23

LITTLE BY LITTLE, SHIT everywhere hit the fan.

“Ohhah!” Sara entered, kicked the door shut behind her, dropped her book bag with sets of papers to be corrected.

“What’s the matter, Sar?” Bobby had rarely seen her agitated.

“I can hardly believe it!” she blurted.

“What?”

“Two of my students ...” Her arms shot out, palms up, beseeching. “Second graders! With marijuana joints! In my classroom!”

“You’re kid—”

Bobby began to make light of what Sara had just said. She cut him off. “If you ever design a town’s school layout, separate the levels. That’s the problem. With the middle school next door, all their problems become ours. Joints in second grade!”

“Were they going to, you know, I mean, second graders ... They wouldn’t know how to smoke them, would they?”

“That’s not the point. Oh! This entire town is out of control.”

It was only their third full day back. Problems had begun immediately upon their returning to the Old Russia Road cottage.

“Where’s Ty?” Sara had asked Tony.

“Ah ...” Tony had stalled.

“We’ve got something very special for him,” Bobby had added. “And something for you from Granpa.”

“But Ty has to sit down for this,” Sara had said.

“He split,” Tony had said. “He freaked out. Some people from your old office, Al and Jane, dropped by and they recognized him. He freaked out and split.”

“Aw ...” Bobby had opened his suitcase, taken out the letter from Phillip, the picture of Ty’s little girl. “I need to get these to him.”

And the next evening, the call from Linda, after Tony had left with the photo of Jessica: “He’s developed another pulmonary embolism.” There was frustration and sympathy in her voice.

“I thought that couldn’t happen with the heparin. And coumarin.”

“Well, it shouldn’t but it can,” Linda said. “His doctor thinks they can control it. He said it may not even be a new one but the first one breaking apart. It’s very small on the X-ray.”

Bobby put his hand to his head. “I—I can’t come back right now. I mean, I will if ...”

“I don’t think it’s that serious, Bob. But they’re going to keep him in the hospital until it clears up.”

Bobby stayed within earshot of the phone on the fourth and fifth. He read, watched TV, tried to think of a way to sell his crop, tried to define to himself what was indeed his crop, dozed on and off. On the fourth CBS News told of the failure of the U.S. government’s clemency program for draft resisters, and of a Khmer Rouge massacre at Ang Snoul, Cambodia. Little else was mentioned about fighting in Southeast Asia. On the fifth NBC showed aerial views of Phuoc Long Province and Phuoc Binh and warned of the impending collapse of that besieged city only sixty miles northeast of Saigon. Then on the sixth came the announcement of the fall of the entire province including the provincial capital. To Bobby this was startling. Until the day before he had seen no mention of a major offensive, or even a major build up. Phuoc Binh was a provincial capital, a regional center. Not since the Nguyen Hue Offensive in the spring of 1972 had a major city been lost—and that one, Quang Tri, was 400 miles from Saigon.

Public and media debate erupted. Bobby talked to his grandfather. The old man was again doing well. Still Bobby stayed by the phone, by the TV. From the seventh to the tenth all the major networks carried stories about President Ford’s Viet Nam “concern,” then his “consideration” of emergency aid to South Viet Nam, then congressional opposition to that aid and State Department doomsday scenarios if the aid wasn’t forthcoming. Amid the electronic reportage there was little mention of the fate of the civilian or military human beings of Phuoc Long—province and city—who’d been pounded by tens of thousands of rounds of communist artillery, crushed by a hundred Soviet T-54 tanks. And there was little mention of the three weeks of intensive fighting in which the out-manned and outgunned South lost 4,550 soldiers and were finally overrun by the NVA’s 4th Corps infantry.

On the eleventh Sara said, “I can’t believe it. They’re not going to do anything.”

“Who?”

“The school. These kids have the school board completely buffaloed. We’re simply abdicating all responsibility.”

“Oh,” Bobby said, “I thought you meant Ford. And Congress. They’re not going to do anything either. They’re giving Hanoi a green light.”

And that evening, like buckshot coming from all angles, “Bobby”—in Linda Pisano’s voice there were tears—“he had a TIA. They don’t know why he’s throwing clots.”

“Oh geez. I don’t know what that—”

“Transient ischemic attack. It’s an obstruction in the blood flow to part of the brain. He’s had a stroke.”

“Oh no!”

“He’s resting,” Linda said. “His vital signs are stable but he’s lost all movement on his right side. And it’s ... it’s too early to tell.”

“I’ll try to get a flight tomorrow.”

“Ah ... unless you can stay ... call his doctor first. I had a patient when I was in Philadelphia that went through this. She regained most of her functions but it takes time. There’s nothing you can do right now except sit. And he’ll need help ... Can ... can you get Tony to come back? He might need someone full time.”

More calls. Brian. Miriam. Jo and John Sr. St. Luke’s. And to and from Linda, again and again. The twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, on to the twentieth—Sara trying to prepare a nursery, working, worrying about Bobby, holding him, listening to him, talking, visiting her own grandparents and parents and brothers.

And mud! Mud everywhere. North Peak cloaked continually in cool mist or drizzle, the earth turning to mud through which Bobby walked Josh, “civilization” encroaching on “their” open space, the further expansion of North Peak CondoWorld, “Keep that animal on a leash.” Restless, unsettled, sell your crop, don’t leave me. Bobby slept like a turning wheel. There was Bowers left on Hamburger Hill, left wounded, the rain turning the hill into a snot-slick slope, attackers marching in unseen, he hiding behind the wall, the stone wall, the road, unseen assailants, mud, pigs, “You sound like a pig! When are you going to learn to eat?” Masked men probing, blood, the smell stuck in his nose, his head hurt, “This your dog? Nice looking animal. How come you haven’t been up to see me? There’s corn fritters and syrup waiting,” probing, eyes only seen in green shrouds, “I’m cold. God, I’m so cold.” “Next.” “And with 289,000 North Viet Namese soldiers in South Viet Nam, any emergency aid ...” “Next.” “But he’s still alive, Sir.” “Just push those brains back in and put him in the corner....”

Bobby was pissed. It was Friday, January 31, 1975. Tony had shown up out of the blue saying it was almost time to go syruping. “Look, damn it! I went down there three times looking for you guys. There’s not going to be any goddamn syruping this year! He needs help. I need help. He keeps coming in and out. He’s partially paralyzed and Linda says there’s a problem with fluid in his lungs.”

“Well, you tell me, Man.” Tony too was angry, defensive, frightened by Bobby’s account of Pewel’s health. “What do you want me to do? I can go back. I owe him that.”

Now Bobby was conciliatory. “I’ve just been wanting to get in touch with you. You don’t owe him anything. You don’t owe me anything. Did you get that picture to Ty?”

“Yeah.”

“Did he do anything?”

“He put it in his shirt.”

Bobby’s anger flared. “What is it with you guys?! Don’t you know what the word responsibility means?!”

“Fuck that! You don’t have a fuckin idea what we’re like. Not one motherfuckin idea!”

“No wonder”—Bobby could not have said a more hurtful thing—“Linda reinstated those divorce papers.”

Tony looked at him—stunned. The last strings were being cut. “Fine.” His voice was low. “Fuck you.”

Bobby louder, “Fuck you too.”

Four feet apart they squared off, heads lowered, teeth clenched, fists balled, breathing in long deep breaths, staring, trying to stare each other down, not wanting to throw the first shot, Marine versus Airborne, ready to counterpunch, to deliver the knock out, to rip out eyes, throats.

At that moment Sara came home. “Oh—” she was surprised yet happy to see Tony, “you two must be talking about the truncation talk.” She hugged Tony first, like a visiting brother, then kissed Bobby. “I’ve been listening to it on the radio.”

“What truncation?” Bobby asked. He turned on the TV.

“In Viet Nam,” Sara said. “They’re talking about giving up part of the country”—while she spoke she removed her rain jacket, put her book bag by the table; Bobby flipped channels trying to find a news program—“in order to defend the heart better. Something about a withdrawal from the north.”

“That’s Quang Tri,” Tony said. “I saw it in the paper. There’s only a pile a rubble left anyway.”

“‘... threats and scare tactics,’ the senator said.” Bobby backed away from the set so Tony and Sara could see. “Senator Kennedy,” the anchor continued, “demanded that the administration substantiate its five hundred and twenty million dollar request. ‘Once again,’ Kennedy told the Senate, ‘we are hearing the same old arguments and the same old controversies over the same old war. The lingering and bloody conflict deserves more of our diplomacy, and not more of our ammunition.’” The news topic shifted. Bobby gritted his teeth. “Nice way of saying, ‘Get stuffed,’ huh?”

Bobby became more antsy. He could not work, could not design. He worried over every dime, every wasted minute. He felt ill. Perhaps it was psycho-sympathetic. His weight loss accelerated and Sara became afraid for his health.

Tony stopped by in mid-February. He too was anxious. He told Bobby that Ty was cleaning up his act, getting straight, that they’d been talking about going back, together, but had decided to wait until March just in case they didn’t have a place to stay.

Then on Washington’s birthday, Linda called with more bad news. “The doctor told me they may have to take his right leg. There’s just no blood in it. It’s a truncation process,” she added. “You can protect the vital organs by eliminating peripheral needs.”

Bobby could barely speak. He gave the phone to Sara. “Have they told him?” Sara asked.

“Oh, Sara—” Linda, she’d been strong for Bobby, now she burst into tears, “he just wants to go home. He’s been pleading with them to let him go home to die. They want to put in a pacemaker, but he just wants to go back home.”

Sara too was in tears. To Bobby she said, “You’ve got to go back. I’ll be fine.”

On the eighteenth Bobby made arrangements to fly back on Sunday the twenty-third. He talked to Pewel on the nineteenth and the twentieth. Bobby could not read, could not concentrate on the news. Phnom Penh was surrounded but he did not care. He talked to Pewel again on the twenty-first and the old man reminded him that the next day was Pewel and Brigita’s fifty-second wedding anniversary.

On the twenty-second, with Bobby all packed, Linda called with terrible news. “He’s had another stroke,” she told Sara. “He’s comatose. They’ve got him on life support. I ... I know your situation. If you don’t have the money ... for coming twice ... he ... Bobby shouldn’t come. Grandpa could be like this ... he might not make it through the night but he could hang on for months.”

Tony came again, gave him “as a peace offering, Man,” a copy of the 27 January issue of Sports Illustrated, the swimsuit issue with Cheryl Tiegs on the cover. Tony was shaken by the news. The two sat in the mist and dark of the basketball court, killed three six-packs, talked about High Meadow, about Viet Nam, about women, children, cousins, wives.

“I use ta hit her, Man,” Tony said. “I couldn’t control it, Man. That’s why I left. I figured I’d kill her. I almost chopped my daughter’s hand off, too.”

“She never said ... did ... did you try counseling?”

“Man, I did that for a year. Fuckin shrink said I killed these kids and a mama-san. Said I repressed it and it comes outta me making me act like that.”

“Did you?”

“Man, I don’t fuckin know. But I know I can’t go there and do it again. I should go back though. It’s late but I could still bring in some sap. Time to go back, Man. Time to go back.”

“We’re goin back.”

“We’re goin back, Man.”

“Man, we’re goin back.”

“You shittin me. Sides, I can’t go back. I gotta go maple syrupin.”

“Syrupin?” “Wildman” David Coffee crawled over to Tony. “Syrupin!”

“What the fuck! Okay. There ain’t no fuckin syrup this year anyway.”

“Count in the Twenty-Fifth,” Frankie “The Kid” Denahee said.

“Big Red One,” said Sheldon “Fuzzy” Golan.

“One-Oh-Worst,” added Ty.

“Fourth,” said Coffee.

“The Magnificent Bastards,” said Tony.

“The whole goddamn Corps,” said Big Bro Boyson.

“How the fuck we gettin back?” Ty asked.

“Same way as the first time,” Denahee said.

“I flew over,” Ty said.

“That Texas billionaire’s behind it, Man,” Denahee said. “We’re meetin here. They’re meetin every place, Man. We’re all goin back. Goin back.”

“We need”—Ty turned to Tony—“Wapinski. Man, we gotta get Wapinski.”

“Who’s that?” Big Bro.

“The Captain, Bro.”

“We don’t need no mothafuckin officers.” Big Bro Boyson pulled back from the group on the rooftop squat. “No mothafuckas,” he repeated.

“Captain’s okay, Bro,” Ty said. “Saved lives, Man.”

Then aside, later, Tony and Ty alone. “We can get you there,” Tony said. “We just have to be cool about it.”

“You sure it was me they was lookin for?”

“Shit! He had all your aliases on the warrant.”

“I didn’t fraud no one.”

They converged on the nicely maintained ranch house on the quiet subdivision street in San Jose, California—not just the six roof rats, not just homeless veterans, but fifty-nine strong—men in suits and ties, men in worn field jackets and worn-out jungle boots, men pulling up in new cars, men who’d walked miles. It was March 12, 1975, Tyler Mohammed’s twenty-fourth birthday. Two days earlier the NVA had detonated their blossoming lotus in the vital Central Highland’s city of Ban Me Thuot. For two entire months Congress and the Ford administration had been battling publicly about aid to Viet Nam and Cambodia. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield led the antiaid fight stating that he was “sick and tired of pictures of Indochinese men, women, and children being slaughtered by American guns with American ammunition....” Eric Sevareid had reinforced this point of view with his “Death Rattle of a Failed Policy” broadcast on February 26th. He was by no means—in the print or electronic media—alone. On the ninth of March there had been a sudden shift in news emphasis—away from Cambodia, away from the aid debate, to the fighting at Ban Me Thuot. On the twelfth Bobby began his true reentry and reeducation into the realities of Viet Nam.

“Man, I can’t fuckin believe this.” Wapinski’s voice was low. He was in the corner of the living room in the San Jose ranch house. He’d shaken hands with the roof rats, was standing between Tony and Ty. Before them, some in chairs, some sitting on the floor, were forty other vets—and more were arriving, packing into that small living room—all talking quietly in twos or threes or not talking at all.

“Fuckin amazin, huh?” Tony whispered.

A vet before them turned back. “What’s really fuckin amazing is how those bastards have cut and run.”

“The dinks, Man?” Ty asked.

“Congress,” the seated man whispered.

Another vet turned. “There it is, Bro.” He raised a power fist to them. “Once you commit you can’t just cut loose and say ta-ta suckers.”

For a moment they were all silent. A few coughed. A few fidgeted. Into Bobby’s mind popped the word responsibility, the accusation cut and run. He wondered, How can these guys be responsible when there’s such a lack of leadership in Congress and the administration? Irresponsibility breeds roof rats.

“Hey,” Tony whispered, “any word on Grandpa?”

“He’s still in a coma. My mother and sister, my brother too—they want to disconnect him. Screw that, Man. You don’t just put somebody in the corner to cool.”

The meeting settled down. The host introduced himself and his Viet Namese wife, who bowed slightly, then immediately retreated to the kitchen. “There’s one hundred thousand of us meeting all over America,” the host said. “That’s the word. A hundred thousand, just like us, ready to go back. And things have just started. Plane fare will be provided for the first ten thousand. They’re still trying to put together the logistics and get a manifest of who’s ready to go.”

Again more asides. “What about weapons and ammo?”

“The weapons are already there. Waiting to be distributed.”

The host began telling people in front about his in-laws who lived in Tay Ninh. In the back another conversation erupted. “I don’t know, Man,” Bobby whispered.

“Yeah, huh.” The vet directly in front of him.

“What?” Big Bro.

“I want to know it’s organized, Man.” Bobby.

“Yeah.” A seated vet. “Give us our weapons here, and we’ll go.”

“How the ninety thousand goin who don’t fly?”

“Boat,” a vet farther in said. “I went by boat in ’65.”

“Give us ammo and weapons”—another voice—“and we’ll land a force of a hundred thousand American ex-military ...”

“Perot’s behind it, Man. He’d follow through.”

“Who told you?”

“Word on the street, Man.”

“Good enough for me ... ah ... long as we get ammo and weapons as we step on board.”

“Good enough for me, too!”

“I’m not lettin it go down the tubes, Man.”

“It’s hallowed ground, Man. My buddies’ blood’s there.”

“Yeah. Mine too.”

“And my cousin’s, Man.”

“Fuckin dinks. Worthless bastards. Don’t give a shit. They fight like shit.”

“Ah ...” Loud, from the front, a vet friend of the host. “I’d like to read to you some parts from these intelligence reports. These are dated January seventeenth and twenty-first and February sixth. Ah, you can all read em in full later if you want. I know what you guys are sayin. I was saying it myself last week. ARVN ain’t worth shit.”

Called from the midst, “Right on.” Murmurs of assent.

“Well, you were right. They weren’t worth shit. Especially if you saw em in ’65 or ’67 or maybe even some units in ’71. How it got to the point where regional forces, ruff puffs, Man, where they could go nose to nose with regular NVA units and kick butt, I don’t know. But it happened. That’s what I want to show you. These guys have been fighting their asses off.

“I didn’t know, Man. Nobody in America seems to know. It’s like from ’72 ... like the past two or three years have been a complete blackout. You know the reputation of the 1st ARVN, and their Airborne, and Marine Divisions, and their Rangers. But I’m telling you the ARVN 3d, 7th, 9th, 21st—even the 22d and 23d Divisions—despite Saigon—they’ve matured. Gone in and done the job. They didn’t give up. They haven’t given up. And conditions are much worse than anything any of us saw when we were there. They’ve done things like ... like the ARVN 7th—they had to make their own division farm to feed their people because aid cutbacks have thrown South Viet Nam into an economic depression. They’ve been fighting without gas for their APCs, without air cover because there’s no aviation fuel. Congress has been fuckin sellin em out. And us too! I don’t give a shit about Thieu or his cronies, but I do care about those people I trained. And I care about their families. Fuck the politics. If we cut and run—that’s the most dirty, filthy, obscene thing we can do. Listen to this:”

CONFIDENTIAL

American Consulate General II

SUBJECT: Debriefing (1830 hrs, 21 January) of S-3 Officer, Phuoc Long, escape to Quang Duc.

INTROUCTION: Major ------- is, as of this date, the last GVN soldier to escape from Phuoc Long ... evading communist forces for 18 days.

PLACE—Sector TOC, Song Be: 3 January 1975: Shelling of the city by NVA 130-mm artillery had been intensified during the last three days (this was the 24th day of shelling) to an estimated 3,000 rounds per day ... At approximately 1130 hours on 6 January during heavy shelling, the Province Chief with four bodyguards, plus the Sector S-2 and S-3 and 2 NCOs from each section, dodged the incoming shells and made their way out of the TOC. Their timing was essential as four T-54 NVA tanks had rolled into the area and had shelled point-blank the Province Chief’s house and bunker and had destroyed the Province headquarters building and had moved up the road toward the Sector TOC. The tanks commenced shelling the TOC and surrounding bunkers. Some RF soldiers had attempted to knock out the tanks with M-72 LAWs but the weapons were ineffective against the new Soviet-equipped armor. Maj------- attempted twice himself with no results and witnessed one 81st Ranger soldier sneak up less than two meters behind one tank and fire his LAW, also with no results. The soldier was so close that the explosion left his face a bloodied mess. Other soldiers were seen jumping on top of the NVA armor attempting to open the hatch and throw in hand grenades to no avail as the hatches were secured....

The man paused, flipped through the pages, said:

The NVA shelled the city with thousands of rounds ... with many direct hits and the delayed rounds had further devastating effects. Most civilians as well as military were living in bunkers during these days of late December and early January.... With no responding ARVN artillery (it had either been knocked out or they just didn’t have any ammo) NVA units moved closer.... The S-3 estimated that as many as 40 T-54s entered the city and crippled it.... Maj------- remarked that city had been out of food and water for days and he could hear the ill and wounded at the province hospital crying for help....

The Major continued by saying that he was not a political person, but it seemed that ever since the ’73 Peace Agreement was signed, the South Viet Namese have been losing. He added that even reduced US aid and support would mean the survival of South Viet Nam. He said, “Now I talk to you as a friend. So I feel very bad and believe that my country may fall, but I will die fighting for it. The problem I will have is to understand why it fell when so may Americans and Vietnamese have died for a good cause.” This reporter responded that I knew he was tired and had to rest, and take heart—everything was far from being lost....

In parting the Major said, “Only the Americans, the ones who have stayed and fought with us, understand the Viet Namese. Unfortunately, the rest of the free world does not understand, nor care.”

The man paused again, shuffled through his stack of reports and letters. “Here’s a State Department AirGRAM from the American Consul in Can Tho, dated February 6, 1975. ‘During the heavy fighting of December and January ...’” Bobby Wapinski found himself shaking his head and thinking what heavy fighting in December?

... most public attention was focused on gains made by the NVA/VC forces against GVN defenders. Can Tho 0021 related a few examples of particularly effective performance by the Republic of Viet Nam Armed Forces during this period.... Attached ... account ... of the December 6 defense of a village in Vinh Long Province by 60 Popular Forces and Rural Development (RD) Cadre against 200 Communist attackers ...

... We would point out the following. First the RD Cadre are not a fully trained, heavily armed military force. They are instead lightly armed, government employees whose function is to bolster civil services in rural areas of Viet Nam. Secondly, the reader should note the extremely limited but highly effective use of artillery during the attack. Finally, we would remind the reader that the battle at Hoa Tinh village is only one of dozens of such incidents that occur throughout the Delta every week....

Outside. “You sign up, Man?”

“Yeah,” Tony responded. “You?”

“Yeah,” Bob said. “But ... shit, Man. There’s so much happenin. Granpa. Sara’s due in two weeks ...”

“Yeah. How can you go, Man?”

“Yeah. Yeah. But how can I not?”

“God Damn It!” Ten days had passed. There had been no call. Tony had spent six nights at Old Russia Road—sleeping in the office-mobile, preparing gear, unbeknownst to Sara, for Bobby and himself. The South Viet Namese city of Da Nang, one of Tony’s areas of operation during his tour, had come under heavy bombardment on the twentieth of March, and by the twenty-first the handwriting was on the wall. Still there was no call. All that night, Tony had raged silently, had gotten drunk, silently, inside the car. At first light he’d taken the car and driven to the Marine Corps recruiting office in San Rafael.

“How come Da Nang’s fallin?” he demanded.

“Calm down, Pal.” The recruiter had just unlocked his office in the basement of the post office.

“Why the fuck didn’t they leave the 3d Marine Division there?”

“Pal, they’ve been on Okinawa for two years.”

“What about the 1st?” Tony had demanded.

“Camp Pendelton, Pal. Where you been?”

“Why aren’t they still up by the Z?”

“Here, Pal. Have a sticker.”

“Yeah. Give me ten a them.”

“Sure.”

“An ten a them. An them. An them.”

“How bout a cup a coffee, too?”

“I’m goina pound somebody’s fuckin face!”

“Take it easy, Pal. Milk en sugar?”

“Fuck, I shoulda stayed in. I shoulda stayed. This wouldn’t be happenin. I wanta go back. We’re goin back. We’re a ground swell.”

Now, at noon, back at the cottage, with Bobby and Sara nowhere in sight, he stood on the roof of the office-mobile screaming, “God Damn It! I’m a bastard! I’m a Magnificent Bastard. And I’m goddamned fuckin proud!”

He jumped down, peeled the back off another bumper sticker, carefully aligned it, stuck it to the center of the driver’s door. He stood back. The sticker said the few—the proud. There were stickers on every door, on the front and rear bumpers, on the fenders, inside on the dash. He’d plastered stickers to the basketball backboard, the pole, vertically on the thin poles holding the downhill fence. Long stickers: I’M A MARINE. THE MARINES. UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS. Round stickers: the Marine Corps emblem.

“Oh Man. He’s got these little pigeon legs. He’s so beautiful.”

“Kids are neat,” Tony said. He and Bobby were on the roof of the Chevy, toasting the birth of Noah Pewel Wapinski. It was late Saturday night, the 22d of March 1975. Sara and baby Noah were in San Martin Canyon Hospital. “You got a son, Man. Do right by him.”

“Oh yeah. You gotta see him. He’s so tiny. Only six pounds fourteen ounces. He was born at eight fifty-one. Man, that was the neatest thing in my whole life. I saw the head. I saw his head crowning. I was right there.”

Tony bit his lip but he did not let his feelings show. “It’s somethin, huh? Hey, how’s your grandfather?”

“Aw, no change. Linda said she’d see him tomorrow and tell him. God, Man! I could lose my job, my house, my life. No big thing. But I can’t lose my kid. I could make it or not, Man. Sara could make it without me. But Noah. He can’t make it without me.”

Bobby and Sara spent the 23d of March, their first anniversary, in the hospital with Noah. On the 25th, the day they brought Noah home, Pewel Wapinski, eighty-five and a half years old, stopped breathing and died. Lynette, Sara’s mother, came to Old Russia Road. Bobby flew back for the funeral.

The late March winds were warm, sweeping in from the south. Bobby glanced down from the cemetery on the east ridge. More than a hundred people had come. The Pisanos and Pellegrinos, the Lutzes and the women from St. Theresa’s Guild, and Father Tom Neiderkau. Bobby had not been surprised by them but he had been by Johnnie Jackson, a wiry, middle-aged black man, and his family, who owned Mill Creek Auto Salvage and Junkyard and who told Bobby, without elaboration, that had it not been for Pewel’s help, he would have lost his business in 1962. And by old man Willings and Ernest Hartley, the mayor of Mill Creek Falls, and members of all the Five River Front Families; and old Pete the barber, and Jessie Taynor and Mrs. Franklin and Mr. Morris ... “He helped me ...” “He laid out my store ...” “He organized ...” “My sons went to him for ...” “He once ...” And by Stacy Carter.

From the cemetery Bobby looked down at the house. It was badly in need of repair. The front porch was settling, the stone piers deteriorating beneath and the posts rotting at the base. The mortar of the chimney was disintegrating and several bricks were missing from the top tier. A gable trim board, rotted around its nails, had popped loose. Everything needed paint, inside and out. Down the drive, wheel ruts and gullies were about to make the house inaccessible, fence sections were down, the old gate sagged on broken hinges. And although some of the fields had been turned in recent years, the back of the high meadow was more new woods than grass.

The night before, after the wake, Bobby had talked with Linda. “You know, we’ve been married over five years,” Linda had said. “We solved the same problem a hundred times but it never stayed solved. It would be like it was happening for the first time all over again.”

“I know what you mean. Not exactly, but ... When I was married the first time ...”

“It’s like pouring energy into a bottomless pit,” Linda had said. “It just drains you faster than you can replenish.”

“Yeah. He told me how he used to hit you. About almost cutting off one of the girl’s hands.”

“He didn’t used to hit me.” Linda had looked queerly at Bobby. “Maybe he bumped me once or twice,” she had added. “And that thing with Michelle’s hand, he did that because he was really irritable. But it wasn’t like it was on purpose. I’m sure he didn’t know her hand was in the door.”

“He didn’t tell me anything about it. Just that he almost cut it off and that he abused you.”

“I hit him a lot more and a lot harder than he ever hit me. What was bad was we never knew who he was going to be. Maybe he was going to be happy and doing those little dances he does, or maybe he was going to be the other guy. Completely impossible. Or the quiet one, withdrawn then exploding. But Bobby, when I met him, and that first year or so, that was the best year of my life.”

“You’re still going to go through with the divorce, though, huh?”

“You can’t have a marriage when only one spouse shows up,” Linda had said. “You know, his biggest mistake was not staying in medicine. He had a real aptitude and he loved it. But he never believed in himself.”

Bobby glanced back at the grave. Buried, he thought, next to Brigita. The two people that loved me more than all the world. How hard it was to step away, to join those in the house. “Granpa. And Granma,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I didn’t come back.” Again he turned, then returned, whispered. “You’ve got another great-grandson.”

For a long while, after everyone had gone, Bobby just sat. Then he called Sara. They talked for hours. “God, Sara, I feel like I’m going to burst. I’m so full of this place and of Granpa I think if I don’t talk I’ll burst.” Part of the time she talked while Noah nursed and she put the phone to her breast so Bobby could hear the baby swallow. She told him all the local news except the part about Tyler Mohammed being arrested. They talked again the next day, the day Da Nang fell, and again the next. Sara told him about Josh’s acceptance of the baby, and about every burp and coo. Each time she ended with, “Hurry home.”

“As soon as the legals are settled,” he answered.

Most of the time Bobby was alone in the house, packing up perishables, or alone in the barn wondering if he should pack and send all of Pewel’s drawings and notes to the Old Russia Road cottage. Sometimes he walked through the orchard but he never made the circuit over the knoll, the spillway, up the west ridge to the sugarbush. Often he ventured to the cemetery. Linda came a few times. She’d arranged to work full-time for Simon Denham and his group.

On Thursday, April 3, he drove Grandpa’s old Chevy to the reading of the will. “I don’t think I understand,” Bobby said to the lawyer after the first reading. Bobby, Brian, Joanne and Miriam were present.

“It’s really quite simple,” Michael Willings said. “You understand about the personal items, what’s going to the church, what’s going to each of you.”

“Yes.”

“What he’s set up here is called a tenancy for life. And it’s conditional. Essentially, Robert, he’s giving you the farm, if you want it, but—”

Miriam made an odd hum, interrupted. “Don’t be greedy, Rob. Don’t be like your father.”

“But, Mom—” Bobby smiled happily, “I am. Like you’ve always said. I’m just like my father.”

“Just wait a minute,” the attorney said. “You’re not to make this decision for thirty days. With the weekend, I’ll give you until May 5th, okay?”

“That’s fine. I’m still not sure I understand ...”

“The farm, Robert, is yours, for as long as you live. Upon your death the ownership will be divided equally among your heirs, Mr. Brian Wapinski, Ms. Joanne Wapinski, and Ms. Miriam Cadwalder Wapinski. Also, the conditions state that you must keep open books, that for ten years, fifteen percent of the net profits you derive from the farm, no matter how that profit is derived, shall go to those here—five percent each. Let me read you a note that he wrote to Robert but that is for all of you to hear.

Dear Bob,

I know you will not sit upon your talents, nor will you bury them for safe-keeping, but you will set them to work for your good and for the common good. Take care of your brother and sister and your mother. Make the most of what you are, of what you have in your head and your heart, and of what I bequeath to you. You can do it, Robert. I know you can. Think of the possibilities.

Love,

Grandpa

Phone conversation, 10 April, Old Russia Road: “Bobby.”

“Yes. Tony?”

“Yeah. You gotta come back down, Man. Things are brewin. We’re goin back. Be here Monday. They’ll have details. And we gotta get Ty. We gotta get him out.”

“Out?”

“Okay. Over and out.”

On the sofa Sara was nursing nineteen-day-old Noah, praying through her exhaustion that Noah would fall asleep and for once stay asleep. He’d become colicky, had been awake most days nineteen hours. “Who was that?”

“Tony.”

“Oh. How is he?”

“He didn’t say.”

“I wish we could do something for him. And Linda.”

“Me too. Do you want me to take Noah for a while?”

“No. He’s comfortable. If he starts again, you could put him in the Snugli and hike over to CondoWorld.”

“Sure.”

Then on Monday, on the roof, sixteen-strong, half-sitting against the alley-side parapet, half on cardboard sheets on the tar and gravel. “Listen to this, Man ‘Rather than leave the necessary number of guards with the captured soldiers, the NVA shot them through the feet so they could not escape.’”

“What is that?”

“Classified State Department Telegram. Signed by the U.S. ambassador. This is only three days ago, Man. See. ‘NVA/VC Treatment of People in Recently Captured Areas.’ Goina be a fuckin bloodbath, Man.”

“Can I see that?” Bobby asked.

“Sure, Captain,” the man said. “Let me show you one more line. Here, ‘... recount the following massacre: the vanguard of the convoy stopped for the night short of Phu Tu hamlet, probably about the same time the massacre of the rear was ending at the floating bridge. About a thousand people near the front ... VC ambush ... The group was cut to pieces, despite its obviously being mostly civilians....’”

Bobby looked at the photostat pages. They’d been re-marked unclassified, but otherwise the roof rat was right. Bobby read on.

Ban Me Thuot ... The hamlet’s PF and PSDF, with no outside help, held out under constant attack until two days after Ban Me Thuot itself had fallen ... enemy tanks rolled in then and shelled the church to rubble. All but a few of the surviving population had taken refuge, and died there....

Later in the day [14 April], in a clearing, they were surrounded by about fifteen Motolova trucks that began driving at high speed through the crowd, the drivers apparently trying to kill as many people as they could ... fifty or sixty were killed....

Bobby held his head. It was nearly impossible for him to grasp the extent of the collapse, the horror. “We still going back?” The words came pained. He felt torn. Noah, Nam, High Meadow, tenancy for life, San Martin, roof rats, Sara, Saigon—where did his allegiance lie? He looked at the man with the documents. The others were quiet, still, staring at different angles into the early evening sky.

“If we could get there ...” Bobby began, stopped. “It’s late but maybe not too late. Did they really get a hundred thousand?”

“That’s the word. There’s like five thousand down in San Diego ready to go. But it’s falling so fast. Man, ABC reported like a week ago, that the war was already lost.”

“If they could hold,” Bobby said, “we could counterattack.”

“Yeah.”

“We all agree. We’re going back.”

“You got it, Captain. There it is.”

After the meeting broke up Bobby and Tony remained on the roof, spoke quietly inside Tony’s box. “I just don’t fuckin believe it, Man,” Bobby said. “That it could happen just like that. Like that.”

“Yeah. I guess it can, huh? But they’ll stop em. We’ll go. Launch the counterattack.”

“Hm.” Bobby fidgeted, dug his heels into the tar and gravel until Tony tapped his leg indicating that was a no-no. “Anything more on Ty?”

“They got him on fraud, tax evasion. I don’t know what else.”

“I can’t bail him out.”

“I know. We’re hoping they’ll release him on a PTA, a promise to appear.”

“Good.”

“I’m really sorry about Grandpa.”

“Yeah. He ... he was like my—” Bobby’s voice broke, “my dad.”

“Yeah,” Tony said. “I could see that. I been flippin out ever since he had the stroke. Really weird dreams.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought I was the only one having those.”

“Oh, Man,” Tony said. “I’m like haunted. Between this shit ... Man, I lay down and I see em issuing us 14s or 16s but we don’t have any ammo. And we’re moving up. We’re waitin for the onslaught. If they kill me, it’ll be the first time in five years that I’ll be at rest.”

“Geesh.” Bobby was shocked by the depth and intensity of Tony’s feelings.

“Hey, go home to your wife and kid. If anything happens, we’ll call.”

On April 17th Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge. At Xuan Loc, twenty-four miles northeast of Saigon, the ARVN 18th Division reinforced with a regiment of the 5th and a “brigade” of the Airborne, had been battling first two, then four NVA divisions. Four more NVA divisions were sweeping toward Saigon from the south, two from the north and three from the northwest. The government had all but run out of tactical air support and the allied troops at Xuan Luc were down to their last rounds. Above San Martin, in the Old Russia Road cottage, with Sara sleeping on the sofa, Noah in his crib, and Josh snoring under the dining table, Bobby flipped TV channels. He’d watched CBS’s report on the NVA massacre of South Viet Namese officials, and NBC’s coverage of Kissinger’s speech. To him, things were getting more and more disgusting. On ABC Howard K. Smith said we should give aid to South Viet Nam—the one hundred and first day of the ad absurdum and now moot debate.

“Sara, you awake?” “Um-hmm.”

“I think we should go back.”

“Hmm?”

“We could sell this place. If you don’t like it—after a year, we’ll come back.”

Sara sat up. “Bobby, what are you talking about?”

“I’d like to call Willings, tell him we’re going back.”

“To your grandpa’s farm?”

“Um-hmm.”

“Oh. I didn’t think you wanted ...” She leaned toward him.

“What do you think, Sara? Would that be a better place for Noah ...”

Four days later Nguyen Van Thieu resigned as president of the Republic of Viet Nam. Suddenly, it seemed to Bobby, everyone was saying we should never have stopped the bombing. Kissinger was still requesting U.S. aid! Congress was still holding hearings on aid! The political-electronic absurdity increased. The roof rats, on the other hand, dispersed.

Tony called. “It’s over, Man. There’s no place to land.”

Within days the local papers and local TV were covering the arrival of the South Viet Namese refugees at Hamilton Air Force Base. There was gallantry amid pathos. There was every imaginable emotion from anger and disgust to pride, from humiliation to indifference.

On the 29th, Bobby’s 29th birthday, rockets rained down on the airports and into the city and a massive helicopter evacuation began pulling the last one thousand Americans from Saigon.

Then, on the phone, Tony. “It’s over, Man. Mothafuck! Peter Jennings just announced, ‘Viet Nam is now Red.’ Hey, you know what, Man?”

“What?”

“It does mean somethin, Man. It means one fuck of a lot.”

“Come up, okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“We’re goin back, Tony. We’re going back to Mill Creek Falls. To High Meadow. I called Willings. Come home with us.”