Letter Home

“So how does it feel?” she asked.

The two had, for the past twenty minutes or so, been strolling hand-in-hand almost wordlessly through a beautifully Victorian city park, legacy of the English amateur botanist-entrepreneur turned philanthropist Henry Shaw. Fingers intertwined, arms swinging sometimes madly at her infectious insistence, they soaked in the gorgeously crisp and vibrant early-spring day.  Sweet tender infant grass and sprouting daffodils gently enticed. Come, they said softly, stop and breathe in our new life, invigorate in our freshness, share in our joy; we all made it through another horrific winter. 

A young mother overtook our leisurely pace, passing us with a jogger full of identically dressed babies. Truly, when the young man looked closer, he saw only a pair of toddlers, looking like many more little rabbits in overprotective swaddles of puffy padded polyester and sherpa fleece.  He pointedly stared at their joined hands.

“Honestly, a little clammy and cold,” He confessed. “Are you nervous, or just having body temperature regulation issues? I’ve never really had a thing for sweaty-palmed girls. If I’d’ve known sooner, I think maybe you wouldn’t’ve gotten past stage two. Sorry.”

“Haha,” she mocked. “No one else here besides you thinks you’re funny.”

“I did notice you not laughing,” he said .

 “You know what I mean, now fess up,” she prodded.

“You mean like, you finally moving in permanently?” He questioned back to her. “Aside from the fact that most of my wickedly cool stuff went into storage…and well, you did  talk me into drapes, major improvement over the black-light posters duct-taped to the windows, I must admit.” 

“Seriously, deerhunter?” she asked. “I know that was your ‘first buck’ and, in my honest opinion, you are still too weirdly attached to it.”

To this he gave an obviously faux shocked wide-eyed gasp.

“I mean, just how many apartments have you lugged this poor beast to anyway?she asked. “Get over it, that mount needed to be put to rest in a basement long ago. You have to agree it was super dusty. And I was allergic to it.”

To this he slumped his shoulders with mummers exageration, hung his head, and put on  thetragic clown face. She playfully shoulder-nudged him into a stoplight they’d come upon at the far end of the park. He dropped her hand like it was on fire, and initiated an often epic battle for champion crosswalk-button-pusher.  He always won. In defeat and disappointment, she slapped his hand hard. Like the stealthy pursuer he had always willingly been at her every beck and call, he sprang quickly, captured her arms and spun her around, catching immediately behind her.

 In her ear, so close the downy hairs on her small, delicate ear brushed his lips, he whispered, “It feels like the opening chapter of a book I just can’t put down. What’s going to happen now? I’ve just started it and I love what I’ve read so far, but what now? The anticipation, the suspense, the potential; Will they win? Will they overcome every obstacle? Will they live happily ever after? I won’t be able to put this thing down ‘til the end darlin’, and it’s only dawning on me what I’ve gotten myself into with you. That’s how I feel. I feel like today it just doesn’t get any better than this. Maybe you throw in a coupla pints and it gets better, and some Chinese takeout. There, no better than that.” 

Oh, that look; those astonishingly deep brown misty pools of over-welling emotions. He knows he’s said the right thing, he’s getting his Pavlovian biscuit, a deliciously sensual kiss. And right there on Grand Boulevard, in the middle of the day, with the frenetic stutter of traffic, diners goggling through ethnic restaurant windows, tourists antiquing and pedestrians browsing secondhand storefronts; a young couple in love are scandalously resplendent in their blatant disregard for everything but, well, each other.

Untangled, they continue through the neighborhood, a gentrified turn-of-the-century streetcar business district; eclectic shops and hip eateries had popped up over the years, lending to a culturally diverse influx of burgeoning urban professionals. The local vibe was youthful respect for a proxy remembered past. They’d walked it several times before, but not much recently. There had always seemed to be new places to explore, specialty stores and snack shops, oddly kitschy boutiques and the occasional pharmacy or grocer. The nooks and crannies of the older architecture appealed to his curiously adventurous side and her reserved nature’s need to shrink into the shadows.

Today, as most of their ‘discovery reconnaissance’ days went, they would randomly pick a shop or restaurant to experience anew. When she spotted the vintage clothing store, she giggled with mirth and yanked painfully on his arm.

“How did I not see this before?” she squealed in his ear, pulling him through the door. “Is this new? Why didn’t you tell me about this? You know I love these shops, I have trunks full of clothes back at my parents’ place.”

“Yes, you may have mentioned it before, a time or two,” he said with a pronounced eye-roll. 

The shopkeeper looked up as the antique mechanical doorbell rang.

“Hullo”, he said. “Look around, Take your time.  Ten percent off everything today for St. Patty’s day, twenty if you can tell me the mitzvahs of Purim.”

She ran to the back of the store stuffed with racks of lace and crinoline and taffeta. She was, of course, an amateur seamstress, sewing a few things for herself. And as an ardent fanatic for period clothing. She picked through much to match the dreams in her head.  

They’d been there for a while, and she had not been inspired today. She saw him intrigued by something up front. She came to him, and saw him hold up a dingy olive drab army coat.

“Coat, Man’s, cotton w/r rip-stop Poplin, OG107, Class I 100 percent cotton.” he reads. “Imagine it breathes you know, in the jungle. It’s cotton and all.”

“That’s not your most endearing habit, kinda annoying actually.” she says.

“I agree, but you know I’m gonna read the whole thing anyway, so shut your pretty little pie hole and listen.”

“DSA 100-69-C-1362 Allen Overall Co., Inc. Instruction label.” He reads.

“Fascinating. I’m going over there to look at the draperies.” she says.

“No wait,” he says.  “It’s getting good. Really, you get a whole story from this label.”

He continues on reading:

“Wearing Instructions

1. Wear as outer garment in tropical areas.
2. Wear outside of trousers.
3. Front closure can be opened for ventilation and should be closed for protection against insects.
4. Sleeves are provided with adjustable cuffs to permit sleeves to be rolled up.
5. A drain hole is provided at the bottom of each pocket to allow water to drain out.
6. Coat can be hand laundered. Make all soap is thoroughly rinsed out.
7. Coat is made longer than normal in order that load carrying equipment does not cover pockets.”

“I take it back, she says. You’re not boring at all.” She yawns hugely, mouth gaping wide, eyes squinted to slits, stretching as if awakening from a VanWinkle-esque slumber.

“Come on, this jacket has history. It was probably worn by some soldier in Vietnam.

He threw it over his shoulders and snaked his lanky arms into the sleeves.

“Look it fits. How do I look?”

‘Like a hippie. Didn’t your mom tell you to get a haircut last week?”

“Every week. And a job with real shoes.” 

“I think she means not Chuck Taylors.”

“Yeah,” he says distractly. He’s been going through the pockets, patting his chest and sides and ass. He shoves his hand inside the jacket, fiddles around a bit squeezing the fabric.

“Looking for something? There’s gonna be nothing in those pockets, these thrift shop guys go through clothes like they’re trick-rolling a John.”

“Trick-rolling a JOHN?” He asks, eyebrows tilted to his hairline. “Where do you get this stuff anyway?”

“I dunno,” she says she, “I watch a lot of Law and Order.

As he holds the garment, touches it, she sees a place she’s often begun to follow, at a distance. She observes him wistfully as she waits, waits for this new significance, tugging at her heart, pulling the threads looser than they ever, waiting for this enigma to unravel and bring her closer to an unknown past. She’d seen flashes of melancholic obscurity, quickly hidden with quips of clever, loquacious slights of tongue; but the darkness was there nonetheless, like a hidden mineshaft, or a sheer cliff on a moonless night. This time, she sees the tunnel frighteningly deeper than before.  And just as secretly as the mood had crept in, he snaps out of his reverie.

“I’m like, lookin’ for weed. Man,” he says in his best southern Cal stoner drawl. “Everybody knows besides like the fuzz, soldiers get the best ganjha- Afghanistan, Nepal, Viet-Nam.”

“He switches to normal speak. “No there’s…this label has something sewn inside it. It feels like a…a…”

He looks up furtively toward the ceiling for a moment. Like those lens cleaning cloths you get with a new pair of glasses.”

“Never wore glasses…these baby browns are twenty-twenty,” she boasts.

“Here,”  he opens the jacket. “Feel the label.”

She squeezes the material. “Yeah, there’s definitely something under there. A secret spy note!”she squeals grabbing the jacket lapels and gaping into his eyes. ” Oh Bubby, you gotta buy that jacket now, we got ourselves a mystery.”

“Don’t call the Scooby gang just yet there Daphne,” he says. “Not much of a mystery once we cut out the stitching around this label.”

“C’mon, I’ll go pay. We’ll take it outside.” He points through the big plate glass window. “There, that bench right out there.”

Once outside the shop, he pulls his Case knife out of his pocket and clicks it open dramatically, stares at her wildly.

“Oh my!” she exclaims breathlessly,  like a sweet southern belle ingenue fanning herself. Then, “Look, I’m starving. There’s that Thai place.” She points out a subway-tiled art-deco like building a few shops down the block. “I’m gonna go and grab us a bowl, we can share.”

“This pocket-ectomy is not gonna take me but a few minutes,” he says distractedly.

“Well, I won’t be long then, it’s right there. I don’t see a line.” 

“Go on, mazel tov. Bring me back something ” Waving her on, he did not look up.

The operation took minutes. The knife was razor-sharp, the thread was worn through the years. He reached in gingerly, and gently withdrew almost exactly what he’d described - a slight slice of some document wrapped in waxed paper cellophane. Timidly, he unwrapped the small package, carefully unfolding the paper. It was onionskin, he recognized but from where he could not remember. Slowly he maneuvered the edges, folded upon itself too many times until the creases were held together by only the tiniest of fibers. It was an old, steel colored photocopy, high contrast and very sharp in detail, which was fortunate. The words were obviously clear, but the type had been shrunk. He needed his perfect-vision girl. But still, as he stared marvellously at the words before him, he was glad for the solitude, as he began reading:

Dear Mom, Dad and Esse, August 28, 1966

Well, I guess y’all can stop worrying now, made it here live and well and in one piece. Hope you can read my handwriting, kinda shaky on account of I’m writing from my bunk and using a book as a table; not the best pen I’ve ever used either. This is sincerely the first chance to write since I got here. The pace has been frantic and constant.   Remember when I called you from the San Fran airport coupla weeks ago? Soon as I hung up we shipped out. (Dad, you should’ve seen that C-141, Starlifter they called it; carried tons of heavy equipment and about 200 troops). It took us right to the landing site at Cam-Rahn Bay, the major supply base for the U. S. forces here in Vietnam. The engineering battalions split there, the 18th went south, the 37th went north. We headed north about a hundred miles to Pleiku, then into the central highlands another fifty miles. So we’re the first ones here, we actually had to start clearing land just to get the simplest of camps started. We’ll be working with the 57th Transportation Battalion, building roads and airstrips while they load in troops and equipment. Been working 18 hour shifts for the last few weeks; pretty easy to sleep after that. We can’t keep this pace up all the time, but I bet I’ll be chopping twice as much wood as dad in half the time by the time I’m back home late next year. There’s no phones here. We’re pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Hell, there’s barely a camp here.  It’s not jungle at all here. Deep forest covers most of what’s a plateau here, actually looks a lot like Bauer’s woods. We’ve been felling trees and laying road, waiting for just about any sign of the Viet Cong. Haven’t seen any yet personally, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time. 

So that’s why I haven’t written until now, just no time. So sorry, you don’t have to worry about me anymore Mom. I’m doing well and fine; Army’s ‘makin’ a man outta me (ha)’.  I’m mostly just a little dirtier and leaner than you’d like, but fine. That’s enough of me talk, how’s everybody there? Has grandpa gotten rid of that burrow yet? He better not keep it too long or grandma won’t let him get rid of it; and God help him if Esse gets her two cents in.  Mom, you tell Esse to lay off those high school boys. It’s not safe with her big bro not there to scare off the undesirable ones just wanting to take advantage of a pretty girl like her. I know she can take care of herself, but some of them are pretty persistent. Tell her to especially stay clear of Tony Ellis. Tony won’t wanna hear it but I’ll kick his butt first thing back If I hear anything wrong about him and Esse. You tell her mom, shake your finger, use her full name “Sara Elizabeth Campbell” like you do when you’re mad (ha, we all know it’s bluff). Wouldn’t mind hearing you yell at me right about now though...

Dad, one of the guys I shipped in country with ended up being one of my bunkmates. We got to talkin’ and he said his father was in the big one with your same unit, the 101st Airborne. Screamin’ Eagles, Yeah! His name’s Berrington. Remember any Berringtons? I know your battalion was big but this guy’s a hulking black dude, says he’s a chip off the big ole block of his old man.  Oh, and speakin’ of big blocks (ha), try and not sell that ’57 Chevy you got from uncle Kelly. I should make enough to buy it from you when I get back. Corps of Engineers gets a pay-grade bump so I ought to be pulling down about $300 a month while I’m here.  I’m gonna talk to Jack, He’s got a 327 sitting in his garage just begging for a big bumpy cam and an overbore.; that baby will PURR (like a lion, ha!) Maybe I’ll see Schmitty about blowin’ some blue flames on it, one of his special high-lacquered jobs. It’ll be THE RIDE on the Saturday night strip. I’ll drive it around for a while, talk it up real good, and then sell it for a peach price. That ought to be enough to maybe get Jamie that ring she’s been hinting at. Well, not really hinting, kinda hounding. I get it, this war, makin’ everybody uneasy, worrying about the future and all. Walking to school every day senior year, she’d slow us up whenever Yonker’s Pawn had anything looking like a diamond in the front window. Sometimes we’d stop, and she’d point. “That one’s pretty nice,” she’d say. I’d mumble something about a Cracker Jack box just to light her fuse. Seriously though folks, I think we all know that by the time I get outta here, I’ll be ready to pop the question and settle down.

Well, I’d better get a letter out to Jamie tonight too before I pass out. She’ll be hounding ALL of us about my writing her if she isn’t already. I’ll just close by saying I love and miss all of you very much. Can’t wait to get home, counting the days already-only 345 left.

P.S. Mom, you know I haven’t churched much lately, but tell Sister Margaret to keep saying prayers for all of us. God knows we’ll need them over here.

Love, Your #1 son,

Zach  

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Campbell,

I thought I should send you this letter. It was on Zachery’s bunk. I grabbed it before anyone saw it when they came to pack up his belongings. I wasn’t quite sure where they’d end up. My name’s Tommie Berrington, I’m from Dublin, Texas. Your son Zach and me became fast friends. We hadn’t written home yet. Zach was heading to the Sarge’s tent for spare APO envelopes. I’m terribly sorry for your loss; your son was a fine man and a good friend.  God Bless.

PFC Thomas Jefferson Berrington 

Army Corps of Engineers

Somewhere in Vietnam

He looked up, and she was there standing over him, steaming hot bowl of Pad Kee Mao in hand.

“Everything OK?” she asked. “You look a little, I don’t know, spooked.”

“No, I’m fine,” he said. “Turns out our secret spy stuff was a letter from a soldier. Guess someone was saving it.”

“Letter to a sweetheart girlfriend?”

“Nah, just a letter home.” He put the jacket on, folded the note, and slipped it into his pocket.

“Let’s go home.” he told her, and wordlessly, they walked back to their place.