50 Years
Peter and I crouched in a shallow trench. The barrage boomed and roared over our heads. Soon, the cannons would quiet and it would be time to attack. Peter was terrified, but I wasn’t. I was too angry to be scared. I told him to stick close to me and I would look out for both of us.
The boom of the cannons stopped and the officers shouted, “ATTACK!”
I gripped my rifle and scrambled over the edge of the trench into no-man’s-land. Peter followed on my heels. The Krauts were already out of their trenches, probably chased out by our artillery. I picked one out and lunged at him. I buried my bayonet in his chest and pinned him to the muddy ground.
His pale face changed as I tried to jerk the bayonet free. He sprouted a scraggly brown beard and long brown hair. His face became Doc’s. He said, “you’re an asshole!”
* * * *
I gasped and woke in a cold sweat. It was early in the morning and my head ached. The older I got, the less liquor it took to give me a hangover. Luckily for me, the headache was mild. It was far milder than the ache in my conscience. Now that I was sober, the full weight of what I’d done the night before bore down upon me. I was embarrassed I’d allowed my anger to dictate my actions.
I stared at the bedroom ceiling and decided it was overdue for a fresh coat of paint. I also decided that I was an asshole for what I’d said the night before. I owed Doc my thanks. I owed him a debt of gratitude for saving Walt’s life. If he hadn’t been there, I don’t know what might have happened.
I shook my head against the pillow to disagree with myself. I knew exactly what might have happened. My husband might have died. I’d no sooner thanked him for saving Walt, than I’d gotten up on my high horse and rode it right into his personal business. I’d spoken to him worse than I would if he was a stranger I picked up out of the gutter. My words were unforgivable. My only choice was to find Doc and beg him to forgive me anyway.
I cursed myself and the situation I created. “Shit.”
I had a lot to do. I needed to do the books on the restaurant. I needed to at least start the inventory of every commodity in the whole place. Because of my drunken stupidity, I had no help with either task. I also had the additional task of finding Doc so I could apologize. Even if he refused to forgive me, I owed him the apology.
As much as I had to do was as little as I wanted to do it. I stayed in bed to stare at the ceiling and think. I thought about Doc.
I met him by accident, or maybe by the grace of God. My faith in the Almighty waxed and waned over the course of my lifetime, but the older I got, the more I tended to see the Lord’s handiwork in my daily affairs. The day I met Doc was the day I needed to meet him. Had it been any other day, I might not have given him a second thought. If I hadn’t, my husband may have died. Had he died, nothing which came afterwards would have mattered.
The date was November 11th, 1968. It was a Monday. It was also the fiftieth anniversary of the end of The Great War. I hadn’t planned to celebrate the occasion, or to mark the date in any way. I probably wouldn’t have thought much about it if not for my nephew. My sister, Edie, had a son named Ben Forsythe, who was a high school history teacher.
Ben planned to use the event of the fiftieth anniversary of the end of what he called ‘World War One’ to start a many-weeks-long lesson on ‘The Social Impact of Modern Warfare.’ He asked me to speak to his class as a way to add living history to the lesson. In the weeks that followed my speech, Ben scheduled other veterans from other wars to give talks. He lined up men from World War Two, the Korean War, and the current Vietnam Conflict.
I agreed to deliver the requested speech for two reasons. The first was to help Ben, who I liked. The second was because the requested date was a Monday, and the restaurant would be closed. Walt could more easily spare me on a Monday or Tuesday than he could any other day. Accordingly, on that Monday morning, I got up and readied myself to do as Ben asked.
I woke early, showered and dried off. When I was finished, I used my towel to wipe the steam from the medicine cabinet mirror. I stared at the man who looked back at me. I knew he was me, but I had no idea when I’d come to look like my reflection. My hair was completely white. The flesh of my neck sagged like some old Tom turkey. All the flesh on my body hung lower than it used to.
I wasn’t even five-foot-ten anymore. The last time I was at the doctor’s, I measured five-foot-eight. The passage of time had worn me down like the weathered rock of an ancient mountain. The network of white scars which crisscrossed my chest and stomach were the only things that time had yet to smooth. A few scars had been added over the years. There was a small one on my right side from when I was shot in 1953. There was another from a stab wound I suffered in 1936 when I fought a stick-up man in a diner where Walt worked when he and I met. The rest of them were all the same age and earned at the same instant in time.
I ran the fingers of my right hand over the uneven topography of my stomach. Just as my memory began to drift back to the source of my scars, a cautious knock sounded on the bathroom door. The noise startled me and made me lower my hand.
Walt came in. He went to the medicine cabinet to take down a drinking glass and an envelope of bicarb. He mixed a drink from the hot water tap and drank it down. He rinsed his glass and put it away, then wished me a good morning. “I tried to wait. I heard the shower turn off and I kept expecting you to come out, but you didn’t. I couldn’t wait anymore.”
“Did the indigestion wake you up again?”
He thumped his pajama clad chest with a frustrated fist. “Third night in a row. I wish I knew what caused it. I don’t eat before I go to bed. I’m staying away from rich foods. I’ve been drinking a ton of bicarb. It’s getting old. I can’t get any rest.”
“I want you to see a different doctor.”
He objected like he always did. “I’ve seen Doctor Goldberg twice. He told me…”
I cut him off. “Doctor Goldberg still prescribes leeches and bloodletting. I want you to see a doctor who got his certificate this century.”
“But I don’t know anyone else. Plus, it takes forever to get in to see a new doctor.”
I pointed my finger towards the bedroom which was at the front of the building. My intention was to remind Walt about the hospital directly across the street. “The clinic has hours every single day. You can walk right in. At least go over and talk to somebody. Get a second opinion, please.”
“Alright, love. I’ll go tomorrow. I can’t go today because I’m supposed to work with Owen to come up with some new menu items. I’ll go first thing tomorrow. I’ll be in line when they open.”
I kissed his face in appreciation. “Thanks, love. I worry about you. You’ve never had stomach trouble before. It came out of nowhere and it keeps getting worse.”
He started to smile, but his grin turned sour as another wave of pain hit him. He rubbed the knuckles of his right hand up and down the center of his chest. His face squeezed down even more, then he belched in my face. I stepped back and waved my hand in the air. “What the hell?”
He laughed with childish delight. “Darn bicarb. At least I feel better now.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m thrilled.”
He changed the subject. “What were you doing in here? Is something wrong? Aren’t you feeling well?”
I looked beyond my husband to see my reflection in the mirror. My right hand automatically went to my horrifically scared, navel-less belly. “These scars are fifty years old. I can’t believe it. I’m sixty-eight. It’s been fifty years since The Great War. Peter has been dead for fifty years. I look in the mirror, and I don’t know who that old man is looking back at me.”
Walt threw his arm over my bare shoulders and pulled us together so we could both see ourselves in the mirror. “I don’t think you’re an old man. You can’t be. If you were an old man, I would be one too.”
I wanted to enjoy his teasing, but I couldn’t bring myself to smile. I tried to explain my dread about all the time that had gone by. “It’s just…”
He talked over me. “I know, love. No matter how you look at it, we’re closer to the end than we are to the beginning. On the positive side, we both feel good, we both look pretty good, and we’ve still got lots to do. Between the restaurant and your brother and sisters and all our nieces and nephews, we’re active and healthy. We’re doing better than a lot of people our age.”
I leaned into him to appreciate his support, both physical and emotional. “You’re right. I probably wouldn’t have thought about it at all except for this thing that Edie’s Ben asked me to do. That reminds me, I better get moving.”
I stepped out of his sideways embrace and hurried for the bedroom. The nightstand clock said it was a little after eight.
“What time do you have to be there?” He asked as he followed.
“Ten o’clock. That should give me plenty of time, but I’ve still got to eat and drive over the bridge and find the school and sign in and all that.” I put my underwear on and went to the closet to pick out a suit. “What color do you think?”
“The brown. You look well in brown.” I selected a muted orange shirt and reddish-brown tie to match the suit and started to put everything on. Walt kept up the conversation as I dressed. “What grade are you talking to?”
“Tenth. Ben teaches tenth grade. I guess that means the kids will be fifteen and sixteen. Do you think they’ll get it? Do you think they’ll be mature enough to understand?”
“They should. They’ve been watching Vietnam on the television for four years now. Some of those kids will be fighting in that…that police action, conflict, war, or whatever Walter Cronkite wants to call it. God forbid it’s still going on when they graduate.”
I grumbled about the war as I knotted my necktie. “It’s a sin and a crime we’re still sending kids to far-away places to die for…for…for fucking what? For a bunch of old men who worry about dominoes. Let all those little dominoes fall, is what I say. Who cares if a bunch of little countries on the other side of the world want to be commies? It’s their country! Let them do as they like.”
“Don’t say that in Ben’s classroom. You’ll wind up on a list of sympathizers. So will your sister’s son.”
“Don’t worry, love. The talk is called ‘the fiftieth anniversary of The Great War.’ I’ll keep my politics to myself. Ben said he would show a film strip, whatever that is, and I can just tell the kids about the pictures. He said he’d have pictures of the trenches and maps and artillery pieces and stuff like that. Easy enough.”
“Easy enough. And what you don’t know, I’m sure you’ll make up.”
I laughed. “Exactly! And there won’t be anyone there who’s old enough to call me a liar.”
I shrugged into my jacket and offered my open arms to my husband. We shared a hug and a kiss and a ‘goodbye.’ He wished me luck for my talk, and I hurried toward the kitchen so I could eat and get on the road. As I closed the bedroom door, I saw the beginning of Walt’s recently familiar ritual of piling all the pillows against the headboard to keep his upper body propped up. The angle was supposed to keep the heartburn out of his chest. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been working.
To get in touch with the author, send them an email.
