Charles got us another beer from the refrigerator. The light fixture over the table was one of
those kind that hangs from a retractable cable. He pulled it low and threw most of the kitchen in
darkness. When he sat down the light was harsh on his hands, showing up the ridged tendons and
blue veins, the thin fingers and heavy knuckles. He tilted his chair back and rested his head
against the flowered wallpaper so his face was a pale oval catching reflected light from the
yellow plastic tabletop. Under the bright circle of light were a dozen empty beer cans, two
overflowing ashtrays, an empty peanut can and the pictures. There were fifty one years of
accumulated photographs; black and white and colored images in a jumbled array that I tried to
string together into a chronological chain of uneven, baroque pearls to link the laughing infant to
the lean and wind burned ironworker across the table.
Charles had buried two wives and divorced another one. He raised two sons and sent them out
into the world, as he put it, “without either one of them going to jail.” Nowadays, he lives by
himself but bears too many thoughts to go unspoken, too many feelings not to be shared.
At work, Charles was an invaluable member of my crew but he was always quiet and withdrawn.
We all admired his skillful handling of the twenty ton crane and the smooth seam laid down by
his torch. But while the rest of the crew was willing to let him pass with no more than a
murmured, “morning”, and a nod for, “good bye”, I kept reaching into the shadows offering
warmth and building trust... believing that the depth of a man’s feelings were proportional to the
height of the walls he built around them.
When he phoned me that Saturday afternoon and invited me over for a few beers I felt
inordinately proud of myself for having breached his defenses and I didn’t have the wisdom to
wonder if my friendship was a worthy recompense for such intrusion.
We spent the first couple of hours just warming up. He talked about his sons with mild pride but
with no more emotion than a discussion of a day’s work, well done. He told me about his first
wife’s slow death struggle with leukemia and there was a certain detachment, an acceptance of
life’s injustice that held him cool and resigned while he went on about his second wife’s fatal car
wreck and then a third marriage that broke down under the strain of a “mean step mother”
syndrome.
Early in the evening he brought out a shoebox full of photographs and riffled through them for
snapshots of the boys. Throughout the rest of the night I shuffled the visual images of his life like
tarot cards in reverse, I laid them out and tried to read his past.
In the pictures, I was continually struck by the contrast between Charles in youth against Charles
the man. In years of childhood and adolescence he showed the bright and open eyed smile of
innocence that is artificially copied by models in advertising. The expression that says,
“everything is okay!”… the smile we don’t trust unless we know the bearer is simple minded.
But on the youthful Charles the face held not a sign of artifice or cunning. His was the honest
blond openness natural to farm boys in small towns across America in the unsophisticated past.
But the chiseled, hard lined face that stared out of his adult photos (weddings, vacations,
holidays) was so startlingly wretched it cast doubt on the identity of the fair, sweet youth. Even
in his twenties, Charles had brows that drew down over squinted eyes with an expression of
forbidding toughness.
Some of the pictures were dated on the margin or the back and I eventually worked my way
down to two pictures close together by their dates but sharply divided by their attitudes. The
earlier one was marked 1952 and depicted Charles in a group all rigged out in Navy dress whites.
His hat was pushed to the back of his head and he was laughing, his arm loosely thrown around
the shoulder of a dark haired boy next to him. The other picture was 1953 and shot from
slightly behind the motorcycle on which he sits. He’s dressed in black leather and looks back
over his shoulder into the camera with eyes that fire their challenge from dark hollows, a face
that has become the hallmark of cinematic idols, the brooding anger of filmdom’s rebel heroes.
Here before me lay two links on the chain of his life and thoughts of what lay between them
cooled my pulse.
Charles’ voice was unsteady, “That’s Billy Hart right there.” He pointed to the dark haired boy.
“He was my buddy. We was both from Alabama so we kind ‘a fell in together. That was took
when we got shipped out to the North China Sea. The fighting was suppose to be about over and
we was sent in to relocate the refugees and exchange some prisoners. We thought it was gonna
be strictly light duty, turned out to be the worst year of our lives. I wouldn’t have lived through
it, wasn’t for Billy. I’d be having nightmares, you know? And Billy, he’d come over to my bunk
and rub my back like I was a little kid or something. I still have the nightmares after all these
years, guess I always will.”
He got up and moved around the dark kitchen while I studied the boy with the black curls
hanging over his forehead and the go-to-hell smile. Billy looked flippant and irreverent, not at all
the kind of young man likely to comfort a friend through a troubled night. I tried to remember
the dates for the Korean war or the revolution in China. I didn’t know which war he was talking
about but I knew the politics were not important.
Charles brought a bottle of Tennessee whiskey to the table and sat back down. “Ol’ Billy saved
my ass a couple of times but we all covered each other when we could. What really counted was
he saved my soul, he kept me from going crazy. When I wanted to tuck tail and run, or just eat
my gun and get it over with he’d say, “Don’t leave me, buddy. Stay with me!” And I’d keep
going a little longer. It wasn’t the fighting. Hell, I ain’t never been afraid of a fight, it was the
acres of people... burned and crippled and starving and dying. I just couldn’t stand spoon feeding
an old man and then watching him die. The kids hurt me the worst, nobody ought to see that
many dead kids, it does something to a man. The old people didn’t seem to mind so much, like
they done had their lives, I guess. There was this one old lady I found in a ditch, Korean I think,
she was messed up bad, I mean real bad, just no way to do anything for her and she was
screaming with the pain, Jesus, screaming! and there was one thing I could do and I don’t know
if I did it to stop her hurting or to stop the screaming but I did it and I guess it was the best thing
I could do for her, but if I’d knowed I’d dream about it the rest of my life, well, I just don’t know
if I could do it again.” He took a long pull on the whiskey, “ but the little kids was the worst.”
There were no photos of emaciated oriental faces, no group portrait of hollow eyed war victims,
no pictures of bloated and dying children but their images were in the room with us, watching
from the shadows clustered near the haunted man. I saw them through his eyes. Now, with his
brows raised and face relaxed and nakedly open, his water blue eyes stared into the gray layers of
stale smoke that rippled across the ceiling.
“I never would have made it without Billy Boy. Me and him would sit around and talk about
what we was gonna do later, after it was all over. We talked about how much longer our tour
would last and we talked about going home together, to Alabama. My people didn’t write much
but we got real good letters from his folks. They wrote to me just like they knew me and his
mom sent me a birthday cake and his dad had it set up for us to go to work at the tractor and
equipment dealership in Centerville. On the real bad nights I didn’t even go to sleep, I just sat in
the head and read them letters over and over again, and polished my shoes.” He took another
drink from the bottle and passed it over to me, “It was the week before we was suppose to go
home when Billy got killed.”
Charles’ hand shook as he tried to shave. He washed his face again and looked into the mirror
while he worked at hiding the fear. This morning was one of the worst. The panic and near
hysteria showed in his round eyes and his trembling lower lip. “If only Billy was here”, he
thought. “How stupid! I’m wishing he was here to help me ‘cause he’s dead. If he was here he
wouldn’t be dead.”
He held fiercely to the edge of the white sink and bit down on the inside of his cheek. “Tighten
up, boy!” He told his reflection. “Just suck up your gut! It’s all part of growing up. Ol’ Billy said
he’d make a man out o’ you and by god if you live through this without him you’ll be a
hell of a man! Just live through it one hour at a time, one day and then another, it’ll get better.”
The mirrored face took a deep and rasping breath.
The door to the head swung open and a little fat guy poked his round face in, “Are you Charles
Shell?”
“Yeah.”
“The captain is waiting for you, by your bunk.” The door slammed shut.
Charles slowly packed his shaving gear into a small bag and tried not to think. He picked up his
clean tee shirt and pulled it over his head then carefully combed his wet blond hair. He felt
stupid going to the captain in his underwear and considered wrapping the damp towel around his
waist but decided that would be dumb. Mentally, he reminded himself not to salute when he
wasn’t even wearing his white hat.
The captain was a small man with the face of a bulldog. His uniform was wrinkled and his jowls
bristled with a day’s growth of beard. The fat yeoman brought him a chair and placed it near the
bunks. The old man grunted his thanks and sat down with a heavy sigh. “Don’t let me fall asleep,
Martin”, and he rubbed at his bloodshot eyes.
“I can take care of this, sir. Why don’t you go get some sleep? You’ve been up since four
o’clock yesterday morning!” The clerk resisted the impulse to pat the captain’s shoulder.
“Let me see those files. You go see if you can find some coffee and bring two cups.”
“Yes, sir.”
The tired old man glanced through the folders that outlined the lives of two young men. The
second file was already stamped “DECEASED” across the cover. Right now he was more
interested in the living. He looked up at the whip thin sailor coming toward him in baggy
underwear. On the right knee and shin were bright pink scars and the bone under the new skin
looked lumpy. Charles held his shaving kit close to his chest with one hand while the other arm
hung loose at his side, dragging a towel along the floor. “How’s the leg, Shell?”
“Fine, sir. No problem.”
“Well, get dressed, son. I can’t sit here and talk to a man in his skivvies.” The captain yawned.
“Yes, sir... I mean, No, sir.”
Martin came back with a tray of donuts and two mugs of coffee. “Just put it down and go find
yourself a cup, give me and Shell a few minutes.”
Charles sat on his bunk and laced up his shoes. He had spent two hours of the night polishing
them to a high gloss and the morning light sparkled across their surface. The captain held out a
cup to him and Charles took it, wrapped both hands around it and enjoyed the stinging heat and
the bitter aroma.
“Smoke?” The captain held out a red pack of unfiltered cigarettes.
“Sir? I’m not allowed to smoke in here.”
“Son, I make the rules on this base and I can break ‘em. It’s the only advantage to my job.”
Charles took a cigarette and lit it. He pulled the sweet smoke deep into his lungs and let it
out in a long slow plume. The captain watched his face, “It says here in your file that you were
wounded in Wa Fong.”
“Yes, sir”
“But that was a marine assignment, Lt. Claiborne’s group, wasn’t it? What were you doing up
there?”
“Well, sir, most of his boys were new, you know, half of them had never been off the base. Billy
and me, we got a three day pass so we could go along and sort of chaperone.” He took a sip of
coffee, “That’s not a friendly village, sir.”
“So I’ve heard. How did you manage it? Did you two wear marine uniforms?”
“Captain, I don’t want to sound smart, you know, but I think the less you know, the better off
you’ll be.”
“You’re probably right but I keep wondering why a couple of mechanics would join up with a
marine raiding party.”
“Sir? That village was where the communists sent all unclaimed children. We thought we might
bring back a few and match ‘em up with their families, or at least with mothers who had lost
children.”
“How many is a few?”
“Uh...”, Charles smiled a little. “Sixty seven, sir, and we located relatives for twenty five. The
Red Cross is working on it, too. We was going back to bring in some more, my leg’s healed up
and everything. That’s where we was going yesterday when , well, I guess the truck hit a mine. I
donno’. There was an explosion. I woke up over in the hospital about noon. But I’m okay, just a
headache. They told me. They said Billy didn’t make it.”
“The hospital staff tell me you spend a lot of time over there with the kids in the critical ward.”
Charles hung his head and rubbed at his face. “Yes, sir. Mostly I just sit with ‘em and hold their
hands. It’s not much but they seem to sleep better.”
“I could use more men like you, Shell. Stay with me. I know your tour is over but I’m asking you
to ship over... there’s a bonus if you re-enlist.” The old man’s face hardened in intensity and he
showed the edges of desperation, “I need men like you around me! Sometimes I think I’m the
only one who cares, who tries to..”
Charles was already shaking his head in fierce negation, “No! No, sir, I can’t!” He stood and
walked to the end of the room and stopped for a minute with his back turned, then he came back
and the panic was clear in his eyes. “I can’t stand it anymore, Captain. I’m scared to death every
minute of every day. I hate this place... all the suffering and dying and the hunger. My guts are all
torn up inside, I’m, I’m like a jellyfish or somethin’. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep! I gotta’ leave,
Captain! I’m sorry, but I’m not the man you think I am. It was him!” He pointed at the empty
bunk, “He had all the strength, the courage... he had enough for both of us but now he’s dead and
I can’t stand it no more.” He sat on the bunk and hugged himself in a visible effort to hold
himself together. “I’m sorry, sir.”
The response was slow and weary, resigned. “What do you think’s going to happen, Shell? Think
you’re going to blow apart? Think you’re going to fall into little gibbering fits? Don’t be absurd,
son! Nobody can give you the kind of courage you’ve got. It comes from inside and it never
runs out! It’s still in there somewhere, even if you can’t feel it right now. You don’t scare me for
a minute. You haven’t been beaten, Shell, you just been sorely tested. If you were beaten, you
wouldn’t be here now. You made it. You came through a year of the worst stuff the Lord could
throw at you and you never backed away. Maybe I’m wrong to ask for more. Hell, you’ve done
your share, let some of the others pull the load awhile. But don’t think you couldn’t do it again if
you had to, I know you could!”
Some of the tension went out of Charles’ body and he took a deep breath, “Thank you, sir.”
“Right. Now I want you to inventory Hart’s belongings so we can ship them to his family...”
“Oh, no, sir! I can’t do it. Let somebody else, you just don’t understand...”
“Sure, I understand better than you do, sailor. It’s hard but you’re going to do it, then you’re
going to escort his body back home to his family.”
With a small cracked moan, the slender boy seemed to collapse into himself and he covered his
face with thin white fingers. Only a thin whisper came out, “Please! Please, sir! I’ll do the
inventory but I can’t face his family… his dad … I can’t.”
“But you job’s not over, yet, Shell. You’ve got to take care of Billy ‘til he’s back home. That’s
an order, son. Now, open up his locker. I’ll bet you have a key.” The old man stood up with a
smothered groan.
Yeoman Martin came quickly to his side, “Let me finish up, sir, you need your sleep.”
“Leave us a little while longer, Martin. This is something me and Shell have to do, right?” He
looked at Charles.
“Yes, sir.” The tears now rolled freely down his pale cheeks. He took a key from his pocket and
tried to fit it into the locked cabinet. His hand was shaking and the key tapped out a chatter
against the metal door. He got the key in and turned it, opened the door with a quick jerk. The
smells of Billy Boy assailed his senses; his aftershave, hair oil, dirty underwear, his shoes.
Charles tried to swallow to ease the pain in his throat but he couldn’t.
The captain took a stack of pictures from a shelf, “Is this his dad?”
Charles nodded mutely. He didn’t have any words left.
At three fifteen in the afternoon the temperature in San Francisco hit ninety degrees and sweat
trickled down Charles’ back under his white cotton uniform. He stood on the quay and watched
the freight unloading off the Ram’s Horn. His half empty seabag lay beside him. He carried only
two spare uniforms, shaving gear, a few letters and three bottles of vodka. One for each day of
the trip. He considered throwing out the medals and ribbons but saved them at the last minute,
they didn’t take up much room.
He smoked a dozen cigarettes over the next two hours, waiting. Finally the derrick hoist swung
out the hole and a long pine crate glistened in the late afternoon light and swayed gently from the
gray steel cables. He watched with growing apprehension as burly stevedores unhooked cables
and lifted the crate onto a moving dolly.
“Hey!” He shouted, “Watch out! Hey!”
Oblivious to his call, the two men pushed their cargo up the ramp and unceremoniously dumped
it onto the loading dock. Anger doused all morbid dread from his mind and Charles ran across
the quay and up the ramp, “What are you trying to do, bust the damn thing open?” One of the
men sat on the crate and tried to light his stub of a cigar but Charles grabbed his arm and drug
him off his perch. “That’s my buddy in that box and you’re handling him like a sack of potatoes
or something! I swear to God...”
“Hey, man. We didn’t know it was a body in there, sorry man... sorry, okay?”
A dock foreman came out of the office, clipboard in hand, “Whassa’ matter, sailor?”
“Nothing. Just tell these jerks to keep their dirty hands off this crate. This here is my buddy and
I’m taking him home.”
The foreman pulled the packing slip loose from the box and put on his glasses. He read the blue
piece of paper and consulted his list. “Here it is, just sign right here and he’s all yours... you got a
truck?”
“Right over there.” Charles waved to the driver across the street. While he signed the invoice the
small van backed up to the dock. “I’ll load him myself.”
“No you don’t, sailor. You do and this union would be on strike before dark. Don’t worry, we’ll
handle him real gentle-like.” He called over the two men and spoke to them in a whisper while
they watched Charles like a mad man. Using two hand trucks, they carefully eased the crate into
the van.
“Wait a minute,” Charles studies the box, “Turn him around, would you?”
“What’s wrong, now, sailor?”
“Well, see, a civilian corpse, he travels with his feet first, but a military corpse has to go head first,
you know? Out of respect, sort of. They’ve got his feet toward the front of the truck and
they got to turn him around.”
“Come on, already! He don’t know the difference, just get him outta’ here!”
“I’ll do it myself, just move outta’ the way.”
“All right, all right! Jerry? Paulo? Turn the box around.”
When Charles opened the passenger side door of the van he was met by the surprised stare of the
driver, “What’cha doin’, Jake? No riders! Doncha’ read?” He pointed at the sign.
“You’re carrying U.S. government property and I’m the U.S. government official representative
in charge of that property.” Charles spoke with the authority of a half bottle of vodka.
“Huh?”
“That’s my friend, Billy, back there in that box. I’m escorting him home. Where he goes, I go!”
The driver liked the cool blue eyes and the determined chin on the kid. “Well, you convinced me
but if I get caught with a rider I could lose my job, see? How about you ride in back with him so
nobody sees you, okay?”
“Fine!”
When the truck pulled away from the wharf, Charles leaned back against his seabag and took a
drink of vodka. He patted the pine crate, “How’s it feel to be back in the states, Billy Boy? Great,
huh?”
The following two days were blended into a cocooned and alcoholic dream as the Great
American West rushed past beneath the oaken floor of a Santa Fe baggage car. Two conductors
argued, fruitlessly, that it wasn’t necessary for the young sailor to remain in the actual presence
of his charge. Charles defied them with words about duty and responsibility and jumbled military
law so that, in the end, he rode all the way to St. Louis lying atop the pine crate. When he closed
his eyes in the dim railroad car it was just like being on the top bunk. Encouraged by Billy’s
silence, he sang his favorite songs and talked all through the night.
At three a.m. on Friday morning, an old black man in overalls helped Charles move the crate
further up under the awning alongside the station. A fine mist of gray rain gusted between empty
buildings and streetlights glimmered with yellow halos that were reflected in long streaks on wet
brick and metal.
“Lord, Lord, bless tha rain, child. Don’ be moanin’ and groanin’. Dis here rain be keepin’ my girl in
tha house where she belong! It water my garden an’ it keep them roughnecks offen tha
streets. Bless tha rain for it’s number be seven. Protect and nurture... Bless tha rain, child,
bless it!” The old man bent low to look up into Charles’ face. “Caint see yo’ face in this awful
darkness of sixes! Brow clear? Yea, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus! He’s a son o’ light!” The
wrinkled brown mouth screwed up in a show of disgust...”You be sick, boy?”
Charles drug his damp seabag under the awning and sat down on the crate. “Thanks for the help.
I’m all right. Are you a porter? I gotta’ catch the Southern to Memphis, four o’clock, I think.” He
took off his cap and wiped his face on a wet sleeve.
“You be sick, boy!” The little scarecrow of a man squatted down in front of Charles and cocked
his head first to one side, then the other. “Ain’t no porter! That be six letters, see? Janitor, that be
seven letters all reet and neat. Night shift janitor I been and I’ll be, that is ifin’ Jesus protect me
from the sons of man and from ungrateful daughters and the sin o’gin. I smells that gin on you,
boy! Why you wanna’ do that? Jesus don’t like it and yo’ momma don’t like it and yo’ belly
don’ like it! Make a man act a fool! ‘Cept for the sin o’gin I wouldn’t have no smelly ol’ girl
messin’ up my house and stealin’ tha peace o’ my contentment. Gin drove me to women and
women’ll drive me to gin ifin’ Jesus don’ stay tha hand that pluck out it’s own eye!”
The wary little face stared up at Charles, “ Do this be a coffin?”
“It’s my friend, Billy Hart. I’m taking him home.”
Slender brown fingers stroked the pine, “Did he be a good man?”
Charles nodded, “He was the best.”
The small face in the shadows nodded with him and seemed to understand so Charles told him
about Billy and about courage and about pain. He told the black janitor about war and dying
children and nightmares. In the darkness beneath the awning in the pre-dawn rain, he told the
ancient Negro man how scared he was to be alone and how he wanted to open the box and make
Billy wake up, beg him not to leave. “So now I’m taking him home.”
“Lord, Lord. What a man go through! Go on, now. You see that corner by the drums? Go on up
there and straight up tha alley, fix you up! Chili is what you need and milk and them little
crackers. Go on, git!”
Charles looked up the street and was surprised by his hunger.
“It’s a white place! Go on, put sumpin’ in yor belly ‘sides sorrow! I’ll stay right here and have a
word with Mister Billy. You got ‘bout twenty minutes fore the Southern come in. Go on, I’ll be
right here.” He pushed Charles toward the corner.
Near the oil drums, he looked back and saw the old man kneeling beside the crate with his hands
folded beneath his chin. Round the corner, Charles broke the seal on the last bottle of vodka and
began the third day.
The warm chili felt good to his stomach and eased the sting of raw vodka. After a couple of pulls
from the bottle his headache lessened and he was glad the old man was watching over Billy. He
pulled the wet white hat low over his face and stepped out into a thick dawn fog. With five
minutes to spare, he paused at the corner to cup his hands round his zippo and light a cigarette.
The long boardwalk beside the track was silent and deserted. The sick taste of fear came swiftly
to his mouth and he drew deeply on the smoke and forced his legs into a slow and steady gait
until he stood under the awning beside his seabag. The crate was gone. The old man was gone.
Billy was gone.
His anguished scream pierced the St. Louis fog like a bobcat cry. Two blocks away a scruffy
brown dog shivered and growled in his cardboard shelter.
Charles vomited into the gutter and clung to a lamp post to keep from falling. With his vision
distorted by alcohol, fog and tears, he couldn’t see twenty feet in any direction. He scrubbed at
his eyes and called Billy’s name and a hollow echo bounced off dark warehouses and hard brick
to fall back on his ears like a ghastly laugh and he wondered if this was just one of the
nightmares. He tugged the vodka out of his pocket and couldn’t seem to get his fingers around
the cap. The bottle jumped out of his hands, bounced on the wooden sidewalk and shattered
against the steel railroad track.
He tried to run back the way he had come but his feet tangled and he sprawled on the wet boards
and pushed an inch long splinter into his left hand. From the thickened fog came a sing-song
voice, “The sin o’ gin, boy, the sin o’ gin!” The old man pulled at his arm. “Come on, git up!”
“Look out! You gone git blood all over me! Lemme’ see that.” He pulled Charles over to the
streetlight and tied a blue bandanna round the hand. “Mister Billy be all loaded up, just bring
your bag and come on. That Southern be wantin’ to leave.” He started off into fog at a trot, “Git
your bag, boy! Come on!”
Charles snatched up the duffel and ran after him. “You mean he’s on the train?”
“Course he is, didn’t I put him there, myself? Didn’t I put his head up front just like you say? He
was a good man, a fine man... go on, right up there! Take good care of him.”
Charles turned back one time to wave, to say something... but the old man was gone. In the first
baggage car, he found his charge and collapsed beside it and hugged the pain that seared through
his belly, clasped the ache as a welcome friend. “Just hold on, Billy, we’ll be home soon.”
There was only one funeral home listed in the phone directory for Centerville. The owner was
a soft spoken man named Wilbur Morris. “Oh, yes, Mr. Shell. I know the Hart family. Fine
people. We’ll take care of everything. So sorry about young Billy, so sorry. I’ll be right over
there.”
Charles sat on the pine box. His uniform was damp and wrinkled and a three day growth of
stubble darkened his chin. The blue handkerchief tied around his hand was dirty and crusted with
dried blood. His white hat was limp and grimed with dirt and his blond hair was plastered to his
forehead above red rimmed eyes. He lit a cigarette and hunched over, elbows on knees, to wait
for the hearse. “Well, buddy.” He spoke in a cracked whisper to the box, “Looks like we’ve
come to the end of the line. Guess you’re glad to be here, that makes one of us. Wish I was
anywhere but here. Those buzzards will be here in a few minutes and I guess you’ll have to go
with them. I better get cleaned up before I go see your folks. Ah, Billy! How can I face them?
Look, over there. That’s the tractor place, ain’t it? Where’d it all go, buddy? Our plans, our
future, our dreams? It was all just smoke, wasn’t it? ...just smoke up the chimney. That’s okay, I
never believed it anyway. You can stay here in this hick town if you want to, but I’m gonna’ do
some traveling. ... just gotta’ keep moving, you know?”
The big black car came so silently to the curb it gave him a little chill. He insisted on dismantling
the packing crate, himself, and helped load the sleek steel coffin in the hearse.
Mr. Morris was a big, hearty man, not at all what Charles had expected from the soft phone
voice. “Don’t you worry, we’ll take real good care of your friend.” Morris was deeply concerned
for the skinny and brittle looking sailor. He packed the boy into his green Buick and took him
back home to his wife’s warm kitchen.
“Well, for goodness sakes, son! You can eat a bite before you clean up! A man has to eat! What
happened to your hand? Let me see. Sit down, son, sit down.” And she alternately scolded and
pampered until Charles felt right at home.
It was after eight that night when Mr. Morris dropped Charles off in the Hart’s front yard. He
was sparkling in his fresh pressed white uniform and mirror polished shoes. A clean white hat sat
squarely on his wet combed hair and his hands were steady, though tightly clenched. He pushed
out his pink shaven chin and knocked on the screen door. “Just tighten up your gut, boy, and do
what you gotta do.” He repeated it over in his head and forced himself to breath.
“They took me right into the house like I was a part of the family. They already knew about
Billy, there was a telegram. I should have known. They welcomed me and hugged me like a long
lost child. Put me up in Billy’s room and I slept like a baby for about fourteen hours!” Charles
grinned to himself in the shadows beyond the yellow table. “Best night’s sleep I’d had in a year!”
He took another drink from the Jack Daniel’s and I noticed he had almost finished the bottle.
“Pop was hard hit, what with Billy being his only son, I guess. He wouldn’t go to the funeral
home, said he would say good bye to Billy at the church. So I stayed home with him and we
talked about Billy. Pop told me about taking him hunting the first time and about teaching him to
drive. I told Pop about me and Billy getting drunk in San Diego. We got picked up by the shore
patrol, naked on the beach … never did find our uniforms. Pop laughed ‘til he hurt. At the funeral,
on Sunday, Pop kept hanging back. He stayed by the door and thanked folks for
coming. He’d look up front where Billy’s casket was sitting with flowers all around it but he
couldn’t work up the nerve to go up there when everybody else was passing by the open lid. I
knew what he was feeling so I stayed close to him, in case he needed me. Finally, everybody was
sitting down and we knew it was time.
“Come on, Pop. You gotta say good bye, now. They gonna close the lid in a minute, you can’t
put it off no more, come on.”
He looked like somebody kicked his belly. I took his arm and led him up the aisle. I guess half
the town was packed into that church and everybody was staring at us. I stopped at the front pew
by the family. “Go ahead, Pop.”
His old back straightened and his chin lifted up. I was real proud of the way he walked right up
there like he was a soldier. But when he stood there by the coffin his shoulders slumped and a
sob shook him and he looked back at me with his hand held out like a beggar.
Momma Hart leaned over and squeezed my cold hand. “Go on, Charles, It’s your time, now.”
And I walked up there straight and tall just like Pop, even though my legs was shaking and weak.
I held onto Pop and he sobbed against my shoulder as I looked down at our poor Billy. I knew it
was gonna’ feel awful to see him all still and empty, but I wasn’t prepared for the agony that
slammed my chest like a sledge hammer and broke something in there. The weakness drained
out of me like water through a crack. The tight pain in my chest melted away and my hand was
steady as I reached in to smooth his tie. “Good bye, Billy Hart. You was the best man I ever
knew and I’m glad I loved you. I won’t ever forget.”
I closed the lid myself and helped Pop back to his pew with the family. I drove them out to
the cemetery and held Pop up while they lowered his son into the ground. For a long time I
thought I’d buried my heart that Sunday afternoon, but what I really buried was my fear of
pain. I finally learned you can’t avoid pain, can’t live without it. Just like courage, it’s
always there even when you forget what it feels like.
“I don’t stir up the old memories very often but I don’t want to forget ‘em. Billy’s been dead a
long time, now... and his pop is gone, too. I don’t know about the night shift janitor in St. Louis
but I’ll bet he’s buried, too … buried by his ungrateful daughter or the sin o’ gin!” Charles
laughed and it was a good laugh, deep and full and rich. “But they’re all still alive as long as I
remember ‘em, so every once in a while I find a sympathetic ear like yours and I stir up the old
coals and blow my smoke. Thanks for listening, you don’t know what it means to me.”
He finished the bottle. I helped him undress and get into bed, found a blanket to cover him and
turned off the lamp. His long fingered hand came up to clutch my thigh in the dark. “Stay with
me. Rub my back, okay?”
“Sure. I’d like that … and Charles? I’ll remember, too. I wont ever forget.”
Later, afterwards, he rolled over towards me and wrapped his arms around my chest, pulled me
down, buried his face in my neck and cried like anybody’s brother, everybody’s son. Then he
slept and dreamed of peace. He slept with a smile on his soft, sweet face.
... db
