I BE DAMN, Page 2

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?"