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Books by Robin Reardon
A SECRET EDGE
THINKING STRAIGHT
A QUESTION OF MANHOOD
Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.
A Question of Manhood
Robin Reardon
KENSINGTON BOOKS
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
—Plato
Contents
Part I: Good Son, Good Soldier
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Part II: A Question of Manhood
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part III: Initiation
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
A Reading Group Guide
Discussion Questions
Chapter 1
Chris will be home tomorrow!
It was like a silent litany all through the house that November Tuesday, last fall. Mom was making herself a little crazy getting the house ready. It wasn’t like the place needed any extra attention, either. I mean, it’s what she does. Keep house. And she does it great. I think she just didn’t know what else to do with herself. I felt the same way, and I almost wished she’d make me do some of it. I knew better than to volunteer, though; I wouldn’t wanna get stuck forever with any household chores that didn’t already have my name on them.
What I really wanted was something I could do to make myself more presentable, to make me feel a little less like the kid brother who wasn’t old enough to do anything useful. Even though I was sixteen, I had a feeling there would seem to be more than the three years between us when I finally laid eyes on Chris.
I had this scene in my head of what it would be like when he walked through the front door. Chris would drop his duffle and brace himself for the onslaught of Mom’s hug. She’d put her whole body into it—nearly squeeze him to death. Finally she’d let go, dabbing with a tissue at her eyes, and Dad would step forward. First he’d just look, taking in the short golden hair, the two days of beard growth, the broad shoulders, the lean body proudly held. And then he’d grin. He’d take Chris’s right hand in his and clap him on the shoulder with the other.
“Son, just look at you! You’ve become quite the man. I’m so proud of you.” That’s how he’d open.
Chris would say something like, “Yeah, well, you were right, Dad. There’s not much that’ll make a man out of you faster than the army.”
“Did I say that?”
“You did.”
“Guess I was right, then. You want a beer?”
I ran through that scene in my head so many times, in the days before he arrived. The words changed a little from one take to the next, or maybe Chris had shaved, and in one take Dad actually told Chris he could start calling Dad by his first name, Andy. One thing that didn’t change? It always played out with me off to the side, worried that I was gonna look like some needy little kid if I wanted to be noticed. If I wanted a hug or even a handshake, too.
Maybe the litany itself was silent, but Dad didn’t stop talking about Chris coming home from Vietnam. He’d been on the phone with all his cronies.
“That’s right! My boy is coming home for some leave. He deserves it, too!” Almost made it sound like he had just one boy. And it wasn’t me.
But I understood how important it was. Chris had been over there for months now, and almost every day it had occurred to me that he might not come home. Ever. That he might step on a land mine, or a punji stick hidden in a hole in the jungle floor, or even get stabbed by some double agent pretending to be a whore while Chris thinks he’s just having some boom boom time with her. His letters didn’t talk about this stuff, because he knew Mom would just about memorize them. But the war had been going on for years by that time, November of 1972, and I’d heard a few things from brothers of friends, and from the newspapers. So just the fact that Chris was still alive was something to celebrate. And when Mom told me after school one day that he was coming home on leave—well, let’s just say I had to go someplace alone. I got on my bicycle and rode and rode until I was exhausted. Then I slowed down but kept going until I was far enough into the remnants of what used to be farmland to be sure no one could hear me when I stood in the middle of a field, nearly invisible in the dusk, and hooted and hollered and howled. It was freezing cold—early November in our little corner of southwestern Pennsylvania—but I didn’t care.
I started imagining what he’d be like as soon as I was back on my bike heading home. Would he have gotten taller? More muscles? Grown a beard? Would he have changed? I know some guys have come back from ’Nam a wreck. Shell-shocked, having nightmares, drinking like fish to forget the shit that happened to them over there. I didn’t want to think what Chris would go through if he’d been in the position of having to kill civilians, especially women or kids. I couldn’t even picture him killing enemy soldiers.
When I got back from my solo journey I was surprised by the reaction from my folks. I hadn’t really expected anyone would notice that I’d left, but they had, and they weren’t happy.
Mom met me at the door, her round face all squeezed into worry lines under her sort-of-blond hair. “Oh, Paul! Where have you been? We were worried sick.”
Dad didn’t even let me reply. “Fine thing you’ve done, getting everyone upset when we’ve finally had some good news!”
“I was just out riding my bike. Jeez!” But by the time they gave me enough space to say this into, they’d both turned away again, Mom to finish getting dinner ready and Dad back to his paper to wait for the meal.
At the table we talked about Chris, of course. Mom kept reciting phrases from his letters, and Dad was obviously trying not to sound like he was looking forward to war stories. At one point I asked, “Dad, didn’t they have any wars for you to fight in?”
He got this stony kind of look on his face, picked up his pipe—beside him on the table, but not lit at the moment—and set it down again. “They did, Paul. Korea. I tried to sign up, but they didn’t like my leg.”
Right. It’s funny, you know? You tend to forget, when you see someone all the time and they limp all the time, that there’s anything unusual in that. Dad was born with one leg about two inches shorter than the other, and he couldn’t run very well. Threw his hip bones off, too, so he couldn’t do long marches. Plus, he makes you forget; he’s a real man about it and never complains. The only complaint I ever heard was that he wasn’t able to be a cop, which he’d really wanted to do. Instead he owns a pet supply store.
Dad’s big into dogs. I’ve always thought that if Mom weren’t allergic to animals, Dad would’ve had a pet store, not just a pet supply store. He does sell birds, mice, rats, fish, and some amphibians, but it’s dogs he really likes. But at least he gets to see the dogs people bring into