Born on the Fourth of July Read online

  “He used to deliver my paper,” said the heavy guy.

  “There was the Peters family too … both brothers, …” said the commander again, pausing for a long time. “Both of them got killed in the same week. And Alan Grady.… Did you know Alan Grady? He used to go to the boy scouts when you kids was growing up.”

  The boy in the back seat nodded. He knew Alan Grady too.

  “He drowned,” said the commander.

  “Funny thing,” said the heavy guy. “I mean, terrible way to go. He was on R and R or something and he drowned one afternoon when he was swimming.”

  “And Billy Morris,” said the commander, “he used to get in all sorts of trouble down at the high school. He got killed too. There was a land mine or something and he got hit in the head with a tree. Isn’t that crazy?” The commander was laughing almost hysterically now.

  “He goes all the way over there and gets killed by a fucking tree.”

  “We’ve lost a lot of good boys,” the heavy guy said. “We’ve been hit pretty bad. The whole town’s changed.”

  “And it’s been goin’ on a long time.” The commander was very angry now. “If those bastards in Washington would stop fiddlefucking around and drop a couple of big ones in the right places, we could get that whole thing over with next week. We could win that goddamn thing and get all our kids out of there.”

  When they got to Eddie Dugan’s house, both of the men got out, leaving him in the back seat, and ran up to Eddie’s doorstep. A few minutes passed, then Eddie came out the front door rocking back and forth across the lawn like a clown on his crutches until he had worked himself to the car door.

  “I can do it,” Eddie said.

  “Sure,” said the tall commander, smiling.

  They watched as Eddie stretched leaning on his crutches, then swung into the car seat.

  “Not bad,” said the commander.

  The commander and the heavy guy jumped back into the car and the boy could feel the warm spring air blowing on his face as they moved down Eddie’s block. The leaves on the trees had blossomed full. They glistened in the sun, covering the streets in patches of morning shadow.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” Eddie said to him, looking down at his legs. “I got hit by our own mortars.” He was almost laughing now. “It was on a night patrol.… And you?” he asked.

  “I got paralyzed from the chest down. I can’t move or feel anything.” He showed Eddie with his hand how far up he could not feel and then showed him the bag on the side of his leg. Usually he didn’t like telling people how bad he had been hurt, but for some reason it was different with Eddie.

  Eddie looked at the bag and shook his head, saying nothing.

  “Let me see your new legs,” he said to Eddie.

  Eddie pulled up his trousers, showing his new plastic legs. “You see,” he said, tapping them with his knuckles. He was very sarcastic. “As good as new.”

  They got to the place where the march was to begin and he saw the cub scouts and the girl scouts, the marching bands, the fathers in their Legion caps and uniforms, the mothers from the Legion’s auxilliary, the pretty drum majorettes. The street was a sea of red, white, and blue. He remembered how he and all the rest of the kids on the block had put on their cub scout uniforms and marched every Memorial Day down these same streets. He remembered the hundreds of people lining the sidewalks, everyone standing and cheering and waving their small flags, his mother standing with the other mothers on the block shouting for him to keep in step. “There’s my Yankee Doodle boy!” he’d hear her shouting, and he’d feel embarrassed, pulling his cap over his eyes like he always did.

  There were scouts decorating the Cadillac now with red, white, and blue crepe paper and long paper banners that read WELCOME HOME RON KOVIC AND EDDIE DUGAN and SUPPORT OUR BOYS IN VIETNAM. There was a small sign, too, that read: OUR WOUNDED VIETNAM VETS … EDDIE DUGAN AND RON KOVIC.

  When the scouts were finished, the commander came running over to the car with a can of beer in his hand. “Let’s go!” he shouted, jumping back in with the heavy guy.

  They drove slowly through the crowd until they were all the way up in the front of the parade. He could hear the horns and drums behind him and he looked out and watched the pretty drum majorettes and clowns dancing in the street. He looked out onto the sidewalks where the people from his town had gathered just like when he was a kid.

  But it was different. He couldn’t tell at first exactly what it was, but something was not the same, they weren’t waving and they just seemed to be standing staring at Eddie Dugan and himself like they weren’t even there. It was as if they were ghosts like little Johnny Heanon or Billy Morris come back from the dead. And he couldn’t understand what was happening.

  Maybe, he thought, the banners, the ones the boy scouts and their fathers had put up, the ones telling the whole town who Eddie Dugan and he were, maybe, he thought, they had dropped off into the street and no one knew who they were and that’s why no one was waving.

  If the signs had been there, they’d have been flooding into the streets, stomping their feet and screaming and cheering the way they did for him and Eddie at the Little League games. They’d have been swelling into the streets, trying to shake their hands just like in the movies, when the boys had come home from the other wars and everyone went crazy throwing streamers of paper and confetti and hugging their sweethearts, sweeping them off their feet and kissing them for what seemed forever. If they really knew who they were, he thought, they’d be roaring and clapping and shouting. But they were quiet and all he heard whenever the band stopped playing was the soft purr of the American Legion’s big Cadillac as it moved slowly down the street.

  Even though it seemed very difficult acting like heroes, he and Eddie tried waving a couple of times, but after a while he realized that the staring faces weren’t going to change and he couldn’t help but feel like he was some kind of animal in a zoo or that he and Eddie were on display in some trophy case. And the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to get the hell out of the back seat of the Cadillac and go back home to his room where he knew it was safe and warm. The parade had hardly begun but already he felt trapped, just like in the hospital.

  The tall commander turned down Broadway now, past Sparky the barber’s place, then down to Massapequa Avenue, past the American Legion hall where the cannon they had played on as kids sat right across from the Long Island Railroad station. He thought of the times he and Bobby and Richie Castiglia used to sit on that thing with their plastic machine guns and army-navy store canteens full of lemonade; they’d sit and wait until a train pulled into the Massapequa station, and then they’d all scream “Ambush!” with Castiglia standing up bravely on the cannon barrel, riddling the train’s windows.

  He was beginning to feel very lonely. He kept looking over at Eddie. Why hadn’t they waved, he thought. Eddie had lost both of his legs and he had come home with almost no body left, and no one seemed to care.

  When they came to where the speakers’ platform had been erected, he watched Eddie push himself out of the back seat, then up on his crutches while the heavy guy helped him with the door. The commander was opening the trunk, bringing the wheelchair to the side of the car. He was lifted out by the heavy guy and he saw the people around him watching, and it bothered him because he didn’t want them to see how badly he had been hurt and how helpless he was, having to be carried out of the car into the chair like a baby. He tried to block out what he was feeling by smiling and waving to the people around him, making jokes about the chair to ease the tension, but it was very difficult being there at all and the more he felt stared at and gawked at like some strange object in a museum, the more difficult it became and the more he wanted to get the hell out of there.

  He pushed himself to the back of the platform where two strong members of the Legion were waiting to lift him up in the chair. “How do you lift this goddamn thing?” shouted one of the men, suddenly staggering, almost drop
ping him. He tried to tell them how to lift it properly, the way they had shown him in the hospital, but they wanted to do it their own way and almost dropped him a second time.

  They finally carried him up the steps of the stage where he was wheeled up front next to Eddie, who sat with his crutches by his side. They sat together watching the big crowd and listening to one speaker after the other, including the mayor and all the town’s dignitaries; each one spoke very beautiful words about sacrifice and patriotism and God, crying out to the crowd to support the boys in the war so that their brave sacrifices would not have to be in vain.

  And then it was the tall commander’s turn to speak. He walked up to the microphone slowly, measuring his steps carefully, then jutted his head up and looked directly at the crowd. “I believe in America!” shouted the commander, shaking his fist in the air. “And I believe in Americanism!” The crowd was cheering now. “And most of all … most of all, I believe in victory for America!” He was very emotional. Then he shouted that the whole country had to come together and support the boys in the war. He told how he and the boys’ fathers before them had fought in Korea and World War II, and how the whole country had been behind them back then and how they had won a great victory for freedom. Almost crying now, he shouted to the crowd that they couldn’t give up in Vietnam. “We have to win …” he said, his voice still shaking; then pausing, he pointed his finger at him and Eddie Dugan, “… because of them!”

  Suddenly it was very quiet and he could feel them looking right at him, sitting there in his wheelchair with Eddie all alone. It seemed everyone—the cub scouts, the boy scouts, the mothers, the fathers, the whole town—had their eyes on them and now he bent his head and stared into his lap.

  The commander left the podium to great applause and the speeches continued, but the more they spoke, the more restless and uncomfortable he became, until he felt like he was going to jump out of his paralyzed body and scream. He was confused, then proud, then all of a sudden confused again. He wanted to listen and believe everything they were saying, but he kept thinking of all the things that had happened that day and now he wondered why he and Eddie hadn’t even been given the chance to speak. They had just sat there all day long, like he had been sitting in his chair for weeks and months in the hospital and at home in his room alone, and he wondered now why he had allowed them to make him a hero and the grand marshal of the parade with Eddie, why he had let them take him all over town in that Cadillac when they hadn’t even asked him to speak.

  These people had never been to his war, and they had been talking like they knew everything, like they were experts on the whole goddamn thing, like he and Eddie didn’t know how to speak for themselves because there was something wrong now with both of them. They couldn’t speak because of the war and had to have others define for them with their lovely words what they didn’t know anything about.

  He sat back, watching the men who ran the town as they walked back and forth on the speakers’ platform in their suits and ties, drinking their beer and talking about patriotism. It reminded him of the time in church a few Sundays before, when Father Bradley had suddenly pointed to him during the middle of the sermon, telling everyone he was a hero and a patriot in the eyes of God and his country for going to fight the Communists. “We must pray for brave boys like Ron Kovic,” said the priest. “And most of all,” he said, “we must pray for victory in Vietnam and peace throughout the world.” And when the service was over, people came to shake his hand and thank him for all he had done for God and his country, and he left the church feeling very sick and threw up in the parking lot.

  After all the speeches, they carried him back down the steps of the platform and the crowd started clapping and now he felt more embarrassed than ever. He didn’t deserve this, he didn’t want this shit. All he could think of was getting out of there and going back home. He just wanted to get out of this place and go back right away.

  But now someone in the crowd was calling his name. “Ronnie! Ronnie!” Over and over again he heard someone shouting. And finally he saw who it was. It was little Tommy Law, who had grown up on Hamilton Avenue with all the rest of the guys. He used to hit home runs over Tommy’s hedge. Tommy had been one of his best friends like Richie and Bobby Zimmer. He hadn’t seen him for years, not since high school. Tommy had joined the marines too, and he’d heard something about him being wounded in a rocket attack in the DMZ. No one had told him he was back from the war. And now Tommy was hugging him and they were crying, both of them at the bottom of the stage, hugging each other and crying in front of all of them that day. He wanted to pull away in embarrassment and hold back his feelings that seemed to be pouring out of him, but he could not and he cried even harder now, hugging his friend until he felt his arms go numb. It was so wonderful, so good, to see Tommy again. He seemed to bring back something wonderfully happy in his past and he didn’t want to let go. They held on to each other for a long time. And when Tommy finally pulled away, his face was bright red and covered with tears and pain. Tommy held his head with his hands still shaking, looking at him sitting there in disbelief. He looked up at Tommy’s face and he could see that he was very sad.

  The crowd had gathered now watching the two friends almost with curiosity. He tried wiping the tears from his eyes, still trying to laugh and make Tommy and himself and all the others feel more at ease, but Tommy would not smile and he kept holding his head. Still crying, he shook his head back and forth. And now, looking up at Tommy’s face, he could see the thin scar that ran along his hairline, the same kind of scar he’d seen on the heads of the vegetables who had had their brains blown out, where plates had been put in to replace part of the skull.

  But Tommy didn’t want to talk about what had happened to him. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. He grabbed the back handles of the chair and began pushing him through the crowd. He pushed him through the town past the Long Island Railroad station to the American Legion hall. They sat in the corner of the bar, watching the mayor and all the politicians. And Tommy tried to keep the drunken Legion members from hanging all over him and telling him their war stories.

  The tall commander, who was now very drunk, came over asking Tommy and him if they wanted a ride back home in the Cadillac. Tommy said they were walking home, and they left the American Legion hall and the drunks in the bar, with Tommy pushing his wheelchair, walking back through the town where they had grown up, past the baseball field at Parkside School where they had played as kids, back to Hamilton Avenue, where they sat together in front of Peter Weber’s house almost all night, still not believing they were together again.

  IAM WATCHING the young couple walk along the beach. They are walking on the wet sand just where the waves wash up to the shore. The girl is holding his hand and she is laughing. Oh I want so badly to be that guy with her. I want to feel, I want to feel again, I want to walk with a woman, I want to be just like that guy who is walking with her along the beach. Please God, I say, I want it back so bad. I will give anything, anything, just to be inside a woman again. I think of approaching them. It would be so difficult. What could I say? “Excuse me, would you like to pull my chair across the sand? Or maybe you’d like to carry me over your shoulders and I could hold your hand laughing …” NO NO NO NO, that’s not right! That’s not fair! I want it back! They have taken it, they have robbed it, my penis will never get hard anymore. I didn’t even have time to learn how to enjoy it and now it is gone, it is dead, it is as numb as the rest of me.

  I watch the other women now. I see their long slim legs standing pretty. I start to get excited, my mind racing with fantasies, and then the hurt comes.…

  Oh God, I never dreamed that this could possibly happen, that this part of me that had made me feel so good when I was young, that this wonderful thing that no one ever seems to want to talk about … has gone, has suddenly disappeared. It has happened so fast, so quickly. What can I do, how can I ever get it back? Everyone says it is such an important thing, but nob
ody wants to talk about it. The Church says if you play with it, it is a sin. Now I can’t even roll on top of a basketball, I can’t do it in the bathtub or against the tree in the yard. It is over with. Gone. And it is gone for America. I have given it for democracy. It is okay now. It is all right. Yes it is all right. I have given my dead swinging dick for America. I have given my numb young dick for democracy. It is gone and numb, lost somewhere out there by the river where the artillery is screaming in. Oh God oh God I want it back! I gave it for the whole country, I gave it for every one of them. Yes, I gave my dead dick for John Wayne and Howdy Doody, for Castiglia and Sparky the barber. Nobody ever told me I was going to come back from this war without a penis. But I am back and my head is screaming now and I don’t know what to do.

  Every night after he had been to Arthur’s Bar, he would push up his old man’s wooden ramp. He would stop at the top in his chair, knocking the big blue milk can into the bushes, cursing under his breath and opening the screen door that his old man would leave unbolted. It was always two or three in the morning by then and he would try to slip into the house without waking anybody even though he could barely push the chair. Every night he stopped next to the crucifix and stuck his fingers into the holy water. Oh Jesus, he mumbled to himself, you gotta help me, you gotta find me a woman, someone to love this broken body of mine. He would make the sign of the cross with the holy water just as he had done when he was a kid. Oh Jesus, please Jesus, you gotta help me, you gotta give me strength. This broken body ain’t gonna mend and it’s gonna be this way for a long time and you gotta help me now Jesus you gotta help me somehow. Sometimes the dog would come up to him and he would tap it softly on the head. Well, here’s a real friend, someone I can count on. He would turn the chair and push it down the narrow hallway, past the bookshelf, banging his hand against the wall, cursing, then pushing the chair angrily into his room. He would stay up all night sometimes, sitting by the typewriter, trying to forget the war, the wound, by putting words down on paper.