It was hardly a homecoming: no hoopla, no key to the city, no sharp affinity for those things left behind. Only the fat drops of rain splattering the tarmac – splashes of memory popping up here and there, bubbles in a well. I walked carefully off the plane, my right hand gripping the wet rail, the empty left sleeve of my uniform flapping in the April breeze.
And then my wife’s arm around my neck, her other arm cradling our ten-week old son. Her lips were warm, softer than I remembered, like velvet against my ear. “Welcome home, Joe,” she whispered. I moved back just enough to focus: wet, tangled hair curling around her pale face like dark ivy, emerald eyes rich with curious light, one brow always endearingly higher than the other. Gina was half Italian, half Irish – often a volatile mix.
She held up the baby for me. It gurgled along with the chorus of rain, lips moving in amoeba fashion, gazing up at me skeptically. Struggling with a half-smile, I pressed a forefinger against its stomach.
“Hi there, Chad,” I said.
He shifted his blue eyes back to his mother for verification. Apparently, I passed, for the lips formed into a tentative smile.
“He’s got your eyes,” she said. She toyed with a dark tuft of newly-hatched hair at the back of his head. “And my hair.” She smiled with that shyness that, in the beginning, had rocked me like a truck.
I was silent all the way home. Gina chattered on about the new baby, new friends. I heard little. She asked when I’d be going to Walter Reed to be fitted for a prosthesis. Coldly, I told her I didn’t know, didn’t even know if I wanted one. After a moment, she wondered aloud if they could give me an attitude adjustment at the same time. Turning into the driveway of our small ranch, she suggested a welcome home party. Discussion on this point was brevity itself: “No,” I said. She said fine, but told me not to expect her attendance at my pity party. And so it went.
Later, I peeked in on Chad, awake in his crib. But I wasn’t seeing my son; I was mesmerized by the gray shadows within his eyes, swirling like smoke rising from ruins into the sky. Baghdad blue. I was still there, a prisoner of the images that haunted me.
For weeks, I showed little interest in my wife or son. I assumed a civil manner, a pretense which Gina, unsuccessfully, tried to penetrate. Despite her occasional outbursts, she never gave up reaching out to me, but I didn’t respond. I paced around the house for no reason, drank too much. I visited old friends leading normal lives which only made me feel worse.
There were cold sweats at night from technicolor nightmares: rocket-propelled grenades exploding; house-to-house firefights; the surreal carnage of a suicide attack; the charred corpses of children; the slow-motion horror of the landmine that took away our humvee, my left arm, and my best friend, Tim. And the guilt: shooting two suspects in the back as they fled, how troubled I was by how good it had felt; a bullet of mine ricocheting off a wall and just missing a small boy, his mother wailing and pointing at me.
Like unwanted companions, depression and anxiety followed me wherever I went. I was edgy in traffic, anxious in crowds, uncomfortable around strangers.
Still Gina tried. One morning, she pointed out the kitchen window. “Oh Joe, look! Calvin’s back.” Calvin was a cardinal who had seemingly adopted us. Gina had come up with the name. I looked out and, sure enough, there he was: impossibly red against a lingering smudge of snow, twittering and showing off his wings. Gina looked up at me hopefully – maybe Calvin could set off a spark. He didn’t.
Later: “Maybe I should go see a shrink,” I said.
She was rocking the baby on the bed and never looked up. I was becoming an outsider.
“Save your money, Joe, and go talk to Tony.”
So I did. Tony had become a surrogate father of sorts after my parents were killed in a car accident seven years ago. Tony’s Pizzeria had been an institution in our town for as long as I could remember. I got there at four when things would be slow. The place hadn’t changed: cozy booths dressed in red-checked tablecloths, drip-candles in Chianti bottles and, of course, Buddy, Tony’s old basset hound who patrolled the perimeter. It was the kind of place that, should you exit out the rear, you just might trip over Lady and the Tramp.
Tony spotted me right away as I came in, greeting me with his customary Italian schmooze-fest: arms open, head cocked in happy surprise. “Joe, where you been?” Tony looked a bit older, a bit grayer, but the brown eyes were as lively as ever. After a long look, his smile collapsed; his hug was tighter, lasted longer. Over a beer, I spilled everything. He was a good listener.
“Joe, listen to your old Tony now. I was in Korea as you know and I see many things. Bad things. Horrible things. A friend of mine died in my arms, Joe. Some of the closest friends you ever make are during wartime. Your Tony knows this. Your friend Tim will never be gone, Joe. That’s because you got him locked up nice and safe right here.” Tony thumped his chest. “Be thankful that you had the chance to have such a friend – many people never do. My closest friend in the world was your father. He always lives right here.” He thumped his chest again. “In fact, your old Tony wouldn’t be surprised if he walked through that door right now.”
He lowered his voice. “Forget the bad things, Joe. It was war. I do some things I’m not proud of either. It’s time for the living now, Joe. I know you’re afraid. You don’t want to lose anyone else you love, but none of us know how long we have someone for. All we can do is love them while they’re here. You get that new arm and you hold your Gina that much closer, no?” He gave me a conspiratorial wink. “You think about all this now, Joe, while your Tony gets you a nice pepperoni pizza.”
Tony left for the kitchen. Buddy placed his front paws on my knee, cocked his head, and whimpered softly. Just as animals could sense earthquakes in advance, was it possible that Buddy had become alert to some seismic shift taking place within me? Something that I didn’t know yet?
Tony brought the pizza. My first bite of crust sounded like the crunch of boots over rubble and, suddenly, I pushed the pizza away and buried my face in my arm. The tears came fast and furious. Tony came by and placed a hand briefly on one of my shaking shoulders. “That’s it, Joe, he said. “You have a good cry now.” A member of a combat stress-control team had once told me to expect such a breakdown but that it would come unexpectedly.
Afterward, I sat back up. Tony came back and sat down. “Everyone hungry now?” Buddy barked in the affirmative. The three of us ate every crumb.
Tony patted his stomach. “How about a little song now, huh?”
I smiled. “Why not,” I said and Tony got up and slid in beside me. He placed an arm around my shoulder and we launched into our little song and dance act we’d do sometimes. Heads together, we sang:
When the moon hits your eye
Like a big pizza pie
That’s amore!
Buddy bayed along as best he could. For the middle section, we held up our invisible little bells between thumb and forefinger.
Ting-aling-a-ling, ting-aling-a-ling, ting-aling-a-ling
I got up. It was finally time to go home. I hugged Tony one more time, scratched Buddy behind the ears.
“You no longer be a stranger now, huh?” Tony asked. I nodded.
Outside, it was raining again. But this time I knew it wouldn’t last forever. Sometimes we are fortunate enough to experience moments of absolute purity, so singular that they are rarely forgotten. One of those moments was in the making, filling quickly with redemption and reconciliation. And surrender.
Driving back, I spotted an old woman selling flowers at a roadside stand. She wore a big, floppy red hat that flapped in the wind; it reminded me oddly of Calvin. I got out, dancing my way toward her around the puddles. In the rising orchestration of wind and water, I felt something else emerge, something I hadn’t felt in a long time: joy. I told the woman that I liked her hat, and then bought flowers for Gina. White roses.
And then my wife’s arm around my neck, her other arm cradling our ten-week old son. Her lips were warm, softer than I remembered, like velvet against my ear. “Welcome home, Joe,” she whispered. I moved back just enough to focus: wet, tangled hair curling around her pale face like dark ivy, emerald eyes rich with curious light, one brow always endearingly higher than the other. Gina was half Italian, half Irish – often a volatile mix.
She held up the baby for me. It gurgled along with the chorus of rain, lips moving in amoeba fashion, gazing up at me skeptically. Struggling with a half-smile, I pressed a forefinger against its stomach.
“Hi there, Chad,” I said.
He shifted his blue eyes back to his mother for verification. Apparently, I passed, for the lips formed into a tentative smile.
“He’s got your eyes,” she said. She toyed with a dark tuft of newly-hatched hair at the back of his head. “And my hair.” She smiled with that shyness that, in the beginning, had rocked me like a truck.
I was silent all the way home. Gina chattered on about the new baby, new friends. I heard little. She asked when I’d be going to Walter Reed to be fitted for a prosthesis. Coldly, I told her I didn’t know, didn’t even know if I wanted one. After a moment, she wondered aloud if they could give me an attitude adjustment at the same time. Turning into the driveway of our small ranch, she suggested a welcome home party. Discussion on this point was brevity itself: “No,” I said. She said fine, but told me not to expect her attendance at my pity party. And so it went.
Later, I peeked in on Chad, awake in his crib. But I wasn’t seeing my son; I was mesmerized by the gray shadows within his eyes, swirling like smoke rising from ruins into the sky. Baghdad blue. I was still there, a prisoner of the images that haunted me.
For weeks, I showed little interest in my wife or son. I assumed a civil manner, a pretense which Gina, unsuccessfully, tried to penetrate. Despite her occasional outbursts, she never gave up reaching out to me, but I didn’t respond. I paced around the house for no reason, drank too much. I visited old friends leading normal lives which only made me feel worse.
There were cold sweats at night from technicolor nightmares: rocket-propelled grenades exploding; house-to-house firefights; the surreal carnage of a suicide attack; the charred corpses of children; the slow-motion horror of the landmine that took away our humvee, my left arm, and my best friend, Tim. And the guilt: shooting two suspects in the back as they fled, how troubled I was by how good it had felt; a bullet of mine ricocheting off a wall and just missing a small boy, his mother wailing and pointing at me.
Like unwanted companions, depression and anxiety followed me wherever I went. I was edgy in traffic, anxious in crowds, uncomfortable around strangers.
Still Gina tried. One morning, she pointed out the kitchen window. “Oh Joe, look! Calvin’s back.” Calvin was a cardinal who had seemingly adopted us. Gina had come up with the name. I looked out and, sure enough, there he was: impossibly red against a lingering smudge of snow, twittering and showing off his wings. Gina looked up at me hopefully – maybe Calvin could set off a spark. He didn’t.
Later: “Maybe I should go see a shrink,” I said.
She was rocking the baby on the bed and never looked up. I was becoming an outsider.
“Save your money, Joe, and go talk to Tony.”
So I did. Tony had become a surrogate father of sorts after my parents were killed in a car accident seven years ago. Tony’s Pizzeria had been an institution in our town for as long as I could remember. I got there at four when things would be slow. The place hadn’t changed: cozy booths dressed in red-checked tablecloths, drip-candles in Chianti bottles and, of course, Buddy, Tony’s old basset hound who patrolled the perimeter. It was the kind of place that, should you exit out the rear, you just might trip over Lady and the Tramp.
Tony spotted me right away as I came in, greeting me with his customary Italian schmooze-fest: arms open, head cocked in happy surprise. “Joe, where you been?” Tony looked a bit older, a bit grayer, but the brown eyes were as lively as ever. After a long look, his smile collapsed; his hug was tighter, lasted longer. Over a beer, I spilled everything. He was a good listener.
“Joe, listen to your old Tony now. I was in Korea as you know and I see many things. Bad things. Horrible things. A friend of mine died in my arms, Joe. Some of the closest friends you ever make are during wartime. Your Tony knows this. Your friend Tim will never be gone, Joe. That’s because you got him locked up nice and safe right here.” Tony thumped his chest. “Be thankful that you had the chance to have such a friend – many people never do. My closest friend in the world was your father. He always lives right here.” He thumped his chest again. “In fact, your old Tony wouldn’t be surprised if he walked through that door right now.”
He lowered his voice. “Forget the bad things, Joe. It was war. I do some things I’m not proud of either. It’s time for the living now, Joe. I know you’re afraid. You don’t want to lose anyone else you love, but none of us know how long we have someone for. All we can do is love them while they’re here. You get that new arm and you hold your Gina that much closer, no?” He gave me a conspiratorial wink. “You think about all this now, Joe, while your Tony gets you a nice pepperoni pizza.”
Tony left for the kitchen. Buddy placed his front paws on my knee, cocked his head, and whimpered softly. Just as animals could sense earthquakes in advance, was it possible that Buddy had become alert to some seismic shift taking place within me? Something that I didn’t know yet?
Tony brought the pizza. My first bite of crust sounded like the crunch of boots over rubble and, suddenly, I pushed the pizza away and buried my face in my arm. The tears came fast and furious. Tony came by and placed a hand briefly on one of my shaking shoulders. “That’s it, Joe, he said. “You have a good cry now.” A member of a combat stress-control team had once told me to expect such a breakdown but that it would come unexpectedly.
Afterward, I sat back up. Tony came back and sat down. “Everyone hungry now?” Buddy barked in the affirmative. The three of us ate every crumb.
Tony patted his stomach. “How about a little song now, huh?”
I smiled. “Why not,” I said and Tony got up and slid in beside me. He placed an arm around my shoulder and we launched into our little song and dance act we’d do sometimes. Heads together, we sang:
When the moon hits your eye
Like a big pizza pie
That’s amore!
Buddy bayed along as best he could. For the middle section, we held up our invisible little bells between thumb and forefinger.
Ting-aling-a-ling, ting-aling-a-ling, ting-aling-a-ling
I got up. It was finally time to go home. I hugged Tony one more time, scratched Buddy behind the ears.
“You no longer be a stranger now, huh?” Tony asked. I nodded.
Outside, it was raining again. But this time I knew it wouldn’t last forever. Sometimes we are fortunate enough to experience moments of absolute purity, so singular that they are rarely forgotten. One of those moments was in the making, filling quickly with redemption and reconciliation. And surrender.
Driving back, I spotted an old woman selling flowers at a roadside stand. She wore a big, floppy red hat that flapped in the wind; it reminded me oddly of Calvin. I got out, dancing my way toward her around the puddles. In the rising orchestration of wind and water, I felt something else emerge, something I hadn’t felt in a long time: joy. I told the woman that I liked her hat, and then bought flowers for Gina. White roses.
