Love is a Wounded Soldier (38 page)

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Yeah, fishing should be
just fine.”

~~~

It took me some time to fall asleep that
night. Part of it was that I really wanted to have a drink. But that wasn’t the
half of it. The last 24 hours of my life had been such an unbelievable
whirlwind of events, my mind was still spinning around, trying to comprehend
all that had happened. It sorted through the things that had happened, and the
conversations we’d had, processing them one by one and putting them to rest,
until I came to one thought that I just couldn’t tuck in and put to bed. It was
a thought that I wouldn’t have been capable of contemplating even a day
earlier, and that thought was this: If a man as hard as my father could be
brought to repentance for his sins, and that repentance could cause him such
great sorrow, could it be that Ellen might also be feeling the same anguish of
spirit that my pa displayed for his transgressions? Could it be that I wasn’t
the only victim of her sin? Could it be she endured sadness and guilt for a
regret of her own making? For the first time, I allowed myself to think about
someone other than myself. And though I still wouldn’t think of entertaining
thoughts of forgiveness, I felt myself pity her, ever so slightly.

“Man, she was tore up. Real tore up!” I
remembered the words my pa had spoken mere hours before.

She deserves to be, I thought to myself,
trying to excite the anger I was used to feeling in order to rid myself of
feelings of empathy that made me uneasy. But those feelings would not leave.
Their strength would only grow.

~~~

The next morning Pa had me out of bed,
finished with breakfast, and sitting with my line in the water before the sun
had a chance to rise. It took me some time to brush the cobwebs out of my
brain, since I wasn’t used to being up that early. But Pa said the fishing was
best early in the morning, so we went early. And he was right. The fish were
biting hard for the better part of an hour before things settled down.

As the sky began to lighten, I almost had
my pole yanked out of my hands. It was a big old catfish, about as long as my
arm, and he made it clear he had no intentions of being hauled out of the
water. I told him I had other plans. He was pretty stubborn about it, but after
I played with him for close to a half hour, he started coming around to my
point of view.

Pa whooped and hollered and slapped my back
when I pulled the monster out of the water. I had a grin on my face that was
about as wide as my fish was long. He wasn’t exactly a pan fish, so we unhooked
him and set him back in the water, holding him to face the current so the water
would flow through his gills. He rested for a minute, and was off with a swish
of his tail.

We wiped the fish slime onto our pants, sat
back down, and told each other pieces of the story that had just happened as
though recounting something that had happened years ago. For the first time in
forever, I was almost happy.

The sun bounced over the horizon like a big
orange ball. It tried on different shades of orange and yellow, like a woman
tries on clothes in the morning, before finding a bright, egg yolk yellow that
suited its taste.

The fishing slowed down, so we pushed the
butts of our poles into the muddy bank and lay back, squinting into the sun as
we lazily watched the tips of our poles for any sign that something was tugging
on the line. I lit a cigarette and felt myself become drowsy. I could feel my
eyelids droop. My sleep had been much too short.

“So, what do you plan on doin’?” Pa asked
quietly. I opened my eyes and stared up at the blue sky.

“What do you mean?” I asked, suspecting I
knew what he meant, but wanting clarification in case I was mistaken.

“With your life. Where do you go from
here?” he questioned. I laughed cynically.

“I’ll be damned if I know,” I replied.
“Most days the debate isn’t about what to do with life, it’s about whether it’s
worth hanging onto at all.” He took my comment in stride.

“Yeah,” he nodded, “I been there.”

His acknowledgement surprised me, though I
suppose it shouldn’t have. It piqued my curiosity. I tried to let it drop, but
the itch to know more increased until I couldn’t help but inquire.

“Oh, yeah?” I asked, trying to sound
interested enough that he’d elaborate, but not too snoopy or eager.

“Oh, yeah,” he affirmed. “There’ve been
many times I wanted to end it all. Even tried a time or two. I know if it
wasn’t for the grace of God, I wouldn’t be alive today.” I thought about what
he said, my curiosity only partly satisfied.

“Why?” I asked.

“Why did I want to end it all?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. He pursed his lips and
sighed.

“Well,” he said slowly, “my problem was I
let old wounds outlive the people that made ’em. I just had trouble . . .
lettin’ go.” I was curious what wounds or people he was talking about, but I
didn’t have the forwardness to probe any deeper.

“Well, a fellow can’t help if he gets
wounded. Maybe you had the right to not let some things go,” I defended myself
by defending him.

He shook his head.

“No, that was my problem. I felt like it
was my right to be bogged down in the past. It took me a long time to figure
out there’s no use being alive today if you’re livin’ in yesterday. There’s no
purpose. That’s what makes a man feel like killin’ himself.”

I thought about what he said, but didn’t
comment. He wasn’t done.

“You know, son, someone hurtin’ me ain’t
what made me miserable most of my life. It was me. It was my own self-pity. It
was me thinkin’ I deserved to be angry and bitter and down in the mulligrubs
for what’d happened to me. It was me pickin’ and pokin’ at sores that would
have healed long ago if I’d just left ’em alone, let ’em heal up.” He paused to
pull in his line. He’d been so preoccupied with talking, he’d let the fish
nibble his hooks bare.

After he put on more bait and threw his
line back in the water, he picked up from where he left off, just now, he was
getting preachy.

“Self-pity is a leech. It’ll suck the life
right out of you. It nearly killed me, and it nearly killed you. If you keep on
feelin’ like a victim, and that the world done you wrong, and that you didn’t
deserve what someone did to you, you’ll never move on. Because you’ll never
forgive. Forgivin’ someone ain’t sayin’ what they did was right, it’s just sayin’
you’ll give ’em grace and you’ll both try to move on.”

My hackles rose as I took umbrage with what
he was saying. It all sounded trite to me, as if he had no understanding of how
gravely I’d been wronged. Words sat in my mouth like popcorn kernels, waiting
for the heat of my wrath to explode them into action.

“Yeah,” I said, unable to keep the anger
out of my voice, “yeah, it’s easy to tell someone to forgive when you ain’t
walked a mile in his shoes.” The words popped out of my mouth slowly at first,
and then, faster and faster.

“Let me tell you something,” I looked at
him and shook my finger. He looked me in the eye without flinching. “I fought
for 10 months in Europe, and I lived through hell! I saw my friends get killed
in ways that you wouldn’t believe if I could find words gruesome and gad awful
enough to tell you! I got hit, twice. I fought the whole damn war with a
wounded leg that never got proper medical attention. But I wrote Ellen letters.
I lied to her, because I didn’t want her to worry. Told her everything was a
fucking bowl of cherries! Told her I loved her and how much I missed her. But
that didn’t mean shit! My love didn’t mean shit! My loyalty didn’t mean shit!”

I felt my face twitch in anger as I
continued. “Everyone else I served with, single, engaged, or married, chased
every skirt from Maryland to Germany. But me, oh, no, I had my honor! I was an
honorable man! A woman, a married woman, tried to seduce me in England. She
wanted me bad! Do you think I didn’t want her? Hell yes I did! But I didn’t
give in! Because I had my honor! I had my fucking honor! But what did it mean?
What the
fuck
did my honor get me?”

I was nearly in tears now. If my pa had
felt half as sorry for me then as I felt for myself, he would have been won
over to my side, but he didn’t seem the least bit dissuaded. He didn’t say
anything, but pulled a sandwich out of a burlap bag and offered me one.

“No,” I said tersely. I was too agitated to
eat.

The sun siphoned my body’s moisture out
through my pores and I became thirsty. I took a few long gulps from a canteen
of water and wished it was whiskey.

Pa ate his sandwich, leisurely, but with
the look of a chess player plotting his next move. I waited for him to offer
some sort of rebuttal, ready to explode at whatever came out of his mouth. He
finished his sandwich, cleaned his teeth with his tongue, and plucked a thick
stalk of grass to use as a toothpick.

“Robert, did you win any medals?” he asked.
His question confounded me. I supposed perhaps he had decided to drop more
volatile topics.

“Um, well, yeah, a couple, well, three,” I
counted them up, feeling a little bit of pride in telling my pa I’d been
decorated.

“Hmmm,” he nodded approvingly.

“And so of those three medals, which ones
did you get for the appearance of your uniform, performin’ drills, or other
basic requirements?” he asked. I couldn’t figure out what he was driving at.

“None,” I said, thinking even he should
know that. If my answer surprised him, it didn’t show.

“Does that bother you?” he asked. I looked
at him like he was an imbecile.

“No,” I said shortly, irritated by the
silliness of the conversation.

“No,” he said, “it shouldn’t. Because
there’s nothin’ special about a soldier doin’ his duty. And there’s nothin’
special about a husband doin’ his duty. You bein’ faithful mighta been hard,
but it wasn’t above and beyond the call of duty.” His words stung like sand in
the face. I bristled.

“You talked about your honor,” he
continued, allowing ample spaces between questions to allow them to sink in,
“but what kind of honor did you have? Was it a pure honor, or did you have an
honor that even thieves have among themselves? Did you keep your honor when you
found out about her sin?” He paused and looked at me as if he knew the answer
without me replying. I averted my gaze.

His last sentences were hard and pointed,
as if they were the final nails that held together his argument, and he drove
them in straight, word by word.

“True honor will follow through on a
promise. True honor will make you hold up your end of a deal . . . even when
someone else drops theirs.”

He had a knack for knowing just how far to
push me. He was stomping all over my toes, and I think he knew I was about to
holler, so he shut up, pulled in his line, and put more worms on his neglected
hooks.

I was smarting from his little speech. I’d
told him what I’d told him so he’d see my point of view and realize that I
deserved to be feeling a little sorry for myself. But instead of sympathy, all
I’d gotten was a lecture about duty, and honor, and being faithful. By the time
he got through, he had me feeling lower than a snake’s belly. I was the good
guy, for Pete’s sake! Why was he trying to make me feel guilty for throwing a
slightly extended pity-party that I was clearly entitled to?

Thinking about it just burned me up. The
perturbation that churned inside me only made my craving for a drink more
acute. Drinking had become the only way I knew how to deal with stress,
depression, anger, sorrow—heck, it had become the panacea for all my emotional
ailments!

I sat in silence until I knew I couldn’t
stand another minute fishing beside someone as cold and judgmental as my pa.

“I think I’m done fishing,” I said
abruptly, pulling in my own hooks that the fish had spit-polished. “It’s too
hot. I’m not used to the sun,” I made an excuse, not even wanting to look over
at Pa. He didn’t say anything, he just started packing stuff up.

As we walked up the bank, he looked over at
me and said, with a gentleness he’d held back until then, “Robert, I just want
you to know I didn’t say what I said ’cause I don’t love you or I don’t care or
I don’t understand. I think you might be surprised how much I do understand. I
spent most of my life in a front row desk at the school of hard knocks. I guess
you could say I’m pretty much professor of the place!” He smiled a little, as
if to show he was trying to lighten things up. I didn’t feel like smiling back.

“The point is, I don’t want to see you
waste the next 20, or 30, or 40 years of your life, learnin’ the same lessons I
had to learn. It’s a—it’s a terrible way to live, and I don’t wish it on
nobody—’specially not my son.” I kept walking in silence.

“Do you see where I’m comin’ from?” he
asked me, as if imploring me to understand he really had my best interests at
heart.

“Yeah, I guess, maybe,” I mumbled.

My pa never did tell me, that day, or any
day after, about those things that had happened long ago that caused him a pain
so deep that he believed he knew how I felt. Though I wondered about it often,
I never did ask him about it. It was a burden that he carried alone in life,
and likewise, in death. I suppose he wanted it that way, but I sometimes
wondered if he’d write me a letter or something that I could read after his
death that would explain those things to me. But he never did. I always wished
he had.