Carry Me Home (114 page)

Ahhhhhoooooommmm. Ahhhhhoooooommmm. He saw Sara, saw her smiling, saw that spectacular smile which was iron bars reinforcing him, iron molecules in his erythrocytes. He saw Noah, Paul and Am, he saw them in school, on soccer fields, on stages, he saw them at birth, at present, at high school and college graduations, and he saw himself with them, proud, beaming inside if not outwardly, beaming subdued, purposefully, not wishing to steal from them their glow, their wonderment, whether they knew it, saw it, or not. He saw the next sunrise, the next and the next. Ahhhhhoooooommmmm.

With meditation he combined exercise. Walks. He was capable of little more. He walked with old Josh, often alone, often up to his grandfather’s grave. He walked with Sara. Sometimes talking, sometimes in silence, thinking, pondering, observing.

I married the girl of my dreams, he’d think. And she is here with me. We have three beautiful healthy children. I’ve run the farm, the solar business. I think we’ve expanded awareness about environmental issues and veterans’ issues, which overlap. Maybe I’ve helped someone along the way. Now all I want to do ... All I want ... All I ever wanted ...

“Brian, he’s getting worse. Did you talk to your mother? He needs a bone marrow transplant. He won’t make it without one.”

“Maybe Cheryl can talk to her. You know how Ma—”

“Brian! He’s
your
brother! And she’s
your
mother!”

“Sara, I’ve done everything I can.”

Sara squeezed the phone striving to maintain control. “I know,” she said. “And we really appreciate ...”

“If I was a match I’d give him some.”

“I know, Brian. It’s just so frustrating that Miriam and Joanne refuse to be tested.”

“You shouldn’t have told her they’d poke the needle right into the bone.”

“God!” Sara snapped. “Bobby’s had it done six times.”

“Well, you know Miriam. When Cheryl talked to her the first time ... She was, you know, ‘NO WAY!’ She said it was immoral to ask someone who’s sixty-two ...”

“Oh God.” Sara sighed, closed her eyes. “It could mean keeping her son alive!”

“Well, like I said, if I could ...”

“Brian, what about your uncle? Were you able to find out anything about him?”

“Only that, ah, his name is Fredrick. Fredrick Cadwalder. And he married a Jennifer Morton like thirty-five years ago. In St. Louis. You know, I’d forgotten about him. I don’t think I’ve seen him since I was maybe eight.”

“Hmm. Thanks. I’ll ...” Sara scribbled the names on a pad, squeezed her hand, tensed her arm in hope. “I’ll follow that up. Ask Joanne again? Please.”

In late June, alone with Josh, Bobby smelled it. They had climbed through the orchard, crested the knoll, descended to the dam, crossed the spillway, entered the path to the far woods. Bobby took his time, paused, observed, remembered a day with Red, remembered days fishing, remembered the nights and days when the dam almost washed away. He walked slowly, carefully. Then, “Oooo! Smell that?”

Josh stood by him, looked up; his old body sagged between his shoulders.

“Geez. Ha! I ... I remember when we first walked back here, Ol’ Boy. Remember? And we smelled that but we couldn’t find it. Maybe a dead raccoon, huh?”

Josh’s head dropped, swung indifferently to one side, the other. He looked up again as if to say, “If you’ll go on, I’ll go on.”

And Bobby answered, “Naw, Boy. We’ll go back.”

That night, returning from a lone trek across the gap to the fire circle, Don Wagner, in his orange plaid pants, discovered the source.

“Why would it take so long for the body to come up?”

“This is the shits, Man. This is more fuckin problems.”

“Poor fuckin Ty.”

“Yeah. They goina let us bury im here?”

“What’d his brother say?”

“It was the boots and all. That’s what weighted him down. And if he didn’t come up because of the gases, you know, the decomposition, maybe because of the ice, then the gases worked their way out and the body became waterlogged.”

“We’re lucky he had his boots on. That establishes it happened last winter. Man, they’ve been all over the place, again. FBI. IRS. Staters. Hartley’s lackeys. That bitch from 1st Witness News ... that’s all they needed.”

Two weeks later there was additional fallout. In the barn a score of vets huddled, close, almost like the old days, barn trial days, except closer now, beneath the loft where the Slitter used to be.

MARIANO
: Did you hear that guy, Gilmore?

VU
: He is the one from IRS.

MARIANO
: Yeah. I heard him say, “He was my ears.”

VAN DEUSEN
: Like an informer?

MARIANO
: Yeah. I think.

PISANO
: What the hell did they need an informer for? You guys kept the books open. They coulda come up any—

VU: It make Bobby sick again.

PISANO
: I don’t believe it. I don’t believe Ty would of done it. He wouldn’t. He just wouldn’t.

GALLAGHER
: They didn’t find anything. There were no signs of foul play. The autopsy said “by drowning.”

THORPE
: Didn’t stop 1st Witness News ...

VU
: My cousins are in Connecticut. Tomorrow I will drive him. I have many connections, now. He has a fever ... an infection ...

PISANO
: I’m sick of this shit, Man. I’m just sick of it.

WAGNER
: I think I got a lead. We have to keep networking.

GALLAGHER
: On what?

WAGNER
: His father, Man. His old man. He’d be like sixty now. Maybe he had a family. Maybe Bobby’s got a half-brother out there that’d be a match.

Sara felt guilty. She could not accompany Bobby, could not sit with him through another transfusion, through the new antibiotic infusion that would control whatever infection he had, allow his temperature to return to normal. Instead, along with the other newly hired teachers, she was inspecting her new classroom—a third grade in Thomas Jefferson Elementary in Rock Ridge. She felt torn. She liked the principal, a matronly woman in her late fifties. She liked the building, an old, two-story, red-brick edifice whose vacant halls echoed with the click of her heels, halls that seemingly held the smiles and laughs and smudges of thousands of former pupils. She liked that her career was restarting, full-time. But to be away from Bobby, from the boys, from Am who was only two and a half! She did not know if she could pull it off. It was tearing her apart.

When they returned it was not Bobby who seemed different but Vu Van Hieu. He seemed bigger, stronger. Perhaps it was because Bobby had not shaken the fever, had come back with six different prescriptions, had returned shivering, hunched over. Still, Hieu looked bigger to Tony, too, when he stood next to Carl and Bobby was not present.

“What’s happenin, Hieu?”

Hieu put a finger to his lips, “Ssshh!” He leaned forward, indicated for Tony and Carl to come closer.

“What’s goin on, Man?”

“Ssshh.” Hieu looked about, checked the doors, windows. They were in the small mill building on River Front Drive.

“What is it, Man? You’re smiling like the cat who ate the canary.”

Hieu looked at him questioningly.

“House cat that ate the pet bird,” Carl explained. “You know, ah ... never mind. What’s up?”

Again conspiratorially. “I told you of my cousins, eh?”

“Up in, uh ... up in New Haven?”

Hieu nodded. “He say ... you must keep this secret.”

“Sure.”

“Certainly.”

“Okay. I tell you. I have not told Bobby. He is too sick to tell.”

“What, Man?”

“Maybe two months, maybe three. They establish International Coalition of Free Viet Namese.”

“What’s that mean, Hieu?”

“Ssshh!” Vu Van Hieu squirmed restless as a small child over a secret dessert. “I am among first to join.”

Tuesday, 10 August 1982—On VA letterhead—“There is no evidence that this veteran had the claimed condition in military service nor manifest to the required degree within one year. There is nothing at this time in the medical literature which relates any exposure to AGENT ORANGE to this veteran’s condition. The letters submitted by the West Haven Chief of Oncology/Hematology provide nothing new or material. Notice of denial of disability is hereby ...”

Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch!

Anger erupted, spewed massively. How much can one man be screwed? How far could they push him? Now he was over the edge. Now he believed the absolute worst about his government, his society. Now he thought greed controlled all, in retrospect controlled the media, in retrospect controlled the war, controlled why and how and by whom it was fought and perhaps Ty was right in his ambiguous “The Man” because now Bobby was being punished by The Man. Everything he’d worked for now seemed ruined, destroyed, ephemeral. The peace Sara had provided, the joy of his children, the elation he’d gotten from his own accomplishments, from those of the vets; the satisfaction of his tinkerings, his designs—at that moment were meaningless.

He had long avoided the natural anger of someone who discovers he has a terminal disease; had avoided the bitterness, the feeling of victimization. He had never felt like a victim, never seen himself as a victim, until now, until the denial of his claim, until the VA’s personal rejection of him. The VA denial was so outrageous everything erupted, spewed from Bobby like the explosion from Mount St. Helens. He took it out on himself, on Sara, on Noah, Paul and Am, on Tony, on all the vets.

Cheaters, liars, betrayers, rejectors! Everyone. Everyone around him. Or suckers! Pawns, like he himself, lied to by presidents, by congresses, by governors and aldermen; cheated by politicians, by attorneys, by bureaucrats; betrayed by manufacturers, by shippers, by big business, by small striving to get their piece of the pie. SCREWED! Conspiracy, treason, deceit aimed directly at Robert Janos Wapinski, at his wife, his children, his dog.

“How dare they!” Bobby kicked a kitchen chair, sent it crashing. “Son of a bitch. How can they ...” His voice tapered. He did not want the children to hear. Thoughts: Can’t they see? I’ve given everything, to improve everything, every aspect of every life.... They’ve set me up. Screwed! Taking it all away! Taking it all. Everything. Even the dignity of acknowledgment. Screwed! Screwed! Then loud, angry, “SCREWED!!!”

On 8 September Sara returned to work, full-time. The situation fueled Bobby’s rage. It was part of
their
machinations designed to divide and conquer, designed to debase his pride, his ability to provide for his family—not like his father but like his grandfather who had been a rock, a foundation upon which an entire nation could build, but no more, no longer would that be allowed.

Bobby did not object to Sara working. He took pride in her abilities, her quality as a teacher, her strong and principled positions. And he took pride in the accomplishments of his children, and in the independent attainments of the vets. Almost daily he received reminders.

Dear Bobby,

You made quite an impression on my husband. You have given him back his life and you’ve restored mine. People need heroes and leaders. There aren’t many anymore. It pleases me that Joe’s role model seems to have been such a kind, gentle and strong man.

But neither his acceptance and pride, nor the acknowledgments, insulated him from envy, anger, bitterness.

A different flood of letters also poured in, fanned the flames of his fury. “I’m dying from Hodgkin’s disease ...” “I’m in my third remission ...” “... liver ...” “... a soft tissue sarcoma ...” “The cancer registry here shows a rate among Viet Nam vets 1,100 percent over expectations ...” “... eleven birth defects and counting. My wife cries every night ...” “... the rash is so bad—it now weeps constantly—I can no longer use my arms. My mother dresses me before she leaves for work in the morning. She’s writing this for me now. (Hi! I’m glad to meet you, too.) ...” “... his headaches are so bad now he never leaves the bedroom. The psychiatrist at the VA said it’s from the emotional stress of combat but Danny thinks it was from that spray ...” “... the doctor told me to take aspirin. He insisted Agent Orange never has and never will hurt anyone, and he showed me both a VA memo to its physicians and a VA pamphlet which specifically stated these facts. I think they’re afraid if they admit it, it’ll be the Pandora’s box that’ll bankrupt the entire system ...” “... the VA pamphlet
AGENT ORANGE
:
Information for Veterans Who Served in Vietnam
says, ‘there is no medical evidence that exposure to Agent Orange has caused birth defects in the children of Vietnam Veterans.’ The lawyers for the class-action suit have at least 2,000 documented cases of polygenetic birth defects due to chemical mutation of chromosomal ...” “... they denied my claim.” “... they denied my claim.” “... they denied my claim.”

“God damned fuckers! Screwed royal!”

Tony sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

“Screwed to the fuckin wall.” Bobby’s arms flailed.

“Yeah. They’re treating it exactly as they treated PTSD when that first hit em. Deny, deny, delay, deny. Not our fault. Nothing we did. You brought it on yourself. You’re a malingerer. They weren’t particularly tight with a buck when Daddy Dow presented them with a bill for eleven million gallons of that shit but they’re pretty tight now.”

“I can’t work ... I ...” They were alone in the barn, in Grandpa’s office. Bobby couldn’t finish the sentence. His face tightened, wrinkled, his eyes squeezed closed, his lips separated. At first without sound, then without control, he cried. He babbled. “I can’t even ... If I could just ... I’m not finished ... I’m sorry, Tone. I’m ...” Tears seeped from his eyes, dripped from his jaw.

“Naw. Naw. It’s okay.” Tears came too to Tony’s eyes but he forced them back. “I’d be doin the same. Shee-it. I have.”

Bobby snorted. “It’s okay to die,” he said.

“Yeah. We all gotta go sometime.”

“No. I mean ... It’s okay for me to die. I die, I die.”

“Yeah, what happens, happens.”