The Writing on the Wall: A Novel (17 page)

“This next one’s my favorite,” he said and just like that he was sitting ramrod straight on the couch. “Is it nine yet?”

He didn’t look like he could bear waiting. He patted the couch made a space for me and once the program came on talked a mile a minute telling me what it was about.

“The Man from Uncle,” he said. “They’re good guys and what’s funny is one of them is a Russian and yet they work together stamping out world crime. See? There he is! Ilya Kuriagin. Uncle is the agency they work for. Here’s the other one, Napoleon Solo. They’re getting their assignment, hold on to your hat!”

He was still watching TV when I went to bed and he may have been there all night because when I got up in the morning he was back on the couch though now he wore a black t-shirt not a white one. If that’s how he wanted to relax during his leave it was fine by me though later in the morning I asked him to help me gather blueberries and of course he hopped right up. He was good at picking he could hold cupfuls in his hands but I was pretty good myself so we soon started a competition to see who could fill their bucket up first.

He took a shower after that went back to the TV. About four I heard somebody at the front door. August! I hadn’t seen her since Lilac’s baby and as we stood on the porch she filled me in on the news. They had cleared brush for a field. Their berries were spectacular. There was a new calf. Luddy was adorable. Granite had come back from Canada with the sweetest weed yet.

“That’s wonderful,” I told her. “But you must be tired from your walk. Come inside with me there’s a little surprise.”

I led her down the hall to the TV room but all there was of Andy was an empty depression in the couch. “Wait here,” I told her and went out to the kitchen then up to his room but there was no sign of him. That confused me but since I hadn’t told August about him yet I took her back outside. I’d been meaning to introduce her to Therese LaBombard and I figured now was as good a time as any and when I walked her up there the two of them immediately hit it off. August had learned French at private school and Therese spoke Quebecois but they managed to understand each other all right and Mrs. L. gave her a blueberry ketchup recipe that had been in her family for years.

I walked August a little way in toward the hills and stood watching until she was out of sight. When I went back into the TV room Andy sat slumped on the couch.

“Where’d you disappear to?” I said. I figured he was shy with so pretty a girl.

“I didn’t disappear anywhere, Mom. I’ve been right here all afternoon.”

That was a lie but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why he would bother. But that was the last day of my vacation and I didn’t want to ruin it by arguing. I made meatloaf for dinner and we watched TV for a while and then I asked him to go for a walk with me to watch the sunset and he gave me a nice hug before I went up to bed.

“I’m really glad to have you here,” I told him.

“Me, too,” he said softly. “Really happy.”

I always leave for work before the sun comes up but I left a note saying that maybe later we could go for a swim in the stream or drive into town for ice cream. At the hospital things were crazy busy mostly the usual confusion that comes when you’ve been gone on vacation but then a patient coded in the afternoon and no one could get an IV started on this retired railroad man and his family got hysterical and Tina Holbrook came up to our floor and started yelling at me for messing up her overtime schedule. As if that wasn’t enough one of our orderlies Tom Titus who had spent the last eight years leering at me every time I came in range slunk up to me by the desk as I was getting ready to go home.

“You’re gorgeous,” he said which was his usual opening line.

“Not now, Tom.”

“Fuck you then.” He pointed toward the lounge at the end of the hall. “This bald farty guy wants to talk to you.”

The good thing was that Tom put me in a bad mood. I walked down the hall determined not to take shit from anyone. The bald guy resembled a gangster with a forehead of cement and jowls that looked stuffed with fishing sinkers so I wasn’t surprised when he waved a card in my face and announced he was a cop.

“Federal Bureau of Investigation,” he said with a smirk.

He had a Boston accent and his cheek was scarred with a birthmark that looked like a slab of bubble gum plastered across the side of his nose. FBI? I felt like saying. You look like the kind of crook the FBI is supposed to hunt down. But I didn’t say that.

“Bullshit,” I said.

He seemed used to that.

“When’s the last time you saw your son?” he demanded.

“Danny? 1964. He shot himself playing cowboy.”

The agent looked down at his clipboard.

“Andrew Peach.”

I’d held on to my attitude until then which was all about laughing him off but the moment he said Andy’s name everything changed so fast it was like one of our nurses had given me a hypodermic that pumped wariness and caution right straight into my heart.

“Three months ago when he left for basic. Why? There’s nothing wrong with him is there officer?”

The agent moved his tongue around so it was like he was licking the bubble gum from inside.

“He went on embarkation leave three weeks ago and hasn’t reported back since. His unit shipped out last Tuesday for Vietnam. It was AWOL before that but now it’s desertion.”

“Missed the plane? He can catch another one, you must have plenty.”

“Desertion means fifteen years in the stockade. Aiding and abetting him means five years in a federal penitentiary, a $25,000 fine, plus we take your house. I’ll ask you again, Mrs. Peach. Have you seen your son or do you know where he might be hiding?” “You must be mistaken, officer. Andy loves the army, he was looking forward to going overseas. He’s the easiest boy in the world to get along with.”

“You haven’t seen him? Haven’t gotten a phone call? Gotten a letter?”

“I have no idea where he is.”

“I hope that’s veracious. My men are searching your house this very minute.”

My heart jumped with that and I made a fluttering gesture with my hand like Scarlett O’Hara about to faint. The agent decided he had me just where he wanted. He warned me again about the penalties for desertion then went on to say that if Andy turned himself in or reported to Fort Polk all would be forgiven but he only had twenty-four hours and past that anything might happen since there was a war on even though plenty of people pretended there wasn’t. He finished by giving me his business card telling me he’d be in touch and then as he grabbed his fedora he asked a final question that seemed the most random and pointless of all.

“How far is Canada from here, Mrs. Peach?”

“Ten miles. You going sightseeing?”

He grimaced enough that his jowls jiggled but he didn’t answer me or at least not directly.

“Canucks,” he said. “Fucking animals.”

The drive home was torture. I was sure some mistake had been made though I couldn’t understand what the mistake was or how I could fix it and this drove me crazy plus I expected to see Andy being led from the house in chains. It’s normally a twenty-minute drive but I did it in ten. Too fast too obvious so I slowed down and drove past the house to make sure I wasn’t being followed. Things seemed peaceful enough and when I got to the porch and heard the TV blaring I wanted to cry in relief.

Andy sat slumped on the couch staring at one of his soap operas and didn’t realize I was there until I stepped in front of the screen and turned it off.

“Hey,” he said in gentle protest.

I didn’t waste any time.

“When did they come?”

He looked sleepy like I had interrupted his nap and rubbed his eyes like the sandman had him.

“Hour ago.”

“Where did you hide?”

“Never had to. They didn’t come here. They drove up the road to Mrs. LaBombard’s. Three cars full. I heard her shouting and that’s how I knew they were there.”

“They went to the wrong house?”

“I’ll say. She was shouting at them in French and waving a broom around. They didn’t look happy and so they drove off.”

I can’t tell you how calmly he said this like all the excitement had nothing to do with him.

“Explain,” I said sitting down on the couch next to him.

Home three days and already the brushy tips of his crewcut were beginning to soften and curl over and he sat there trying to stroke them flat. He had some nasal problems when he was little which makes it seem like he sighs whenever he takes a deep breath and that’s what I got now one of his deepest most reluctant sighs.

“We were due to ship out from San Diego and they said if we wanted to spend our five days of embarkation leave there it was okay we could join the unit at the air base once our time was up.”

He folded his hands together and smiled.

“That’s it?”

“Well, a bunch of us thought that would be fun so we went to the Greyhound station.”

“And?”

“We had to wait at the lunch counter for the next bus west. I got talking to this discharged private who had just gotten back from Nam. He was going home to Nashville and he was complaining about how long a trip it was and it was boring without anybody to talk to and if I had nothing better to do why didn’t I come along with him and when we got there he could show me the sights.”

“So instead of San Diego you went to Nashville?”

“Didn’t want to hurt his feelings. He had hundreds of stories about things he’d seen while he was fighting over there. You know. Not so nice things. But when we stopped in Little Rock he got talking to this hooker and didn’t get back on the bus so I changed my ticket and headed for Knoxville instead.”

“Knoxville? Why Knoxville?”

Andy shrugged. “Always liked the sound of it.” He rapped hishand against the wall. “Knock knock who’s there?” 

“You stayed?”

“Couple of days.”

“Doing?”

“Thinking about things.”

“What things?”

“Met this girl and she was going to Atlanta and she asked me to go along and I said sure why not. I was AWOL by then anyway. It was pretty hot in Atlanta and I couldn’t get cool no matter what I did and her boyfriend showed up so that’s when I began thinking about heading home.”

“That doesn’t explain anything, Andy.” I leaned toward him made sure he looked right into my eyes so his attention wouldn’t wander to the blank TV screen. “The FBI man said you’re not just AWOL you’re deserting. You missed the plane to Vietnam. He said that’s serious, you could go to prison. That’s why I’m telling you that doesn’t explain anything, what you just said.”

He mumbled something.

“What?”

“I didn’t really feel like it.”

“Feel like what?”

“Going over there.”

“To Vietnam?”

He put his hand on his chin used it to lever his head up and down in a heavy nod.

“You didn’t feel like it?”

“Nah, not really.”

“That’s why you didn’t go?”

“Don’t really want to.”

Already I was lost.

“Don’t want to what?”

“Go over there.”

“Because?”

“I’m not in the mood.”

“Not in the mood?”

“Yeah, you know.”

“The mood?”

“To kill anyone.”

It staggered me not so much what he said but the lazy way he said it. By now I was agitated enough for both of us but I tried keeping my voice calm.

“Look, Andy. This G-man was pretty reasonable. You can go back he said, no questions asked. You can get on a plane and join up with your unit and all will be forgiven.”

He shrugged. “I’m not really in the mood.”

“You trained with these boys, they’re counting on you. Didn’t you train with them?”

“Tigerland. I did Tigerland with them.” 

“You don’t want to put that experience to work, all that teamwork?”

It didn’t sound like me talking it sounded like the FBI bastard talking through me but what else could I do? He didn’t answer right away seemed to think about it but then ended up saying exactly the same thing.

“Don’t really feel like it.”

I tried again this time desperately.

“Your father served in the Pacific. Your grandfather built destroyers. They answered their country’s call.”

Andy smiled.

Something occurred to me. “It wasn’t any peace marchers talking to you messing up your head was it?”

“You mean draft dodgers?” He turned his finger up. “We hate them.”

“But you believe in peace?”

He struggled with that for a minute or two.

“Nah, not particularly. It’s just that I’m not in the mood.”

I’m not sure how long I tried reasoning with him but it was dark by the time I quit. I tried scaring him about what would happen if he didn’t go tried convincing him he owed it to his buddies brought out every argument I could think of and we always circled back to the same point.

“No,” I said putting up my hand. “I know what you’re going to say. But don’t you think your mood could change?”

Instead of answering he went over to the TV squatted found the knob turned it on.

That left me with only one thing to say.

“It’s just macaroni and cheese tonight, is that okay?”

“Thanks, Mom. You bet. You’re the greatest.”

I walked around the house before bed convinced there was a G-man lurking behind every bush. To calm myself down I tried remembering how Andy was as a little boy but that was difficult because the peculiar thing about Andy is that memories don’t stick to him. I have a thousand memories of Danny all I have to do is close my eyes and they flood back. With Andy it’s harder they seem to burrow shyly into the past and you really have to tug to bring them out.

But one finally came. He was five or six. Danny’s father had taken him off on a hunting trip so it was just Andy and me in the house. He had a terrible accident only boys can have zipping his jeans up on the loose skin of his penis so he cried and cried and cried. I got things straightened away but then much later when I was sewing I heard his voice calling soft and despairingly from his room.

“Mommy? Am I going to die?”

That was my Andy memory and it broke the logjam so in the course of the night I found dozens of others I thought were lost. When I finally did fall asleep something happened that had nothing to do with thinking. I went to bed fretting and woke up absolutely convinced what I had to do.