Carry Me Home (56 page)

What the fuck? You stupid jerk. What is this shit? Tony turns. “Hey, fuck you.”

“What?” Jeff and Mike simultaneously.

“You heard me.” Tony flips his nail apron dumping a pound of nails on the roof, the nails rolling, bouncing, flying off.

“What’s the matter?” Jeff moves to the bottom of the ladder, looks up, climbs six, eight rungs, turns, says to Mike, “Steady it for me, okay?”

“Sure. Whoa. He’s comin down.” Tony looks down, flips his hammer out, lets it fall missing Mike Pritchard by six inches. “Geez, Man! What the hell are you doin?”

“Comin fuckin down,” Tony snaps.

“I’ll get off—” Jeff begins but Tony leaps, jumps right off the roof, jumps from twenty feet onto the grass, hits, rolls, jumps up, smacks his hand into the bag of chips.

“Geez, Man!” Pritchard sees the anger in Tony’s eyes. Jeff is coming off the ladder. “You gettin sun stroke?”

“I’m not fuckin sun stroke.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m sick of you fuckin cocksuckers.”

“What are you talkin about?”

“I fuckin humped all them shingles up. I fuckin nailed off half what’s done. You fuckin crybabies are eatin potato chips.”

“Hey, ah, have—”

“Yeah, sorry, Man.”

“Sorry’s right.
Sin Loi
, motherfuckers.”

“Tone ...”

“Stuff it. I’m the idiot. I’m the crazy fuckin idiot. Pull yer fuckin weight. I quit. I’m outa here.” Tony grabbed his T-shirt, strode to the Harley. His left ankle felt broken but he refused to let it show. He got on, kicked it over, roared off.

It is mid-afternoon when Linda arrives at the apartment. Tony is there, in the kitchen. He is not there but is over Phu Bai, has been over Phu Bai for hours, falling, crashing, his whole body racking with each fall, each stupid, mechanical-failure fall with him so short, so ready to leave, to go back to the World, to the land of the big PX where everything will be all right, be ALL RIGHT!

Linda bolts back, almost drops Gina. Michelle is in the car, asleep, strapped into the homemade kid-seat Pewel has made for her. Tony is at the kitchen table. He has ransacked the apartment, even flipped the sofa onto its back, has found his shotgun in a closet. The stock of the gun is resting on Gina’s high-chair tray, the barrel is in Tony’s mouth. Linda gasps. Tony’s eyes light up. He flashes his teeth, bites the steel barrel, waggles his fingers, moves his hand down the barrel to the trigger. He is laughing, sucking the barrel, feeling the billy club rip his lips. Linda screams, squeezes Gina, tries to shield the girl’s eyes. Tony pushes the trigger, the hammer snaps, he snaps his head trying to feel his brains blowing out, laughing at Linda, trying to make her as fuckin nuts as he. Linda is crying, Gina is crying. Tony is laughing, his eyes are bulging. “Didn’t know,” he shrieks. He’s laughing out of control. “You didn’t know, didja? You thought I’d do it.” He stands close to her, almost on her, leers into her face. She pulls Gina back, holds her with her left arm, rocks back, twists, winding up, closed right fist round housing, missing, connecting with her wrist and forearm into the side of his head, actually knocking him down, she screaming, “Don’t you ever do that again!” he scrambling, jumping up, she cowering back unable to wind up for another blow, trying to protect her baby, he banging his chest against her, knocking her to the wall, pinning her, then quivering all over, running down the back stairs to the Harley, still holding the shotgun, fleeing.

“Father.”

“Yes.”

“You got a minute?”

“Of course.” They are on the porch of the manse of St. Ignatius. Tony relates to the young priest how he has quit his job, how he worked and worked and how the others stood around and ate potato chips and how he got angry and quit. He does not tell the priest about jumping off the roof; he tells him about the fight with Linda, leaves out the shotgun.

“I’ve got to find something to do,” Tony says. “And it’s got to be outside.” Tony is repentant, centered on his problems. Thomas Niederkau, the priest, asks questions, wants to know more. Tony tells him about jobs he’s had, machinery he’s run. He does not tell him about the Corps, about his service, about drugs or Wapinski’s or Rock Ridge or a small town out west.

“Do you know Mr. Lefkowski?”

“The old guy who—”

“He’s been the custodian here for forty years, but he doesn’t want to do the cemetery anymore. I need someone in the cemetery,” Father Tom says. “Mow the lawn, trim the trees, dig the graves. You can work a backhoe?”

“Um-hmm.”

“Clean up after funerals.”

“I’d like to do that.”

In the apartment Tony is apologetic, self-deprecating, pleading for forgiveness, withdrawn. He is mellow on grass, on Darvon, on Dexedrine, each drug pulling his mind and body in a different direction, pulling more gently than Elavil and Thorazine but still slowly tearing his mind apart. Linda is angry, suspicious, untrusting. Covertly she blames herself, fears that she has not met Tony’s needs, has not made him happy, has not been good enough to him. She is determined. She will make him sane if it drives her crazy. For two weeks things improve. She is happy, happier. She has made up an excuse for Tony, has told Pewel Wapinski that Tony has decided to go back to school, that he is studying, that he’s happy Pewel has Jeff and Mike to take over.

In the cemetery Tony is meticulous. The job is good. He can be alone, be responsible only to himself. He mows, trims. Daily he visits Jimmy, takes flowers from new graves, just a few each day, brings them to him, brings too a small pipe, a little weed. “Remember on the shed roof ...” Sometimes he cries. It’s okay. There is no one there.

Some days he digs, some days he backfills. On days he digs he makes the first cut with the backhoe, first from one end, then the other, clawing, scooping, removing the dirt, dumping it, smoothing the pile with the side or bottom of the bucket. Then he cleans the hole with the bucket making sure the corners are square, the sides straight, vertical, smooth. He dismounts, tosses a shovel into the hole, jumps in. He likes backhoe work but the tractor and bucket and hydraulics are machine, not like a shovel, a wood-handled, once alive, common garden spade. He talks to his shovel as he cleans this particular hole. He wants the mourners to see perfect walls. He puts the shovel down, scrapes, smoothes the dirt walls with his fingers. He drops to his knees. He has never knelt in a hole. It feels deeper than he expected. He tosses the shovel out, sits. It feels even deeper, feels peaceful. He lies down, looks up the tall vertical walls, grins. With his hands by his sides he pats the ground. The earth sounds hollow, hollowness around him, under him. He likes this. He is with the dead.

By late August Tony is spending less time watching TV, less time in the apartment, more time partying with his new friends, biker friends who are helping him chop his Harley: acid-freak friends who like him because he is so paranoid they feel safe when they are tripping, safe because Tony, that ex-paramedic, that strong and vigilant friend, will take care of them; speed freak friends who like to supply him; downer friends who like to mellow him out. He tells Linda about the pot. She is furious. He tells her to come with him. She refuses. He spends more time away. He misses John’s and Molly Kleinman’s wedding and his mother and father are furious. Linda worries. Her headaches become unbearable. She worries Tony will split again, abandon them again, embarrass her by leaving her again as if she isn’t capable of keeping a man. She trusts him, believes him, does not trust him at all.

Ruthie, Linda’s sister, visits. She and Jay are thinking of starting a family. She wants Linda’s advice, wants to stay a few days, spend time with the babies.

“Come with me,” Tony says to Linda.

“I shouldn’t.”

“Ruthie can watch the girls.”

“I won’t smoke any pot.”

“You don’t have to.”

“And if I don’t like it you’ll bring me right home.”

“Um-hmm.”

“Promise.”

“I promise.”

“Oh, Tony, I don’t know.”

It is early September 1971. The sun is low, the evening pleasant. They have ridden Route 154 to Old River Road, have followed its twists and turns down Loyalsock Creek valley to a creek-side meadow where Tony and Linda dismount and Tony is greeted by half a dozen young men, a few young women. Linda is not greeted but is ogled by every man.

“Oh Man, you got the new tank.”

“Yeah.” Tony is proud of the Harley. He has stripped off the panniers, replaced the stock seat with a double-tiered high back, replaced the tank with a bright yellow teardrop, the mufflers with fishtail pipes, the original handlebars with a set of easy-riders that swoop out and up then curve and fall as gracefully as the neck of a swan. In the gleaming yellow of the new tank there is a brown, gold and black Harley eagle. One talon grasps a flaming skull and crossbones, the other a Marine Corps emblem. He has a long way to go, he thinks, custom carbs, air cleaners, forks, maybe a hard-tail frame, but the bike, as it is, is okay—Jimmy’s respectable dresser transforming into Tony’s chopped outlaw.

“Far out, Man.” The speaker is Ken Bonnell, Big Bonnie; he is at the top of the pecking order. Little Bonnie, Bonnie Conterelli, is his “syp,” sweet young pussy, his princess, his property. “Far out,” Big Bonnie says again. He checks out the tank painting, checks out Linda.

Sitting on a bike fifty feet away is Zookie, Gaylord Sutthoff’s main meat. Zookie is an “ocie,” old cunt. She is smoking, checking out Linda, too. Her neck tattoo, a small garden of flowers circling to the left like half a collar, catches Linda’s eye. Linda immediately looks away. Big Bonnie, all smiles, puts an arm over Tony’s shoulder, hugs Linda with his other arm, pulls her in tight, the three musketeers, turns Linda so her left breast is against his side, hugs her rhythmically, Tony too. Linda cringes, tries to protect herself. They walk toward the keg where others are chugging plastic cupfuls.

They too are happy, smiling, laughing. Gay hugs Linda about the waist while Big Bonnie still holds her about the shoulders. Slowly, gently, laughing, Gay pours beer into Linda’s mouth. “Drink. Drink up. Everybody must drink.” Linda swallows, laughs too, thinks these are two good-hearted men, thinks Tony is there to watch over her. Gaylord does not force her to drink any more quickly than she’s willing.

Zookie watches Gay spill beer on Linda’s chin, Linda so genteel dabbing her chin against her shoulder, her arms now around Big Bonnie and Gay. Music is coming from the shade under a large solitary elm where most of the bikes are lined up. It is a Hendrix song but Linda does not know which one. Gay begins pouring another beer into Linda but Zookie grabs him, breaks his hold on the new girl, takes the beer and finishes it.

“Zookie,” she says. Linda stares at her, has no idea what she’s said, thinks instantly this older woman must once have been very beautiful, but is now ... “Zookie. That’s my name.” She glares at Big Bonnie. He drops his grip from Linda’s shoulders.

Linda is baffled. “Linda Pisano,” she says. “I’m Tony’s wife.”

Zookie laughs. Her laugh is deep and broad, full of tones, meaning. To Linda it is eerie yet pleasant. “Tony,” Zookie says. “He’s such a nice’a boy,” she says playfully. “Whats’a nice’a girl like you doin with a nice’a boy like that?”

Linda has no words. She thinks Zookie is playing with the accent but she isn’t sure. She notes Zookie’s hair, long, dark, shiny; notes her earrings, long dangling silver ellipses with inlaid turquoise flowers. “We met when I was in nursing school—” Linda begins.

“You’ve got pretty eyes,” Zookie interrupts.

More couples arrive on bikes, a few in pickups. There is another keg, bottles of Boone’s Farm wine. Tony and others go into the woods, return with dead branches, build a bonfire in the pleasant September darkness. Between trips they drink, then settle, toke up, suck smoke, pass joints. In small groups away from the flames others are popping pills, snorting powder. Around the fire they are passing tiny pipes.

Linda is loose, happy. She and Tony sit side by side, he instructing her in how to hold a joint, how to hold in the smoke, she turning to him, sad, exhaling a cloud, saying, “You know, this’ll be the end of us,” then giggling, sucking smoke again, passing the joint.

The evening cools, the fire dies to glowing embers. Tony rises, walks toward the solitary elm, pees in the field. By the scooters he hears another group. He stands still, intent, invisible. “One big fuckin bitch, Man”—Tony does not recognize the voice—“more than anything, more than coming back and findin my old lady’d been fuckin around ...”

“Sixty-seven?”

“Yeah. Two fuckin divisions of Marines, Man. Never saw nothin like it. We had M-14s one day. Next day we had M-16s. Alien, Man. And they didn’t fuckin work. And they never did a fuckin thing about it. Not like nothin was done, Man, but like nothin was done about the guys that got greased. Guys wasted in the rice paddies, Man, cleaning rods jammed in these alien plastic pieces a shit, rods jammed down the barrels tryin to poke out rounds that wouldn’t eject. Can’t bring those guys back, Man.”

Tony is frozen in a time-space warp, angry, stoned. He had not known that some of these guys were Nam returnees. He’s never told them his stories, has no desire to talk, does not wish to hear.

“I was in a fuckin hole on the perimeter with a kid from California. His name was Lassen. And he was curled up in the bottom of that fuckin hole. Petrified. Petrified, Man. He was in my squad and I grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him up top of that motherfuckin hole and by this time they’re on us. They Are On Us. I had a sixteen. I jumped out the back and we pulled back. The Rome plows ... they’d pushed up berm enough to cover the tracks, APCs, ya know. And just high enough so the turret ... the 50-cal could stick over. And the 50s were pumpin. We were in front of the fuckin berm and we pulled up outta the hole and got back on top a the fuckin berm.

“Guy on the 50, Charlie somethin, I ferget his name, he gets fuckin blown away. They got right up on him. Lots a guys got fucked that night. One five five howitzers fired point blank inta them motherfuckers. Then Puff comes in. Artillery poundin all around. Off to my left the listenin post got hit. They were just gettin ready to set up and they got fuckin hit and they were comin back in and the dinks were hot on their fuckin asses. We went out there and fuckin got em. Guys are fuckin hollerin, they’re fuckin kickin. Charlie was right on top of em. We ended up with about three hundred bodies that night. Next morning, right in front of us, there’s a fuckin gook layin there and he was sittin like this, you know, with his back up against a fuckin stump and his eyes straight ahead. In shock. Still alive. But he didn’t move. That fucker was stoned, Man. He was outta it. He didn’t know if he was dead or alive ... numb functional, Man. I came up on him. You know, we had to bed-down the whole motherfuckin perimeter. I come across him and he’s starin out, his arms up like this. I shot that motherfucker in the head. He was ... ya know ... he wasn’t breathin. I don’t know if he was breathin or just playin possum or stoned. I just fuckin pumped im.”