Souvenir (15 page)

He fell. Flat out, face down in the snow. Cooper rolled off him, pitched forward, didn’t move. Jake got up on his knees, crawled to Coop, wanting nothing more than to curl up in the snow and sleep, get away from this weight he had to bear, get away from the memories of Alice and Ma and that bastard Pa. No, wait a minute, I’m the bastard, right? Right, Coop? He started to laugh, then grabbed Cooper by the collar and pulled him toward the trees. He could hardly see. He slipped in the snow and fell again as forms appeared around him, and he heard the BAR bang bang bang bang like it was right next to his ear. Big Ned, Coop, Big Ned’s here. Maybe he knows, maybe word got out to Michigan that Jake Burnett’s Pa fucked his daughter and she bore him into the world and that everything he knew was a lie. Maybe the Germans knew too, and that’s why they wouldn’t kill him.

Jake gave up. He felt hands pull him into the trees. He heard Clay say something as he carried him along but he couldn’t make it out. Miller had him by the other arm. More men were here, the other squads in retreat too. Not everyone though. Not by a long shot. Jake felt his head clear, slowly. Deeper in the woods, behind a ridge lined by pine trees, they stopped. There were maybe twenty of them, should have been thirty or so with the replacements they got yesterday, the ones still alive this morning anyway. Jake saw Shorty and Tuck carrying Cooper, limp in their arms. They set him down. Big Ned and Miller were up on the top of the ridge on lookout. Jake sat by Cooper, holding his head in his hands, trying to get his breathing back to normal. Clay offered him a cigarette but he wagged his hand back and forth, no thanks.He shivered, the sweat freezing on his skin. His clothes were damp and clammy. His teeth started to chatter as his body desperately fought for warmth.

“That was a long way to go to carry a dead man, Jake,” said Shorty.

Jake lifted his head from his hands. Cooper was silent. His mouth was open, as if he died calling for his momma. Jake couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe it, and couldn’t understand his own reaction either. Cooper was a replacement. Replacements died, that was it. Why get all worked up? He put his hand to Cooper’s face, felt the cooling skin, the life gone, no mother’s touch bringing it back.

“He was alive, out there,” Jake said. “I heard him.”

“You tried, Jake,” Clay said. “He would’ve died in the house anyway.”

“Why couldn’t he hang on? God damn.” Jake threw his helmet on the ground, wishing he had the strength to hit something, vent his rage, but the anger died inside him, no fuel left to feed it. The back of the helmet was covered with blood, Cooper’s blood from where he had been draped over his shoulders. Coop had been alive, he knew for sure, at least until he fell. Why did he fall? Coop had grunted, he had heard him. Jake leaned forward, lifting Cooper by the shoulder and turning him over. There, right under his left shoulder blade, a bullet hole. Straight on into the heart. Coop had taken a bullet for him. All Jake had wanted to do was save him, to bring this child back to his momma, to keep him from seeing anymore sights like his buddies blown to pieces, to let him feel what Jake never could, never really did, and never would. Feel his mother’s embrace, welcoming him home, caring for him.

Tears came to him. He didn’t sob or blubber, not that he cared. He was glad it was quiet though, this crying over Cooper’s body. He sniffed and rubbed his nose with his sleeve, then brushed it across his eyes. He took Cooper’s dog tag, leaving its partner for Graves Registration.

“Is there an officer around?” Jake asked. Tuck laughed and spit, that was the only reaction to that question.

“Non-com?”

“Sergeant Spinelli got it in the barn. He was the last one in the platoon,” a guy from First Squad said.

“You hold onto it, Jake,” Clay said.

Jake dropped it into his overcoat pocket. He picked up his helmet and wiped the back of it on the snow, leaving a pink smear. Everything was cold, his feet, hands, face, his stomach, all coated in chilled sweat.

“We gotta find the rest of the Company,” said Jake. “They should be due south of here.” He twisted around, looked at the sun, and scanned the woods surrounding them. Yesterday they had attacked the German line. After the artillery barrage, the Germans pulled back, letting them take their positions without a major fight, including the small farm village the platoon had occupied. Obviously they had wanted it back. Maybe other positions too, so they had to find the rest of their unit before they were cut off and alone.

“That way,” Jake said, pointing south. “Let’s go.”

No one objected to Jake giving an order. No one had a better idea. Jake sent a replacement from Baker’s squad ahead to take point. He had Big Ned and Miller bring up the rear, which is where they would have trouble if the Germans followed.

They left Cooper there, and marked the spot on a map. They’d tell Graves Registration, and they’d be by when things calmed down, stacking up frozen bodies like cordwood in the back of their trucks.

Jake felt better walking, warmed a little by the exercise. He put his hand in his pocket, felt the thin stamped metal of the dog tag. Name, number, religion, blood type, everything that identified a man to the army. He could feel his own, pressed against his chest, taped together with electrical tape to keep them from making a sound, a precaution for a warmer season. When would one of them wind up in someone’s pocket? He tried to imagine the day when he’d take them off himself, put them in a drawer, forget about them. Think about that drawer. A nice walnut dresser with some small drawers at the top for cufflinks, tie clips, that sort of thing. He’d put them in there, and once in a while take them out, and remember the moment he decided he’d never be going back to that goddamned town.

Momma, momma.

Chapter Eight

1964

Clay flipped through the pages of the Meriden Record as Addy unplugged the ceramic coffee percolator and carried it to the kitchen table. She set it down hard on the formica tabletop, as if she’d misjudged the distance, thinking there was space enough to slow it down. Clay winced at the sharp noise as plates, forks and knives jumped and jangled. Without saying a word, Addy cleared the breakfast dishes away, brushed her hands on the apron covering her sea green skirt, and sat down with her husband.

Clay folded the newspaper as he watched Addy settle into her chair. She pushed strands of fallen hair back behind one ear, revealing a large pearl earring. The earrings had been her mother’s, a gift from an early admirer, not her father. They were beautiful and perfect, but Clay thought they were nothing compared to the precisely rounded, soft, downy earlobes they sat on. He liked the way she always pushed her brown hair back on one side and not the other, leaving it loose so it hung alongside her face, like Veronica Lake. It made her mysterious, open on one side, offering a treasure to him, white pearl and pink skin. Closed on the other, a curtain of hair shutting her face off from view if she turned away from him, even a little.

Addy looked like a skittish bird settling on a tree branch. Her eyes floated back and forth, to Clay, the coffeepot, and out the kitchen window. Clay knew she wanted to talk. Addy had a way of clearing the decks before talking about something important. He understood she was checking everything, making sure there were no distractions. Coffee on the table, Chris gone to school, dishes in the sink. He waited for her to settle in. As she crossed her legs she fluffed the folds of her skirt, draping it just right across her knees, looking up at him, as if a thought had just occurred to her.

“Clay, how’s Chris doing at work?”

“He’s doing all right, I guess. He does what he’s told. Has a little trouble being on time, though, ever since he started hanging around with that Tony kid.”

“He’s at the age when a boy doesn’t tell his mother much,” Addy said, as if she hadn’t really listened to his answer, or was disappointed that Clay was so literal in his response. Or maybe that question hadn’t been the important one, a way to work up to what it was she really wanted to talk about. As she rested her arm on the table and stared out the window, Clay watched the morning light on her face. It gave her a faint glow, and for a second he wondered if that’s what she’d look like in a painting. A portrait of her face lit by the rising sun, with the one earring showing and her light brown hair curled behind the ear and flowing down into the opening of her blouse. She turned to him.

“What are you looking at?” she said.

“You.”

She pulled her hair back with both hands this time, lifting and stretching her arms up behind her head as she drew her hair off her neck for just a second and let it fall. Clay watched the fabric of her blouse press against her breasts and doubted he could ever keep his mind off her when she arched her back like that. Did she know what she was doing? Did she move that way unconsciously, her innocence at odds with his desire? Did she know she was keeping him off balance like a boxer threatening with a right hook while aiming a left jab at his jaw? He could’ve asked, but then he’d only be left wondering if what she’d said was true or not. He also knew that asking might spoil it all, leaving him with an answer but losing the joy of watching her and wondering.

“Okay,” said Clay. “The topic is Chris. You’re right, he’s at that age. Doesn’t tell me much either.”

“Do you ask him?” said Addy.

“Ask him what?”

“About his friends, what his plans are, what he’s feeling,” said Addy. “Whenever I ask him I get mumbles and evasions. What does he say to you at work?”

“I don’t know; we talk about the job. I did try to talk to him about being on time, doing his homework—”

“I don’t mean lecturing him, Clay. I mean talking with him. It’s important for a boy to be able to talk with his father.”

Clay wanted to slam his fist the table, but he sat quietly. He didn’t know how to talk like that, to get his son to open up to him. Addy had no right. Chris had no right to turn surly, to change from a little boy to a secretive stranger. Everyone wanted something from him, something that felt out of reach, impossible. He knew what he was capable of, and what he wasn’t. Why couldn’t they see that? Why couldn’t Mr. Fiorenza just let him be? Why…

Clay took a deep breath and let it go. Okay, calm down. Addy’s being a protective mother, it’s normal.

“We talked about smoking, too,” said Clay, offering another father and son topic, knowing it was a mistake as soon as he said it. They hadn’t actually talked, had they?

“You think he’s smoking now?” Addy asked. She didn’t seem surprised. Clay felt the question was more of a test for him.

“You know how it is,” he said. “His friends smoke, so maybe he’s trying to fit in. Kind of hard for me to tell him how bad it is, with cases of cigarettes piled up in the storeroom.”

“So who are his friends these days, besides Tony?”

Clay tried to envision the other kids who’d been in Tony’s car. He couldn’t. They were a jumble of laughter, sideburns, and recklessness. If any of them had been Chris’ pals when he was younger, they weren’t recognizable now. Clay used to know their names, when Chris would have them over for birthday parties and family cookouts. Horseshoes in the backyard, with the kids standing halfway to the stake so they’d have a chance at a ringer. Now that they could make a regulation throw, they were nowhere to be seen.

“You know,” Clay said, letting out a sigh, “I can’t say. It’s Tony this and Tony that. Chris seems to be one of his gang.”

“Well, that worries me. Did you know Tony’s been suspended from school?” 
“For what?”

“Fighting, after school.”

“Kid stuff, Addy, don’t worry…”

“And carrying a knife, a switchblade. That boy is a real hoodlum, and I don’t like Chris spending time with him.”

“Jesus. Okay, I’ll talk to him. He won’t like it.”

“He doesn’t have to like it, Clay, he needs to hear it from his father. Talk to him at work, he likes being there with you.”

“He does?” Clay couldn’t keep the disbelief out of his voice. Chris showed up late, sometimes hardly spoke, and when they did try to talk it often led to arguments and misunderstandings. Or worse, silence.

“Of course he does! Yesterday he told me all about cleaning that grease trap for you and how you said he did a great job – in between those Beatles songs playing on the radio, anyway. It was our longest conversation this week.”

“Huh!” Clay sat back in his chair and stared out the window. “I’ll be damned.”

Addy looked at him, one eyebrow raised. She got up, took off her apron, walked over to Clay and sat on his lap. She put her arm around his shoulders and kissed him on the forehead.

Addy leaned into him and Clay held her by the waist. He could feel her ribs, his fingers nestling in the spaces between them. They both looked out the kitchen window, a few houses dotting the slopped land, trees and fields between them. The tops of crosses and monuments in the Polish cemetery stood up above a fold in the landscape, gray sentinels guarding the horizon. Neither of them spoke, and quiet settled in around them. Clay heard the ticking of the clock on the wall, and the faster beating of his heart as he rubbed his right hand against the thin fabric of Addy’s blouse. His left hand rested on her thigh, and he tightened his grip, moving his hand up her rounded hip, inhaling her scent, the soft odor of perfume and flesh on her bare neck. Turning his face toward her throat, he kissed her there, moving his lips up to the nape of her neck, pulling the white fabric aside. Oohh, he heard as he felt her quiver. His hand cupped her breast. Mmnnn, and she arched her head back, giving him room to kiss her, to touch her, and this time there was no question about it, no wondering at all.