Michael Thomas Ford - Full Circle (31 page)

 

"What do you do for fun?"

"Fun?" Andy repeated. "You know what I do for fun, Ned? I get high and I think about killing VC. I think about being in a chopper with an M60 blasting away at whatever the fuck gets in my way. That's what I do for fun."

Taken aback by the anger in his voice, I concentrated on twirling spaghetti around my fork. I hadn't realized how much Andy resented being taken away from Vietnam, and I didn't know what to say to him.

"Look, man, I'm sorry," Andy said, sounding less upset. "I just get worked up sometimes. It's not easy being back. People don't get it unless they were there. I have to listen to them talking about how we fucked everything up, especially after Calley and his boys went on trial for blowing the shit out of those people at My Lai. I try to explain what was really going on, but it all comes out wrong and they just look at me like I'm fucking nuts."

"I didn't know it was so hard," I said.

"You'll find out," he said. "We get vets coming into the bar. One of these guys—an old fag who was in World War II—he found out I was in Nam. You know what he said? He told me we should have fought harder, like he did. It's not just the civies who think we didn't take care of business, it's our own guys."

"Like you said, they weren't there," I told him. "You can't let it bother you."
"Tell me that after you've been back a year," said Andy.

Things weren't going well, and I was starting to think that I should go back to the base and see Andy another night, after he'd calmed down a little. But I had a feeling his anger was always with him, hiding just below the surface. Worse, I was beginning to think that seeing me just made it worse. I was his connection to Quan Loi, to the war, and I thought maybe having me there to bring back a lot of old memories was hurting him more than it was helping.

"I should probably get back soon," I said, laying the groundwork for an exit.

 

"No," Andy said. "Look, don't mind me. I'm just spouting off. Come on, I want you to see the bar."

We finished up dinner, I paid, and we left. Andy walked slowly, and several times I reached out to steady him when I thought he was going to fall. But he never did, and a few minutes later we reached Toad Hall. A crowd of men stood outside, smoking and holding animated discussions. More than a few of them called out greetings to Andy as we passed through them.

"My fan club," Andy joked as we went inside. Indoors, it was even more packed with men. The walls were painted black, and on one of them someone had painted a mural of the characters from Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows , from which the bar had taken its name. Music was pounding out of the speakers, and behind the bar a huge mound of old candle wax formed a kind of pyre, on top of which a row of votives burned, adding themselves to the landscape as they slowly melted. A thin man with long hair, a moustache, and worried eyes came up to us. Andy greeted him enthusiastically, then turned to me. "Ned, this is Stan, the manager. He's the guy who saved me from construction."

"He was in here all the time anyway," Stan said, shaking my hand.
"He tipped for shit, so I figured I either had to hire him or kick him out."
"Nice to meet you, sir," I said.
"Sir?" said Stan. "You must be one of Andy's army buddies."
"That's right," I said. "I guess you can't teach an old soldier new tricks."
"Maybe not," Stan said. "But I bet there are some guys in here who'd like to be your new tricks."

He and Andy laughed while I tried to figure out what Stan meant. Then Stan excused himself and left us alone. Andy went to the bar and returned with two Budweisers. He handed me one and drained a third of his own in one long swallow.

"Stan seems like a good guy," I said, raising my voice to be heard above the music and the conversations going on around us.

"He is," said Andy. He was staring past me at the door, as if looking for someone. "Is it always this crowded?" I asked, marveling at the throng of men crammed into the bar. "This is nothing," Andy said. "Wait 'til you see it on a Friday or Saturday night."

I couldn't imagine Toad Hall holding any more people than it was right then. For a guy who had never been inside a gay bar, it was a little disconcerting. I was used to hiding who I was, and now I was literally surrounded by men celebrating their sexual identity. I found myself excited but also a little scared. I drank some more of my beer, hoping it would relax my nerves.

I was also working up my courage to ask Andy if I would be going home with him that night. Watching the men in the bar, many of whom had removed their shirts and some of whom were kissing one another, I was suddenly very aware of the fact that apart from jerking off, I hadn't had any contact with a man in a very long time. Even though Andy had been so casual about our relationship in the past, I hoped that now that he was out of the army and surrounding himself with gay men that he might be ready to be more open about himself, and about us.

"So," I said, my heart beginning to race as I thought about touching Andy's naked skin. "I was wondering if…"

 

I stopped when I saw him look behind me and wave. "Hold on," he said. "My roommate's here."

I turned around, anxious to see what kind of man Andy had found to live with. Since he'd said nothing about him in any of his letters, I had no idea what to expect. I looked at the man coming toward us and felt my heart stop.

"Hello, Ned," said Jack.
CHAPTER 31

Since its opening in 1937, 1,218 people have committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. The first was Harold Wobber, a World War I veteran who, while walking across the bridge on August 7, less than three months after the grand opening, turned to a stranger, said, "This is as far as I go," and stepped off into the air. Since then, roughly every two weeks another person has gone over the side and into the cold waters of San Francisco Bay. It has been called a monument to death, a soaring structure whose beauty is irresistible to those looking for a symbolic and almost surefire (only 26 jumpers have survived the 250-foot fall) means of ending their lives. When in 1973 the bridge's death toll neared 500, there was fierce competition among would-be suicides for the privilege of assuming that dubious honor, and when that number came close to being doubled in 1995, the official count was halted in the hopes of preventing a similar frenzy.

I never seriously considered a leap from the bridge. I went there because I needed to walk, and because standing on the span at night, you feel as if you're floating in space. The lights of San Francisco to the south and the Marin Headlands to the north form parallel galaxies, the Golden Gate a bridge of stars linking them together. Standing there, the water a sheet of black silk ripping with unseen currents beneath me, I understood why so many found it impossible to resist the urge to climb onto the narrow ledge beyond the waist-high railing. I imagined standing there, enchanted by the dizzying height and the whispering fog that caressed with ghostly tendrils and promised dreamless sleep. It would be difficult to say no, to turn and grasp once more the hard steel of the railing and pull oneself back into the real world. So much easier to just let go and fly.

As I say, I felt no real impulse to kill myself, although I am not convinced that there is not some magic in the steel of the bridge that plants such thoughts in the mind if you linger too long while crossing. In me it simply magnified the feelings of loneliness with which I was struggling since seeing Jack again. I was, to put it lightly, taken aback. At first, I had even refused to believe it was really him, and not simply someone of remarkable resemblance. I'd gotten used to thinking of him as someone from my past, and to encounter him in my present required a shifting of focus, one I was reluctant to allow. We went to a coffee shop to talk, leaving Andy at Toad Hall surrounded by his many friends. Seated at a table, our cups untouched in front of us, Jack nervously straightened his silverware while I waited for him to speak. I didn't want to say anything, and wasn't sure what I would say even if I did. Although it had been only slightly more than two years since our last meeting, I felt as though a lifetime now separated us.

"I bet you're surprised to see me," he said finally.

I picked up my coffee and sipped it, my only response a slight nod. Jack opened a packet of sugar—his fifth since we'd sat down—and added it to his cup, stirring quickly. "Don't be mad at Andy," he said. "I told him not to say anything about me in his letters."

"Why?" I asked.

Jack leaned back in his chair. "I thought it might be too weird for you," he answered. I couldn't help laughing. "Too weird," I said. "Why? Because the last time either of us heard from you was before we went to Nam, and then—poof—all of a sudden you're back? Yeah, Jack, you might say that's a little weird."

He lowered his eyes from my glare. "I know you think I took the easy way out," he said. "And maybe I did. But I can't change that now."

"Is that why you're here?" I said. "You want me to forgive you?"
"No," Jack said. "I don't expect you to forgive me. But come on, Ned, we were best friends for nineteen years."
"I wasyour friend," I said. "I'm not sure you were much of one back."
He looked up, hurt reflected in his expression. "You can't really believe that," he said.

"You were always the golden boy, Jack," I told him. "I was the one who always got the leftovers you didn't want. And then when I finally found something I did want, you went and took that, too."

"Andy?" Jack said. "Are you talking about Andy?"

I didn't answer. I was growing more agitated by the moment, and it was taking all of my military training to keep my cool with Jack sitting across from me pretending he didn't know what he was doing.

"Are you two lovers?" I asked.
Jack leaned forward and touched my hand. I pulled it away.
"I didn't even know he was in San Francisco," Jack said.

"Oh, so you just happened to move here and end up as his roommate?" I countered. Jack shook his head. "I was already here," he said. "I was only at Wesley for about a year. Then I decided that whole minister thing wasn't for me, and I decided to go to school for psychology."

"Psychology," I said. "Since when are you interested in psychology?"

 

"I'm not a total moron," Jack said. "I had a couple of classes in psych at Wesley, pastoral counseling kind of stuff. They were interesting."

 

"Why'd you decide to leave?"

Jack smiled. "They kind of asked me to after they found out I was sleeping with one of the theology profs. Well, he was only a TA, but the actual instructor was about a thousand years old and let James teach most of his classes. Anyway, someone found out and told the dean. Next thing you know, I'm in his office and they're telling me that homosexuality is ‘incompatible with scriptural teachings.'" He said the last part in a gruff voice, knitting up his eyebrows and pointing a finger.

"He said I had two choices. I could repent and go for therapy, or I could leave. I told him I was perfectly happy the way I was and walked out."

 

"What about your parents?" I asked. "What did you tell them?"

"Nothing," said Jack. "I just said I wanted to try something else. Then I found a school as far away from them as I could get, and here I am. I'm in the psych program at SF State. I was able to transfer a lot of my credits, so it's not like I'm starting over."

I drank more coffee to buy myself some time. I felt as if I'd stepped through Alice's looking glass. Jack was actually in college. Plus, he was talking openly about being gay. Had he really become such a different person while I'd been away? Part of me didn't believe it, but I could sense no trace of deception in his words. Maybe he had really changed, I thought. Then I remembered Andy, and the anger resurfaced.

"You never answered my question," I said. "About you and Andy."

 

Jack reached for the sugar again. "Like I said, I didn't even know he was here. I hadn't heard from him since Penn. Really, I'd pretty much forgotten about him. Then one day he just showed up at this clinic where I was doing some fieldwork for a class."

"He just showed up," I said, suspecting there was more to the story. Jack nodded. "Yeah," he said. "He was there for a counseling session. Something the VA sent him in for. I saw him in the waiting room. At first I didn't recognize him. But when he saw me, he broke out that stupid grin, and then I knew right away."

"And then you moved in together?"

"Not right away. I wasn't sure what his deal was. A lot of those guys come back from Vietnam totally fucked up and…" He stopped, looking at me nervously. "Sorry," he said. "I forgot for a minute."

"It's okay," I told him, although inside I wanted to grab him by the neck and pound his face into the table for speaking so glibly about something of which he knew nothing.

"So we had dinner and started hanging out a little bit," he continued. "I could tell he was still dealing with what happened to him, but he seemed more or less okay. At the end of the school year, I decided I didn't want to live in student housing anymore, so I looked for a place. I couldn't afford one on my own, and Andy suggested we room together. That was just about a year ago now."

"And why didn't either of you tell me again?"

 

"I don't know," Jack answered. "I guess it was pretty stupid. I just didn't think you'd want to hear from me or hear anything about me, so I asked Andy not to mention it."

We were both quiet for a while, sipping from our mugs while people came in and out of the shop. I was trying to process everything Jack had told me, and I was getting hung up on one thing—the fact that he still hadn't answered my question. Twice he'd sidestepped it, which led me to believe that he didn't want me to get even more upset than I already was.

"Are you okay?" he asked, bringing me back to the moment.
"Yeah," I said. "I'm fine. Just thinking about all of this."

"I don't expect you to be all happy about seeing me," he said. "At least not right away. But I hope we can be friends again. We have a lot of history together."

I nodded. I couldn't deny that he was right about that. The difference between us was that I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted that history to keep going. I'd put a lot of effort into divorcing myself from my relationship with Jack. Now here he was wanting to pick up where we'd left off.