CV Rick

Forgetting - part two

Continued from Yesterday's episode.

Bill's story really began on a Coast Guard Cutter during the Vietnam War.  Bill and his friend, Montana Jones, joined the Coast Guard together because Irish sons of fishermen were getting drafted.  How an Irish kid from Gloucester, Massachusetts gets named Montana is a topic for another day.

They found themselves on this Cutter coming back to Boston harbor after patrolling the Caribbean Ocean for several months.  While there they stopped off in Jamaica and while in Jamaica they'd loaded 2,000 pounds of marijuana aboard the ship. Yes, that's right.  They decided to engage in a bit of side business while performing their official duties. 

How involved either of them were in the operation is hard to say.  They claim to have been bystanders, but it's quite a stretch to imagine the hard-drinking barrel of man, Montana Jones, being a bystander to anything.  But to hear the tale told, Bill and Montana were minding their own business.  They didn't buy the drugs, load the drugs, or tell the authorities.  That last part is very important because someone told the authorities.

They entered Boston Harbor with the wind to their backs on a fine sunny Friday afternoon.  Bill was on deck.  Montana was busy stowing gear, so this part Bill tells.

“I was watching the piers get bigger as we moved in, 'cause that's what we usually do, bring the boat in and then turn down the line and head for the Coast Guard docks.  So I'm watching all the ships and the workers, you know, like ants on the shore scurrying about and I see a bunch of ants not scurrying. There's a bunch of 'em standing at attention.  With guns.  I was sure of it.  They were dressed in green.  Sure enough, an entire contingent of the Massachusetts National Guard were lined right up. It was enough to make a man proud, except if it was you they were waiting for,”  he always gulped down the last of his Bud Light at this point.  Time for a new one. 

The details are a bit fuzzy, I admit that.  It's because I can't really get a straight story from these guys, but the essence of it is that they got held for a few days and then discharged from the Coast Guard.  The Captain got court-martialed and jailed.

Forgetting

I apologize in advance.  I wrote this piece and realized it was too long for one post, so I'm breaking it into two, but the second part is going to appear tomorrow, not next week.  Rose and Cherise, this one made Sugar cry already - and hit me as well, what's that about?.  Be forewarned.

A man I know and love waits in Intensive Care at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.  Over the past year I've written about this man, his name is Bill, his son is Jack and you probably remember Jack from my Story of the Vase.  Right now Bill's not one of my characters.  Right now, in that hospital, he's a real person, and even though I have written about him in memoirs and even though I've changed his name in my fiction and even though I've mixed up details of his life for my convenience, he's still a real person, and he still waits.  He has a brain tumor, so he can't be one of my characters right now, because I couldn't do that to him.  Don't get me wrong, I can be terrible to my characters, I kill them maim them and torture them beyond belief.  I take all hope from my characters, but I never take away their memories, their spark of individuality and I never hollow out their intelligence.  Only God is that cruel.

Jack sits beside the bed to keep Bill's spirits up.  Jack's his only son, his only child.  Jack's one of my best friends as well, and he's also a character in my stories but right now he's a grown man who's scared for his father as they both wait in a room filled with metal and cables and tubing and electronic beeps. 

The nurse comes in every hour.  “How are you two doing?” she asks as she checks the equipment and jots a note. 

Bill smiles at her, for she is pretty. Brown hair tied up, vaguely Asian features watered down by a generation or two of Americans.  Her mouth is turned up at the edges and it's hard to imagine her frowning and meaning it. 

“I'm doing fine, miss,” he says. “You people are feeding me, giving me a nice bed and a television and you convinced my son to come and hang out with me.  The only other things I need are a fridge full of Bud Light and a window I can open.”

She laughs with him and it sounds good together, light and gruff.  Bill's as cheerful as ever.  He's always been quick with a joke, it's a blue-collar New Englander trait to keep 'em coming no matter what gets in the way.  She turns to leave, winking at Jack, obviously happy to have a patient in such good spirits.

“Miss?” Bill calls.  She turns back around.  “There is something else.  I know there is.  I just keep forgetting what.  It's like there's something missing.”  He stops for a moment and slowly raises his hand to his head and points. “Right here.”  He's no longer smiling. 

His finger points at the bandages which cover the hole surgeons cut into his head two days ago.