“Without a press, I have no idea how our Fleet can be manned.”
Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson
1981
People don’t usually stop and talk to panhandlers.
The snow had thickened to sticky flakes and the wind rattled his smudgy sign—Help ME/ Vietnam vet—yet he could still hum The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves.
“Verdi’s Nabucco is one of my favorites,” the lady said. Her eyes, like Superman’s X-ray vision, were beacons of light searching his face. “I know about a warm place and good food.”
The last thing he wanted was a do gooder, but he needed a place to sleep. The Jesus shelter wasn’t an option. The security guy with fists the size of Georgia was sick and tired of his humming during the evening benediction.
“Lady, purchase tickets to Florida for us. We’ll show-off some skin and soak-up sunshine. Cash also works.”
She laughed, not a pleasant outburst in spite of her youthful face. “No money,” she said. Her words were staccato paced and hushed, as if English were her second language.
The card she offered felt heavy in his hand, and yet it was only cardboard. She walked on, her steps unusually graceful, like a figure skater making figure-eights on virgin ice, humming opera herself, Musetta’s Waltz, he thought, from La Boheme.
Her photograph was engraved on the right upper corner of the card, beautifully embossed, gilt edged, and in a language he couldn’t decipher, stick figure letters, maybe it was Mandarin, and a ten-digit phone number penciled on the back below the handwritten “GET OUT OF THE COLD.”
OK, he’d dip into his soup money and dial the number. Who was he to pass up an offer of charity? His cloth cap soaked up the wet—no one to complain to about that, he had found it in the alley next to the bakery shop. It looked new and covered his ears. You’d think whoever tossed it there could have water-proofed it.
It wasn’t always like this. Of course, sometimes it was worse.
His two sisters loved him, never resenting his intrusion into their domain —baby boy Joey, officially Joseph. The older sister provided protection, and the younger one covered up his sins, first to mom and dad and later to their aunt and uncle. Andrea and Prudence offered kindness to him, and they did still, their marriages notwithstanding.
Just a week ago, hands clasped together, they had stood at their parents’ gravesite, heads bowed, fighting tears as always, reciting their prayer: For Sam and Dottie with love—at PEACE in the hands of the Lord. Amen.
Mom and dad, Sam and Dottie, celebrated an anniversary in North Africa—a bicycle and camel tour, traveling up and down mountain roads and sand dunes, and then an extra weekend hotel package bonus that all these tours offered. They could picture their parents’ pleasure and remember their laughs—boisterous and contagious laughs. It’s good, they thought, most of all, to remember their laughs. The killings were confined to non-believers and ended their parents’ stay on planet Earth—and sometimes, he thought, his own. Sam and Dottie had unshakable belief in family, a gracious God, and the goodness dwelling in all the children of Abraham.
“I’ll be right there to pick you-up—it’s a short ride to my office. The car is black,” the lady said, answering the payphone. Stay where you are. Don’t leave—we’ve been searching for you. I’m a recruiter, you know.”
He could kid with the best of them, but the line was dead before he could say: “There! Black! What will be there? Searching for me? Bring a hat and it better be American made, not funny looking, and make it water-proof.” It’s amazing how fussy down-and-out Vietnam veterans have become.
Big and black it was, and if it could speak, it would be in German. She drove it carefully through a universe of red brake lights, with single-minded concentration, like a math tutor, and just as stern. The sun’s early setting sharpened the high rise silhouettes and the beeps of the car horns kept him alert.
“Are you an alien?” he asked.
“Shower, change clothes, and dine. We have your favorite food. Sleep and we’ll talk in the morning. Nothing more until then,” she said.
“Wait. There is one more thing,” she added. “Do you know you’re related to Rabbi Leizer? He was your great uncle—a maternal uncle. You will be proud of him. It’s one of the reasons I’m here. And no, I’m not an alien, but then all aliens probably say that,” she said and laughed, this time a good laugh, the kind residing in the dreams of happy children.
Aunt Sophie, mom’s sister, and Uncle Hank, her husband, stepped forward after the death of their parents. They made a home for them and offered unconditional love, although life was never the same. Imagine, if you’re able, the tumultuous change in lifestyle—childless for a decade and then a struggling family of five with three rambunctious children.
Uncle Hank, a plumber and handyman, taught him useful skills, including the pleasure of cold beer, the importance of brewing the lager with fresh, flowering hops, and disdain for the light stuff. One night, after Uncle Hank had downed too much of the brew, he, Joey, stepped between his abusive Uncle and his Aunt. It wasn’t the first time.
“If you’re so fucking tough,” Uncle Hank said after they caught their breath and tended to their scrapes. “Why don’t you join the fucking Marines.”
He did.
What shapes a man? What shapes a young man?
Be elite, be proud, be courageous, be tough—Semper Fidelis.
Learn Spanish, Polish, hillbilly, the lay of Parris Island, and meet an incomprehensible polyglot drill Sergeant known to them as the gargle, but never to his face. Combat, minefields and wounds, a year at a time in Nam, scrambling for high ground or splashing through rice fields, and always calling for firepower from Huey’s, F-4 Phantoms, and A-1 Skyraiders. Dig in, advance, retreat, attack, bomb everything, every day the same and every day counting the time until R & R or home.
Ask him what shapes a man and he’ll snap a salute and sing:
From the halls of Montezuma
To the shores of Tripoli
We fight our country’s battles
…………..
If the Army and the Navy
Ever look on Heaven’s scenes
They will find the streets are guarded
By United States Marines
Semper fi, always faithful, SIR!
The lady stopped at a brick bungalow that resembled the one he grew up in: humble, middle-class, tiny rooms with low ceilings, but a front room adorned by large prairie-style stained glass windows garnished with tiny outlines of gingko leaves crowding the top edges and offering a splash of elegance. A metal gate at the driveway requiring a pass code for entry set the bungalow apart from the one of his youth.
“Did you know porte-cochere is French for gate for coaches?” he said to the lady as she smartly parked the black sedan under the over-hanging side entrance. An official but small sign, letter size and in brass, informed visitors: OFFICE OF THE HAWAII DOME PROJECT—RESTRICTED ACCESS. No telephone number. Visitors who somehow gained entrance past the locked gate could ring the non-functioning doorbell.
“The guest room is this way,” she said, ignoring his erudition, opening the door with her key. “Clean clothes are on the bed, your size. Please change—your clothes tell a sad story. The bathroom is to your right. Shower first and then come to the kitchen and eat heartily. You can, if you wish, call me Marta,” she added.
Dinner was a buffet fit for type 2 diabetics. No Marta, just a note about tomorrow and the print-out about his alleged great-uncle. The 1981 Hawaii Dome calendar had pictures of the first flight of the U.S. Space Shuttle Columbia—THE HAWAII DOME—THE PATHWAY TO THE MOON AND BEYOND printed on every page, its meaning lost amongst the abundant food, and thoughts of Marta. The porterhouse steak, the key lime pie, and the Oregon pinot noir didn’t foster concentration.
He slept like the proverbial log.
Rabbi Leizer
Rabbi Leizer survived the death camps and returned to his hometown, Czenstochow, a city in southern Poland (now Cz?stochowa). For years following the Shoah, he roamed the streets playing a hand organ. At regular intervals, amid the numerous tunes he played, he would intentionally play Kol Nidre (Aramaic-a prayer or chant at the beginning of the eve of Yom Kippur asking that all unfulfilled promises to God be fulfilled and all transgressions be forgiven). As he did so, he would look into the eyes of the passing children, looking for a hint of recognition. In this way, he was able to bring many children back in contact with their people.
(Edited from MISHKAN HANEFESH, Machzor for the Days of Awe; CCAR PRESS, NEW YORK, 2015/5776)
Maybe there was never going to be light at the end of the tunnel, but he thought, even now, if we would have won the war, his return home would have been different. Sure, it was the wrong war, but he performed the bidding asked of him in heat, smoke, and terror—and yet, home meant daily scorn. Emily, the beauty from next door, spat at him and screamed War Criminal! His brothers-in-law weren’t kinder.
Hué, beautiful and historical, was a city he wrote home about until the Tet offensive. The NVA, the regulars, the North Vietnamese Army, were tough and well trained—recall how they embarrassed the French at Dien Bien Phu —and were joined by the Viet Cong and most of the ordinary citizens until it became ten to one fighting against them. Door to door combat for 26 days; no high ground and no calling in coordinates for firepower; it was one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War. They, the Marines, persevered; but for the Vietnamese, the battle was a heroic and political victory, celebrated even now.
“It’s late, you sleepyhead,” Marta said. “And brush your teeth before getting back into bed.”
He vaguely remembered dinner. There was the pinot—more than one bottle—pleasing the palette, as the oenophiles say. Fruity overtones, blackberry and peach. Now mid-morning light seeped through the south window, the room bright with good sun. After spitting out the toothpaste froth and skipping his morning workout, he definitely was going back to bed, because Ms. Marta stood in the doorway naked and beautiful.
She lay on top, their bodies fitting like matching LEGO pieces, and it was wonderful. Her hands held his face still, and in place, so they could kiss. And kiss some more.
“Are you up for part two—ah, I see that you are,” she said, straddling him and laughing, as only a lovely alien can until he just became a sideshow.
Their shower was quick. It’s difficult to dance in old porcelain tubs.
“As you may have already guessed, there are no free meals or free domiciles—we have a lot to discuss this morning,” she said, smoothing her hair with both hands. “Did you at least enjoy last night’s dinner?” she asked before closing the shower curtain and tossing him the high thread-count white robe.
“Dinner was good, thank-you,” he said, “although, I was hoping for sweetbread. And thanks for this morning.”
# # #
Three weeks into the NVA Tet offensive, a slender girl, wearing the traditional ao dais tunic with the lovely side slits, fled from the open door in the building in front of them, pointing to the top floor yelling enemy in her fractured English.
“Sniper,” he yelled to his platoon, firing toward the head in the second story window popping-up like a demented jack-in-the-box.
He could see the grenade from the corner of his left eye; it was a U.S. Army grenade with encircling ridges like the surface of a pineapple, but shaped more like a pear, and Ms. Vietnamese Young Girl in her ao dais slit dress, after struggling with the pin, tossed it at him. There was too much loft, the air was too thick and wet, and she threw it like a girl. It fell short. She should have been trained better.
In-coming, he yelled and rolled away, sliding into a crevice adjacent to the curb, the street smelling damp and frightening and at the same time, his M-16 burst cut her in half.
“Please God, not my face or my privates.” He screamed the jarhead motto, too often shouted in this God-forsaken war that was disfiguring them and mangling their manhood, when a fragment of the explosive pierced his left shoulder and the boom shattered his hearing.
Death can’t be renamed, and nothing can replace the memory—Marines don’t shoot women. He didn’t kill women. A daughter, maybe a bride, probably not yet a mother, she was fierce and young. He had once kissed a girl in an ao dais dress as lovely as hers. During recovery, during discharge with a Purple Heart and a Silver Star, during the return home reception, during the constant rat-a-tat-tat tinnitus from the explosion, during the longing for Sam and Dottie —it was everything that ripened into depression, malaise, and despair.
# # #
“Do you want coffee,” Marta asked.
“I hate coffee,” he said.
“Do you want…”
“I hate that too. Let’s go back to bed.”
“No,” she said. “Tenacity! Tenacity and courage—that’s what we like about you—I feel it now. By the way, you passed the copulation test—well, barely.” And she laughed.
Marta recruited for Elton Mast, Inc., and his ambitious plans to inhabit the moon, starting with the demonstration Hawaii Dome: a year of isolation on the Big Island’s desert canopy planning for the lunar colony. “Not just to visit or harvest rare minerals—well that too—but to colonize the moon and then Mars and later the moons of Saturn and Jupiter,” Marta boasted.
The leaded kitchen windows reflected the indoors, the light highlighting Marta’s alpha stance and obscuring the rustle occurring behind her. The straight back spindled white chair found in every kitchen seemed to hold him prisoner.
“The moon, an alternative Earth, a low gravity home—will be the new ‘new world’,” she said. “We’ve chosen you, an ex-marine with composure under adversity, and nine other men and women with the skills to develop relationships and survive in isolation.
“I have to tell you that in spite of your genetic history a’la Rabbi Leizer, and your war-record and courage, you’ve made too many compromises. But your skills, we prize them; and you need us, even if you might not agree. Imagine please, the new life we’re offering you. You’ll follow in the footsteps of the Rabbi; he survived worse and devoted his life to reach out to his brethren.”
“The coffee, I think I’ll have the coffee now and make it strong,” he said. “It’s fascinating, isn’t it that documenting my past so well doesn’t help me decide my future. Try to understand that my current day-to-day life suits me fine. It even settles me.
“Marta, it’s been a pleasure. Thanks for the brief good life, but I have no desire to join the Hawaii Dome, or Mars, or whatever else you’re selling. I know how to get back to the city—I can walk.”
“That’s not an option,” Marta said, her eyes once again a beacon of light. “You’ll adjust to your year away in the Dome and overcome its challenges. About that, I am confident.
“No goodbyes,” she said. “I won’t say goodbye. Goodbyes are so final. Harry and Stan are here now, say hello to them please, they will accompany you on your flight west.”
# # #
Michael Ellman is a writer and retired physician. His collection of short stories, Let Me Tell You About Angela is a Hoffer Award Finalist and has been reviewed this month in the US Review of Books.
Photo: Ron Whitaker
