Authors: Dale Herd
Empty Pockets (2 page)
“Really,” Frank said, sitting back again. He was amazed.
“I could have killed her,” Geno said.
“Really,” Frank repeated, talking almost to himself. “Are you going to leave her?”
“Maybe,” Geno said. “I don't know.”
“Well,” Frank said, “if you need a place to stay you can always put up at our place. We have an extra bed.”
“Good,” Geno said. “Fine.”
The rest of the lunch hour Frank paid no attention to the girls. He thought only about how Geno really was inside. He could hardly wait to tell Betty. Men were nothing inside, he thought. They were just like babies. Frank was more excited than if he had been looking at the girls.
Geno, however, did look at the girls. And the more he looked, the more he began thinking about Betty. She was really nice, he thought, but hell, Frank was his friend.
J
enny, her body still heavy and swollen, was sitting with Beth at the kitchen table. Down the hall in the living room I could see the two pink bassinets.
“I'm not kidding,” Jenny was saying, “her mind is just going wacky since I've had the twins. She's making me so damn nervous . . .”
“Take it easy,” Beth said.
“Who?” I asked.
“Grandma,” Beth said.
“Do you know what she did yesterday?” said Jenny. “She sat in the living room and cried because Hill didn't say hello to her and she thought that meant no one wanted her here. Mother had to give her an alcohol rub and put her to bed like a baby. She's Mother's baby now. Isn't that funny?”
“It's her age,” Beth said. “Her arteries are hardening.”
“No,” Jenny said, “it's simply attention. Since the twins came, she's simply not getting enough attention. She makes me so damn mad! She hasn't even once asked to hold them! Not once!”
“I think I'll go take a look,” I said.
I went down the hall into the living room. The babies were asleep, one on its stomach, its tiny fists clenched, the other on its back, its little eyes wrinkled like an old woman's.
As I came back in the kitchen, Jenny wanted to know what I thought.
“They're perfect,” I said. “You're a lovely girl.”
She smiled and brushed the hair back off her face. Beth gave me a wink.
L
eaning over, a good lovely look on his face, telling us this shortly after visiting Celia and Gene for his first look at the new babies, Willy said, “Christ, seeing her nurse those twins really did it to me. The first time I ever saw anyone nurse, it was twins. I was settling a route dispute in this guy's house, having a beer in the kitchen, and the guy's wife came in, sat down, lifted out her breasts, and started nursing two babies just like that. My God, I wanted to knock them off and plunge in there myself. Seeing Celia do the same thing was just a bit too much. Beautiful women should know better.”
About a week before Celia called, saying, “Well, we did it. I finally feel like a woman again . . .”
We laughed. Right after that, Willy left to visit his girl and Gerri called and told Celia the story. Celia laughed and said, “Yes, but did he like the babies?” Gerri laughed and said, “He didn't say, but doesn't that turn you on? How long has it been? It's been more than three months now, hasn't it? Hasn't Gene complained?” “Oh, no,” Celia answered. “You know Gene.”
Then, three days later, Celia called, using merrily those special sister to sister tones, not talking about her babies, saying this to Gerri: “My God, Ger, the dream I had! I don't believe it! Promise you won't tell? Ever? It's about Willy. Yes! Remember what you told me? God! Yes! We were all sitting at the table, you, me, Phil, Gene. I was feeding the twins, watching you guys play bridge, and Willy was under the table. Yes! No! No one knew. And all I had on was a housecoat! No! Nothing else! And he started kissing my legs! Yes! No! Yes, I did like it, but I couldn't keep my face still! I was scared to death Gene would look up and see my face and Willy kept kissing higher and higher . . . it was simply . . . no . . . ha ha ha . . .”
T
he Cedars was a downhome, funky barâSwan, Moody, Mick the Hillbilly, Dead Ed, Donna. Going back was always great. It was out in Ballard, out in the old industrial section with train tracks crossing the streets, concrete underpasses, past wrecking yards, junkshops, old hotels for old men. We were always stoned en route, and the twenty-minute ride from the U District could take light-years but was always all right. Swan would take things down into the crowd; he didn't dig the leader-of-the-band trip, so he would jump down off the stage out of the colors and ask everyone to shout or stomp or move. First you were moving and then sweating and things would start mixing in and mixing out and going on the same, hands, hair, hips, feet, up on the stage into the lights there cupping the harp to the mike, you could really lay it out, putting it all into pulling it straight out from under you, feeling yourself pulling the power from the floor, the concrete, the ground, the earth, all of it coming up and out into everybody, into everywhere, Swan laying it on with you, Moody the same, Moody constant, always happy, you happy sweating, everyone happy, everyone going on in everybody, and so it would go, anyone could get up there, most of us did, but the place was always empty of regular customers, the management didn't dig Swan's band, so when he'd do something similar, anything, play with his teeth, or let “American Man” run on out the full set, never giving the dancers a break, they'd threaten to can the whole group, they wanted a straight country-western shitkicking beer outfit in there, but they weren't making enough money to pay for it, so they were stuck with Swan. The place was nearly always empty until we got there, all our own crowd, all us stoners, dropouts, longhairs, fuckups, dope fiends, all of us all getting it on, it was always a hell of a good time, no one ever got busted, some of us even got laid out there, picking up some of the local
stuff, Buc, in particular, Buc had a great time with two of the local hogs, two peroxide-tipped bangers that wanted his body, so he took them on outside in Moody's Chevrolet, everyone walked outside and looked at the steamed-over windows.
W
hen the first contingent of American troops withdrawn from Vietnam comes home in the summer of '69 at McChord Air Force Base, General Richard C. Williamson, former Commander in Chief in Vietnam and then current Army Chief of Staff, is there to greet two-ninths of them with a handshake.
For many of these men (all sharp looking, all deeply tanned, all wearing highly polished combat boots and clean combat fatigues, sleeves rolled to the bicep), certainly for those who wear a small round button in their lapel that reads We Try Harder, the slogan of Avis Rent A Car, America's second leading car rental agency, the greeting by Williamson, the highest-ranking officer they have ever seen, is particularly memorable.
Standing tall, every inch the picture of the nation's top general, wearing no extra insignia save the gold and silver braid on the glossy brim of his high-crowned hat, the four silver stars on each collar of his summer dress blouse, and a single blue infantryman's badge over his left breast pocket, Williamson's firm grip, six-foot-one-inch height, and rugged face of hard jawline, lean cheeks, and massive black eyebrows accent his position of command and lend power to the solemnity of the occasion.
And when giving the last address of the afternoon to the entire contingent of 814 men, the sun hammering at his face, occasionally ricocheting off his stars, but never affecting his eyes, eyes protected by shadow cast from the brim of his hat, his bearing, to every man there, reinforces the words he speaks:
“I want to convey to you the appreciation of our nationâappreciation for a job well done.
“You have grown and developed while you have been in uniform. You will find yourself more mature, more dedicated to the service of others, more responsible, more realistic, and more
practical than your contemporaries who have not served.
“You have served while others stood by, and talked, and demonstrated.
“But, of course, you have demonstrated too.
“You have demonstrated your responsibility by doing your duty for your country.
“Those who stay in the Army will benefit from your experience in Vietnam.”
Earlier in the day, shortly before the contingent lands in the nine silver C-141 transports, Williamson presides over another ceremony. Hatless this time but, as later, not seeming to look anywhere but straight ahead, surrounded by aides, base officers, their aides, doctors, military and civilian newsmen and photographers, Williamson walks through the wards of Madigan General Hospital and decorates six of the wounded already home from Vietnam.
For five of the men, all enlisted men, the hospital staff has made the normal frantic pre-inspection preparation: clean bedding put on all beds; walls, windows, woodwork, and floors washed; all tables, chairs, food trays, crash carts, bedpans and urinals, books, magazines, newspapers, and personal effects hidden away under beds and shoved into closets; each man given his personal uniform, cleaned and pressed, complete with rank and insignia.
The sixth man, a twenty-five-year-old Captain, presented presents a special problem. Struck by a Viet Cong mortar fragment, he now has a two-inch-long indentation on the top left side of his shaved skull and a steel plate beneath the indentation. Since his vocabulary is limited to one word, the word baa, and since he is neither able to eat nor dress nor get out of bed by himself, the ward attendants have to feed, shave, have his bowels move, and dress the Captain, as well as satisfy what other wants he might have, all at the proper time just before Williamson arrives, to prevent a possible breakdown in either his appearance or behavior.
The Captain, apparently upset, utters long and loud baas
throughout his preparations. His father, a rancher from Nevada, stands on the right side of the bed attempting to calm him down as the attendants finish. He offers the Captain the urinal, to crank down the bed, to place him in the new electrically propelled wicker wheelchair on the left side of the bed. Each suggestion meets only with louder baas and agitated waves of the Captain's hands. His father is asking him if he wants a hypo when Williamson and the entourage enter the ward.
Immediately the Captain stops baaing.
Williamson, looking neither left nor right, strides rapidly forward. The Captain remains quiet. Williamson reaches the bed. Everyone stops. An aide steps forward and begins reading the citation. Williamson steps up to the Captain, stopping before the wheelchair. He pins a Bronze Star, then a Purple Heart over the Captain's left breast pocket. Six flashbulbs explode. He shakes the Captain's hand. The aide finishes reading. Williamson reaches across the bed and shakes hands with the father. Tears appear in the Captain's eyes.
Then Williamson salutes and moves away, the entourage following. The Captain jerks forward, then back, watching them go out along the row of beds. His right hand half rises to his forehead, then falls, and he begins baaing again, louder and louder, each baa gaining in speed and pitch over the one before.
H
is wife left him in 1950 and he never got over it. He cooked at the hotel where I bellhopped, and every time he got paid he'd go out and buy
T
-bones and cook two and give me one. He drank all the time, and every time he got drunk he'd say the same things over and over. “Let's see if you can name all the teams in the Big Ten. Let's see if I can do it. I can do it.” He never did. He'd always leave one out. He'd say, “Did I say Ohio, the Ohio State Buckeyes? Did I?”
He had bad congestion and coughed all the time. The drinking made it worse. He drank beer in the head and after his shift he'd be drunk and want me to go with him in the elevator. The motion of the elevator made him sick and phlegm would dribble out his mouth. Then he'd want me to go to his room. He didn't like being alone there. Every time I'd go up with him in the elevator I'd end up putting him to bed, clothes and all. No matter which way you laid him, faceup or facedown, he'd put his hands on his crotch and start hunching. If I started to leave he'd begin to cry. I'd have to sit with him until he fell asleep.
T
hey married in hometown Minnesota when she was nineteen. The marriage lasted eight years. During that time he tried a variety of occupations. He worked in a gas station. He painted window signs. He spent three years at college as a painting student and sold kitchenware door-to-door. He did layout for a newspaper, went on unemployment, and painted on his own through one winter and spring. He clerked in a liquor store. He tended bar. He drove a taxicab. She went where he went, lived where he wanted to live. Four days after her twenty-sixth birthday, sitting in their apartment overlooking a swimming pool in Santa Barbara, California, she told him she wanted a normal life.
“What's that mean?” he asked.
“It means I'm a normal girl raised by normal parents and I want a home and I want a baby.”
“Sure you do,” he said. “Who doesn't? I do too. I want a baby by you. I've always wanted a baby by you.”