The Time Keepers

Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14 Allentown, Pennsylvania, 1969

O N J ANUARY 5, SIX MONTHS BEFORE HIS TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY , Jack got his papers confirming that his draft number had been called. He had hoped after he had made it past his eighteenth birthday that he’d escape being shipped off to Vietnam, but then the draft laws were changed, allowing men up to the age of twenty-one to be sent over, and now even married men were no longer exempt. Jack had never considered himself particularly lucky, so part of him almost expected that the army would call him up only a few months before he turned twenty-one. It wasn’t Murphy’s law, he liked to jest. It was “Jack’s law.” If something unlucky were to happen, it happened to Jack so often that it had become an inside joke with his buddies.

The envelope was waiting for him on the kitchen table. His mother sat across from it with a cup of black coffee in her hand. It looked like she had been having a conversation with it for hours.

He had been working at Auggie’s Auto since he graduated high school, and the extra income helped with the house payments. At the end of the month, he’d take the remaining cash and store it away. He was hoping to someday have enough money to buy a new Stratocaster guitar and get a place of his own.

When he entered the kitchen, he knew without either of them exchanging a single word what was in that letter.

“Aw, Ma …”

She lifted the paper. Her eyes were glassy. Her face was white.

She started to say something, but the words caught in her throat.

He stepped toward her. Trying to act like a man, he pushed his shoulders back and reached for the letter, pulling it out of the envelope and reading it over quickly.

“Looks like my number got called.” He let out a nervous laugh because he didn’t know how else to fill the air.

Days later, he packed his duffel bag with only what he thought he needed. The underwear and shirts. The white socks. The dark brown shoes. The money he had earned from Auggie’s remained stored in a peanut butter jar.

He brought the jar over when he came in to say goodbye to his mother. “This is for you,” he told her. “Looks like I won’t be getting that new Strat anytime soon, Ma.”

“You’re going to come back.” Her voice broke. “You’re going to get yourself that damn guitar.”

He thought about his dad, who didn’t come back from work one evening sixteen years before. Never even came back to pack a suitcase. He only had a vague memory of his father. The work boots that sounded heavy on the floorboards when he came in late at night. The face that was never clean-shaven. His cologne, the smell of Budweiser.

He had left him and his mother when Jack was only five. Now Jack was the one leaving his mother, and it gutted him.

“I love you, Jack,” she told him. He knew she meant it. She was the kind of woman who saved her words, believing it easier to speak plainly.

Jack leaned over her armchair to kiss her goodbye. Her breath smelled like coffee and cigarettes. “Promise me you’ll come home.” She reached for his hand and grabbed it tightly in her fist.

“I promise,” he answered. He had promised the same thing to Becky the night before when they lay huddled in her bedroom, his body pressed against hers.

He had not wanted to get up from her bed and leave her. The curve of her body was so beautiful. He lifted his hand and traced her silhouette from the top of her shoulder, through the dip in her waist, to the cliff of her hips.

“Becky …”

Her face was half-veiled by the curtain of long chestnut-colored hair. She leaned in closer and adjusted her bangs so he could see her face more clearly. Her green eyes were smooth as stones from a river. Her expression just as calm.

“What if I don’t come back?”

His heart hurt inside his chest. He didn’t want to believe this might be the last time he held Becky in his arms.

“Don’t say such a thing,” she said firmly. She pulled him close and kissed him on the mouth. Her lips were so soft and gentle, he had to force himself not to cry.

In this naked moment of intimacy before he left, he wanted to shed everything that weighed on him. He wanted to tell her he was afraid. He didn’t want to come home in a body bag. He didn’t want to lose a limb and spend the rest of life in a wheelchair. But he couldn’t come undone in front of Becky. He wanted her to think him strong and invincible. He wanted to be seen as brave.

He shifted the conversation to the practicalities and tried to gather himself. “You’ll check in with Ma while I’m gone?”

“Of course,” she said, as though it was a given.

He was happy she was continuing her education. He would be away for nearly two years, and she would focus on her studies. No one would be a better teacher than his beautiful Becky. Jack could already imagine her in front of a classroom with all the children looking up at her with adoration.

What he didn’t say to her was that when he returned, if he even did return , he was going to ask her to marry him. They had been dating since the beginning of senior year, when he finally worked up the nerve to ask her to homecoming. That afternoon he felt like he had won the prize. Becky Dougherty. The girl that lit up the homecoming parade with her perfect white smile and gentle wave. He would soon learn she liked all the things he liked. Rock and roll. Jelly donuts. Buttermilk pancakes and movies at the old drive-in on dollar night.

Now that Jack’s last hours in Allentown were slipping away, everything seemed suddenly crystal clear. Becky was the woman he wanted to have children with. He had never been good in school like her, but their children would take after her. They’d be smart and beautiful.

If he got home, their life would be good. They’d be perfect together, like a slice of pizza and an ice-cold Coke. He pulled her close again and felt her heart beat next to his chest.

“I love you, Becky.”

He would remember always how she told him she loved him. She put his face between her palms. Kissed him again, this time so deeply, he felt her warmth spreading through his entire body. He made love to her one last time before getting dressed.

As he zipped up his jeans, she stared at him from the bed. “I’m going to write to you every day, I promise.”

“Who even knows what the mail will be like.…”

“Of course there will be mail, Jack. I’ll send care packages, too.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m worried about my mother. I’m worried about you .”

“I’ll be fine. She’ll be fine.…” She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. “You’re the one that we’ll both be worrying about.”

She placed a flat palm on her belly, where minutes before he had kissed her.

“My mom saved all the letters my dad wrote to her when he was in Germany. I’m going to save every one you write, too.”

He had forgotten until Becky mentioned it that her father had been in World War II. He had died when she was five from stomach cancer. Her mother had remarried a few years later, but Becky had showed him a photograph of her father dressed in his Army Air Corps uniform when they began dating. “I have only a handful of memories of him,” she confessed as she held the portrait. “But in some ways, he’s still my hero. I only wish I had the chance to get to know him better.”

Jack was grateful she hadn’t brought up any anti-war sentiment when he learned he was being shipped off. So many of the kids going off to college were already engaged in protests. He would have hated spending his last days with Becky fighting about whether America should be in the war. He loved her more for not making his departure feel worse than it already did.

He was now fully dressed. He tucked in his shirt and sucked in his breath. He gazed upon her nakedness one last time, trying to commit it to memory.

“Promise me, Jack—you’ll come back in one piece.” She pulled herself to her knees and extended her arms, beckoning him over, lassoing him around his neck. Planting one last kiss.

He knew she wouldn’t let him go until made the vow. But in his mind, he couldn’t help but imagine the photographs printed in the newspapers and the footage that was broadcast on every major news channel. Body bags hoisted onto helicopters, tarmacs lined with coffins draped with American flags. He bet each and every one of those men had made promises to their mothers or girlfriends that they’d come home in one piece.

“I promise,” he said. He loved her so much. The words were uttered like a gift.

He spent eight weeks in basic training at Parris Island, then eight more in infantry training in Camp Lejeune before being given his first leave home. Needing more live bodies in the Marine Corps, someone at a desk somewhere had made the executive decision to make him part of that prestigious group rather than including him with the rest of the men drafted into the army.

In training, they beat the boy out of him. He learned to take orders. To take punishment. To eat food that had no taste. He had grown up in a household without a father or brother, and now he learned to live and sleep in the constant company of men.

He was grateful his lean build had saved him from the barbs of the drill sergeant, who tormented those carrying any excess pounds. And while he was not exempt from being called a “shitbird,” one of the drill instructors’ favorite slurs for anyone who failed at an order, Jack was among the few recruits who could finish a twelve-hour run holding a rifle, four canteens of water, a helmet, and a heavy pack.

When he wasn’t doing close order drills, physical training, or weapons classes, Becky floated in the back of his mind. She had kept her promise and written to him almost daily. Her letters were always written on pretty stationery, sometimes on daffodil-colored paper, other times on cheery pink. When he read them, he tried to imagine her saying the words. My dearest Jack … She always began in her big loopy handwriting. She signed off with love and kisses, decorating the remaining space on the page with x’ s and o’ s.

During his two-week home leave following his infantry training at Camp Lejeune, they had spent as much time together as possible. They drove to Atlantic City, and he blasted the radio, and Becky pulled her hair out of her ponytail to let it whip free in the wind. Jack splurged on lobster dinners for each of them. He loaded his baked potato with sour cream and butter and ate every single kernel of his corn on the cob. Every sensation seemed heightened to him. The smell of Becky’s perfume. The flash of light in her eyes when she threw her head back and laughed.

After dinner, in the soft, hazy twilight, they walked down the boardwalk hand in hand. The smell of the Atlantic filled Jack’s nostrils, and the briny salt air made him feel alive. He was happy the Corps no longer made it a requirement for marines to be in uniform when they were on leave. Too many incidents had occurred with peace activists attacking men in uniform. So Jack wore a soft flannel shirt and his favorite pair of jeans, happy to return to his old, familiar skin. They found one of those instant photo booths. She made funny faces and planted kisses on his face. His favorite one was of her in profile with her eyes closed, her lips pressed firmly on his cheek.

The following morning, they drove back to Allentown so he could spend time with his mother. In the months he was away, his mother appeared to have aged terribly.

She walked toward Jack and wrapped her arms around him.

“My sweet boy …” She sighed as she looked up to him. Her short corn silk hair was parted on the side, her blue eyes rippled with emotion. “You look like a man now.” She touched his cheek with her hand.

“Aw, Ma …” he answered and kissed her on top of her head.

“You’re going to stay here the rest of your leave, right? I told Walter that I wasn’t going back to work until you left for Camp Pendleton.”

“You didn’t need to do that, Ma,” he said and hugged her tight.

“Why? I haven’t taken a vacation in years,” she joked. “I think I deserve a little more time with my son.”

He would stay with her, and they’d watch TV together, all the shows she enjoyed, like Carol Burnett and The Ed Sullivan Show . She loved Kentucky Fried Chicken and mashed potatoes, so they’d get an entire bucket and eat the leftovers cold the next day.

At night, when his mother had fallen asleep in her big comfy chair, the television’s white noise still churning in the background, Jack would empty her ashtray of extinguished cigarettes and drape an old afghan blanket over her legs before quietly leaving the house. The moon would be bright against the night sky as he drove over to Becky’s small apartment, where he’d find her asleep with a book open beside her pillow. He unbuckled his belt, shed his jeans, and slipped next to her. His body folding into hers.

The sweet memory of being in Becky’s arms would be the last time he saw her. After his leave from Camp Lejeune, he would spend eight weeks in Camp Pendleton, where he was literally run into the ground and toughened up both physically and emotionally for what was to come. After his second month there, he received his orders to join a rifle company in Vietnam, and a week later he shipped out with several hundred men to Da Nang.

During one of his first days in Vietnam, Jack headed north, packed into an olive-drab transport truck with the members of his new platoon. Beside him sat a shy-looking private by the name of Stanley Coates. His head bowed toward his lap, his rifle tucked between his knees. Jack had hardly noticed him back in training camp, but earlier that morning after the young man pulled out a small, leather-bound Bible, his innocence stood out in high relief to Jack. He watched Stanley quietly, almost in awe, as the boy whispered a psalm, his lips moving as his index finger traced the words.

Amid the crude talk and the harsh jungle conditions, Stanley stood out. He had large blue eyes that bulged slightly, making him appear as though he was locked in a perpetual state of wonder.

“Where you from?” Jack asked as the vehicle bumped along Highway 1.

“Bet you never heard of it.…” Stanley smiled. “Bell Buckle, Tennessee.”

Jack clasped his rifle between both hands and grinned. “You’re right, man. I never have.” Jack looked at Stanley from the corner of his eye. He was tall and lanky, with hardly any muscle on his bones. So fair, his skin looked as white as milk. “You don’t look like you’re even old enough to go to high school.”

Stanley’s laugh was soft and low. “That’s what the everybody said back at Pendleton. It’s not true, though. I enlisted three days after I turned seventeen.”

The men in the truck were packed shoulder to shoulder, the heat so oppressive that as the sweat rolled down their cheeks, it made them look like they were crying. Stanley pulled his shoulders inward, creating a slight space between him and the others.

“Can I ask you something?” Stanley probed.

Jack shrugged. “Sure.”

“Do you ever pray?” His gaze looked hopeful and painfully childlike—as though he was searching for a friend to anchor himself to in his strange new surroundings. “I noticed back at Pendleton, you were one of the only guys not talking trash about women.”

“Nah,” Jack muttered. “That’s not something I do.”

Stanley grew quiet. As he turned toward Jack, a ray of sharp sunlight hit the truck for a moment, and he appeared eerily illuminated. “My daddy’s a Baptist preacher. He didn’t want me to come fight out here, but I wanted to show him I’m no baby.” He nibbled a little on his bottom lip. “I thought signing up was the best way to prove to him I was a man.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “You needed to come all the way to Vietnam for that? Couldn’t you have just shot a deer and brought it home for dinner or something?”

Stanley shrugged. “I dunno, maybe … but I’m here now anyway. Right?” His pale hand lifted up to adjust his helmet. “No looking back, that’s what they say.…”

Jack was only half listening to Stanley now; instead, he was distracted by the unfurling new landscape: the thatched villages, thick tropical trees, and water buffalo hitched to carts.

“You know, I’ve never even had a beer,” Stanley added, though at this point, it seemed to Jack that the boy was actually talking to himself.

“Did you hear that?” one of the other men interrupted, slapping his hand down on the seat. “Fucking Stanley never even had a beer!”

Everyone on the truck began to laugh. Everyone except Jack, who didn’t find it funny at all.

The steel helmet. The flak jacket. The heavy boots. The four canteens of water, the five grenades. The bandolier that held his ammunition and essential M16 rifle. All of it is heavy. But none of it is as burdensome as the twenty-five-pound PRC-25 radio he carries on his back. Every platoon has a single radio transmitting operator, and that responsibility is given to Jack. Lance Corporal Jack Grady from Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Six foot two. Tawny-brown hair and a face like a movie star. Crystal-blue eyes that twinkle when he laughs. Hollywood —that’s the nickname his buddies call him at first, and then it sticks.

He doesn’t ask for help when lugging the radio, even though his pack is heavy and the heat diabolical. Nor does he tell his buddies that he carries his sweetheart’s most recent letter tucked into the mesh of his helmet. The photograph from Atlantic City is also slipped inside, now creased and faded from his perspiration.

Some days it reaches over a hundred degrees, and the platoon collapses on the ground, peeling off their sweat-soaked gear. Their feet swelter in their boots, drenched from walking in rice paddies. Jungle rot eats away at their skin and the lieutenant orders them when they take a rest to pull their boots off, wring out their socks, and air out their feet.

There are fourteen men in his squad, three fire teams, and as they set out in patrol, they walk in single file. He is protected by a few men walking in front of him. Those men are the ones who must cut the jungle down as they walk. Sometimes with a machete. Other times with just their standard-issue knife. It is not a coveted position to be the first two men in line. The first man has the highest risk stepping on a booby trap or land mine. The second will most likely be killed in the blast as well. But Jack is somewhere in the middle, protected by the five or six men in front of him. He walks behind the second lieutenant, his platoon commander, Franklin L. Bates. Jack must be within arm’s length from Bates at all times in case he needs to reach the company headquarters and call in for an artillery strike or medical evacuation.

When the radio is needed, Jack will slip it off his back and give Lieutenant Bates the hand receiver. He carries the radio just for him.

Sometimes he hears music in his head when the platoon is route marching. Sometimes he pretends that the radio on his back is going to play Jimi Hendrix or the Doors. The Rolling Stones. The Kinks. The Who. It’s going to be a jukebox, calling the men to song, not to war.

He finally pulls it off his back. Picks up the receiver, calls in, and Bates reports their coordinates. They pause for instructions, praying they’re not blown to pieces while they wait.

Around them, the jungle teems with creatures that are all against them. The mosquitoes, the leeches. The enemy hidden under the brush.

He sleeps fitfully, never deeply. He hears the enemy everywhere.

He carries the radio like a lifeline. He learns to shimmy across the dirt, extending the telephone-like receiver to his commanding officer. He keeps the radio on even in a foxhole, for it’s his responsibility. The radio is the only thing they have to summon help. To ask for backup or covering gunfire, to ask to help retrieve the wounded and the dead.

He realizes early on his life is not what is the most valuable. It is the thing strapped to his back. Without it, they are all lost.