Masters of Illusions (10 page)

Clayton T. Bart was still serving in the air force, though unfortunately, he was stationed in Japan. This, Charlie said, was
going to be a job for Chick. Chick had traveled the country, across and back many times, looking for clues linked to the identity
of Little Miss 1565. He knew how to look and where to look. Unlike the Little Miss, reaching Clayton T Bart meant starting
with a name rather than hoping to end up with one—a far sight simpler. Chick’s wife, Aunt Annette, said, “Thank God that man’s
going to have something to do for a few days.” He flew down to Washington and came back a few days later with all the info—Aunt
Annette knew exactly how long it would take him.

After the war, Captain Bart had been a member of the occupying forces in Tokyo. At the end of a six-year stint, he came to
think of Tokyo as home because he’d mastered Japanese easily—a natural skill he didn’t know he had. Also, he loved the food,
and, of course, he’d fallen in love with a Japanese girl. In the air force, he had reached the rank of captain and now served
as military attache to the US. ambassador.

When Chick arrived in Washington to start figuring out the best way to contact Captain Bart, the ambassador to Japan happened
to be in Washington to launch an exhibition of Japanese-manufactured computer chips in the capital. That news was in the copy
of the
Washington Post
that Chick had been reading on the shuttle. Chick called from his hotel. He went looking for the exhibition hall, figuring
he could ask around to see if the ambassador’s military attache had accompanied him. The exhibit, it turned out, fit in a
cardboard box. “I was expecting some kind of car show,” Uncle Chick said. But the important thing was that the attache was
with the ambassador. This neat little coincidence saved Margie a wad of money. It would have cost two Cadillacs to send Chick
to Japan.

So Chick found Captain Bart quite easily, and via his network of police buddies, got him on the phone, told him who he was,
arranged a meeting, and at the meeting told him who Margie was. At lunch, Captain Bart then told Chick how he’d been at Brainard
Field during the month of July, in 1944, learning to fly B-52s. Big B-52s, the ones with the huge bomb bays. He had had to
report on the Fourth, the holiday, so was free the two days following. He had decided to go to the circus. He’d been just
nineteen years old. Later, when she heard this, Margie thought: Same age as my mother. Then, Chick told Captain Bart about
Charlie, and he agreed to be interviewed. Chick said into the phone, “Margie, you there?”

She was on the extension. “Yes.”

He said, “Captain Bart can’t wait to meet you.”

“Yeah.”

Margie thought: And wouldn’t Miss Foss be disappointed to hear me still saying
yeah,
instead of
yes.
Miss Foss, there are times when all you can get out is a yeah, and the reason is that you can’t bring yourself to agree.
Yeah
is not the same as
yes.

Margie’s Aunt Jane planned a big family gathering so everybody could meet Clayton T. Bart and thank him. Margie’s family:
Aunt Jane, Uncle Pete, Little Pete, and the kids; and Charlie’s family, more than two dozen aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.,
filled the O’Neill house. They were all excited and thrilled that Margie was going to be meeting the man who saved her life,
and they’d get to look on and share the thrill. Martha said to her mother, “You don’t want to do this, right, Mom?”

Margie said, “I don’t want to spoil everybody’s fun.”

Then Martha tried out some newly acquired advanced placement psychology. “Not even at the cost it will exact upon you?”

Since that was the kind of question a kid felt free to ask in those new times of expressing themselves, Margie wasn’t taken
aback. She’d been getting those kinds of questions from Martha quite a lot lately. She said, “I have a responsibility to be
nice to people who love me, even if it’s a sacrifice. Besides, the cost isn’t so great. I’m just feeling a little uneasy,
that’s all.”

The other thing that Margie was feeling—that she didn’t really think of as a being a great cost—was worry. She was very worried
about her father. But she was always worried about him, anyway, so what was the difference? Martha, who could hear her mother
think, it seemed, said, “You don’t need any more worry about Grandpa than you already have.”

So Margie called her Aunt Jane to tell her she was worried about her father, and her aunt told her that her father was going
along with the idea, and was in fact, planning to come to the party. Come to the party? He hadn’t left his room in the veterans’
home since 1963. Margie was good and uneasy now. And if she was uneasy, what was he? She decided to visit him.

Jack Potter was physically able to care for himself, but he chose not to. Once he no longer needed to care for Margie, he
decided not to bother with himself, either. Once he saw his duty to his daughter as finished, he just sat back and began his
wait to die. He would have died, too, if Margie and Charlie and Jane and Big Pete and Little Pete had left him alone. In fact,
that was why they’d initially insisted he go to the home. Margie told him letting him die would be an awful thing for her
to have on her shoulders. She didn’t tell him about his granddaughter’s thoughts. Once Martha had gotten out of the horseradish,
she’d become bitter about her beloved grandfather. She told Margie he should have just committed suicide and been done with
it. She said, “Mom, you have just as much of a burden with him being in the home.” Martha, the haughty high schooler, accused
her mother of taking a terrible punishment without questioning it, and she said, “What about me, Mom? He has a duty to me
to be a regular Grandpa. Or do you think only women should have duties?” Margie told her just to drop it. Martha said, “You
don’t protect people by letting them be stubborn, Mom.” Margie knew Martha was right, but told her that it was everybody’s
duty—men and women—to respect a father’s wishes. Martha said, “Bullshit.”

So Margie decided to fight back. “He did think of suicide once.”

Martha said, “What?” and listened to Margie say those words again, then looked into Margie’s wretched eyes. Martha started
to cry. Margie was still the parent, and so she hugged Martha while she cried, even though she knew that she should be the
one who was crying, who was getting hugged. Then Martha said, “You know, this is one fucked-up family.”

Margie said, “I really can’t handle that language coming from you.”

“Sorry, Mom.”

Margie was beginning to know what Martha pointed out was true even if she did choose to express it in such a vulgar way. Martha
made sense to her, as did her father’s psychiatrist, who attributed Jack Potter’s behavior to the trauma of his war experience.
Margie told the psychiatrist that her father had really loved her mother to the point of obsession. But the psychiatrist said,
“We blame love for a lot of things. Actually, it’s an easy way out. It protects us from having to deal with the real injuries.”

Margie nodded at him, understanding. When she was in the sixth grade and her class was studying the three paragraphs in their
social studies book devoted to World War II, she’d gone home and asked Jack Potter about his war experience. Her father’s
response was, “In June of 1944, New England lost fewer men on the beaches of France than Connecticut did at the circus a month
later.”

He had really said it to the wall across from his chair at the kitchen table. He’d heard Margie’s question, but had forgotten
where it was coming from. They were having dinner at the time. He’d cooked chicken wings. He and Margie didn’t like vegetables.
They were eating and reading. He was reading his papers and Margie was reading her comic books. She didn’t read her library
books at the kitchen table because she might drip chicken grease on them, and in those days the librarians would flip through
the pages searching for damage before accepting returns.

When Margie got married and visited her father at his new residence, she’d sit across from him at the little table in his
room where he was reading. She always brought a book so she could read while he went through his newspapers and magazines
just the way they’d done every night at home until Margie left their apartment to marry. She’d sit for an hour or so and then
when she’d get up to go, he’d say, “Thanks for visiting with me, Margie.” On occasion, he’d speak to the wall while she was
visiting, the way he had at home. Once he said, “I hope my eyes go last.” He didn’t say that because he cared so much about
his reading, but because the hospital staff tended not to bother him while he read. If he wasn’t reading they’d try to start
a conversation.

Even though he was carrying on a wall monologue, Margie still said, “Now they have books on tape, Dad, in case your
ears
are the last to go.”

He said, “You
listen
to stories that people tell—you
read
stories that people write. What is the sense in it?”

Yeah. What’s the sense in anything, Dad? Margie wondered. He saw no sense in living the life he might have led. He just wanted
to get life by him. Early on, Margie believed that without his wife, life was not life for her father, just like tapes were
not books. Margie used to look at him and think: This man has a broken heart and there’s no mending it. But as she came to
know his new psychiatrist, she began to change her mind. Once, just after he’d been confined to a wheelchair—he wouldn’t walk—the
doctor had come in for the first time, introduced himself, and started chatting. While the doctor was in the middle of his
third sentence—something like, “The view isn’t bad from…“—Jack Potter interrupted. He said, “What are you talking about?”

The doctor said, “Actually, I’ll be visiting you like this once a week. I’m treating your depression.”

Margie’s father said, “I’m not depressed. I’m happy.”

The doctor said, “You’re happy with merely existing?”

“That’s correct.”

“The war, Mr. Potter, changed your definition of happiness.”

Jack Potter went back to his newspaper and ignored the man. The doctor had been like an oracle to Margie. He was right. Her
father was depressed. But he refused to be treated.

Now Margie stood next to his bed in his room, without a book in her hands, and said, “Aunt Jane told me you’re coming to this
party.”

He said, “Yes, I am.”

She said, “You don’t have to feel that you’re expected.”

“I know I’m not expected. I’m coming because you’ll need me.” He didn’t say that to the wall, he said it to Margie. His eyes
were gray. So were hers. The rest of Margie, supposedly, was her mother.

Margie said, “Thanks, Dad.”

She thought: Talk about sacrifices, Martha, my girl. He loves me so much even if he is depressed. He didn’t kill himself entirely
just on the chance that I might need him—his interpretation of need, not yours, Martha. When Margie drove off from the veterans’
home, she wished Martha could only know that he loved her, too. When she was small, Margie would bring her to visit and he’d
laugh at her baby nonsense. Once he said to Margie, “Your mother used to write so many letters, Margie. She’d tell me how
you reminded her of a drunken sailor—babbling and tumbling all over the place. Now I see what she meant.” His eyes were harkening
back. For a moment he had a wife again. For a moment he remembered life before he’d been imprisoned. Margie broke the spell,
though. She said, “Letters?” His old eyes came back.

“I’m sorry, Margie. I lost them.”

“They were lost?”

“No. I lost them.”

Margie felt her heart sink.

Jack Potter had, in fact, taught Martha to read. When she was older, she’d come with her mother to visit him once in a while
when she was in the mood to sit and read, which wasn’t often because she was always so busy. But then she came to feel that
life was cheating her out of something—having a normal grandfather. Martha’s other grandfather, Denny O’Neill, had died before
she was old enough to remember him. Now there was abnormal. Be grateful you were cheated out of him, Margie thought as she
drove home.

Clayton T. Bart was in uniform. He had a lot of ribbons, the ones everyone’s heard of, and then some others: The Air Force
Commendation Medal, the Air Force Achievement Medal, and the Combat Crew Award. Chick had filled him in on more than just
Margie; the first thing he did when he walked into Margie’s living room was salute Jack Potter sitting in his wheelchair in
the corner. Margie’s father returned the salute. Then the captain shook Margie’s hand, and said, “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”
He was very uneasy.

So Margie said, “Want to see my scar?” She was smirking when she said it to put him at his ease. He went to say something,
but instead his body began to shake. Margie put her arms around him and he hugged her hard and just broke down. He tried to
apologize for losing his composure, and that was what made everyone else at the party cry, too, especially Charlie’s family,
since they had those Italian genes where emotions came out in a flood, but only on special occasions.

So out came all the food, too, and the bottles and bottles of wine, and everybody started digging in because people can really
eat voraciously when in an emotional crisis. That’s what Martha told Little Pete’s smallest children, who didn’t understand
what the party was all about and how people could go from happy to sad to happy so fast. Captain Bart didn’t really start
to talk until they were on the cannoli and the coffee. Oh, to be a worm in a cannoli, Margie said to herself. They sipped
their coffee and listened while Charlie took notes off in the corner like he was a monk chronicling some event in the Middle
Ages. Before, Margie had said to Charlie, “No tapes.” And Charlie said, “But I need to capture this.” And then he had looked
at Margie’s set face and said, “Okay, honey.”

Captain Bart poured out every detail of July 6, 1944. But they were the usual details: the wild animals; the apparition-like
moment of the Wallendas’ appearance; the fire; the panic to get out. He said he grabbed two kids around their waists, tucked
each one under his arm like they were footballs, and crawled out under the tent. Captain Bart was from Arkansas, where they
were used to tents. City folk aren’t, so the citizens of Hartford headed for the entrance they’d come in, no matter that it
was blocked by iron bars. That you could go under the walls of a tent had never occurred to them.