The Year We Left Home (10 page)

“Yes indeedy,” he said, continuing his one-side conversation. It pissed him off that the cop was so good at ignoring people. A little interest, a little attention, was that so much to ask? Nobody wanted to hear about Vietnam anymore. It was as if it had happened to some different, humiliated country. Nobody wanted to believe it was guys like him who’d worn the uniform, carried weapons, stood posts, took fire.

“Saw a guy once, the jungle rot got into his tongue and burned a hole in it. He used to put chopsticks through it, wave ’em around. Another guy, this lieutenant, he ejected from his F-4 and broke all the bones in both feet, and by the time somebody found him, the bones had set wrong and his feet were all deformed. They looked like crabs. You’d see weird shit like that all the time.”

You did and you didn’t. Some things he had seen himself, others had been related to him by somebody who’d seen them, and other stories were regarded as a kind of community property. Nobody believed anything that really happened there because somebody else always came up with a better story.

“I was with a commando unit. Not Green Berets. Shadow Warriors. We ate Green Berets for breakfast. Very small, five-man teams. We were used for stealth missions. Times they needed somebody to go into Uncle Ho’s backyard, do reconnaissance or retrieve personnel or ‘handle with extreme prejudice.’ That’s what they called assassinations. Supposed to be top secret but hell, the war’s over. Or it was the last time I looked.”

He needed a smoke so bad, his brain itched. All he had to do was get out of the cop car. All he had to do was stop talking, keep from burning a hole in his tongue. “You had to do things. War things. We caught this spy. Double agent. He’d messed with my lieutenant. The man took it personal. Guys like him, it was always personal. His nickname was Skull. That tells you something.”

The war was over. Everybody lost. “Things didn’t work out so good for Mr. Spy. Skull set up a meeting with him. Little shack, middle of
nowhere. He thought it was just him and Skull until the rest of us showed up. You could say, five on one, not much of a fair fight. But it wasn’t a fight, it was punishment. A warning to every other scumbag spy out there. And it was a chain-of-command thing. ‘Ours not to question why, ours but to do or die.’” He couldn’t remember where that came from, where he’d heard it.

You’d like to think if it was you, you wouldn’t beg for your life. You’d be some hero.
Hero.
What was the opposite of
hero, villain
? Words nobody used, except maybe in comic books.

“We had a roll of razor wire. Wrapped it around him. Head to toe and everything in between. Had some wood skewers about yay long. Long enough to go in through the nose and out the eye. I think that’s what killed him. Least, I think he was dead. I didn’t stick around to find out.”

The cop had stopped writing. His pen made a blot of ink where he’d left off. “Get out,” he said. “And get your nut-job self back to Iowa. Bunch of goddamn animals. They should keep you in cages.”

Ray stepped out onto the curb and watched the cop car move away, slow at first, then fast enough so the big smooth engine displaced the air with a stinging sound.

The front door was unlocked and he let himself in and bolted it behind him. The bedroom was dark. Deb wasn’t asleep but she was hoping he’d think she was. He knew that and he was just as glad. He got a cigarette going and walked through the kitchen, where the dinner dishes were just as they’d left them, food hardening on the plates, a mess in the sink.

The back door was stubborn about opening and closing, some complaint in the hinges that he should have got around to fixing by now but hadn’t. He forced it open and stepped out into the yard. A scrim of low cloud was moving across the stars. It was always either raining here, or was about to rain, or had just finished raining. It was a stupid soggy miserable place to be.

He used the hoe to chop down every worthless cornstalk, laying them all flat, then he pulled the tomatoes and pepper plants up by the
roots and hacked at them with the blade until there was nothing left but a heap of wilting trash.

It had been either Idaho or Montana, one of those big brown states, in a field next to the highway. Skull wanted to prop the guy up against a fence so people driving past would see him. A lesson to any other smart operator. A cold night. The layer of sweat underneath his clothes turning cold. They were all tired. It was numbing, stupid, hard work, the effort required to reduce a human body to this state. Sound buzzed in his head, went away, roared back. Skull said Hurry the fuck up, did they want somebody coming by, stopping? It was understood that Skull had a particular effect in mind, a display, a tableau, and they were screwing it up with their lack of diligence and speed. But so much skin had been removed that nothing was easy to manage, and Skull got impatient and said to go get a goddamn rope

and then a piece was missing, blotted out or lost, because he was running, with an idiot’s clumsiness, something coming out of his mouth, noise? blood?

and then he was on his back in the middle of a field with a twig working its way inside his shirt and something thick caked under his nose and a pale, dusty sky overhead and nobody else there, except a circling blackbird on lazy wings high, high up. He was alive. He was alone. Wherever you went, it was Indian country.

“Big boy
bed.”

“That’s right. Matthew has his very own big boy bed, and he stays in it all night long.”

He wasn’t convinced. He didn’t trust her. His face bunched into a sorrowful knob.

“Do you need to go potty, sweetheart? You sure? Look, Pooh Bear’s sleepy. Let’s turn off the light so he can sleep.”

“Car light!”

“You want the car light?” Anita reached up and switched it on. This was a night-light in the shape of a race car, glowing red and yellow, with oversize tires and fins. The room was decorated in a car motif. The sheets and coverlet were dark blue with a parade of antique cars. The curtains showed dogs driving sporty convertibles. The dogs’ ears were outstretched, to indicate speed. Their mouths were open and their tongues extended, to signify enjoyment.

Matthew didn’t want Pooh Bear. He said he wanted Daddy. Anita pointed out that he had already said good-night to Daddy. Matthew shoved his knuckles into his eyes. He wanted Daddy Daddy Daddy.

“All right. But then it’s night-night time, mister. No more excuses.”

Anita used both hands to lift herself up from the low mattress.
Sometimes she lay down with Matthew and they both fell asleep together. She was starved for sleep. It was as real as any other hunger.

Jeff was watching football in the den. He’d mixed himself a drink and it rested on a coaster within reach of his hand. The footrest of the La-Z-Boy was up and his legs were extended straight out. There was something stupid and self-satisfied about his comfort. She stood to one side of the television. “Matthew wants you.”

“He’s supposed to be in bed by now.”

“He’s in bed and he wants you to tuck him in.”

“Huh.”

She waited. The football game reached some point of great drama, and Jeff leaned forward to watch it. The television made its excited noise.

“Da-ddy!”

Jeff shifted his weight, tracking the play.

“Daddy!” Louder and more aggrieved.

“If you don’t go in there, he’ll get himself out of bed.”

Jeff reached for his drink, took a big smacking gulp of it, got out of the chair and headed off down the hallway. Anita could hear his hearty, retreating voice: “Hey sport, why aren’t you asleep?”

She sat down in the La-Z-Boy. The leather was still warm from him, a sensation she wasn’t certain she liked. She wriggled her shoulder blades into the padded seat back, lifted first one, then the other leg onto the footrest.

Her eyes were closed when Jeff came back. She heard his footsteps approach, then stop. “Hmm. Who’s been sitting in my chair?”

She kept her eyes closed. “Is he asleep?”

“Yeah.” He seemed to be waiting for her to get up. When she didn’t, he crossed behind her to pick up his drink. “What’s the score now?”

“I don’t know.” She didn’t even know who was playing. It was just football, and it was always on.

She must have slept. Matthew was calling her. She never dreamed anymore. Her dreams were Mommy Mommy Mommy. “What?” she said, buying time until she was really awake.

He was saying something she couldn’t make out in his urgent peeping child’s voice. “All right, honey, just a minute.”

“Your turn,” Jeff said. As if it wasn’t always her turn, as if there were a joke in there somewhere.

Matthew had thrashed his way out of the blankets. His face was a furious pink and his hair looked like he’d used both hands to tie it in knots. Anita checked the nursery clock. She’d put him to bed fifteen minutes ago. “What’s the matter, baby?” she said in her heavily patient voice.

“No sleepy.”

“Sure you are. But you need to lie still and close your eyes and think about how tired you are.” With the back of her hand she checked his forehead. Warm but not feverish.

“Go potty.”

“All right, let’s go.” They were trying to make potty training as carefree and natural as possible, because otherwise you risked shaming and confusing your child. So people said. She couldn’t remember its being such a big deal herself.

He wanted to be helped out of bed and then he wanted to be carried to the bathroom. He still wore a diaper at night and that had to be managed, but finally he was unwrapped and installed on the potty-chair.

She waited while he explored the different sound effects available to anyone persistent and inquisitive enough to drag one hand, then the other, around the circumference of the plastic seat.

After a time Anita said, “Did you go pee yet?”

“No.”

“Do you have to go poop?”

He shook his head.

“I thought you had to go potty.”

Again he shook his head. He was a chubby boy with a head of fine, snarled white curls. Aside from the hair, she could see nothing of herself in him. He had Jeff’s square face and wide-set eyes. “Why don’t you pee, since you’re already here.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, concentrating. A tiny spatter.

“Good boy, I knew you could do it.”

“Pee!”

“That’s right. Matthew peed in the potty like a big boy.” You were supposed to praise them. He was pleased with himself now, one fond hand massaging the bud of his penis. Was she meant to encourage this as well?

She dumped the potty, flushed, got him back into his diaper and pajamas, washed his hands, filled a paper cup for a drink of water. She carried him back to bed, the warm weight of him, putting her face against his neck because his smell was still a baby’s smell, not that of a boy already preparing for a lifetime of dick handling.

She was a bad, foul, unnatural mother.

There were further negotiations once he was back in bed, and a night-night story and a night-night song and a kiss on the tummy, and chin chucker chin chucker chin chin chin, and the bedroom door left open just so. She’d only gone a few steps when he called her back. “Mommy!”

“Matthew, you have to go to sleep now.”

“What’s his name?”

“The dog?” He was pointing to the curtains, to one particular dog, a beagle type with a comical black eye patch, just discernible in the red-yellow glow. “He doesn’t have a name.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. Close your eyes.”

“What’s his name?” An Airedale who looked to be stomping on the brakes.

They don’t have names, they are dogs driving cars on curtains. But you couldn’t say that because after all, Big Bird had a name, Kermit had a name, Mickey Mouse had a name, and so on.

She sat on the edge of the bed, pointed to the Airedale. “His name is, ah, Arnold.”

“Why?”

“That’s just his name. This one”—she indicated the beagle—“is Bobby. Bobby Beagle.”

He was entranced. Calvin Collie. Wally Wienerdog. Charlie Chihuahua. The dogs were all boys, the boys were all happy, driving cars. Matthew giggled. Some of the breeds she had to guess or just give up. Pete the Puppy. Mike the Mutt. Matthew yawned. Larry Labrador. Sammy Shepherd.

He was asleep. She smoothed his hair, felt the solid warmth rising from him. There were these moments. You came on them in the middle of something else, anger or fatigue or both.

In the den, Jeff had reclaimed the La-Z-Boy. “He asleep?”

“Yes. Turn that down some.”

His hand hovered over the remote, the game distracting him.

“Jeff.”

“These guys suck.” He clicked the volume button and looked at her. “You shouldn’t let him drag this bedtime thing out so long.”

“It takes him a while to wind down, you know that.”

“Once he’s down he should stay down.”

“Fine, you get up and change him when he’s wet.”

“He can learn to hold it.” Jeff’s drink was gone. He raised the glass, jiggled the remaining ice cubes and tried to get the last taste of it. “Treat him like a baby and he’ll act like one.”

“You’re so full of it,” she said, but his attention had turned back to the television.

She went into the kitchen to finish loading the dishwasher. Everywhere she put her hands, she felt something sticky. A yellow triangle of breakfast egg she’d missed before. The residues of milk, juice, Cheerios, the chicken and rice and peas left over from Matthew’s largely unsuccessful dinner. Why did children need to be coaxed and threatened to eat, sleep, eliminate, anything that was supposed to come naturally? How stupid were human beings anyway?

It was a big, admirable kitchen, filled with all the things you were meant to admire. The appliances hummed and gleamed and clicked.
The house was only three years old and they’d chosen the floor plan themselves, as well as all the fixtures and finishes. She’d liked it best before they’d moved in, when it had been bare and clean and empty. It felt as if they’d soiled it with their living, with their shedding skins and hair and carelessness and anger.