QUICK NOTE: This chapter mentioned the politics of the past. It's done to show how one man may have felt at the time. It's not done as any kind of a reference to anything happening in the world today. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, no modern politics in the comments. I thank you with deep appreciation.
Unwelcome News
I yawned as I got back in the car in front of the auto shop. I’d eaten too much, and my full stomach made me sleepy. Arthur offered half an Italian hoagie while Ted offered half a roast pork with provolone and long hots. Given the choice between the two, I’d eaten both. I also stuffed myself silly with Crane brand potato chips from a metal can which Arthur produced from a deep drawer in his desk.
I was disappointed over my lack of progress in finding Doc. I wasn’t sure where to try next. I needed some time to think, but I didn’t want to do it in front of the auto shop. I knew if I remained in the idling car, Arthur or Ted would come out to check on me. When they did, I’d have to explain what I was doing. The men would inevitably want me to think in the comfort of the warm office. I didn’t want to do that because the office held too many distractions.
I drove down the block and parked in front of a vacant building beyond the next corner. I let the car idle while I tried to reason out what to do next. I turned the heater on ‘high’ and yawned again as warm air rose from under the dashboard. I rubbed my face with both of my palms to try to wake up my expression as I mentally reviewed the morning. I’d been to three places and learned basically nothing.
The Center City YMCA was a bust. The only thing I learned from that stop was that Doc had never been there. The South Philly YMCA yielded limited information. After I’d almost gotten beaten to a bloody pulp because of the young man I’d dubbed Mouthy Malcom, I found Lion and Tiny. Tiny had seen Doc recently but offered no information which might lead me to where he had gone. He’d only been able to relate the cryptic ‘make it right’ phrase which Ted repeated. I had no idea what ‘it’ was or how it could be made right.
Ted and Arthur had been kind and considerate, but not very informative. They had no idea where Doc could be, nor was there any reason they should know. Their interaction with him was brief and transactional.
“Now what?” I asked aloud.
As if to answer my own question, I yawned again. I rubbed my face with my palms again, but it was no good. I was overfull and sleepy. I hadn’t had a good night or an easy morning. My eyes burned from being overtired. I remembered a time when I could have worked as hard as I needed to on almost no sleep, but that time was long past. My age was catching up with me. I shut my eyes for a minute to block everything out so I could think.
* * * *
I leaned against the wall in the cellar of the Snyder Avenue police station. Ernie was beating some information out of a well-known gun for hire. Someone had been whacking bootleggers and we wanted it stopped. We didn’t care about the bootleggers. We just wanted to maintain order to keep the feds out of the city. Captain Marshall told us to get the information no matter what. We took the guy to a basement holding cell and strapped him to a chair. I lit a cigar while Ernie went to work.
I finished my smoke and Ernie had to slap the guy awake for the second time. I got mad that he kept knocking him out. “How the fuck do you expect him to talk if he’s unconscious?”
Ernie didn’t appreciate my complaint. “Fuckin’ go ahead, then! You should know how to handle a man better than me. Beat on him or beat him off. Whatever works, fag.”
I took my jacket off to keep it safe from blood and rolled my shirt sleeves. I pulled my service revolver. Ernie was surprised I pulled the gun. “You gonna pistol whip him? Careful you don’t break his jaw.”
I pinned Ernie against the wall and brought the gun up under his chin. I whispered to the man I’d been assigned to work with for a year. “Call me a fag again, and they’ll have to scrape your brains off the fucking ceiling.”
I released him and holstered the gun in one motion. He blustered, but I knew he wouldn’t do anything. He was a decent cop, but basically a coward. I turned my back to Ernie and balled a fist to work on the gun for hire. He hocked and spat at me. His scraggly brown beard was streaked with blood and spit. His long brown hair was a mess. “You’re an asshole!” He said in Doc’s voice.
I gasped awake and realized I’d fallen asleep in the idling car. “This getting old shit is for the birds.” I grumbled aloud. I put the gear selector in ‘DRIVE’ and set off for home.
* * * *
I glanced into the front window of Walt’s Special as I unlocked the street door to the apartment. Benny was behind the bar polishing glasses. I checked my watch. It was after two. Soon, the dining room staff would arrive to take the chairs down from the tables and to lay the crisp, white tablecloths. They would switch on the brass chandeliers. The orange glow of the false candlelight would bathe the interior with a gentle mood. Well-dressed people would drift in from the street, into the ‘oasis of gentility’ which was the restaurant Walt founded.
I loved everything about Walt’s Special. I loved its atmosphere. I loved its purpose. I loved the man whose vision created it. I loved that I had been a part of shaping the vision and that my own work helped maintain the oasis. I felt sad that because of his injured heart, Walt would have to give up his dream. I took some solace in that fact that the dream would live on, but it would do so without my husband. It had to because Walt could no longer support the dream with the proverbial sweat of his brow and toil of his back.
“We’ve been lucky.” I said aloud to the divided light window that made up the frontage of the restaurant. “For twenty-one years, Walt got to have his dream, and I got to have him. It’s a bitter shame that nothing lasts forever.” I yawned at my reflection in the glass and shook my head at a situation which could not be helped.
I unlocked the apartment door and climbed the steps to the living room. I thought about having my nap in bed, but I didn’t want to sleep for a long time. I only wanted a short nap. I hoped that after a little sleep, my mind would work better, and I’d come up with a way to continue my search.
I shed my jacket to have my nap in the living room. I switched on the television to keep me company but switched it right back off. All four stations were playing afternoon soap operas. These were poorly acted, plotless dramas tailored to distract bored homemakers while they got dinner ready for their husbands. I hated them.
I switched on the console stereo. The same station I’d listened to the night before crackled to life as the tubes warmed. A news bulletin blared through the speakers until I turned the volume low. I let the news play while I loosened my clothes and settled into the living room’s only recliner. I kicked my feet back but left my body upright to listen to the bulletin. The newsreader was in the middle of making a big deal about Elvis Presley. Elvis had made a comeback with a special concert that was broadcast on NBC. Everyone was excited about it except me.
I couldn’t get worked up over Elvis. I remembered a couple of his early tunes. They were snappy enough, but Elvis was no Cole Porter. Besides, Elvis seemed to be more of a film star than a musician. He was a fine-looking man as long as he could keep that ridiculous sneer under control. Beyond his looks, I didn’t care for him at all.
The newsreader seemed to grow bored with Elvis at the same time I did. He moved onto other topics. The next was political. Richard Nixon was getting ready to take over the presidency. There was only a little over a month left in Lyndon Johnson’s term. “Good riddance!” I shouted to the radio.
I never cared for Johnson. He was an asshole and a grifter. He rode the assassination of poor John F Kennedy into the White House, and he used the Kennedy agenda to stay there. What Johnson referred to as the ‘Great Society’ was just a polished-up rebranding of Kennedy’s ideas.
I liked Kennedy. I wished he would have lived. If he had been able to serve out his first term and win a second, he might have been able to do some real good for the country. Instead, we had less than three years of Kennedy and five-and-a-half of that idiot Johnson. All he managed to do was make Vietnam worse and fuck up the Civil Rights legislation so badly, half the cities in the country caught fire in riots. Kennedy had been a great man with great ideas. Johnson was a political hack, and I loathed him.
I yawned again and leaned back in my chair. Suddenly, I felt very tired and very old. I felt old and worn out and sad. I felt like I’d lived too long and seen too much.
“Why, Lord?” I asked without looking up. “Why does it always seem that the great ones are taken from us too soon and pricks like Johnson live forever? The whole bunch of them are crooked; Johnson is, and Westmoreland, and Kissinger, and all those other assholes in DC. If not for them, there’d be no reason for another generation of young men to lose their innocence and their lives fighting some war with no purpose. When does it stop? How many of ours and how many of theirs have to die? What’s the fucking point?”
I closed my eyes and tried to settle down so I’d be able to sleep. Behind my closed eyelids, I saw my husband. I remembered how he reacted the night I brought Doc home to stay with us. The three of us had dinner in the restaurant. We ate a smorgasbord of all the creations Walt and Owen had come up with as possible new menu items.
When we were all stuffed, we went to the apartment for coffee. The three of us sat around the kitchen table to drink coffee and talk. Walt opened the conversation innocently enough. He asked Doc to ‘tell us his story.’ Doc did exactly that. He smoked steadily from his seat at the table nearest to the ventilation fan over the stove while he told of the nightmare of his time in Vietnam. By the time the coffee pot was empty, and Doc’s ashtray was filled, there didn’t seem to be anything more to say, except ‘good night.’ He tucked himself into the sofa and Walt and I went to our room.
Walt was shocked by the description of guerilla warfare Doc had given us. “Was it like that for you?” He asked as I buttoned my pajama shirt.
I finished with my buttons and kneaded one painful, arthritic hand with the other. I looked at my hands to see the thinning skin and prominent veins. I remembered when they were young and strong. I remembered when they spent all their time clenched into angry fists. I remembered the heft of the Springfield rifle they carried and the death they brought to the enemy. I wondered how they could be the same hands.
I wasn’t sure what to say. Up to a point, all war was the same. Beyond that point…beyond that point I wondered if the nuances even mattered. I’d told him about the war. Over the years the subject would come up occasionally. He would ask questions like the civilian he was, and I would answer like the former soldier I was. What I’d never done was to answer Walt’s questions from the perspective of the man I’d been while I fought. That night, on the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the War to End all Wars, it seemed appropriate that I try.
“The first man I killed in the war, the first man I ever killed, I killed with a bayonet.” I sat on the edge of the bed and faced away from Walt. I wanted my husband to understand, but I couldn’t look at him. I was afraid of how he would look back at me.
“He was a young man, like I was, but he was a German and that meant he had to die. We’d gone over the top, into no-man’s-land to kill the enemy. I went with my bayonet fixed like I’d been taught in basic training. I picked the man out and lunged at him. I plunged my bayonet into his chest and twisted it like I’d been shown.
“In the movies, when someone is stabbed, they go limp and die. That’s not how it really works. The German fell, but he didn’t die. I pinned him to the muddy ground. His eyes opened wide, and his mouth gaped in shock. He gasped as he tried to breathe with sixteen inches of steel buried in his chest. I tried to pull the bayonet out of him, but it was stuck. I followed my training and fired my weapon. The large caliber bullet opened a hole in the German’s chest that I could have put my fist in. The gaping, smoldering hole allowed me to withdraw the bayonet.”
“Jesus Christ! Why did you tell me that?”
“Why did I tell you?” I repeated Walt’s question to myself. “You asked a question and I’m trying to make you understand. In order to understand, you have to know me as I was then. In 1917, I was the firstborn son of the Edwards’ family. I was the heir to a successful tailor shop. I had a warm house to live in and a warm family who loved me. In 1918, my father destroyed all that and I became a hate filled beast, a wild animal with a rifle. The war I fought had no meaning to me. The man I killed meant nothing to me. Later that same day, I used the bayonet I’d killed the man with to open a stubborn can of corned beef. I plunged the blade into the lid with no more thought than when I plunged it into the chest of the German.”
Walt hurried around the bed to stand in front of me. He stood very close like he wanted me to look up at him, but I refused. “You’re scaring me.”
I rubbed my tired face with my arthritic hands and tried to make my point. “The man I was then, is not the man I am today. Back then, I was not ill-suited to war. Poor Peter was. Doc was. Doc watched the marines he was imbedded with burn a village and kill its inhabitants. He has taken that act inside of himself and made it his own. He feels guilty because all he did was watch. He hates himself because he didn’t try to stop the carnage.”
I shook my head at the floor. “Fifty years have gone by, but war hasn’t changed at all.” I lifted my tired eyes to meet Walt’s. “If Doc had tried to stop those Marines, they would have killed him. I know they would have, because that’s what I would have done.”
He winced and rubbed his knuckles up and down the center of his chest.
“Heartburn?”
“Yes.”
“You’re going to the clinic tomorrow, right?”
“I said I would.” He huffed, apparently frustrated by my concern.
I didn’t care if he was indignant over my insistence he see another doctor for his problem. It was my prerogative as his husband to worry about him.
He dragged us back onto the original subject. “What do you mean, you would have killed Doc?”
I clenched my hands together between my knees and squeezed them into a tight knot of clumsy fingers and swollen joints. The pain in my hands focused my thoughts and allowed me to explain. “I don’t defend what those Marines did. I don’t know why they burned the village. It doesn’t matter. For whatever reason, they decided the village had to go. They made it their duty to destroy it. If Doc would have stood between them and their objective, they would have killed him.”
“And that’s what you would have done?”
I didn’t like the tone of his question. It felt accusatory. I wondered if I’d said too much. No civilian can understand what war is like. Walt was too young for The Great War and far too old for World War Two. He never served and therefore he couldn’t understand. I thanked God for that. There was only room for one ruthless animal in any relationship and that animal was me; except that it wasn’t. It hadn’t been me for a long time. That idea gave me a way to phrase my answer. “The man I was at the time would have killed Doc without a second thought.”
Walt wasn’t satisfied. “Did you ever do something like that?”
I tried a second time to put things in the right perspective. “Do you remember last year when we went to the art museum to see that exhibit on Greek statues?”
“They were Roman.” He winced again and rubbed his chest.
“Do you need some bicarb?”
He shook his head. “I already had some. I think it’s gas from the bicarb. I’ll be alright.”
I accepted his dismissal of his pain and his correction on the origin of the statues. “Do you remember the statue with two faces? I think it was a god.” I kept talking without waiting for an answer because I wanted to make my point. I was tired of thinking about war. I wanted to dispose of the topic and go to bed.
“Anyway, that statue is like me, except I have even more faces than he did. One of the faces I have inside hasn’t seen the light of day for a long time. That face is the one I wore when I was a soldier. When you ask if I’ve ever done something like I just described, I need to answer you in two ways. One of my answers is no, the person who is with you now has never done anything like that. Your elderly husband who wears a tuxedo and welcomes people to Walt’s Special, has never killed anyone in a war.
“The other answer I’m forced to make is, there is a person inside me, a face I haven’t worn in fifty years, who has done those things. The man I was during the war was so filled with hate, he did things the old man before you can hardly imagine. I don’t like to think of him because my memories of his actions terrify me. I’m honestly afraid of him. I’m afraid he might still live deep inside me. I don’t ever want to wear that face again.”
Walt sat and leaned his body against mine. “I’m sorry I asked. I shouldn’t have. I know it hurts you to think about the war. I also know that you’re not an animal. You’ve never shown that side of yourself to me. I know you never would. You love me too much. It’s funny you picked the two-faced statue for your explanation. The god you’re talking about is Janus. He’s the Roman god who gives his name to the month of January. He’s the god of travel and transition and also the god of war. In ancient Rome, there was a temple of Janus. The Romans used to open the temple gates in times of war and close them in peace.”
I grinned at his historical information. “Do you know everything?”
“Everything.” He lurched to sit up straight and rub his knuckles up and down the center of his chest again. “I know everything except why I’m in so much pain tonight.”
He stood from the bed, walked the length of the room and turned at the wall. Just as he turned, his eyes went wide, and his mouth opened in a silent scream. The look on his face reminded me of the face of the German soldier I killed. “What is it?”
He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth. He grabbed at his chest with his right hand like he was getting ready to say the Pledge of Allegiance. “SOMETHING’S…WRONG!” He fell back against the wall and slid down until he sat on the floor. I jumped up and ran to him, but I didn’t know what to do. I felt helpless and useless and scared.
“Help. Hurts.”
I cried out for someone. “HELP! SOMEONE HELP! HELP US!”
Doc burst through the bedroom door. He ran to Walt, dragged him away from the wall and laid him flat on the floor. He tried to hold Walt down as he thrashed in pain. “I was afraid of this.”
“WHAT? WHAT’S HAPPENING?”
“It’s not indigestion. He’s having a heart attack.”
I didn’t need to be told anything more than that. I ran to the bedroom telephone and called the emergency number of the hospital across the street. They said they’d send a stretcher crew right over. I slammed the phone down and ran to unlock the street door.
Doc shouted after me. “I NEED ASPIRIN!”
My panicked brain decided that whatever Doc needed was more important than anything else. I ran to the medicine cabinet and got the bottle of aspirin. I filled a water glass and ran back. Doc had me hold Walt while he forced four of the small white pills down his throat. As soon as he swallowed, Doc dismissed me to open the door.
I flew down the stairs and tore the door open. I ran barefoot across Broad Street to the emergency entrance of the hospital. The stretcher crew was just coming through the door. I shouted to them and led the way back to the apartment.
I nearly went hysterical when I got back to the bedroom. Walt’s eyes were closed, and his face was as white as a sheet. I thought he was dead. Doc spoke calmly. “He passed out.” Once he was certain that I understood, he ignored me to talk to the stretcher crew. “I’m a physician, a resident. I gave him thirteen hundred milligrams of aspirin. He had dinner about two hours ago. He’s had symptoms of angina for weeks. Misdiagnosed as indigestion.”
The stretcher crew got Walt on the gurney and strapped him down. I tried to help carry him down the stairs, but they shoved me aside. I managed to help the crew as they crossed Broad Street. I put myself between them and the traffic.
When we got to the hospital, the crew took Walt into the back to receive care. A big orderly stopped me from following. He blocked both me and Doc. “Next of kin?”
“I am.” I answered and tried to bull my way past.
The orderly held me back. “What’s your relationship?”
I opened my mouth to shout into his indifferent face. I was going to scream that Walt was my husband. I was going to threaten to beat the orderly to a pulp if he didn’t let me through. I didn’t do any of those. Fear wrapped its icy hand around my heart and strangled my voice. Within that fear, I remembered where I stood.
I realized the disadvantage I was in. Nothing would be gained by my shouting. Nothing would be gained by me revealing the nature of my relationship with the man who was having a heart attack. Walt needed help. The hospital could provide that, but only if they were inclined. I didn’t want to do anything to disincline them. I didn’t want to say anything to prejudice them against Walt.
I held my temper. My fear became dread. Tears streamed down my face and dripped onto my pajama top. Through my tears, I did my best to answer the orderly’s question. “The man is Walter Stack. He’s my adopted father. I’ll go across the street and come back with the papers to prove it.”
I grabbed Doc’s arm with a shaking hand. “This man is Walt’s new physician. Please have your people consult with him. I’ll be right back with the papers.”
The orderly stared at Doc with uncertain eyes. “You’re a doctor?”
To his credit, Doc went along with my lie. “I was a resident at Methodist. I just got back from serving in Vietnam. I’m reestablishing myself.”
The orderly stood aside to let Doc through. Just before he walked away, I begged him. “Please.” I had no idea what to ask for, especially with the orderly present. Because I could think of nothing to say, I uttered my original plea again. “Please…help him.”
Doc promised he would. He went with the orderly to check on Walt while I took myself back across the street to get my adoption papers.
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