The Time Keepers

Chapter 42

CHAPTER 42 Long Island, 1979

J ACK ’ S KITCHEN CONTAINED ONLY ONE POT AND ONE FRYING pan. In his refrigerator he only ever kept a handful of things: eggs for breakfast, cream for his coffee, and a few slices of cold cuts for his sandwiches, along with a tin of wet dog food for Hendrix. He had learned to keep his needs to a minimum, allowing him to avoid the large A&P to spare himself the painful stares of young children and their mothers who hushed them into silence. At Kepler’s small store, he could go in quickly and purchase the few provisions he needed before any other customers noticed him. He knew exactly where the boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and Ritz crackers were located, and the jars of Welch’s jelly and Wonder Bread. He felt lucky that Fred, who worked behind the deli counter, kept an eye out for him and often began slicing the roast beef and provolone cheese before he’d even reached the counter.

Food as others knew and enjoyed it was different for him. He ate to live, just to sustain himself, not for any kind of pleasure.

In Vietnam, they all tried to push their hunger away, the C-rations never proving adequate. Yet, despite their own famished bellies, the men often saved part of their food to give to the children who came begging for whatever the men were willing to share.

One afternoon, shortly after he returned from burying his mother, he found himself out traveling with a few battalion scouts in a transport truck. As the vehicle bumped over the rocky path, the men jostled against each other, their shoulders touching, rifles clutched to their chest. At one point, four small children came running out of the woods. One of them, Jack remembered, was a little girl wearing a white cotton dress, her long brown legs exposed as she ran expertly over the uneven terrain with the other three boys. “Candy! Candy! Cigarettes!” the children cried with their hands outstretched. They already knew the words for food they liked or the cigarettes they could barter with back at their village.

Jack had some C-rations on him, and Doc had a tropical bar, a kind of chocolate that Hershey’s had created to withstand the intense Southeast Asian heat. The scouts tossed the food and candy to the children. Flannery laughed and fumbled for a tin of lima beans he would never eat. Gomez threw a couple cigarettes. But the little girl in the white dress caught the most coveted prize, the chocolate bar. In that moment when her hands grasped the treasure wrapped in shiny silver foil, her face beamed in joy. It was so pure, so full of innocence, it made Jack reach down to his gear and see if he might have another one buried in a pocket somewhere, knowing it would have been worth it to see the same expression on another child’s face.

The girl couldn’t have been more than eight years old, but with the chocolate clutched in one hand, she ran unbridled and flew far ahead of the others. Her black hair whipping behind her and her thin legs coltish as they flew over the blades of grass and wildflowers.

Candy! Candy! Cigarettes!

Jack heard the boys’ peals for more handouts ringing in his ears as the little girl ran ahead on the dirt path along the road. Doc and he both looked out the side of the vehicle, admiring her speed as she bounded ahead of the others and ran to overtake the truck, her white dress billowing with every stride. But as the driver slowed down so as not to strike her, the girl’s foot hit a trip wire for a buried mine. There, right in front of all of them, a small but deadly explosion ignited. Instantly, the girl and her three friends were engulfed in a burst of fiery orange flames and ripped apart by shrapnel.

Sometimes when Jack flipped on his television and a commercial came across the screen for Hershey’s chocolate, he filled with nausea. That something so sweet, so innocent, could turn into such a brutal memory. The memory of the girl’s face was seared into his mind, her delight just before being eviscerated in front of him. How could one erase such a memory? Once, when he was cleaning up a classroom at Foxton Elementary, he came across a crumpled Hershey’s wrapper, and when he picked it up to throw it into the large waste bin on his trolley, he found himself sobbing like a baby. He shut the door and hid his face in his palms and wept.

He wasn’t sure if it was the Hershey’s wrapper or the index card on the little brown desk, the one that had the name written in neat black letters: Stanley .