"Give me a kiss good-bye, fighter pilot," Mamaw said, an almost forgotten shadow standing by the side of the car. She leaned in and kissed her son-in-law on the lips. "Be good to the children on this trip, Bull. You hear me. They've been looking to your coming home. Don't spoil it. I mean it too. This is your lover girl speaking."
"Just so long as they do exactly what I say. They know that as well as you do."
"They're just kids, Bull."
"They're Marine kids, Alice, and that's what makes them different."
"Mother," Lillian said, her eyes shining, "thanks for everything. The year was wonderful."
"For me especially," Alice said reaching across Bull and grasping her daughter's hand. Alice looked very old under the street light. She was not good at farewells, especially when she was tired and her defenses down on the far side of two o'clock in the morning.
"All right, Alice," Bull growled impatiently, "we're all getting kind of weepy and you know there's nothing I hate worse than boo-hooing."
"You come see us, you hear, Mother," Lillian called.
"Yeah, you heah," Bull said, mocking his wife's southern accent. "Is that dumb dog in the car?"
"He's not dumb, Dad," Matt answered, offended, petting the sleeping head of a black mongrel dog in the back seat.
"All right, all right. Let's cut the yappin'," Bull said, picking up an imaginary microphone by his dashboard. "Control tower. Run me a check on the weather. Roger. Stand by for a fighter pilot. Over and out."
"Bye Mamaw," the children yelled.
The blue station wagon pulled away from the curb like a ship easing into the half black waters a stone's throw from the light of harbors. Soon the rhythm of shifted gears and the suppressed hum of an engine tuned for a long journey brought the car down Briarcliff Road to Ponce de Leon. At the light, Bull Meecham announced that it was time to sing.
"What should we sing first?" Mary Anne asked.
"What we always sing first, sportsfans," Bull answered. "Everybody ready?"
"Yeah," his children cried.
"Yeah?" the father asked.
"Yes, sir," they answered correctly.
"That's better. A-one and a-two and a-three."
Then together the family sang. The old words of the song burned into their collective memory. Images of other journeys flashed before them as they passed from light to darkness to light following the street lamps of Ponce de Leon into Decatur. It was the holy hymn taken from the bone and sinew of the family's life together, the anthem of both their discontent and strange belabored love for their way of life. With the singing of this song the trip began, tradition was paid its due homage, the rites of odyssey fulfilled. A lone car passed the Meechams' station wagon, and the stranger passing other strangers for the first and last time on earth heard the words coming toward him and leaving him quickly, unable to catch the tune. He caught only the word "battles."
Fromthe halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli,
Wewill fight our country's battles on land, on air, on sea.
Firstto fight for right and freedom, and to keep our honor
clean,
Weare proud to claim the title of United States Marines.
It was the first song on all journeys the family took together. Each of the children had heard it first in the arms of their father; its rhythms had come to them through their mother's milk. The song filled each child with a bewitched, unnamable feeling; the same feeling that drove men into battle. The Marine Corps hymn was the family song, the song of a warrior's family, the song of war, the Meecham song. "Families without songs are unhappy families," Lillian Meecham would say. But the song was theirs. They were traveling now, singing the lead song, driving deep into an American night toward a base where the great silver planes rested, waiting for their pilots.
All during the summer, all across America, the highways filled up with the migrating families of the American military. They made crisp, mesmerized treks from base to base where the men perfected the martial arts and where families settled into counterfeit security for a year or two. Movement, travel, impermanence, and passing in the night were laws of the tribe. If the birds of the North are born with a migratory instinct fused into the albumen of eggs, then the military families of America develop the same instinct out of necessity. They pack, move, unpack, burrow in, and nervously await their next orders. When summers come a moving fever hits many of them, even when the orders command that they stay where they are.
Orders usually came during the spring, filtered down from the Pentagon, the long, spacious halls where uneyed, five-sided men fingered the destinies of millions of men and their families, who set in motion the marathon car trip, that took an Army family of eight from the Presidio of San Francisco across the continent, that sent a bachelor from Quantico thirty miles up the road to Arlington, and four naval families living side by side in Newport News to four different directions on the compass, that left an Air Force family of three in the same house on the same base for eleven years. Orders came to some men yearly; to others, rarely. But when they came, their obdurate, elliptical prose offered no choices. Orders simply informed men where they were to transport their families, the amount of time allowed for them to do it, and a description of their new assignment. Orders were a spare and skeletal literature.
"Now it's time for the ol' Dad to do a solo number," Bull announced.
"Oh, no. Not already," Lillian groaned.
"Stick your head out the window when you sing this, Dad, so the windshields don't crack," Ben said.
"Did your voice improve overseas, Dad?" Mary Anne asked. "Or does it still sound like an animal died in your throat?"
"You got the worst voice I ever heard in my life," Matt said.
"I like the way you sing, Daddy, don't listen," Karen said defensively.
"That's my girl, Karen. Defend your poor ol' father."
"Brown-noser," Mary Anne hissed at Karen. But her father had already begun singing the second traditional song of the trip.
Whenthey cut down the old pine tree,
Andthey hauled it away to the mill,
Tomake a coffin of pine
Forthat sweetheart of mine
Whenthey cut down the ol' pine tree.
The dog, Okra, began to bark fiercely at Colonel Meecham. But Bull continued his crooning.
Oh,she's not alone in her grave tonight
Alone,alone, she'll always be.
Whenthey cut down the pine for that sweetheart of mine
Whenthey cut down the ol' pine tree.
"I can't believe it," Mrs. Meecham said," the worst voice in the world got worse in a year."
"I could bring tears to the eyes of millions with that recording," Bull retorted, his feelings ruffled somewhat.
"Even Okra thought you stunk, Dad," Matt said.
"Who cares what that worthless mutt thinks. I'd be doing the whole family a favor if I got the car up to ninety and threw Okra out the window."
"Yeah," Matt continued," ol' Okra just hates your guts. I've never seen Okra hate anybody except you."
"That dog can't do one trick," Bull observed, lighting a cigar in the front seat.
"Okra has too much pride to do tricks for mere human beings," Mary Anne stated officiously. "His mind is on spiritual matters."
"Okra has one problem, sportsfans. The dog is stone dumb."
Lillian turned her head toward her husband and said," He reminds me of a lot of Marines I've met."
"Touché," Mary Anne cried.
"O.K., enough yappin'. Let's sing the next song. What will be the next one?"
"You're going too fast, Bull. Slow down, please," Lillian cautioned.
"We got to make time. What's the next song?"
"You're going too fast. You're going over seventy."
"Christ, Lillian. I go five hundred knots in a jet practically every day of my life and you get nervous when I go seventy."
"This isn't a jet, Bull."
"What's the next
song, sportsfans?"
"Let's sing 'Dixie,'" Karen trilled.
"Yes," the rest of the family agreed, except Bull.
"Naw," he said," that's a loser's song. Nothing depresses me more than a loser's song. Let's sing something else."
"No, 'Dixie,'" the others insisted.
"O.K., you sing 'Dixie' and I'll sing 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic.' I'll sing a winner's song and you sing a loser's song."
So they sang rival songs at the same time. Soon it was evident to Bull that he couldn't match the fire power of his family's combined voices, so he quit singing and concentrated sullenly on his driving and his cigar.
"What a horseshit song," Bull mumbled when they were finished singing.
"Watch your language, Bull."
"Sing 'Dixie' if you want. But we all is heading out of Georgia, the armpit of Dixie. Of course we all is only going to South Carolina, the sphincter of America."
Mary Anne yelled from the back of the car," You know what Chicago is, Popsy? It's the hemorrhoid of the planet earth."
The rest of the family applauded.
Mrs. Meecham said," Good girl, Mary Anne. Defend the South."
"What's there to defend? The South ain't produced nothin' to defend. Except grits. Georgia ice cream or screwed-up Cream of Wheat."
"It produced every single one of your children," Lillian reminded him," and your wife."
"Only because the Marine Corps puts its bases in these goddam southern swamps."
"With the taking of the Lord's name in vain, I suggest we now say a rosary for a safe trip," Lillian announced.
"Good idea. Then maybe everybody will quit yappin'."
Lillian opened the glove compartment and fumbled for her rosary beads.
"I know they're here somewhere," she declared. "They're those precious ivory beads your father bought me in Rome, Italy, blessed by Pope John the twenty-third."
"You haven't lost 'em already for godsakes," her husband grumbled.
"Of course not," she replied. "Certain things in automobiles never work longer than a month. Clocks for one. The lights of glove compartments for another. Here they are. Children, did you see this rosary? I don't believe I showed any of you. It is a treasure. Each bead is individually carved."
"Was it really blessed by the Pope, Daddy?" Karen asked.
"Yeah, I think the ol' pontiff blesses box cars full of rosaries for the tourists."
Lillian rebuked him angrily. "Bull, what a sacrilegious thing to say.
"What do you mean? Everyone's got a gimmick. Even Popes. I'm sure it's for a worthy cause like sending Maryknolls to Tanganyika to convert spearchuckers, but it's still a gimmick. I priced all the rosaries before I picked that one out for ya. I was going to get one blessed by the Pope and with a silver of the real cross inside it, but I could have bought the Pietà for less money."
"How did they know it was the real cross, Dad?" Ben asked.
"Damned if I know, son. I think Jesus would have had to be strung up ten thousand times to supply enough wood for that rosary racket."
"I think we've had enough," Mrs. Meecham announced. "Let's say the rosary for the intention of a safe journey and the salvation of your father's endangered soul," she said to her children behind her.
Colonel Meecham laughed. "I'll buy that," he said. "Your poor ol' dad needs all the prayers he can get, sportsfans."
"Let's also pray for the conversion of Russia," Mrs. Meecham added.
"That's just small potatoes, Mama. Let's pray for something big," Mary Anne deadpanned.
"Don't be a snip, young lady," her mother shot back.
"Yeah, Mary Anne, or your father's gonna take you dancing down at knuckle junction."
"That won't be necessary, Bull. I can handle the children without your help, thank you."
"I'm just trying to be supportive, dear," the colonel said. His wife did not answer. Instead, she began a slow recitation of the Apostles' Creed to begin the rosary. "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth."
In the back seat, brimming with hidden intentions, Ben drifted like a cloud into secret prayer leaning back on his pillow and silently turning his thoughts to God.
When he returned to the rosary Lillian was speaking the first part of the angel's greeting to Mary. Her enunciation was flawless as she spoke with such reverent clarity that it seemed like she was speaking the words for the first time. "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus."
The whole family bowed their heads at the spoken name of the Lord. But their response was given in breathless haste: Holymarymotherofgod, prayforussinnersnowandatthehourofourdeathAmen. The words were packed together in an unintelligible lathered herd. As Lillian's fingers circumnavigated the beads, Ben's mind wandered and the prayers became thoughtless, untongued words whose meaning was bled out of them by repetition. Mary Anne kicked him with her bare foot and shot him the finger, making sure that the sign was too low to be intercepted by her father's omniscient eyes scanning the rearview mirror. The upraised finger almost caused Ben to laugh aloud, but sterner laws of self-preservation prevailed. Ben did remember the scurrilous version of the Hail Mary Mary Anne had written the year before that Lillian had overheard. "Hail, Benny, full of shit, a turd is on thee, blessed art thou among farters, and smelly is the corpse in the tomb. Cheeses. "Lillian had not been amused and she restricted Mary Anne to the house for two weeks. Since Mary Anne never went anywhere, the punishment did not seem to compensate for the heinousness of the crime. Mary Anne enjoyed shocking Ben about religious matters. Several days before Colonel Meecham returned, Mary Anne claimed to have read that the Vatican was reconsidering its position on Mary's virginity. When Ben fell into the trap, Mary Anne explained with the casualness of a disinterested theologian that St. Joseph had appeared to a shepherd near Padua and claimed that he had gotten it from the Virgin Mary at least twice before Christ was born. Because of these obscene forays into the realm of the supernatural, Ben was positive that his sister was not a favorite in the stern eyes of the Lord. He looked at her across the car, strangely saddened by the deep beauty of her smile. Glancing forward, he shot the finger back to her and smiled.
The car moved deeper into the Georgia countryside, prayer breaking out of the windows in wavering harmonics spilling into the ditches and moccasin strung creeks of the pine counties outside of Atlanta. A truck pulled suddenly behind the station wagon filling the car with light. St. Christopher, muscled like a weight lifter and crossing a stream of bronze, winked in the sudden light, giving fierce definition to an outsized staff and a Gerber baby Christ. Colonel Meecham disliked the intrusion of other vehicles in his post midnight dashes when he was moving his family to a new home. In the rearview mirror, Ben saw his father's eyes cast a glance of primal defiance at the lights that challenged their aloneness in this desolate stretch of road and at the very instant he heard his mother end a decade of the rosary and begin the first words of the Lord's Prayer, Ben felt the car respond as his father's foot pressed the accelerator. Lying on the mattress he felt as though he were part of the car's engine, that his father was stepping on some vital organ inside of him, that he was the cause of the sudden leap forward as the wind hissed through the back seat knocking some of the clothes and uniforms from the hangers. The truck fell behind them, the lights grew smaller, then disappeared forever in the middle of the third decade of the rosary. Night returned to the car and the foot relented gradually, then relaxed against the accelerator. The car sang with its solitude. Christopher and his enduring spine crossed the stream invisibly again. The wordless words of the rosary continued like the heartbeats of birds.
Finally, seventy miles outside the city, an hour and fifteen minutes into the heart of the journey, the rosary ended and Colonel Meecham asked rhetorically and unspecifically," Who's on duty first?"
No voices answered him. Eyes strained almost audibly in the back seat as the brothers and sisters
questioned each other wordlessly.
Finally, Lillian spoke. "You taught them never to volunteer for anything."
"Why don't you help your poor old husband stay awake, honey?"
"You taught me never to volunteer for anything too. Besides I'll perish if I don't get a little sleep. Tomorrow's a long day with the movers coming and everything."
"Ben," Bull cried out to his son in the darkness behind him. "Ben, don't pretend you're asleep already."
"I was asleep."
"Get up here. Right behind me. You've got guard duty first."
"Yes, sir," Ben said, moving lightly over Matthew, and pushing Okra to the back of the car. He rested his arms on the front seat and leaned forward so he could whisper to his father without disturbing the sleep of the others.
"Well have a little man-to-man talk while the leathernecks get some sack time."
"Sure, Dad," Ben said hesitantly. "What do you want to talk about?"
"Let me ask you a question first, sentry. What are the responsibilities of a man on guard duty?"
"I don't know them all, Dad. I forgot some of them."
"Yeah, yeah. Your mother always slacks up on you when I go overseas. Give me the ones you know."
"To walk my post in a military manner, keep always alert, and observing everything that takes place within sight or hearing. To spread the alarm in case of fire or disorder."
"You skipped about a hundred of 'em. You ought to know those if you're going to be on duty. I'll give you a week to relearn 'em once we get to Ravenel."
"I haven't looked at them for a long time, Dad."
"Never make excuses."
"Yes, sir."
For the next ten miles the car was silent. Colonel Meecham chewed gum belligerently and Ben watched the white lines until he was mesmerized by their repetitiveness. Both of them wanted to speak but could find no common ground to bridge the abyss that separated them as father and son.