Chapter 26

26

July 4th, 1946.

She is in the kitchen making a breakfast consisting of biscuits, gravy and orange juice when the doorbell rings.

The months have been lean as of late. Nightly I can hear my mother complaining about my "no good father" and his inability to hold down a job or to support his son. If mother knew I was listening she would never be saying such things. However, I easily fit underneath an end table sandwiched between the couch and the reclining chair and listen in on her conversations with friends when I can't sleep at night.

I spend a lot of time under that end table, dreaming.

On this particular morning, as my mother prepares breakfast, I am leading an army of men into battle against another army of savages. These savages, call them Indians, call them Africans, call them the antithesis of the western white mindset, have settled down at the base of a mountain that is allegedly filled with gold. Armed with rifles, we are heading on horseback to their camp. Things are tense between my men, many fearful and untrained. I have no choice but to lead these men to victory.

Just before we reach the top of the ridge overlooking their camp, the doorbell rings and mother stops stirring to answer it. She passes through the battlefield, a bullet barely missing the hem of her dress, landing instead into the calve of First Lieutenant Richardson, dropping him to the ground.

He screams in pain as my mother opens the door. These savages have obviously overtaken another army, taking their rifles and ammunition and have opened fire first. I give the signal to advance as two men in white enter our house and shake hands with mother. Their conversation is impossible to hear over the rumbling gallop of the horses.

She points at me and suddenly I am no longer entrenched in a war. I am a mere boy, discovered by strangers, hiding under a table.

The fight continues on as the two men approach. Our meager army should retreat, but I am not there to command them. My legs are being grabbed at, the table is being lifted to reveal my presence underneath.

"Richard, your mother wants you to come with us."

I shake my head no. My men need me.

"Please Richard, go with these two nice men. They're going to help you."

How? How can they help me? They can't see what I see. They can't hear what I hear. They're just two men dressed in white, neither of them would last a second in a war.

I feel a tug at my leg and in a gut reaction I begin to kick at the hands, hairy monstrosities whose finger nails have been unevenly chewed. The other man, a mousier version of the other, grabs both of my arms.

My men are being slaughtered. I try to wiggle free but only tire, my strength no match for theirs.

Against my will I surrender and the two men carry me out the door and into a large white vehicle devoid of any lettering. Firmly seated in the back, one man holds me in my seat white the other closes the back doors. Screens block the windows but through the hundreds of diamonds I can see my mother standing on the porch. She doesn't wave as the car pulls away but merely stares, vacant of all emotion.

It will be years before we ever see each other again.

As the space between us separates I wiggle free of the mousy one's grasp. I am being carted away from a mother who doesn't want her misunderstood child.

Neither of us sheds a tear as the last soldier falls at the base of that gold filled mountain.