Authors: Tobias Wolff
A
T THE REPLACEMENT DEPOT
in Oakland I met up with an acquaintance from Fort Bragg, a young lieutenant with the 82nd Airborne. His name was Stu Hoffman. He was freckle-faced and skinny and excessively thoughtful. No command presence. An even more unlikely officer than I was. We weren’t friends, but we used to run into each other at the officers club and talk about writing. He also had ambitions in that direction. I didn’t take them very seriously because he was nuts about Thomas Wolfe, and I looked down on both Wolfe and his admirers, though I had recently admired him myself. Stu for his part didn’t understand my reverence for Hemingway. Hemingway, he said, did not love words, and to be a writer you had to love words.
We were scheduled for the same flight to Vietnam. They’d given us two entire days in Oakland for out-processing but there really wasn’t that much to do, and we were free by the afternoon of the first day. We
changed into civvies and caught a cab into San Francisco, to the Haight-Ashbury, to see if we could find some hippies having LSD trips. Maybe there would be a Happening or a Be-In. That was the way we proposed the excursion, gee-whizzing it up, cartooning the expectations of a pair of rubes who got their picture of the world from the Des Moines
Register
.
In fact we did find a Happening in progress, right on Haight Street, and there were hippies, and some of them gave signs of being in touch with pretty far-off places. Stu and I were issued batik headbands and embraced by each of a party of soulful wanderers who identified themselves as “the Hug Patrol.” We did not laugh at them, nor at the earnest demonstrations of candlemaking and tie-dyeing, nor at the bearded, bare-chested man in harem pants who sat on a blanket with his eyes closed, playing a sitar. Their goodwill was too naked and guileless for that. They were like children playing, but more touching because they weren’t children. I was embarrassed by all this determined innocence yet somehow protective of it. Made wistful. Chastened.
We tied the headbands around our cropped skulls and moseyed along the street, returning smile for smile, walking tenderly in our spit-shined low quarters as if afraid of breaking something.
Afterward we went to a bar near the Panhandle where we drank pitchers and told our stories. I talked, but Stu talked more. He’d been raised in Chicago by his father’s parents, because his mother had died when he was young and his father was out of the country for weeks and even months at a time. He was a petroleum
engineer. A living legend, Stu said. Mention the name Bill Hoffman to anybody in the oil game and they’d buy you a drink on the spot. The man was amazing. He’d found oil in places there wasn’t supposed to be any, time and time again. And before that, before he went to college and all, he’d been a champion motorcycle racer. And a war hero, one of the original paratroopers. Jumped with General Gavin over Normandy and all the rest of it. Two Purple Hearts, a Silver Star, and a whole shitload of other medals, including some from France. De Gaulle personally pinned one on him and kissed his cheeks. Stu had a picture of it in his room at home—Charles de Gaulle putting a lip-lock on his father.
His father was one in a million, just a little hard to talk to. He wouldn’t tell you what he was thinking. You were supposed to know. When Stu decided to drop out of the Colorado School of Mines his father didn’t say a word against it, though it was his own alma mater. Stu would’ve stuck it out to keep him happy, but he was flunking most of his courses; the only thing he ever wanted to do was read and that didn’t get you very far at CSM. Anyway his father didn’t say much when he quit, just, “It’s your life, live it any damn way you want.” When Stu enlisted in the army the most he’d say about it was, “Don’t let the bastards con you into anything,” and to this day he hadn’t managed to congratulate him on making it through Officer Candidate School and airborne training. Stu figured he must be happy to see him keeping up the family tradition, but it just wasn’t his way to show it.
Terrific guy, though. Solid as a rock.
Stu said his father was flying in the next day to see him off. He asked if I’d join them for dinner, and took it as a big favor when I said yes.
“He’s great,” Stu said. “Really. Just a little hard to talk to sometimes.”
Later that night we tried to get into the Top of the Mark and were turned away for not wearing ties. We stood outside the Mark Hopkins and howled, “O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again!” The doormen were our only audience, and they ignored us. They stood at parade rest in their frogged overcoats and acted as if we weren’t there. They made us look like imbeciles. We moved off down the street, staggering to show how drunk we were.
I
TOOK
a bus into town the next day and walked around North Beach, searching for Kerouac’s old hangouts. Later I went back to the Haight. The Happening was over but I kept seeing the same credulous faces, or maybe they were different faces with the same look. Again I felt that wistfulness of the day before. Without talking to anyone except a girl who tried to sell me a belt, unconscious of my purpose in returning, I wandered the neighborhood until it was time for dinner.
We met up in a seafood restaurant down by Fishermen’s Wharf. Stu had worn his uniform and looked completely implausible in the big jump boots and starched khakis covered with insignia, awkward and self-conscious, like a Boy Scout with all his merit badges on.
The first thing Mr. Hoffman said to me was, “So
you’re the other one about to get his ass shot off.”
Stu laughed miserably.
“I hope not,” I said.
“Well, that’ll do you no end of good,” Mr. Hoffman said. He didn’t smile. He had freckles like Stu’s and thin white lips—also freckled—and curly red hair. His skin looked taut over his high cheekbones. He ordered drinks and watched me impatiently while I answered Stu’s questions about my day. I didn’t mention going back to the Haight.
Mr. Hoffman wanted to know what I thought of General William Childs Westmoreland.
Stu slumped in his chair. He looked tired.
“I’ve never met him,” I said.
“You must have an opinion.” Mr. Hoffman broke off a piece of bread with a sharp twisting motion, the way you’d tighten a coupling. The backs of his freckled hands were covered with wiry hair. “Starting tomorrow he holds the papers on you, right? So what do you think?”
I didn’t know how to answer—what he hoped to hear.
“You think he cares about you?”
I considered this. “Yes, given the exigencies of command.”
“Exigencies!” He looked at Stu. “No wonder you two hit it off.”
“We’ve been all through this, Dad.”
“I’m asking your friend a simple question. You mind?” he said to me.
I looked over at Stu. He picked up the menu and started to read it.
“Stu wants to be a teacher,” Mr. Hoffman said.
“Maybe even write some books. What do you think of that?”
“I think it’s great.”
“So do I. Nobody in our family has ever written a book, far as I know. He can do it too, Stu can. Stu is not your general-issue human being. But I guess you know that.”
The waiter came over to take our orders. After he left, Mr. Hoffman said, “Did you know that General William Childs Westmoreland ordered a parachute jump in high winds that got a whole bunch of boys killed? Broke their necks and every other damned thing. This was Fort Campbell, understand—not Vietnam. No military necessity.”
“I’ve heard mention of it.”
“And what does that tell you about General William Childs Westmoreland?”
“I don’t know. It was a training jump. I guess you could say training is a military necessity.”
“Would you swallow that horseshit if one of those boys was your son?”
I took a drink and set my glass down carefully.
Mr. Hoffman said, “Every single one of those boys was somebody’s son.”
“Dad.”
“He didn’t lose a wink. Came out clean as a whistle. What do you owe those bastards anyway?” he said to Stu. “You think you owe them something?”
Stu closed his eyes.
“I’ll tell you what he cares about, him and that sorry dickhead from Texas.
How he looks
. That’s it. That is the be-all and end-all of his miserable existence.”
Mr. Hoffman worked this vein until our dinners came. He shoved his food around for a while and then stood and said, “Excuse us.” He waited while Stu got up, and the two of them left the dining room. They were gone long enough for me to finish my dinner. Neither of them said anything when they came back. Stu didn’t look at me. He sat down and began eating, stiffly, the way they made us eat in OCS, shoulders squared, eyes glazed, chewing like a machine.
Mr. Hoffman took a few bites and pushed the plate away. “What does your father think?” he asked me.
“About what?”
“About you getting your ass shot off for the greater glory of Lyndon Baines Johnson and William Childs Westmoreland.”
“I’m not sure. We haven’t been in very close touch.”
“Stu and I, we haven’t been in close touch either. But that’s damn well going to change. Right, Stu?” Mr. Hoffman touched his arm. Stu nodded. Mr. Hoffman took his hand away and Stu went on eating.
“You ought to talk to your father,” Mr. Hoffman said. “He might have a thing or two to say about this.”
“It doesn’t look like we’re going to have a chance.”
“Well, that’s a shame.”
Mr. Hoffman insisted on going upstairs to the piano bar for a drink. Three customers were sitting together at the piano, a TWA pilot and two women. When the pianist finished the song he was playing, the TWA pilot asked for “Theme from
The Apartment.”
The woman to his right bumped him with her shoulder and said, “Ronnnn!” She rolled her eyes at us, miming exasperation with him for hinting at their secrets. She had
a round face full of physical good nature. The pilot murmured something and she bumped him again. “You big goof,” she said.
The other one looked at me just long enough to reveal how bored she was with the sight before her, then turned away. She was drooped over a cigarette, a bony blonde with a long pale neck and pouty lips.
The pianist doodled prettily around the keyboard, then entered the song. He played it with his eyes half closed. At the end he ducked his head at the applause and took a drink from a glass of milk.
The woman with the pilot leaned forward and, staring at Stu’s jump wings, asked if he was in the air force. Her brother was in the air force, she said, in Guam.
“Army,” Stu said. Then, with helpless pride, “Paratroops.” He bent his head toward me. “Both of us.”
“Been over yet?” the pilot asked.
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Give ’em hell,” the pilot said.
“Christ almighty,” Mr. Hoffman said. “I need a cigar.” He slid off his stool and left the room.
The pianist started playing “It Was a Very Good Year.”
I looked at Stu. “I thought he wouldn’t tell you what was on his mind.”
He was picking at his cocktail napkin. “It’s been like this all day. Bam bam bam. Bam bam bam. He just won’t let up.”
“What’s he so worked up about?”
“He doesn’t want me to go,” Stu said.
“So I gather. It’s not like you have a choice.”
“He doesn’t see it that way.”
“Come on. What’re you supposed to do—desert?”
Stu didn’t answer.
“What, he wants you to desert?”
Stu looked at me. He still didn’t say anything.
“It’s a federal offense,” I said.
He grinned.
“Well, it is.”
“A federal offense,” Stu said. “That’s great. I haven’t heard that since I was a kid.”
Mr. Hoffman was followed back into the bar by two women in rustling evening dresses and two men wearing fancy-stitched Western suits with bolo ties, pointy boots, and bronc-buster belt buckles. Their entry had the quality of a stampede. They came in and milled around, the women rubbing their arms in the chill of the air-conditioning, the men bellowing at each other and rocking back on their heels to fire bursts of laughter toward the ceiling. They found their way to the piano and set up a trading post—purses, piles of coins, wallets, cigarettes, lighters in silver-and-turquoise cases. The women wore a lot of brilliant jewelry. All four of them ordered margaritas and smiled around at the rest of us to show we had nothing to fear.
When the pianist played “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” one of the women whooped. “Listen to him! You’re in the wrong state, mister.” She finally let on they were from Arizona.
Stu leaned over to me. “We’re gonna split. You coming?”
I looked across the piano at the snooty blonde. She was staring into her drink.
“You go on,” I said. “Catch you in the morning.”
Mr. Hoffman gave my shoulder a squeeze, and they were gone.
The Arizonans had the pianist play “Hello, Dolly,” and made the rest of us join in. One of the men draped his arm around the blonde and swayed back and forth with her. She didn’t pull away but she didn’t sing, either. She smiled in a tight-lipped way like someone with bad teeth.
We sang a few show tunes, then the Wild Bunch rolled up their sleeves: “Don’t Fence Me In,” “Cool Water,” “Tumbling Tumbleweeds.” It was their party now. They kept our glasses full and made sure we were loud enough. The blonde left. She didn’t say good-bye to anyone, just got up and left. I wanted to sneak out after her but I couldn’t find the right moment. We drank to the approaching nuptials of the pilot and his girlfriend. We drank to the piano player. We drank to the Cactus State, and to the States United. We sang some patriotic songs and everybody got choked up.
Then the pilot told the Arizonans I was shipping out the next morning. One of the women took this as an occasion to shed tears. Her husband patted her on the back a few times, then he and his friend took seats beside me and settled down to the business of giving me advice.
Jovial men get serious with a vengeance. It lurks there always behind their crinkled eyes, the eagerness to show you that even if they do know how to have a good time they can by God get down to cases too. These weren’t the worst of the breed. They professed no gospel, no dietary plan, no road to riches. But all the same I could see how happy they were to close the
party down, to pull long faces and speak of arms and war.