Stand Tall (13 page)

The rain kept coming.

Grandpa was looking toward May and the Memorial Day parade. His new leg was supposed to be delivered any day now, but it got held up because of the weather.

“
Where’s my leg?
” he kept asking Mona.

“It’s somewhere in Chicago, Leo.”

“What’s it doing there?”

“The plane it was on had to land because of the snow.”

“I’ve got to be marching strong by May.”

“Leo, I can’t promise you’ll be marching anywhere by May. It takes
time
to get this right.”

He held up his hand, didn’t want to hear it.

“I want you to push me hard, Mona.”

“I’m not going to push you any harder than makes sense.”

The next day:

“What’s my leg doing in Miami, Mona?”

Grandpa half shouted it on the phone.

“United Airlines put it on the wrong plane, Leo, and now they’re not sure where it is in the airport.”

“Maybe we should send in the paratroopers to get it back. I’m going to be a genius at this walking business, and my leg is seeing the country.”

“Leo,” said Mona Arnold, grinning, “meet your new leg.”

She handed him a flesh-colored leg cut off below the knee.

Grandpa held it. “Look at this miracle, will you?” He felt the weight. “It’s heavier than I expected.”

“Once you get used to it, it takes your weight and gives you a nice fluid movement.”

Grandpa studied it.

“If you just sit down over here, Bill will show you the next part.”

Bill, the leg man, brought out the stump sock, the liner sock, showed Grandpa how to put them on. He fitted the leg on the stump, showed how the mechanism clicked tight.

Tree and his father were there to meet the new member of the family.

Grandpa worked for two hours, practicing.

Standing on the leg.

Taking it off.

Walking so carefully a few steps, a few more.

Tiring, focused work.

Every step counts. Every step teaches something.

“Swing your leg out more, Leo. That gives you an even step.”

“Try to put equal weight on both legs now. This’ll take some time since the good one has been taking so much of the weight.”

“If you go too far too soon, you’re going to get redness and swelling. Easy does it. This isn’t a race.”

He sat down, took the leg off, held it in his lap.

“You can put it on the floor,” Mona said.

“No way. We’re bonding.”

“Vietnam wasn’t our war. That’s what the bigwigs in Washington told us.”

Grandpa had been thinking about that the last few days. Every so often he’d take the war apart to try to make sense of the experience.

He was sticking his leg on, practicing walking in the house with Tree.

A couple of faltering steps.

The first steps of the day are the hardest.

“There we were on the battlefield, getting shot at, dying, but it wasn’t our war. That was so confusing.” He looked at Tree. “You ever feel like that?”

Tree wasn’t sure. “Sometimes I feel I’m in the middle of Mom and Dad’s divorce. They’re fighting each other—not me—but I’m there.”

“You learn to duck. That’s what I did.”

Tree laughed. “I know about ducking.”

Three more steps.

Step, drag the leg. Step . . .

Grandpa gripped a chair for balance. “I ran for cover a lot, too. And I tried to remember the things I had control over so I wouldn’t feel like a grunt.”

“Like what?”

“Like how I responded to people. How I kept my weapon clean and ready. How I always wore my helmet. I protected my head come hell or high water. Guys would kid me about it.” He laughed. “Figures I’d get shot in the leg.”

Grandpa stood in front of the full-length mirror in the hall. Looking in mirrors helped him see if he was standing right.

He straightened up a little, smiled at Tree.

“I think you and I have a lot in common. We’re both learning to walk a different way, and we’re both going to be geniuses at it.”

More than anything, Tree wanted to be like his grandpa.

Grandpa shouted to Fred the parrot in the living room, “You’re a genius.
Say it, bird.
”

“Back off, Buster.”

Grandpa shook his head. “You think I can walk a few blocks in this thing next week? I’ve got something I need to do.”

“Put them down there.”

Grandpa handed Tree a new deck of playing cards in a plastic bag. Tree put it near a wreath of flowers and a baby picture that were soaked from the pouring rain.

Grandpa reached up to touch a name on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Private Elmo P. Hothrider.

Grandpa and Tree had driven here with the Trash King.

“Elmo was a fine card player. He got shot up bad outside Da Nang. His eyes were bandaged shut when I went to see him in the hospital. And you know what he wanted? He wanted to play cards. So I played for him and me. Elmo won three hands out of five, and he accused me of cheating.”

Grandpa touched the name again. “Rest well, friend. Don’t take any wild cards up there.”

He limped to another section of the wall that stretched long and black across the mall in Washington, D.C.—an hour’s drive from Ripley.

“That’s the place.”

Tree put a bottle of hot sauce near Sergeant Nick Marconi’s name.

Candles, flowers, family pictures, a big bottle of Hershey’s Syrup. Anything can hold a memory.

He placed a letter in a plastic bag and put it on the wet ground for Corporal Michael Diggins. Grandpa stood by Corporal Diggins’s name for a long time as the cold rain beat down.

“Diggins always said the jungle was crazy. You think you’re going the right way, but you’re really going back the way you came. It changes color with the sun and the clouds. You’re waiting to fight, and you start thinking the shadows are going to come get you. Then you realize that war is as much about your mind as anything else. Is what you’re seeing real, or is it made up?”

The Trash King reached up, touched Calvin Merker’s name. Merker dragged six injured people to safety before he was shot himself.

King stood there like he was waiting for something.

Tree had heard enough about the war to know that a big part of it was about waiting. Soldiers waiting for their marching orders, pilots waiting to fly their missions. Everyone waiting for it to be over.

“So many,” Grandpa said, limping from end to end as rain poured down.

Tree tried to imagine what some of these soldiers looked like; he never could. He didn’t know if they were tall or short, fat or thin. A name on a wall didn’t tell you that. But Tree knew that all the names here and the people who came to remember them were connected with a special kind of courage.

Grandpa alongside him now, struggling on that new leg. “Every friend I lost, I still carry in my heart. The paratroopers do it right. They put out an empty boot when one of them dies—no one can fill that shoe.

“We hear about casualties on the news—114 dead. Two murdered. Over three thousand killed. Numbers don’t tell the story. You can’t measure the loss of a human life. It’s all the things a person was, all their dreams, all the people who loved them, all they hoped to be and could give back to the world. A million moments in a life cut short because of war.”

Tree wished there was a memorial wall for divorce.

If there was one, he knew what he’d leave in tribute.

The photo of his parents laughing on the beach.

He kept it in his sock drawer, but that didn’t cut it as a memorial.

“More rain expected today, folks.”

That’s what the weatherman said on TV. Tree was at his mom’s house.

“Thunderstorms continue throughout the week.” Weather laughter. “It’s not my fault, I swear.” The northeast section of the weather map showed storm clouds, lightning flashes, and blinking raindrops.

“They started sandbagging the levee in Burnstown.” Mom said it, sipping coffee. Burnstown was three towns away. “Don’t be late for the bus.”

Tree got his slicker, bent down so Mom could kiss him on the cheek.

“Stay safe out there, sweetie.”

Conan yipped.

And Tree headed out into the cold, wet world.

The bus was late again.

Tree stood waiting for it in his iridescent slicker, pummeled by wetness. He felt like some giant glow-in-the-dark road marker.

Other kids were waiting, too.

No one spoke.

Endless bad weather makes you not care much about anything.

Sully, who’d lost two raincoats last week, showed up completely covered by Hefty bags. He stood morosely next to Tree.

“Can you see?” Tree asked him.

“No.”

“You want me to make your eyeholes bigger?”

“No.”

The bus pulled up, splashed water on their legs, sloshed it in their shoes. Thunder boomed.

Tree helped Sully onto the bus.

From inside the Hefty bags, Sully spoke.

“Close the school. We’re too wet to learn.” He raised a bag-wrapped fist.

Students nodded.

The bus lurched through the storm.

Outside the middle school orchestra room, Sophie was unwrapping ten layers of plastic bags from around her flute.

“Aunt Peach says if the flute gets ruined, I don’t get another one. I told her it would be a real loss to the music world. I’ve got this big tryout and I’ve got to play dry. I want this solo bad, Tree.”

Flute sounds came from the orchestra room.

“That’s pretty,” Tree said.

“
That’s
Sarah Kravetz playing.” Sarah Kravetz was Amber Melloncroft’s best friend. “She wants the solo, too. She can’t even hit a high C.”

Tree listened some more. “She’s not as good as I thought.” The flute music stopped.

“I get mucus in my throat when I’m nervous.” Sophie cleared her throat like a truck driver, spat into a tissue.

“You’ll do great,” Tree offered.

Sarah Kravetz walked out, looked Sophie up and down like she’d fallen off a garbage truck. Didn’t even look at Tree.

Flounced off.

“So, okay, I’m next.”

Sophie cleared her throat loud as Sarah looked back, amused; Amber joined her, whispering.