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Authors: Blaine Reimer

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BOOK: Love is a Wounded Soldier
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Billy’s arm cocked back behind his head and
he brought it forward like a catapult. It was fast. It was straight. It was
gone! I swung harder and cleaner than I’d ever swung before. It was that
powerful, effortless type of swing that rockets a ball into the sky. I lost the
ball in the sun, and it was only as I was about to round first base that I
looked out toward center field and saw the ball arcing downward toward Mr.
Richard Carr. He backpedaled madly and I could see him flail his glove wildly,
almost as though he were trying to throw his entire arm at the ball as he
backed into the field of corn behind the ball field and fell over backwards.
Home run!

My sprint became a trot as I calmly rounded
the bases, doing my best to look like the hit was all in a day’s work. I could
hardly wait to reach third base and see Moses’ reaction. Maybe he’d be on his
feet, staring marvelously at the place where the cornfield had swallowed up my
bat’s blast, or paying respect to the hit with a wide smile and a nice slow
clap. Perhaps I would cross home plate and coolly make my way to the sidelines,
and he’d walk over and say, “I didn’t know you could hit like that!” At the
very least, he’d probably say something on the way home to my mother, like
“Liza, you shoulda seen the home run Bobby hit into the cornfield this
afternoon. That was somethin’ else!”

I cornered third base and raised my head a
little to take an inconspicuous peek at Moses under the brim of my cap. He
wasn’t sitting where I’d seen him last. I raised my head higher and scanned the
sidelines to see where he’d moved to. I was so preoccupied with locating Moses I
almost missed stepping on the plate.

My team swarmed me and pats on the back
commenced. Their plaudits floated meaninglessly around my head. I didn’t hear
acclaim, all I heard was noise that rang hollowly off my eardrum and dissipated
unacknowledged.

The scrum subsided and I walked stiffly off
the field, only now able to feel the burning in my legs and the tightness in my
chest.

I scoured the area with my eyes again,
hoping that maybe I’d just missed him, maybe he’d seen my hit from afar. Ma and
Mrs. Schnell were still talking, now with a few other women I couldn’t identify
from that distance, but Moses was nowhere to be seen.

I turned around toward the game and
pretended to watch. I felt my lip tremble just the slightest bit, and my vision
blurred a little as my eyes watered, but not quite enough to create
full-fledged tears.

Sally walked by with two or three of her
girlfriends. They’d been hovering around the area pretty much the whole game.

“That was a fine hit, Bobby,” she
complimented, sounding real matter-of-fact, but she looked a little red and it
wasn’t from the sun. She twirled her hair around her finger, and if I’d been in
the right state of mind, I would have observed how light and smooth it was,
like corn silk.

“Thanks,” I muttered, lifting the bill of
my ball cap off my head and twisting it back and forth before seating it firmly
back down. I wiped my eyes with my thumb and forefinger, as if I was wiping the
sweat out of my eyes. Sally and her friends kind of hung around awkwardly for a
few seconds before running out of nerve and scattering. I heard one of the
girls say something, and Sally giggled. More was said and there were girlish
laughs all around.

I blankly watched Billy strike out two more
batters to retire the side, and we took the field two more times and batted
once. I was an automaton, my body going through the motions of play, but my
mind was a storm of emotion far away from the game. Hurt, anger, and resentment
chased each other through my mind, feeding off one another, growing larger and
uglier.

The game finally ended. I don’t remember
who won. All I remember is that I lost.

The rest of the evening I hung around like
a stray dog, not wanting to play games, socialize, converse, anything. My eyes
finally tired of roving the picnic grounds to confirm that Moses had left, so I
just settled under a tree with my cap pulled over my eyes and hoped to be left
alone.

Later on, folks began to pack up their
things and cars pulled off toward their respective homes. Moses was still
nowhere to be found, but he had left the car at the park. Ma and I both knew
where he was.

“How’re we getting home?” I asked Ma. She
had never driven the car and didn’t have the ambition to start.

“I guess you’ll have to drive,” she
replied, her tone emotionless and her face stony.

I had only driven around the farm and a
little piece down the road, never into town, so I approached the car with a
mixture of excitement and trepidation. As I cranked our Tin Lizzie, I wasn’t
sure whether I wanted everyone to see me starting the car and driving Ma home
like a big man, or whether I just wanted to be invisible and not have anyone
point or whisper how Moses was a low-down skunk for abandoning his wife and
half-grown son to fend for themselves.

Ma settled down in the passenger’s seat and
I seated myself behind the wheel and took a minute to reacquaint myself with
the controls. Deacon Wilke leaned in the window by Ma.

“Do you folks need any help gettin’ home?”
he asked quietly. His big brown eyes reminded me of a kind, docile horse that
wouldn’t harm a child.

“No thank you, sir,” Ma said smartly,
“Robert will get us there just fine.”

“Very well then,” He smiled gently. “Good
evening to you.” He tipped his hat and left.

I couldn’t ever remember Ma calling me
Robert, it was always Bobby, but I pretended I hadn’t heard her say it. I just
sat up ramrod straight and purposefully put the car into gear. It bucked and
stalled. The brief, saccadic movement was embarrassing. I tried not to look
around, for fear seeing onlookers' amusement would only sap my confidence.

I kept my head down as I restarted the car,
climbed back in, and coaxed the engine to rev higher this time. Too high,
really. The car shot forward, moving in jerky fashion for a short distance
before finally smoothing out. By then it was revving too high for first gear,
and it began to jerk again, like it was having spasms, so I pushed the lever to
my left forward, released my foot from the pedal, and it shifted into high
gear. We were off.

As we wound our way down the road, I could
feel the hotness leave my face. I finally felt like I was master of the
machine. I looked over at Ma. She sat stiffly, proudly, but it seemed I could
see her austere face was hiding some of the same feelings I was feeling about
Moses. There was anger and humiliation in the way she held her mouth, and her
eyes looked dull and distant. I saw her sadness, and I hated Moses. I could
feel the bitterness rise within me. I clutched the wheel as tightly as I’d held
the bat earlier. My teeth ground and gritted against each other so hard I
thought they might break.

 “That son of a bitch would throw a baby
down a well for a thimble of whiskey,” I forced the words through my clenched
teeth.

“Now Robert, you be watchin’ your
language,” was all Ma said softly, still staring straight ahead. I waited for
her to contradict me, but she didn’t. Usually when I got to criticizing Moses
she’d give me a sharp reprimand, reminding me it wasn’t my place to be railing
on him. I would have expected to get a piece ripped off my hind end for using
language like that, but not today. That was the day Ma was finally able to show
me that maybe she wasn’t all that thrilled about living with Moses either. That
was the day she showed me that she trusted
me
, depended on
me
,
not him. That was the day I felt like a man.

 

Table of Contents

 

TWO

I FIND MYSELF ALONE

In 1935 I was 16
years old, and beginning to figure out who I was, who I wanted to be, and
struggling to reconcile the fact that those two particular coordinates had a
sizeable piece of real estate between them.

I decided life in the backwoods of
Kentucky, working the land like my father and grandfathers had done, was not
for me. Oh, I loved the country and the humble, God-fearing folks sprinkled
unobtrusively in the nooks and wrinkles of the land. But from a young age, part
of me always wanted to leave, to explore, to achieve. Journalism appealed to
me. I was a curious and attentive observer of the world around me, and ever
since I was able to read, I read books and newspapers and periodicals on any
subject imaginable. There wasn’t a plethora of reading material to choose from
in a small community that far from a large center, but I read whatever I could
get my hands on. In that respect, I kind of considered myself to be an Abe
Lincoln of sorts. I had a thirst for knowledge, and knowledge came from books.

Writing for a newspaper intrigued me. I
dreamed of interviewing famous politicians and celebrities, yet, I also felt I
would best be able to identify with everyday folks, empathize with their
causes, and bring to light the struggles of the less-privileged.

Despite growing up in a dysfunctional
household with a negligent, abusive, alcoholic father, I always believed, or
wanted to believe, the best in people, and in life. I believed I would chart my
own destiny, and no ill could befall me that wasn’t of my own creation.
Sometimes it makes me a little nostalgic to think back to my days of unbridled
optimism and idealism, and I am saddened by my own cynicism, and mourn the loss
of my innocence.

Moses thought I was soft. Sometimes I’d
have to resort to reading in the woods by the spring, or by candlelight at
night, because if Moses saw me “fritterin’ my time away” reading something, I’d
more than likely get a cuff to the side of the head. Then he’d yell that he
couldn’t believe what a weakling, milksop son he’d raised, and often, he’d pick
up whatever I was reading and pitch it against whatever happened to be in front
of him.

I secretly planned to go to college, but
never breathed a word about it, because I knew then for sure he’d make sure I
didn’t finish high school.

But, my dream died that summer. I worked
all summer on the farm again, and when I was preparing to go back to school in
the fall, Moses let me know that my education was over. There would be no more
learning, just work. In a sense, it was a relief, as I’d had to balance my
academics with helping out at home. And by helping out, I mean doing most of
the work when Moses was gone and doing more than my fair share when he was
home.

~~~

In November of that year we were running
low on meat. Since we didn’t have any cows or pigs we wanted to slaughter at
the time, I dusted off my old Marlin 30-30 rifle, which hadn’t been used since
a rabid skunk had been found lollygagging amongst Ma’s cabbages, and set off to
procure some venison. The gun had been Ma’s pa’s, and had not so much been
given to me, but given to me to use. I had formed something of an attachment to
it, and had christened it “Slayer.” The older I got, the more silly the name
sounded, but I never went to the effort of renaming it.

The steely sky was skimmed with scaly white
clouds that day, and the wind briskly herded them along like so many sheep.
With my head bowed, my rifle under my arm, I left the yard to hunt. Charlie,
our hound, was eager to tag along, but I sternly told him to stay home, and
after several admonitions he finally slunk away.

I proceeded alone, butting against the
impudent wind. It was a cool day, not bad for the season, but the wind was edged
and unceasing. I was happy I’d worn a sweater underneath my army surplus jacket
as I entered the woods to the west of our yard site, where the trees tamed and
sliced the wall of wind into a thousand wispy fingers that whispered their way
around silently, teasing the hair that stuck out from my woolen cap and
tickling my nose before rushing on to explore hill and dale. Above, however,
the wind continued its boisterous assault on the tree tops, bending the supple
tips this way and that.

My favorite place to hunt was my “hunting
rock,” which overlooked my spring and a salt lick that was popular with the
local deer population. I hunkered down behind the rock and settled in for a
long sit.

The leaves, which had so thickly clothed
the oak trees all summer, carpeted the ground, while many of them still clung
like tatters of a garment, waiting for the elements to force them into
releasing their grip.

After a time, the wind died down, and the
flapping of the leaves was reduced to an occasional flutter. The sun became
warm, since I was sheltered on all sides, and my post felt like a sunroom. I
felt drowsy, and, telling myself it would probably be an hour or so before the
deer would begin moving, I closed my eyes and enjoyed the warmth that seeped
through my clothes and imbued my body.

It became so still I could hear laughter
and shouting from children being let out of school almost a mile away. Hearing
them made me wish that I was with them instead of being the backbone of our
farm. I missed being able to learn about all those things that fascinated
me—history, geography, literature. I missed playing games or hanging out with
the boys during recess and flirting with the girls when my nerve was up. I
thought about it wistfully as I rested my chin on my chest and dozed off to
sleep.

The light was fading when I raised my head
from my slumber. I inched my head up and peered groggily over the rock.
Something moved. It moved again, and I could see it was the flapping of an ear.
Then, I was able to make out the form of a deer—no, two deer, the brush
breaking up their profiles. How those hoofed ghosts could slip in unheard was a
question I’d asked myself a thousand times, always with the same baffled
conclusion. My adrenaline started flowing and I had to fight off the shakes.

BOOK: Love is a Wounded Soldier
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