--I'M A
BOOMERANG
…As I mentioned, I’ve been watching
“Homeland” (and you should be, too.) One
of the things I’ve learned from watching it is that it is teaching me how to be
a better writer. (I’ve always believed
you can learn from almost anything, if you allow yourself.) For instance, when I’m writing a scene now,
where the character’s face is basically telling the story non-verbally, I think
back to the show, and remember Brody (the lead actor in “Homeland”), and how
his eyes, his sweat, his twitches, the motion of his mouth…how all or any of it
could convey a million more meanings than words could—and I try to write my
character that way.
Not to sound preachy, but I think to
grow, we have to learn, and we have to keep ourselves open enough to do so.
…Next week at this time I’ll be in Las Vegas. It’s my second trip there this year. I’ll be with my brothers. They’re all army vets. One is a war hero from Viet Nam. Another is a Lieutenant Colonel.
When I was a boy, about ten or so, my
brother was in Nam. I’d seen TV coverage
of combat there and was pretty aware of what was going on. I remember feeling guilty that my brother was
over there and I wasn’t, so to punish myself, I’d walk shirtless in the cold
rain for hours. I know that’s a pretty
stupid thing to do, yet that’s what I did.
Once, my parents got their hands on a
ration packet. I can’t recall if my
brother had sent it to them or what. It
came in a small cardboard box, about the size of what you’d get if you didn’t
finish your meal at a restaurant and they boxed it up for you. Inside was a can of some nasty tasting juice,
stale bread and a tin of something that resembled –both in sight and taste—cat food. It was dry, chunky, and somewhat pink. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten anything so
awful.
We passed the tins around and took
little flaky bites. I remember trying
not to vomit, then feeling bad that I was considering puking.
“You think you’ve got it bad,” they’d
say.
But I never thought I had it bad. I didn’t know one way or another.
…Over 4,400 soldiers have died in the
recent Iraqi war.
…Over 2,000 have died in Afghanistan.
…A staggering 58,000 soldiers were
killed in Viet Nam.
…It’s all a little bit daunting, and has
been on mind a lot lately. A year and a
half ago, the son of a friend of mine died in Afghanistan. His platoon was clearing a roadside area when
he stepped on an IED. This is the story
I wrote for him that appeared in Troubadour 21:
Improvised
for
Eric Ward
We
took turns stealing, little things at first, then larger items as the day
progressed. “I think I can get the
cooler,” Clay said.
“Don’t be stupid,” I said. “You’ll get busted. We’ll get busted.”
When he came out of the 7/11 he not
only had a cooler but two six packs of light beer and a bag of crushed
ice. I expected him to be grinning but
he looked disappointed.
My brothers kept dying. That’s the way my mom put it when she
described her half dozen miscarriages.
“God takes care of his mistakes,” she said. I wondered about that, questions springing up
like leaks. “But I got you,” she
said. “You’re more than enough for any
mother. And you, you’ve got Clay.”
Clay lived next door to us. His dad sold life insurance and had tried to
kill himself twice. Clay never talked
about his mother and she was not around.
He liked to hunt and used just a bow
and arrow. He got elk and could skin and
gut them himself. He got a black bear
once. He got a dean’s wife, too.
He was blonde and tan with eyes the
color of sea glass. He drove an old
Willy’s Jeep and wore ratty shirts and puka shells. He liked to start fires for no reason other
than boredom. Once a field fire got away
from him and we spent two hours hopping on weed flames until our tennis shoes
melted into fondue. He never apologized
because we never got caught.
Another time we ate mushrooms and
went to the Asotin County Fair. The
colors were liquid and streaky like squirt gun sprays of neon shooting through
my corneas. Then everything was funny, even
the sad, overweight ticket taker with mustard on the knees of his pants.
There was a bluff where the end of
the Fair trailed off into field and we climbed it. A few times I thought I’d fall and for some
reason the idea didn’t scare me at all.
I expected to fly or be caught by the ever-present hand of God. I had a lot of thoughts.
At the top we gasped, my lungs
blazing, thirstier than I’d ever been in my life. We spotted a couple rolling around on top of
each other beneath a tree. They were all
skin and hair and limbs and sounds. It
felt wrong to look, to listen.
Clay couldn’t get enough of the
pair, only he was crying. I’d never seen
that before. It made me queasy. “Hey, what’s going on?” I asked, but he didn’t
say.
I was pretty angry that he’d joined
up without telling me. When I asked why,
his dad shrugged through the phone, saying “It’s just something he had to
do.” I hoped I’d be a stronger man than
Clay’s father when I had a kid of my own, but I wasn’t sure.
Like everybody else, I forgot about
the wars. They were starting to put out
movies about the conflicts, none of them really blockbusters. I went to one by myself. It felt so real, which is how I knew the
director had made it all up.
They call them I.E.D.’s, Improvised
Explosive Devices. They’re homemade
bombs, booby traps. Your boot heel
catches on a wire in the dirt and you end up a mush of dust and blood.
So I’m not sure what they buried in
his casket, maybe mementoes—his puka shells, yearbook photos.
After the funeral I drove to the old
store and parked in the lot and sat there wishing I smoked. I tried to conjure up a spark of nostalgic
fear but my nerves had short circuited.
Instead I thought about the things we’d stole, forgetting where we’d put
them.
