,” it read. “On the count of three ...” He began to laugh. “One, two, three!” And he clapped his hands. Gina hugged him again. “Now let me see yours.”HIGH MEADOW, THURSDAY, 3 February 1977—Tony’s thoughts ran foul. Gallagher was being a pain in the ass. Kamp was so stuck he could barely drag his butt from his rack to the shitter, much less work. And Van Deusen, though he was energetic and enthusiastic, was so scattered he put all his energy into going nowhere. They were all in their late twenties, yet all acted like pubescent teens. Worse than FNGs. Worse than cherries. Rawer than the rawest ’cruit.
It was snowing. They were supposed to be keeping the drive clear for the delivery of the slitter—that machine that could take a ten-foot length of sheet metal and pull it through its rolling cutter in less than two seconds. They were supposed to have cleared the barn floor earlier, too, but Tony had done it, seething, grumbling, cursing under his breath.
That was only the tip of the foul iceberg. On Tuesday, the Pisanos and Pellegrinos had had Father Tom down at St. Ignat’s say a memorial Mass for Jimmy, now seven years dead. It had not been like the one-year requiem. Only Aunt Isabella and Uncle James, and Jo, John Sr., Nonna, and Tony had come. When Tony called Linda, afterward, she told him she’d forgotten. But John Sr. hadn’t forgotten. Nor had John Sr. forgotten that Tony had “chosen” to live in a barn instead of with his wife and daughters. It had been easier for his father to accept Tony’s absence—his living homeless in California—than this nearby “nonexistence.” “I’m sixty years old,” he’d said to Tony after Mass. “Sixty. I never thought I’d live to so hate one of my sons. That’s what you’ve done to me.”
“Pop ...” Tony had begun, but he’d been overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by his father’s anger.
“He doesn’t mean it,” Jo had whispered to Tony. “He loves you just as much as I do. He just doesn’t understand.”
“I ... Ma ...”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Jo had said. “I don’t understand either. Linda’s so beautiful. But you gotta make your own way.”
“Get the fuckin lead out!” Tony barked at Van Deusen.
“Sure. Sure. Sorry. I was just coming back for a shovel.”
Tony slapped his head. “Geez! You guys got the tractor with the plow blade. He’s gonna come in a big truck. He’s not walkin.”
“Oh. Sure. Of course. Sorry.”
Tony sighed. “Look, Tom, forget the ‘sorries.’ Did you clean that section of wall ...”
“Oh! I forgot. I’ll do it in a minute. Let me tell Jer and I’ll be right back.”
Then: “Hey! Hey! I know you.” It was the truck driver. He’d backed the semi with its forty-foot trailer all the way up the long drive, up through the gates, as if he’d delivered to High Meadow a hundred times.
“Huh?” Tom Van Deusen looked up to where the driver was standing in the trailer. Tony, Jeremiah Gallagher and George Kamp had just twisted and rocked the box with the cast-iron base onto a skid so they could use the tractor to pull it into the barn. All three were leaning on the crate.
“No. You.” The driver pointed. “Yeah, it is ...” He pointed at Tony, leaped down. “Ay! Ay Sarge! It is you. Sargeant Pizo.”
Tony remained leaning on the crate, but turned his head up, sideways.
“Augh, you don’t remember me.”
Tony stared, searched the bearded face.
“Thorpe,” the man said. “I was a newby. Fuck a duck, Man. You don’t remember.”
“Jim Thorpe ...” Tony said tentatively.
“Yeah. Dennis. You called me Jim cause at Dai Do, Man, you remember that bad motherfucker, cause you said I ran like I was after the gold.”
“Shee-it!” Tony laughed, straightened. “How the fuck you been?” He still didn’t recognize this man.
“Ha! See, you do remember.”
“Sure,” Tony said. “You joined us ...”
“Yeah, right there. Fer all a six days. Until I got hit.”
“Yeah, that’s right, huh? I remember ... didn’t you ...”
“Just before you left I came back. Just before Loon. But shit. I’ll never forget you and Dai Do. Man, you saved my ass. Hey—” Thorpe looked around, “your place?”
“Naw,” Tony said.
“Nice place,” Thorpe said. The slitter and cast-iron base were off. He was ready to go.
“You remember Dai Do, huh?” Tony now said. Then to the others, “You guys get this thing in there. You don’t need me.” And to Thorpe, “Wait a minute. I gotta talk to you.”
It did not take long to get reacquainted. They had not known each other well. “Naw, Man,” Thorpe was saying. “I’m just a temp. These guys are so busy they picked up a few of us. But they’re cheap, Man. We got no bennies. And soon as they don’t need us, they let us go.”
“Maybe that’s not so bad. No ties, no hassles.”
“Yeah. I got no ties.”
“Married?”
“Separated.”
“Me too.”
“Yeah. I got a kid,” Thorpe said. “Down in Hagerstown. He was born crippled. Right hip was almost backwards. Left arm ... ah fuck it. I couldn’t handle it. Fuck em if they can’t take a joke.”
Tony chuckled. “I’ve got two girls. They’re okay. But I couldn’t ... Hey do you remember the dink with the belt?”
“Dink with a belt?”
“At Dai Do. At that hamlet that afternoon. When that mama-san and her kids got wasted?”
“Oh. Oh shit, yeah. You mean the ones that dink fuckin stitched up the back?”
“Yeah. I ... I been tryin to think, you know, about that time.”
“Yeah,” Thorpe said. “I remember. You were really pissed. That was the shits. Really a rat fuck.”
“Yeah. I think maybe I shot em.”
“You?!”
“Yeah.”
“No way, Sarge. Don’t you remember, you were down tryin to draw a bead on the dink with the belt but they were in the way.”
“Yeah, but I fired. I must a hit em.”
“You didn’t fire, Man. Don’t you remember?”
“No. I ... I remember hearin my weapon ...”
“Naw, that was me. I was across the trail from you. Like six feet away. I was behind that hump in the ground. I couldn’t see the dinks but when that dink opened up I emptied a clip like straight up. I figured it’d maybe scare him.”
“I thought I fired ...”
“Naw, Man. Don’t you remember Samuels teasin you cause you didn’t return fire and that was like twice in one day and him sayin, ‘Fuck the line of fire. Fuck the line of fire.’ I was going to pound his head because he got so annoyin with that ‘Fuck the line of fire.’ You were really upset.”
“Ha! Yeah, huh?” Tony laughed. “Yeah. ‘Fuck the line of fire.’ Ha! Ha! Hahaha ...”
Now Thorpe began to laugh too. “And Maxwell kept yellin at you, ‘What’re you teachin the newby?’”
“Oh yeah.” Tony was laughing almost uncontrollably. “I didn’t fire. I didn’t fire.”
“Geez, Man,” Thorpe said. “How could you forget that?!”
Friday night, 25 March 1977—Noah was asleep. Bobby was reading the local paper. Josh was on the floor by his feet. Rain was coming in sheets, hitting the windows on the south and west sides of the house masking the TV voices. Between gusts there was a constant tatter on the tarps where the roof was still open. “Idiots,” Bobby blurted. He sniffed, swallowed. His nose was red, sore from blowing.
Sara was watching TV. They had barely spoken all day. “Who?”
Bobby dropped the edge of the paper. He was angry about Sara’s low-level yet increasing bitchiness. He was sure it was because he’d said they didn’t have the money to visit her folks and grandparents at Christmas but she denied it, passed it off to cabin fever. He didn’t believe that. Her behavior fit the pattern of several case studies he’d been reading about enablers—cases where the attraction died when one partner, the enabled, began to expand, to become independent. With the Larson job completed, Sodchouski’s underway, and Marrion’s signed up; with the barn becoming a factory; with the vets cooking in their own bunkhouse; and with grumpy Tony, believe it or not, actually singing and smiling and doing the craziest little jigs, Bobby increasingly thought Sara needed to tear him down, to make them all dependent, again, on her.
“The town.” Bobby did not want to confront her.
“What now?”
“They want to build an eighteen million dollar sewer plant on the crik below The White Pines.”
“Doesn’t that make sense?”
“That’s more than six thousand dollars per house.”
“Something needs to be done from what I’ve read.”
“For that price you could buy everybody daily bus fare to Williamsport for ten years. Let em shit there.”
Sara clicked her tongue. There was no talking to Bobby when he was in this mood. She sat up. “Listen to that rain. I’m going to check the roof in Noah’s room. Oh! Damn it.”
“What now?”
Again the tongue click. “Another flea bite,” Sara said. “I can’t take this anymore.”
Bobby huffed. “I’ll spray him again tomorrow.”
On the stairs Sara covered her face. She was miserable, frightened. Every day she felt worse. Every day she tried so hard to be strong for him but he didn’t care. It was impossible to do anything, to tell anyone, to seek help. They had been so broke all last year and now, even though there was money coming in, she didn’t dare divert any for personal needs. Even for Noah’s second birthday she’d skimped on the party. But Bobby hadn’t noticed. He’d been off with the dog most of the day. Just a little bit of money, she’d wished, but now she just didn’t dare. It wasn’t, in her mind, hers. She wasn’t working. She wasn’t bringing home a check.
In the living room Bobby was brooding. The Soviets had arrested another member of the Helsinki Agreement group on “laws forbidding acts deemed to defame” the nation. In Uganda Idi Amin was waging a personal vendetta against half his people, and the bulk of American commentators were declaring him a nationalist, or at least asserting that we Americans had learned our lesson in Viet Nam and now knew better than to intervene.
The winter had been bitterly cold. In late February and March they’d been buried beneath nearly fifty inches of snow. Then a week ago it had warmed and the rain had come and hadn’t stopped, had barely let up, and in the back of his mind was A Shau rain, Hamburger Hill rain. He didn’t want to go out in it. He didn’t want to walk Josh. He just wanted to wait it out, wanted his cold to go away, wanted the sun to return, wanted to forget about Sara’s bitchiness. He fantasized about snuggling in a warm room in Rock Ridge with Stacy Carter. And too, Bobby had been doing almost all the labor on the Larson and Sodchouski jobs because Van Deusen couldn’t decide to work with him or with Tony and each time he’d come, he’d left to farm (and each time he’d started with Tony he’d left for the EES job). Bobby, simply, was tired. Stacy had jilted him but she’d never been bitchy. Had he played it right, he’d be with her.
The back door creaked, a gust of wind rushed in, the door banged shut. “Hè,” Tony called.
“Hè.” Bobby rose.
“We got trouble.”
“What ...”
“Down by the spillway. It can’t handle this,” Tony said. He was soaking wet. “It’s cutting around the side. The whole dam could go.”
“Oh! Let’s—”
“Kamp’s refueling the tractor.” Tony’s words came quick. “Can the van make it up the back trail?”
“Ah, maybe ...” Bobby’s body was adjusting, pumping, his tiredness disappearing.
“We need the headlights. Ya can’t see squat down there.”
“Can we deepen the spillway?”
“I tried kicking out the bottom board but it’s like ... it’s just rushing too hard. We need sandbags.”
“We’ve got bags. Two crates for terracing the vineyards—”
“Then let’s go.”
Bobby tied on his boots. Josh was up, excited, whining by the back door, his toenails clicking on the floor. Sara appeared on the stairs, holding Noah. “There’s a prob—” Bobby began.
“There sure is,” Sara snapped. “The whole room up there is soaked.”
Bobby gritted his teeth, shot a look of disgust at the ceiling. “Geez!” he cursed. “The dam’s going. That’s first. We’ll lose the whole pond.”
“It’s raining in Noah’s room,” Sara shrieked.
“Damn it,” Bobby yelled back. “This is more urgent. Do what you can.”
He hurried. In the barn he found Van Deusen with three shovels and one crate of bags by the door. He was struggling with the second crate. “Hey—” he greeted Bobby, laughing, “life’s a bitch and then you die.”
“Good,” Bobby said, focusing on the crates. Tony and George Kamp had already taken the tractor down the drive. Gallagher was in the tractor garage looking for a tow chain. “Let’s get these into the van.”
They worked quickly. The wind was gusting harder, driving the rain horizontally. They piled in, Bobby driving, testing to see if high beams or low gave better penetration. The driveway was soft, mud over still-frozen earth. Coming down toward the first culvert Bobby could see deep-cut gullies in the wheel tracks. He kept the driver’s side wheels on the crown. They moved on, hooked around the mailbox post onto the back, stream-side trail.
This was tricky. This was not a road, not even much of a trail. Tony had gotten the tractor through, farther than Bobby could see. Bobby immediately got stuck. He turned. Without him asking, Tom and Jer were out pushing, rocking, timing their heaves, and Bobby timing the throttle with the swaying of the vehicle. The van spurted, stuck, made three feet, mired, caught for a hundred feet while Bobby attempted to maintain momentum and Tom and Jer ran, slogged, caught up, pushed to keep it moving, again mired, again spurted until they could see the tractor pushing up a dirt berm below the earthen dam.
They piled out, left the van running, the high beams cutting two long cones into the dark. The tractor could not climb the mud-slick wall. It could deliver dirt to the base but they would have to fill the bags—wet, sixty to ninety pounds—then hump them up to the top. Tony organized. One man held a bag, one shoveled, two carried.
At first they worked quickly, Bobby virtually running the bags up, placing them along the eroding edge beside the concrete spillway. After a dozen bags he was exhausted. Tony took over. Then Kamp, Gallagher, Van Deusen. Then Bobby again. Fifty bags were nothing. Waves, spray in the wind, lapped over the grass-covered dike. They were children at the beach attempting to save their sand castle from the tide. Now they worked more slowly, more methodically. The steps to the top became a slide. With a bag on each shoulder Bobby fell, slid to the bottom, cursed loudly. “You can do it, Captain,” Gallagher yelled. Wapinski rose, slung one mud sack up, let it clump down, conform to his shoulder. With his right hand he grasped a second, swung it out, up, twisting it just enough to hold the loose end over his other shoulder.
From the top the scene was eerie. Below, the men worked back-lit in the mire and the wind-whipped, continuing deluge. But the top was dark, black. Pond waves could be heard, felt more than seen. For hours they dug, filled, humped. A single row across the dam top took three hundred bags, half their supply; took four hours, gained them three inches, two acre-feet of water. They were exhausted, becoming giddy, elated that they had thus far staved off the washout. The rain continued.
At one A.M. Tony grabbed Bobby’s sleeve. “Let em take a blow.” Bobby nodded. “We’re not goina be high enough.” Again Bobby nodded. He did not want to think it was useless. “I’m goina get the saw.”
“What for?”
“We can take some trees. Stream side. Woods. Clean em.” Tony chopped his hand down as if a chainsaw blade zipping branches from a trunk. “Then we can carry em over, lay em on top of the bags, put a few bags on top to hold em.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll have Kamp take the tractor.”
“No,” Bobby said. “I can go faster over the knoll. I could walk it with my eyes shut.”
Tony did not let the others stop but he reorganized them to simply filling bags, stacking them in the mud pit by the berm for later use. With a flashlight he set off up the back trail into the woods, surveying trees to be taken.
“Man, I don’t believe this shit,” Van Deusen said. He was squatting, holding open a bag for Kamp.
“Yeah,” Kamp said. “Sandbags. Fuckin sandbags. I haven’t even seen one since I got back.”
Gallagher piped in. “I didn’t even know they existed back in the World.”
“Man,” Van Deusen said, “I can’t believe it. I bet I filled a thousand a these over there.”
“Two thousand,” laughed Gallagher.
“Three,” laughed Kamp.
“Four,” said Van Deusen.
“You can’t say four.” Kamp flicked mud from his fingers at Van Deusen.
“Yes I can,” Van Deusen countered. “Probably five.” He hit Kamp in the leg with a mud ball.
“You said one,” Kamp said. He emptied a shovelful of mud onto Van Deusen’s legs.
“You fuck!” Van Deusen shouted, both hands filled with globs. The three of them were already soaked, mud splattered.
“Cool it,” Gallagher said.
“Fuck you too.” Van Deusen snickered. He flipped a handful at Gallagher, a second at Kamp, hitting each in the chin and chest.
“AH!” Kamp. “Take that.” Now mud was flying, Van Deusen was backpedaling, Gallagher attacking, retreating after he threw, Kamp crouching, filling his hands with good sticky muck, letting it fly wildly, not seeing Gallagher sneaking up behind him, suddenly feeling his shirt collar grabbed, pulled out, feeling a handful of cold mud drop down to his belt. He shot up, let out a loud gasp, spun to see Van Deusen smack Gallagher in the face with a mushy wad. Then Kamp and Gallagher tackled Van Deusen, dropped him facedown, kicking, clawing to get loose, all three laughing hysterically, Gallagher picking Van Deusen up by the belt of his pants, Kamp stuffing huge gobs into the opening.
Bobby ascended the knoll. The darkness was total. He could not tell if he were on the trail, was afraid he might veer too far to the left, drop off the cliff. Slowly, trying to speed, he found the false crest, continued up. It was black. He was lost. In his mind he saw an image of himself falling, cracking his skull on the rocks on the way down, hitting the soft ice, going under, being missed. He saw the missing, the wounded. He heard the groans of pain in the water-rush from the spillway, in the wind and the creaking limbs of the trees. He reached the peak. There was not a single clue to give him direction. The wind, rain, stream-rush, masked the idling sounds of the tractor and van. One foot in front of the other, testing each step before weighting it. He shivered. He thought about Sara, about the town, the sewers. From the peak every way was down. Had he turned? Why hadn’t he taken a flashlight? “Do it with my eyes closed,” he’d thought. Guess not. Josh, soaked, shivering, had deserted him hours earlier. Fleas, he thought. Fuck the fleas. They’ve probably drowned. Bobby purposely edged to the right because if he was facing the right direction that would take him away from the cliff. But what if he wasn’t facing the house? He visually swept the area around him hoping to spy a light from the kitchen window or from the barn. He saw nothing. Step. Step. Maybe he was going backward. Try to follow the fall line, he told himself. Step. “C’mon,” he whispered, “one little light.” One nice warm room, he thought. One nice warm Stacy. One roof that doesn’t leak. One vet that pulls his weight.
Then, like a miracle, there was a light, a moving light, and he knew he’d moved too far to the right, come too far south, off the back edge toward the drive. He knew his exact location, moved, climbed left, watched as the light proceeded up the drive. He entered the orchard now seeing the faint kitchen light, the barn door light, then the car pull to the house.
He hurried, climbed. Sara was on the back steps. She had Noah bundled in a blanket. Linda was in the car. “What’s happen ...”
“God!” Sara exclaimed. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Fine. I came back for a saw. Where are you going?”
“To Linda’s. The tarps must have blown off. Everything’s wet. Are you really all right?” She touched his face.
“Yeah. Yeah.”
“You’re soaked. You’re going to catch your death of cold. Is everybody ...?”
“Yeah. You should see them. They’re really pulling together. If the damn rain would let up, I think we could save it. To Linda’s?”
“I covered everything I could. All the blankets and stuff are in plastic bags and I put some stuff in the barn. There’s two thermoses of coffee and buttered rolls in the bag on the counter. And apples and bananas. We’ll be back when the rain stops. If you need me, call.”
“Where’s Josh?”
“In the barn.”
“Give me a kiss.” Sara came close, turned so Noah was on the hip away from him. She stretched but didn’t want to touch him. He bent in for a peck. She planted a wowzer. “Love ya,” Sara said. “Call when it’s dry.”
“Be careful,” he called to her.
Bobby got the saw, fueled it, added bar oil, started it in the barn to warm it. He ran around getting a backpack for the coffee and food, a bag to cover the saw, twine to attach the bar oil jug and the gas can to the ruck. He found a flashlight. The batteries were weak and he decided that this was a sign. He was supposed to cross the knoll in the dark. He knew the thought was weird, maybe stupid, yet in his mind, in his jumbling thoughts, he believed it was the only way to bring back the missing.
Downhill to the pond was easy; up through the first part of the orchard was more difficult yet he did not lose his way. On the knoll, with the kitchen light blotted out by the rain, he was again clueless. But he did not think about the cliff, did not think about weighting his steps. He could see Sara and Noah in the kitchen light. He could feel the kiss, taste her mouth. He had fallen in love with her smile, her dark eyes. She’d lead him, or he’d lead her, progressing step-by-step, perhaps better than many, perhaps more aware—what we have is what we want—yet still, step-by-step as if it had been preordained and thus didn’t need continual vigilance. He knew he could not think, ever again, about Stacy—not seriously, not in that way. He had made a conscious decision to love Sara. There could be no second-guessing. Bitchiness or not. She’d simply need to understand, to find out, that he had graduated from second grade.
By the first light of Saturday they had a solid tier of wood atop the first row of bags. Still the rain did not stop. By noon they had doubled the first tier and had added between a single-log second level, then, like beavers, they’d packed the spaces with branches and twigs, rocks and mud. The rain became a drizzle. Still Bobby worried: Had Sara, Noah and Linda made it to the apartment? Would the run-off continue to elevate the water level? Would the extended embankment hold? Tony, with the tractor, towed the van back to the road. He, Kamp and Van Deusen decided to break for a few hours while Bobby and Gallagher remained vigilant, reinforcing.
At six Tony’s team returned. He was in a good mood. The rain intensified. “Hè. Wëli. Call Linda’s. Call Sara.”
“Did you talk to em?”
“Oh yeah. Hey, the drive held. And we refastened the roof tarps.”
“Thanks. She say anything?”
“She said to give you a kiss. C’mere.”
In the house with Jeremiah Gallagher standing close, eating cold cereal from a box, Bobby called his wife.
“I’m sorry the house is such a mess,” he said.
“And I’m sorry I’ve been so bitchy,” Sara giggled.
“Yeah. This house would do it to anyone.”
“I’ve got something to tell you.”
“What?”
“Not over the phone.”
“Augh, c’mon Sar. I’m too tired for games.”
In a lilting voice Sara said, “You’re going to be a daddy again.”
He was down in the hole. It was still his secret. Daily he’d added to it: a water blivet, a few cans of food, boxes of pasta, a radio, batteries, clothes, bedding—immediate survival needs. He included long-term, rebirth items—corn, wheat and vegetable seeds, tools. He’d brought down medical supplies, sanitation equipment, books on farming and machinery design—“because the loss of life will not be nearly as devastating as the loss of knowledge.” Those had been Wapinski’s words in one of their b.s. sessions. But Bobby still didn’t know about the deep bunker. Tony included a reading text. He worried about Gina and Michelle. He wanted to impart to them, make available to them, all of humanity’s cumulative knowledge.
This, to Tony, was urgent. He visited them more often now; took them, one at a time, for short Harley rides; hugged them, kissed them, sang crazy little songs to them. Linda didn’t know what to expect. Was it too good to last? Tony took from the apartment the sketches drawn by Li, which Jimmy had sent. He framed them, put one in the barn, brought one down the hole. The worst thing, he felt, would be the loss of animals. But there was no room for species two-by-two. He’d further expanded the shelter, a second tunnel, short, only six feet, and a second tiny room. But it was becoming more difficult. By mid-May there were eight Nam vets at High Meadow. Dennis “Jim” Thorpe had come after being laid-off again; and Don Wagner and Carl Mariano. The place felt crowded—good crowded but difficult to covertly move tons of rock chips.
He secured a new shelf unit to a wall, then moved back to his cubicle, to his bunk. He lay down. A new death—the death of his grandmother—had triggered old dreams, nightmares. He understood this, understood the death of Maria Annabella, Nonna, was having this effect on him. But understanding made little difference. He had thought after Thorpe’s first visit he’d dreamed his last dream, suffered his last depression. He’d told the dream to Wapinski. They’d talked Friday nights for hours, like at the fire circle, except now on the back steps of the farmhouse. It helped.
“Savor it,” Wapinski had said.
“What do you mean?”
“Hold on to it. Try to be conscious of it. Don’t stop it. Let the conscious observe the subconscious. Let the dream play out. And when you’re back awake, try to immediately recall what happened.”
Tony shut his eyes, drifted, exhausted, slept, turned. Then it came, came as it had sporadically for months, came with flashes of light on the dark screen of his shadowed retinas.
“Fast!” he screams. There is no sound. He wants to lift her, lift the old woman, lift the mother, the children. He wants them to dart, to vanish. He wants the men down, flat, hidden. Flash. Gina screams. He can see her. She has frozen. Flash. More screams. Flash. They are frozen by the noise, by the strobelike lightning, by each other’s screams, shouts. There is no noise. The ground heaves. His belly—he is prone—jolts to his spine. His legs are splayed, flop in the tremors. There is no motion, no concussion. Flash. Blackness. Scream. He screams. They are prone watching him. He has frozen, erect, exposed, facing them, facing away, facing the noise, the flash. They want to advance, to save him. “Stay back!” He is vehement. “Get behind me.” Flash. Stitched.
He bolted up.
“I want to run something by you guys,” Bobby said. It was early morning. They were assembled in the big barn, ready for chores, for the day’s work. Outside it was cool, crisp. Inside there was the smell of oil and paint and glass cleaner. “Twenty-one percent of World War Two veterans were discharged because of combat stress. Some could handle it. Some couldn’t. That’s what I’ve been reading. All along the line there are gradations of handling it. We’re the same. Every army’s the same. And whether somebody’s got it really bad or just tee-tee, he’s got to continually deal with his combat experience. Always. There are some things that made it worse for some, easier for others. Guy who was eighteen or nineteen had it tougher than a guy who was twenty-two. Guy who saw multiple heavy contact had it worse than a guy who was at the back of one firefight. Guy who trusted his own values, who wasn’t ashamed of being scared shitless in scary situations, had cushions to protect him. See, I was kinda that guy. Maybe I saw a bunch a shit, but I was older. And I never thought being afraid did anything but made me properly cautious.”
“I went at nineteen,” Tom Van Deusen said.
“I was eighteen years eight months when I landed there in ’69,” Carl Mariano added.
“I was twenty-four,” Don Wagner said.
“Yeah.” Tony cut them off. “En daylight’s burnin. We’ve got planting to do. I don’t want the roots on those vines drying before they’re in the ground.”
“Aw, come on, Sarge.” George Kamp laughed. Ever since the sandbag party, he’d buckled down, had taken an interest in the farm, in Bobby’s fledgling program. “They’ll wait a few minutes.”
“I’m with Tony,” Gallagher said. “Let’s do this tonight. Bobby, we got concrete comin to Holtz’s at one and the forms aren’t finished.”
“Whoa!” Bobby held up his hand. “Ah ... thought for the week?”
“Learn something—” Thorpe began; the others chimed in, “every day to improve your self.”
“Yuho. And DAARFE-vader?”
“Decide.” They said in unison. “Act. Assess. React. Finish. Enjoy.”
“You got it.” Bobby turned, releasing them. “Let’s go for it.” The men rose, began scattering. “Carl, let me see you a minute, okay?”
“Don’t you want me to go with Jer and Don?”
“We’ll catch up to em. How long you been here?”
“Ten days.”
“How’s it going?”
“Okay.” Mariano dropped his head, stretched out his neck, turned his face sideways and up—a suspicious glare—the same habitual posture Tony had had.
“Are you satisfied with your work here?”
“It’s a job.”
“I don’t mean the job, I mean how you do it.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“The hallmark of a High Meadow job is quality,” Bobby said. “It’s absolutely central to our cause.”
“You goina fire me?”
“No, Carl. That’s not the way we work. Besides, you’re an independent contractor. That’s the way the place is set up.” Bobby led Carl up the new stairs to the loft and Grandpa’s office. Mariano limped. His right leg and ankle had once been shattered by a concussion mine.
From below Tom Van Deusen yelled up, “Bobby, should I go with Jer or wait for you?”
“How many guys will it take to finish those forms?” Bobby countered.
“They can do it,” Tom said. “But I can be working on the chaseway. You were right about his wife liking the way it looked.”
“Okay,” Bobby said.
In the office Bobby pulled out a file of forms, a box of labels, several ledgers. “One of our requirements here,” he said, “is that each independent contractor keep his own records. The jobs you work. Hours. Equipment you supply. You’ve got to have your own checkbook, your own tax file. You can keep them up here or in the bunkhouse. Most guys carry their checkbooks but leave their files here. Periodically I’m going to go over them with you. It’s completely confidential.”
“I don’t give a shit,” Mariano said. “What do I need this shit for?”
“Keeps me honest,” Bobby said. “Keeps you honest. Keeps Uncle Sam happy.”
“Pay me cash. I’m not goina file no tax return.”
“I told you day-one, that’s one of our requirements. Remember—mainstream. Within the system. No hiding.”
For forty minutes they filled out forms, applications for checking and savings accounts at The Bank of Mill Creek Falls, and, sketchily—Carl Mariano fighting it all the way—Bobby’s DAARFE-vader form.
Bobby added a seven and the letter P. “Then,” he said, “pick a new target.”
“Ya know, Man—” Mariano said, his neck again extended, “this doesn’t work for me.”
“Is that the truth?”
“What da ya know, Man? You got it all. Farm. Business. Wife en kid.”
“Yeah. You’re right. Except the farm’s not actually mine. I just have the right to use it. And that’s what I’m letting you do.”
“And I’m suppose to say thanks?”
“You don’t have to. It might be the courteous thing to do, but I’m not dependent on thank-yous.”
“You’re really weird, Man.”
Bobby nodded, pursed his lips, didn’t answer. He packed up the forms, including a hundred dollar check to Mariano. “We’ll stop at the bank on the way.”
“Goina hold my hand?”
“Want me to?”
Mariano snorted.
“Give me a few minutes,” Bobby said. “I gotta clear up some paperwork.”
“I aint gonna become like these other guys,” Mariano said. “They act like a bunch a brainless robots.”
“Naw,” Bobby said. “They’re just on the program. They’ve picked certain quality targets and have committed to them. And they’re enjoying the attack.”
“That’s not me.”
“That’s okay. Something I learned from Tony; I learned that self-esteem is more valuable when it’s tempered with periodic self-doubt. Besides, you’ve got to earn it. No one can give it to you.”
“I still ain’t gonna be like them.”
“You might be surprised. Quality’s contagious.”
Bobby knew it was working, but growth was again making money a problem. The vets were understanding, Bobby was open with them as to the overall financial situation. Still, to expand, to pay the vets’ room, board and minimum wage, both the farm market and EES’ clientele would need to increase. Nothing happens, he’d been thinking, nothing can be sustained without a salesman taking an order, without us selling our crop.
At this point, Bobby was High Meadow’s only salesman. One of his targets was enough salespeople to create enough business to support forty vets—a five-fold increase. With that thought Bobby had scribbled a letter to Tyler Mohammed Wallace Dorsey Blackwell. It had taken Bobby an entire month to find Ty’s location, a medium security prison between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Dear Ty,
How’s it going, man? Took me awhile to track you down. Guess they moved you a few times. I need your help, Ty. I’ll explain in a minute. First I want to tell you I visited your folks and your brother Phillip. Carol’s pregnant again. So is Sara! They’re both due in September. Man, there’s sure getting to be a lot of kids around here. Tony’s living here with me, though he’s been spending a lot of time with his wife and daughters. Anyway, Phillip and Carol are doing well. Little Tyrone’s almost five. Cecilia’s almost three. I didn’t tell them I’d gotten your address—or your folks. But if you tell me to, I’ll give it to them. Your mother sure worries about you. I saw Jessica, too. She’s getting very pretty. I met Luwan for the first time. I’ve been over that way quite a bit on business. Life goes on, eh? Anyway, you should know they all wish you were back here.
Now, I need some help. Remember the community I talked about. It’s becoming a reality, except it’s nothing like I imagined. We’ve got eight Nam vets living here on the farm. We’ve turned the barn into a mill—producing solar heating systems. Business is taking off but I need a good salesman. You’re the best I’ve ever seen. I want you to join us. Use us as a halfway house if you’d like. I’ll submit whatever paperwork is necessary but you’ve got to take the first step—find out to whom I submit, and what I need to do to have you released in my recognizance.
Ty, you know my business and military background. Most people’s lack of self-respect and their disrespect for others, for honesty, for truth, force us to seek out each other. Their attitudes don’t work for grunts. You once looked for me, but I didn’t understand. Now I’m looking for you.
Bob
P.S. If we could boost our sales, we could have a larger community.
“‘Oh the Thinks you can think, if only you try....’ Dr. Seuss.” Sara had handed him the book for the girls, had recited part of it to him just before he’d left for the apartment, and it kept repeating in his mind as he rode the Harley down Mill Creek Road, across town, over the new four-lane concrete bridge leading to the site of the future south-side Mill Creek Mall. He motored up 154 to Creek’s Bend, thinking now of Blogs blowing by, or was it Rogs rolling round? Think, Think ...
“Hi ya, Sweet Bumble-lee Beat.”
“Papa.” Gina ran up to him, hugged him. The late afternoon was warm, the sky still light.
“Where’s Tumble-lee Treat?”
“She’s up there.” Gina turned, looked up the back stairs. Tony followed with his eyes. Michelle was on the top step. In her hand were two papers. Gina said, “Guess what? We wrote you letters in school today.”
“You did?”
“Uh-huh. Read mine first.”
“Should I read it before dinner?”
“Right now.”
They climbed the steps together. Michelle was timidly waving the sheets. Tony bent, kissed the top of her head. “Tweedle-dee Deet,” he said.
Gina jumped up and down. “Read mine. Read mine.”
“Okay.” Michelle handed him one sheet. Tony held it at arm’s length, turned it, chuckled, “On the kwont of ,” it read. “On the count of three ...” He began to laugh. “One, two, three!” And he clapped his hands. Gina hugged him again. “Now let me see yours.”
Shyly Michelle handed him the printed sheet. Before he was halfway through, his voice broke.
Memorial Day 1977
Dear Papa,
Thank you for fiting in the whor. It is graet you din’t dy. I’m sorry some peepel you now dyed. Thank you aign.
Love,
Michelle
At the door, before she saw his eyes, Linda blurted, “Guess what?! Mark and Cindy eloped!” Then, “Oh Babe, you read Michelle’s paper.”