Souvenir (22 page)

Addy wouldn’t have to know. I can tell her I’m done, and that’s that. I have to plan this out, carefully, so she never knows anything happened. I’ll come home one day and tell her it’s all over, it was no big deal, no problems.

Clay stared at the automatic, and at his hand wrapped around it. Here, behind locked doors he felt himself at the far end of a long line of space and time separating himself from his wife and son. There was so much they didn’t know about him, so much that they’d never know. You couldn’t tell anybody who hadn’t been there the whole truth. You couldn’t even think about it yourself half the time, how could you ever tell them? Even if you could, it would defile them with gore and horror, lathering them with your killing frenzy, opening up a book of death for them to read. He remembered Red writing letters home after guys had been killed. He never knew what hit him, he’d write. Everything was going fine, then out of nowhere…he never knew…it was all over in seconds. What he really meant was you’ll never know, thank God, how he screamed and how we couldn’t help him and how long he took to die out there and how scared we all were.

Clay’s head pounded. He felt the tears pushing against the dam of his eyes. He could never tell them, they should never have to know, and that was right and good. But he knew that it also meant they would never be able to really know who he was, really understand him, his demons and stories and joys and shame. Never.

So much had happened twenty years ago, and so much of that only he knew. He, and this pistol he cradled in his hand. No matter what good and evil it had done, it was his only connection to the past. His past made real by the feel of cold metal, the dull, glistening sheen of the dark barrel giving away nothing, knowing everything.

Chapter Twelve

2000

The siren swirls in his ears, dipping in and out, a whining crescendo followed by a chirping
whirr
that bottoms out and then starts all over again. He’s heard the sound before.

Of course he has, who hasn’t heard a siren? Coming down the street, whipping by you as you pull to the side of the road. An ambulance appearing in your rearview mirror, the sound coming from nowhere as lights fill your mirror and then disappear, the flashing and noise fading as the ambulance rounds a curve and vanishes. Cars pull back into the road, order and normalcy restored, drivers shaking their heads, poor sunavbitch, hope he’s gonna make it. Wonder what’s for dinner tonight?

But this sound is different. It doesn’t fade away, it just keeps on going, reaching for that high, shrill note and then dropping back, just a bit, letting you think this time it might stop, but it doesn’t. Someone’s in big trouble. No—wait, it’s me. I’m in trouble, I know it.

Something is pressed into his face, and he tries to pull at it, but can’t move his arms. They’re stuck at his side, immobile. Panic surges through his body, up from his belly and out the top of his head. He can’t move! He swivels his head but can’t get his arms to move. He feels something pressing down on them, rope or straps tight against his skin. His frail arms, skin wrapped around bone, muscle and flesh worn away under the weight of years, can’t move the weight.

Am I tied up? Where am I? Are they taking me off the line? No, no. It was raining. I was in the car. Whose car? Was I driving? Was there an accident?

His eyelids are heavy and they feel thick and coarse as they lay shut over his eyes. He tries to open them, focusing all his energy. Open, open, open. It feels like waking from a deep, sound sleep, when you don’t want to get out of bed, or maybe don’t have to. What a good idea. Don’t even try. Why do I need to open my eyes anyway? What’s all the fuss? He can’t remember, but know it’s important, and he has to struggle against the easy fatigue that could let him drift off if he let it.

Tiny slits let in light as his eyelids part. Somebody in a yellow raincoat is bent over him, fiddling with something, he can’t tell what. Water runs off the slick coat and dampens the sheet covering him. The raincoat moves and there’s two people standing next to each other. No, that isn’t it…everything is doubled up, images stacked onto each other and overlapping. He can see the window to his side. It is dark gray and streaked with rain, and then another, a mirror image, above the first window. There hadn’t been windows, and this confuses him. Why is there a window there now, never mind two? He has no idea where he is, where he is going. He closes his eyes, afraid of what else he might see and not understand.

No, there hadn’t been a window, he was sure of it. Maybe when they’d opened the doors and slid him in…was there a window on the rear door? Maybe, a half-moon sort of thing, the glass caked over with ice. Hard to tell when your chest is sticky with your own blood and your clothes are cut and ripped half off your body, thick white compress bandages taped down tight. Wait, my arm wrapped tight against my side, more compress bandages stuffed between my arm and ribs. Am I hurt? Was there an explosion? The memory of a white-hot
crack
plays in his head, a vivid sensation of being lifted up and thrown by the force of a blast, floating in air, suspended in bits of snow, dirt, blood and shrapnel. Then, nothing.

He tries to calm down, but his breathing increases, rapid, shallow breaths. He can’t feel any sticky wetness on his skin. Good, he isn’t bleeding, or at least not enough to feel. The person inside the ambulance is saying something, to him or maybe to someone else. Yelling. The medic spoke softly, said take it easy buddy, you’re halfway home, hang on. Hang on.

Sulfa. The medic sprinkling sulfa on his chest, white powder that he tosses everywhere, like dusting a strawberry cake with confectioners’ sugar. He can see the scissors in the medic’s hand, shiny and bright against the brown, dirty uniform. One end of a long tattered shoelace tied around the medic’s wrist, the other around the scissors. A guy who likes his tools close at hand. He cuts and cuts, through jacket and sweater, shirts and wool underwear, snipping layers of cloth away as he searches for the boundaries of the wound. He can see the medic’s face, crystal clear, his eyes widening as he cuts loose the final section, unable to hide his astonishment that this G.I. is still alive. He sees the bags under the medic’s eyes, sad sagging pouches above sparse stubble. He’s just a kid, and he uses a lot of sulfa.

He feels cold. The damp sheet chills his skin and he wonders if the guy in the yellow raincoat has cut his clothes away. He feels around with his hands, as far as they can reach. He finds fabric and rubs it between thumb and forefinger. It feels like his pants, the trousers he put on this morning…where? Where’s his wallet? He can’t reach his rear pocket, can’t feel the pressure of the leather wallet against his hip. Bastards will probably steal it at the hospital. They steal everything. Who was that guy? Driscoll, maybe, or was it Dawson? That sergeant in the Heavy Weapons Platoon, big gambler, always the first guy to get a card game going or throw the dice. One night, outside Dinant, he won a thousand bucks at craps, biggest pot he had ever seen. He stuffs the dough in all his pockets, so he won’t lose it. Next day, a Kraut 88 hits his halftrack. Dawson…yeah that was it, we called him Daws…he’s hit bad, shrapnel everywhere, left hand gone. So Daws wakes up in an evac hospital, minus one hand and a thousand smackers. Everything gone but his dogtags. No one knows anything about a thousand bucks, must’ve gotten thrown out with the uniform when he came in. Yeah, sure.

Feeling a thump, he looks around. He’s outside now, when did that happen? He’s on a stretcher being wheeled into the hospital, the wheels clattering against concrete. Where was Daws? Last time he saw him he was in a hospital, his torso, face and one arm wrapped in thick bandages. He was yelling at an orderly, calling him a coward and a fucking thief. Seems like he cared more about losing the money than being alive after playing catch with an 88. But then again, a thousand bucks is real money, a fortune. Where is this place anyway?

The room is bright, white, and noisy. All he sees is the ceiling, white tiles with tiny holes. Someone bumps against his stretcher, mumbles an apology, and moves on. The guy in the yellow raincoat is gone, and no one is tending to him. He’s in hallway, parked up against a wall, listening to people, doctors, nurses, orderlies, all walking hurriedly by, talking, some laughing, no one paying him any mind. Why am I here, dammit? Where’s Addy, who’s looking after her? Had he forgotten all about her? Addy. Her name sounds odd in his mind as he says it, as if it carries with it some secret he isn’t meant to yet know.

Thinking about Addy, he wonders why he’s so worried. She can take care of herself, can’t she? I’m the one stuck in this hallway, tied down. Why am I tied down? Where is she? He tries to form the words, ask someone, but nothing comes out. It’s as hard to open his mouth and form words as it is to lift his arm from under the straps that hold it in place.

Am I gonna make it? He hears himself ask the question, through gritted teeth and the dull pain thumping against the morphine the medic gave him. Above him, the white ceiling tiles are dark, dingy plaster, cracked and crumbling. He’s in a hallway, the stone walls gray and the ceiling high above him, like in a church. Explosions sound outside, but far enough away that no one dives for cover. Moans drift up around him and he tries to look around, pain rocketing up through the drugs whenever he moves. A doctor, a real doctor by his insignia, not a medic, pulls his bandages away. A nurse takes him by the hand and gently pulls his arm away from his bloody side. She’s small and slight, the G.I. helmet too large on her head, tipping to one side. She wears thick gloves with the fingers cut off, working with them on. She looks tired, like the medic, bags under sad, weary eyes.

“Course you are, soldier. We’re going to take real good care of you. What’s your name?”

The doctor pulls the last of the bandages away and drops them to the floor. He peers into the wound, then runs his eyes over the rest of the litters stacked up in the hallway. Another explosion booms outside, close this time, and the doctor flinches.

“What’s your name, soldier?” the doctor asks.

“I…it’s….I” He can’t say it.

“Shock ward,” the doctor says to the nurse, after the hesitation. His voice sounds almost firm, a doctor’s certainty mixed with fear and resignation.

“Tell us your name, soldier,” the nurse says, laying her hand on the doctor’s arm without looking at him. The look in her eyes tells him this is very important, and the look in the doctor’s eyes says he doesn’t much like being held up by a nurse. He understands the shock ward can’t be a good place to be sent. “You know your own name, don’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am, sure I do. Am I gonna make it?”

“Tell us your goddamn name, that’s an order,” says the doctor, irritation rising in his rushed, hard tone.

“It’s Brock. Clay Brock.”

“Prep for surgery,” the doctor says, moving off to the next litter.

“You’re going to make it now, Clay Brock, don’t you worry. You did just fine,” she said with a smile that seemed aimed straight at him. She gave him a wink and turned away. Wisps of dark brown hair float out from under the helmet as her voice shifts from soft and soothing to commanding. “Orderly! Prep.”

“Mr. Brock? Can you hear me, Mr. Brock?” He looked up, half-opening his eyes against the bright lights and white walls. The nurse was dressed in green pastel scrubs, and held a clipboard in her hands.

“Are you Mr. Brock?” She said this slowly and loudly. He nodded his head, and wished he could speak, tell her how funny it was that her grandma had just asked him the same question a minute ago. She wore green too, but not this bright stuff. Dirty green, covered by a brown sweater with holes worn at the elbow. It felt impossible, and yet so real, so certain.

“Gooood,” she said as she made a note on the chart. “Can you say something for me, Mr. Brock?” She spoke in a simple, singsong voice. He wished the other nurse would come back, the one who knew how to work the doctor and who had time for a smile. She’d talked to him as if he were a real man, not a child.

“No? You can’t talk, Mr. Brock?” She tilted her head, as if cooing over a baby. Or was she watching him, cataloging his every twitch and response to her?

He fought to send the words flowing out of his mouth. They swirled around in his head. He had so much to say, the story of his life, the story that he had always struggled to keep within himself. Mother, father, war, death, wife, child, work, deception, lies, illness and shame, all these things had been tamped down, folded and refolded on themselves until they laid layered in his gut, secret stacked upon secret, lie upon lie. Now, now that he couldn’t speak, they clamored to get out, to unfold before this stranger, to seek the light of day. Was this silence a gift, or a joke?

Hell, why should he even bother to speak? What if he could blurt it all out, right here and right now? Tell this foolish girl the truth, tell the stories as they really happened? Maybe that other nurse could’ve taken it and stood her ground, but not Miss Sunshine here. She’d either burst into tears or give him an injection, a needle full of silence.

He knew he was getting lost in his thoughts. Something gnawed at the back of his mind, something important. Someone. A distant part of him knew something was very wrong. He had to focus, try to speak. He opened his mouth and tried to speak the name that wouldn’t quite come to him.

“Ah…ah…” The words weren’t there, not even his own wife’s sweet name. Instead, it jammed up in his throat, holding back all the other words he might have spoken in that moment. It was all too much so he wept, eyes clenched shut, leaking tears as he shook his head back and forth, the only motion left to him, the only thing he was capable of controlling in his entire life. Miss Sunshine patted his hand, and walked away.