Chapter 15
Faces Along The Way
Blanche
The warm rays of the spring sunlight weep through the trees along Euclid Avenue, and a slight wind brushes the poplar blossoms across the sidewalk. The dancing shadows revive Blanche Wilson's memories of the distant past as she looks through her sitting room window, standing exactly where she was on the day Charles came home from The Great War. She can see him struggling up the front steps and the warm, loving look that came over him the moment he saw Loren for the first time. She looks off into the dining room and remembers all those nights when Loren would be there, diligently studying his flight school manuals, and for a moment, her eyes rest on the small table in the foyer, beckoning her memories decades later to that evening when Randall Coleman received his draft notice.
Two of her roomers are still in the kitchen, sipping their coffee and listening to something on the radio about today being Memorial Day, but the passing years have diminished the memories of all those who have been lost in the 4 corners of the world to preserve the freedom that some have chosen to pervert in thoughtless protests against those who have brought the same proud tradition to what has been an admittedly poorly directed war in Vietnam.
She looks at her watch and sees she has only has 10 minutes to get to the bus stop. As many times as she has ridden the 4 North Clarendon line over the years, she has never transferred to the Clairmont line, which Ellie Simpson told her will take her straight to the VA Hospital. That's where Randall Coleman is now. He's been there since the evening he was supposed to come to the boarding house for supper. The doctors aren't exactly sure what the nature of his illness is, and all he will say is that he has trouble breathing due to a burning feeling in his lungs. Those times he's called her from the hospital have given her such a warm feeling.
Euclid Avenue is quiet, and there are more cars than usual parked along the street. People in boarding houses aren't the type to have anything special to do on holidays. There are only a few on the bus, and the driver seems annoyed when she asks him 3 times where she should get off to transfer to the Clairmont line.
As long as Blanche has been in Atlanta, she has never been in some of the neighborhoods on the Clairmont line. Along the route, there are 30 or more houses on little streets, all having small yards and looking almost exactly the same. She thinks the bus is going around in circles and that the driver is lost himself, passing over the same streets over and over again until finally, they move into a neighborhood with newer houses and larger yards that all have azaleas and some especially green sort of grass. She's captivated by it all until she hears the driver calling to her, "Lady....Lady. Up there on the right."
The arthritis pain is sharp, and she has trouble getting off the bus, but as she starts walking towards the blue and tan building of some 10 stories, many memories of the past turn her thoughts away from herself. There is an over-size American flag on the flagpole close to the building and smaller flags all along the winding walkway leading to the front entrance. The driver had said something about their putting out all the flags during certain holidays like Memorial Day. The reassuring sight brings a smile to her face, which quickly disappears when a man and woman with tears in their eyes pass by her.
The lobby is different than most hospitals. Quite a few patients with what must be relatives are sitting here and there and quietly talking. Somehow, she expected the patients to be older, but they all seem so young. A reflective feeling seizes her when she realizes probably none of their parents were even born when Charles came home from The Great War. She sees a short, plump man in a blue, cotton uniform and asks, "How do I get to room 5457?"
With a peculiar look, typical to so many "civil servants," he says, "It's on the 5th floor."
It takes the elevator forever to come, but the instant the door opens, the first thing she sees is a nurse, pushing a wheelchair carrying a man with both legs missing through the elevator door and down the hallway. Both of them have a rather blank look on their faces. She wonders where the nurse is taking him - probably not to meet any of is love ones. He doesn't look happy at all, but as though he just wants to be left alone. Over the years, she's seen that same expression on the faces of some of her roomers. Life has a way of being so cruel to some, and they all have that same look.
As the elevator doors open on the 5th floor, she's surprised that the hallway leading to the rooms is completely vacant. Adjusting her glasses, she looks at the numbers on the doors and slowly walks towards 5457, glancing in each room as she passes it. Most of the patients are in their beds and much older than those in the lobby. None have any visitors and all have the same devoid stare on their faces. She wonders in how many campaigns they served and if the fear of death is less menacing in knowing they have truly met their responsibilities in the honored military history of the United States.
Strange and confusing perceptions compete in her mind. That man there - she can tell by the sheet drawn over his body that he has only 1 leg. The man sitting in the wheelchair, looking at the cars pass along Clairmont Avenue. He's not a handsome man by any means with his ruddy complexion and most of his hair gone, but his face looks rather composed. What thoughts are in his mind at this moment? Possibly, memories of soldiers he knew how many years ago - those he loved as friends and saw die.
There's something behind her. She moves to one side and gazes at the wheeled stretcher bearing the frail body of a man with a sheet completely drawn over him. Instantly, she recalls that Charles had told her the first thing he remembered when he regained consciousness in a French hospital all those years ago was seeing the body of a fellow soldier, fallen in battle, being wheeled down a dimly lit hallway. She stands there a moment and watches until the stretcher turns the corner, wondering how many years ago that man received his wounds. How was his life changed? Had he been like her brother and an invalid for much of his life? On this, the last day of his life, was he proud or embittered? See can see Charles, lying there in the downstairs bedroom, month after month, feeling his life slowly ebbing away.
For a moment, she loses all comprehension of where she is as all those things traverse her mind. The country has changed so much since those in this hallowed place were in their youths, had all their limbs and so many hopes, whether straightforward or foolhardy, for their lives, just as everyone does. It's almost as though she were awakening from a troubled sleep when she sees Randall's name on a small card on Room 5457. Hesitantly, she pushes the door open and sees him lying there on his bed with the sheet drawn up to his waist, where his hands are folded. His hair is shorter than she recalls, and the strict look on his face no longer suggests the youthful indifference from the time he was in the boarding house. The Combat Infantryman Badge is on the table at the side of his bed.
A smile comes to his face the instant he sees her. He props himself up, extends his hand, and in a voice that she would never have recognized, says, "Miss Blanche, I'm so glad to see you. I can't tell you how many times I've thought of you....and Euclid Avenue."
She sits in the chair beside his bed and clasps his hand. Hearing him say that brings such a warm feeling to her - one which can only come from the true friendship she feels just from looking into his eyes as she says, "I've thought of you many times myself, almost every time I look at the picture of Loren in the sitting room."
During the time he was in the boarding house, they were separated by generations, but he always did remind her so much of Loren and often caused her to think of the son she wanted but never had. Sometimes, it was a warm and thoughtful sentiment, but more often, it was one of punishing denial in knowing life had chosen to disallow her the happiness she always wanted.
She feels so at ease. The barriers of the generations do not exist. They talk for some few minutes, and she begins to read a noticeable change since she last saw him. Before, he was constantly speaking of his own career and the ideas he had for developing what he called "a progressive approach to investors' future." He always seemed so ambitious but now seems much more reserved and hasn't mentioned himself at all, but is asking about all those people along Euclid Avenue. She hadn't expected him to remember any of them. The strangest expression comes to his face when she mentions Jamie Williamson has returned after all those years. It's a consoling smile and not at all like the amused smirk that night she first told him about Jamie.
She looks around the room and sees a folder containing a number of rather official-looking papers and asks, "Is that your medical records?"
Immediately, his spirit changes. His smile disappears, and he says, "That's my Officer Candidate School confirmation." He hesitates a moment and with a trace of dejection, adds, "I should say it was my confirmation."
Neither of them speaks for a moment. He lies back down and begins to stare at the ceiling, just like the men in the other rooms. She hadn't thought of Randall as anything like the others on the floor and thought they were perhaps career men, now left with only fading memories of their service time and possibly embitterment that the world has all but forgotten them and has sunk to the point where some are burning American flags and their draft cards in protest against many things they haven't tried to understand. But now, that very same dark mask is on Randall's face - that same look of sadness and helplessness she's seen on the faces of so many of those lonely people in the boarding house over how many years. She is lost for words, because she knows circumstances he could not control have brought an unwelcome and undeserved change in his life. Hesitantly, she says, "I thought you would be eager to get back to your firm."
For a moment, his eyes remain fixed on the ceiling before looking at her with something of a smile and shaking his head. "These last 2 years have opened my eyes to many things. I really can't see myself back in that sort of life."
Instantly, she remembers the letter Loren had written on the night before his last mission. She's read it hundreds of times, but the first time she read it, she knew he had changed. Before he went into the service, he was very much an individualist, always setting his own goals and working towards them without asking help from anyone, but the service seemed to have opened a whole new dimension of life to him. Flying was no longer nearly as important, and he seemed preoccupied with many things he never spoke of before leaving Euclid Avenue. His letters had gradually turned from himself and began to dwell on his childhood, his mother and father and Grace, that young woman from down the street who was so much in love with him. She had been very much in his thoughts on the last night of his life. As though it were yesterday, she remembers the day when she and Mary received his last letter, and Grace was so happy when Mary told her how Loren had mentioned he would be writing her a special letter the next evening, but the letter never came.
Blanche looks at him and says, "You remind me so much of Loren. When you get out of here, what will you do?"
His blank face yields to one of deliberation, and he slowly says, "I was going to re-enlist and go to Officer Candidate School, but I think I'm about to get a medical discharge."
The surprise on Blanche's face is obvious. She starts to speak but the words are not there. All she can think of is the disheartened look on his face that night when he stood in her foyer, holding his draft notice. Finally, she leans back and asks, "What made you decide on that?"
He stares out the window a few moments before saying, "Some people I knew in Vietnam." Now it is he who is captivated with his memories. Torturous images of George Haines and Lieutenant Hardin being taken prisoner by the VC dart through his mind. He remembers how sorry he felt for Captain Sain the first time he saw him and how he immediately considered him a failure to have wasted his life as a career soldier. He can see him sitting in that filthy Vietnamese village with tears streaking down his face, looking out into the field at Sergeant Dorsey, dead on the swinging man trap. He can see him standing there in the compound with Lieutenant Daniels at is side on his last day in the company, waiting for the helicopter to take him to Saigon. He felt sorry for him then as well, but it was such a different sort of emotion.
At first, Randall had an underlying fear of Dorsey. He always felt Dorsey hated him because he was white and had known many more opportunities than he or most any other black man. As the months passed, the fear began to wane away, not especially because he came to understand Dorsey but because he was only then finding certain revealing things in his own life. His career in the financial world was no longer so important. He found himself esteeming people like Garnett Sain who seemed driven by something other than the constant need to be recognized and have his success measured by what, more times than not, is a pretentious standing in some sort of artificial professional society completely devoid of the most basic human emotions.
How many times over the past months has he remembered the smile that came to Dorsey's face, only moments before he was killed. Randall hadn't realized until that very moment he could have truly been his friend.
There was compassion in Sergeant Bryant's heart that he had not known until he saw him screaming at the platoon to stop firing as he ran through that squalid Vietnamese village towards the horrorstruck women and children. Life and the real world had taught all those men, and now him, feeling simply did not exist in the rather narrow domain that had rendered the man he was.
Randall
As Blanche leaves the room, she looks back and smiles with that same childlike wave he always thought was so simplistic when he was in the boarding house. Now, it brings a warm and loving sensation to him that, at least for the moment, rescinds the burning pain in his lungs. He looks about the empty room for a moment before standing and walking to the window where he stands, staring across the distant Atlanta skyline, trying to place the Imperial Hotel. He can vividly recall the large white letters against the black background across the top of the building and the flashing neon sign of the Domino Lounge on the first floor. He can see Evette's eyes, sparkling in the flickering candle light in the smoke-filed room that was her life. Several times, he wanted to ask her what she hoped to do in the future but never did, because he feared she would think he was demeaning her and all the stripers that in a curious sort of way, brought a demented solace to any man with $50 and a motel room.
The first day he was at Fort McPherson, he called the Domino Lounge. Some of the same table waitresses are still there and told him Evette is working the the Body Shop, another strip joint a few blocks away. He was going there to see her the very night he checked into the VA Hospital. He coughs, and the burning pain in his lungs seems worse that ever, but there a far greater hurt in his heart as he thinks of Evette - someone he had at first regarded only as a token of amusement, a stripper and possibly even a prostitute. Then, he always had trouble in knowing exactly what to say or expect from her, and so wishes he could meet her all over again, knowing what he has learned about life. There's so much he could say to her, but not the way he is now. He glances down at the hospital pajamas, loosely hanging on his body, as a searing recognition pierces into his heart. He sits on the side of the bed, coughing and jarring the liquid in his throat and lungs. There is a nauseous feeling in his stomach, partly from illness, which the doctors still have not diagnosed, but largely because he feels such a sense of loss in knowing that Evette might well have needed him more than he stopped to realize. He wonders if he will ever regain his physical strength or the masculine self-esteem he once possessed in knowing women were attracted to him and is tormented in the thought that he has lost that dimension of his life forever. He reaches out and rugs his fingers across his Combat Infantryman Badge and feels strangely consoled by the understanding of life he now has. He never thought he would find himself in any place such as Vietnam.
Blanche
Blanche has such a hollow feeling as she walks back down the hospital sidewalk towards Clairmont Avenue. He mind is filled with all those torturous images of watching her brother die in the years after The Great War, and she so hopes Randall will be spared the same agonizing fate. She recalls that obsessing feeling of emptiness that had ruled her the day she and Mary learned Loren's plane had gone down over Germany. The distant stare in those men's faces back there in the hospital is engrained in her mind.
The warm spring sunlight beams down on her as she stands at the bus stop and listens to the gentle flapping of the row of American flags along the hospital walkway. The holiday traffic is light, and there is only one car stopped at the traffic light in front of the bus stop. It's a late model, light gray convertible with black interior. The man and woman in the front seat, from all outward appearance, are the model of happiness. They appear very successful, and there love for one another is unmistakable as they look in the back seat at the cute little boy wearing light blue pants with suspenders and a white t-shirt. The little boy looks at Blanche and waves before staring at the hospital building. Something of a puzzled expression comes over his innocent face as he props himself between his parents and asks, "Daddy, what's that building?"
Just as the light changes, his father responds, "I don't know. I think it's some sort of government building."
Blanche Wilson walks down Euclid Avenue, just as she has done so many times over her 73 years. Seeing Randall surprised her in several ways. He didn't look well and had the appearance of a man much older than his 27 years, but hearing him say he was considering making the Army his career was literally the last thing she expected. She thought it best not to dwell on the nature of his illness, especially since he didn't seem to know himself and was clearly reluctant to discuss it. He wasn't the same man she knew from the boarding house, seemed at peace with himself but at the same time, was worried about his illness.
The old houses and long shadows in the fading afternoon sun render a reflective, melancholy feeling as she looks back over her own life, thinking it rather uneventful compared to some who once lived on Euclid Avenue, which now remains only a tarnished monument to a bygone time, much the same as those poor souls at the VA Hospital - forgotten remnants of so many gallant campaigns who have lapsed from the memory and are all but lost on the pages of history.
She looks at the old Williamson house and is struck by a heartwarming feeling when she sees Bertha sitting there in the back yard. He white dress with the light blue flower design looks new, and she no longer wears that hat pulled down over her eyes. He hair is neatly combed, and her face conveys a contentment lost for all those years when she was so terribly alone, not knowing where her son was or if she would ever see him again. Jamie is on the back porch, replacing the screen door. He's already made quite a few improvements, and the house looks so much better. They both wave and smile. Blanche feels so happy, because she knows that whatever time Bertha has remaining in her life will be content.
The warm breeze makes a docile whisking sound as it stirs through the old trees. The granite wall in front of Blanche's house is a dingy gray and no longer glistens as the flickering sunlight dances across it. She looks back down Euclid Avenue but doesn't see the barren yards or the ivy growing over the foundations of the deteriorating houses. Where are they now - all those boys who once lived along this street and served in World War I, World War II and Korea? What was it that began in the Korean Conflict when war somehow became a political instrument by which men's lives were pawned in a guessing game governed by expediency and public opinion? She can't imagine pain she would feel, if she had a son, the most precious mark of her life, who was languishing in a North Vietnamese prison, as many are at this very moment.
It's taken her a complete lifetime to form a consoling understanding of life, as she placidly looks back over all those years. On this Memorial Day, she is solaced at the thought that all over this wonderful country, there families such as those who once lived along Euclid Avenue, who remember the veterans and continue to love them, because she knows at last all those precious memories will never be lost to the passing years - not even to death.
She braces herself on her walking cane, carefully taking one of her front steps at the time. She looks at the white thrift on each side of her walkway and at the purple asters just beginning to bloom under the front banisters. Her thoughts are not of this day, but reach back to a time that she and many can never forget. She can hear the voices of the children as though they were still playing in the Moreland School yard. She remembers those warm summer evenings during World War II when the news reports from the radio in nearly every house drifted down Euclid Avenue, but that was such a long, long time ago.