Death Coming Up the Hill (5 page)

it, I'd be in pieces, a

ruined, useless shell.

★  ★  ★

Angela knew my

stupid dream, too. I used to

think that a baby

 

sister would heal my

family, and I hoped and

prayed that Mom would get

 

pregnant and that a

new sister would bind all of

us together: two

 

males, two females: a

perfect balance. “It sounds dumb

now. I realize

 

my family is

too fractured to be fixed, too

off-kilter to be

 

balanced, but growing

up, I was desperate for

a little sister.”

 

Angela's eyes turned

soft, and she touched my cheek so

gently I almost

 

melted. “Be careful

what you wish for, Ashe. Sometimes

girls can create more

 

problems than they solve.”

It turned out she knew what she

was talking about.

 

I'm an idiot.

Mom wasn't smoking dope, though

I almost wish she

 

had been. I see now,

the symptoms were obvious:

she was
pregnant,
not

 

stoned. Some guy she met

at an anti-war rally;

she wouldn't tell me

 

anything about

the man, not even his name.

“Later,” she said, “please.”

 

At first I'd assumed

it was Dad, because even

with overwhelming

 

evidence to the

contrary, I still had my

childish hope that they

 

might work things out. Well,

they did work things out, but not

how I had hoped. Dad

 

moved out, furious

at Mom's betrayal, but he

also seemed almost

 

relieved that he could

leave and blame their failed marriage

on her. When she talked

 

to me, she didn't

make excuses or try to

explain; she pulled me

 

into a hug and

whispered over and over,

“I am so sorry.”

★  ★  ★

The last day of school

felt like a wake before an

Irish funeral.

 

Everybody was

signing yearbooks and talking

about parties and

 

summer jobs. All the

hallways looked like a whirlwind

had blown through, strewing

 

crumpled worksheets and

notebook paper everywhere.

Students wandered in

 

and out of classes

without hall passes because

everyone knew that

 

summer vacation

had begun even if school

wasn't yet over.

 

I felt the happy

vibe, too, but bittersweetness

dogged me all morning.

 

Seeing Angela

turned the bitter to sweet, and

the fog began to

 

lift. Like everyone

else, I looked forward to our

summer vacation,

 

but I knew I'd miss

the routine of school. Classes,

homework, sports—it gave

 

me something to do

besides worrying about

the chaos at home.

★  ★  ★

Before he turned class

over to yearbook signing,

Mr. Ruby told

 

us he'd be teaching

a new senior course next year,

Contemporary

 

Civilization,

it would be called, and it would

focus on current

 

world affairs. He glanced

around the room. “It will be

challenging, even

 

controversial,” he

said, “but I guarantee that

it will be a real

 

education.” His

gaze settled on me when he

said, “I sincerely

 

hope some of you will

enroll.” Angela's pat on

my shoulder confirmed

 

what I already

knew. When fall rolled around, we'd

both be in that class.

 

My mom loved Bobby

Kennedy. He stood up for

everything Nixon

 

didn't, and even

though he couldn't possibly

replace JFK,

 

he could pick up where

his older brother had left

off when his life was

 

snuffed out in Dallas

in 1963. When

Bobby entered the

 

presidential race,

even pregnancy couldn't

slow Mom down. She made

 

phone calls, wrote letters,

and attended rallies like

it was going to

 

change the world. A part

of her had died when Martin

Luther King was killed,

 

but Bobby's campaign

brought it back to life. And it

distracted both of

 

us, for a time, from

the relentless slaughter in

the Vietnam War.

 

Wednesday night, Mom and

I watched the California

primary. Bobby

 

Kennedy won, and

throughout his speech Mom stood and

yelled “Right on!” at the

 

TV every time

Kennedy made a point she

liked. After the speech,

 

reporters discussed

the election results and

Kennedy's chances

 

in November. Then

the TV picture lurched and

rolled, and the people

 

behind the newsmen

started running and shouting.

Mom froze and stared as

 

pandemonium

erupted on the TV.

She faded back in-

 

to her chair, one hand

against her cheek, while she stared

in terrible white

 

anticipation.

The camera focused on

the swirl of people,

 

and the reporter

disappeared from sight. Moments

later, a panicked

 

voice crackled through the

airwaves: “Kennedy's been shot!

My God, he's been shot!”

 

“It's complicated.”

That's what my mom always said

when I asked her when

 

I'd meet the baby's

father. “Complicated” was

an understatement.

 

I knew it was the

Age of Aquarius and

free love, but my own

 

mother, a married

woman, carried the child of

another man. That

 

was complicated

for everyone involved. Mom's

not stupid, so I

 

couldn't figure out

how she got pregnant in the

first place. After all

 

the grief she suffered

from her first pregnancy, she

had to know better,

 

and given that I

had no siblings, it was clear

that she understood

 

how birth control worked.

Could she have fallen in love

with some strange peacenik?

 

Maybe it was just

a desperate one-night stand

that she fell into

 

out of loneliness.

Maybe she didn't even

know his name. Maybe

 

he was just drifting

through, and he didn't tell her

where he went next. I

 

wanted to be mad

at her, to punish her for

putting that last straw

 

on Dad's back, to make

her pay for lighting the fuse

that would blow up our

 

fractured family,

but I knew Dad was as much

to blame as she was,

 

and somehow I felt

that part of the fault was mine,

too. I couldn't be

 

mad at Mom or Dad

for the complications that

entangled us all.

★  ★  ★

Even with the flak

flying around, Angela

wanted to meet my

 

parents. She's not like

me that way—conflict is one

thing I avoid, but

 

she sails in, fearless.

One night, we sat under a

palm tree in her front

 

yard while I described

my dysfunctional parents.

It didn't faze her.

 

“Your mom sounds great. I

think I'd get along really

well with her.” Then I

 

told her about my

dad and his old-school views on

politics, civil

 

rights, and the war. She

laughed. “It will be like
Guess Who's

Coming to Dinner,

 

except that I'll be

in Sidney Poitier's role—

the outsider who's

 

a dad's nightmare.” I

couldn't help smiling, and she

knew she'd won. “Okay,”

 

I said, “I'll see what

I can do.” Angela hugged

me, hard, and whispered,

 

“This'll be a good

thing, Ashe. You'll see.” The warmth of

her embrace lingered

 

all the way to my

front door, but when I opened

it, the sadness at

 

home swept it right out

of me. I wished life was much

less complicated.

 

Bobby Kennedy's

murder filled Mom with a new

sense of urgency,

 

and she turned even

more passionate about the

war, civil rights, and

 

keeping Nixon out

of the White House. Her work kept

her away from home

 

a lot, so sometimes

I'd go to Dad's apartment

for dinner. I tried

 

to talk about the

baby once, but Dad only

stared at me before

 

leaving the table

without saying a word. I

tried to imagine

 

a dinner with Mom,

Angela, and him. It was

impossible. I

 

told Angela that

life isn't like the movies,

and that even if

 

people need to change,

most don't want to, no matter

what you do or say.

 

Why don't they publish

all the names of the soldiers

killed every week? How

 

different it would

be to read a long list of

names in the paper

 

on Thursdays. It would

bring the war home in a way

numbers can't. Maybe

 

then people would see

what it's costing us to be

tangled up in a

 

foreign jungle war

that will get worse before it's

all over. Last week,

 

one hundred eighty-

seven U.S. soldiers died

in Vietnam, and

 

nobody—except

family and close friends—knew

or cared. How easy

 

it is to forget

the blood, injuries, and death

happening daily.

 

They deserve to be

remembered by name. Think of

what it would be like

 

to see all the names

of the dead at once. Thousands

of sons, brothers, and

 

husbands who died for

a country they loved in a

distant, senseless war.

 

Dad got me a job

digging sprinkler line trenches

for the new hotel

 

going up over

on Rural Road. My boss was

an old man who had

 

spent way too much time

in the sun. The first morning,

he laughed when I showed

 

up without gloves. He

handed me a shovel and

pointed to a guy

 

already picking

a flat patch of hard brown dirt

in the corner. “Get

 

busy. I want to

see nothing but backsides and

elbows until lunch.

 

You got it?” I took

the shovel and walked over

to my coworker.

 

A dark splotch of sweat

already stained the back of

his gray Marines tee

 

shirt, and when he saw

me, he swung his pick into

the ground, pulled off his

 

glove, and shook my hand.

Reuben Ortega was four

years older than me,

 

and he'd just gotten

back from Vietnam. He lent

me an old pair of

 

leather work gloves and

shared his ice water while we

broke our backs on the

 

hard-packed clay in the

broiling July sun. And when

we sat in the shade

 

of the new building

to eat lunch, he told me things

that he had seen and

 

done in 'Nam, things that

never make the newspapers.