I BE DAMN
By
Gusdavis Aughtry
RDU is located between Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina or at least it’s suppose to be. Like all airports, construction is everywhere. I like it as airports go—convenient, efficient and busy. I was the first of the brothers to arrive and felt a kind of satisfaction like I had not known in a while.
Larry, Gary, and Michael were coming through security. We all wanted to gather at the airport before Cal’s plane left for Italy to tell a few war stories as we didn’t know when we’d be together again. I bought us all a coffee. We sat across from the Delta check-in. The airport was the only place that we were sure to find Cal. We laughed. Ever since he was “set free,” as our brother, Larry, called it, the CIA couldn’t find him if he didn’t want to be found. He had called all the brothers a week earlier and told us he was leaving for Italy. We suspected.
To be honest, we were a little nervous. We all hugged and laughed and looked at our feet. Where was the man?
“Oh, he’ll be here”, I said. “I’ve never seen such excitement in a grown man.”
“Yeah, I know. We’re going miss him, even though we hardly see him anymore”
“Think he’ll stay?”
“I think so. Can you believe this?”
“Whose got his passport, what about the ticket?”
“Relax my boy, Cal is the one going to Italy.”
We watched him strolling toward us.
He looked good. Tan, slim, dressed to the nines—Mr. GQ, our brother.
We all group hugged on the spot.
Always close but never closer. Our emotional hurting no was good but sad with the separation of the quintet. We were all uncharacteristically silent and Cal sensed it and smiled,
“I love all you guys and will miss you. But, you know,” he paused, “I have to go. Before I do, I want to set the record straight. I am a nutso.” We all busted out laughing.
Most Americans, at least those who care, don’t know for anything how to appreciate the freedoms of our great country. This is what I was thinking as I looked for a parking place in the giant lot at the VA hospital. I’d just come from a tour of duty in Korea and was so glad to be on home territory. It wasn’t that it had been such a bad year, in fact, quite the contrary; it had been a good one. But, there’s nothing like being in a foreign country, subject to their rules, that will make you appreciate the good old U S of A.
Better to be thinking this, I thought, than the sadness facing me about my brother. Cal was ten years older but had often been like a father, especially since our Dad died. When I was in High School, he owned this big country store in a religious community called Estridge. Don’t know how it got that name but was the home of the Pentecostal Holiness Church in the South or maybe just the state. I ought to know but don’t. What I remember most was that the people who came to the little community for the annual camp meetings were a little strange. I didn’t doubt for a moment that they felt the same about me. The girls were some kind of pretty even if it was a “hands off” policy. They didn’t wear makeup and wore plain clothes even for our day. “Keep in mind,” my brother would say, “These folks are in here and then gone. We are here forever.”
I mostly paid attention but on occasion slipped down to the activities and checked out the participants. What is remembered about those days is that I worked hard for spending money but Cal also saw after my needs. Once when I was going to some function, he said, “You can’t wear that outfit,” meaning jeans—only the poor wore jeans all the time. From that moment on, I had the best with a running account at Doug’s; this men’s shop in our hometown. Cal was fond of saying, “Listen boy, I’m living vicariously through your exploits.” We would laugh.
This was not going to be an easy visit. In fact, I could hardly believe why I was here. Cal had lost it. I shook my head and must have let out the loudest sigh of many a day. How did this happen? When I left for Korea, I knew some things were not going all that well especially on the home front but everybody has problems. His wife was just who she was if a tad bit selfish or from a male chauvinist standpoint, just being a woman. Well, maybe a bit narcissistic. In fact, I wondered constantly how they ever got together. I remember standing in a back room at the Church with Cal and my other brothers and my oldest brother saying something like, “It’s not too late to back out. I have a plane ticket here.” I don’t know if he did but regardless, Cal went through with the ceremony. How Cal got to marriage was always a mystery; in fact, most didn’t even know he and Mary Lou were dating. It was always a little game: “Cal, seeing anyone?”
“Of course, always seeing lots of people.” He knew what we meant but never fessed up. I still remember the wedding, full church, Mom and Dad all dressed up. I was pretty young and didn’t quite get it all but my older brothers felt he was pushed into getting married. Our folks were the best in terms of being supportive but somehow felt that Cal and a family, settling down; it was just what you did.
Cal was in the Army at Fort Jackson, trying to get to Korea, and we were going for a visit. Mary Lou went along. I remember, thinking at the time, wonder what she is doing here? Cal had already confided to the brothers that he’d met the love of his life in Italy.
We had a devil of a time locating Cal. By this time, he was a staff sergeant, moving up in rank and pretty much calling his own shots. We waited and we waited and the soldier in charge kept saying, “We’re trying to find him, he’s on pass.” When he finally did appear, it was awkward. I got the distinct impression that this was Mom’s idea and Dad just went along. And, somehow, they were pushing Mary Lou. Who knows?
What went wrong with the marriage? What goes wrong with any marriage, they start out with such promise—maybe nothing went south, life just happened. And, where we are at one juncture of our lives may not be where we are at another. When you lose it, you lose it. See what I mean, a big sigh.
“Andy, how’s it going? Boy, is it ever good to see you. How was Korea?” I stammered and was momentarily blown away, the same old Cal, talking, laughing, telling war stories, asking me questions. Lost it, what is this?
“You know I wish I’d stayed in. Damn,” he said with resignation. I had heard the story dozens of times. Cal had first gone into the military when he was sixteen but they threw him out when they discovered he was underage. The fact that one of his buddies forged Mom and Dad’s name on the enlistment papers seemed to escape everybody. The second time he was drafted into the real thing and was sent to Italy. It was such a disappointment as he’d volunteered for Korea.
But, to hear him tell it, what a life he had in Italy. He was constantly saying, Mi scusi, (excuse me) when he wanted to make a point. His time in Trieste was the happiest of his life. Italy was just getting on its feet from WW ll and Trieste was working on its port, located at the head of the Gulf of Trieste on the Adriatic sea.
The people were poor and had been decimated by the war. Cal became the top sergeant for the ceremonial platoon. The ceremonial platoon of Cal’s regiment was the face of the military in Trieste’s recovery and Cal was the main man. He loved the military and wrote a poem about his unit that he never tired of repeating. I heard it over and over and often thought, “What is it with this?” Now, I’m thinking that it was a kind of mantra that was important to him to never forget. I guess we all have something. Our Dad was forever making these nonsensical statements and so we were use to it, kind of a conversation that went on with himself.
The 351st Spearhead Regiment is the name
A history in a mighty frame
In time of war, in time of peace
It’s one outfit I know could stand up to its name
With the men of the ceremonial platoon who walk so proud,
They are just like one mighty crowd.
If you could see into the heart, you would say with a smile or grin,
I am the Ceremonial Platoon and have some mighty men.
He would laugh and it was not unusual for some remembering glint to cloud his eyes. The piazza as it was called was always crowded with locals who loved the Americans. GIs always had money and were looking a good time. “And, trust me, my boy,” Cal would say, “Nothing endeared you to the crowds like a few jingling ‘preems’ in your pocket.” Cal got to know many of the locals as his platoon marched in parades and often acted as a security and military police unit.
Cal loved to laugh and talk about the shiny helmet liners, “painted silver,” he would say and you could comb your hair in those spit shined boots. He wanted to learn the language and had gotten pretty good. What he did was learn Italian phrases: he called them his survival phrases; good day, Buon giomo; do you speak English? Si./No; I don’t understand was his favorite, Non capisco; please Per favore; thank you-Grazie; you’re welcome. Prego. I’m sorry. Mi Dispiace; excuse me Mi scusi; or another way to say the same thing, he pointed out: excuse me, Permesso—one means like passing on the sidewalk and another means, “give me your attention.” He would laugh and say, “See what I told you, I was getting good.” In a somber moment, he’d say, “My least favorite word, goodbye-Arriverderci.” His commentary often included things like “most American GIs didn’t take advantage of the culture nor appreciate the people. The Italians are warm and wonderful.”
The first time he saw her, he knew she was different. Her hair was so black it had a sheen to it. Love struck instantly. They fell in love and as he often said, “They communicated the language of romance.” Cal had always been a romantic and had a habit of scribbling his poetry on napkins or whatever he had at hand. Bella was her name and before long, it was dinner at her home. The mother and father loved Cal. As did the brothers and young sister. He always brought gifts and in post war Italy, this was no small thing.
Bella’s brother had been killed in the Resistance and her father blinded in one eye. The father had been a railway engineer. They didn’t like to talk about it but Cal had schooled himself in the history of the Resistance.
It was estimated that there were close to 50,000 Allied prisoners of war held somewhere in the Italian countryside. Stella’s father was part of the resistance that enabled the most massive escape of World War ll. What he did was mobilize the vast farming communities of the northern Apennines to come together to help the POWs evade capture by Germans and Fascists. Because of their efforts, almost all of the Allied POWs were able to cross the border into neutral Switzerland or to reach friendly forces elsewhere in Italy. Stella’s Dad was, among many things, a munitions expert whose particular specialty was blowing up the trains that he loved. It was on one such foray that he was almost discovered and had to remain too close to the explosives and lost an eye.
Cal proposed. Stella accepted. Would she go to the states? Yes and no. What about her family? Cal described the states and especially the Carolinas, the green, the freedom, the possibilities. She would do it. He begins to work on the visa to get her stateside, there’s the long lines, and bits of discouragement everywhere, to include his commander, His CO was a good old boy from Texas and talked with a drawl that even Cal noticed, mixing up the syntax of his speech, “Sergeant, you are my best NCO but I have to tell you, do you know how many soldiers want to marry Italian girls?” He didn’t wait for an answer, “Every swinging GI that I know.”
Cal remembers the day with a type of foreboding that went way beyond what he wanted for his life. He got advice. Go back to the states; it’s easy to send for her. How could he tell her? His tour was coming to an end. Maybe the Captain was right, while you are overseas, you’re lonely, you fall in love. Get back to the states and into your regular environment and if you’re still in love, can’t live without her, you can get her a visitor’s visa—it’s easier.
It became OBE. His orders for Korea came through. The Captain said it was just a coincidence. Cal never made it to Korea; on the way, he was diverted home for emergency leave as Mom was at the point of death. She had this mysterious illness which disappeared almost as quickly as it began. The doctors thought it was some form of blood poisoning, possibly even a deadly bite from a black widow spider. The brothers speculated that she conspired with the extremely effective Red Cross rep, Mrs. Swanson, who knew literally everybody everywhere or so it seemed. She saved many a local boy from war she claimed.
The trip to Faison, their hometown, seemed longer than usual. I was stationed with the 82d Airborne at Fort Bragg, only about thirty five or forty miles away. The 82d was my all time favorite Division. Serving with the 82d would put me close to my brothers. And, we needed to support Cal’s wife. Mary Lou had been a kind of confidante when I was growing up, talked to me about girls and feelings and the future. All the time I was overseas, we’d written. This was very strange. Surely, Mary Lou could clear it up. How could his brother be incarcerated at the VA hospital and yet be so much the same as always. This was very strange.
Pulling into the yard, I couldn’t help but notice the complete semi circle of gigantic oaks along the back of the house. Green was the word and it always amazed me. A lake was beyond the trees and it was so still that walking on it seemed a possibility.
Mary Lou greeted me with a genuine hug. She was like a sister and we all needed a sister as our only one died very early. All the brothers laughed to keep from crying about the shortened life of Gertrude that we called, “Get.” God bless her.
“How have you been? I was wondering when you were coming by. Thanks for calling from the airport. This has been hard but I guess you might say life.”
“Well, yes, I’ve just come from the VA hospital.”
Mary Lou seemed to have a look of panic on her face and said, “Oh, you saw Cal. I wish you had come here first so we could talk.”
“He looked great and seems the absolute same to me. I can’t see any difference.”
Mary Lou got up and went to the sink and asked with her back turned, “Could I get some coffee or tea for you?” The obvious pause–-she was looking for a reply even to one unsuspecting of it. The stillness in the house had an eerie kind of feeling. What I did not know but would soon discover: the relationship between us would never be the same. She answered. “I don’t see how you can say he’s the same. He hardly knows who he is half the time. I can’t tell you the number of times he’s been totally erratic. He gets angry and then goes for long periods when he doesn’t say anything. He won’t go to the doctor, goes out for long walks and doesn’t return for hours. Sometimes we have to go out looking for him. Does that sound like someone who is the same? There’s something definitely wrong with him.” For Christ’s sake, what is wrong with her. Why is she so angry.
Heading down to meet the brothers was longer than usual as I was lost in thought: this was an incredible mystery, not to mention dilemma. What is up with this? Cal is incarcerated in the VA hospital and needs to be sprung and my sister in law that I adore is the perpetrator. I didn’t have a clue as to what the brothers might say or where they would be with it. I was confused myself. We were a close family. Farmers and that meant something. As I had gotten older, I remembered with a great sense of satisfaction my Dad’s feeling that it was always important to be close with each other. He monitored how we related, much like a mother hen—normal sorts of stuff that boys do, wrestling, pushing and shoving but he didn’t tolerate what he called the big riffs. “Get it straighten out boy,” was his usual refrain. And, we were close. And, as my wife often said, when one sneezes the other is there to hold the handkerchief. One brother got in a jam with overextension in his business. We bailed him out. Another was caught in an extramarital affair. We slapped him around. We were there with the group hugs. We were brothers.
We’d all kind of suffered through world events, mainly war. My older brother went off to fight with the Marines, another was in Korea and one was a Navy type, while Cal was ready if the call came while enjoying the piazzas of Italy.
We met at Marlows, just off the interstate—our usual meeting spot. The restaurant was kind of nondescript, long in front, with an ugly blown color. It was built to hold lots of folks. It wasn’t a greasy spoon, simply good country eating. I loved it.
Making my exit off the interstate, the thought hit me that our State had done a good job of making the traveling not so humdrum and interesting: billboards; the median, in particular, planted with wild beautiful flowers. If a person could appreciate, quite nice. But, then I doubted most folks paid any attention.
Larry, Michael, and Gary were already there when I arrived. Needless to say, they hadn’t waited as both were devouring the standard; grits, eggs, and country ham. My mouth was already watering. Of all the things I’d missed when not in North Carolina was the country ham. I was sure all this great country cooking that I had grown up on was clogging up my last artery but it was irresistible. The brothers debated with regularity our Dad’s health. He died fairly young and we had to wonder if he had at least eaten wisely how would he have been? Two packs of Camels and fried food three times a day his entire life. What about it? Then again, maybe the few years he’d have added by not doing what he wanted—worth it? Yes/no? Always an insolvable discussion.
“Hey guys, notice you were waiting on me.” They both smiled. “What’s happening? All nodded with a kind of resignation. The place was about half full and the waitress was heading our way. This was one of those places where people came to eat and greet. Most knew each other in a casual sort of way. I knew a couple of them. one was Silas who was really good friends with Cal and immediately walked over and asked about him. “Well, not too good,” Michael allowed.
“I’m sorry to hear that, someone had said he was poorly.” In a way Silas was probably happy that Cal was not doing too well. No telling how much money he owed him. Silas was a notorious bootlegger who took on the trappings of civility and legality but had more whiskey stills than anyone in this part of the country. He’d served three years in prison and had reformed for awhile, according to the local wags. And, we’d have to say that Cal at one time fit in with Silas’s scheme. We didn’t exactly know how.
Bootleg whisky is almost a stable in some of the deep South. It is as much a part of the fabric as country ham, fatback meat and grits. A big-time ingredient is sugar and the feds long ago discovered that if they could get a handle on where the whisky makers were getting sugar, they could get the bootleggers, not to mention the suppliers. There were occasionally busts but most knew that it was not a high priority and was not about to be stamped out. It’s a little hard to say about the whole idea of moonshine. Most Southerners had some relation to the culture of the drink: they’ve imbibed, knew someone who sells or distributes. Just a way of life.
Bootleg or white lighting as the Yankees like to call it, made its debut during prohibition. It was easy to make, relatively speaking, and had the whisky connoisseur touch of the palate for the true believer. It tasted a little like one would imagine rubbing alcohol or kerosene might taste. Some said it had an acquired taste. And, there were always the stories—skunks, possums, not to mention the kitchen sink to include some lye added for flavor. Whether or not these tales were true or not, no one knew, least of all me. Drink at one’s own peril was kind of an unspoken rule.
I always worried about going blind. As a kid, my best buddy’s Mom, was a distribution point although she was not called that, just that she “sold whiskey.” Everybody knew it, to include police, the sheriff, or said with a smile, the Revenuers meaning the “government.” She had the first drive through system in the county, probably, maybe the South. The driver would drive around the house on a neat little dirt drive, stop at a window, get a shot of white whisky, pay his money and move on. I think a shot costs something like a buck, maybe two. I tried it a time or two, not at her house but this other bootlegger in a different community. “How is it, someone would say?”
“Oh, this is the greatest stuff.” The truth being that it was awful, burned your throat, took your breath and possibly burned out a few brain cells.
Michael kind of turned away from Silas, signaling that the conversation was over and Silas vanished into the seams of the restaurant. “What are we going to do about Cal?” Gary went to the meat of it. Nobody said anything.
“We all know what Mary Lou wants to do.” It was as though nobody heard him. “Hello, hello, anybody there?” he raised his voice.
“Sorry, I don’t guess it’s up to us but Cal surely seems fine to me,” I ventured, with a long look across the room wishing I was somewhere else. “All of us are a little loony, so, what’s the big deal.”
With a slight sigh, Michael said, “I know but I think Mary Lou wants our support.”
Long pause.
“I know she does and we owe it to her. She’s a good woman,” Gary ventured.
Larry seemed to come out of the ether. “Give me a break, she’s a big B and we all know it. How the hell Cal put up with her all these years is beyond me.”
“Come on, I think you’re being a little hard here,” Michael said.
“What about all the time she’s been drinking at the Cal trough and now that he’s around the bend she wants to put him away.” You could tell Larry was just getting warmed up, animated, red in the face. “And, what about the money she stole from him!” We all knew what he was talking about. When Cal had his big country store with a possible clientele of less than honorable types buying sugar, he always had a fist full of money, wrapped in a rubber band. Hundreds. Mary Lou regularly peeled off several bills and had for years.”
Long pause again.
“I’ve got an idea”, I said, “Let’s load up and go up to VA and get a picture ourselves, all of us together.”
Larry’s story telling punctuated our trip to the VA, he was the absolute best, bar none. The guy should have been a standup comedian; it was one story after another. We had heard them all before but still, it broke the tension and we didn’t have to talk about this painful thing we were facing. The truth of the matter, we didn’t know what we were facing.
The sprawling VA hospital looked ominous, as it had earlier but also delivered its own personality. Most vets had the “nobody’s home look or the thousand yard stare” from Vietnam. For many, VA represented a last ditch chance at getting their lives together—a kind of de facto rehab center. We walked through a corridor of forlorn looking types who had the appearance of just coming off the streets. “Damn, this place is depressing,” Larry intoned.
I immediately thought of the Vietnam movie, Deer Hunter. Any of these guys could have been in the movie. I saw the film a few times and it always haunted me. At first I chafed over the idea that whomever the military advisor to the film was should have had his ass kicked. He dressed Robert De Niro totally out of uniform: wrong patches; let him have a beard, which in the real Army couldn’t happened. Oh well, I have other things to think about now.
Larry punched the elevator toward the 12th floor. A couple of other guys stood over in the corner. One guy smiled with a giant gap where his two front teeth should have been. “I escaped this loony bin but discovered it was not all bad,” he laughed as though we were interested. “Who you guys coming to see?
“Cal Wallace,” Larry said.
“Oh Cal, what a blast! He’s one funny dude. I die laughing at how he’s constantly pulling the chain of the shrink. The motherfucker should be a patient. I bet he couldn’t even spell psychiatrist and now he are one.” He laughed and said it as casual as if he had been talking to someone he knew. But, he did bring up a good point; we had to talk to the Shrink to get some assessment. And, also, the immediate thought that our guy here was a con man himself, obviously intelligent, what is it that would make him want to be in the Psych ward at a VA hospital.
But, then again, there was a kind of camaraderie with vets, the shared experience. And, post traumatic stress was real. It was hard to convince Michael and some of the older vets. Those who served in the Big War didn’t want to hear about what they called, Shell Shocked, they sucked it up. I didn’t talk to the “Big War” guys much about it, no use. To be honest, I thought that I had a dose of PTSD anyway—most soldiers who’ve been at war have at least a touch. Made sense to me. PTSD is a many headed snake. Those war memories unwittingly intrude on our existence. This guy who is standing before us: has he purposely fucked up? Is he in these surroundings to stay in control. Maybe? We don’t want things to be too good for us. If they are, then we can’t find the comfort in guilt that keeps us from being “normal” what the hell that is. And, it is easier here around others like us. PTSD is a kind of coping to help us live. Maybe?
The problem is that we are not at war anymore, but we won’t leave the war—survival is our natural instinct; so sometimes we try to create a war zone in civilian life but most of those who love us can’t go there. We walk around in our old jungle fatigues, pen our medals on our chest and try to relive the acceptance we knew in combat. This is not good news because a war environment only postpones the real world where we have to live. Some of these guys are here because they can’t get away from war. Lord help them.
Cal came toward the waiting room. The same interloper that we had met on the elevator had him by the arm, kind of leading him. He shuffled with his head down. “Cal, how’s it going?” Larry exuberantly said, hugging him.
Cal didn’t react but kind of stared blankly. It was a sad moment. We sat down expecting him to do the same. He didn’t. I said, “Cal, how’s it going, great to see you since our talk the other day.” Nothing. We kind of sat there.
Without an invitation, our interloper sat down, “He’s out of it and no use. Happens sometimes. Cal is a good man but shit happens you know.” I don’t know why he felt he needed to say this, but then he left. We sat there for thirty or forty minutes, making small talk. Even Larry’s forced levity couldn’t seem to dent Cal who hardly acknowledged anything or even our presence.
I took out a few bills and thrust them in his hands and followed Michael to the door. We halfheartedly gave him a group hug, too sad to conjure up the necessary hope of something better. “Cal, see you soon,” somebody said. “Let us know if you need anything?”
I didn’t go to the brothers’ meeting with Mary Lou. Since the initial time with her, I had not had any contact. It was a kind of a morose thing for lack of a better term. I guess it’s all going to come to us, the aging process. No way to stop it but of all the things that could happen, losing it was not one I wanted or anybody that I knew for that matter. Putting Cal in a nursing home somehow didn’t seem right but then again, I didn’t have to live with him. I wanted to understand. There were the stories of him getting lost, flying into rages. And, the effect on the family. It just seems that for him to be in a controlled environment would be better. Go along with it. Well, what choice do we have?
I don’t know when Cal’s life spiraled out of control or if it did. I was gone most of the time, school, graduate school, the military. Most of my info came from the brothers. Bad business decisions, trouble with the IRS, possibly drugs. I wasn’t totally sure. Cal had always been more than a little secretive, disappearing off the radar screen for days, telling you only partially what was happening. When he was absent, the brothers often speculated where the mystery man might be. “I think he’s got another woman,” Larry allowed.
“I don’t think so,” Michael would chime in.
But, then again our big brother wanted to believe the best about the rest of us. Most of the time I was silent. In my own mind, there was no evidence of another woman or anything. And besides, it was not like we were the moral gate keepers but there was a code, but I didn’t always know what it was.
What all the brothers had to admit, however, was that his secrecy had about ruined him financially. It all happened fairly innocently, the IRS assessed him $70,000 more in taxes one year and instead of getting a lawyer and fighting it, he sat down and wrote them a check for 75 grand. It was a license for them to come after him.
His downfall came slowly. There was no better entrepreneur than Cal. He lost his business, started another and another. One day when I was in town during this bleak period, I chased him down where he was working, pumping gas. It was heartbreaking but somehow he didn’t seem to feel as badly about his plight in life as I did.
I was lost in thought still when the brothers dropped me off, resigned that Cal was going to be put away. Well, guess it was for the best. I was not around. There was still some mystery, hovering on how it all came to be. There was one thing for sure; I had lost the friendship of my sister-in-law. I guess it was a little like divorce. Have to choose sides. Damn. What right did I have to say anything? Out pursuing my own life, I hadn’t been around. And, if I had been, what difference would it have made. You can’t control another’s behavior and surely can’t be responsible for it.
Fast forward for six months, it is my first visit to Cal’s new place of abode. I dreaded it and had committed myself to see him in his habitat with regularity. Larry told me about the infamous gathering of the brothers and the wife. They all realized that it was not fair for Mary Lou to have to bear the burden of looking after Cal. The brothers could step up to help with his care but it would be better for all, if he were in a good well lighted place as Michael put it.
My last thought about it still lingered in my psyche, “They really aren’t so bad, food, companionship and somebody to make sure that he doesn’t do something stupid,” Michael had tried to reassure me.
“I hear you” as he could tell that I was less than convinced. And, he let me know it. We always thought he’d be great in politics if he could get past telling the truth and always saying what was on his mind. “This is the best for Cal. And you might as well get use to it. You’re not around. I’m not even here that often and Mary Lou has to live with the constant anxiety. She’s waited almost a year. So,” he said, fixing me right in the eyes, “get over it.” I felt twelve again.
My older brother was fifteen years my senior and more like an Uncle in many ways than a brother. He was the patriarch of the family since our parents passed from this life to the next. I paid attention and even if I disagreed which I did on this, I surely wouldn’t voice it. “OK,” I said with resignation and planned on my first long excruciating trek to the Baskins Home.
The Baskins Home was a new brick looking building with giant columns in front and had been made to look like a private home. The receptionist looked up and a big smile covered her face, she recognized me but I didn’t her: “Andy, I know you don’t remember me.”
I paused, smiling and then said, “I do”, I said, not having a clue.
She finally said, “Marjorie, you know, Marge. I was two classes behind you.”
“Oh. Sure. How are you?”
“Fine, guess you came to see your brother. He’s doing really well.”
She stood and regretfully, she looked like she’d not missed many meals. I resolved in a second that I was going to quit even thinking negative things about people; I was not anybody’s judge. I smiled and she instinctively hugged me and suddenly, I remembered her.
“Marge,” she had not been a girlfriend but it seems that I had known her in the Biblical way. I was a little embarrassed. Maybe I should apologize, I thought. I wish I could remember more. I should be the one who ought to be in here.
“It is so good to see you, been a long time.”
“Yes, it has. I’ve gained some weight.”
Oh, no sweat was the notion I wanted to convey. I tried to give an air of comfortableness. She looked like she wanted to say something but didn’t.
I thought about telling her that if I had ever hurt her, please forgive me. This little act of contrition had been performed by me before in my hometown. Growing up, I was so “bad.” It was just being a testosterone machine with a libido ruling me, and I felt bad about it and always harbored the need to apologize. I did make a conscience effort once at the “I’m sorry” fountain. It was at a class reunion when I made the rounds. To a person my old girlfriends said, “Oh, forget it. We were all just kids.” Whether they meant it or not, I couldn’t tell but it felt good to be a little unburdened.
Maybe I should say the “I’m sorry” to Marge.
“Your brother is doing well”, she said as though trying to convince herself. Then she lowered her voice where I could hardly hear, “I don’t know what he’s doing here. He no more has dementia than I do.”
The room was spacious with two fairly large beds with a large bathroom completing the living quarters. It still had that new look to it, cheap furniture trying to look homey. Not bad. A rather large black man sat in a wheelchair watching TV. “Excuse me, I am looking for Cal Wallace.” I wanted to say, “I must be in the wrong room.”
“Oh, Mister Cal has gone down the hall to the telephone. He must have noticed I glanced at the one sitting on the bedside table. “Mister Cal, he don’t like to use this one all the time.” He paused for a moment and smiled, “making those overseas calls he says can be tricky. You must be Mister Jerry.” I smiled and put out my hand, notching a note on the brain about overseas calls.
Inwardly I was smiling as I could hardly believe this set-up. Here Cal has a black roommate. It was almost the family joke that the man hated blacks. It wasn’t really so and we knew it. Quite the contrary, for the weirdest reason, his biggest buddies were always African Americans. He claimed it was a philosophy which none of us even believed. We joked for years that he would not even watch TV if there was a black on it. “Don’t watch much TV, do you, Cal” would be the refrain. And, how many times had he quoted that older myth with maybe some truth in it: the North and this meant anywhere not where he was, loves the black man as a race but hates him as an individual but the South, and that was mostly anywhere he was; the South loves him as an individual and hates him as a race. “Who believed this but a bunch of racists?” I always thought without ever commenting.
It was inconsequential anyway. “My name is Henry,” the affable black man said. Instantaneously, I reminded myself in my head, not a black man, a man.
“That Mister Cal, he know how to tell some stories—one right after another. He a good man. Don’t know why he’s in here.” He spoke of it like a prison. And, it wasn’t. Cal could come and go. At first he was in the locked unit but was only there a day. There was a little resistance from Mary Lou, I had heard, on being “let out” as Cal called it but it melted away. I didn’t know what to make of it all.
“Hey Andrew, Cal put me in a bear hug. How the hell are you my little brother?” I looked at Cal incredulously. He looked great. Freshly shaved, white hair combed back, immaculate like it use to be. I be damn, I was taken aback. “Fine Cal, you sure look as fit as a fiddle.”
“What is that? I’ve always wondered. What in the hell is ‘fit as a fiddle’, ” we all laughed. “I see you met my main man, Henry.” He laughed again as he sat on the side of the bed.
“The next time you see Henry, he’s going to be down to a hundred and thirty pounds.” Cal patted him. “You know what our big brother says?”
“Yes, I know.” Michael was fond of saying that heavy people were just shy of a bale of cotton.” Henry was.
“How do you like this place?”, I ventured.
“Oh man, this is the greatest, better than the Army, three hots and a cot.” He slapped Henry on the back.
“No, seriously, you like it?”
“Yeah, what’s not to like? I’m just kind of getting the lay of the land.”
What did he mean? Did I want to dive in too far or just tread softly?
“Hey, want to go for some chow, let’s go over to Charlie’s.” We all knew Charlie’s, Drive In, the premier barbeque spot of the town, maybe the nation, as Cal would say. “Henry, can I trust you to handle the chores here on the home front?”
“You can if you reward me with some barbeque and hush puppies.”
“You got it, what about some sweet tea” elongating the “sweet,” Cal said, affectionately squeezing Henry’s shoulder.
I could not remember when I had seen him so ebullient, so full of himself, it was remarkable. Later on, when I was telling Michael, he sat in silence. Relating my experience was almost like not visiting the same person.
“Maybe you caught him on a good day?”
“Have you ever caught him on one of those?” I said.
“No, not really,” Michael said with a kind of resignation. This was very painful for him. He was the oldest, the one responsible. All our lives he had tried to fix things for us when they went wrong. He couldn’t fix Cal. “When I’ve been to see him, he’s been pretty much like he was at VA. Almost catatonic.”
Weird was my feeling, how could it be? Cal was his old self with me and a beloved brother gone South to everybody else. I tried to make peace with Mary Lou, mainly because Cal wanted me too. “Andy, keep in mind, that most people do the best they can. And, Mary Lou has. Don’t blame her.” It was a little like a counseling session but then he paused and put his arm around me, “It’s going to be over soon and this works out for everybody.”
Mary Lou and I didn’t have much of a reconciliation, “I guess you understand what I mean now since your brother is at Baskin’s.” I was just before disputing the whole idea when I thought better and quickly changed the subject. It was one of those flash points when all of a sudden, there’s an “I’ve got it” moment. My intuition told me that something was going on with Cal. I wasn’t quite there but there was a mystery.
Cal’s modus operandi of secrecy was simply the way it was. He wouldn’t be where he was today probably if he hadn’t been so secretive. I’m mainly thinking of the IRS. Still, there were other things. When I worked at his grocery store, he would disappear for long hours and return with no explanation. And, even when pressed, would blow it off, “Oh, I’ve been off reading the NY Times, doing some business, lost track of time. Did you need me?” The answer was no, not really and then we were on to something else. It was a pattern but I always wondered.
In those early days, it‘s hard to say about Cal and Mary Lou’s relationship. As a sixteen year old with raging hormones, I could barely keep myself upright. I think it was pretty good. As I’ve said before, marriages always start out with such great promise and those early years seem to be good ones. At least that’s the way it looked to me. There were kids, mutual sorts of things that couples did.
Life then was not what it is today, obviously, today marriages are more equal, two bread winners, not like the old days when the man goes out to earn the livelihood, so to speak. Things change, life changes.
It was about six weeks later when I went for my second visit to see the elusive brother. I called almost every day and got him about one out of five tries. True, the CIA couldn’t locate him. “What gives, Henry?”
Long pause.
“What you mean, Mr. Andy?”
“Cal, he’s never here? Is he out cattin around?” I said it as a joke.
The look on Henry’s face and the slight curl to his lips all but knocked me over. I be damn, Cal is not here because he’s seeing a woman. What is this? How can someone who has lost it be out chasing women.
I was still laughing as I exited the building. I know folks if they had been around would have thought I’d lost it myself. I hee hawed. I’ll be damn was all I could say.
The day the divorce was final, the brothers gathered. It had been a hard road. Mary Lou had proven to be the big selfish B that most of us thought she was. There were hints but then we were biased and so nobody should pay much attention to us.
We expected a fight on the guardianship but it didn’t happen once she knew how determined we were. And, we were. If anybody was going to have charge of our brother’s affairs, it was us. Virtually, everything was going to her in the divorce anyway. Most of us objected but Cal insisted. Yes, insisted. We believed that he had money stashed, no, we knew it but in his present state, what good did it do?
The brothers witnessed Cal’s return from the abyss almost immediately. He insisted we go for a kind of celebratory lunch at, of all places, Marlow’s.
The road back to the old Cal that we knew and loved from some “play like” existence was not so much a road back as a road forward. And, it was immediate: laughing, talking, telling stories. It was as though he had been in a cocoon with everybody but me and suddenly he was liberated. For some reason which now was abundantly clear to me, Cal had acted just like one who had lost it: dementia, early Alzheimer’s, whatever. Couldn’t remember his name. I had witnessed it mostly with Mary Lou and early on when the brothers were around—in milliseconds, he would switch from being the Cal I had always known: smart, well read, opinionated, to not knowing his name. It had to be an act but why? Once it appeared that the divorce was going through with no hitches, he came out of the ether a little more with the brothers.
In a sense, you had to be a Southerner to get this. We have built into us a southerner gene. It is part of our DNA, the proper way that things are. There’s always some schizophrenia of what it means to be a Southerner but overall, we are genteel, always saying the right things, polite to the max—a man stands up when a woman enters the room. The ever present, “bless their hearts”—the most inane gossip is acceptable if at the close of the tale, someone says, “bless their hearts.” All is forgiven.
Politeness is the order of the day, never embarrassing talk, no public display of affection, proper, décor and above all, suffering or should I say, longsuffering especially in an unhappy marriage.
So, what is ever acceptable to get out of a marriage. If one or the other goes crazy, loses it. Hands down. How does this happen—“hardening of the arteries” as we would say. With this social stigma removed, it is proper for the spouse to put away the partner. He or she who has “lost it” doesn’t know it anyway and so it’s fine. In this case, Cal had lost it and it was OK for Mary Lou to put him away and divorce him. Afterall, she deserves a life. She still had time for another mate or in her case, maybe several. Plus, the brothers were very accepting of her dilemma. It was not her fault. Really, it was nobody’s fault, happened all the time. The brothers supported her—a win win situation. Well, I’ll be damn. Cal had set it up. I be damn. Glory hallelujah. God bless America.
We watched him walk to the gateway to his plane, which would take him to New York and then on to Italy. What a journey we’ve been on. He stopped, saluted and said, “Buon giorno, my brothers.”
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