A Question of Manhood Read online

  A Question of Manhood

  Books by Robin Reardon

  A SECRET EDGE

  THINKING STRAIGHT

  A QUESTION OF MANHOOD

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.

  A Question of Manhood

  Robin Reardon

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Only the dead have seen the end of war.

  —Plato

  Contents

  Part I: Good Son, Good Soldier

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Part II: A Question of Manhood

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Part III: Initiation

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  A Reading Group Guide

  Discussion Questions

  PART 1

  Good Son, Good Soldier

  Chapter 1

  Chris will be home tomorrow!

  It was like a silent litany all through the house that November Tuesday, last fall. Mom was making herself a little crazy getting the house ready. It wasn’t like the place needed any extra attention, either. I mean, it’s what she does. Keep house. And she does it great. I think she just didn’t know what else to do with herself. I felt the same way, and I almost wished she’d make me do some of it. I knew better than to volunteer, though; I wouldn’t wanna get stuck forever with any household chores that didn’t already have my name on them.

  What I really wanted was something I could do to make myself more presentable, to make me feel a little less like the kid brother who wasn’t old enough to do anything useful. Even though I was sixteen, I had a feeling there would seem to be more than the three years between us when I finally laid eyes on Chris.

  I had this scene in my head of what it would be like when he walked through the front door. Chris would drop his duffle and brace himself for the onslaught of Mom’s hug. She’d put her whole body into it—nearly squeeze him to death. Finally she’d let go, dabbing with a tissue at her eyes, and Dad would step forward. First he’d just look, taking in the short golden hair, the two days of beard growth, the broad shoulders, the lean body proudly held. And then he’d grin. He’d take Chris’s right hand in his and clap him on the shoulder with the other.

  “Son, just look at you! You’ve become quite the man. I’m so proud of you.” That’s how he’d open.

  Chris would say something like, “Yeah, well, you were right, Dad. There’s not much that’ll make a man out of you faster than the army.”

  “Did I say that?”

  “You did.”

  “Guess I was right, then. You want a beer?”

  I ran through that scene in my head so many times, in the days before he arrived. The words changed a little from one take to the next, or maybe Chris had shaved, and in one take Dad actually told Chris he could start calling Dad by his first name, Andy. One thing that didn’t change? It always played out with me off to the side, worried that I was gonna look like some needy little kid if I wanted to be noticed. If I wanted a hug or even a handshake, too.

  Maybe the litany itself was silent, but Dad didn’t stop talking about Chris coming home from Vietnam. He’d been on the phone with all his cronies.

  “That’s right! My boy is coming home for some leave. He deserves it, too!” Almost made it sound like he had just one boy. And it wasn’t me.

  But I understood how important it was. Chris had been over there for months now, and almost every day it had occurred to me that he might not come home. Ever. That he might step on a land mine, or a punji stick hidden in a hole in the jungle floor, or even get stabbed by some double agent pretending to be a whore while Chris thinks he’s just having some boom boom time with her. His letters didn’t talk about this stuff, because he knew Mom would just about memorize them. But the war had been going on for years by that time, November of 1972, and I’d heard a few things from brothers of friends, and from the newspapers. So just the fact that Chris was still alive was something to celebrate. And when Mom told me after school one day that he was coming home on leave—well, let’s just say I had to go someplace alone. I got on my bicycle and rode and rode until I was exhausted. Then I slowed down but kept going until I was far enough into the remnants of what used to be farmland to be sure no one could hear me when I stood in the middle of a field, nearly invisible in the dusk, and hooted and hollered and howled. It was freezing cold—early November in our little corner of southwestern Pennsylvania—but I didn’t care.

  I started imagining what he’d be like as soon as I was back on my bike heading home. Would he have gotten taller? More muscles? Grown a beard? Would he have changed? I know some guys have come back from ’Nam a wreck. Shell-shocked, having nightmares, drinking like fish to forget the shit that happened to them over there. I didn’t want to think what Chris would go through if he’d been in the position of having to kill civilians, especially women or kids. I couldn’t even picture him killing enemy soldiers.

  When I got back from my solo journey I was surprised by the reaction from my folks. I hadn’t really expected anyone would notice that I’d left, but they had, and they weren’t happy.

  Mom met me at the door, her round face all squeezed into worry lines under her sort-of-blond hair. “Oh, Paul! Where have you been? We were worried sick.”

  Dad didn’t even let me reply. “Fine thing you’ve done, getting everyone upset when we’ve finally had some good news!”

  “I was just out riding my bike. Jeez!” But by the time they gave me enough space to say this into, they’d both turned away again, Mom to finish getting dinner ready and Dad back to his paper to wait for the meal.

  At the table we talked about Chris, of course. Mom kept reciting phrases from his letters, and Dad was obviously trying not to sound like he was looking forward to war stories. At one point I asked, “Dad, didn’t they have any wars for you to fight in?”

  He got this stony kind of look on his face, picked up his pipe—beside him on the table, but not lit at the moment—and set it down again. “They did, Paul. Korea. I tried to sign up, but they didn’t like my leg.”

  Right. It’s funny, you know? You tend to forget, when you see someone all the time and they limp all the time, that there’s anything unusual in that. Dad was born with one leg about two inches shorter than the other, and he couldn’t run very well. Threw his hip bones off, too, so he couldn’t do long marches. Plus, he makes you forget; he’s a real man about it and never complains. The only complaint I ever heard was that he wasn’t able to be a cop, which he’d really wanted to do. Instead he owns a pet supply store.

  Dad’s big into dogs. I’ve always thought that if Mom weren’t allergic to animals, Dad would’ve had a pet store, not just a pet supply store. He does sell birds, mice, rats, fish, and some amphibians, but it’s dogs he really likes. But at least he gets to see the dogs people bring into the store, and he allows it as long as they’re on a leash. And Dad loves it. He likes to talk to the dogs, play with their ears, and he says the owners really warm up when he asks them about their dogs. The next time he sees the people, he always remembers their dog’s name. He thinks it makes customers buy more stuff, or at least keeps them coming back to his store. He’s probably right.

  The fact that he’s not a cop is actually just fine by my mom, who much prefers to think of him at the store rather than chasing down criminals. He’s been successful, too—had to move the store twice in the last twelve years into
bigger spaces as the Pittsburgh sprawl grew. There’s talk lately of a big chain buying him out, but he’s only forty and says he isn’t ready to retire. Besides, he always wanted Chris and me, or at least one of us, to take over the business. The danger of hanging on, though, is that the chain could open a competing store and undersell him until he closes. Then he’d lose everything.

  I can’t say I really want to take over the business. I had always expected Chris would do it; he’d always been the reliable one.

  After dinner, in my room trying to focus on homework, all I could think of was Chris coming home. I stared out the window over my desk half the time, my eyes following the cars that went by the front of the house. Every time I started worrying that he’d be totally changed, some memory from when we were younger would push it out. Growing up? I wasn’t just the pest kid brother. Well, at least not all the time. It was like he wanted me to know where he’d stepped wrong so I could make better decisions. Sometimes he even made them for me.

  Imagine this scene. My best friend when I was eleven, Charlie, had borrowed my baseball glove. His folks couldn’t afford to buy him one. Or so they said. Looking back, I think they had the money, but his dad spent it on booze. Anyway, he lost it. Or, he didn’t lose it, actually; his neighbor’s dog chewed the hell out of it, but he told me he lost it.

  Furious, I marched right over to his house and searched all over the yard, in the basement, in Charlie’s room, every place that might conceivably hide a glove. I didn’t know whether to believe him that it was misplaced somewhere or whether he might be hiding it to keep it. I mean, you don’t just lose a baseball glove; it’s too big. And too smelly. But I couldn’t find it.

  Just before I stamped off home again I said, “You better find it, or else!”

  I was steaming mad when I got home and was all ready to go to my folks about it. Chris saw me first, though. He was reading some book, lying on the couch.

  He looked up as I slammed the door behind me. “Hey, Paul, what’s that for?”

  “Nothing!”

  “You’re madder than a wet cat. Get over here.” He swung his legs off the couch and sat up.

  “It’s Charlie. He stole my glove!”

  “The fielder’s glove you got for your birthday?”

  “What other glove do I have?”

  “Are you sure he stole it? What did he say?”

  “He borrowed it two weeks ago, and I’ve been asking for it back. I called him a little while ago, and he says he lost it.”

  “Maybe he did. Did he—”

  “Chris, you don’t just lose a glove.”

  “Did he offer to replace it?”

  “Ha. He couldn’t afford one for himself. How’s he gonna do that?”

  “Well, let’s just think about this a minute. Charlie’s your best friend, right? And if you didn’t have good reason to trust him in the first place, would you have let him borrow it?”

  I was trying to stay mad, but my steam was petering out. “Well…no.”

  “So why don’t you trust him now? And why should he lie to you? His thinking is probably more like, if you let him use it once, you’d let him use it again. And wouldn’t that be better than losing you as a friend? Why take that chance? Besides, if he’s lying and he still has it, he’d never be able to use it anyplace you could see it.”

  I wasn’t ready to give in. “How do I know what he’s thinking? People change, y’know. Maybe he figured it was the only way he’d ever have one of his own. Take someone else’s.”

  “But it doesn’t make a lot of sense, and it isn’t something that sounds like Charlie. Think of it another way: What if he weren’t your friend anymore?”

  I blinked. Charlie? Not my friend? “Well…he won’t be, if he doesn’t replace that glove.”

  “So that glove was worth more than being friends?”

  This stumped me, but only for a few seconds. “All I know is I want that glove back.” I was afraid Chris was going to talk me out of my righteous anger, and I didn’t want to be talked out of it. I wanted to hang on tight and yell and curse. I stomped up to my room, turned on the radio, threw myself onto the bed, and sulked.

  Later I found out that Chris went to Charlie’s and talked to him. Charlie showed him the tattered remnants that he’d managed to get away from Zodiac, the half shepherd, half Lab that lived next to him. What ended up happening was that Chris lent Charlie enough money to buy me another glove.

  I didn’t know this right away, of course. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to call Charlie, or talk to him, until he did the right thing. But when he knocked on my door a few days later and handed me a brand new fielder’s glove—well, I didn’t feel that rush of vindication that all my fury had led me to expect. I didn’t want to say, “That’s more like it.” Or “Glad to see you came to your senses.”

  I stared at Charlie, wondering where the hell he’d got the money. All I said was, “Thanks.”

  We stood there, staring at our sneakers, until he said, “Well, I should go.”

  “D’you have to?”

  So we went upstairs and played records until dinnertime.

  Two years later, just before Charlie and his mom had to move away after the divorce, to go stay with his grandparents for a while, he finally told me what had happened. He was all worried because he hadn’t been able to pay Chris back completely, and he didn’t know how he was gonna do it now.

  “Tell you what,” I said. “Whatever’s left, I’ll pay him.”

  “But that’s not fair.”

  “’Course it is. He may have paid for the glove, but you and I both benefited, right? I mean, we stayed friends. Shake?”

  “Shake.” And we hugged. We’d never done that before, and now we’d never have another chance. I never saw Charlie again, but I feel like I still have his friendship. Chris saw to that.

  A few days after Charlie told me all this, I confronted Chris. “How come you bought that glove for Charlie to give to me?”

  He chuckled. “Took you all this time to figure that out?”

  “Never mind that. He says he still owes you.”

  “He doesn’t owe me. You do.”

  “Duh. I already told him that. But why’d you do it?”

  “You were about to lose a friend. I’d been in that place once. Lost a friend over something really stupid. I vowed it would never happen again. And I didn’t want to see it happen to you.”

  “How did it happen with you?”

  He took a deep breath and closed his eyes a second. “This is really embarrassing. But maybe it will be good for you to hear. It was winter, and there’d been this huge snowstorm. The plows had pushed lots of snow to the edges of the playground. I was about the same age as you, when you lost that glove.

  “At recess, we were playing King of the Mountain. Only we had teams. I was on the same team as Dean Pendleton. You probably don’t remember him. Redheaded kid. Anyway, I was always really good at this game, climbing up the snow mountains and pushing kids on the other team back down. But this one day they had more kids than our team, and we were really struggling. I managed to claim the top, and I decided I was gonna stay there no matter what. So I was pushing at kids right, left, anybody I saw.

  “Now, as you know if you’ve ever played this, you’re supposed to help your own teammates get to the top, too. But I was just thinking, Me: I want to be on the top. At one point, Dean was clambering up—I was looking right at his bright blue wool hat—and he’d nearly made it when someone on the other team got hold of his leg from farther down. Dean looked up and called to me.”

  Chris took another breath and let it out real slow. “He was reaching out a hand, yelling at me to help him. All I could think of was that if I tried to help him, and if I couldn’t pull him away from the other kid, we could both go down. It was him or me, not us. I can still see the strain on his face. A kind of panic in his eyes.”

  He shook his head like he was throwing water off his hair and then stared down at his han
ds. “I ignored him. I looked right into his eyes like I didn’t know who he was, and I ignored him. And he was pulled farther and farther down the hill.”

  He stopped. I said, “Did you hold the top?”

  Chris looked at me. “Have you been paying attention? Yeah, I held the top. But I lost my friend.”

  So this was my brother. And for several months now, he’d been an army infantryman, a grunt, fighting the VC. He’d signed up, in fact. Put off college to go. It upset my mom a lot; she wanted him to go to college, the first one in the family who would go. And he’s smart; he would’ve gotten into a good school. But mostly what she didn’t want was for him to get hurt. Or worse. Dad was a different story. He sounded so proud, telling his friends that his son had volunteered.

  I guess I felt sort of someplace in between. I understood my dad’s pride; I felt it, too. On the other hand, lots of guys who go to ’Nam don’t come home.

  After Chris signed up, Mom started going to church alone. She had always gone, or almost every week anyway, to the Lutheran church she’d been going to since she was a little girl. It was the church she and Dad got married in, and we went as a family until I was maybe, I dunno, twelve? Anyway, at some point I started putting up a fuss, and Dad said he’d stay home with me. A few times after that Mom insisted I go with her, but eventually she gave up trying to force me. To tell you the truth, I think Dad was just as happy to stay home, read the paper, lounge around, whatever. He worked pretty much six-plus days a week, and Sunday was the only day he could sleep in and just vegetate before he started doing paperwork for the store.

  Chris kept going, though. That’s so like him, you know? I don’t even know how seriously he took it, but even if it meant nothing to him he’d go because of Mom. Chris never talked about it, although Mom would sometimes talk during Sunday dinner about something the preacher had said in his sermon. I just remember feeling glad I hadn’t had to get up early and then sit through it, on those hard wooden benches, in uncomfortable clothes, hot in summer and drafty in winter, pretending to feel all solemn and contrite and holy. What a crock, was what I thought.