The Unfolding, page 19
He’s remembering the men he knew in college whose fathers and grandfathers were titans of industry who all at one time or another had served their government in addition to working for Nabisco, GE, the Campbell Soup Company. Their patriotism and good intentions were assured.
Among younger men there seems to be none of this. They expect a seat at the table just because they’ve shown up. That’s one of the issues: presumption plus arrogance and disrespect. They are bullish on themselves, survival of the fittest; I got mine you get yours. They don’t ask what they can do for others. They are focused on what’s next for them, their new house, bigger boat, second wife.
He laughs at himself; the idea of what one can do for others sounds downright socialist. But were it not for that desire to serve, to build and shape a country that governs itself, there would be no America. First and foremost, that is what he is, American. The quintessential American man manufactured in 1944 with a 1945 issue date. He catches the eye of another Thanksgiving soloist a few tables down, an older man sucking on some sort of bone.
The horrible sucking sound catches the Big Guy’s attention. The man has thin white hair slicked back like it’s still 1962. He makes a sort of half smile, flashing his bottom teeth, which look like organ pipes going from large in the middle to smaller and smaller. A human chipmunk with hands like thick paws, fingers like sausages.
The Big Guy has to look away. He flags the waiter. “Check, please.”
Back at the house, it’s game time. Not just football. He’s been promising himself all week that today he can play. On an ancient and expensive pool table in the basement, World War II is happening—Dunkirk to be specific. A few feet away on a foosball table is Korea. The Big Guy has staged the Battle of Inchon with actual water. This is where the US Eighth Army won a major victory against North Korea with a well-conceived, if ambitious, amphibious landing. He’s got General Douglas MacArthur in charge, aka a soldier with extra medals painted on his chest, and in his head, a whole mental list of moves that need to be made for the battle to be successful. The Big Guy puts the soldiers in boats and moves them through the water—a series of blue plastic emesis pans brought home when he spent three days in the hospital with a kidney stone. Across the room, Vietnam spreads across the Ping-Pong table, the green net still up. He likes that part, finds the boundary ironic. He has figures and weapons for each engagement, the right men and the right tools for the job.
Today he starts in World War II, that’s where his heart is, that’s where he thinks patriotism ran deepest. He immerses himself, speaking aloud in various accents and arguing about who and where our allies are and can one eat the rind on French cheeses. He makes the moves, but today it’s too depressing; he can’t handle the defeat and can’t wait for miracles. He rips it apart. Now it’s not Dunkirk. Now it’s Normandy, June 1944, Operation Overlord, 1,200 planes, 5,000 boats, soldiers parachuting in under cover of night and the landings on the beaches: Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha, Utah. Around 160,000 troops crossing the English Channel. Splish-splash, better have your wellies on. Something like 6,000 Americans dead in one day. Bloodiest battle of the war, but in the end, they won. He makes a giant mess of it. He’s got men down everywhere, water everywhere. He’s flying planes, pushing small groups of soldiers up a hill. Wounded men are crying in pain, shot, knowing they will die on this hill. “I have news for you,” he says, as a spy knifes a snitch in the stomach. “War isn’t pretty. War is hell. A nightmare one never wakes from. Nice knowing you and thanks for all the clues.” Disinformation. Fliers dropped like confetti from a plane. Concealment, keeping things under cover. Feint, the mock attack in an effort to distract. This is his idea of a good time, reenactments, skirmishes. His men are the highest quality, tin, lead, mixed metal. He hates plastic and uses it only as a last resort. When there is fire involved, plastic fails; it melts into a molten puddle of toxic sludge. He keeps a box of baking soda on hand when playing with fire—and an extinguisher should anything really get out of control. He has a thing he likes to do with roll caps. He bangs his men down on them, their heavy footfalls and the nail of his thumb setting off the small land mines, grenades, explosions. Every now and then he drops a bigger fused load from above, usually something he’s purchased at a side-of-the-road fireworks stand where he stocks up every summer. Today nothing is a good enough distraction; everything is a downhill ride. His mind is muddy; his aim is not true. He buries the dead, pouring sand over them. The sand spills through the edges of the table down onto the floor. If Charlotte was home, she would sense the war going wrong. She would call across the house, “Everything all right in there?” And he would perhaps ask her to pass him some paper towels, but for this moment, he is living with being slovenly, he is living with being grotesque. There is no avoiding the darkness. This is bleak. What are we doing? That’s what he wants to know. He leaves World War II behind and goes to Vietnam. The country is spread across the Ping-Pong table, North and South. He’s used palm fronds and other greenery from around the yard to give a realistic feeling to the landscape; rice paddies are made out of grass cuttings. He flies a US Air Force C-123 over the “jungle” he’s built and has it drop “Agent Orange”—undissolved orange Jell-O powder that he heard about at a war-game convention. He calls this Operation Ranch Hand, Operation Trail Dust. Today he is using rainbow herbicides, orange and strawberry mixed together, to defoliate the trees. People were allergic to it. Vietnamese babies were born deformed. Soldiers claimed it gave them everything from acne to diabetes to heart disease. Maybe the stuff wasn’t perfect or wasn’t handled properly, but people have to quit complaining; they can’t be expecting everyone to take care of them. This is war.
The locals come running out of the trees, farmers, men, women, children. The soldiers gun them down; they don’t ask questions; there isn’t time. Today they want to kill without having to ask why. They are confused; they are enraged. They are American soldiers in this strange and unfamiliar country, and no one knows what it means to be an American anymore. At home people are protesting this war, saying it is not theirs to fight. Tell that to the man who got his legs blown off yesterday. They want to kill because it is Thanksgiving. Turkey and cranberry sauce are flown in by chopper; they thank God for the food they are about to receive; someone jokes that it’s a two-paper-plate day, but nothing is funny. One of the dead guys was supposed to go home tomorrow. The whole thing makes him sad. The American dream is spilled over sporty tables in his game room. But this is no game. These men died. Can you imagine charging another man, gouging out the insides of a stranger with a bayonet, not to protect yourself but because your country is asking you to? He knows that war isn’t fought this way anymore; there aren’t hundreds of thousands of dead. Wars are now fought with a joystick, a toggle, and a pull of the trigger from thousands of miles away. The mechanics of war have changed, but the human cost hasn’t. He gives up for the day, filled with confusion about what it all means, about what being an American means. He leaves the army figures with their arms and weapons reaching up out of the orange, looking like they are drowning in Jell-O that is turning into wiggly mucus, phlegm of war, stuck on everything. The Ping-Pong table is doused in sugary powder, the foosball table is dripping under the sludge of Inchon, and the sands of Normandy and young lives never lived are dropping onto the floor. He turns out the light as he leaves the room—no doubt field mice will snack on the remains, and whenever he returns, all will be as he left it, each of the surfaces a little more warped, a little less playable, and covered with tiny black turds, like unexploded ordnance dotting the battlefields.
Friday, November 28, 2008
McLean, Virginia
3:00 p.m.
By the time Thanksgiving weekend is over, Meghan feels like she’s been inserted into a movie or someone else’s dream. It is as though she’d stepped out of her own skin and made an appearance in another world.
Yesterday she wrote a letter to the dead girl’s family.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. XXXXX,
I am a student at the Academy and recently learned about your daughter and what happened to her. I’m not sure getting this letter will make you feel better or worse, but it seemed important to let you know your daughter is not forgotten. Parents send their daughters to what is portrayed as a “safe and nurturing place where a young woman can grow emotionally, spiritually, intellectually.” We all know that our parents send us here because they are trying to protect us from something: bad influences, drugs, sex, the big world; what that something is varies for each family.
We wear key cards on lanyards around our necks. The lanyard is designed to break away if pulled hard enough so we can’t accidentally harm ourselves if one got caught in a door. The campus is not fenced as several public parks divide the land as does the river. We have blue-light stations on campus and two old men from buildings and grounds drive around in pickup trucks from six p.m. to midnight. No one is allowed to walk after dark without a “buddy.”
But does that change anything? Does it make us safer? Do we want to be locked in, kept under wraps? Is that what the future for women is, being kept inside, living in fear? I am sorry that your daughter was killed and even sorrier that you had to discover her body yourself. I recently had my own experience with the local police and was not impressed. What we as a student body at the Academy have asked for is to be listened to, to be heard and not dismissed. Had people been listening, I believe your daughter would still be here. We, the next wave of young women, are actively listening to one another and advocating for one another and those who have come before. A piece of your daughter and her history lives within us. Enclosed please find a phoenix that I recently bought at the Phoenix airport. It is meant as a token to represent the idea that your daughter is here among us and will rise with us.
Sincerely,
Meghan Hitchens
Class of 2009
She wrote the letter, put it in an envelope, and got dressed for Thanksgiving supper.
Promptly at four p.m. she rings the bell of the town house on P Street. Through the living-room window, she sees people with drinks in hand talking animatedly. No one comes to the door. She rings again and finally a man opens the door.
“I’m supposed to meet Tony here,” she says.
“Of course you are,” the man says jovially.
She extends a clumsily wrapped package.
“Let’s save that for the hostess,” the man says, ushering her in.
“You have a beautiful home,” she says.
He laughs. “It’s not mine. It’s Peggy’s place; let’s find her.”
“Where have they been hiding you?” Peggy, the hostess, asks when they find her at the back end of the living room. She is busy adding more place settings to an already impossibly long Thanksgiving table. “This year may be a record; we’re up to thirty-six.”
“Thank you so much for including me,” Meghan says.
“Well, of course. We ‘orphans’ must stick together.”
Meghan extends the package she’s brought. Cookies she stole from the dining room over the last few days. “They’re not the most artfully wrapped but they are famously good.”
“I have to tell you something,” Peggy confesses. “Tony will back me up on this. I knew your father many years ago; it’s a lifetime, but we went out a couple of times and what I remember was that he was a good kisser, a very good kisser. And a very sweet man. Stalwart. That was the word Tony used. ‘Stalwart and well-intentioned,’ a phrase I took to mean he wouldn’t try to get me intoxicated and take advantage.” She pauses. “Imagine if I had married him, I would be your mother! Isn’t that wild?”
Beyond wild, Meghan thinks to herself.
Tony puts his arm around Meghan. “Happy Thanksgiving, kiddo.”
“The kiddo brought cookies,” Peggy says, waving the cookies at Tony. Peggy opens the cookie package, which is wrapped in pink tissue.
“Yum,” she says, biting into one. “These are the most delicious cookies I’ve ever eaten.
“I read somewhere that in some countries it’s customary to eat a sweet before dinner, that it keeps you from overeating. I might have to have another.”
“She’s as high as a kite,” Tony whispers in Meghan’s ear. “She got so stressed about how to seat everyone, not sure whether to mix or separate the Democrats and Republicans, that her back went out and she took a couple of Percocet about an hour ago. Peggy is known for her ability to make social pairings, but the election took a toll. Some of the regulars won’t be here tonight and a few new faces will be auditioning. It should be interesting. They say that Thanksgiving at Peggy’s is training for Alfalfa in January and warm-up for Gridiron in March.”
“Let’s see if there’s anyone here of your generation.” Peggy looks around the room.
“Jordon?” another guest suggests.
“Jordon goes to Georgetown and is studying medicine,” Peggy says.
“I’m still in high school,” Meghan says. “A senior.”
“You look older.”
“It’s the dress. If I wear a short dress, which my mother says looks cheap, people know how old I am, but if I wear a dress that covers my knees, I look like someone’s cousin visiting from rural England, a place that has yet to discover fashion. Unfortunately, fashion doesn’t make good clothing for eighteen-year-olds.”
“Touché,” Peggy says, and she means it. Everything is like a fencing bout. There are points to be scored. “Oh, William, have you said hello to the goddaughter?” Peggy stands over Meghan repeatedly pointing her finger at Meghan as if to say, Look here, look here.
William glances up, looking slightly stricken or caught off guard. “Come on, say hello,” Peggy says.
So William, a gentleman with close-cropped hair and dark ebony skin, and sporting a beautiful turquoise sweater, gets up from the sofa and makes his way across the crowded room.
“It is very nice to meet you, Meghan,” he says, shaking her hand. “I’ve heard so much about you over the years. How are the college applications coming along?”
“Oh,” she says, unsure of how William knows anything about her and her college process. “After the election, I decided to throw out my essays and start again.”
“Ah,” he says. “A change of plan. I started out at Winston-Salem, then came up here to Howard before I went to Hopkins. There is no one road to take. Any idea what you’re going to study?”
“History. I am in deep with history.”
“We are ready,” Peggy says, coming out of the kitchen swinging a carving knife wildly. “The show is about to begin.”
A good-looking older man relieves her of the weapon. “Thank you, Richard,” she says. “You are always there to save me, the perfect second-husband-in-waiting.”
“What are you waiting for?” one of the guests calls out.
“The embers to cool,” Peggy says, fanning herself.
The energy in the house is herky-jerky, as if they were riding on a carousel with each guest mounted on a different horse, moving up and down and dancing to a different tune.
The meal is served in a manner that, like much of Washington, is formal, prematurely aged, and feels a bit like an immersive theatre experience or a historical reenactment. Each food and serving dish is presented with a provenance, a raison d’être, as her French teacher would say. Meghan half suspects that curators from the Smithsonian are among the guests and have authored the “liner notes” recited by Peggy and Richard. Heirloom carrots are served in a dish that was “Mother Taylor’s.” The gravy boat is a turn-of-the-century gift from the Tyson family. The herbs in the stuffing are direct descendants from those in Aunt Bishop’s garden. Every name has a dimly familiar sound: Coleridge, Hancock, Tierney, Cumberland.
Peggy is dressed in what Meghan’s mother would call “hostess wear,” clothing that is between a costume and an outfit—more than a dress, less than a ball gown. There is a roaring fire in the fireplace and the windows are open because it is about a thousand degrees inside. There are paintings hung salon-style on the wall that remind Meghan of some she saw long ago: landscapes of early America, expansive views, expressing unfettered optimism for this new world.
Meghan watches everything very carefully. Life has gone from 2D to 3D; just the serving of the food is an action sequence. She clocks everything, especially people drinking. What is normal and what is too much? Most people at the table are drinking except those who are actively not drinking and instead are consuming large quantities of mineral water. “Is there any more mineral water? Could someone pass the mineral water?”
In the middle of the table is a large green porcelain turtle.
“That is my mother’s turtle soup tureen,” Peggy says. “Now no more than a decorative object. What can one put in a tureen made for terrapin soup? Besides cayenne pepper and lemon juice, I’m not sure. No one eats terrapin soup anymore.”
“Because it’s illegal to hunt turtles,” the man next to Meghan whispers.
“I make a delicious cold zucchini soup,” one of the women says. “It would look lovely in your turtle. I’ll give you my recipe. Do you have an immersion blender?”
