Suzy had a way of crawling through the phone line and soliciting trust from any ear on the other end. Her popularity put her in the unique position of being able to solve puzzles that the government could not. Soldiers who had been shunned by the very country that sent them into harm’s way and then spit on them when they returned tended not to trust the authorities who sent them. But Suzy was another story. Suzy was one of them. One of the abandoned and rejected. This trust had gained her valuable contacts inside both Langley and the Pentagon—all with top-level security clearance. These back-channel sources allowed her to gain and provide truth to those in need—and also provided her with an iron-clad method of exposing the liars who sought to profit off America’s newfound sympathy for her soldiers.
In what might have been her greatest talent, she could spot a fake a mile—or three thousand miles—away. At the first whiff of something fishy, she’d solicit her back-channel contacts. Within a few hours or a day, that man’s entire life would be laid open for all the world to see. On several occasions she’d surprised the man on the air and publicly undressed him before all the world. Given this, few attempted to fool her.
The idea of the “soldier of fraud” was nothing new. Men had done it for centuries. Cowards who skirted the war only to return with a flag draped around their shoulders. But given the post-Iraq culture and America’s long-overdue empathy for the boys that she’d asked to become men before their time, more men began crawling out of the woodwork with never-before-told stories of both terror and heroism. And because many of America’s dodgers who burned their notices on their way to throwing rotten fruit and spitting through the fence were now looking for a way to say “I’m really sorry” to an entire generation, fewer tellers of tales were questioned or asked to validate their claims. Especially those told by men who were sent to go and kill a yellow man. Not only was it insensitive to press for credentials, but given the decades of history that had passed, how could they? Vietnam was a long time ago and halfway around the world.
While Suzy’s voice was sexy, seductive, and suggestive in a dozen different ways, Suzy herself was no taller than five-foot-four and weighed close to 280 pounds, proving that some people wear their pain on the outside.
She had searched for years for the answer to the mystery of what happened to her father. Various vets had called in with leads or well-meaning lies. None proved true. A network had picked up on the search, sent a team to Vietnam, produced an hour-long documentary. But in over two months of searching, they could not find what only the buzzards and maggots knew.
Her father’s dog tag, watch, and the Bible her mother gave him were never found.
Over the last decade Suzy solidified her status as the voice of the forgotten generation. Between prime-time TV and drive-time radio, she became a household name, face, and voice. Everybody knew Suzy. A presence to be seen, a force to be reckoned with, a voice to be heard, and a message not to be denied. Further, she was a hugger. She hugged everybody. People stood in line to get a picture and a hug with a woman so large they could barely get their arms around her.
Comfortable in her calling and career, she put her show on the road. Once a month “On the Road with Suzy” broadcast from all over the country, from a park bench on Coney Island to a saddle in Wyoming to a fishing boat in Alaska to an RV in the Keys. Family members of veterans wanting to highlight their lives and stories would write or call her, tell of their loved ones’ exploits or selfless actions, and Suzy’s team would evaluate where to go next. At each location she’d spend a day or two or three and slowly draw out the story of one man’s life that the rest of the country needed to hear. These men, stained with spit and rotten tomato puree, silent for decades, slowly unwrapped their stories.
Healing comes in both the telling and the hearing. Maybe that is Suzy’s greatest contribution.
AS I LISTENED FROM my perch on the motel balcony, Suzy joked with some callers, talked intimately with others, and finally closed out her show at midnight. I clicked off the radio and sat staring at the moon’s reflection on the water. It was a calm night. Barely any waves. Gentle breeze. A tender welcome.
Southward a figure appeared, walking the beach. A serpentine path. Left, right, left again. As the figure closed the distance, it acted more like a squirrel. Darting left, picking something off the beach, throwing it down, darting right or scurrying forward only to dart left again.
I hadn’t seen Allie in years, but even in the darkness it wasn’t difficult to identify her. Some images never go away—no matter how you try to delete or drown them. She was scouring the beach, but she was stumbling. Frantic. And exhausted. Dead on her feet. At one point she fell and lay there several minutes only to rally and crawl to her knees, lacking the strength to rise to her feet. Several minutes later, having scarred the beach like a sea turtle, she collapsed again, this time closer to the water. Here the waves washed up and over her feet and thighs. When the waves gently rolled over her shoulders, she lifted her head, peeled herself off the beach, folded her arms around her like she was cold, and made it about three steps before she collapsed.
Rosco and I walked out onto the beach. I lifted her off the sand and began carrying her toward the motel. She was soaked head to foot, and her palms were raw from crawling. I got her to my room, stripped off her wet clothes, and laid her in my bed, tucking the covers around her. During all of this, she never woke. I wondered if she had walked all the way north from the crash site. As I sat staring at her, several thoughts raced through my mind. The first was that the woman before me was not the girl I’d known.
15
When daylight came, I pulled Allie’s clothes out of the coin-operated dryer, folded them, and set them on the bed next to her along with a note. Went in search of coffee and a doughnut—Joseph. I also left Rosco, who had curled up on the corner of her bed.
I drove south a few miles to fill up with gas and grab a bite to eat at a combination gas station and doughnut shop. While I lifted the lever to start the flow of gas and inserted the nozzle into the side of my truck, a guy walked out holding a cup of coffee in one hand and two doughnuts in the other. He was wearing flip-flops, his shirt was unbuttoned, his skin was deeply tanned, and his shorts were frayed at the edges. Total local.
I said, “Morning.”
He glanced at my Carolina tag and spoke with glazing smeared across his top lip. “You’re a long way gone.” It was a statement posed as an invitation.
I palmed the sweat off my face. “Don’t you folks have any sort of winter down here?”
He finished shoving a doughnut in his mouth and then spoke around it. “Not really. ’Round here it goes from just plain hot, to Africa hot, back to Mexico hot, then mildly Nicaraguan warm and back to Sahara hot again.”
“Where’s the best place to eat?”
Another bite. “Ain’t one.”
I waved my hand in a circle about my head. “What about all these signs?”
He pointed half a doughnut north. “Up thataway. Called the Blue Tornado. Used to be the best restaurant in Florida. Now that was some good food. Legendary.”
“You eat there?”
He smiled. “Had my own booth.”
“What happened?”
He pointed a quarter doughnut south. “You passed part of the reason when you drove in.”
“How’s that?”
“You see that tractor trailer jackknifed on the rocks?”
“Yep.”
“Driver was the husband of the owner. Woman named Allie. Beautiful woman, too.”
I waited while he sipped and swallowed.
“Bad marriage led to bad restaurant. Couldn’t service the debt. Bank foreclosed.”
“What happened to the woman?”
“Waiting tables in Apalachicola.”
That stung me a bit.
I screwed the cap back on my gas tank and returned the nozzle to its slip. Without my prompting, he continued. “He weren’t never here nohow.”
I had a feeling my new friend
enjoyed being the town spokesperson. Evidently retirement was not what he’d imagined.
“He only made money when that truck was rolling, so he stayed gone months at a time.” He pulled a foot-long cigar from the saddlebag of his bike, cut both ends, and displayed considerable talent and practice lighting it. He offered it to me. “Smoke?”
A single shake of my head. “Never acquired the taste.”
He admired his cigar. “Havana. Buddy smuggles them in for me.” He drew on it and continued with his story. “But . . .” An exhale. “It’s a shame.”
“Shame?” I said, shaking my head.
“That woman had the same thing Colonel Sanders had.”
I laughed. “Special recipe?”
“Her fried shrimp would make you slap your momma.”
“That good, huh?”
A long inhale followed by a slow exhale. “No lie.”
I climbed into the truck and rolled down the window. I knew the answer, but I wanted to see his reaction. I squinted one eye. “And the hush puppies?”
He straddled an enormous Harley and pulled his sunglasses over his eyes. He shook his head. “You had to go there, didn’t you?” He rested his hands on the gas tank and stared down the road, saying nothing.
I waved and rolled north. Eating a doughnut.
I SAT NEXT TO the bed, sipping my coffee. The note I’d left was clutched in her hand. She stirred around eleven o’clock and looked at me. My face registered as did the motel room and the dog at her feet. I sat at the end of the bed, feet propped. An index card and pencil in my hand.
She whispered, “Hey.”
I warmed her cup in the microwave and handed it to her. “Hey.”
She sat there several minutes, sipping and staring at me.
I offered, “I got to town yesterday, saw you wandering the beach. You passed out—” I pointed. “Out there.”
She glanced toward the water, then south. “Thank you.”
I touched her foot. “Allie, I’m real sorry.”
She nodded and a tear broke loose. She glanced at the clock. “Would you do me a favor?”
“Anything.”
She wiped her face. “I need to go to the funeral home, make the arr—”
She couldn’t finish. I patted her foot. “I’ll drive you.”
She was staring through the window, out across the water. “I have to pick out a coffin, but . . . I don’t have any idea what I’m going to put in it.”
I said nothing.
Another tear trickled down her face. She was shaking her head. “My last words to him were so hateful. So—”
I tried to stop her. “Hey. Don’t—”
She blew her nose. “I told him I hated him and he could go to hell. And then I hung up.” Her eyes searched mine. “Those were my last words to him.”
Rosco scooted up next to her hip and laid his head on her thigh.
I let her talk.
“Ours wasn’t a good marriage, never was, but . . . he’d been driving for four days straight. Tried to make it home. His body gave out—” She sat there, hands trembling, shaking her head.
“Easy. One thing at a time.” I stood and pointed at her clothes. “Rosco and I will wait outside.” I laid the index card with her likeness on the bedside table. “My truck is parked downstairs.”
WE DROVE TO THE funeral home, where we were met by a guy I’d known in grammar school and hadn’t seen in at least forty years. Austin Walsh had inherited his family’s funeral business and made a good life for himself and his family. He saw Allie step out of my truck and met us at the door. He was round at the middle, bald on top, and soft-spoken, with a demeanor that suggested he was really good at his job. He led us in, expressed how sorry he was, and we small-talked for a few minutes. Then he led us to the display room. Ten coffins of varying wood type and finish lined the room.
Allie walked between the rows, letting her fingers touch the wood and the satin padding. After fifteen minutes, she was no closer to a decision. She turned to me. “What do you think?”
Unfortunately, I had some experience with coffins. I pointed to a solid oak, no-frills option with stainless handles. As for price range, it was middle of the road.
Austin nodded. “Good choice,” he said quietly. “One of my personal favorites.”
She stood over it, staring down. “This would be great.”
Austin said, “Allie, um . . . given the nature of what happened, there aren’t really a lot of arrangements to be made. We can be ready whenever you like.”
She understood what he meant. “Would tomorrow be too soon?”
He shook his head. “No. No problem at all. I’ll handle everything.”
She thanked him and we returned to my truck where we sat staring out the windshield at the spiral of black smoke still rising from the crash site. She turned toward me. The tremor in her lip was constant. “Can I ask one more—?”
“Of course.”
Her eyes followed the path of the smoke. “Would you go with me? It’s been too hot—”
16
We parked on the beach side, along the rocks. The fire trucks and troopers were gone, having left only the yellow tape surrounding the mangled remains of the trailer. What was left of the truck sat oddly perched on the rocks. Teetering like a seesaw. Allie walked around to the cab where the door, seat, dash, almost everything attached to the frame, had been blown off. Everything remaining was burnt or melted, and the primary smell was that of burnt rubber. The frame itself was strangely curved where it should have been straight. The blast was long gone, but it was still rocking the world around us.
Allie covered her mouth and the tears fell in a solid line down her face.
I put my arm around her and led her to the rocks, where she sat staring. “I thought maybe I could find something, anything, to put in the coffin.”
I sat listening. Rosco inspected the area around us, sniffing in the dunes between the road and the water. He poked his nose out of the palmettos a quarter mile south and I whistled, bringing him back. He returned with a long stick in his mouth. As he neared, I realized it was no stick.
The dog trotted up in front of us and Allie covered her mouth, trying to stifle her sobs. Rosco had found Jake Gibson’s walking cane. I took the cane from his mouth and Allie gently accepted it. Held it like a newborn baby. Or a folded flag. She then clutched it to her chest and spoke incoherently. Finally she knelt in front of Rosco and managed, “Thank you.”
We sat there for an hour, the sound of the waves washing over us. When she stood, she stared at the warped truck. “I just want to tell him I’m sorry.”
I put my arm around her. “The dead have already forgiven the living.”
She looked up at me. “How do you know?”
I stared about ten thousand miles behind me. “I’ve seen it in their faces.”
ALLIE WAS LIVING IN one of the four honeymoon cottages that were once a part of her father’s plan for “the Vacuum,” as we affectionately called the Blue Tornado. To consolidate her debt, she had mortgaged it. Given her father’s gambling, the cost of her first husband’s drug, rehab and relapse issues, upkeep on a restaurant next to the ocean, and the cost of Jake’s new Peterbilt—which cost nearly a quarter of a million dollars—not to mention a few other short term, higher interest, bridge-the-gap loans whereby she’d tried to hold it all together, her debt had been considerable. When her marriage to Jake soured and she was unable to make the payments, she folded her hands and finally let it go. While the bank had foreclosed on the restaurant, each of the cottages was separately deeded and not tied to the loan. She slept in one while the other three rotted. To make ends meet, she’d taken a job waiting tables at Billy Bob’s Beer House and Oyster Shack in Apalachicola. She’d been at the bar when Jake called.
I got her home. Her face was drawn, eyes sunken. She looked like she could sleep for a week. I told her to rest and I’d be there when she woke. She did not need convincing. She curled up in bed with the cane
and was asleep before I shut the door.
She woke the following morning to Rosco licking her hand and the knowledge that today she would bury her husband. Or at least his cane.
The cemetery lay on the northern end of the island. Allie’s folks lay next to one another, and a fresh hole had been dug a few feet away. The funeral was small. Graveside only. The pastor, hired by Austin, said a few kind words, comforted Allie. He and Austin left us alone with the empty box. She laid the cane inside, I shut the lid, and we stood there staring. Behind us, two blacked-out Yukon Denalis pulled onto the coquina road. They stopped, and two black-suited bodyguards complete with earpieces and mirrored sunglasses exited the vehicle. One held the rear door open while the second surveyed the landscape.
A man stepped out, waved, and walked toward us. He had aged. Looked smaller. Gray hair. He hugged Allie, kissed her cheek, and said, “Allie, I’m so sorry. Really.”
He then turned to me and extended his hand. “Hey, Jo-Jo. It’s good to see you.”
SENATOR BOBBY BROOKS WAS a five-term icon in Washington, known to most everyone as simply B. B. He was beloved. Routinely won in landslides and had done more to strengthen the military than most of the rest of the senators combined. He was a regular advisor to the president, a regular contributor to the networks, and was constantly asked when he was going to run for president. He always declined, saying he had no interest. If there was a beloved war hawk on Capitol Hill, it was Senator Brooks.
“Bobby.” When I shook his hand, his bodyguards stepped closer. He grasped my hand with both of his. It’d been a long time.
When I released, they studied me and, apparently considering me little threat, withdrew a few steps.
Bobby put his arm around Allie and said again, “I’m terribly sorry.”
She nodded.
He turned toward her and took both of her hands in his. “I had them pull the satellite imagery.” He paused. “He didn’t suffer. It was too quick.”
She choked back a cry and said, “Thank you.”
“If you need anything. Anything at all. Really.”