Authors: John M. Del Vecchio
“Are you afraid you might hurt them?”
“Who?! My folks! Hell no. I mean, I’d never hurt em. I’m not a violent person.”
“But you tried to hurt yourself.”
“I told you before ...”
“Yes. But even if what you told me is true, I’m not saying it isn’t, but you said you let them hit you. You wanted to be hit. You wanted to be punished.”
“Maybe it’s because I should be ... I should of been ... I could of become, like, a doctor. I drove an ambulance. I took the EMT course. I could have stayed in school. I’m pretty smart. I should be a student now but I’m not. I’m not anything.”
“Good. We’ll talk more next time.”
That was it for a week. Gradually, meaning returned to time. The next week it was more of the same. And the next. Tony hated the place, hated Freiburg, the orderlies, the meds, the stinking TV up on its perch, the smell of the ward. But he kept that to himself. Because he also liked being taken care of, liked the rest from having to make any decisions at all, liked not having to think, not having to be responsible. And all those things he liked he found repugnant, and he found himself liking their repugnancy. When he complained about pain and tremors in his leg, Freiburg interpreted it for him as a “physiological memory of being wounded brought on by his reimmersion into a pseudomilitary environment.” Still he controlled himself, outwardly. Again his dosages were reduced. “They lookin for a maintenance dose,” the black orderly that looked like Manny told him.
“Maintenance?”
“Yeah, Bro. You gotta stay on that shit for the rest a your life. You crazy, Man. You know? You a crazy vet. You always gonna be a crazy vet. Except you take your three-a-days. Whatever Freiburg say. Ha! An I wouldn’t even get on that Harley fucked up on Elavil. You wanta sell it?” Then the orderly laughed. “Less, a course, you wanta keep it for knockin yerself off.”
Tony let the words swirl in his mind. Crazy vet. Crazy vet. I’m not a student. I’m not a doctor. I’m a crazy vet.
In mid-December they gave him a day pass. He and three other crazy vets went and got pizza at the small restaurant next to the inn on Main Street. They walked, looked at the Christmas decorations, looked in the store windows, ogled some girls all wrapped in coats and scarves and earmuffs, even went in and purchased small gifts for each other and for the lady who gave out the noon meds.
He had one more session with Freiburg. “Do you ever have nightmares?”
“Sometimes,” Tony said nonchalantly.
“You know, if you get up, take a diazepam, you’ve got a prescription, maybe walk just a little, you’ll be able to go back to sleep.”
Maybe if I ripped your tongue out, Tony thought. He smiled slightly. It was okay for a crazy vet to think that. “I’ll try it if I need it,” he said. “You know, Doc, down deep inside, I know if I apply myself, someday it’s all gonna click.”
“It will, Tony. For you I’m sure it will.”
At 9:23
A.M
., Wednesday 23 December 1970, Anthony F. Pisano was conditionally released from Rock Ridge Veterans Medical Center on outpatient status. In his pocket he had a hundred-tablet bottle of diazepam (Valium), a thirty-tablet vial of ten-milligram Thorazines, prescriptions for more, two packs of Pall Malls, and a thousand dollars. It was bitter cold. Tony straddled his big Harley FLH V-twin. They’d repaired it before they’d shipped it to him, one more act of atonement. He cranked it a dozen times before it coughed, two dozen before it sputtered, started. Then Tony roared off. Being a crazy vet this was okay.
There was a time when I was ten when I wanted more than anything a bicycle for Christmas. It was a lean year in our household—1957—I think because Pop was changing jobs. Johnny had turned sixteen on the 22d and Pop had bought him a wristwatch with phosphorescent hands. The tree was tall that year, but skinny. I think Aunt Helen paid for it because Pop had decided it was frivolous to waste $4.99 on a tree which we’d throw away in ten days. Oh, but how I wanted a bicycle—a red Columbia like the one Joey had gotten the year before. On Christmas morning John and Joey and I rushed down—maybe John was becoming a bit aloof being sixteen and all but I didn’t notice it—and even Mark, who was only three and a half that year, rushed down, probably because our ma, Jo, had said something like “Nobody opens anything until we’re all there,” and Joey and I probably pulled Mark out of bed, but three and a half was plenty old enough for him to be rushing and excited too. And there under the tree were stacks of presents, square and rectangular boxes, wrapped, some of them, with last years paper that Jo had of course saved, rectangular boxes with shirts and pants for school, square boxes with wool sweaters that Aunt Isabella knitted and Jimmy and I wore ours to school in January and looked like twins and Mrs. Lusanti, our teacher that year, chided us and we both refused to ever wear them again. There were small packages, too. Red bags with pencils and erasers and plastic protractors, and each had a new pack of baseball cards and we immediately stuffed the gum into our mouths—it tasted like cardboard and felt like eating a baseball card until it softened and the sugar came out. Johnny got another big present, a portable typewriter. Joey got a horn and a newspaper rack for his bike. I don’t remember what Mark got but there wasn’t any bike and I was really sad, really crushed and after Ma and Pop came down I slipped out and went back up to my room and I started to cry ’cause I knew they didn’t love me as much as the others because I’d come so soon after Joey—he wasn’t even fourteen full months older than me—and I knew I was one of them mistake kids and that’s why there wasn’t a bike like Joey had gotten last year. A red 24-inch Columbia. Joey could deliver his half of the paper route using his bike with his new basket. I’d have to walk. And then Pop came up and he said, “Tony, come here.” I got up. He didn’t try to comfort me, he just wanted me to do something. He pulled down the attic stairs which were on a spring and folded up and most of the time you forgot it was there except just before and just after Christmas when we’d have to go up there and get the decorations out or put them away. “Come on,” Pop said. “Help me with this.” I was trying real hard not to cry because I didn’t want him to know but I knew he knew and that embarrassed me. “There’s something back up in the corner that I forgot to bring down. It’s under the awnings.” So I went up to get whatever it was and it was a red 24-inch Columbia and I wasn’t sure even who it was for and I was afraid to even smile because I was afraid it wasn’t for me. I didn’t even hear him come up behind me until he said, “That’s your size, isn’t it?” And I couldn’t even say thanks because I couldn’t believe it because it didn’t happen like I wanted it to. It hadn’t been under the tree.
He sat on the back porch, tight against the wall, shivering, teeth chattering, chain-smoking his Pall Malls. The night was clear. A fingernail moon hung over the porch and lumberyard, over the town and endless mountains. He was thinking about logistics, about infiltration, snipers, intelligence, was thinking about invisibility, how much and how long should he remain invisible. Then he was not thinking at all, not shivering at all because the diazepam was kicking in and accentuating the grass he’d smoked earlier.
Inside, Linda was finishing up the decorations, the wrappings. At seven and a half months Gina and Michelle were sleeping longer, giving Linda more time in the evenings, more rest through the night. They were too young to be excited about Christmas, yet Linda dutifully, carefully wrapped packages from Santa. She wrapped one for Jessie Taynor, too, just a cheap bracelet, but she wanted Jessie to have something feminine. And for Jo and John Sr. to whom she signed the card, “Love Tony, Linda, Gina and Michelle.” And to Aunt Isabella, Annalisa, Uncle James, Johnny and Molly, Joe and Mark, and Nonna. And to her own mother and father even if her father still would not speak to her.
Linda wrapped a present too for old Mrs. Victoria Meredith who’d fired her in October because Jessie Taynor had told Victoria’s son that Linda was not a maid and that Mrs. Merra-dit was a “fuckhead,” wrapped the gift for Mrs. Meredith as much for having fired her as for having once been her employer. Having been fired had made Linda available for her new employer, Mr. Pewel Wapinski. For Mr. Wapinski she wrapped up packages of comfrey tea and honey, new kitchen towels, a prism to hang in the kitchen window. Finally she wrapped one more present, just a slip of paper with three words. And she put them all under the tree and went to bed.
The fingernail moon slid to the horizon, hesitated in the spikes of barren treetops, disappeared into the valleys behind the ridges. Tony rose, stepped softly to the door. It was locked. He checked the window. It was covered with a taut, clear plastic sheet. He moved back to the door, knelt, felt a mat, felt under it. Nothing. He ran his hand up the door, across the top molding, down the far side. Still nothing. He checked the window frame, right, top, left, bottom—aha! Under the sill was taped a key. Very slowly, very quietly, he unlocked the door, entered, stood perfectly still. He could hear breathing, hear the creak of the floor as he shifted his weight. The nursery was lit with a seven-watt night-light. Light came through the doorway, illuminated the short hall and the edge of the living room. He stepped slowly, cautiously. When the floor creaked he froze, listened, counted to 120, stepped again. This to him was exciting, more exciting than anything he’d done in he did not know how long—a mission. He reached the living room, made out the outline of the tree, knelt, slowly unzipped his leather jacket, unwound his wool scarf, reached into his wool shirt, removed the small boxes. Two contained plastic-bead necklaces. The third a gold chain necklace with matching chain-hoop earrings. On the tiny blank card he’d written, “Peace on earth to men of goodwill.”
Tony stood, moved to the nursery, looked at his daughters in their crib. So little had he seen infants that at first he could not differentiate the scrunched up lump of one, the sprawling lump of the other, from the folds and curls of blanket and lumps of stuffed animals, then seeing them, he was shocked at their size, little people already. He imagined Linda coming up behind him, putting her arms around his waist, hugging him, saying, “They’re yours, too, you know. You could be here with them.” For a time he watched them but they did not move and Linda did not come. He crossed the small hall to where Linda slept, to where he’d lain that last night with the shotgun, the thoughts rushing back but now, awake, erect, watching, seeing Linda, he stopped the thoughts, stopped them dead, pushed them back. Now as he watched Linda sleep, made out the silhouette of her face against the pillow, the curves of her body beneath the blankets, the beauty of her one foot sticking out, that foot he’d kissed at World’s End State Park, kissed ... He could not watch her. Quietly, quickly, he withdrew—out the hall, the living room, kitchen, onto the porch, into that bitter cold, replacing the key, then just sitting on that top step, shivering, teeth chattering, chain-smoking his Pall Malls.
Christmas morning—It was almost eleven. Linda was beside herself. She wanted to call Jo and John Sr., call Mr. Wapinski, call someone, talk to someone besides the two babies. But say what? Say he’d come in the night! Been there! She wasn’t even certain. It must have been him, Linda thought. It scared her, someone coming in while they slept. “... to men of goodwill.” It sounded like him. She was behind schedule. Jo was making braciola, ziti, and chicken. Isabella was making a roast. Uncle Ernie, Aunt Ann and their three daughters, Linda hardly knew them, were coming from Rock Ridge, to Jo’s, for Christmas dinner, plus, plus, twenty-five or -six or -seven in all and Linda had only made two pies, and Oh God the necklace and earrings were beautiful but where the hell was he! She’d looked out the window, looked quickly out all the windows searching, turning back to check on Gina, Michelle crying because she couldn’t get down, no Harley, who’d ride in frigid December, except of course, he’d ridden all year up in Boston, no Tony, who to call, bother on Christmas morning—except maybe Mr. Wapinski—one more look and ...
He was on the porch, tight against the wall, his legs pulled up tight, his arms around his knees, his face buried, an old wool army blanket over him.
“Tony,” she said. He looked up. His nose was running. He looked very frightened. “Tony,” she said gently.
“Hi Babe,” he said. Then he cringed as if she was about to kick him, boot him off the porch, down the stairs.
Linda was dumbfounded.
“I’ll go,” he said quickly. “I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry.” He stood. He was shivering uncontrollably.
“Come in here,” she said. It was not an invitation but an order. She grabbed him, afraid he was going to topple down the stairs. She ran one hand down his arm to his hand which was in his jacket pocket. His hand was cool, not frostbitten cold, still, to her, too cool to be healthy. He squeezed the tips of her fingers in his pocket, did not want to let go. Linda did not know how to feel. Tony looked awful, drawn, pale. “Come in,” she repeated. “I’ve got something for you, too.” She was still holding him, still had her hand in his jacket pocket, could feel the bottles, vials. “What’s this?” She backed away, withdrew a bottle, read the label:
Rock Ridge Veterans Medical Center
Anthony F. Pisano
as needed to control anxiety
l0mg – 30
SK-Thorazine
(Chlorpromazine)
“Thorazine! Veterans Med ... Are, are you ...”
“Crazy.” He did not look at her but let her pull him into the kitchen. Gina cruised to the archway, stared up. Michelle was whimpering at the couch.
“No you’re not,” Linda said. “Anxiety reactions are curable.” She went to the living room, helped Michelle down, went to the tree.
Tony was afraid to move. “They didn’t cure me, Babe.”
Michelle crawled past her sister, grunted. Gina let go, took a step, fell on her bottom, crawled too, clucking at Michelle, both moving without fear to Tony’s feet, then rocking back, plopping on their bottoms, looking up wide-eyed, interested.
“That’s Michelle,” Linda said indicating the infant at Tony’s right foot. “And this is Gina. They’re your daughters and they need you. Pick them up.”