The Vultures. Mark Hannon
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waved his hand. “Don’t worry about that, man. Between Nancy and me we’ve got plenty of music. You can get that stuff later.”
“Yeah, later,” Tom said, thinking when and how he could get in and out of the house without seeing his father. He was glad they got out of there as quick as they did, if HR and dad had gotten talking, and HR had found out his dad was a cop…
“You ok with your folks on this, Tom?
“Ennh, not great. They’ll get used to it.”
“What’s your old man do, anyway?”
Tom stiffened. “Uh, he used to work for the city. Now he works for the county.”
“Huh. Petit bourgeois, like my folks. I guess it’ll take some time to get them to understand the world’s changing,” HR said, digging a joint out of his pocket and passing it for Tom to light. They toked carefully as they negotiated traffic downtown.
“When are you going to join the party, man?” HR asked.
Holding the smoke in his lungs a moment more, Tom replied, “Ahh, I’m not into the politics so much,” thinking HR and the World Worker’s Party were pretty far out there. “But I’m with you on stopping the war, man. It’s just insane,” he said, the images of the bodies at My Lai coming to mind and… I wonder what Rory looks like, what he’s feeling now? They got him into this with all the talk about duty and now he’s hurt bad. He used to show me all the moves on the basketball court and got me into wrestling. Now he’s a cripple, and for what?
12.
After a week at Clark Air Force Base Hospital the cycle of Rory’s morphine injections was still every four hours, but the pain dulling effects only lasted half that. Within two hours of an injection, he started sweating, drenching the bedsheets. Then the shakes and the nausea would start, and when he vomited, they would have to suction out his mouth, replace the feeding tube and clean him up. The room would start to rotate, and Rory would grab on to anything, a bed railing, an orderly’s arm, anything, to stop the spinning. The nurses and orderlies never complained, they just held him down until he passed out, and then the nightmares came.
He was getting sent out to play right field in Little League when a left-handed hitter came up in the ninth and they were up 3-2. Mr. Myers was sitting on a lawnmower that looked like a combine at the edge of the field, smoking a cigarette, waiting for the game to end. The left-handed kid went for the first pitch, hitting the ball right over the first baseman’s head. Rory charged it, slipped, but caught it off his chest. He held the ball up to show he had it and everyone charged out and Mr. Meyers started coming forward on the lawnmower.
“Hey! Stop!” Rory shouted, but Mr. Meyers just kept coming forward, and everyone else was celebrating.
“Stop!” he screamed, but he couldn’t get up, he couldn’t get out of the way. The lawnmower kept coming forward, and Mr. Meyers tossed away his cigarette. Rory closed his eyes as the blades started chopping into his arm and leg.
“Can’t anybody hear me?!” he screamed.
13.
Pat drove over to Allentown after work the next day. He went down Allen Street slowly and looked around. A couple of used book stores, a bar with opaque windows. Queer hangout. A sub shop. A four-story men’s club. The University Club, former D.A. Stone’s hangout. Two guys with long hair stared into the open engine compartment of a rusting Ford Falcon. Haven’t got the slightest idea how to fix it, do you? A blonde hooker in a plastic raincoat smiled at him as he waited for the light at Elmwood. Phew. Head to the clinic if you get with her, brother. The Greek diner on the corner and another bar next to it with a sign featuring the Lone Ranger. Dope deals in there. A small department store that sold everything from shoes to brooms. Two more bars, one brick, been there forever, one a wooden cottage painted black. Always trouble in that joint. What the hell does Tommy want to live down here for?
Pat found a parking spot up the street from Tommy’s apartment house, locked the car doors and walked back to it. Looking over the mailboxes, he saw three names taped to the mailbox for Apartment 3 – H. Roberts, N. Molla, T. Brogan. He tried the front door, locked. Good. At least they got it locked. He pushed on the doorbell but heard nothing. He pushed again and waited. Nothing. He went back to his car and waited, watching the street. After an hour, he saw HR’s Volkswagen go by, gears grinding. He waited another half hour, and the two boys were walking back towards him from Allen Street. In the bars. While they were still twenty feet away, he got out of the car and stood on the sidewalk. Both boys stopped. HR blinked and Tom said, “Uh, hi, dad.”
“I tried the doorbell, nobody answered,” Pat said.
“Yeah, we stopped for a beer after school,” Tom said.
No books.
“Well, I’m heading up,” HR said to Tom. “Nice to see you, Tom’s dad,” and he trotted back to the apartment house.
“Tommy, I want to talk to you about this new place. Your mom and I are concerned...”
“C’mon, dad. I’m eighteen years old, I’m working and going to school. I can pay for my rent with what I make at the warehouse.”
“It’s not that, Tommy. We’re worried that you won’t keep up with your studies, and with all the bars and the dope around here...”
“Look, you didn’t think Rory was too young when he went off to Vietnam, did you? You thought that was ok, he could take care of himself, and look what happened! Now I’ve got a crippled brother and you guys just go to church and pray that it’ll all go away!”
Head down and hands in his pockets, Tom brushed past his father.
“Tommy, wait! That isn’t true...” but Tom was already going up the steps with his keys out and into the building. Pat heard the door slam shut.
14.
Tom heard the sound of the Rolling Stones’ “Street Fighting Man” getting cranked up in the living room. He shut the copy of Plato’s Republic and swung his legs off the bed, kicking over his Krober’s Anthropology and Paine’s The Rights of Man. Shit, didn’t get to them tonight, he thought as he sheathed the wide leather belt to his jeans.
HR was nodding his head to the music as he passed a joint to Artie.
“Hey, Tom, c’mon in, have a toke. Artie and I were just getting ready to go out for a beer. Come along, my man.”
Artie nodded, took a deep drag and passed it to Tom, who took the joint carefully and got two short puffs off the roach.
“Yeah, let’s finish the joint and head out to the Silver. There’s always cool people in that joint,” HR said.
“It’s cheap, too,” Artie added, chuckling.
The three of them walked up Mariner St., hands in their pockets. When they turned onto Allen Street, HR pulled his hands out and gestured at the street.
“This is so cool. All kinds of people here. Black, white, working people, artists, thinkers, all coming up with new ways of seeing things. Really free in their minds. That’s what’s going to change this country, and we’re right here at the beginning of it. So cool... like in 1848. All the ideas came together and changed Europe forever. It’s time for that to happen in America.”
HR led the way, opening the door to the bar, and jukebox music, noisy talk and the smell of spilt beer wafted over them as they entered. HR smiled as he looked over the crowd, nodding to a couple of regulars, his eyes bright and his hands in his pockets.
Tom pulled out some singles. “Pitcher of Schmidt’s, please,” he said to the bartender, a big guy wearing an untucked Buffalo Braves jersey.
“Three glasses?” the bartender asked.
“Yeah, for now,” HR said. “We may need more later.”
The three stood at the bar, Tom carefully pouring the beer. A dark-complexioned