Honoring Mike
Kent McDaniel
_
Fastening the gold buttons on his green sport coat, Joe strode into the trailer’s living room. Over at the kitchen table, Steve grinned. “Think that monkey suit’s gonna fool someone?”
Joe glanced down at his brown ankle-high boots, his long legs in green plaid bell-bottoms. He brushed his fingers against a pale blue turtleneck. “This is as close to dressed up as I can get.”
“Yeah, very mod.” Steve pointed his palm at Joe. “I’m just saying you ain’t fooling no one. One look at you, and everybody’s gonna think--hippy. Including those marines.”
Joe nodded. His auburn hair, parted in the middle, stopped between his collar and shoulders, where-- for reasons unknown to him-- it curled up on the sides. His glasses were round gold-rims, his sideburns muttonchops. Steve had a point.
Joe was almost late, as usual, and he dashed out to the Brown Deathtrap, jumped behind the wheel, and lit up a Kool. He had to reach Metropolis, sixty-seven miles south of Carbondale, down on the Kentucky border, pick up Katie, and get to the funeral in less than ninety minutes. He fired up the Pontiac and spun from Pleasant Valley Trailer Court, plastic seat covers burning his ass.
He sped through town and then through Crab Orchard Wildlife Preserve. Strangling the steering wheel, he thought about Mike. First grade through eighth, they’d been best friends. They’d drifted apart a little in high school and seen even less of each other in the two years since. College was never an option for Mike: His foster parents had no money for it, and he was an indifferent student, at best.
Joe had gone up to SIU in Carbondale, but except to avoid the draft, wasn’t sure why. A teacher’s scholarship paid his tuition, but he had no intention of teaching. He was going to be a rock star or science-fiction writer or both--a one-man cultural revolution. He had it in him, he knew.
Once past the Wildlife Preserve, he went ninety, flying through the curves and hills. In thirty minutes, he came to the crossroads in tiny Vienna. He turned right, and at the edge of town, twenty-two miles from Metropolis, stomped the accelerator. He whipped around a pickup, and as it dwindled in the rearview mirror, he saw the summer before their sophomore year, when they were fifteen.
Mike, whose foster parents let him drive though he just had a learner’s permit, was driving Joe and himself to Paducah, Kentucky, twelve miles from Metropolis. On the two-lane highway, he slowed to a crawl. A car started to pass, but Mike sped up. It pulled back behind, and Mike slowed, laughing into the rearview mirror.
A line of cars began to form. Nervous at first, Joe had begun to laugh too, turning around to look. The line of cars grew, and still Mike kept anyone from passing. By the time they rolled into Paducah, cars stretched a mile behind them, and Joe’s side hurt from laughing.
It had been idiotic, but even now he laughed. He could still see the cars backed up and Mike quivering with silent laughter over the wheel.
Dead...
He reached Metropolis and raced to Katie’s. She brought a fragrance of musk into the car, and as usual her small figure stole his breath. Her black hair fell way down her back. She had a pretty oval face, and her Cherokee blood showed in tilted eyes and tan skin.
She lifted her eyebrows. “Dressed up for the funeral, eh?”
He turned his head her way and looked from the corners of his eyes. “Like, we might be on TV.”
She nodded, as he eased from the curb. “Channel Four may be there. You see the interview with Mike’s folks?”
His mouth twisted. “There went my respect for Rob Fisher.”
“I didn’t know you had any,” she said. “Want to get high?”
He shook his head no. “Hey, Rob Fisher used to be cool. When he was the sportscaster. He had this irony. Before he started doing news.”
Katie threw up her hands. “He was cool; now he’s not. Okay.”
“Yeah,” he said, “that interview last night. Mike was like their goddamn son, but all Fisher talked about was the hero. Like Mike spent his whole life waiting for his chance to die.” He slapped the steering wheel.
Her face softened. “I have to ask you: Why’d you stay up at school last night? The Peace Committee meeting, right? ’Cause you wanna go to the Democratic Convention, in Chicago. To protest the war.”
Joe had nodded along.
“You see anything strange about being a pallbearer for a hero, from the war?”
“Mike used to be my best friend.”
She cocked her head. “When was that?”
“Aw, first day of first grade, out on the playground, he ran up and lassoed me around the neck.”
Katie gave him a dubious look.
“I smacked him in the mouth.” Joe looked back at the road. “Then we were friends.”
“Yeah, well.” She shook her head. “Maybe you’d honor him more with a black armband.”
“He decided to serve.”
Her eyes widened. “He was drafted. Now they wanna use his funeral.”
Joe pressed his teeth into his lower lip. “This is not about politics.”
She opened her mouth as if to speak but stopped. “Yeah, okay, Joe. I guess not.”
He looked out the window. The street had become a country road. They came to a T, with four houses and a dilapidated general store: New Zion. They went right, and in a mile came to a small, white wooden church. Its parking lot was jammed, and so was the gravel road sloping up to it. He skidded to a stop behind the last car, and he and Katie climbed out. Behind her, a meadow stretched, dotted with cows and fringed by cottonwood and elm trees.
“How come the funeral’s out here?” she asked.
He pointed. “Judy went to New Zion Baptist. Ever since Mike met her, he’s gone there too.” He shook his head. “Went.”
As they walked, the news van from Channel 4 clattered past, and stopped at the church door. A camera crew piled out. Even from a hundred yards Joe saw Rob Fisher with them. By the time Joe and Katie reached the parking lot, the ghouls were already at work. Beside the steps to the Church’s door, Rob Fisher was interviewing a Marine.
Inside the church, on a small table at the back, stood a photo of Mike. He wore dress blues, the white cap with gold Marine insignia square on his head, its bill almost down to his eyebrows. The shirt was dark blue, its buttons gold, its narrow collar a couple inches below his chin. His jaw was set, his mouth unsmiling. On the left side of his face, his eye and the set of his facial muscles looked apprehensive, and on the right side he looked angry, menacing.
Why did his face look like that?
Mike’s foster-mother shambled over and took Joe’s hand. Her eyes were red, but she looked much as she had when he was in first grade: a squat woman with a lined, craggy face.
The first time Mike had brought him over, she had growled, “You the one that hit my boy?” He’d stood, eyes downcast. When he looked up, she broke into what she probably thought was a smile, and shuffled inside, leaving the boys on the glassed-in front porch. Later they sat on the steps outside, singing “99 Bottles of Beer.” Suddenly the porch door sprang open, and she loomed, face contorted. With a yardstick, she rained blows across Mike’s shoulders, until the yardstick broke in three pieces. She cast the last into the yard and stalked off.
Joe stared at his friend, who gazed across the street a second and then threw back his head and laughed. Then he looked at Joe and said, “We were drowning out the TV.” After that she terrified Joe, but she rarely left the darkness of her living room. He brought himself back, as she released his hand and thanked him for coming. When he nodded, unable to speak, she patted his shoulder, and went back to her husband to take their seats.
Joe and Katie walked to the other pallbearers, and sat down a row behind them. The Marine honor guard sat on the right side of a pew two rows behind Mike’s casket. On their left, Mike’s widow, Tracy, sat with her parents, her small frame draped in black. She smiled wanly at him; he smiled back. She’d always been cordial, though once she and Mike got together, Joe and Mike were never the same friends.
As organ music began, Katie took his hand. The honor guard made Joe think of the picture of Mike in his Marine uniform, and then another image: Mike’s fourth grade picture.
A messenger had tip-toed into class and given their photo packets to Miss Plunk. Work ceased. Each packet had a cellophane window with a print of the student’s picture. Rather than call students by name to come for their picture, Miss Plunk would hold up each picture for all to see.
Starting with the third picture, of Cheryl Parmley, a skinny girl with her hair in tight little curls, Mike cut loose with an obnoxious laugh, the syllable “buh” drawn out long, loud and guttural. Cheryl trudged up, red-faced, but Miss Plunk didn’t so much as frown Mike’s way. Mike kept guffawing at his classmates’ pictures, and others joined in. Joe had dreaded the moment when his picture would be hoisted up, and hated Mike for leading the laughter. But Miss Plunk saved Mike for last. Pursed lips smiling, she lifted his picture with a flourish, and there he was, hair long on top and slicked back, wearing a cowboy shirt and dopey grin. Everyone howled.
Joe shifted in the pew. Since Mike’s death he’d choked down his grief, but as he gazed at the stars and stripes over Mike’s casket, they seemed to shimmer.
The organ ceased. Bible in hand, a preacher climbed the stairs to the pulpit, and Joe gaped. It was Nicky Griggs, a classmate from high school. Senior year Joe had had a government class with him. The class centered around group discussion; the members learned much about each other. Nicky had been quiet but not shy. He didn’t toss off put-downs or one-liners, but he was willing to talk. A farm boy, he was in F.F.A., sang in the church choir, and helped with Sunday school. As the class discussed civil rights, the military, poverty, and religion, Joe gradually discovered that Nicky considered those who disagreed with him tools of Satan.
When they discussed careers, he had mentioned that he felt “called.” This was a shock, though. He strode to the pulpit, set down his worn, black Bible and gazed at it. Homely in a Lincolnesque way--if you pictured Lincoln minus the beard--Nicky ran a hand through glistening black hair and stared around the room.
“Friends,” he intoned, and pressed his lips together. “We’re gathered to pay final respects to Mike Stratmeyer, a man I was proud to call friend. Like many of you.”
Nicky friends with Mike? Not that Joe ever knew.
Hands on the pulpit, Nicky leaned forward. “Mike didn’t have to go Vietnam.” He stood up straight and gazed around the congregation. “He could’ve been like the draft-dodgers. But our way of life is at stake, and Mike did his duty. We thank God for that. And we call on God to grant us victory over the Communists, may they burn in hell.”
He opened his bible in one large hand and read:
“O God, break the teeth in their mouths;
tear out the fangs of the young
lions, O LORD!
Let them vanish like water that
runs away
like grass let them be trodden
down and wither
Let them be like the snail which
dissolves into slime
like the untimely birth that never
sees the sun
Sooner than your pots can feel the
heat of thorns,
Whether green or ablaze, may he
sweep them away
The righteous will rejoice when he
sees the vengeance;
he will bathe his feet in the blood
of the wicked."
Gee, thanks, Nicky.
Nicky slammed his Bible shut with a pop. “Psalm 58, 6-10. God bless this reading of his holy word.” He gestured toward the Marines. “An honor guard is with us. They delivered Mike’s folks a letter from his commanding officer yesterday, and I was privileged to see it. His CO called Mike a brave, down-to-earth young man, who he was proud to have known. The day Mike died he was walking point, a little ahead of his platoon. As they crossed a clearing, he spotted an ambush. He could’ve jumped for cover. But he didn’t. He shouted a warning, then turned back and fired on the enemy position. The Viet Cong cut him down.”
Nicky stared around the church. “Mike gave his life, knowingly, I’m sure, so that the rest of his patrol could live. They called in air support and triumphed that day. Which they owe to Mike. And all of them with him that day owe him their very lives, his commanding officer has no doubt.”
Nicky lowered his head and launched into a prayer, similar to the psalm he’d read. When he uttered amen at last, the organist hit a resounding chord and began “Amazing Grace.”
Joe’s mind drifted to the letter. He could believe that Mike had been brave. But he’d never have been there, had they not drafted him. He’d still be a disc jockey at the radio station and playing drums every Saturday at the Barn Dance over in Karnak. He’d never have left Tracy.
As far as down-to-earth: June the year after The Beatles happened, Joe went to visit Mike one evening, and found him on the front porch listening to “I Saw Her Standing There.” Mike grinned beatifically from under a cheap Beatle wig, which no one could’ve mistaken for hair; its black fibers looked more like dyed asbestos insulation. Joe laughed helplessly.
Then Mike had remembered a latex rubber bald-wig that Joe had at home in a make-up kit he’d ordered from Famous Monsters. The two of them went for the bald-wig, and for no reason other than its making the whole thing sillier, Mike put the bald-wig on under the Beatle wig. The two had paraded around town, basking in the stares and glowers that Mike drew. The high point of the evening came just after sunset, when they stopped by Old Man Foster’s drug store. Old Man Foster crouched behind the soda fountain, elbows on the counter, bald head gleaming. He made no comment as the boys ordered cherry cokes, but glowered at Mike from under bushy eyebrows.
As they drank, he stood in front of Mike, scowling. “Why d’you wanna look like one of those Beatles? I hate an Englishman anyway. Elvis was bad enough: At least he was American.”
He slammed his fist into his palm. “The Beatles! What kind of name is that? What kind of music? No melody, three or four chords, stupid words.” He sneered. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Nostrils flared, he threw up his hands and thundered, “On stage wailing like wild Indians! Why the hell are the girls all screamin’? Those guys look like girls themselves. That hair hanging down in their faces!” Glaring, he spun toward Mike and exclaimed, “You don’t need that thing!”
He ripped the Beatles wig from Mike’s head.
But his hand froze, inches from Mike. The triumph on his face disintegrated. And as Old Man Foster gawked at the wart-encrusted bald-wig, Mike grinned raptly at him, and then let loose the same obnoxious laugh that he’d used on his classmates’ pictures. The memory almost made Joe smile.
“Amazing Grace” ended. Two of the honor guard removed the flag from Mike’s casket and folded it. At a look from Nicky, Joe and the other pallbearers gathered around the casket. As Joe helped raise it, tension surged through his limbs as though the coffin were charged with it. They walked toward the door, beside which Nicky stood, as radiant as if this were the biggest day of his life.
Then sunlight streamed through the open door. As the pallbearers entered the daylight, there was the camera crew. They trailed the pallbearers for fifty yards, down a dirt path through a stand of trees, and the congregation followed.
Joe and the others carried Mike to the church cemetery and set his coffin above his grave. People padded up and stood four and five deep in a semi-circle, Mike’s foster-parents and wife in front. To one side the Marine honor guard stood, chests high, rifles at parade rest. The sun beat down.
Back before Mike had been drafted, he’d agreed to let Joe use some of the radio station’s equipment for a school project. But when he got his induction notice he said that he’d be too busy to do it. Joe had told Katie, “I hope he gets drafted into the Marines.” Meaning that it would serve him right, since Marine boot camp was the toughest, and the Marines were involved in the worst of the fighting. Joe gritted his teeth. But goddamn it, Mike, I didn‘t think you would.
Nicky Griggs walked in front of the casket and raised Mike’s Marine picture in one hand. His eyes swept the mourners but seemed to come to a stop looking straight into the camera. “Friends and neighbors, this was Mike. You knew him and you loved him. And he loved you. And he loved our country. So much he left his beloved wife and went to fight the communists.” His gaze flitted to Tracey, who returned it with glowing eyes.
Joe wanted to scream.
Nicky looked at Mike’s picture and then back at the camera. His eyebrows twitched, and he said, “This man fought for our country. He was a brave man, loyal and god-fearing--”
Joe lunged forward and snatched the picture. “Shut your goddamn mouth, Nicky! You didn’t even know him.” He cast the picture down and shattered the glass under his heel.
There was a silence, during which he glared at the faces around him. Then Katie was there, clasping his elbow, urging him through the crowd. As they passed the camera crew, the cameraman filmed them. Joe stomped to a halt, and gave him the finger with both hands. “Put that in your report, shithead!” He pointed his finger like a handgun at Rob Fisher. “You fucking liar!”
Katie pulled his arm, and they took off for his car.
They drove around aimlessly with no talk, Joe chain-smoking, hardly seeing the road. After a while Katie leaned back and chuckled, “Oh, man, I thought Nicky was gonna cry when you smashed Mike’s picture.”
Joe glowered at her.
“And you…” She pointed both index fingers at him and chortled. “Standing there like your head was about to explode. People didn’t know whether to hit you or run.” She leaned back and laughed, and he couldn’t help laughing along.
Around six they stopped at his parents’ house. His parents had eaten, and Joe fried hamburgers in the kitchen . He and Katie had just sat down to eat when his mom called from the living room: “Hey. It’s the report on Mike.”
He grimaced at Katie and trudged with her to the living room couch. This could be bad. He avoided shouting matches with his father--most of the time--by avoiding topics on which they disagreed. Since that included almost everything, they spoke very little. His mother was more tolerant, but had a look that let him know when he disappointed her, and just how badly.
He was wrong to worry, at least for the time being; in no way was his outburst alluded to. Of course not: it had no place in the story. There was a shot of Mike’s Marine picture followed by a description of his heroism, the interview with the Marine, the mourners at graveside, the Marines firing a salute. The report closed with Mike’s coffin lowering and the sound of taps.
“And now,” Katie said brightly, “A word from our sponsors.”
Fastening the gold buttons on his green sport coat, Joe strode into the trailer’s living room. Over at the kitchen table, Steve grinned. “Think that monkey suit’s gonna fool someone?”
Joe glanced down at his brown ankle-high boots, his long legs in green plaid bell-bottoms. He brushed his fingers against a pale blue turtleneck. “This is as close to dressed up as I can get.”
“Yeah, very mod.” Steve pointed his palm at Joe. “I’m just saying you ain’t fooling no one. One look at you, and everybody’s gonna think--hippy. Including those marines.”
Joe nodded. His auburn hair, parted in the middle, stopped between his collar and shoulders, where-- for reasons unknown to him-- it curled up on the sides. His glasses were round gold-rims, his sideburns muttonchops. Steve had a point.
Joe was almost late, as usual, and he dashed out to the Brown Deathtrap, jumped behind the wheel, and lit up a Kool. He had to reach Metropolis, sixty-seven miles south of Carbondale, down on the Kentucky border, pick up Katie, and get to the funeral in less than ninety minutes. He fired up the Pontiac and spun from Pleasant Valley Trailer Court, plastic seat covers burning his ass.
He sped through town and then through Crab Orchard Wildlife Preserve. Strangling the steering wheel, he thought about Mike. First grade through eighth, they’d been best friends. They’d drifted apart a little in high school and seen even less of each other in the two years since. College was never an option for Mike: His foster parents had no money for it, and he was an indifferent student, at best.
Joe had gone up to SIU in Carbondale, but except to avoid the draft, wasn’t sure why. A teacher’s scholarship paid his tuition, but he had no intention of teaching. He was going to be a rock star or science-fiction writer or both--a one-man cultural revolution. He had it in him, he knew.
Once past the Wildlife Preserve, he went ninety, flying through the curves and hills. In thirty minutes, he came to the crossroads in tiny Vienna. He turned right, and at the edge of town, twenty-two miles from Metropolis, stomped the accelerator. He whipped around a pickup, and as it dwindled in the rearview mirror, he saw the summer before their sophomore year, when they were fifteen.
Mike, whose foster parents let him drive though he just had a learner’s permit, was driving Joe and himself to Paducah, Kentucky, twelve miles from Metropolis. On the two-lane highway, he slowed to a crawl. A car started to pass, but Mike sped up. It pulled back behind, and Mike slowed, laughing into the rearview mirror.
A line of cars began to form. Nervous at first, Joe had begun to laugh too, turning around to look. The line of cars grew, and still Mike kept anyone from passing. By the time they rolled into Paducah, cars stretched a mile behind them, and Joe’s side hurt from laughing.
It had been idiotic, but even now he laughed. He could still see the cars backed up and Mike quivering with silent laughter over the wheel.
Dead...
He reached Metropolis and raced to Katie’s. She brought a fragrance of musk into the car, and as usual her small figure stole his breath. Her black hair fell way down her back. She had a pretty oval face, and her Cherokee blood showed in tilted eyes and tan skin.
She lifted her eyebrows. “Dressed up for the funeral, eh?”
He turned his head her way and looked from the corners of his eyes. “Like, we might be on TV.”
She nodded, as he eased from the curb. “Channel Four may be there. You see the interview with Mike’s folks?”
His mouth twisted. “There went my respect for Rob Fisher.”
“I didn’t know you had any,” she said. “Want to get high?”
He shook his head no. “Hey, Rob Fisher used to be cool. When he was the sportscaster. He had this irony. Before he started doing news.”
Katie threw up her hands. “He was cool; now he’s not. Okay.”
“Yeah,” he said, “that interview last night. Mike was like their goddamn son, but all Fisher talked about was the hero. Like Mike spent his whole life waiting for his chance to die.” He slapped the steering wheel.
Her face softened. “I have to ask you: Why’d you stay up at school last night? The Peace Committee meeting, right? ’Cause you wanna go to the Democratic Convention, in Chicago. To protest the war.”
Joe had nodded along.
“You see anything strange about being a pallbearer for a hero, from the war?”
“Mike used to be my best friend.”
She cocked her head. “When was that?”
“Aw, first day of first grade, out on the playground, he ran up and lassoed me around the neck.”
Katie gave him a dubious look.
“I smacked him in the mouth.” Joe looked back at the road. “Then we were friends.”
“Yeah, well.” She shook her head. “Maybe you’d honor him more with a black armband.”
“He decided to serve.”
Her eyes widened. “He was drafted. Now they wanna use his funeral.”
Joe pressed his teeth into his lower lip. “This is not about politics.”
She opened her mouth as if to speak but stopped. “Yeah, okay, Joe. I guess not.”
He looked out the window. The street had become a country road. They came to a T, with four houses and a dilapidated general store: New Zion. They went right, and in a mile came to a small, white wooden church. Its parking lot was jammed, and so was the gravel road sloping up to it. He skidded to a stop behind the last car, and he and Katie climbed out. Behind her, a meadow stretched, dotted with cows and fringed by cottonwood and elm trees.
“How come the funeral’s out here?” she asked.
He pointed. “Judy went to New Zion Baptist. Ever since Mike met her, he’s gone there too.” He shook his head. “Went.”
As they walked, the news van from Channel 4 clattered past, and stopped at the church door. A camera crew piled out. Even from a hundred yards Joe saw Rob Fisher with them. By the time Joe and Katie reached the parking lot, the ghouls were already at work. Beside the steps to the Church’s door, Rob Fisher was interviewing a Marine.
Inside the church, on a small table at the back, stood a photo of Mike. He wore dress blues, the white cap with gold Marine insignia square on his head, its bill almost down to his eyebrows. The shirt was dark blue, its buttons gold, its narrow collar a couple inches below his chin. His jaw was set, his mouth unsmiling. On the left side of his face, his eye and the set of his facial muscles looked apprehensive, and on the right side he looked angry, menacing.
Why did his face look like that?
Mike’s foster-mother shambled over and took Joe’s hand. Her eyes were red, but she looked much as she had when he was in first grade: a squat woman with a lined, craggy face.
The first time Mike had brought him over, she had growled, “You the one that hit my boy?” He’d stood, eyes downcast. When he looked up, she broke into what she probably thought was a smile, and shuffled inside, leaving the boys on the glassed-in front porch. Later they sat on the steps outside, singing “99 Bottles of Beer.” Suddenly the porch door sprang open, and she loomed, face contorted. With a yardstick, she rained blows across Mike’s shoulders, until the yardstick broke in three pieces. She cast the last into the yard and stalked off.
Joe stared at his friend, who gazed across the street a second and then threw back his head and laughed. Then he looked at Joe and said, “We were drowning out the TV.” After that she terrified Joe, but she rarely left the darkness of her living room. He brought himself back, as she released his hand and thanked him for coming. When he nodded, unable to speak, she patted his shoulder, and went back to her husband to take their seats.
Joe and Katie walked to the other pallbearers, and sat down a row behind them. The Marine honor guard sat on the right side of a pew two rows behind Mike’s casket. On their left, Mike’s widow, Tracy, sat with her parents, her small frame draped in black. She smiled wanly at him; he smiled back. She’d always been cordial, though once she and Mike got together, Joe and Mike were never the same friends.
As organ music began, Katie took his hand. The honor guard made Joe think of the picture of Mike in his Marine uniform, and then another image: Mike’s fourth grade picture.
A messenger had tip-toed into class and given their photo packets to Miss Plunk. Work ceased. Each packet had a cellophane window with a print of the student’s picture. Rather than call students by name to come for their picture, Miss Plunk would hold up each picture for all to see.
Starting with the third picture, of Cheryl Parmley, a skinny girl with her hair in tight little curls, Mike cut loose with an obnoxious laugh, the syllable “buh” drawn out long, loud and guttural. Cheryl trudged up, red-faced, but Miss Plunk didn’t so much as frown Mike’s way. Mike kept guffawing at his classmates’ pictures, and others joined in. Joe had dreaded the moment when his picture would be hoisted up, and hated Mike for leading the laughter. But Miss Plunk saved Mike for last. Pursed lips smiling, she lifted his picture with a flourish, and there he was, hair long on top and slicked back, wearing a cowboy shirt and dopey grin. Everyone howled.
Joe shifted in the pew. Since Mike’s death he’d choked down his grief, but as he gazed at the stars and stripes over Mike’s casket, they seemed to shimmer.
The organ ceased. Bible in hand, a preacher climbed the stairs to the pulpit, and Joe gaped. It was Nicky Griggs, a classmate from high school. Senior year Joe had had a government class with him. The class centered around group discussion; the members learned much about each other. Nicky had been quiet but not shy. He didn’t toss off put-downs or one-liners, but he was willing to talk. A farm boy, he was in F.F.A., sang in the church choir, and helped with Sunday school. As the class discussed civil rights, the military, poverty, and religion, Joe gradually discovered that Nicky considered those who disagreed with him tools of Satan.
When they discussed careers, he had mentioned that he felt “called.” This was a shock, though. He strode to the pulpit, set down his worn, black Bible and gazed at it. Homely in a Lincolnesque way--if you pictured Lincoln minus the beard--Nicky ran a hand through glistening black hair and stared around the room.
“Friends,” he intoned, and pressed his lips together. “We’re gathered to pay final respects to Mike Stratmeyer, a man I was proud to call friend. Like many of you.”
Nicky friends with Mike? Not that Joe ever knew.
Hands on the pulpit, Nicky leaned forward. “Mike didn’t have to go Vietnam.” He stood up straight and gazed around the congregation. “He could’ve been like the draft-dodgers. But our way of life is at stake, and Mike did his duty. We thank God for that. And we call on God to grant us victory over the Communists, may they burn in hell.”
He opened his bible in one large hand and read:
“O God, break the teeth in their mouths;
tear out the fangs of the young
lions, O LORD!
Let them vanish like water that
runs away
like grass let them be trodden
down and wither
Let them be like the snail which
dissolves into slime
like the untimely birth that never
sees the sun
Sooner than your pots can feel the
heat of thorns,
Whether green or ablaze, may he
sweep them away
The righteous will rejoice when he
sees the vengeance;
he will bathe his feet in the blood
of the wicked."
Gee, thanks, Nicky.
Nicky slammed his Bible shut with a pop. “Psalm 58, 6-10. God bless this reading of his holy word.” He gestured toward the Marines. “An honor guard is with us. They delivered Mike’s folks a letter from his commanding officer yesterday, and I was privileged to see it. His CO called Mike a brave, down-to-earth young man, who he was proud to have known. The day Mike died he was walking point, a little ahead of his platoon. As they crossed a clearing, he spotted an ambush. He could’ve jumped for cover. But he didn’t. He shouted a warning, then turned back and fired on the enemy position. The Viet Cong cut him down.”
Nicky stared around the church. “Mike gave his life, knowingly, I’m sure, so that the rest of his patrol could live. They called in air support and triumphed that day. Which they owe to Mike. And all of them with him that day owe him their very lives, his commanding officer has no doubt.”
Nicky lowered his head and launched into a prayer, similar to the psalm he’d read. When he uttered amen at last, the organist hit a resounding chord and began “Amazing Grace.”
Joe’s mind drifted to the letter. He could believe that Mike had been brave. But he’d never have been there, had they not drafted him. He’d still be a disc jockey at the radio station and playing drums every Saturday at the Barn Dance over in Karnak. He’d never have left Tracy.
As far as down-to-earth: June the year after The Beatles happened, Joe went to visit Mike one evening, and found him on the front porch listening to “I Saw Her Standing There.” Mike grinned beatifically from under a cheap Beatle wig, which no one could’ve mistaken for hair; its black fibers looked more like dyed asbestos insulation. Joe laughed helplessly.
Then Mike had remembered a latex rubber bald-wig that Joe had at home in a make-up kit he’d ordered from Famous Monsters. The two of them went for the bald-wig, and for no reason other than its making the whole thing sillier, Mike put the bald-wig on under the Beatle wig. The two had paraded around town, basking in the stares and glowers that Mike drew. The high point of the evening came just after sunset, when they stopped by Old Man Foster’s drug store. Old Man Foster crouched behind the soda fountain, elbows on the counter, bald head gleaming. He made no comment as the boys ordered cherry cokes, but glowered at Mike from under bushy eyebrows.
As they drank, he stood in front of Mike, scowling. “Why d’you wanna look like one of those Beatles? I hate an Englishman anyway. Elvis was bad enough: At least he was American.”
He slammed his fist into his palm. “The Beatles! What kind of name is that? What kind of music? No melody, three or four chords, stupid words.” He sneered. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Nostrils flared, he threw up his hands and thundered, “On stage wailing like wild Indians! Why the hell are the girls all screamin’? Those guys look like girls themselves. That hair hanging down in their faces!” Glaring, he spun toward Mike and exclaimed, “You don’t need that thing!”
He ripped the Beatles wig from Mike’s head.
But his hand froze, inches from Mike. The triumph on his face disintegrated. And as Old Man Foster gawked at the wart-encrusted bald-wig, Mike grinned raptly at him, and then let loose the same obnoxious laugh that he’d used on his classmates’ pictures. The memory almost made Joe smile.
“Amazing Grace” ended. Two of the honor guard removed the flag from Mike’s casket and folded it. At a look from Nicky, Joe and the other pallbearers gathered around the casket. As Joe helped raise it, tension surged through his limbs as though the coffin were charged with it. They walked toward the door, beside which Nicky stood, as radiant as if this were the biggest day of his life.
Then sunlight streamed through the open door. As the pallbearers entered the daylight, there was the camera crew. They trailed the pallbearers for fifty yards, down a dirt path through a stand of trees, and the congregation followed.
Joe and the others carried Mike to the church cemetery and set his coffin above his grave. People padded up and stood four and five deep in a semi-circle, Mike’s foster-parents and wife in front. To one side the Marine honor guard stood, chests high, rifles at parade rest. The sun beat down.
Back before Mike had been drafted, he’d agreed to let Joe use some of the radio station’s equipment for a school project. But when he got his induction notice he said that he’d be too busy to do it. Joe had told Katie, “I hope he gets drafted into the Marines.” Meaning that it would serve him right, since Marine boot camp was the toughest, and the Marines were involved in the worst of the fighting. Joe gritted his teeth. But goddamn it, Mike, I didn‘t think you would.
Nicky Griggs walked in front of the casket and raised Mike’s Marine picture in one hand. His eyes swept the mourners but seemed to come to a stop looking straight into the camera. “Friends and neighbors, this was Mike. You knew him and you loved him. And he loved you. And he loved our country. So much he left his beloved wife and went to fight the communists.” His gaze flitted to Tracey, who returned it with glowing eyes.
Joe wanted to scream.
Nicky looked at Mike’s picture and then back at the camera. His eyebrows twitched, and he said, “This man fought for our country. He was a brave man, loyal and god-fearing--”
Joe lunged forward and snatched the picture. “Shut your goddamn mouth, Nicky! You didn’t even know him.” He cast the picture down and shattered the glass under his heel.
There was a silence, during which he glared at the faces around him. Then Katie was there, clasping his elbow, urging him through the crowd. As they passed the camera crew, the cameraman filmed them. Joe stomped to a halt, and gave him the finger with both hands. “Put that in your report, shithead!” He pointed his finger like a handgun at Rob Fisher. “You fucking liar!”
Katie pulled his arm, and they took off for his car.
They drove around aimlessly with no talk, Joe chain-smoking, hardly seeing the road. After a while Katie leaned back and chuckled, “Oh, man, I thought Nicky was gonna cry when you smashed Mike’s picture.”
Joe glowered at her.
“And you…” She pointed both index fingers at him and chortled. “Standing there like your head was about to explode. People didn’t know whether to hit you or run.” She leaned back and laughed, and he couldn’t help laughing along.
Around six they stopped at his parents’ house. His parents had eaten, and Joe fried hamburgers in the kitchen . He and Katie had just sat down to eat when his mom called from the living room: “Hey. It’s the report on Mike.”
He grimaced at Katie and trudged with her to the living room couch. This could be bad. He avoided shouting matches with his father--most of the time--by avoiding topics on which they disagreed. Since that included almost everything, they spoke very little. His mother was more tolerant, but had a look that let him know when he disappointed her, and just how badly.
He was wrong to worry, at least for the time being; in no way was his outburst alluded to. Of course not: it had no place in the story. There was a shot of Mike’s Marine picture followed by a description of his heroism, the interview with the Marine, the mourners at graveside, the Marines firing a salute. The report closed with Mike’s coffin lowering and the sound of taps.
“And now,” Katie said brightly, “A word from our sponsors.”
