CHAPTER 1
1988, Cold Spring Harbor, New York:
The dream was back. It surprised Danny when it began. The experience was different now after all the years–no twisting in his guts, no ache in his heart. It felt like coming home. He was back in Nam, sitting in a bunker, alone, waiting. The sandbags were torn and drooping. Red dust dribbled from gaping rips in the fabric like dried blood. The beams were rotten and termite-infested. The whole structure was well on its way to oblivion. He found comfort in that.
Light began to brighten the timber-framed doorway. Wisps of ground mist crept in, swirling across the floor. He loved the dawn. Dawn meant he had survived another terror-filled night. Dawn promised a chance to survive another day.
In the dream he examined himself, knowing what he would find, but pleased to find it. Jungle fatigues and combat gear, everything as it had been, everything but the pain. He had missed this dream. As real as it seemed, he knew it was a dream, but that was okay. The dream was all that was left.
He waited, comfortable with the dream, expectant yet calm, content, savoring the anticipation.
One by one, his buddies shuffled in. With sparkling eyes on the brink of laughter, each one acknowledged him with a grin and a nod.
“Hey, Mulvaney,” someone said, “you back for another tour?”
Unable to speak, he nodded. His brothers were with him again. Even the dead were healthy, young, and happy in this dream–the way he would always remember them. He stood. They pounded one another on the back, shook hands, embraced, and called each other vulgar names.
God, it felt good to be together again.
“What’s the op?” someone said.
They all looked to him. He said what he always said in the dream. “Saddle up. We’re moving out.”
He woke up just as he always did at that point. Try as he might he could never alter that. Still clinging to the memory of his friends, wishing he could be with them even if it meant risking his life, he gave in to reality and opened his eyes.
His wife lay beside him, her breathing rhythmic and deep. He stifled a sob and eased himself from beneath the comforter. With his toes, he felt for his slippers. The bristly nap of deep pile carpet against his bare feet felt strange. The newness of his surroundings was getting on his nerves. He rose, holding his breath, but the mattress was so new the springs failed to squeak. He wagged his head in the darkness, stooped to snatch a terry-cloth robe from a chair in front of the window, and stole a peek at his front yard. Three dandelion stalks, seed puffs aglow in the spill from a streetlamp, mocked him from their beds where they swayed, smack in the middle of his freshly laid sod.
He chuckled softly, whispered, “Shit. ‘Best lawn money can buy,’ my ass,” shrugged, and tiptoed into the hall.
He checked at his kids’ rooms as he passed. Nary a whimper from behind those doors. He alone was haunted.
Thrusting his arms into the robe’s sleeves and tying its sash as he went, Danny headed for the stairs.
Downstairs, he congratulated himself when he had, for once, successfully negotiated the living room in the dark without bashing his toe. He felt his way into the kitchen, eased open the refrigerator, and blinked in the glare as he slipped a Sam Adams from a six-pack stashed in the back. He popped the top with a bottle opener from a counter drawer and climbed onto a stool beside the center island. Sipping the tangy brew, he fished in his pocket for his cigarettes, shook loose a Marlboro and clamped his lips on the filter.
Dropping the pack on the counter, he scooped his old, worn Zippo from his pocket and spun the wheel. The lighter caught on the first attempt. He drew smoke deep into his lungs. Holding the Zippo in front of his eyes, he whispered the engraved inscription lit by the flickering flame.
“When I die I’ll go to Heaven ’cause I’ve spent my time in Hell.” Nodding, he said, “Amen, brother.” The clink of the cover snapping shut sounded like a shot.
With the aroma of last night’s roast chicken tickling his nostrils–one homey touch in his strange new house–he drank, smoked, and thought. The letter was on his desk in his library. He could almost see it through the walls.
His wife wanted him to tear it up. As if the thought of her were a summons, he heard her on the stairs. Now I’m in for it. Here comes the Wicked Witch of the West.
“Dan?” she called. “What are you doing up? Are you smoking?”
The woman could smell cigarette smoke in a hurricane. Here she comes–Judgment Day in pink flannel and fuzzy slippers–Beauty and the Beast all in one package. I don’t need this shit now. Why can’t she leave me alone?
The overhead lights snapped on. The sudden brilliance hit his pupils like a fist.
“Yeah, I’m drinking, too.” He squinted, temporarily blind. “So?”
“Don’t get snotty, Daniel. It’s three o’clock in the morning. The kids have school tomorrow.”
“If the kids wake up,” he said, “it’ll be because of you. I was as quiet as a mouse.”
“And as sneaky.”
“Don’t start with me.”
“Okay.” She threw her hands up, her sign of truce. “Let’s start over. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? You’re slinking around the house in the middle of the night, sneaking cigarettes, and drinking beer, and you expect me to believe nothing’s wrong?” With her arms folded, she leaned a hip against the counter. “It’s the letter, isn’t it?”
“No, I–” He clenched his fist, tapped it three times on the counter, and said, “Yes, it’s the letter. I’m upset, okay? I admit it. Let’s not get into it now, though. Just go back to bed. I’ll be fine. Just needed a few minutes to think, okay? I’m fine.”
“Honey,” she said, “talk to me. I want to help. Please, talk to me.”
“We’ll talk tomorrow, babe. Right now I need a little solitude. There are some things I have to sort out in my head–things you wouldn’t understand.”
“I want to understand, Dan. Don’t shut me out.”
He clenched his fist again, tapped twice, and said, “I’m not shutting you out. I just have to get some stuff straight in my own head before I can share it with you. Go back to bed. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Promise?”
“Scout’s honor. Now scoot.” When she hesitated, he added, “I love you.”
She put her arms around him, and he felt the warmth of her body against his back, the press of her breasts through the fabric. He smelled the sleepy, woman smell of her and he was almost aroused, but it had been too long. He hadn’t laid intimate hands on her in months.
He kissed her hair–a brush of the lips–and slowly turned to break contact.
“Dan, are you sure you want me to go?”
“Maybe not. Why don’t you get a beer from the fridge for yourself and another one for me? Dim the lights. Let’s just sit and talk like we did when we were engaged. Make believe we’re in one of those cozy little pubs we used to go to late at night, dreaming of what our life together will be like. Remember?”
She pulled back. Anger flushed her cheeks. “That’s all you want to do lately–relive the good old days.” She started to pace, the way she did when she was cross. “Wake up!” she said. “I’ve got a news flash for you. We’re not kids anymore.”
He gritted his teeth and examined the floor, but she ducked into his gaze. With furrowed brow, she said, “Hello-o. Earth to Dan. Do you read me?” Snapping erect, she resumed her quick-march pacing and added finger-wagging. Pent-up energy propelled her back and forth like a ping-pong ball, firing accusations with every turn of her heel. “The past is the past. You can’t go back. Since you started that damned book, you’ve been living in the ’sixties. ‘Dreaming of our life together?’ We no longer have a life together. I’m here. Now. You’re in a time warp. Snap out of it!” She spun on him and stood flat-footed, fists balled, battle ready.
“That ‘damned book,’” he fired back, “is what bought you this house you always wanted. And everything in it. And the cars in the garage. And all the other shit you just had to have.”
“Bought?” she said. “Hardly! It made the down payments. We’re up to our asses in debt. You haven’t made a dime in months. The advance is almost gone, and the royalties won’t last forever. You’ve got to wake up, Dan. Come back to the world of the living.” She ticked off his eccentricities on her fingers. “First, it was staying up half the night, every night, writing the first draft. Then we had to put up with the rewriting. And the research!” She gave up on counting and threw it all in the air. “My God! The phone bill alone. But, you know what, Dan? I’d be happy to go through it all again if you’d just get back to work. Writers do have to write, don’t they? It’s not like farming, is it? The government won’t pay you for not writing, will it?”
“Keep your voice down. You’ll wake the kids.”
“So? Are you afraid they’ll see that their father is losing his mind?”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means that since we moved in here, you’ve been acting stranger by the minute. First, there were the parties with all those weirdos from that veterans’ club you joined.”
“Those are my brother vets. How dare you insult them?”
“You never laid eyes on any of them until your book was published. They used you for free beer and a place to drink it. You said yourself: some of their stories don’t ring true.”
“My old buddies are scattered all over the country. I can’t help that.” It sounded lame, even to him. He looked for an ashtray, but he knew there would not be one, so he dropped his cigarette butt into the empty beer bottle. Some ashes scattered on the counter.
She grabbed the washcloth from the sink and swiped at his mess. “So, what are these people? Substitutes?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Oh, and let’s not forget paintball.” Her eyes grew wide. She threw her head back and berated the ceiling. He hated when she did that. “All of a sudden, my husband decides to be a middle-aged commando, running around in the woods, shooting perfect strangers with paint pellets.” The ceiling must have had enough because she aimed those piercing brown orbs at him again. “Now you get a letter from some unknown Vietnamese, and you want to go traipsing off to the other side of the world to meet him.” She clapped her hands together and locked her fingers so the knuckles went white. “Does any of this sound rational to you?”
“Come on, babe. I know how it must look, but–”
“But what, Danny? You’re a writer, for God’s sake. Why can’t you find the words?”
He didn’t know he was going to cry. He was as shocked by his tears as she. He couldn’t help but cry, and he couldn’t stop.
Her arms were around him again, and her sobs blended with his. “You need help, Dan. It’s post-traumatic stress or something. Maybe the VA can help. They know more about this kind of thing now. Will you go see someone? Please? For me? For the kids?”
She rocked him until he nodded his submission. She stroked his hair and kissed the tears streaming down his cheek.
“Come to bed,” she said. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
He couldn’t meet her eyes. “Give me a minute to collect myself,” he said and turned his back on her. “I’ll be right up.”
“Okay.” She pulled back, letting her fingers trail along his arms. “But not too long. You need your rest.”
“Okay,” he said and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “Go on. I’ll be right up.”
He waited until he heard the bedroom door close, counted to three, and went to the refrigerator. He snatched another beer from the carton, thought better of it, and took them all. Moving quickly, he slipped out the side door to the attached garage, closed it behind him with care, and caught himself just before he switched on the lights. He was safer in the dark. She wouldn’t think to look for him here if he stayed quiet. Her Audi was right in front of him. He felt the cool, slick steel with the back of his hand, slid his backside onto the fender, set the beer down on the hood, lit another cigarette, and eased the lighter shut.
Alone in the dark, he puffed, sipped, and thought.
She’s right. I do need to see someone–someone in Vietnam.
© 2018 by James D. Robertson
