Abandoned: MIA in Vietnam (12 page)

Johnson nodded. “Don’t worry about them,” he said. “They’re in a heap of trouble. They had counterfeit liberty passes and are definitely intoxicated. More than one witness said they started the brawl. Their captain will likely take away some stripes. They’re not off your ship, so you shouldn’t see them again.”

“Good,” Wolfe said. “One more question, though. I’m still missing some memories. Which way is my ship?”

Johnson led him to the door of the building and stepped outside with him. He pointed. “At the end of this street, turn left. That road takes you to the pier. You can catch the landing craft at the pier. It’ll take you to the
Oriskany
.”

“Thanks,” Wolfe said.

More memories seeped slowly into Wolfe’s consciousness as he traversed the streets of Sasebo on this way to the pier. He recognized the shop where his jacket waited for him. The seamstress handed him a brown-paper package tied with string in exchange for his Japanese yen.

By the time he arrived at the pier, the sun had set. A rowdy crowd of drunk sailors, some already in the custody of the shore patrol, waited for the landing craft. After crossing over the gangway, Wolfe stumbled over a man lying on the deck of the landing craft. He recognized Byrnes. Stopping, he bent over and lifted Byrnes to his feet.

“Buddy, my buddy,” Byrnes mumbled drunkenly. He threw his arms over Wolfe’s shoulders. His eyes widened. “You look like shit. There’s blood all over your uniform.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled Wolfe’s Dixie cup hat out. “I held your hat,” he said, slurring his words. It took him several minutes to finish his thoughts, “Boy you dropped that…guy with one punch…. Sorry…I couldn’t stay around…after I took out the second guy…. If shore patrol arrests me again…I’m in big trouble. You looked like…you were doing okay with…the third guy. They let you…out! Lost you…let you down…my fault. Drown…my…sorrows. Only two…maybe three…beers.”

Over the twenty-minute boat ride to the
Mighty O
, Byrnes sneaked up behind groups of sailors and sucker punched them. He started at least ten fights. By the time the boat docked with the barge tied to the
Oriskany
, the entire landing craft raged in one huge mêlée. The drunks chased the shore patrol to the pilothouse of the craft. They locked the hatch to protect themselves and radioed the carrier. A dozen more shore patrol met the landing craft at the barge.

Wolfe pulled Byrnes to the stern of the craft, arm locked around his friend’s neck. “You move, and we go to the brig,” he said. Fortunately, Byrnes passed out. Wolfe and one of the shore patrol had to carry him over the gangplank and up the ladder to the ship. Once on the ship, other men from V-3 Hangar Deck Division helped Wolfe get Byrnes to his bunk.

The next morning Wolfe went to sick call. The corpsman who saw him looked inside his mouth. “We don’t usually sew lacerations inside mouths,” he said, “and it’s been too long anyway.” He handed Wolfe a bottle of mouthwash and a bottle of penicillin. “Rinse it three times a day. Take a pill four times a day on an empty stomach. Come back if it gets red and swollen more than it already is. And stay out of bars.” From that point on Wolfe and Byrnes were close friends.

CHAPTER 16

Kayla piloted the Prius to Jacksonville International Airport. It rained for the entire trip from Flagler College, where Wolfe had picked up his daughter, to the airport. In those sixty miles, an hour and half of travel time, rain poured from the sky obscuring the road. The weather added thirty minutes to the drive. “Rain like this always reminds me of P.I.” Wolfe said.

“Pi? 3.1416?” Kayla asked, teasing her father. She had heard her father say P.I. hundreds of times in the past and knew exactly what he meant.

“Not pi or apple pie,” Wolfe corrected her at a subconscious level, an automatic response after many years. “P-I. As in Philippine Islands. Monsoon rains. That’s the place I first saw rain like this.”

“Tell me, again, Dad. Where are you going?” Kayla said, stopping the car in front of the Southwest Airlines baggage drop-off at the airport.

In a hurry, even though he knew there would be a long wait at the security check-in, and hoping not to miss his flight, Wolfe growled, “Washington. D.C., not the state.”

“And why? Mom will ask.”

“I’ll be home before she will,” Wolfe said, opening the hatchback door and pulling out his small carry-on.

“Dad!”

“Okay. Okay. I don’t want her to give you a hard time.” Wolfe closed the hatch and leaned through the passenger window. He said, “I’m going to see the family of a guy I knew in the navy. He’s dead.”

“Why are you going to see a dead guy?”

“I’m not going to see a dead guy. I’m going to see his mother. He’s been dead for almost fifty years. I didn’t know he was dead until last week.”

“And why?” Kayla repeated her question, exasperated.

Stressed, in a rush, Wolfe said, “To pay my respects. He was a good friend. It’s probably his fault I went to medical school. If he were alive, I’d choke him for that, though. Drive carefully. Love you.” He turned and bolted through the glass doors.

Kayla saw him walk briskly to the escalator, and then disappear into the crowd. Taking her time, she navigated between the other vehicles, their drivers also scurrying to drop passengers quickly. Soon she was back on I-95 south, headed toward St. Augustine and Flagler College. She mumbled to herself. “If he was so important to you, why didn’t you know he was dead until last week? You should have tried to keep in touch, don’t you think?”

As the last person seated on the Boeing 737, Wolfe sat next to the obligatory crying baby, held by a teenaged mom. The father sat next to Wolfe in the middle seat. Mom and baby had a nice view of the aircraft wing. Dad wore his green USMC uniform, the two chevrons of a corporal on his sleeve.

“Marine Corps now issuing wives and children?” Wolfe asked between the child’s howls after the aircraft leveled off at cruising altitude.

“No, sir,” the corporal said. “I’m on terminal leave. Just left my folks’ place in Palatka. On our way to Atlanta to visit my wife’s family. Next week we go to Bethesda Naval Hospital for medical discharge.”

Wolfe scanned the man carefully and noted no obvious scars or deformities, although he could not see the corporal’s legs well. “TBI?” he asked, meaning traumatic brain injury.

The man nodded. “That and this,” he said, folding his newspaper. He tapped with the tips of three fingers on his left thigh. The tapping resulted in the hollow sound of a long-leg prosthesis.

“Combat?” Wolfe asked.

“No, sir. Osprey crash in training.”

“Sorry,” Wolfe said. “Do you have a job lined up for when you are discharged?”

“He’s going back to finish college. Then he’s going to go to medical school,” the man’s wife said, leaning forward to make eye contact with Wolfe. The baby continued to shriek.

The corporal smiled. He winked at Wolfe. “Going to try, anyway, sir,” he said.

“One of my medical school classmates lost a leg in Vietnam,” Wolfe said. “He did well enough. Ended up as an ER doc in California, if I remember correctly. Mind if I hold the baby?” You two look like you could use a break.”

The couple looked at each other and nodded. “He can’t cry much louder,” his mother said. She handed the baby to his father, who handed him to Wolfe.

“And I doubt he could kidnap him from the plane,” the corporal added.

“A pediatrician taught me this trick during my pediatrics rotation as an intern,” Wolfe said. He gently turned the infant over until it rested chest down on his left hand. Gently, he then folded each arm and each leg inward until they were all tucked under the infant, balanced on his left hand. The baby looked like a round ball. As each limb folded inward and under the child, his cries became softer and softer until he was silent. Then he went to sleep.

The young parents looked at Wolfe in disbelief. The corporal held his hands out for the child. “Want me to hold him now, sir?” he asked in a whisper.

Wolfe shook his head. “I’ve got him for the time being. You two relax for a while.” Within ten minutes the man and woman had fallen asleep, her head on his shoulder. Wolfe held the infant for the hour flight to Atlanta. Both adults woke when the tires on the landing gear squealed as the aircraft touched down. The baby opened its eyes, took one look at Wolfe, and started to howl for his mother. Wolfe handed him back to the corporal who passed the infant to his wife. “Sorry,” Wolfe said, “only one magic trick per flight. Thanks for your service, son.”

“Were you ever in the military, sir?” the corporal asked.

“You
jarheads
called us
swabbies
,” Wolfe said, laughing. “Do what your wife says. Finish college. Medical school can be rewarding, but it’s not a crime if you don’t get in. Sometimes I regret I did. I guess I would have been a better engineer. Listen to the college career counselors. You might make a great surgeon, or a better chemist.” Wolfe stood in the aisle. The couple and baby joined him waiting to exit.

“I will, sir. Thank you for your service, too,” the marine said, shaking Wolfe’s hand.

“And for the trick for quieting the baby,” his wife added.

Wolfe made faces at the infant as they exited the plane. The baby smiled.

On his second flight, Wolfe reviewed the obituaries he printed from the internet for Jimmy Byrnes, i.e. ABH-3 James T. Byrnes, III; his father, retired Admiral J. T. Byrnes, Jr.; and his Grandfather, Chief Petty Officer J. T. Byrnes, Sr.

Chief Petty Officer Byrnes had been at Pearl Harbor during the Japanese attack, one of only a handful of survivors from the USS
Arizona
. After the war, he had retired. He died of emphysema in 1958 and was buried in Arlington. His son, Admiral J.T., Junior, had flown from carriers in the Pacific during World War II. He saw service in the Battle of Midway and the Marianas Turkey Shoot, becoming an ace. He also flew jets in the Korean War in a ground support role. During Vietnam, he captained several ships, but never in the war zone, being in the Sixth Fleet, in the Mediterranean. He joined his father in Arlington in 1991. The navy had split his last duty station between the Pentagon and the Newport News Shipyard.

Wolfe’s friend had the shortest obituary, essentially: “Lost at sea, body not recovered.”

After his second flight landed at Reagan National Airport in Virginia, Wolfe rented a car and drove to the address he had found on the internet. An Emiko Byrnes lived in the house he found off Russell Road in Alexandria. According to his obituary, Admiral Byrnes had lived in Alexandria after retirement and had been survived by his wife, Emiko, and two daughters, Tamiko and Yasuko.

Wolfe parked the rental in front of the two-story colonial brick dwelling with a large, flat, front yard on a corner lot. He sat in the vehicle for about ten minutes, leafing through his notes, and Clemons’s black book. Nerves calmed somewhat, he walked to the front door. Taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly, he pushed the doorbell.

After several minutes, a neighbor walked by, struggling to control two large dogs on leashes. “You’ll have to knock,” the woman said. “The doorbell doesn’t work.” The animals dragged her down the street.

“Thanks,” Wolfe said. He opened the screen door and knocked three times on the wooden door, then let the screen door close.

A gray haired woman opened the inner door. She appeared to be about Wolfe’s age. Seeing her, he remembered sailors had had a difficult time guessing Japanese women’s age when he was in Japan. They never seemed to age, or the women all lied well. “Mrs. Byrnes?” he said.

“Who’s asking?” the woman said, arms folded across her chest. She made no effort to open the screen door.

“My name is Addison Wolfe. I was a friend of Jimmy’s in the navy. On the
Oriskany
. Could we talk? I found out about his death not long ago.”

“My mother doesn’t do much talking,” the woman said. “She has Alzheimer’s.” An older, smaller, Oriental woman appeared at the younger woman’s side. She wore a kimono and wooden geta sandals over white socks that had a gap between first and second toes to fit around the sandal strap. “She’s in Tokyo right now. Mentally, that is.”

The older woman spoke in Japanese to the younger woman, and then bowed toward Wolfe. The younger woman bowed toward her mother. She then opened the screen door. “She heard you mention Jim’s name. She wants me to be polite and let you in the house. I’m Tamiko Kimura. You said your name is Addison?” She opened the door farther, letting Wolfe into the house.

“My friends call me Addy,” Wolfe said, following the younger woman into a large living room. The older woman disappeared to the left, where Wolfe saw a hallway and part of a formal dining room. “Is she going to talk with me?” he asked.

“Do you understand Japanese?” Kimura asked brusquely. She blushed. “Sorry, I have been busy. Responding to my mother’s whims interrupts my day. I was never good with interruptions. Please, have a seat. May I get you something to drink? Never mind, my mother has decided we are drinking tea.”

The older woman appeared with a woven bamboo tray, on which sat a small tea set, including three small cups. “I guess it would be impolite to refuse,” Wolfe said, as she placed a napkin in front of him along with a saucer and cup.

Deftly, she poured his tea, and then a cup for her daughter and herself. She knelt in front of the coffee table, feet splayed to either side. Wolfe and Kimura sat on either end of the couch. “Arigato,” Kimura said. The woman bowed her head silently.

“I’m Jim’s sister, Tamiko. You can call me Tammy,” the younger woman said to Wolfe. She held her small cup in her hands and swiveled toward him. She placed one knee on the couch. “What can my mother and I do for you?”

“First of all,” Wolfe said, “I recently found out that your brother died shortly after I transferred from the
Oriskany
to another ship. He and I were really close for about six months. I have thought about him frequently over the last forty-odd years.”

“But not close enough to track him down before now?” Kimura frowned. She added, “Or to have found out about his death?”

Embarrassed, Wolfe blushed. He said, “We didn’t have the internet then, of course. Keeping in touch was harder. And life always got in the way. College. Medical school. Family. You know.”

Kimura nodded. “So why show up today? You said you just heard about his death?”

“I came to offer my very overdue condolences. Jimmy was a fine young man. It’s probably his fault that I went to medical school.” Wolfe told Kimura about the
Forrestal
fire, liberty in Sasebo, and other stories. During the telling, her face softened. Tears glistened slightly above her lower eyelashes, but never fell onto her cheeks.

“Thank you for relating that,” she said when he finished. Wolfe saw Mrs. Byrnes nod in assent. Then the old woman stood, retrieved the teas cups, saucers, and napkins, and trundled slowly from the room. “She may, or may not, come back,” Kimura said. “While she’s away, I’ll tell you a little about our family.

“My father graduated from Annapolis in 1942. From there he went to flight school in Pensacola and the war in the Pacific. He flew navy fighters from aircraft carriers in World War II and the Korean War. When Japan surrendered, the navy assigned my father to General Douglas MacArthur’s occupation staff. It was his job to make sure Japanese military aircraft never flew again. He and his assistants spent seven months traveling around the country destroying Japanese navy and air force airplanes. His home base was in Tokyo, which is where he met my mother.

“I didn’t learn this until after my father’s death, but my mother was forced by her family to marry an American, any American. Arranged marriages were common before the war. Her parents thought it was their duty to sacrifice their daughter for the good of Japan and the emperor. Of course, my father never knew this or let on if he did. My mother surely fell in love with him over time. Although more than once I heard her refer to the arrangement as a
deranged
marriage after Dad died.

“Dad’s family is an Irish mix. They drank a lot; could be violent at times, which may have been a plus for navy pilots but not civilians. Don’t get me wrong, he was not Pat Conroy’s Great Santini, even when drinking sake, but he did his share of boozing, fighting, and chasing women. He never beat the four of us. Berate, yes. Fists no. It was beneath him to strike a child or a female. His motto was, ‘Never complain; never explain.’ My parents weren’t the most loving couple on the block. She hated him when he joked that farts were Kamikazes – Divine Winds. They stayed together for their children’s sake, although my sister and I sometimes wonder if it was worth the drama.