After the Flag Has Been Folded (6 page)

Aunt Betty and Uncle Dode remember that day as well. They remember what a good mood Daddy had been in. They'd all laughed and carried on over a customer who had been in Dode's shop earlier that day. Daddy was wearing a pair of shorts, and his firm legs had pleased a customer so much the man started flirting with my father. Daddy did have really shapely legs, so I can understand why even a fellow might have been compelled to comment on them. Uncle Dode still laughs every time he tells that story.

Aunt Betty is reminded of Daddy whenever she flours and peppers pork chops, because in July 1966 she was standing over the stove frying up a skillet of chops when she answered a ringing phone and learned that her beloved brother had been killed in Vietnam. For years afterward, just the smell of pork sizzling sent her into a tizzy of tears.

That visit to Nashville, Aunt Betty and Aunt Mary Sue fed us cornbread, fried chicken, and lima beans and told us family stories that made us laugh. They remarked about how big Frankie and I were getting to be and how much bigger we'd be the next time they'd see us. They stroked Linda's brunette hair and said she had the prettiest eyes they'd ever seen. Then Frankie, Linda, and I played hide-and-go-seek in Aunt Betty's backyard with our cousins. And when we tired of that we chased after flickering lightning bugs and swiped at the mosquitoes biting our ankles.

We stayed outside even after twilight settled down around our heels. Darkness didn't scare us then. As children we welcomed the chance to run around obscured from our parents' ever watchful eyes. We weren't even frightened by the spirits of all those dead June bugs stuck to the bark of sap-blotched pine trees.

When it came time for us to leave, we said blithe good-byes because none of us had any idea that the next time we'd all be together would be at Daddy's funeral, mourning our very own war hero.

T
HE FUNERAL SERVICE WAS HELD
W
EDNESDAY MORNING,
A
UGUST
3, 1966,
AT
M
C
C
LOUD
B
APTIST
C
HURCH.
Mama was up at daybreak. I don't think she'd slept at all the night before. I could hear her trying to move quietly around the trailer, so as not to wake any of us.

Shortly before the sun scrubbed the sky pink, I could hear a pot of coffee percolating. I loved to watch the coffee darken as it thup-thup-thupped through the glass knob on top of the tin pot.

“What are you doing up so early, sis?” Mama asked as I wandered into the kitchen. She was sitting at the dinette table, smoking a cigarette, sipping a cup of black coffee.

“I dunno,” I whispered. Frankie was asleep on the couch. I didn't want to wake him. I liked having moments alone with Mama, without my brother or sister intruding. I walked over and stood behind Mama's chair and wrapped my arms around her neck. She patted my hands. We didn't say anything. We just sat there, both wishing that dawn would never break on this awfully sad day.

Uncle Woody and Aunt Gertie and their two girls came over at about 7
A.M.
Gertie offered to help Mama get us kids ready for the funeral. Woody was there to tend to Grandpa Harve. Everybody needed a bath. Grandpa would need a shave. Somebody would have to help Linda and me fix our hair. Susie, Woody's oldest daughter,
was given the chore of bathing Linda. Susie didn't like being given chores, ever. And Linda was a modest girl who didn't like other people giving her baths, ever. Linda started off the morning sore over that bath.

Gertie fixed us kids a pan of oatmeal. Nobody felt like eating, but we did it anyway. It never occurred to us not to do what we were told. So when Gertie handed us each a bowl of oatmeal and told us to hurry up and eat our breakfast, that's what we did.

After breakfast, we shimmied into cotton slips and those navy blue dresses with the red ties that Mama had bought us at Parks-Belk Department Store. Gertie and Susie worked over our hair. Linda and I both had short pixie cuts. Our fine hair stood straight up in the back if somebody didn't pat it down with Dippity-do gel. Gertie smeared our hair down well, then Susie gave us each a shot of hair spray. We put on our anklet socks, patent-leathers and then the little matching jackets to our dresses.

Once we were dressed, we sat quietly in the living room, watching the black-and-white television waiting on Mama. Frankie was the only one of us kids who'd ever been to a funeral before. He'd gone to Granny Ruth's service. Linda and I didn't know what to expect. Nobody bothered to tell us, and we didn't think to ask.

Mama came out of her bedroom dressed in a navy blue suit, with matching jacket, shoes, nylons, and purse. In one hand she carried a white handkerchief, in the other a pair of white gloves. Mama was a pretty woman, and I loved to see her all dressed up. She was naturally dark but she toasted golden brown during the summer months, so nearly any color looked more vivid on her.

But not on this day. On this day Mama looked pasty pale, the color of mold before it goes green. Pain hooded her dark eyes and drew her lips into a tight line. She had that horrified look cats get when they are tossed into a tub of cold water. I could almost feel her longing to run far, far away, to someplace quiet where she could just shake the day off.

“You ready, Sister?” Woody asked. He always called Mama Sister and always drew out that last syllable. Mama just shook her head, “Yes.”

 

M
C
C
LOUD
B
APTIST WAS
a simple country church, replete with heart-pine floors and varnished pine pews, minus any cushions. It could seat about 150 people comfortably and about 200 if everyone scooted together so that nobody had any elbow room. On a typical Sunday, though, only about 50 people turned out for services and about two hundred dollars were taken up in offering. I know this because on each side of the altar hung scoreboards that listed “Attendance Last Sunday” and “Giving Last Sunday” as well as “Attendance Today” and “Giving Today.” There was also a clock on the far left wall, behind the podium, so people could time the preacher if he got a little long-winded, as Southern preachers are prone to do.

On the day of Daddy's funeral, those attendance reports were nearly hidden behind the bushels of flowers that lined the altar. I swear every florist in Hawkins and Greene Counties must've run out of flowers that day. Stretching clear from one end of the altar to the other was an arch of pink roses, white carnations, and pink-and-white Stargazer lilies. Tucked into the corners and every empty space around the altar were wreaths fashioned in patriotic colors, red carnations set off with white lilies and red or navy ribbon. To the left of the altar was a wreath so large it looked like a tree of white roses. A taller bouquet across the altar was made from dozens of yellow roses. Mama always said yellow roses meant good-bye.

A bounty of flowers, from all those country people. I'm sure some families must have spent a month's worth of groceries on their tributes to my father. I can't look at the photos of those flowers without weeping over the good-hearted people who sent them.

The most elaborate arrangement of all came from Mama. It was as big as a bush and made of hundreds of long-stemmed red roses and pointy white spires. In the center was a big red bow. On one side of the bow four white plastic doves took to flight, and on the other side
was a flag. Traditional symbols of peace and freedom. But on that particular day, the doves in flight bothered me. We'd always been a family of five. There should've been five doves. Not four. Was this some florist's bad poetry? Had Mama told them to only put four doves on that wreath? I didn't give a care about peace or freedom. I just wanted my daddy back home—alive.

The church pews were packed full. A crowd of people stood at the back of the church and flowed out into the foyer, over the steps and into the yard. It looked like the Red Sea parted, only this sea was made of my father and my mother's people. Tivus Spears was there. He was my Grandfather Pap's brother. A bunch of Louvenia Kincer's kids showed up. Louvenia was Granny Leona's sister. Dale Fearnow, Daddy's best childhood bud, and his wife, Ruby, were there. There were townspeople whose names I didn't know from Church Hill, Rogersville, Persia, and Kingsport. Linda sat on one side of Mama, Frankie on the other. I sat next to Linda. Grandpa Harve sat beside Uncle Woody and his family.

Six young soldiers—four of them white, two of them black—carried my father's flag-draped coffin into the church. They were dressed in heavily starched khakis, red neck scarves, and green hats with brass insignias. A contingency of other soldiers stood at attention and saluted my father's coffin as it was carried past.

There were no fancy choirs in robes or special solos. Daddy's beloved cousin Mary Ellen, the lady with the beautiful red hair, played the organ. She must've played the music from memory, because she couldn't have seen any sheet music through her own tears. Mama grasped Linda's hand in her gloved one while the congregation sang “Rock of Ages.” She kept reaching up, wiping away tears, but Mama wasn't sobbing in hysterics or anything like that. Nobody was. There was simply a constant sound of muffled weeping from throughout the church. I can't remember anything Preacher Jinks or anybody else said about Daddy at the funeral.

Echoes from the battlefields of Vietnam's Central Highlands settled
into the foothills of Tennessee's Smoky Mountains that morning. It was the sound of a shattered, shell-shocked people wandering helplessly, hopelessly, searching for a comfort that could not, would not be found. I didn't know it then, but my father's death had intricately linked the mountain people of these two countries together in a spiritual way that had nothing to do with churches and preachers and traditional hymns but had everything to do with blood sacrifice.

Shortly after the congregation opened up their hymnals and sang “In the Garden,” Granny Leona passed out. She was sitting behind us, so I didn't see her collapse, but I heard the commotion. A couple of people gasped. Somebody said, “I've got her.” Linda, Frankie, and I turned to see someone carrying Granny out of the church. For the rest of the day her sons carried her, lifting her by the elbows or scooping her up into their arms. The family could see that Granny was really sick and needed medical attention, but she absolutely refused to go to the hospital, and everybody knew better than to try and argue with her. There was no sense upsetting her further, so they put her in the car for the trip to Greeneville.

 

T
HE FUNERAL PROCESSION
from McCloud Baptist Church to Andrew Johnson National Cemetery in Greeneville was grueling for everyone. The two-lane road was nothing but S curves snapped together. Greeneville was a good piece up the road from McCloud, about forty minutes if you're driving regular speeds, much longer when police escort is leading you along. Mama, Frankie, Linda, and I rode in one of Nash-Wilson's long shiny black cars, following the hearse that held Daddy's casket. Ahead of the hearse were the flashing lights of police cars and military escorts, and following behind us were long, long miles of cars and trucks, every single one of them with their headlights switched on.

Linda got violently sick on the ride. Without any forewarning, she bent over the floor of the limo and threw up that oatmeal Aunt Gertie had fixed for breakfast. When she leaned back against the seat, her
bangs were matted into sharp pencils across her forehead. Her face was white as a summer cloud, and her dark eyes looked like sinker holes. Mama pulled a handful of Kleenex out of her pocketbook, placed a couple over the upchuck on the floorboard, and began to wipe Linda's face with the others. “This is too much for her,” Mama said to no one in particular.

Frankie and I didn't dare say a word. We just looked at each other in that knowing way siblings do when they realize the whole world has gone topsy-turvy. Mama reached over and rolled the windows down halfway, hoping the fresh air would ease Linda's tummy ache.

Looking out, we saw farmers standing over hoes in their tobacco fields remove their straw or felt hats and place them over their hearts out of respect for our daddy. Black boys pushing grocery carts and women with kerchiefs tied around their heads chasing after toddlers stopped flat in their steps and bowed their heads for us. Old men and old women sitting in front-porch rockers rose to their feet and stared at us as if we were royalty come to pay them an unexpected visit. Merchants came out of their five-and-dimes and stood under the flags hanging outside their doors. Some saluted as we rode by. Even the cattle and horses seemed to be staring at us. There was no sound, just the rush of wind as we passed by a world that had stopped living for a moment, in a show of respect for a fallen soldier and his grieving family.

The fresh air didn't help Linda much. Mama instructed the driver to pull over. The narrow roadway didn't have much of a shoulder, but he pulled off anyway, and the cars behind us followed suit. Mama opened the door and, taking Linda by the hand, helped her lean out. Linda threw up again and again and again. Uncle Woody ran up to the car to see if he could help. “Is she carsick?” Woody asked Mama.

“I don't know,” Mama said.

“Poor thing,” Woody said, offering Mama his handkerchief.

And thus the slow trip to Greeneville was made even more nerve-wracking as the limo driver made several more stops along the route
so Linda could heave up a bowl of oatmeal that seemed to keep replicating itself the way the loaves and fishes did when Jesus fed the multitudes.

Finally, as the noon sun blistered the sky and boiled the sap in the pine trees, we pulled past the wrought-iron gates of Andrew Johnson National Cemetery. On the crest of the hill, a flag the size of a couch throw flapped in the hot breeze. Off to the left of the flagpole stood a half dozen soldiers with guns strapped to their shoulders. They had on white gloves and patent-leather shoes.

A set of stairs led down the hill, past row after row of granite tombstones, each one arched at the top and many with crosses etched in them. About halfway down the stairs, a tent was pitched over a big earthen hole that looked ever so much like one of those fire pits our Filipino neighbors used to roast pigs in on Oahu.

The man who was assigned to be Mama's military escort led her by the elbow down the stairs. Linda was walking beside Mama. Frankie and I followed close behind. Then came Uncle Woody and his family. Grandpa Harve didn't come to the grave service; he couldn't have walked all those stairs. Somebody brought Granny Leona in and sat her in one of the folding chairs. Pap was there, too, right beside her. The preacher waited until all the people were gathered on the hillside, and the soldiers heaved Daddy's flag-draped coffin onto a makeshift frame hovering over the pit before he cracked open his Bible and began reading.

I don't have a clue what Scriptures the preacher read. I never looked up at him. My eyes were down as I stared at the hole at my feet, scared to death and so very, very sad that these soldiers were about to plop my daddy into the bowels of the earth. Frankie was crying. Mama put her arm around his shoulders. Seeing the tears fall from Frankie's chin made me cry all the more, but I tried to remember what Daddy said about not upsetting Mama, so I wept quietly, trying my best to swallow as much bitter water as I could. Mama was constantly wiping at her own tears.

Linda had stopped throwing up, but she looked downright pitiful. Her pixie cut was like molten wax on her scalp. Her sunken eyes were pools of muddy water, and steady streams ran down her face. She kept wiping her nose with the back of her hand. All three of us kids shuddered when the soldiers standing on the hill behind us fired off their 21-gun salute. I got chicken skin, goose bumps all over, and my stomach ached clear through to my backbone. I scrunched in closer to Mama. She was gnawing on her lower lip, a nervous habit she still indulges whenever she's pondering a troubling situation.