Bayview Heights Trilogy (21 page)

Jones grinned. “How long you there?”

“Just a little under two years. I was among
the last wave sent.”

“You drafted?”

Mitch shook his head. “I enlisted.” He held
up the book. “Just like Richie...”

“Why?” Mike Youngblood asked.

Mitch stared at him. “Because I really
believed it was the right thing to do.” He glanced around and took
another deep breath. “It wasn’t.”

Again no one spoke. Then Tara asked, “Why,
Captain?”

“Because fifty-eight thousand men came back
in body bags in ten years. I’m not sure anything can justify
that.”

Brenda Uter raised her hand. “But we had to
protect them from communism, didn’t we?”

Mitch shook his head. “We moved in on a bunch
of farmers who just wanted to farm. We had no right to do it, and
in the end, we lost, anyway.”

“Captain, you ever get wounded?” Arga wanted
to know.

“Yeah, twice.”

“How?”

Mitch reached up and rubbed his shoulder. “A
cherry didn’t follow orders?”

“A cherry?”

Mitch reddened. “Ah, a new guy. A rookie
who’d just gotten there.”

“Hey,” Arga said. “Did they call ‘em cherries
because they were virg—”

“Yes, that’s why.” Mitch smiled. “Anyway, we
were laying low in the field, waiting out Charlie. It was dusk.
There was a noise fifty yards away—the VC did that intentionally to
draw us out—and the new guy opened fire. He gave away our position
and several men were wounded. I was evac-ed out for a shoulder
injury and came back in a month.”

“Hey, meet any bad women in the hospital?”
Don Peterson, the lady’s man, asked.

Mitch smiled weakly at Peterson. “Yeah, a few
pretty nurses.”

The tension eased somewhat at the joking,
though Cassie was still holding her breath.

“How about the other time?” Tara asked.

“I got some bad burns.”

“How?”

Mitch rolled his eyes. “Because I was
stupid.”

“What happened?” Amy asked.

All the kids had straightened up and were
hanging on to Mitch’s words.

“We were burning brush with gasoline. I was
in charge. Again, a new guy couldn’t get it to catch, so I got p— I
got mad and took a can of gasoline, wet down the area. Just as I
did, I spied a spark out of the corner of my eye. I dived out, but
it was too late.”

Cassie listened in awe and in horror as Mitch
told about the extensive burns he’d gotten as a result of the
blowup, which eventually sent him home. “Japan was the burn center
for all of Southeast Asia. They bandaged me up in the field. But by
the time we got to Japan, the bandages had stuck to what was left
of my skin. The doctor told me he’d remove them, or I could do it
myself. It took four hours for me to get them off in the shower. By
the end of it, I was literally banging my head against the wall. I
wanted to die.”

Cassie shivered. Somehow people back home now
only thought about the mental and emotional ramifications of that
era. She looked at his hands. “Did you get skin grafts?”

“No. The skin grew back.”

“You ever kill anybody?” Jen asked.

He nodded.

“How many?”

“Too many.”

“You ever save anybody?” Nikki looked at him
with youthful hope and optimism in her eyes.

It was the first time Mitch smiled.
“Yeah.”

“What happened?”

“It was October ‘74. We were crossing a
two-foot-high, dried-up rice paddy. The VC open fired on us, and my
whole squad dived back for the jungle. All but five of us made it.
The Captain asked for volunteers to go out into the paddy to see
where the missing men were, if they were alive.”

“Why didn’t you guys just run?” Som asked.
She’d been withdrawn and quiet during a lot of this unit. Cassie
had discussed her feelings about Vietnam before the unit started,
and Som had seemed okay with it, but Cassie worried about her.

“We didn’t leave our buddies.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, I volunteered to go. I crawled out
on my belly with an M-16 on my back and a revolver in my boot. I
found the men two-thirds of the way out in a small ravine.”

“Anybody dead?” Youngblood asked.

“No, all five were alive. But the oddest
thing had happened. One guy had his helmet on and a stray bullet
had hit the helmet, circled around inside the lining on the rim and
came out the other side.”

“Nah, that ain’t true,” Arga said.

“It is. I wouldn’t have believed it if I
hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”

“Finish the story, Mitch,” Cassie said,
anxious to hear something good. “What happened with the
rescue?”

“The guys were alive, but two had sunken
chest wounds, which are the worst you can get—it means the lungs
are collapsed. I crawled back to the squad to tell the captain.
While he called for a chopper, I got temporary medical supplies and
went back out. I doctored ‘em up as much as I could, then came
back, waited for the rescue team to arrive and led them out to get
the men.”

Peterson shook his head. “You went out and
back three times?”

“Yeah.”

“Under fire?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You nuts?”

Brenda said, “No, stupid. He’s a hero.”

Mitch shook his head. “No, Brenda, I’m not. I
did horrible things.”

Again the silence. And the stillness. No one
asked him what
horrible things
he’d done.

“You get any medals?” Amy Anderson asked,
breaking the tension.

“I got the Silver Star for that rescue.”

“Any others?”

“A Purple Heart for the first injury.”

“Captain?” Jen asked. “Would you bring them
in so we could see ‘em?”

“I, ah, don’t have them. Once, in a fit of
rage, I threw them in the garbage. My brother tried to salvage
them. I stopped him.”

Eleven faces studied Mitch.

“But back to Nikki’s dad,” he said. “He
probably had these experiences, too.”

Nikki nodded. “He has a Purple Heart and a
Bronze Star Medal.”

“So he did good things over there. Coming
back, though, it was different. Sometimes it was impossible to live
with the horror you’d seen—or done.”

“How do you live with it?” Cassie asked.

Mitch started to speak when the door from
Zoe’s classroom opened. “Sorry, Cassie, this mod has been over for
five minutes. Your students are supposed to come to me for science
and you get my tenth-graders now.”

“No fair.”

“We wanna stay.”

“I wanna know more.”

All the kids voiced their disapproval.

Cassie stood. “Sorry guys, it’s time to go.
Besides, I think Captain Lansing could use a break.”

“You be back next week?” Som asked.

“Yeah, I will.”

Jones went over and held out his hand. “Good
to know you, Captain,” he said.

Mitch smiled and shook hands. A couple of
other boys followed suit.

Nikki was the last to face him. In her quiet,
soft way, she looked up at him and touched his arm. Mitch smiled
back and squeezed her shoulder. Cassie’s eyes stung.

When the class was gone and the tenth-graders
were writing in their journals, she walked Mitch out into the hall.
“Wow,” she said, peering up at him. There were lines of pain and
fatigue etched on his forehead and bracketing his mouth. “That’s
quite a secret you’ve been keeping.”

Mitch leaned against the wall. “Johnny,
too.”

“Yeah. All these years, I never knew.”

“He’s a complicated kid.”

“And you’re a complicated man.” She reached
up and laid her palm on his cheek. “A special one.”

He leaned into it for a minute. “I’ll let you
go.”

“Mitch, I—”

He put his fingers to her lips. “Shh, don’t
say anything now. I...just don’t.” He reached over and smoothed
back her hair. “I’m all right.”

With that, he was gone.

o0o

FRIDAY NIGHT, CASSIE stood on the doorstep of
Mitch’s town house. She shifted the package she carried and managed
to ring the bell. Nervous, she remembered that last Friday night,
she’d rejected him outright. Would he do the same to her tonight?
It didn’t matter. She couldn’t stay away.

After the fifth ring, she turned on the stoop
and saw him jogging up the walk. “Mitch.”

He was dressed in a nylon sweat suit, and his
hair was disheveled, his cheeks ruddy. His eyes were bleak. He
stopped a foot away from her. “What are you doing here?”

“I brought you supper,” she said, holding up
the bag.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Have you eaten today?”

“I don’t want to eat.”

She scanned his tense, uncompromising stance.
“It’s too cold to be running outside.”

“What are you? My mother?”

Startled at his tone, her eyes widened.

He ran a restless hand through his hair.
“Look, I didn’t mean to snap at you. But I don’t want company.”

He circled around her, went to his door,
unlocked and opened it. Uninvited, she followed him in and closed
the door.

Pivoting in the large foyer, he faced her
squarely. “Cassie, this isn’t a good time for me. I don’t want you
here. I don’t want anybody here.” She didn’t budge. “Besides, I’m
going to work out.”

Stubbornly, she set the heavy bag on a table
next to the staircase. “Go ahead, work out. I’ll get supper ready.”
She smiled. “It’s homemade spaghetti sauce, salad and garlic
bread.”

Mitch’s frown turned into a scowl. “I don’t
want you here.”

Placing her hands on her hips, she stared him
down. “Why not?”

“Because I’m always like this after I...” He
jammed his hands in his pockets. “After I talk about it. Leave now,
Cassie.”

“You’re always like what?”

He raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Morose.
Seething. Volatile.”

“You need a friend. Let me stay and be your
friend.”

As quick and as potent as summer lightning,
he grabbed her shoulders and backed her up against the wall.
“Friends? You and I aren’t friends, Cassie.” Yanking hard, he
pulled open the buttons of her long wool coat and grasped her waist
tightly, his hands flexing on her flannel shirt. His whole body
aligned with hers, he lowered his head. The kiss was full of
savagery.

But Cassie wasn’t scared. Nor was she
offended. Instead, she felt a dark spark of excitement. He pressed
her into the wall, grinding his mouth against hers. She could take
this honest, uncensored reaction and give him back hers. When she
opened her mouth to him, he broke off the kiss abruptly and pulled
back. “What’s wrong with you?”

She smiled. “Not a thing. I don’t scare
easily, Mitch. You can’t get rid of me this way. I’m staying.”

He backed up another step. “Suit yourself.”
Turning, he started down the hall.

When he was out of sight, she exhaled
heavily. Then she headed down the hall in the direction Mitch had
gone. The back of the town house was long and wide. To the right
was a kitchen with stainless steel appliances, a
black-and-white-tiled floor and white oak cabinets. To the left was
a den and another room from which she could hear the clanking of
exercise machinery.

Determined, she went into the kitchen and
began to unpack the meal. The sauce was heating, the water boiling,
and she was assembling the garlic bread when Mitch came out of the
adjacent room wiping his neck with a towel. His face lined with
exhaustion, he simply stared at her for long seconds.

Cassie stared back. Mitch Lansing didn’t know
whom he was messing with. “You’ve got ten minutes if you want to
shower before dinner,” she said sweetly.

His eyes narrowed on her. Without a word, he
left the room. She heard his footsteps on the hardwood floors as he
strode upstairs.

When he came down, Cassie tried to ignore his
worn, low-slung navy sweatpants and white T-shirt that outlined
every beautiful pectoral muscle. “Would you like something to
drink? I brought some wine, too.”

Again, the silence. Finally, he said, “Wine
sounds good.”

Relieved, she poured the Chianti. As she
brought it to him and handed him the glass, she smiled.

He didn’t—but he took the wine and lifted his
other hand to her mouth. Gently, he brushed it with his fingertips.
“Your lips are swollen. I’m sorry. I was out of line.”

“Don’t worry, I’m pretty tough.”

“Yeah,” he said with a half grin. “I
noticed.”

“Sit down while I get this on the table.”

He sat and watched her as she brought the
dinner to the table. After she was seated and served the food, he
asked, “How’s Johnny? Have you talked to him?”

“Yes, this afternoon.” She could still see
Johnny’s black eyes, shining with unshed tears as he told her about
his father.

“How is he?”

“Very sad.”

“It’s probably best that he got it out.”

Reaching over, Cassie placed her hand in
Mitch’s. “For you, too.”

Sucking in a deep breath, Mitch held on to
her hand so tightly it hurt. “I’m not sure. This is...it’s so hard
to talk about it. Then, and after, it’s rough.”

“Have you ever talked to anyone about
it?”

“Kurt.” He sipped his wine. “And
counselors.”

“What did they say?”

“That I should get it out. I guess I was
ready, too.”

Cassie twined her fingers with his. “Mitch,
you can talk to me about your experiences anytime. I promise, I
won’t judge. I’ve done some things I’m not proud of, too. I’ll just
be a friend and let you get it out.”

“There are some things I’ve never told
anyone.”

“Me, too.”

He smiled. “All right. I’ll remember that.”
Then he looked at the table. “Let’s eat.”

They devoured the food in companionable
silence, broken occasionally by talk about school. When they were
done, Cassie insisted he go into the den and relax while she did
the dishes. He agreed easily, telling her he had to call Kurt. They
were taking advantage of the school’s four-day winter break to go
skiing.