Love is a Wounded Soldier (36 page)

The sun shone warmly through the window,
and so I moved the car forward into the shade of a tree. I unfolded the paper
and quietly read the poem out loud to myself:

My affliction is my sole companion,

Desperation is my only friend,

My soul begs for the certainty of
suffering,

The one thing I can count on in the end.

I say I’d like to kick the dog named
Sadness,

But leave an open door into my home,

And once he’s in, I just extend the
madness,

I pat his head and throw the mutt a bone.

It was good. Incomplete, but good. It
summed up how I felt about life and myself as well as anything I could think of
off the top of my head. I took the pen and wrote “Dedicated to Johnny Snarr,
the only friend I ever had” at the top of the paper. I set the paper down on
the seat beside me, and resumed attempting suicide.

As it turned out, I did not have a knack
for committing suicide. I spent the rest of the afternoon trying. I told myself
that I’d pull the trigger after I took the next swig of wine. Then, I promised
myself that once I’d finished my next cigarette, I was surely going to do the
deed.

Well, the wine turned to piss, the
cigarettes went up in smoke, and there I sat, alive as could be. So, I had to
resort to other stalling tactics.

First, I decided it would be foolish to
proceed before I’d determined whether it would be most effective to fire a
round into my temple, or if a shot through the mouth or forehead would be best.
Then, I questioned whether a 9 mm Luger was really an efficient killing device,
or if perhaps I should hold off until I could procure a shotgun or rifle. After
that, I worried that the pistol might be too powerful and blow through my skull
and cause some sort of collateral damage.

As I dithered and dallied, I began to feel
angry with myself. I hated my life, and I hated myself. Why was I finding it so
difficult to just end it all? It made me feel like a weakling, and I hated
weaklings.

Finally, after the afternoon was far spent,
I realized that I’d never be able to do it sober, so I shoved the Luger behind
my belt and started walking to the nearest watering hole.

The sign on the front of the bar said
“Vern’s.” Aside from Vern, the bar was empty when I walked in. That was fine
with me. I usually drank alone, and preferred it that way. I was in no mood for
company.

I found a table in a corner where the light
was the murkiest, lit a cigarette, and began drinking. The Jack Daniel’s was
fuel to the fire of rage and self-loathing that burned in me, and my inner
agitation grew by the minute.

As afternoon gave way to evening, patrons
began trickling in. Someone fed the jukebox, and strains of Tex Ritter drifted
through the smoke and chatter. “You Two Timed Me One Time Too Often.” “ I’m
Wastin’ My Tears on You.” Between old Tex and the Jack Daniel’s, it didn’t take
long before I was ready to shoot myself right where I sat.

When the bar was almost full, I told myself
I’d go back to the car and finish things after I was done my next drink. I’d
said that before, but this time, I knew I meant it. The whiskey had done its
work.

With trembling hand I lifted my glass to
finish the last few precious drops. I set it down, pushed it to the middle of
the table, and began to rise, when a familiar tune from the jukebox planted me
back in my seat.

“
Hand in hand we’ll walk along life’s
pathway, you and I
,” the jukebox quavered. It was Clyde Daniels, singing
“Blue Eyed Girl.”

“
You give me the kind of love that gives
me wings to fly
,”

The music carried me back to a dirt road, a
young bride, and a time when life had been beautiful.

“
When you smile like sunshine all my
cloudy feelings flee
,”

Tears rolled down my cheeks and into my
beard as I remembered singing those words. I had meant every word I’d sung.

“
I was meant for you, my love, and you
were meant for me
.”

The irony of the lyrics I’d once sung to
Ellen cut my heart like a hot knife. A sorrow that only the loss of something
beautiful can create welled up in me. Tears poured down faster than I could
wipe them away.

A woman laughed loudly nearby. I looked
around. It seemed no one was listening to the song. Everyone was talking and
laughing, as though being alive was a real good time. It infuriated my
alcohol-drenched mind.

“
Blue eyed girl you have my heart, don’t
ever let it go
,” the jukebox crooned on.

“Stop it!” I yelled as I lurched out of my
seat, so drunk I could hardly stand. The room fell silent as though someone had
hit a universal mute button, but the jukebox played on.

“
I will never wander, dear
—”

“Turn off the goddamn jukebox!” I shouted.
Tears still trailed down my face. Everyone looked at me like frozen, wide-eyed
statues.

“Turn it off!” I screamed. No one moved.

I pulled out my Luger and pointed it wildly
with one hand at the jukebox. Those people close to me remained rooted to the
spot, while others across the room bolted for the door. A pretty young brunette
in a short red dress screamed and dropped the cigarette that she held between
her painted nails.

Bang!

“
Even through the stormy seas
—”

Bang!

“—
I know we’ll never part
,”

I grasped the pistol with both hands and
held it as steady as I could.

“
You’ll be mine forever ’cause I loved
you from the start
.”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The jukebox sparked, crackled and fell
silent. The girl in the red dress stood up and shrieked as the cigarette she’d dropped
in her lap began to smolder through her dress. The fresh-faced lad she was with
looked at me as if he had a notion to come after me.

“Don’t you even think it, short pants!” I
drawled, pointing the pistol at him. He had second thoughts, and took a few
hasty steps back.

“Party’s over, ladies and gents,” I
announced, my tongue thick and lazy. “Time to go home.” I felt tired, weak, and
very drunk, so I leaned up against my table and waved the stunned customers
toward the door with my Luger.

“I should do you all a favor and just shoot
you, that’s what I should do,” I told them. The girl in the red dress tittered
nervously as she passed by me.

“Yeah, you think that’s funny, don’t you,
you fuckin’ slut?” I screamed. “I should shoot you first! There’s nothing worth
living for, you’ll see!”

“That’s right, keep movin’,” I encouraged
the last few stragglers with the end of the gun. One portly redhead had mascara
smeared all over her face from wiping away her tears.

“Don’t cry, miss, it’s your own damn
fault!” I shouted at her broad back. “Next time someone tells you to turn off a
jukebox, get off your fat ass and turn off the goddamn jukebox!”

The bar was now empty except for me and
Vern. He was a short, wiry fellow, probably twice my age. I turned to him, and
he looked like he was wondering if he was supposed to vacate the premises as
well. It was obvious he wished he could be elsewhere.

“Not you, pops,” I slurred. “Get me a
drink.”

The room swirled, so I sat back down and
put my head on the table. I heard him set a glass down in front of me and I
lifted my head. He walked back to the bar and stood there. I held the glass up,
but didn’t drink.

“This—this will be my last glass of
whiskey. Ever.” I told him. “When I’m done this glass, I’m going to blow my
brains all over the wall. The table. The floor. Wherever.” I waved my arm
around floppily at all the possible things the poor bartender might have to
wipe my brains off of. He looked a little pale.

“Cheers,” I mumbled as I raised the glass
to my lips.

I was looking for a cigarette when I heard
the front door open. I looked up slowly. It took a minute for the room to
settle down. It was the sheriff. News travels fast in a small town. It was
obvious he wasn’t stopping in for a drink, because I was already looking down the
barrel of a .45.

“I heard there was some shootin’ goin’ on
here,” the sheriff said quietly.

“Aw, sheriff, everything’s fine!” I assured
him. “I’m just fixin’ to shoot myself in a minute here, so why don’t you just
run along and come back in five or ten minutes when I’m through here,” I
reasoned with him as I picked up the Luger off the table.

“Put that down, son,” the sheriff said
calmly. He was a big man, but he moved fluidly toward me like a cat.

I quickly pointed the gun at him, thinking
maybe I could provoke him to shoot and save me the trouble. He kept his finger
off the trigger.

“Come on, shoot!” I taunted him as he took
another step. “Shoot, ya pussy-ass motherfucker!” I yelled, jabbing my gun
toward him, but he was unfazed. Instead of shooting, he put his pistol back in
his holster and continued to move toward me.

“Stop!” I ordered, flustered by his nerve.
“If you take another step, I’ll blow your head off!” He didn’t seem to hear me.

“Put it down,” he said, his tone stern, yet
sedate.

“I’ve killed more men than you could cram
in this room,” I blustered drunkenly. “I could slit your fucking throat with
this fingernail,” I held up the little finger on my left hand.

“Put it down,” was all he said. He was
seven paces from me now.

“Sheriff, I would just as soon kill you
both as shake your hands,” I said, mistaking the double vision I saw of him for
a sidekick I’d overlooked until then.

“Put it down, Robert,” the sheriff said
from an arm’s length away. He stopped and looked down at me. His arms dangled harmlessly
by his sides.

“Sheriff—” I began. I sputtered to a stop.
It took a moment for my inebriated mind to process what had just happened. The
sheriff had just addressed me by name.

“Do I know you?” I asked, squinting
curiously up at him. It took a few moments for my eyes to focus on his face.
Then, I couldn’t believe what I thought I couldn’t possibly be seeing. When my
eyes finally convinced my mind that their claims were real, my jaw and my
pistol both dropped to the table with a clatter. The sheriff held out his hand.

“Sam Mattox, Bourbon County Sheriff’s
Department,” he said.

“Well . . . fuck me!” was all I could say.

~~~

Before I even opened my eyes the next
morning, my first thought was that the motel bed I was lying in had to be about
the worst I’d ever slept on.

Then, I thought about the fantastically
absurd dream I’d had, where I was going to commit suicide, had shot a jukebox,
and found out Moses was the sheriff in a town called Buxley, Tennessee.

I opened one eye reluctantly and saw a drab
concrete wall and a window covered with bars. It was no motel room, it was the
Bourbon County Lockup. It wasn’t a dream! Moses was a sheriff! I couldn’t have
been more astounded if I’d seen a juggling snake. The thought of it almost made
me laugh out loud as I sat on the edge of my cot. Shaking my head in utter
disbelief, I stood up and walked over to the cell door. My mouth and lips felt
very dry. Outside my cell I could see a pair of shiny black boots underneath a
desk.

“Hey!” I called out. “Hey, could I get something
to drink?” The boots didn’t move.

“Just a minute,” an unfamiliar voice
replied.

“A beer would be a nice way to start the
day,” I hinted jokingly, surprising myself with my lightheartedness. A snort
was the only response I got to that suggestion.

After a minute, I heard a chair scrape back
from the desk and someone walk across the room and fill a cup with water. As I
peered through the bars, I saw it was the deputy sheriff bringing me my water.
He handed me the paper cup, and I sized him up as I gulped down the water. He
was about my age, round-faced, and kind of soft-looking. He struck me as a
straitlaced, by-the-book type of fellow that took his job and himself
seriously.

“Could I bother you for another cup of
water, sir?” I asked politely. He nodded, and went to refill the cup. I looked
around my cell as I waited, and noticed vomit on the floor.

“Would have been nice if you could have put
me in a cell without puke all over the floor,” I jested as he returned with my
water.

He smiled a little and said, “Well, if
nothing else, you may have gotten your pa’s sense of humor.” I almost choked on
my water.

“It’s strange how different a father and
son can be,” he mused, studying me as though trying to find some similarity
between Moses and me. I started setting the record straight before I’d
swallowed the last of the water, and set off a coughing fit. When my coughs
subsided, I handed back the cup and started talking.

“You’re damn right, there’s nothing the
same about us! I’m a fucking choir boy compared to him! He’s the baddest son of
a bitch I ever knew, and him being a sheriff doesn’t change that!” The deputy
stared at me like I’d just grown horns before walking back toward his desk.

“Hey, when are you going to let me out of
here?” I called out as I heard him sit back down at the desk.

“I don’t know. Sheriff Mattox said he’d
stop by after church,” came the response.

Church! Moses was in church!

“Well, glory glory hallelujah!” I muttered,
completely dumbfounded.

~~~

Shortly after noon, I heard Moses come into
the station. He discussed some things with the deputy in modulated tones and I
heard one of them leave.

Someone walked softly toward my cell. When
the footsteps stopped, I turned and looked. It was Moses. I was surprised I’d
even recognized him the night before. He was wearing a pair of navy slacks, a
crisp, light blue dress shirt, and a pair of black shoes that would have passed
old Lizard Gizzard’s inspection. He looked ten years younger than I remembered
him, which was strange, because it’d been over ten years since I’d seen him
last. But now, his hair was cropped short, his face was clean-shaven, his eyes
were clear, and there was an aliveness about him he hadn’t had when I was a
child.

“Good afternoon, Robert,” he said, almost
tenderly.

“Good day, sir,” I responded, sitting up.
He looked at me for a minute without saying anything. I saw pain, pity, and
regret in his eyes.

“You’ve changed so much,” he finally said,
trying to control the emotion that threatened to take over his face.

“I guess we both have, haven’t we?” I said,
studying his face for any vestiges of the man I hated, and wanted to hate.
There was no sign of the Moses I had known on the face of the man that stood in
front of me. I’d never seen remorse trickle down the cheeks of the father I’d
grown up with.

“Yes. Yes, we have,” he agreed, the emotion
getting the better of his voice.

I suddenly felt awkward and uncomfortable,
seeing him looking at me like that and crying. It reminded me of the time when
I was just a youngster, when I’d opened the door to Ma’s bedroom while she was
changing, and she’d been standing there, naked. I’d felt dirty after that. It
had just felt wrong, like I’d seen something that was private, personal, and
simply not for me to see. And similarly, to see Moses looking vulnerable and
emotionally nude was just as discomposing, even embarrassing, for me. I didn’t
know how to handle it, so I did what I’d done when I was a youngster—I
pretended I didn’t see anything.

“So, uh, what am I being charged with?” I
asked, after the silence became too uncomfortable.

“Well, we’ll talk ’bout that,” he replied,
taking a ring of keys out of his pocket and opening my cell door.

“Come,” he said, leading the way into the
office area.

He tossed the keys onto the desk, took a
chair from against the wall, and set it down across from his desk for me to sit
down on. I sat down, he sat down, and he pushed a bottle of Coca-Cola, a brown
paper bag, a pack of cigarettes, and my lighter over toward me.

“Eat,” was all he said. I opened the bag
and found a cheeseburger and fries. When the smell of food hit my nostrils, I
realized how hungry I was. Moses watched in silence as I chomped my burger down
in a half dozen bites, tossed the fries in behind the chunks of bread and meat,
and washed it all down with the soda.

“Thanks,” I said as I wiped my face with a
napkin. He nodded and sat in silence. He looked like he wanted to begin
speaking, but wasn’t precisely certain how to start.

“So?” I asked, giving him a questioning
look as I took a cigarette out of the pack and put it in my mouth. I waited for
a tongue-lashing, like I was a child sitting in the principal’s office. He
cleared his throat and looked a little nervous as he began speaking.

“I guess the first thing I wanna do is
thank you, Robert,” he began. The look on my face must have reflected my
thoughts. He laughed gently at my bewilderment.

“I need to thank you for kickin’ me out of
the house eleven years ago. It was the best thing that coulda happened to me.”
Well, that certainly didn’t diminish my confusion!

“What?” I asked. I couldn’t believe what I
was hearing. He smiled as he explained.

“Robert, when I left Coon Holler that
night, I was more humiliated than I’d ever been in my life. You helped break a
very hard, a very proud, a very bitter man. I hit rock bottom that night and
almost bust into a million pieces.”

I nodded, beginning to somewhat get the
gist of what he was talking about. There was a catch in his voice as he
continued.

“I wandered around for a while, just
aimless. Wasn’t sure where to go, what to do. I ran from myself. I ran from
God. I was the most miserable cuss in the South.” My eyes were glued to his
face as my neglected cigarette burned down slowly. I knew something about what
he was talking about, firsthand.

“And then, in a little town called
Sweetwater, Tennessee, God tracked me down, and hallelujah, I ain’t been the
same man since!” He smiled, and excitement sparked in his eyes. I remembered my
cigarette and took a quick puff.

“I quit drinkin’, and needed a new start.
Someplace nobody knew me or my past. Someplace that’d give me a chance. So I
moved to Buxley. I didn’t know a soul here, and had no job or place to stay,
but I went to church at Buxley Gospel Temple, and the first service I went to,
this farmer, Richard Sanders, chats me up afterward and offers me a job and
room and board. I couldn’t believe it!” Moses shook his head as though he still
doubted it’d happened.

“After a few months, Brother Richard found
out I couldn’t read or write. It’d always bothered me—I suppose that’s why I
was so hard on you for always havin’ your nose in a book,” he gave me an
apologetic look before continuing.

“So he started helpin’ me learn to read
pretty much every night. Within six months, I could read pretty much anythin’.
After I’d worked for him for a few years, the sheriff’s department was lookin’
for a deputy. It didn’t even cross my mind to apply, but Brother Richard said I
should see if they’d hire me. He said he’d stand behind me all the way. I think
I was more flabbergasted than anyone when they hired me!” he chuckled.

“I was deputy about seven years or so, and
took quite a likin’ to the work, so when Sheriff Morton retired last year, I
ran for sheriff . . . and here I am,” he ended. The look on his face when he
finished left no doubt he was very content with his new life. It irked me a
little to see him so satisfied and at peace.

“Well,” I forced a wry smile, “sounds like
your life has turned out pretty rosy.” His countenance fell as he detected the
bitterness that tinged my tone.

“Yeah,” he said quietly, as though he felt
guilty for how things were going for him, “yeah, it’s—it’s been lookin’ up.”

I rolled my cigarette back and forth
between my fingers in silence. I could feel him looking at me. Finally, he
spoke up.

“And you?” he asked. “How you been?”

I looked down at the floor and laughed
hollowly as I thought about how I’d been. For several minutes, I just stared at
the floor without speaking. I thought about the war, the killing, the dying,
the destruction. But as gruesome and terrible as those things had been, they
were overshadowed by thoughts of a marriage that had turned to rubble. The rest
of the day wouldn’t suffice to tell him how I’d been. There was simply no way I
could even begin telling him what had happened the last few years of my life.
Finally, I told him in the only way I could think of.

“Do you see these fuckin’ scars?” I asked
him, turning my head and pointing to the scars that snaked down the side of my
face and through my beard before slithering down my neck. He had a pained look
on his face as he nodded.

“Do they look pretty bad to you?” I asked.
He nodded again, slowly, as though afraid it was a trick question.

“They’re
nothin
’!” I spat through my
teeth. I ground the butt of my cigarette forcefully into the side of the desk
with my thumb.

“Nothin’!” I yelled, startling him as I
stood up suddenly and leaned across the desk.

“They—are—fuck—all!” I enunciated loudly,
emotion greasing the handle of my voice.

“FUCK! ALL!” I screamed, punctuating my
last words by taking my fist and pounding the desk as hard as I could.

A pen bounced into the air and fell to the
floor. I was hyperventilating now. My whole body shook as I sat down. I gasped
for breath like I was trying to breathe in a hurricane and the oxygen was just
blowing by me. Tremors took over my legs and hands as I helplessly attempted to
control the movements of my own appendages.

Moses said nothing as I struggled to regain
mastery of my body and its functions. Then, when the twitching had ceased and
my breaths were deep and even, he looked at me and said, “Yeah, the ones
inside. Those are the bad ones.”

I looked him straight in the eye, held his
gaze, and was relieved to see that no further explanation was necessary. He
knew exactly what I’d tried to tell him.

“Yeah,” I muttered, “they’re the worst.”

Table of Contents

THIRTEEN

STRUGGLING

Moses let me off
easy. As long as I’d apologize to Vern and pay for any damage I’d done to the
saloon, he wouldn’t lay any charges.

I didn’t have enough money in my pocket to
make a jingle, and told him so. He said he’d already paid Vern out of his own
pocket, so if I wanted, I could stay with him for a while, find some work, and
pay it off as I had funds. It sounded to me like as reasonable a deal as any,
so I shook on it.

It was pouring rain when he dropped me off
in the alley where I’d left my car the day before. As I started the car and
turned on the wipers, I noticed my suicide poem lying on the dashboard. I
picked it up and tossed it back into the glove compartment. The thoughts of
suicide were gone.

The taillights from Moses’ Ford moved
ahead, and I followed them slowly down the alley and onto the street.

He led me out of town several miles and
turned down a long driveway. A large farmhouse sat at the end of the driveway,
but we turned before we reached it, down a secondary lane that led to a small
house hidden away behind some trees. It was more of a cabin-sized place, old,
but kept up nicely.