After School and After the War

Ron Savage

11/19/05
Karbala, Iraq

Dear Helen,
Everybody here wants to tell everybody there about the war.
I think we want to get it out of our heads and give it to someone else.
I know I do but right now I am short on family and friends.
Mother died last September and my brother and I have always
hated each other even more than you hate me, if that’s possible.
So you are it, Helen. You are my someone else…

The man drove to the curb and parked his old brown car with the bald tires and the rust on the bottom of the door. Will sat on the school steps and watched him. The man didn’t look at Will. He was looking at something past the windshield. He rested his head on the back of the driver’s seat and lighted a cigarette. Shade trees lined the street; the sun went through the leaves and patched the curb and the brown car with afternoon light. Will had his elbows propped on his tanned skinny legs. His head was down now and he was staring at the concrete step and his dirty red high tops. Will couldn’t decide if the old car was a Ford or a Chevy, but he didn’t want to stare at the car or the man. Will didn’t like that feeling. Yesterday was his tenth birthday and he still had those nine year old fears.

His mother had told him, Nobody knows what’s inside a person’s mind. You may think you know but you don’t. We’ve got troubled people in this world, Willy. More often than not, they need what we can’t give them. His mother had also said, Even if I’m late you wait for me. I’ll call you on the cell phone, you wait.

Will looked up and the man was out of the car and leaning against the rusty door with his arms folded to his chest and the cigarette at the corner of his mouth. He had thin arms and short black hair and a dark beard that was skimpy and new. The man said, You’re Willy, right? Will nodded but didn’t say anything and the man said, You’re my kid. Your mom has photos of us when you were a baby. Did you ever see the photos? Will had to think about it. The man didn’t have a beard then. Will tried to imagine the man in front of him with a clean-shaven face and hair to his shoulders.
I just got back from the war, the man said and picked the cigarette from between his lips and flicked it into the street, a yard or two from the old brown car. He said, Did your mom tell you I was in the war?

Will shook his head no. His mother had received letters from a Corporal Stanley Freedman in the Ho S Co (BN Supply) 1st (EB), Iraq, and she had tossed the letters into the kitchen trashcan without opening any them. Will never knew his father. Corporal Stanley left before the war. Will was still a baby. All Will had were his mother’s stories. These stories began with, Your so-called father once said or did whatever. His mother would say, You are exactly like your so-called father. Or she would say, I’m sure your so-called father must be proud of you. Will heard the anger in her voice. He had saved his father’s letters from the trash and hid them under his mattress.

2/10/05
Fallujah, Iraq

Dear Helen,
How is baby Willy? Who does he look like, you or me or us?
Is he healthy? My life is a goddamn mystery, Helen.
It’s a mystery to me and I bet it’s a mystery to you.
I don’t know why I left. Next to leaving you and the kid,
being here is the stupidest thing I’ve done. Yesterday I killed
some bastard. I was fifteen feet away. I didn’t know him and
he didn’t know me and I shot him. I watched part of his head
fly off, that’s how awful it was. My friend Jake says I will get
used to it. Jake says after awhile I won’t think about it, one way
or the other. It’s like a job, Jake says. He says it’s like strapping
on an apron at McDonald’s or working the toll-booth on the
Jersey turnpike. You know what I’m thinking when I shoot a guy?
I’m thinking, What was Mickey Mantle’s all time batting average?
It was .353. Then I’m thinking, How many home runs did the Mick hit?
It was 52. Then I’m thinking, How many RBIs? It was a 130.
Isn’t that funny? Not funny ha-ha but what you think about
when you’re shooting a guy…

I killed a load of them, the man was saying, and I was in Supply. You aren’t supposed to kill them if you are in Supply but I did, we all did. I watched my buddies lose arms and legs and what have you. The corporal was now sitting next to Will, his bony shoulders hunched. He said, I risked life and limb for my country. My Country ‘Tis of Thee. I’ve been back two-three months and can’t catch me a break. You know what I mean? A man who served his country, you’d think employers would be knocking down my door.

There were two weeping willows on the front lawn of Norfolk Intermediate. The grass was thick and dark green and just mowed that morning. A breeze touched Will’s legs and arms and stirred the thready branches of the willows. Will could smell the cut grass.

Corporal Stanley removed a folded photograph from the back pocket of his jeans and held it out for Will. The photo was folded in quarters. Will looked at it but didn’t take it. The man had delicate fingers and his nails were gritty around the cuticles and chewed down to raw skin and his index and middle fingers were stained a yellowish brown from cigarettes.

I promised your mom I’d drive you home, the man said. Then he said, Your mom told me to show you this picture of us. The three of us. She said you would see how I’m your real-deal dad and not some pervert or what have you.

The photo was the one his mother kept on their coffee table in a silver frame. Will had saved his allowance and bought the frame last year for his mother’s birthday. His mother said it was the most beautiful frame she had ever seen in her entire life and she cried. She said that Will must love her very much to spend all his money on such a beautiful frame.

Now the photo was all creased and the right bottom corner had been torn away. The photo showed his mother in her pink terry-cloth bathrobe and cradling baby Will in her arms. She sat on a red and brown plaid sofa that had tan wood arms. Around her neck hung a small diamond H on a barely visible chain. This necklace was the man’s one and only gift to her. He may have been a so-called father and a so-called husband but that small diamond H never left her neck. In the photo, the clean-shaven man with the black hair to his shoulders had his arm around her. They were both looking at the camera and grinning. On the coffee table in front of them was a big amber colored glass ashtray and two hard packs of Marlboros and five Tall Boy Budweiser cans.

Will was now calling his mom on the cell phone she had given him to see if it was okay to drive home with Corporal Stanley, but no one answered.

The man also let Will see an out of date Virginia driver’s license that had the man’s name, Stanley William Freedman. The picture ID on the license looked the same as the man in the folded photo, clean-shaven, shoulder-length black hair The hair was stringy and had a shine to it.

01/15/06
Baghdad, Iraq

Dear Helen,
I guess you’re not going to answer my letters. I don’t blame you, believe me.
I know I wasn’t the best husband or father. I haven’t forgiven myself for leaving
you and Will, so why should you forgive me? My friend Jake says women like
to bust balls. I tell him that’s not true. I tell him my Helen wasn’t like that.
She was never like that. I tell him my Helen has her reasons. Jake says a guy
needs to slap some sense into a woman once in awhile. I tell him a real man
doesn’t get physical with a woman in that way. That’s one thing you can say
about me. I’m not a hitter. I’ll shake your brains out but I don’t hit.

I wish you would please answer my question. I am saying please to you, okay?
Pretty please with sugar on it. I really need an answer. I just want to come by
the house and see my Will, my boy. I know it’s been a few years, I know that.
What can I say? I am not the most perfect man in the world. I know that, too.
But I’ve changed, Helen. I’m a changed man. The war can change a person.
I am not saying we should get back together. I’m not saying you should forgive me.
I’m not saying any of that stupid, unrealistic stuff. Tell me what’s wrong with a
father seeing his son for five minutes? I don’t understand what’s wrong with that…

The old brown car smelled of cigarettes and beer and pizza with anchovies. Will could smell the fish. His stomach tightened and the back of his throat had a bitter taste. Corporal Stanley didn’t smell that good, either. He had a sick, sweaty smell. Will asked the man if the car had safety belts. Corporal Stanley said, Don’t worry about it. The man was looking straight ahead at the traffic and not at Will. The seat was a soft beige plastic that was split down the back and torn around the thick hem. Yellowed cotton stuffing had worked its way out along the opening. The man cracked his window and lighted a Marlboro.

Will told him how his mom was a smoker but she never smoked in the car. Will told him that mothers who smoke in cars are killing their babies. That’s what mom says, Will said. Corporal Stanley wanted to know if Will was a pussy. Will said he wasn’t sure what a pussy was but he didn’t think so. The man laughed and said, You’re a funny goddamn kid. The man rubbed Will’s hair without looking away from the road. The man said that was the funniest goddamn thing he had heard all day.

Will had once asked his mom why his father had left them. Was it something I did? Will said. Did I cry too much and keep him up at night? Did I do dumb things? His mom was drinking wine from a white box she had bought at the 7-11. The box had a picture of wet green grapes on it. You were mommy’s little angel, his mother said. Her words sounded pressed together and jumbled. She was sitting on the red and brown plaid sofa with the tan wooden arms. Her legs were curled under her and she wore her pink terry cloth robe and the necklace with the small diamond H. Your so-called father was a crazy You-Know-What, his mother said and had another sip of wine from a clear plastic cup. Will didn’t know what she meant by a You-Know-What but he was glad it wasn’t his fault. Then his mother said, Your so-called father thought the world owed him a living. Men like that think everyone and everything is beneath them.

The light had just turned green and Corporal Stanley was now leaning on the horn and yelling at the stalled pickup in front of him. The man glanced at Will then looked back at the road and said, This dope doesn’t know the meaning of a green light. Is he a retard or what? What do you think, buddy boy? The man said it without looking at Will. Do we have ourselves a retard or what? Will didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure what to say. The man’s face was flushed. His skin had become red under his new beard. The veins on his forehead were swollen. Will didn’t want to add to the man’s anger. Will was looking at the folded black coat and the shotgun in the backseat.

02/10/06
Baghdad, Iraq

Dear Helen:
I don’t get why you are refusing to answer my letters.
I don’t get that at all, not one little bit. A man can change, Helen.
How old was I then, nineteen, twenty? I was more of a baby
than baby Will. A girlfriend is one thing. A wife forever and a
baby is something else. I am sure I wasn’t the only nineteen or
twenty year old who ran from that type of situation. My friend
Jake says women don’t know how to forgive and forget.
Jake says that’s the major difference between your men and
your women. It’s just not in their nature, he says. But I tell him
he is wrong. I tell him he has been hanging out with those
cold-hearted women. I said, Helen is not like that. Helen is a
Christian woman. I tell him, Jake, you need to quit the bars
and go to church once in awhile. Meet yourself a woman with
a good heart who knows how to forgive a man. I said,
You need a woman who won’t expect perfect because
perfect won’t ever come around.

Do you know it’s been ten years since you and me have seen
each other, Helen? Will has become a walking, talking boy.
The war makes a man think about things. The war lets you
know what’s important. It shows you how quick a life can
come and go. My friend Jake died yesterday. He died quicker
than I could get my thoughts together and tell him he was my friend.
Now I know how you must have felt, Helen, having me leave you.
I’ll tell you what I learned yesterday. I leaned this, whatever we
need to say to one another we need to say it all the time…

Will lived off of Granby Street in a subdivision named Talbot Park. Big shady oaks lined both sides of the street. During the late spring and all through the summer the residents were outside cutting their lawns and planting flowers in their gardens. Will and his mother had a small brick house that she called a Cape Cod.

Instead of driving Will to his Cape Cod house, the man drove him downtown and parked on Bush Street in front of a liquor store. Corporal Stanley smelled like sweat and bad eggs. The people who walked by the old brown car were mostly black people and they looked poor and angry. They scared Will. The man leaned back, head against the seat, cigarette at the corner of his mouth. He tapped his fingers on the ivory steering wheel. When the man finished his cigarette, he told Will to toss him the black coat. Then he told Will to hand him the shotgun.

Don’t you go anywhere, the man said. I got some business, he said. I’ll be five minutes, maybe ten. Will said he needed to go home and check in with his mom or she would be upset and get into her station wagon and drive all over Norfolk. She’s done it before, Will said. Corporal Stanley told Will to stop being a pussy. Your mama knows you’re with me, the man said. He climbed out of the old car and hid the shotgun under his long black coat.

When the man walked inside the liquor store, Will called his mother on the cell phone. No one answered. He called again and let it ring for a long time. His stomach had tightened and he was feeling sick. Will turned around, his tanned knees on the soft plastic seat and his hands gripping the headrest. He looked out the rear window. There were two young blacks on the corner. One had a gold chain with a fist-sized cross on it, and the other, shorter boy had a white and dark blue New York Yankees baseball cap. They were arguing, their faces close together. A fat black woman with large pink rollers in her hair sat on a stoop two houses from the corner. She yelled at the boy with the gold chain. She said, Jamal, you stop that and get your skinny black self home. A green and yellow bus passed Will and he could smell its exhaust fumes. Then Will glanced down at the back seat. A small diamond H lay next to a crinkled Three Musketeers wrapper.

3/16/06
Baghdad, Iraq

Dear Helen,
After awhile the war gets to you. You’re angry at people you don’t know.
You blame them for you being there. You blame them for the sand on
your skin and the lice in your hair. The heat, too, especially the heat.
You blame them for the stink and dirty streets. You blame them for the
way they look and for not talking to you in words you understand.
You know what Jake used to do, crazy Jake? He would kill some bastard
and blame the guy. Jake used to say, These guys are begging to die.
I feel like I’m doing them a goddamn service, he would say. I feel like
I’m putting them out of their misery. Jake said that all the time. But me,
I was different than Jake. I liked it. That’s my secret. I want you to know
my deepest secrets, Helen. I never killed anybody before the war but after
the first two or three I really began liking it. I didn’t make excuses.
I didn’t blame the bastards I shot or the government or God. I just
really liked it. I felt like a hero. I felt like a patriot, a true red, white,
and blue American. I took personal responsibility. That’s the kind guy
I am, Helen. That’s the kind of guy you married.

I’m coming there to see my son, my boy. I’m coming home.
Since you have never written to me and said I couldn’t see him,
I am taking your silence as a yes. I want to go camping with my
son, Helen. I want to teach him how to hunt and fish. I want us
to sit by a campfire and get to know one another, a father and his son.
Every man has a dream and this is the dream of Yours Truly.
And what’s wrong with that? Nothing, absolutely nothing.
It’s what I’ve been fighting for, Helen. To make our America safe
for camping. Ha, ha.

Who knows, maybe you won’t find your Stanley so terrible.
Maybe you will say, I really love that Stanley Freedman.
Everybody needs a second chance, you will say, even me
and my Stanley.

The first shotgun blast blew an elderly man through the front window of the liquor store and onto the sunny pavement. The second shotgun blast was followed by the sound of more shattering glass. Will was already out of the old brown car and running across Bush Street toward Brooks Avenue. A small BMW had to brake hard to avoid hitting him and its tires screeched as it swerved onto the sidewalk. The driver yelled at him but Will was looking for a place to hide, an alley, a place with shadows, and he didn’t slow down. He smelled something burning, maybe an electrical wire in the BMW, or maybe it was his brain. He had seen a TV documentary where people burst into flames for no reason. You could be walking down the street or sitting in your house, it didn’t matter. You could be talking to your mom or your best friend or be in the schoolyard on a swing, it didn’t matter. People burst into flames all the time. Every day, somewhere, some person was doing it. Boom. Boom.

As Will ran he kept glancing at his skinny tan legs and his red high tops. They seemed to belong to another, more fortunate boy. Will found a narrow space between two old Victorian houses. One had a boarded doorway, the other had peeling dirty white paint and a broken side window. He huddled in the narrow space and the cool shadows. His skinny arms were wrapped tight about his knees, his breathing deep and painful. No camping trips now, Will was sure, no one to teach him how to hunt and fish. He still had his mother’s small diamond H in his hand. Will decided to rest first then take the bus to Talbot Park. Then he thought about what his mother had said to him. Even if I’m late you wait for me, she had said. I’ll call you on the cell phone, you wait. Will was glad he remembered that. He would wait for her call; he would wait for her voice. Who cared how long it took, one hour, two, a day, he would wait forever.

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Ron Savage has been publishing since 1960. He’s also been a newspaper editor, broadcaster and a Senior Psychologist at Eastern State Hospital in Williamsburg, VA.