Carry Me Home (68 page)

“Oh,” Tony said.

“He didn’t even charge me,” Linda said. She had her back to Tony, was cleaning the twin’s Tommy-Tippy cups.

“Damn fly,” Tony said. He hunched, moved in on the table, swatted. His hand banged the tabletop. Linda jumped. “Got it,” he yelped.

Linda turned. Tony was scraping the fly guts off his hand. A wet black and red splotch was on the table. “Oohhh!” Linda let out her breath. “That’s gross. Did you have to?”

“What?”

Linda sighed again, put a hand to her head, “I’m going to be sick.”

“Whaaatt?! It’s only a damn fly. When I was in Nam Bo, geez, I was telling this to Binford just a few days ago, I remember having to eat sitting in front of a dozen dead gooks. There’d be maggots crawling out their eyeballs ...”

“Ooo ...” Linda slapped a hand over her mouth, ran for the bathroom.

“Let’s go over it one more time, Tony.”

“Doc, I’ve told you this—”

“Stop.” Binford was being firm again, playing, as Tony thought of it, good cop/bad cop, all in one. Talk about schizophrenics! “Dr. Holbrook and I have been doing a great deal of reading on this. In our experience, in our search of the literature, the only actions we’ve found that could cause the degree of guilt behavior that you’ve been suffering from is if one committed a sinful act. That is, an act which the person who committed it perceived as sinful. Like killing a defenseless woman or her children. Or maybe one’s own officer. Now let’s go back over—”

“What the hell are you saying?”

“I’m saying that perhaps what happened in Viet Nam, what you say happened with that woman, is not what really happened. Sometimes our mind tries to protect us from reality....”

“No way. No fuckin way.”

“Look, if you refuse to cooperate with me, I can’t help you. There are no charges here. Nothing will come of this. There are no recriminations. I’m not even saying what happened was malicious. What happened there, your recognition of that reality, your taking responsibility—overtly—might keep you from covertly sabotaging yourself. I’m doing this for you, Tony. To help you stop inflicting this punishment on yourself. Now ... can we go on? Or should we stop this therapy this instant?”

Tony stared, mouth agape. He didn’t know how to respond. Binford’s innuendo shocked him, rocked him to the core. Because—because, he suspected ... it could be true. “I ...” Tony dropped his head. He could barely make his voice heard. “I gotta take this slow.”

“That’s okay.” Binford was back to his friendly, good-cop voice.

“If I’m guilty of something I’m guilty of not going back and seeing Rick.”

“Rick?”

“In Philly. I told you about him. The guy who wanted the docs to cut his legs off. Here.” Tony touched his throat.

“Tony, people don’t self-destruct because they didn’t visit someone they don’t even know....”

“But he was a Marine. A Magnificent Bastard. Like me.”

“And how many others haven’t you visited?” Tony looked up at Bin-ford. “See?” the doctor said.

“What about Manny? If I’d of moved him, covered him, anything.”

“But you didn’t know about the sniper.”

“Sometimes I still dream of him. I still feel Manny gettin greased right in my arms.”

“Do you blame yourself?”

“It’s—it’s not a matter of blame.”

“When it happened, do you remember how you felt?”

“I was ragin pissed.”

“And at Dai Do, with the machetes?”

“Relieved. Scared shitless but relieved when it was over.”

“And all those other times. Do you remember any time feeling like you had gotten people killed? Feeling that it was your fault? That you had screwed up? or sinned?” Tony shook his head. “Only, maybe, with that woman and the children, huh?”

“I ... I guess.”

“Let’s go back over that day....”

Again and again. Into September, to Tony and Linda’s third anniversary when Tony moved back to the Creek’s Bend apartment, through October, into November and Nixon’s reelection and Tony’s twenty-fifth birthday, into December and the Christmas bombings, and to the peace accords of January 1973, every other Tuesday Tony retold John H. Binford the story of the NVA soldier with the belt and the woman and children. In every way possible the therapist attempted to guide Tony to a new understanding. Tony resisted. The story evolved.

During this time, too, John H. Binford’s ideas evolved. Each session he recorded Tony’s responses and his own observations of Tony’s behavior. With Daniel Holbrook and a third doctor, Binford hypothesized about and expounded upon his therapeutic model. By the time of the Paris accords, the three of them were treating, or experimenting with, fifteen Viet Nam veterans—six outpatients and nine institutionalized. All the men responded positively to therapy. All reported either total or significant abstinence from self-dosing with alcohol or street drugs, a lowering in the frequency of explosive rage and violent outbursts, and fewer quasi-dissociative episodes (flashbacks). Binford’s confidence grew as his hypothesis moved toward theory and as patient after patient proved, or failed to disprove, the validity of his ideas. Not only did his confidence increase, so too did his determination to affect Anthony F. Pisano.

Others who touched Tony’s life changed too. Linda was ever more independent. She took another nursing course, by mail, and she wanted Tony to restart his education. Grandpa Wapinski’s health gradually diminished, and for the first time Tony saw that he was indeed an old man with a limited life span.

“So you’re angry about it.”

“You bet your sweet ass—”

“One minute.” Binford held up a hand. “Now I know we’ve always said anything we wish in here, but today, just today, I’m going to ask you to practice self-control over your language. No swearing. No cusses. Just as an exercise in self-control. Can you do that for me?”

“I guess.” Tony scratched his nose.

“Why the anger?”

“Don’t you see?”

“I see peace. I see a peace treaty.”

“I see a sellout.”

“I see American prisoners coming home.”

“I see my cousin. I see him being killed for no godd ... arned reason. I see the devaluation of his sacrifice. And mine.”

“But you won.”

“Not with the fuckin commie army in place!”

“Okay. Let’s move on. Close your eyes. See Dai Do....”

In early March Binford tried another tactic. “Here!” he shouted. They were in the village just before getting to the woman and children. Binford threw a seat cushion at Tony. “That’s the woman. Pretend that’s the woman. What do you want to do to her?”

“Doc!” Tony glared.

“Show me what you want to do to her!”

“This is stupid. If this were the woman I’d push her down and drill that motherfucker behind her.”

“You’d kill again?”

“Fuck, damn right!”

“Who would you kill?”

“Not this stupid pillow.”

In April 1973 Tony brought in a news article from the local paper. “Listen to this, Doc. ‘The beatings ended only when they fell to unconsciousness, or when they capitulated. Or died.’ These guys really went through a worlda hurt.”

“That’s about the POWs?”

“Yeah. Remember how you thought it was so great of Hanoi to release em. Listen to this. This guy was badly burned. ‘About his condition he said, “My wounds were draining badly, and were full of puss. The smell was terrible. It attracted a horde of flies. I let them lay their eggs on the burned flesh. When the maggots hatched they devoured the dead tissue which served to debride the wound. Later I washed the wounds with my urine to get the maggots off.” ’ Heroic stuff, huh, Doc?”

“Do you think so?”

“Yep. I do. I hurt for this guy.”

“What about for the people he dropped bombs on?”

“You don’t make a distinction, huh?”

“Do you?”

“You bet your sweet ass. He was a captive. A prisoner. Helpless. They were active combatants. Engaged in battle.”

“People pushing bicycles against supersonic fighter-bombers?”

“Able to attack and able to defend. Isn’t that the distinction the Geneva Accords make on treating POWs?”

“What about at Dai Do,” Binford said. “Let’s go back one more time. Who was able to attack and who was able to defend?”

“All of us.”

“The woman ...”

“No. I meant the NVA. And us.”

“Close your eyes.”

“Hm.”

“Can you see the woman?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And the children?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And yourself, Tony?”

“Yeah.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m down. I’m in the dirt. In the prone firing position.”

“You’re holding your weapon?”

“Yeah. I’m trying to sight ... trying to get a bead on the dink.”

“And what do you see?”

“The woman. And her kids. And I can see this fucker behind em.”

“And you want to shoot him?”

“Yeah. I want to waste im.”

“But you can’t?”

“Right. I can’t get a clean shot. The dumb bitch—”

“You’re angry with the woman?”

“Right on! Dumb! Dumb fuckin frozen! Exposing her kids to fire.”

“And you fire?”

“Yeah.”

“You hear your weapon, feel your weapon, see the flashes.”

“Yeah.”

“Your bullets hit the woman and the children, don’t they.” Tony’s eyes are still shut. His face squinches. Binford continues. “Now you’ve got a clean line of fire on the man with the belt.” Tony moans. “Shoot him.”

“MAHAAAH!” Tony jolts up, eyes open, stares at Binford.

“Did you get him, Tony?”

“Yeah. No. No. He was already dee-dee-in. Splittin. Beatin feet.”

“But the woman and children are dead, aren’t they?”

“He drilled em in the back.”

“No, Tony. You shot them. You shot them because you were afraid the enemy soldier was going to shoot you and you needed to lay suppressive fire even if the woman and children were in the way.”

“Unt-uh.”

“Yes, Tony. You could see it clearly this time, couldn’t you? We’ve stripped away the screen memory. You were scared that day, weren’t you?”

“You’re always scared when you’re in a firefight,” Tony said quietly. “But not so scared you fire up women and children.”

“And you were excited that day, too, huh?”

“Your adrenaline’s pumpin.”

“And you missed killing that soldier earlier and you even needed to be counseled by your superior?”

Tony sighed. “I told you that.”

“And you’ve finally seen what really happened there. Now you know why you’ve been punishing yourself.”

“No, Doc.” Tony’s voice was slow, pained.

Binford’s voice remained calm, firm, bearing down like a heavy weight. “Only an act of commission causes the self-destructive behavior you’ve exhibited. The only way to deal with it, Tony, is to own up to it. Confront it. Then you can come to terms with it. You’re not alone, Tony. Many men err under the stress of combat. You’re not perfect. None of us are. You don’t have to hold yourself up against some impossible John Wayne standard. It’s okay, Tony. It’s okay.”

Tony slid slightly forward in the chair, placed his hands, fists balled, on his thighs. “You really think I shot em?”

“What do you think, Tony?”

Tony canceled his April 17th session. He excused himself by telling John Binford’s secretary that his sister-in-law, Molly, was in labor and he was staying with his brother, lending support. (Adam Pisano was born 18 April at 4:54
A.M
.) Tony didn’t call or attend his scheduled May 1st therapy. He worked at High Meadow as he had now for fourteen straight months. He felt moody, antsy. On the 6th his supply of lithium carbonate ran out but he refused to return to RRVMC to pick up his refill. Linda noticed the change but purposefully ignored the signs. She was busy. On Tuesdays and Thursdays she worked eight to five for Dr. Simon Denham and his new group practice. Monday, Wednesday and Friday she worked for Pewel Wapinski. Saturdays and Sundays she attempted to catch up around the apartment and even cram in some study.

Saturday, 12 May 1973, Mill Creek Falls, River Front Drive, the back lawn of Ernest Hartley’s mansion, the wedding reception of Annalisa Pellegrino and Edward Milne—On this joyous and beautiful day, this third birthday of his daughters Gina and Michelle, for Anthony F. Pisano everything again turned to shit.

“You look beautiful.” Tony hugged his cousin.

“And you’ve had too much champagne.” Annalisa hugged him back, turned to her maid of honor to introduce Tony.

“Wait. Just give me one minute, okay? Just a little toast between you and me.”

“Sure.” Her eyes were bright reflecting the sun and the white satin.

“To the unseen best man,” Tony whispered.

Annalisa looked him in the eye. Smiled. “Okay. To Jimmy,” she said.

Tony hugged her again. Then he slipped away, back to the patio where a few friends of Edward Milne were surrounding a keg of beer. Tony stood near them, not really with them except when he refilled his cup.

Tony watched the congregated celebrators. John and Molly were there with baby Adam, swaddled, a sun bonnet covering his face, Molly tipping up the brim, showing him off to everyone and anyone. Nonna Pisano sat on a wicker throne chair looking like the queen mother. Uncle James and Aunt Isabella discreetly directed operations. All the aunts and uncles and cousins attended, ate, drank, danced. And friends and friends of friends, after the first serving, came to celebrate, too—more lovely young women than Tony had seen, ever, in one place.

“Check out that one,” one of Edward’s friends said.

Tony moved to the keg to refill his cup.

“Bit old for you,” a second friend laughed.

“You talking about the little one with the nice tits?” a third said.

“Yeah,” said the first. Tony followed their eyes, realized they were talking about Linda. In a way it delighted him, made him proud.

“Boy,” the third said, “I’d like to plow her fields.”

They laughed. Tony laughed with them, involuntarily. Then the second man said, “I heard she’s hot to trot.”

“Man,” said the first, “look at them tits. She’s really stacked.”

Again they laughed. Then the second young man said, “She used to fuck like a bunny for a friend of a friend of mine. He said she’s a dynamite lay, but that her old man’s trouble.”