.”

“If she were my daughter,” Calvin Eckhardt said, “I’d leave the chicken home en bring out my side-by-side.”

Creekside: The John Noyes commune, like many other communes of the late sixties and early seventies, offered an alternative to traditional American values and family structure. Noyes and his disciples, David, Michael and Luke Nachahmennen, were ostensibly seeking “a more perfect world, an expanded consciousness.” In early 1970 the commune had been inhabited by forty-one women, men, and children. In May there had been a major flap between Noyes—a free-love proponent—and Brad Thurgood, a seeker of a counterculture with more stereotypical sex and marriage roles. By June the commune had disintegrated and only the four original men, five women, two of whom were pregnant, and four young children remained. It was then that Noyes met Melissa Arlen and Lauren Evenden—classmates, both sixteen, about to turn seventeen, farm girls with long straight blond hair, freckles, excellent grades, loving families.

On the road five miles east of town: He’d stripped to his T-shirt. Sweat rolled into his eyes, stung. He squinted, braced the bike with his leg, wiped his eyes. Still they stung. He pulled his handkerchief from the pocket of his dungarees, rolled it, tied it around his head to absorb the sweat, thought about a cold Grain Belt or Hamm’s, about rolling the cold sweating can on his forehead to cool down. A car sped by. He’d heard it coming from behind, heard it longer than he could see it. Out-of-state fucker, he’d thought. Fuckin scared shitless to stop. The road had been rising very slightly for the past mile, making pushing the big machine under the hot sun torturous. Now the road imperceptibly crested, not enough for him to sit and roll, just enough so that he had to hold the Harley back. Ahead in the road he saw a prairie dog that had been clipped by a vehicle. He paused. A second animal was beside the first trying to pull it from the road, glancing furtively up at Tony, then back down, short, jerky movements. The two animals tumbled into the roadside ditch beneath the Queen Anne’s lace.

Tony continued pushing, wishing he had a beer, somehow feeling satisfied in the punishment, the cruelty of the sun, the weight of the bike, the vacant blacktop reflecting more and more heat, the wheat dust and road dust and his own sweat and the oil on his pants making the cloth stick and chafe his groin and that sting added to the stinging in his eyes; thinking it was proper that he walk through hell for what he’d done; thinking without words, without analyzing what he had done. His throat was caked with dust. “‘How dry I am,’” he burst out, chuckled at himself, but only in his mind, “‘no-bot-tee knows ...’” He didn’t finish the song but changed to, “‘In heaven there is no beer / That’s why we drink it here / Cause when we’re gone from here / Our friends will be drinking all our beer.’”

At the commune: “Don’t go,” Jennifer, one of the two pregnant women, pleaded. The men did not answer. In the house Jessica was crying. Nicole and Christina were still tripping, completely out of their minds. The infants and toddlers were crying, whimpering without understanding, one on Jennifer’s hip, one in a high chair on the porch, the two toddlers clutching Jennifer’s legs. “Don’t go,” she mumbled. Then she yelled, “Beth Ann ...” but her voice broke and died.

The engine of the van caught. Blue-black smoke belched from a hole in the tailpipe, expanded like a soft cloud attempting to float the van up, away.

“Beth Ann,” Jennifer cried again.

Beth Ann poked her head from the passenger side window. Michael was behind loading boxes, bags, moving quickly. Luke and David were inside, in back, laughing, pulling in the boxes and bags Michael plopped on the doorway floor. John H. Noyes was behind the wheel. “You’ll be all right, honey,” Beth Ann called. “You’ll be all right. Take care of the others. You oughta get rid of those two.”

Four miles east of town: He hadn’t noticed it, became angry that he’d been so unaware. A quarter mile down on the right there were dual rusted barbed-wire fences running perpendicular to the road. Beside one was a mailbox. He could not make out a drive but could see a shadow line between fences. Far off to the right, maybe half a mile, there was a clump of trees.

Tony saw a van emerge from the trees. He sighed. The van kicked up a cloud of dust that hung over the shadow line between fields. It did not stop at the road but swung out, accelerated toward him. He braced the Harley, felt the weight pull on the scar in his quadricep. He raised his arms, flagged the van. It continued to accelerate, reached him, didn’t slow.

“Hey!” he shouted in his best sergeant’s voice. “Stop!” The driver stomped on the brakes. The van skidded. “What the hell’s the matter with you?!” Tony roared.

“What’s happenin, Man?” The driver’s face was ashen, his smile pasty.

“Hmm.” Tony eyed the long-haired driver, the chick beside him. “I need some help.”

“What’sa matter, Man?” The voice was irritating.

Tony slapped the Harley. “Blew an oil line.” He stared at the driver, challenging him. “Doesn’t anybody up here stop? Law of the road, isn’t it? People need help?”

“John, give him a ride,” Beth Ann said. She leaned forward, rested a hand on the driver’s leg, eyed Tony up and down. “Why don’t you get in?” she said directly to him.

“I need a tow.” Tony eyed her back. “Tow my scooter to town.” She had on a tight cotton shirt. Her hair was long, dark, her eyes dark. Silver earrings hung like windchimes almost to her shoulders. She inhaled from a cigarette, blew the smoke toward him, ran the tip of her tongue around her lips.

“Go up the driveway,” the driver said. “They’ll help ya up there.” With that the van sped off.

Tony spat, laughed, thought, sit on my face, babe, pushed on. He read the mailbox—Noyes—pushed through the gate. The driveway was rutted. It had once been paved but never maintained. More sweat dripped into his eyes. He was hot, tired, thirsty, hungry, frustrated over the bike, pushing with all his strength to get the Harley out of a double pothole, then holding back as the drive ran downhill into the clump of trees, shade, grass, a mishmash on the lawn—washtubs and washboards, clotheslines, a single chicken, a scrawny goat. Bit by bit he took in the scene. It was the Illinois commune again but this one had no apparent order, no rhyme or reason, appeared not so much a counterculture coop as a total breakdown of culture. A woman sat on the ground by the washtubs, legs splayed, mumbling, nursing an infant, half her dress down to her waist. Two toddlers were on the porch. One was squatting naked, peeing; the other was hiding behind a high chair holding another crying infant. The porch railings were in place but most of the balusters were missing. Tony rocked the bike onto its stand. He saw a leg, stepped forward, cautiously, automatically checking his advance route for trip wires, checking for snipers. He became tense, vigilant. The leg—legs—were naked, on their side, curled. The woman at the washtub moaned. He snapped toward her. “What the fuck?”

Now he approached the body, a girl’s body. He reached out. She was cool, not cold. He checked her neck for a pulse. There was none. He put his ear to her chest, thought he heard a heartbeat. Immediately he rolled her, cleared her mouth, cocked her head back to open the airway, blew in. Then he felt for the bottom of her sternum, up, over, both hands, pump, pump ... eleven, twelve, thirteen ... Again he squeezed her nostrils, breathed into her mouth. His adrenaline flowing. He worked for four, five, six minutes, broke to yell at the woman by the washtub, “Call an ambulance,” continued, could see peripherally that the woman by the tub had not moved. He was in rhythm now, heard cars on the drive, thought, Thank God. He looked up. In the brush there was another body, naked, young, blond, crumpled. Get here! he screamed in his mind at the cars. Get here! Still he pumped, breathed the girl.

Two cars pulled in. Men emerged. Silent. Shocked. “Get over here,” Tony yelled. There was milling, confusion, then running.

“That’s the Arlen girl,” a man by him blurted. Tony did not look up.

“Lauren? Lauren? Are you here?”

“What is this?” Now more voices. Then one to Tony, angrily. “What are you doing?”

“Breath o’ life,” Tony snapped. He returned his mouth to the naked girl’s.

“Get away from that girl!”

Tony was stunned. The woman at the washtub was up, being held, dressed by two men.

“What’s happened here, eh?”

“White lightning,” she muttered.

“White lightnin!” a man shouted.

Tony heard him, understood, said to the man who’d yelled at him, said, his hands between Melissa Arlen’s naked breasts, “LSD. They musta OD’d. Jesus. Get an ambulance.”

“They were jealous of me,” the woman at the washtub mumbled. “Because of my babies. He’s evil. He has false consciousness. They’d be on top of us all the time.”

“Get away from that girl you son of a bitch.” Now two men were coming at Tony.

“I’m a para—” Tony began.

“GAAAAHHHD!” The cry boomed across the commune, the fields, shook the house. “IT’S LAUREN!”

“Jealous of me because of my babies,” the woman wailed. “He done it.” She pointed at Tony.

They set upon him, punching him, kicking him. “I’m a paramedic....” Tony blocked the punches but the punches didn’t stop. There was more yelling. He could see it, could see what they saw, knew instantly they would not believe him. He lowered his guard, did not swing back, did not resist, thought, imagined, before he blacked out, How deserving.

In town: “Says here that bike was last registered to a James Pell-ee-green-ee who died in Vet Naym. You steal this bike, son?”

“Pellegrino.” Tony’s face was swollen, his nose broken. He could barely open his mouth. His hands were cuffed behind his back, his ankles to a bar on the concrete cot. In the cell with him was a uniformed man who had not identified himself.

“You’re Anthony Piss-an-no.”

“Pisano. Jimmy’s my cousin.”

“Report said Pell-ee-green-ee died. This bike isn’t registered to you. You steal it, son?”

“Yeah, I fuckin stole it from him. Fuck im.”

“You’re a real firebrand, aren’t ya, son?” The uniformed man poked him in the chest with a billy club. “You kill that girl with that punch?”

“I was trying to give her CPR.”

“You rape her first, son? Coroner says Lauren Evenden was sodomized too. Some people here in town are downright mad.”

Tony didn’t answer. He was angry, pissed about being caught, trapped. And he was withdrawing. He’d gone into the hole, into the tunnel again, trying to help, feeling like a Marine again, only again to have the body break, be dragged over him.

“All them other girls is really messed up, too. And those poor babies.” The uniformed man sat on the cot next to Tony. “Coroner thinks you put them psychotropic mushrooms in the punch. About fifty times too much. A glassful’d be about fifty times too much. He’s surprised you’re not all dead. Were you tryin to kill em?”

“I’d only been there ten minutes before those fuckers arrived and beat shit outta me. I’d never seen em before. None of em.”

“Hmm.” The uniformed man stood. “We’ve got eight witnesses say they caught you red-handed trying to sodomize that girl again. You better hope she doesn’t die, son. Swen and Lottie are gentle people but Morgan Arlen is ready to string you up right now.”

“I pushed my bike in there. Line blew. Because the guy in the van said they’d help.”

The uniformed man snickered. He turned away, looked out the bars. When he turned back he backhanded his billy club into Tony’s face.

The next day an older man woke Tony, cleaned his face, cleared the blood from his eyes, nose, lips. He was still cuffed and shackled. The older man fed him chicken broth, then milk, through straws. “Feel better?”

Tony grunted.

“Well, you look a little better.”

Again Tony only grunted. He did not look toward or at the man.

“Got the readout on your prints, Mister Pisano,” the man said. “Got your service record. That was pretty impressive, Sergeant.”

Now Tony did look up.

“I was in the Corps—well, years ago. What happened to you Sergeant Pisano? I don’t understand what that war does to you boys. Don’t you have someone to call?”

Tony shook his head.

“I called Boston. You haven’t lived there in some time, I guess. You’re license has expired.”

Still Tony said nothing.

“Your home of record is in Pennsylvania. Sure you don’t have someone to call?”

Tony shook his head. How could he call? How could he call Linda? Or his father? For a brief moment he thought maybe he could call Uncle James or even better Uncle Joe in Binghamton. But then he knew he couldn’t.

Twice more that day the older man came in. Twice he uncuffed and unshackled Tony, let him use the can, let him feed himself. On and off there was commotion out beyond the cell, beyond the corner of the narrow corridor. The cell itself was small, six-by-seven, no window, a hard cot, a commode, a tiny basin—a typical modern, small-town holding tank designed for overnight stays. The only light came from fluorescent tubes behind white plastic diffusers in the ceiling of the corridor. On his third visit the older man said, “Sergeant Pisano.” Tony did not respond. “You’re going to be arraigned on Thursday. These are serious charges. We’ll follow due process. You’ve got the right to representation. Do you understand?”

Tony nodded. He wanted to speak but he now could not speak, was afraid to open his mouth. He was afraid he might cry but ... it was more than that. He might give information to the enemy, break his code of silence. Besides, it was payback time, penance time. They couldn’t do anything to him, his thoughts convoluted, that he didn’t deserve. His thoughts scattered. Cops cannot be trusted; lawyers cannot be trusted; society cannot be trusted. He did not speak. He felt numb.

Later that night they came for him, the uniformed man and three others Tony did not recognize. Again he did not defend himself, again he passively accepted their blows, cringed, involuntarily raised his hands, arms, to protect his eyes, until they grabbed him, pinned his arms behind him, forced him to his knees, his head pulled back, a knee in his back, the uniformed man flicking Tony’s mouth, lips, with the billy club. “This the way you held her?” The billy club was poked into his cheek, cheekbone, rocked his head, strained his neck. “Rammed yer club into her face, huh?” One man snickered, the uniformed man scowled, the snicker stopped. One man left, disgusted, unwilling to participate yet unwilling to stop the beating. The uniformed man rammed the billy club into Tony’s mouth, rammed it to the back of his throat. “Like that, Sar-gee-nt,” he mocked Tony. “Like this.” He ramrodded the club back and forth, Tony gagging, his lips splitting, bleeding, then Tony gagging, convulsively racking, vomiting, gagging on the vomit, vomiting more, the uniformed man angry, backing off, then forcing the side of the club against Tony’s neck, pressing, swearing, Tony’s air cut off, the blood flow blocked, his eyes bulging, “Should of gone out there years ago. Got rid of you scum.” Tony blacked out.

When he came to he had been cleaned up, and again cuffed and shackled. The fluorescent lights were on. His neck, mouth, abdomen ached. His right leg twitched. He tried to let go but everything was taut, shivering. He tried to sit up but didn’t have the strength. He thought of Linda, of the baby on the porch, the baby on Storrow Drive, the family shot by the NVA, his own babies. Jumbled, chaotic thoughts, images, horrors against the fluorescent light coming through the bars, through his eyelids without rhyme or reason or order, and Tony, in his mind, laughing, doing his little jig, going to his death dancing.

In a hospital southwest of town: She was afraid, in tears. Her father was trying to be warm, comforting but to her he was authority, harshness, righteousness, a mirror reflecting her evil, her offenses.

“I didn’t do any, Daddy.”

“It’s okay, Melissa. It’s okay.”

“We never did any. Daddy, we never did. We just watched. I don’t know what happened.”

“He put it in the punch.”

“In the punch ...” Her voice shook, was thin. “The punch. Oh Lord! Lauren. Lauren must have had two glasses because she was so thirsty. I thought it tasted sour. And their glasses were dirty. I only sipped ...”

“It’s okay, Melissa. We know it wasn’t intentional.”

“That’s when Lauren began acting weird. That’s ...”

“It’s okay. They caught that motorcycle creep.” Morgan Arlen turned, gritted his teeth. He did not want his daughter to see how irate he was. Still he could not help but say, “We’re going to hang that creep.”

“What motorcycle?” Melissa wanted to piece the day together. She had not been told about Lauren’s death.

“The guy with the Harley,” Morgan Arlen said. His stomach was tight with anger. “The guy with the frizzy hair. Anthony some Italian name.”

“Daddy, there wasn’t any Anthony there. There was John, and his disciples. And Jennifer and Jessie and Beth Ann and the two earth moms.”

“It’s okay, Melissa. They caught him red-handed. Caught him with one of the girls.”

“No, Daddy. It was John’s commune. He hated motorcycles. He was afraid of them.”

Rock Ridge, Pennsylvania, Thursday, 24 September 1970—Anthony F. Pisano was heavily sedated. He had been admitted to the Rock Ridge Veterans Medical Center two days earlier as a transfer from a private facility in the far Midwest. He had been heavily sedated and escorted to Rock Ridge by two men he didn’t know, two men who’d barely spoken. His transportation had been arranged and paid for but Tony did not know if it was by those two men or some other. It was not part of his record. His motorcycle, he had been told, was being repaired and would be shipped via ground transport.

They had brought him to Rock Ridge because it was the nearest facility to his home of record. He had no address, no forwarding address from his last known residence: Long Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts. The admissions report noted that Pisano, Anthony F., had been indigent, that he had attempted to commit suicide by jumping out a third-story hotel window. He had been saved, the report said, by landing in a small tree that had broken his fall though it had badly bruised his face. The report noted that only days before his jump he had saved the life of a young woman by administering CPR. His depression, it was speculated, must be due to previous events. The father of the young woman, wishing anonymity, had sent a one-thousand-dollar reward to be given to Sergeant Pisano upon his release from the hospital.

“Date of birth?”

“Ten November 1947.”

“Service number?” To Tony the man looked old, older than his own father. He was balding from the front. He was dressed in a loose-fitting suit, a striped tie. He sat in a chair before his desk. Tony was in an identical chair, facing him. “Dates of service?” The man had Tony’s admissions form, a copy of his service record, a copy of his preliminary physical. He had told Tony his name twice but Tony had forgotten it and felt uneasy asking again. The man reviewed the information slowly, lackadaisically, as if he were killing time. Tony focused on the green blocks of the half-tiled walls of the office, thought the work was well done. He looked out the window. It was sunny, windy. “... Panama, Viet Nam ...” The man talked on, told Tony a little about where he was, what to expect. “Anthony,” the man raised his voice as if Tony couldn’t hear, “do you know why you are here?” He looked at Tony’s face with professional empathy, with no real interest.

“No,” Tony said. To Tony his own voice sounded strange, far off, as if speaking inside a box.

“Do you remember being in the hotel? Up on the third floor?”

Tony shook his head. He had no idea what the man was talking about.

“How do you feel right now?”

“So-so,” Tony said. His voice was flat, listless. It distressed him but he had no energy to lift it, make it a real voice.

“What are you thinking?” the man asked.

“I don’t know,” Tony answered.

“You don’t know or you don’t want to share it with me?”

“I don’t know,” Tony repeated.

The man sat back, eyed Tony, didn’t speak, seemed to Tony to be disappointed with him. Finally the man said, “You know I want to help you, don’t you?”

Tony was confused.

“I want to help you. Do you remember trying to ... trying to harm yourself?”

“You mean ...” Tony’s voice was slow, far off.

“Yes.”

“... like on Storrow Drive?”

“Yes,” the man said. He knew nothing about Storrow Drive, guessed that it was the location of the hotel.

“I was feeling like really fucked up—” Tony stopped abruptly.

“You can say ‘fucked up’ in here,” the man said.

“That was really fucked,” Tony said. His words were intense but his tone was without spunk.

“Why?” The man tried to pull it out of him.

“Because all those kids died.” Tony looked at the man, knew the man had no idea what he was talking about, still wondered how the man knew anything at all about Storrow Drive. “And their mother,” Tony added.

“Hm,” the man said.

“Her head was just scraped clean away. Nothin left ... blood en bone ... could see her spine ...”

The man fought his immediate impulse. “Yes,” he said calmly.

“Musta been caught between the car and the road,” Tony said. “The blood shined in the road in all the lights. When I reached in, her blood dripped on me.”

“That must have been very distressful.” The man maintained his professional interest.

“Well ... I seen a lot of that shit.” The words dribbled from Tony’s mouth. “But that ... without the head ... I mean nothin to recover, ya know? At Dai Do we hacked off a lot of heads but you know they were right there.”

“Dai Do? That’s where Storrow Drive is?”

“No.” Tony clammed up. He could not understand how this man could make such a stupid mistake.

“Excuse me.” The man attempted to recover. “Of course.” Tony volunteered nothing more. “Can we go back to the hotel,” the man said. It was not a question. “You tried to hurt yourself. That’s when you bruised your face.”

Now Tony felt more alert, mentally, even if the sedative had sapped him physically. “They beat shit outta me because a bunch a people died. But I didn’t have nothin to do with it. But ... like death follows me. Ever since Nam. Philly. So many in Philly. And Boston. And then Jimmy. It’s like I’m a fuckin death magnet. Death with a capital D. Touch me and you die.”

“Have you killed a lot of people?” The man fidgeted in his chair, attempted to maintain his calm countenance.

“Shit yeah,” Tony said. Suddenly he blurted, “SHIT! Yeah, I killed em. What the fuck do you think?” There was anger in Tony’s voice. “And I’d kill em again. If I could find that motherfucker that killed Manny I’d kill im. Some fuckin times, Man, I can be there, you know? I can be right there and I can stop it. I can be holding Manny but let go of him and see that motherfucker before he fires and fire his ass up.” Tony cocked his arms, clenched his hands as if clutching a rifle; his face tightened, his eyes intense, aiming in, searching a treeline. “Blow that motherfucker right outta a tree. Or the dink who hit the lady and her kids. The one with the belt. I can be there cause I was there. I saw him like, what, an hour earlier. And I’d grease that fucker.” Tony turned his eyes on the man. “I’d waste that fucker. I’d do the same to that fucker drivin the Volvo!”

The man was shaken. He tried to hide it. He did not want this sociopath to turn on him, wasn’t certain how to control him, wasn’t certain if he should, if for therapeutic reasons he should let Tony run on. But he knew there would be other sessions.

Tony could see that the man was afraid and it angered him. “I thought my head was fucked up”—spit came from the corners of Tony’s mouth—“you know, from ol’ Nam Bo. I was the Will. I was the Will to pull the fuckin trigger. But when I got back, when I started to deal with the Mickey Mouse shit, with you slimy civilians, you fucked me over worse than Nam ever did.” Tony was hissing, glaring.

“Okay, Anthony. Not me. Right? That’s one of the rules in here. I’m here to help, remember?”

“Yer all fuckin here to help. Bash my fuckin head in. Fuck yer help. A fuckin grunt can cope with nerves, Man. Cope with all kindsa shit. Can’t cope with slime.”

On Friday the 25th of September 1970, Dr. Jonathan Freiburg officially diagnosed Anthony Pisano as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder. He recommended an initial three-month therapy, one session per week, and prescribed Elavil and Thorazine to reduce the threat of violence to self and others, and diazepam for the muscle spasms in Tony’s right leg.

Mill Creek Falls, 27 September 1970—It was Sunday, her “day off,” and it was her wedding anniversary. Linda was exhausted. She had started the day early as any mother with four-month-old twins does, with a predawn feeding. She no longer checked the clock, just started by tucking Gina in on the right, Michelle on the left, football holds with the infants’ legs sticking out behind, their bodies resting on pillows under her arms, their heads in her hands. She gently massaged their scalps, the tickle of their fine curls delighting her as she lay back on her own built-up pillows, relaxed, let the milk come, chuckled as Gina smacked and gurgled away at Rangoon, as Michelle, now the bigger by seven ounces, worked methodically draining Bangkok of every last drop. Then Linda had put them in the crib they shared and still in predawn showered and washed her hair and even shaved her legs—luxury of luxuries.

In May Linda had returned from the hospital to her apartment, as she’d insisted—brought there by John Sr. and Jo, Isabella already there preparing the house for the homecoming and Annalisa helping her mother. Jo had stayed for the first ten days, had called Norma, Linda’s mother, saying, “They’re so beautiful. Come up and see them. You could stay here or in the guest room in our home.” Norma had answered, “I’ll have to ask Henry,” and Henry had said, “We don’t have a daughter named Linda.” In June, John Sr. showed up with a used, gray-and-white 1966 Ford Country Squire station wagon that he’d registered in Linda’s name. In July Linda had gotten her Pennsylvania nursing credentials and had landed a job with 86-year-old Mrs. Victoria Meredith of River Front Drive, who allowed Linda to bring Gina and Michelle but who begrudged the infants Linda’s time.

At noon Linda had her first visitors, Grandma and Grandpa Pisano, as she now called them, and John Jr. and his girl, Molly Kleinman. “Oh. Hi!” Linda beamed. “Did you knock? I didn’t hear ...”

“We just walked up,” Jo said quietly. She gave Linda a hug. “We don’t want to wake the babies.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Linda said. “They’re in there gabbing at each other. They’re so funny. They actually goo-goo to each other. Hi Grandpa.”

“How are you, Linda?” John Sr. said.

“Great,” Linda said. “Come on in,” she said to Johnny and Molly, who’d remained on the porch. Then back to her father-in-law, “Want a cup of coffee? It’s fresh.”

“Linda,” Jo said, “I don’t know how you do it. I’m just going to peek in, okay?”

John Sr. said, “I’ll get it. I brought you some pastries. From the Italian bakery.”

“Oh, Grandpa”—Linda scolded him—“and me still with fifteen pounds to lose.”

“Can I peek in too?”

“Of course. Bring them out if ... ah ... unless they need to be changed. You don’t want to get a leak on your nice clothes.”

“We just came from church,” Johnny said.

“If they need it, I’ll change em,” Linda called. She already had out four cups and saucers, spoons, napkins, and was untying the pastry box. Grandma returned carrying bright-eyed Gina. Molly brought in Michelle, who the instant she saw her mom squirmed, her face furling into a boo-boo face, emitting a tiny sniff.

“Ohhh!” Grandpa Pisano drew out the word. “Look at that face. Let me hold her.”

They stayed an hour. Molly confided to Linda that she and Johnny were thinking about getting married. She did not mention it being Linda and Tony’s anniversary, pretended, as they all did, as if the present situation was normal, wonderful, as if nothing had happened. Except for John Sr. who lingered after the others had left and said to Linda, “Any word?”

“No.”

“Not even a postcard.”

“No.”

“I’m ...” John Pisano’s voice trembled. “If he comes back ...”

“He’ll come home,” Linda said softly. “Really, Grandpa.”

“You don’t know how sick this makes me.”

“I know he’s going to come back,” Linda said. “I just know it.”

“Do you need anything? You shouldn’t have to work.”

“You paid the doctor,” Linda said. “You gave me the car. And the furniture and toys. You’ve done so much. And Annalisa and Aunt Isabella are always helping. Really, we’re doing okay. And I like working.”

“But with the babies ...” John Pisano shook his head. “Not even a card on your first anniversary. Not even a damn postcard.”

An hour later Jessie Taynor banged on the door waking up the infants. “Ssshh!” Linda flew to the door to stop her, shook her head hearing Michelle cry.

Jessie, seeing her look, cringed. “I didn’t make t’em cry,” she said.

“No. No, Jessie. You didn’t. Come in.”

“Jessie didn’t make t’em cry. They make Jessie cry.”

“Ssshh.” Linda raised her finger to her lips. Jessie had become her “buddy.” She was good to talk to unless she was in her defensive mode. Then she neither listened nor made sense but instead struck out verbally, sometimes physically—sometimes to the delight of the twelve- and thirteen-year-old boys who would see her on the street, torment her, just to listen to her ramble and rage and watch her waddle after them shaking her big fists, her fat arms.

“Do you want a pastry?” Linda asked.

“Um.”

“Okay. Sit down. At the kitchen table. Let me quiet the girls.”

“Jessie didn’t make t’em cry.”

“No. Jessie didn’t make them cry. But now Linda must kiss them.” Linda went into the nursery, smiled at her two babies who were lying, Gina belly-down, Michelle belly-up, next to each other, Michelle’s right arm under Gina’s head, Gina’s right arm over Michelle’s chest. “What are you two doing, huh?” Linda checked their diapers. They were both damp but, she thought, not really wet. She cranked up the musical mobile that craned over the crib. “Let me talk to Jessie,” Linda said sweetly, “then maybe we’ll go out in the stroller. Or maybe read a book.”

Back in the kitchen Jessie had already eaten both napoleons and the only cannoli that John Jr. hadn’t eaten earlier.

“So, Jessie, how are you?”

“Jessie good,” said Jessie Taynor. She had cannoli cream on her face. “Linda good?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I’m tired though.”

“Jessie not tired. Jessie never tired.”

“Linda get tired.” Linda caught herself, changed her syntax. “I get tired,” she said. “And sometimes a little down.”

“We go downstairs. Go downtown.”

“No. I mean sometimes I feel a little down. You know, sad. That’s when I’m glad I have you as my friend.”

“Jessie Linda’s friend.”

“I know. Mrs. Meredith ... do you know Mrs. Meredith?”

“Merra-dit.” Jessie Taynor smiled. “Big house.”

“Uh-huh. You know, sometimes I get tired of her.”

“She bitter old bitch.” Jessie laughed.

“Nooo.” Linda looked compassionately at Jessie. “No. But she treats me more like a maid than a nurse. I don’t really mind. That’s part of the job. But you’d think her family’d help more with that stuff.”

“Jessie help Linda. Jessie tell Merra-dit go fuck.”

“No no, Jessie. But thank you.”

Late that afternoon Pewel Wapinski knocked lightly on Linda’s door. Linda, Gina and Michelle had been on the floor in the small living room, Linda marveling at how Gina had learned to roll over and push herself against her sister until she was sitting up; and marveling at Michelle who still needed help sitting up but who, occasionally, bonked her sister with a plastic Donald Duck rattle. “Mr. Wapinski!”

“Um.” He stood with his hands behind his back.

“Won’t you come in?”

“Jus stopped for a minute,” he said. He brought his hands forward, produced a bouquet of flowers.

“Oooo!” Linda gasped, surprised.

“Happy anniversary,” the old man said.

“Oh, they’re beautiful. Please come in. How did you know?”

“Remembered it in the paper last year.”

“In the paper?”

“Um.”

“Oh. We must still have been in Boston.”

“Um.”

“Did you want to see the girls?”

“Yep. But I’m bothering you. Those his certificates on the wall?”

Linda turned. She had forgotten she’d put them back. “Yes. Some of them.”

Pewel knelt down, bent over, gave first his index finger to Gina, then his thumb to Michelle which she immediately seized and yanked almost toppling him. “Whoa! That’s some handshake, Missy.” He extricated his hand. To Linda he said, “Thank you.”

“For what? Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

“No. I got to be goin. Said I’d only stay a minute. I know sometimes young boys forget. Those are really from him. Jus through me.”

“Did he—”

“No. But he will. And he’d a asked me to bring em if he’d a thought and he’ll think of it later and he’ll be angry at his self for forgetting. Maybe in a month. And then he’ll ask and it’ll have been done.”

“Thanks so much. That’s so thoughtful.”

“Maybe you and the missies could come up for dinner some night.”

“Oh. We’d like that.”

It was eight thirty. There were no more knocks on the door. Linda was exhausted. She had nursed and changed the babies, put them in the crib, knew she’d be nursing and changing them again in four hours. Now it was quiet. The windows were dark. She did not play the stereo. She was in the living room. She knelt, got down on all fours to pick up the rattles and stuffed animals with eyes that shimmied, tossing them one by one into the old milk crate she’d cleaned and painted for toys. In the corner of her eye she could see the flowers that Pewel Wapinski had brought and her stomach tightened. She sat back on her heels, rocked forward at the waist, pulled her arms in tight, clenched her fist to her face. Tears broke and she cried, sobbed, her arms quivering. “Come home, Tony. Dear God, Tony, please come home. Please come home. Please. Please. Please ...”

Rock Ridge Veterans Medical Center—There is no time when one is heavily under the influence of Elavil, Thorazine and diazepam. No time, no space, no freedom. The orderlies call it liquid strait jacket. Tony is confused, cannot concentrate, standard effects of Elavil. He has been warehoused a week, no, certainly longer—he does not really care, standard effect of Thorazine. To think tires him, he is tired all the time—standard effect of diazepam. Tony too has come to call his “therapy” liquid strait jacket. He had been repatriated, almost, involuntarily, and this angers him but he cannot hold anger because of the ETD drug combo: 400 milligrams of Elavil each day, 300 milligrams of Thorazine, 40 milligrams of diazepam. One brother he’s met is on 800 milligrams of Elavil, 400 Thorazine. They sleep, eat, watch TV, nod off, watch TV. When they talk they talk of Thorazine, of their strait jackets. They do not talk about combat, about Viet Nam, about their service. This is 1970. If they speak of Marines or Airborne the orderlies take note, report them, their jackets are upped. They are not here because of combat stress. Posttraumatic stress disorders will not be officially recognized for nine more years. They are here because they are psychotic, sociopathic, insane, crazy, nuts. They are here because they are poor, have no jobs in the sour economy, have refused to hold jobs, are difficult, are irritants, are bitter at a society in which—if they’d only get off their goddamned asses, settle down, get on with their lives—they would be provided with everything, absolutely anything, status quo or counterculture or in between. But no, they have essentially given the finger to everyone, maybe given the ultimate insult, attempted to check out of this society permanently.

It is early morning. Tony does not know the time but the orderlies know, mumble quietly to each other about their charges sleeping and dreaming their Thorazine dreams, sip their morning coffee, read their magazines, prefer that no one wake up—not yet, the expedience of Thorazine, the warehousing of spirit and body by diazepam.

On his cot Tony is restless. His body is paralyzed, his mind is impaired, but the drugs don’t mask everything, don’t keep everything from the conscious or the subconscious.

He is afraid. He is afraid he is going crazy. He is afraid he is dying. His heartbeat is irregular. The orderlies have told him not to worry, they’ll watch over him. They have not told him it is another common side effect. He lies there not awake, not truly asleep. Night images splash his mind, sometimes dripping entire episodes of his life—the death of Manny in particular, maybe because one of the orderlies looks like Manny, looks as much like Manny as Tony can remember Manny looking. Except in the episodes. Then he sees Manny, sees him exactly how he was. Sometimes the images are flashes, the third child shot by the NVA, just a still photo in the mind, just the expression on the child’s face, then falling, Tony’s body arching, grabbing his cot, falling, the helicopter at Phu Bai, the blood dripping onto his hand as he reaches to switch off the ignition.

“All right. Let’s go guys. Everybody up.” The orderlies move through the ward, bang on the metal lockers that stand back-to-back separating two cots here from two there, an aisle between sections, on and on, ward after ward, but Tony is restricted to his ward, Seven-upper, they joke about it. Everyone lights up. Tony smokes Pall Malls. They are his one pleasure even if they no longer taste like Pall Malls. Nothing tastes as it did. He doesn’t know why. They are herded through the motions of daily hygiene and morning meds. Tony can’t shit. He feels bloated. His feet and hands feel puffed, numb. They watch TV. Then they watch more TV. And more TV. And they smoke and nod and on some wards they do talk but on Seven-upper they barely talk at all.

It is his fifth or eighth or tenth, he can’t concentrate, can’t calculate, session with Dr. Jonathan Freiburg. “I think we’ve been making some progress,” Freiburg says. “Don’t you?”

Tony nods. He is afraid to open up to Freiburg. Everyone knows Freiburg dictates the strength of the strait jacket.

“Tony, are there still people you’d like to kill?”

What kind of fuckin question is that? Tony thinks. “I killed enough people,” he says. “I don’t want to kill anymore.”

“And all the people you killed, you killed during combat missions, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. I guess. I told you last time that that Storrow Drive thing was an accident. I was responding. I was driving the ambulance.”

“Um-hmm. Go on.”

“I was angry at the guy who caused it.”

“Why were you so angry, Tony?”

“Because it could have been me. I could have been driving the car he hit. So I was scared.”

“Yes. That’s a good reason to be angry, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. And I answered a lot of other accidents. Lots of em could of been me.”

“That’s pretty frightening, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. I ... I wasn’t in control.”

“Go on.”

“Back in Viet Nam ...” Tony pauses. This was a bad subject unless Freiburg brought it up. Tony, even drugged, knows Freiburg can’t handle it, hates it, condemns him for it. His body language always conveys a don’t-tell-me-about-the-atrocities-you-committed attitude, “ah ... back then I was all spunk and courage but now I’m afraid to talk to people. I’m afraid of most everything.”

“What kind of things, Tony?”

Tony sighs internally. Beat him on that one. “Sometimes I’m afraid people can hear what I’m thinking,” he says.

“Umm.” Freiburg hums.

“I’m afraid the woman who dispenses the meds at noon knows I can’t get a hard on no more.”

“Hmm.”

“But the guys say that’s cause of the meds and sure she knows it.”

“Do you know that you’ve been on a reduced dosage this past week?”

“Me?”

“You haven’t felt it, have you?”

“No.” Tony immediately thinks about his strength returning but he says nothing.

“Tony, let’s go back to some of the things you fear. You’ve told me very little about your family.”

Again Tony sighs inside. Now I got this asshole on the right track. He has never mentioned Linda or his daughters, has said little about his folks. The not-mentioning has developed an inertia that has become drug-confused into a code of silence, a way to protect them. Still he is sad, not mentioning them here, or in the ward, sad, embarrassed, ashamed about denying them, denying the blood from which he’d come, the blood that came from him. Still, it is easier, better, less complicated, this way. “They’re good people,” Tony says. “I don’t want to burden them. With my problems.”

“Are you afraid you might hurt them?”

“Who?! My folks! Hell no. I mean, I’d never hurt em. I’m not a violent person.”

“But you tried to hurt yourself.”

“I told you before ...”

“Yes. But even if what you told me is true, I’m not saying it isn’t, but you said you let them hit you. You wanted to be hit. You wanted to be punished.”

“Maybe it’s because I should be ... I should of been ... I could of become, like, a doctor. I drove an ambulance. I took the EMT course. I could have stayed in school. I’m pretty smart. I should be a student now but I’m not. I’m not anything.”

“Good. We’ll talk more next time.”

That was it for a week. Gradually, meaning returned to time. The next week it was more of the same. And the next. Tony hated the place, hated Freiburg, the orderlies, the meds, the stinking TV up on its perch, the smell of the ward. But he kept that to himself. Because he also liked being taken care of, liked the rest from having to make any decisions at all, liked not having to think, not having to be responsible. And all those things he liked he found repugnant, and he found himself liking their repugnancy. When he complained about pain and tremors in his leg, Freiburg interpreted it for him as a “physiological memory of being wounded brought on by his reimmersion into a pseudomilitary environment.” Still he controlled himself, outwardly. Again his dosages were reduced. “They lookin for a maintenance dose,” the black orderly that looked like Manny told him.

“Maintenance?”

“Yeah, Bro. You gotta stay on that shit for the rest a your life. You crazy, Man. You know? You a crazy vet. You always gonna be a crazy vet. Except you take your three-a-days. Whatever Freiburg say. Ha! An I wouldn’t even get on that Harley fucked up on Elavil. You wanta sell it?” Then the orderly laughed. “Less, a course, you wanta keep it for knockin yerself off.”

Tony let the words swirl in his mind. Crazy vet. Crazy vet. I’m not a student. I’m not a doctor. I’m a crazy vet.

In mid-December they gave him a day pass. He and three other crazy vets went and got pizza at the small restaurant next to the inn on Main Street. They walked, looked at the Christmas decorations, looked in the store windows, ogled some girls all wrapped in coats and scarves and earmuffs, even went in and purchased small gifts for each other and for the lady who gave out the noon meds.

He had one more session with Freiburg. “Do you ever have nightmares?”

“Sometimes,” Tony said nonchalantly.

“You know, if you get up, take a diazepam, you’ve got a prescription, maybe walk just a little, you’ll be able to go back to sleep.”

Maybe if I ripped your tongue out, Tony thought. He smiled slightly. It was okay for a crazy vet to think that. “I’ll try it if I need it,” he said. “You know, Doc, down deep inside, I know if I apply myself, someday it’s all gonna click.”

“It will, Tony. For you I’m sure it will.”

At 9:23 A.M., Wednesday 23 December 1970, Anthony F. Pisano was conditionally released from Rock Ridge Veterans Medical Center on outpatient status. In his pocket he had a hundred-tablet bottle of diazepam (Valium), a thirty-tablet vial of ten-milligram Thorazines, prescriptions for more, two packs of Pall Malls, and a thousand dollars. It was bitter cold. Tony straddled his big Harley FLH V-twin. They’d repaired it before they’d shipped it to him, one more act of atonement. He cranked it a dozen times before it coughed, two dozen before it sputtered, started. Then Tony roared off. Being a crazy vet this was okay.

There was a time when I was ten when I wanted more than anything a bicycle for Christmas. It was a lean year in our household—1957—I think because Pop was changing jobs. Johnny had turned sixteen on the 22d and Pop had bought him a wristwatch with phosphorescent hands. The tree was tall that year, but skinny. I think Aunt Helen paid for it because Pop had decided it was frivolous to waste $4.99 on a tree which we’d throw away in ten days. Oh, but how I wanted a bicycle—a red Columbia like the one Joey had gotten the year before. On Christmas morning John and Joey and I rushed down—maybe John was becoming a bit aloof being sixteen and all but I didn’t notice it—and even Mark, who was only three and a half that year, rushed down, probably because our ma, Jo, had said something like “Nobody opens anything until we’re all there,” and Joey and I probably pulled Mark out of bed, but three and a half was plenty old enough for him to be rushing and excited too. And there under the tree were stacks of presents, square and rectangular boxes, wrapped, some of them, with last years paper that Jo had of course saved, rectangular boxes with shirts and pants for school, square boxes with wool sweaters that Aunt Isabella knitted and Jimmy and I wore ours to school in January and looked like twins and Mrs. Lusanti, our teacher that year, chided us and we both refused to ever wear them again. There were small packages, too. Red bags with pencils and erasers and plastic protractors, and each had a new pack of baseball cards and we immediately stuffed the gum into our mouths—it tasted like cardboard and felt like eating a baseball card until it softened and the sugar came out. Johnny got another big present, a portable typewriter. Joey got a horn and a newspaper rack for his bike. I don’t remember what Mark got but there wasn’t any bike and I was really sad, really crushed and after Ma and Pop came down I slipped out and went back up to my room and I started to cry ’cause I knew they didn’t love me as much as the others because I’d come so soon after Joey—he wasn’t even fourteen full months older than me—and I knew I was one of them mistake kids and that’s why there wasn’t a bike like Joey had gotten last year. A red 24-inch Columbia. Joey could deliver his half of the paper route using his bike with his new basket. I’d have to walk. And then Pop came up and he said, “Tony, come here.” I got up. He didn’t try to comfort me, he just wanted me to do something. He pulled down the attic stairs which were on a spring and folded up and most of the time you forgot it was there except just before and just after Christmas when we’d have to go up there and get the decorations out or put them away. “Come on,” Pop said. “Help me with this.” I was trying real hard not to cry because I didn’t want him to know but I knew he knew and that embarrassed me. “There’s something back up in the corner that I forgot to bring down. It’s under the awnings.” So I went up to get whatever it was and it was a red 24-inch Columbia and I wasn’t sure even who it was for and I was afraid to even smile because I was afraid it wasn’t for me. I didn’t even hear him come up behind me until he said, “That’s your size, isn’t it?” And I couldn’t even say thanks because I couldn’t believe it because it didn’t happen like I wanted it to. It hadn’t been under the tree.

He sat on the back porch, tight against the wall, shivering, teeth chattering, chain-smoking his Pall Malls. The night was clear. A fingernail moon hung over the porch and lumberyard, over the town and endless mountains. He was thinking about logistics, about infiltration, snipers, intelligence, was thinking about invisibility, how much and how long should he remain invisible. Then he was not thinking at all, not shivering at all because the diazepam was kicking in and accentuating the grass he’d smoked earlier.

Inside, Linda was finishing up the decorations, the wrappings. At seven and a half months Gina and Michelle were sleeping longer, giving Linda more time in the evenings, more rest through the night. They were too young to be excited about Christmas, yet Linda dutifully, carefully wrapped packages from Santa. She wrapped one for Jessie Taynor, too, just a cheap bracelet, but she wanted Jessie to have something feminine. And for Jo and John Sr. to whom she signed the card, “Love Tony, Linda, Gina and Michelle.” And to Aunt Isabella, Annalisa, Uncle James, Johnny and Molly, Joe and Mark, and Nonna. And to her own mother and father even if her father still would not speak to her.

Linda wrapped a present too for old Mrs. Victoria Meredith who’d fired her in October because Jessie Taynor had told Victoria’s son that Linda was not a maid and that Mrs. Merra-dit was a “fuckhead,” wrapped the gift for Mrs. Meredith as much for having fired her as for having once been her employer. Having been fired had made Linda available for her new employer, Mr. Pewel Wapinski. For Mr. Wapinski she wrapped up packages of comfrey tea and honey, new kitchen towels, a prism to hang in the kitchen window. Finally she wrapped one more present, just a slip of paper with three words. And she put them all under the tree and went to bed.

The fingernail moon slid to the horizon, hesitated in the spikes of barren treetops, disappeared into the valleys behind the ridges. Tony rose, stepped softly to the door. It was locked. He checked the window. It was covered with a taut, clear plastic sheet. He moved back to the door, knelt, felt a mat, felt under it. Nothing. He ran his hand up the door, across the top molding, down the far side. Still nothing. He checked the window frame, right, top, left, bottom—aha! Under the sill was taped a key. Very slowly, very quietly, he unlocked the door, entered, stood perfectly still. He could hear breathing, hear the creak of the floor as he shifted his weight. The nursery was lit with a seven-watt night-light. Light came through the doorway, illuminated the short hall and the edge of the living room. He stepped slowly, cautiously. When the floor creaked he froze, listened, counted to 120, stepped again. This to him was exciting, more exciting than anything he’d done in he did not know how long—a mission. He reached the living room, made out the outline of the tree, knelt, slowly unzipped his leather jacket, unwound his wool scarf, reached into his wool shirt, removed the small boxes. Two contained plastic-bead necklaces. The third a gold chain necklace with matching chain-hoop earrings. On the tiny blank card he’d written, “Peace on earth to men of goodwill.”

Tony stood, moved to the nursery, looked at his daughters in their crib. So little had he seen infants that at first he could not differentiate the scrunched up lump of one, the sprawling lump of the other, from the folds and curls of blanket and lumps of stuffed animals, then seeing them, he was shocked at their size, little people already. He imagined Linda coming up behind him, putting her arms around his waist, hugging him, saying, “They’re yours, too, you know. You could be here with them.” For a time he watched them but they did not move and Linda did not come. He crossed the small hall to where Linda slept, to where he’d lain that last night with the shotgun, the thoughts rushing back but now, awake, erect, watching, seeing Linda, he stopped the thoughts, stopped them dead, pushed them back. Now as he watched Linda sleep, made out the silhouette of her face against the pillow, the curves of her body beneath the blankets, the beauty of her one foot sticking out, that foot he’d kissed at World’s End State Park, kissed ... He could not watch her. Quietly, quickly, he withdrew—out the hall, the living room, kitchen, onto the porch, into that bitter cold, replacing the key, then just sitting on that top step, shivering, teeth chattering, chain-smoking his Pall Malls.

Christmas morning—It was almost eleven. Linda was beside herself. She wanted to call Jo and John Sr., call Mr. Wapinski, call someone, talk to someone besides the two babies. But say what? Say he’d come in the night! Been there! She wasn’t even certain. It must have been him, Linda thought. It scared her, someone coming in while they slept. “... to men of goodwill.” It sounded like him. She was behind schedule. Jo was making braciola, ziti, and chicken. Isabella was making a roast. Uncle Ernie, Aunt Ann and their three daughters, Linda hardly knew them, were coming from Rock Ridge, to Jo’s, for Christmas dinner, plus, plus, twenty-five or -six or -seven in all and Linda had only made two pies, and Oh God the necklace and earrings were beautiful but where the hell was he! She’d looked out the window, looked quickly out all the windows searching, turning back to check on Gina, Michelle crying because she couldn’t get down, no Harley, who’d ride in frigid December, except of course, he’d ridden all year up in Boston, no Tony, who to call, bother on Christmas morning—except maybe Mr. Wapinski—one more look and ...

He was on the porch, tight against the wall, his legs pulled up tight, his arms around his knees, his face buried, an old wool army blanket over him.

“Tony,” she said. He looked up. His nose was running. He looked very frightened. “Tony,” she said gently.

“Hi Babe,” he said. Then he cringed as if she was about to kick him, boot him off the porch, down the stairs.

Linda was dumbfounded.

“I’ll go,” he said quickly. “I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry.” He stood. He was shivering uncontrollably.

“Come in here,” she said. It was not an invitation but an order. She grabbed him, afraid he was going to topple down the stairs. She ran one hand down his arm to his hand which was in his jacket pocket. His hand was cool, not frostbitten cold, still, to her, too cool to be healthy. He squeezed the tips of her fingers in his pocket, did not want to let go. Linda did not know how to feel. Tony looked awful, drawn, pale. “Come in,” she repeated. “I’ve got something for you, too.” She was still holding him, still had her hand in his jacket pocket, could feel the bottles, vials. “What’s this?” She backed away, withdrew a bottle, read the label:

Rock Ridge Veterans Medical Center

Anthony F. Pisano

as needed to control anxiety

l0mg – 30

SK-Thorazine

(Chlorpromazine)

“Thorazine! Veterans Med ... Are, are you ...”

“Crazy.” He did not look at her but let her pull him into the kitchen. Gina cruised to the archway, stared up. Michelle was whimpering at the couch.

“No you’re not,” Linda said. “Anxiety reactions are curable.” She went to the living room, helped Michelle down, went to the tree.

Tony was afraid to move. “They didn’t cure me, Babe.”

Michelle crawled past her sister, grunted. Gina let go, took a step, fell on her bottom, crawled too, clucking at Michelle, both moving without fear to Tony’s feet, then rocking back, plopping on their bottoms, looking up wide-eyed, interested.

“That’s Michelle,” Linda said indicating the infant at Tony’s right foot. “And this is Gina. They’re your daughters and they need you. Pick them up.”

“I—I’m dirty.”

“I’ll wash them later.”

“What if ...”

“You won’t drop them.”

Tony bent, smiled, laughed a small laugh, let the laugh be stifled by self-consciousness. Still he lifted Michelle. She grabbed his collar, looked at her mother. Gina grabbed Tony’s pant leg, pulled herself up to standing. Now Tony did smile.

“We’re suppose to be at your mother’s ...” Linda began.

“NO! Ah ... I can’t.”

“Um.” Linda said. “It’s Christmas, you know. The necklace and earrings are beautiful. Thank you.” Tony smiled sheepishly. “I have something for you, too,” Linda said. She took Michelle from him, handed him the small light box. Then she lifted Gina. “Go on. Open it.”

Tony peeled the tape back as Jo would have, so as not to damage the wrapping paper. In the box there was a slip of paper and on it were the words, “All My Love.”