IT KICKS IN. THE dream, the terror. I see a mouth. I see the mouth the same way I see the tunnel; the same way I feel the chopper going down; the same way I see, feel, hear, smell Manny, me, my arms, his face, his chest. I see teeth, a slight overlap of the incisors. I see the gums, pink, gray; the lips, gray; the tongue. I see saliva, spittle, white foam at the corners of the mouth and silvery reflections off the wet chin. I do not see the person. I do not see me. But I sense the person, the hopelessness, the lostness, the shame at being worthless, at being a burden. I sense the befuddlement, the WHY? the HOW? the exasperation yet the lack of motivation, incentive, foresight. I am the mouth. I am a vegetable.
I do not know where to go from here. Ty, Bobby and I are nearing convergence, collision. I want to tell you these stories, ideas, events, theories, simultaneously. But that is not possible.
I did not confront Linda with the fucking like a bunny for the friend of Annalisa’s husband’s friend, but in my state of mind, of self-esteem, I believed it. Why the hell shouldn’t she? She was sensual, beautiful, and strapped to a lead weight—me. God, it hurt. I was raw inside, irate, fragile. Why? The base, the foundation that I’d worked so hard to rebuild, I let it be shattered by one sentence overheard. I was worthless, a murdering scumhead. I was not even worthy enough to pray Grandpa Wapinski’s prayer. Give me the strength and guts to try hard and never give up? Try hard on what? Never give up what? Worthless scum has no reason to be strong, to persevere.
Binford’s guilt therapy had me convinced I should die, rid them of me. I could not touch my daughters, could not hug them, could not play with them, could barely look at them. And if Linda was boffing somebody—probably the guy from Steve’s Lumber—could I have touched her? My mania returned. I slept in the barn at High Meadow, when I did sleep, on the pretext of needing to get in the expanded crops. I skipped out and drank, alone, at the White Pines Inn. I found Big Bonnie again, scored my dope from him, fucked Zookie until I thought my balls would collapse and I’d suffocate in her neck tattoo.
In June I received a letter from Rick. I don’t know how he found me. He was in school, doing pretty well amid the “influx of idiots” and the professor who wouldn’t “let me in class without a haircut. Oh, by the way,” he wrote it just like this, “they did cut my legs off.”
On July ninth, a few days after checking on the flag on Jimmy’s grave, after arranging with the Lutz boys for the crops, without telling Grandpa Wapinski or Linda or my Pop or Jo or Annalisa, I split, climbed back on the Harley, set myself free.
Free. I think of telling you of the homeless who befriended me. Some good people down on their luck. Times were tough. Some crooks. Some crazies. Some zombies. I think of telling you of the runaways—kids—some as young as thirteen. What’s this country coming to?! I think of telling you of all those things I saw, things I did. But why? It is only more of the same. More of the same when I was almost arrested in Montgomery, Alabama. More of the same when I ditched a chick and took her dope and dough in Denver.
Being a two-time loser facilitates being a three-time loser. By time four it was habitual, repeating as if I were strapped to a carousel in purgatory. Intrusive thoughts, frustrations, anger, drugs, booze, splitting, danger-zone, trouble, checking into the VA, going crazy because of untreated or mistreated PTSD that was rubbed raw by current events, by cultural misperceptions, by social ostracism, by guilt therapy and strait jacket cocktails. Then deeper remorse, additional self-incrimination, self-hate.
Why was my Pop able to handle what he saw and I wasn’t? Why were so many Viet vets able to handle their experiences? Why did others, like me, fold, crumble, give in, give out? There are many reasons but, to me, the most unkind booby trap, the most long-term devastation, stemmed from the liquid strait jacket “therapy” from the VMC, and that followed up by the acerbic ambush of guilt-therapy. I think I could have made it home had I not been so damaged, had I been left to my own devices.
Today I have a better grasp. I understand the booby trap of the cocktails—not just the immediate and short-term effects, but the long-term brain damage—the actual atrophying of dopamine receptors analogous to foisting Alzheimer’s disease on the subject. I also understand the ambush of guilt-therapy that became prevalent after the DMS III (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 3d ed.) added Posttraumatic Stress Disorders as a mental illness (diagnosis), and after it became perverted by a do-gooder system that did not—a system that set up compensation for failing to heal, and then only if one admitted to the commission of malicious atrocities against civilians or one’s fellow combatants.
A break. I get so wound up about this my thoughts short out, words are supplanted by anger, by fury—rationality is obliterated. So breathe with me. It is a technique Bobby taught. A few deep breaths, belly breaths, and a look about. The night is clear, cold, black sky and stars to the west and north; thin low clouds, and light, to the east. Morning is coming but that light is the false dawn. From up here, it’s almost as though the world no longer exists. It has been destroyed in nuclear war yet without TV, radio, papers, I’ve yet to be informed. The mall lights to the south come on at dusk but they are automatic and maybe even if everyone is dead they would still operate for some time. My fire is not dependent on them, on any of them. Burning apple branches mostly. Cleaning the orchard earlier. Habit. Apple is a hardwood but too full of knots for anything other than small sculptures and firewood. I toss on another piece. Glowing droplets rise against the black curtain of the sugarbush like inverse rain. I follow the riselets, jar the fire for a fresh storm. First by the thousands, then hundreds, then one by one they die out and only one climbs up over the crown, into the stars.
I came back in February ’74. Grandpa Wapinski was pretty angry with me but he didn’t show it much. His body wasn’t very healthy anymore but he had his tickets to California ready and he was like a little kid with a lollipop, those old eyes glistening. “Come with me,” he said.
“I came to syrup,” I said. “Then I’m outta here.”
“Upset, huh?”
“Why’d she do it, Mr. Wapinski? Why’d she file ...” I broke down that time. I cried and he let me cry. How could I have expected Linda to do anything but? She’d filed for divorce in January. I was out of my head. “Okay.” I finally got the words out. “I’ll accompany you.” I could not have been more lost, more lame, more in need of a shepherd to carry me home.