Love is a Wounded Soldier (39 page)

When we reached his house that afternoon, I
was still licking my wounds. Despite Pa’s attempts to smooth things over, his
talk had put me in a foul mood, and I easily slipped back into the familiar rut
of depression.

Convinced I would go mad if I didn’t have a
drink, and quick, I headed for the door.

“I think I’ll run into town and get a
haircut,” I told Pa curtly as I walked out the front door.

“Hey, hold on!” he called out at my back as
the door closed behind me. I pretended I didn’t hear him and kept walking
briskly toward the car. I heard the door open and cursed him under my breath.

“Robert!” he shouted from the open door.
Pretending I didn’t hear him wouldn’t be very convincing now.

“Yeah?” I asked, my hand poised to grab the
car door handle.

“Could you hang on a minute? There’s a few
things I need from town, if you don’t mind me ridin’ along.” I did mind.

“If you want, I can pick up whatever you
need. No sense in you sitting around while I get my hair cut,” I said, trying to
wiggle my way out of having him come with.

“Oh, no, that’s fine,” he assured me, “I
have a few bills that need payin’, too.”

I shrugged and got in the car, furious that
he’d had to barge his way into things. He got in the car, and I reckon more
words have been spoken in some hearses than my pa and I exchanged on the ride
into town.

When we reached Buxley, he insisted on
coming into the barbershop to introduce me to Jim, the barber. Then, when Jim
had me safely captive in the barber’s chair, he slipped out to do his business.

“I’m in a bit of a hurry,” I told Jim, as
soon as Pa left. Jim wasn’t one to be hurried. Had his fat fingers kept pace
with his mile-a-minute tongue, my haircut would have taken about a half minute,
but unfortunately, the faster his tongue moved, the slower his fingers moved.
There were times his tongue moved so fast his fingers were immobilized
altogether. I waited impatiently for him to finish, and when he finally did, I
stood up and paid as quickly as I could. Jim gave me my change, and as I turned
to sprint for the Crazy Horse Saloon down the street, I heard the jingle-jangle
of the door opening. It was Pa.

“All ready to go?” he smiled, sounding a
little out of breath. If I had punched his mouth as hard as I felt like
punching it, you would have been able to stand behind him and see his smile. I
knew he was deliberately trying to get between me and my liquor, and that made
me livid. He knew all too well how an alcoholic’s mind works. If there was
anyone I’d be able to fool, it wouldn’t be him.

When we walked out of the barbershop, I had
half a mind to tell Pa I’d be over at the saloon, drinking, and I didn’t care
where the hell he went, but instead, I walked back to the car with him.

You win this round, asshole! I thought to
myself as I angrily gunned down the street. Pa sat placidly beside me, as
though quite used to seeing a Buick being driven like a stock car. I made up my
mind I wasn’t going to lose another round. And I wasn’t going to stick around
any longer than I had to.

~~~

At Pa’s suggestion, I went over to Mr.
Sander’s place the next morning and inquired whether he might have some farm
work or odd jobs that he was willing to hire me to do. I suspected Pa had
already talked to him, because he had a handful of things he listed right off
the top of his head that I could get busy doing. I spent half the day fixing leaks
on the roof of an old hip roof barn, and the other half replacing boards inside
it that the moisture had eaten away at.

The events of the previous day were all I
thought of all day long, and so my hands moved much more slowly than my mind.
Mulling over what Pa had said tired me out worse than the work I was doing. I
was hurt that he, of all people, would try to make me out to look like the bad
guy. Until Pa had opened his big mouth, it had seemed it was an immutable fact
that it wasn’t my fault I’d sunk to such a wretched state. I thought I’d done
everything right. I’d been honorable. But now I wasn’t so sure anymore, and I
didn’t like not being sure about it.

Then there was the business of him tagging
along to town so I couldn’t get a drink. Now that one really busted my chaps.

My indignation simmered all day long,
sapping my strength. By late afternoon, I was exhausted, and it was quite
apparent to me that I deserved a drink.

~~~

“Couldn’t wait for supper?” Pa asked with a
little smile as he walked in the door later on. I was sitting at the table,
scarfing down a few slices of buttered bread. It had been my intention to be
gone when he got off duty, but I was just a few minutes too late.

“This is supper,” I replied, not returning
his smile. He looked at me with raised eyebrows, but didn’t say anything.

He hung up his hat and tossed a handful of
mail on the kitchen counter. Ever since we’d had that fishing talk things had
been pretty tense between us, but I suppose it was mostly from me yanking on my
end of things. I wiped the crumbs off the table and prepared to leave.

“Where you headed?” Pa asked. His meddling
was getting the best of my temper.

“To town,” I replied hotly. “To the
saloon,” I tacked on before he could ask what my business was. He leaned
against the counter with his arms crossed and looked at me as if he had
something to say.

“You’re welcome to ride along,” I told him,
keeping the sarcasm out of my tone but not my words. He ignored my comment.

“No, Robert, please don’t!” he started in
on me. “You don’t have to be a slave to booze!” He said pleadingly. His words
lit the end of a fuse I’d cut especially short in anticipation of a fight.

“I’m not!” I snapped at him. He didn’t seem
convinced.

“Robert, you are. You might be able to fool
yourself but you can’t fool me. Please don’t go to town, son!” he begged me.
There was a hurt in his eyes that made me feel guilty, and feeling guilty made
me even madder.

“Well, ain’t you one to talk!” I yelled at
him. “Suddenly you get religion, and now you’re so goddamn self-righteous and
holier-than-thou, looking down on everyone from your high holy horse and
figuring you got all the answers! Maybe you can fool everyone around here, but
I remember who you were and where you been! So you can stop preaching at me and
pretending you’re better than everyone else!”

He looked at me silently with a pained look
on his face, and I knew I’d drawn blood. It felt like I couldn’t leave quickly
enough, so I wheeled and grasped the knob of the front door.

“Robert,” Pa said quietly. I stopped,
turning my head slightly toward him, but looking down at the floor.

“I don’t have all the answers, and I’m
sorry if I’ve come across like I do. But what I do know is that Jesus made me a
new man and set me free from liquor. And if you’ll let him, he’ll do the same
for you.” He spoke with a heartfelt sincerity, but having grown up in church,
I’d heard people say things like that about as often as I’d heard my own name,
so to me, it sounded like a tired cliché.

“Jesus?!” I scoffed as I looked up at him.
“I don’t want to hear your Jesus bullshit! Where was Jesus on D-Day, when a few
thousand men lay on the beach, screaming for him as the Krauts butchered them
like pigs? Where the hell was Jesus when god-fearing men like Jedidiah Hankins
and Honky-tonk Borkowski got blown to hell by German shells? Where the hell was
Jesus when my best friend got so mind-fucked by the whole goddamn war he raped
a little girl and got his head smashed in like a fucking piñata?” I reined in
my voice, which had risen wildly with each sentence I spoke.

“Where was Jesus,” I continued, my voice
low and unsteady, “when I was over in France, fighting for my life, and my wife
was two-timing me back home? Where the hell was he then?”

Pa offered no defense, as if he knew there
was no answer I would find satisfactory, but I could tell he was bothered by
what I’d said. I sighed. Being angry can exhaust a man. Fatigue subdued me.

“I don’t know, Pa,” I said dejectedly. “I
know that all that Jesus stuff might have worked for you, and that’s fine. But
somewhere between Omaha Beach and Buxley, Tennessee, my Jesus died.” I looked
down at the floor and sighed again before looking back up at him.

“And I ain’t heard from him since,” I
finished, in almost a whisper. I shook my head. “Not a word . . . Not one
word.”

He looked at me until I was done speaking,
and then looked down, as if contemplating what I’d said. I wanted to leave, but
something told me he had something to say, so I stood there and listened to the
tick tock of the clock. When he finally looked up, he wore a patient smile that
told me he wasn’t about to give up on me.

“Well, son, in order to have the glory of a
resurrection, you first need to have a death.” He let his words settle.

“Don’t you?” he prodded gently.

I shrugged my shoulders and sighed yet
again.

“Maybe so, Pa. Maybe so.” I said. He looked
like he had about said all he’d say.

“All I know for sure is that I need to have
a drink,” I said, turning to open the door as I said it because I didn’t want
to see his disappointment.

“If Jesus comes ’round looking for me, you
can tell him I’m over at the Crazy Horse,” I said, and quickly shut the door
behind me.

~~~

Jesus didn’t show up that night at the
Crazy Horse Saloon. Or the next. Or the next. Or the next.

For two weeks I worked and thought all day,
and drank and tried not to think at night. Mr. Sanders never asked any
questions when I showed up two or three hours late for work, and Pa must have
figured he’d said his piece, because he didn’t do any more preaching,
lecturing, or talking of any kind. I suppose he was wise enough to know that
sometimes all you can do is plant some seed and pray for rain. And maybe he
knew that he didn’t need to say anything more. Maybe he knew that what he’d
already said had dug into my mind like the claws of a wildcat into the back of
a horse. For two weeks I bucked and stomped and rolled over, trying to throw
off the thoughts about honor, self-pity, bitterness, repentance and forgiveness
that were tearing a strip off my hide. But they clung to me no matter how hard
I tried to shake them, or how much I drank.

Finally, when I’d about wore myself out,
things started turning the corner.

Table of Contents

FOURTEEN

YOU STILL LOVE HER, DON’T YOU?

I stared out the
window and blinked. I blinked again. The spot on the grass where I usually
parked my car was vacant. The driveway was empty, too. I remembered it was
Sunday morning, so it made sense that Pa was in church, but where was my Buick?
I leaned my pounding head up against the glass and closed my eyes.

“Shit!” I groaned. I’d tucked a bottle of
Jack Daniel’s under the front seat when I’d left the saloon the night before, I
was sure of it, but that helped me little if I couldn’t find the car.

I looked back up again, as though some
magical car fairy might have dropped it off while I was looking away. It
hadn’t.

The kettle on the stove whistled at me, and
I walked over and made myself some strong, black coffee. Taking the cup of
coffee, I walked outside in my bare feet and looked around to see if I’d
abandoned the car someplace I couldn’t see from inside the house. It was
nowhere in sight.

I wandered about the yard and finally
walked over to a rope swing that hung from a gnarled old apple tree. It looked
like it’d probably hung there for most of my lifetime, so I sat down gingerly
on it, slowly lowering my weight pound by pound. It held, so I sat with my feet
on the ground and rocked gently back and forth, trying not to spill my coffee.
The air smelt like rain. I tried to remember what could have happened to my
car, but I’d been so drunk I couldn’t recollect anything that had happened
after I’d gotten into my car the night before.

The chatter of a couple of squirrels stole
my attention, and so I watched them fuss at each other and chase each other
around as I sipped my coffee and smoked. I was still sitting there when I heard
the dull rumble of a car on the road. Pa was home from church.

When he got out of the car, he walked over
to me instead of going inside.

“Nice day,” he said amicably.

“Um-hum,” I agreed, but still took a look
around to see if there was something especially pleasant about the day I’d
missed.

“Looks like rain,” I commented.

“Yup. We could sure use some,” Pa nodded.
He stood silently with his hands in his pockets, as I thought about asking him
if he knew what’d happened to my car. Somehow, I just couldn’t quite figure out
how to phrase it in a way that wouldn’t make me feel stupid or embarrassed. Pa
saved me the trouble.

“You, uh, lose your car?” he asked. It
wasn’t so much a question as a gentle poke in the ribs.

“Well, as a matter of fact, I believe I
must have left the gate open,” I answered, feeling the warmth of chagrin flow up
my neck and over my face. Pa looked at me with a little smile, as if he might
be enjoying himself just a little.