Death Coming Up the Hill (7 page)

digging ditches with

 

burned-out war vets in

a hundred-ten-degree heat

the rest of your life.”

★  ★  ★

Working with Reuben

changed how I read the weekly

casualty reports.

 

He'd seen buddies shipped

home in body bags. He'd been

splattered by their blood.

 

He'd heard their panicked

cries and choking death sobs. He'd

lived through the carnage

 

and knew some of the

four hundred and eight men who

died last week. To me

 

they were part of an

abstract number, but to him

they were real flesh-and-

 

blood men sacrificed

on the altar of war. I

tried to make it real,

 

but to me and most

Americans, the men who

died were just part of

 

a tragic count that

changed each week. By the end of

the summer, when I

 

read the casualty

reports, I remembered the

haunted, wounded look

 

on Reuben's face when

he talked about the war, and

I earnestly hoped

 

Kelly wasn't part

of the tragic tally of

dead in Vietnam.

 

The Democrats named

Hubert Humphrey as their man

to face Nixon in

 

November, but their

convention exposed all the

conflict in the world

 

today. Protests in

Chicago led to police

violence that seemed

 

un-American.

Trouble also exploded

in Paris, Prague, and

 

cities everywhere.

It wasn't just Vietnam;

the world had gone nuts.

★  ★  ★

The first day of school

felt simultaneously

new and old. Students

 

jammed the halls, buzzing

and bragging about all their

summer adventures.

 

My summer had been

a bummer I didn't feel

like sharing at school,

 

and looking around,

I wondered how many kids

were walking wounded

 

like me. Our summer

scars didn't show, but the pain

and damage lingered.

 

Angela met me

at my locker; we held hands

and walked to Mr.

 

Ruby's room. When he

saw us, he grinned a welcome

and told us to choose

 

our own seats, so we

claimed the same desks as last year

and waited for class.

 

“One ninety-five” was

written on the board, and I

knew that his new course,

 

Contemporary

Civilization, would deal

with today's real life.

 

My father nagged me

to leave Mom, to move in with

him, but I knew I

 

couldn't abandon

her, especially so near

to the baby's birth.

 

He tried bribery,

legal coercion, even

intimidation

 

to convince me, but

that stuff just shoved us further

and further apart.

 

I did agree to

meet him for lunch at Pete's Fish

and Chips one Sunday

 

after school started.

He looked like he hadn't slept

well for a long time.

 

I got my food, sat

facing him, and prepared to

listen to his pitch.

 

He made it clear that

reconciliation was

out of the question.

 

“I know our marriage

was broken, Ashe. Your mother

and I haven't seen

 

eye to eye on much

of anything since you were

born, but we tried to

 

hold it together

for your sake.” He blinked back tears.

“But this betrayal

 

is more than I can

bear. She has shamed me and you

and herself, and you

 

have no idea—

no idea at all—how

much this has wounded

 

me. I'm going to

fight for you, and I'm going

to make her pay for

 

what she has done. She

doesn't deserve either one

of us anymore,

 

and I'll spend my last

dime to make sure that she and

her bastard baby

 

are completely cut

off. She's made her bed; she can

sleep in it.” He leaned

 

back and stared at me.

“It's going to be scorched earth,

son, no prisoners,

 

all or nothing—and

you are going to be with

me or against me.”

 

It started late on

Monday night. I heard Mom cry

out in pain. Then she

 

yelled for me to get

ready to drive her to the

hospital. She'd talked

 

me through all this in

advance, but something about

it scared the hell out

 

of me. I checked on

her, then went to the garage,

started the car, and

 

battled the panic

while I waited. When she got

into the car, pain

 

sparked off her, and she

panted and sweated like she

was going to melt.

 

“Should I call someone?”

I asked. She shook her head. “It's

better this way. He'll

 

find out soon enough.

Now hurry up, unless you

want this baby to

 

be born in the front

seat.” By the time we got to

the emergency

 

entrance, sweat soaked my

tee shirt, and my hands trembled

like an old man's. They

 

whisked Mom away, and

I staggered to the waiting

room to worry and

 

wait. It was after

midnight, so nothing was on

the TV. I leafed

 

through old magazines

to stay calm, but with every

passing minute, the

 

worry cranked up a

notch. And then anger started

edging around the

 

worry. The peacenik

should have been there, not me. He

should have driven Mom

 

to the hospital

while she twisted and groaned with

labor pains. I stared

 

at the clock. If I

had known his name and number,

I would have dropped a

 

dime in the pay phone

and called him to demand that

he come to fix this

 

mess he started, to

take responsibility

for Mom and their new

 

baby. But all I

could do was sit and sulk and

worry. Before long,

 

a nurse walked in. “Ashe

Douglas?” I couldn't read her

face. Was something wrong

 

with Mom? The baby?

I stood up, and she looked at

me with surprise. “You're

 

the brother?” Then, “Well,

congratulations. You have

a baby sister.”

 

“Miscegenation,”

the topic of the day in

Mr. Ruby's class.

 

Arizona had

only recently dropped its

laws against inter-

 

racial marriage, he

said, but many states still clung

to their old statutes.

 

Dad was like those states,

still hanging on to racist

traditions and hate.

 

I slumped in my desk

and shoved those thoughts out of my

head. I didn't want

 

to deal with it then,

even though it was staring

me right in the face.

 

Mom named the baby

Rosa, and the first time my

little sister grabbed

 

my finger with her

tiny hand, she grabbed my heart,

too. Something about

 

that flooded me with

love, and I was surprised by

the spontaneous

 

flow of tears that leaked

down my cheeks. She was perfect,

beautiful—and black.

 

The first time I saw

her, she was still so wrinkled

and baby-new, and

 

I was so rattled

with relief that she and Mom

had survived birth that

 

I didn't even

think about her shiny black

hair and beautiful

 

brown skin. I didn't

even think about what Dad

would say or do. I

 

didn't even think

about the gossip that would

spread about my mom.

 

Seeing my baby

sister, my only thoughts were

about how much I

 

loved her, how I would

always love her, and nothing

anybody said

 

or did, even Dad,

could change how I felt about

my precious sister.

 

The very real weight

of responsibility

pressed on me from all

 

sides after Rosa's

birth. I wanted to fight for

her and Mom, but I

 

knew the minefield of

divorce would be treacherous,

unpredictable,

 

and terrifying.

My parents' war paralleled

the violence in

 

Vietnam, and I

dreaded, truly dreaded that

I might be called on

 

to fight in both wars

at once. I laugh now when I

remember how I

 

once believed that a

sweet, innocent baby like

Rosa might mend our

 

fractured family,

but when Dad finally heard

about her, he swore

 

he'd ruin Mom and

make sure her black bastard would

rot in foster care.

 

He must not have known

that when he attacked Mom, I'd

stand in the crossfire.

 

Thursday, Angela

came over and we watched the

Olympic highlights

 

while we baby-sat

Rosa for Mom. Sometimes I

think Angela loves

 

Rosa almost as

much as I do. She calls her

“little soul sister,”

 

and she always wants

to hold her. Baby Rosa

took to her right off,

 

and I must admit

that it used to make me feel

kind of jealous to

 

see Rosa cuddle

up to a stranger more than

she did to me. But

 

Angela's glow burned

off that jealousy pretty

fast, and it wasn't

 

long before I loved

how happy my soul sisters

looked with each other.

★  ★  ★

It surprised no one

that American sprinters

Tommie Smith and John

 

Carlos finished first

and third in the two-hundred

meter; what shocked and

 

infuriated

people was what they did at

the nationally

 

televised medal

ceremony. While the “Star

Spangled Banner” played,

 

both men lowered their

heads and raised black-gloved fists in

a bold Black Power

 

salute. People booed

and hissed, but the two men took

the abuse in proud,

 

stony silence. Next

to me, Angela whispered,

“Right on. You look at

 

that, little girl. Just

look at what those two brothers

are doing for you.”

 

The casualties

over in Vietnam slowed;

the carnage at home

 

increased. Dad filed for

divorce and hired a big-shot

attorney to sue

 

for custody. Not

Rosa's, of course. Mine. He claimed

that Mom was unfit

 

to be my mother,

and he wanted to force me

to live with him and

 

to leave Rosa and

Mom all alone to fend for

themselves. Mom tried to

 

hide it from me, but

when I came home from school, she

was sitting in the

 

living room, Rosa

on her lap, and an opened

letter at her feet.

 

She'd been crying, but

she sat, still as death, staring

at the letter. “It's

 

getting nasty, Ashe,

nastier than I thought it

would ever get.” Then

 

her voice caught, and the

tears started again. Rosa

sensed her mom's heartbreak