Eleven-year-old kids are supposed to be ignorant and self-absorbed, and I was certainly no exception. The mystification of worldly events was better left to worrisome adults who had mortgages to pay and faced the imminent threat of Russian missiles, dissolute hippies and Negroes rioting in Chicago. A five-mile radius of the ballpark, school and our house in the suburbs bounded my world. I was cozy and content.

My father wanted to change that.

The sixth-grade school fall assembly rolled around and I found myself assigned to recite a Veteran's Day speech. It happened before I could muster a flimsy argument in my defense. In one moment, Grady Holmes was stammering through it during rehearsals, and in the next, he suddenly went apoplectic and wet his pants.

"Oh, for crissakes," grumbled our theatre teacher, Mr. Jameson, snatching the script from Grady to thrust it into my clammy hands. I had foolishly positioned myself nearby to better view the debacle, only to have my good fortune turn sour.

So, I moped about the house in the days preceding the assembly, dreading the moment when I'd have to deliver a speech composed of a jangle of pretentious words strung together with a halting rhythm. I was too upset to realize that Daddy had taken an interest in this activity.

That interest presented itself on the night of the assembly like a blow to the face when I peered from behind the curtains and saw him sitting front and center, dour and detached. Daddy never attended a school function. Anything I ever knew of my father had nothing to do with what he intimated and everything to do with what I observed: the way he'd lay his book in his lap and placidly wait for quiet while Justin and I roughhoused; the way he'd straighten and signal for silence during a TV report on the war; or the way he'd lean against the left-field fence, alone and smoking a cigarette during any one of my ball games.

The skits preceding my moment on stage sped by. Backstage, I paced and sweated, trying to commit the speech to memory in the waning minutes. It was futile. The paper I held might as well have been a white paper drafted by a nuclear physicist.

The curtain dropped, then immediately lifted, cueing my entrance. I froze, defeated. A push from Mr. Jameson sent me staggering center stage accompanied by a few snickers from my fifth-grade class and a clearly audible jeer from my older brother, Justin, malingering behind the American flag standing stage left.

I don't remember looking up from my piece of paper once. I trudged through it with a laconic voice, heedless of any punctuation. I scarcely drew more than three breaths. At its conclusion, I struck a listless pose with the paper dangling slack at my side.

For some reason, my gaze fixed on a portrait of Dwight Eisenhower hung on the wall at the back of the auditorium. His vapid smile seemed to suggest that he forgave my blasphemous deed, but I wasn't so sure. There was a long interval before anyone reacted. Justin sputtered twice before bursting into laughter. A smattering of polite applause saved me from total indignity.

Later that night Daddy beat Justin with an extension cord. Mama and I looked on in horror. Mama, not he, was the designated disciplinarian. I slunk quietly into my room only to later see his shadow fill my doorway as I drew the covers to my neck.

"I don't expect a thing from Justin... you can't polish a turd," he said, "but I expected more from you." And he vanished into insoluble seclusion, leaving me to wonder what those expectations were.

The following summer, Daddy decided Justin and I were to spend our vacation with Grandmother Mamaw. Her farm was impossibly remote, buried next to a small town not even mentioned on the highway map Daddy kept folded in the glove compartment.

We had never seen Mamaw in any other setting except our house for the holidays - on my mother's terms, where Mamaw wasn't at liberty to control events. During those visits, Mamaw conducted herself in a perfunctory manner that even I as a youngster could tell masked a formidable spirit one never knew might suddenly erupt.

We badgered Daddy for answers as to why we had to go. On the drive down Justin threw a fit, inserting a few words he'd acquired from the older kids with whom he smoked behind the gymnasium, puffing discreetly on discarded cigarette butts from the teacher's lounge. Daddy let that diatribe slide without a word - just a cold stare beyond the hood of the car and a slow movement of his hand across his lips, as if to suppress the telling of some terrible secret. Our summer would take on special significance.

I remember there were three rules to follow. Mamaw had issued each in a manner any imbecile could understand.

No cussing, leaving little conversational wriggle room for my brother.

Don't pick up the cat - he don't like it. That was fine. The damned thing hissed like a cobra if we strayed too close.

And don't ever, ever enter the back bedroom.

The third edict was issued with arms folded imperially upon her massive bosoms. We both shuffled awkwardly in place, our eyes running along the floor and up the walls. Mamaw glared at us from behind coke-bottle lenses leaning like dinner plates against a wall of granite that was her face. Her eyes were as dark and gigantic as approaching thunderheads, weakening the bladder and loosening stools.

"Your Pawpaw's in no condition for visitors," she added, adjusting hairpins that sprung from a menacing, salt-and-pepper cyclone spinning atop her head. "That leaves a heap of things for you two boys to do. This farm needs workin', too. My messkins could use a hand, heah?"

Justin's eyes traced a rainbow across the ceiling. He was cursed with a naturally mischievous physiognomy: redheaded with a crewcut, freckles and iridescent eyes that flared to jade-colored glass when he was feeling particularly scampish.

"Settle those sassy eyes, boy," said Mamaw. "I'll have none of it. Now shoo... this kitchen's hot enough without the two of you carryin' on in it."

"Yessum."

Mamaw's day consisted of a myriad of tasks that removed us from her watchful eye. She rode herd on the two Mexican migrant workers, Hector and Lujan, charged with tending the crops. The laundry room was in a utility shed some ten yards from the house, and the henhouse even further away. The horses were stalled in the next field just on the edge of hollering range. All that made for plenty of time and distance between her and our machinations.

However, we were made to go into town with her on shopping days. My curious nature wasn't to be trusted, and Justin wasn't to be given too many opportunities to swear unchecked in private.

So, we wasted most of our summer days in a conspiratorial mode rife with subplots. There were horses to ride, streams to fish, and pigs to slop; and yet, we remained disinterested in any activity that would have otherwise tantalized twelve and fourteen-year-old boys. Instead we lounged and watched TV and dwelt on the weighty matter of what lay hidden behind the door with the ornate glass knob and brass plate. Jasper, the mercurial cat, patrolled the entrance, yowling an alarm if either of us ventured near.

"Leave that cat alone, Justin!" Mamaw would roar from some remote part of the house.

"I'm not fooling with it! It's just plain ornery!" Justin would holler back.

One day, we found ourselves watching the 5:00 o'clock news while Mamaw was having it out with a busted pipe in the bathroom. Numerals keeping score of the dead and wounded trailed across the bottom of the screen as infantrymen carried misshapen heaps of olive drab on stretchers through a jungle village. In contrast to what we saw, Cronkite's monotone seemed both absurd and terrifying.

We were both thinking the same thing.

"What do you suppose he looks like?" I asked Justin.

"Who? Pawpaw?"

"Uh-huh."

"I dunno. Maybe he's crazy, see? She's got him tied to a chair and blindfolded so he can't see imaginary bats and shit flying 'round. Feeds him cat food and sody-water." Justin cackled in response to his cruel inference.

"Hush," I whispered, "she'll hear you and whip the tar outta both of us. Besides, we'd hear him hollering and carrying on if he was tied up. I think he's sick," and I looked at the door, bobbing my head for any shred of a clue.

Mamaw had cut a cat door into the bottom of it, draping the opening with a dingy piece of cheesecloth. Jasper could come and go as he liked, always cool and indifferent after his long, languid visits. I hated that cat.

I observed the light penetrating the cloth. It had an unnatural quality, like it was more luminous than it should have been and kind of pulsed; then just as quickly, it would dim and swirl, as if governed by some furtive presence.

"Daddy said one time he was some hotshot infantry commander in the war," said Justin, looking remarkably solemn all of sudden.

"Huh?"

"Yeah. Over in Europe."

I recalled a war movie Justin and I once saw. A German pilot took a spray of bullets from a Spitfire across his cockpit, flooding the space behind his goggles with red, while I sat and stuffed my face with popcorn, hooted and jabbed at Justin to make sure he wasn't missing the good parts.

A loud knocking at the front door shook us violently from our thoughts. A clanging noise from the bathroom ensued, followed by a flurry of obscenities Mamaw was accustomed to using when rattled - Justin's vocabulary swelled.

Again, a loud, persistent knocking. Jasper yowled from the forbidden room.

"One you boys get that! I'm all tangled up with these pipes," Mamaw shouted.

Justin was the first to regain his composure and hopped up to go answer the door. I followed maintaining a safe distance. Justin opened the door cautiously, shielding his body behind it.

"Evening," rumbled a masculine voice.

"Hidy," responded Justin, barely audible.

"Who is it?" called Mamaw.

"Nurse Gage!" our visitor shouted back, apparently impatient with Justin's timidity.

I craned for a glimpse of the person, but failed. Justin had turned to stone, his eyes as wide as saucers.

"Criminy," I heard Mamaw say, "I done plum forgot."

"Step aside, boy," our visitor said then placed a meaty paw on the door, shoving it open and Justin aside.

Nurse Gage was as baleful a creature as I ever saw, chiseled from the same block of granite as Mamaw, only sharper and more severe. She stepped inside, turned and began lugging some equipment in behind her.

"Hold that door open wide, boy," she instructed.

Justin did just that, pressing his body as flat as possible against the wall. Mamaw came bustling in from the back, wiping her brow with the back of her hand.

"Gawn 'n git, Adam," Mamaw snapped at me, waving her hand back towards the kitchen.

I slid back around a wall and out of the hallway, still keeping an eye on things. Mamaw hurried towards Nurse Gage who had managed to wrench some devices over the front stoop and into the hallway.

"You too, Justin... git!" said Mamaw. "Heah, lemme give you a hand, Mildred."

Nurse Gage handed Mamaw two sizable, cylindrical canisters with valves atop each. Mamaw carried them like luggage into the back bedroom. I was agog. Nurse Gage followed wheeling a metal rack, a cart and a collection of medical supplies comprised of surgical tubing, glass bottles, masks and other sundry items. An antiseptic, medicinal smell swirled in their wake. This had the look and feel of a practiced drill.

Justin and I waited and listened. When we heard Mamaw jiggle and swing open the door, we both snuck back to the TV room to spy on the proceedings. We got there in time to see Nurse Gage angle the cart and rack around the door, banging it twice against the jamb. Jasper, having been trapped inside, brayed a demon shriek and scurried and slid about the hardwood floors, his claws clicking a furious beat. He emerged from the room in a sprint, stopped dead in his tracks upon encountering us, hissed, then sped on.

Mamaw leaned her head into the doorway and gave us an admonitory look, then calmly closed the door.

They were in there for many minutes. Justin and I stayed put, neither of us bold enough to move any closer. They carried on their business with soft, inaudible murmurs. Occasionally we'd hear the rattle of equipment or the squeak of bedsprings.

"I told you he was sick," I whispered.

"Well no shit, Sherlock. I knew it all along, Mister Smarty-pants," and Justin pinched me.

"Ow!" I rubbed my arm, but kept looking through the cheesecloth. The gaudy light bounced and bent, dueling with large shadows cast by Mamaw and the giantess in the white uniform.

After some time, the glass doorknob turned and we hastened to the kitchen. From there, we saw Nurse Gage walk briskly past to the front door. Mamaw stopped at the kitchen doorway, escorting the nurse only halfway.

"Thanks, Mildred," was all Mamaw said. Nurse Gage left without replying.

Mamaw turned and stared at us for a moment. She had completely lost her bearings. Much of her color was gone, too.

"Well, ain't no use sittin' 'round wonderin' what the fuss was all about. There's work to do," she managed to say, fidgeting needlessly with the hem of her dress. She wiped a good deal of sweat off her forehead and sighed. "I'm gonna let that leaky pipe go for a spell and tend to the horses 'fore dark. Y'all behave, heah?"

And that's how it was. Every encounter with that room, planned or unplanned, left her flustered. She'd stall, retrace her steps, wash the same dish twice or yell at the cat. The mystery swallowed us whole.

When Mamaw closed the backdoor behind her, the resultant change in air pressure fluttered the drapes, but more importantly, opened a door to that mystery.

"Did you hear that creaking?" I asked.

"Yep. Let's go see."

We returned to the TV room and looked towards the back bedroom. Indeed, the door was ajar - just slightly so as to allow a suitable field of vision for the roving eye of an inquisitive child - a single inquisitive child.

"Where's Jasper?" I asked.

"Gone. He tore outta here like he had a firecracker shoved up his ass. He isn't gonna fuck with us." Justin thought for a moment. I didn't know what to do.

"Okay. You take a look through the door. I'm going outside for a better look."

"What?" I said.

"I'm going to climb that pecan tree and for a peek inside."

I was flabbergasted. The back portion of the house was built upon a dramatic slope that raised it some twenty feet off the ground. A grand pecan tree grew close and shaded much of the back, including Pawpaw's bedroom. Justin's plan exceeded the boundaries of what I thought was acceptable risk.

"She'll see you... then what?"

"Nah. She'll be a half-hour with those horses. Anyway, I plan to be quick about it."

Justin left before I could protest. Pawpaw's door swayed in reaction to Justin's leaving through the backdoor.

I streamed forth, crouched and wary. As I neared, I heard a whirring noise from within. I paused. The whirr filled the space of the room and beyond, yet underlying that noise pulsed another: a measured, rise and fall of a hiss. I felt like I was in a dream, incapable of running and barely able to crawl from some advancing danger.

Upon finally arriving at the door, I discovered it had not swung open enough. I had but a partial view of the room. I could see half of the left wall and about a third of the back. A large window, flush with the left of the back wall, extended almost from floor to ceiling. Only a triangle fragment at the foot of the wrought-iron bed was visible. The sheets were tucked tightly and uniformly.

The austerity of the room was discomfiting. Save the bed and a tiny bureau listing on uneven legs at the left wall, there wasn't another scrap of furniture about. There were no wall hangings or curtains either. The ochre walls were papered with a patternless material that had aged and peeled without regard.

I detected movement outside the window. A thick branch of the pecan tree shook then bowed, and suddenly Justin appeared, bracing himself against two sturdy branches forking just outside the window.

It was evident he couldn't see anything because he kept shading his eyes and stooping. At one point, perhaps assuming that I was watching, he stretched the corners of his mouth with his fingers, stuck out his tongue and bugged his eyes. He then laughed, but I wasn't in the mood. The hissing noise grew louder.

Justin's next move emboldened me. I watched as he looked back and forth from where he stood to the window. In the next instant, he sprang to the windowsill, banging his knee hard against the pane without breaking it.

I held my breath... and listened. Justin shuffled with a grim look of determination stenciled on his face, his body splayed like a huge spider against the glass. Nothing stirred inside the room. The whirr and its companion hiss persisted, as if having droned since the dawn of man.

I placed a grubby hand against the door and pushed slowly, praying it wouldn't creak. Of course it did, but I continued until I was afforded a full view of the back wall. I could see nothing further of the bed, its head positioned against the same wall as the door. I moved forward on my knees until my head penetrated an invisible boundary of new discovery. I dared not look to my left.

What struck me next was the smell of the room. Unlike the mélange of talcum powder and fresh cut flowers that imbued the rest of the house, the odor of soiled diapers and linens pervaded here. It hung heavily in the air, thick and intractable, and I knew death lurked close by, forever patient.

I examined more of the room. Sunlight that found its way in produced a wild phantasmagoria of menageries both terrible and provocative. Racing clouds and swaying branches crafted lurid shadows that bolted from the panes, splashing fantastic animation upon the walls, fortifying my belief that my grandfather and I were not alone.

Another oddity captured my attention: the rear wall. A wide band of faded rectangles checkerboarded the entire length of the wall. There too hemorrhaged long, blackening stains that streaked the wall. From my vantage point, looking up, the wall rose like a monolith stripped bare - ancient, without valor and melancholy.

In that moment, Jasper brushed against me and I started. He hopped a quick step then walked over to the bed. My eyes followed him, compelling me now to look towards the bed. I was too low to see the bed's occupant; however, I could see the rack from which hung a glass bottle affixed with a clear tube. The hissing intensified, as if the atmosphere had shattered into a million shards of glass. Jasper paused at the edge of the bed and looked back at me. For once, his face bore no malice. He blinked once, then turned and leapt onto the bed.

I had come this far, so I stood.

He lay facing the back wall, propped up by several pillows. He was motionless. I had never seen a human so emaciated. He looked much older than I knew him to be, bald with thick tufts of white beard sprouting haphazardly from hollowed cheeks. He wore an oxygen mask, and as I looked on, I again harkened to the meter of his breathing - slow and steady and altogether terrifying in that it commanded acknowledgement that this individual indeed lived and may very well be aware of my presence.

His sere arms lay lifeless at his side, palms up. I doubted they functioned. Two pillows and one of Mamaw's finest quilts lined a barrier at the base of his torso. He was absent both legs.

My strength to remain standing had begun to flag, and I braced myself against the door.

For a time, I could no longer bear to look at him and instead watched Jasper. The cat prowled an area where legs should have rightly extended. He sniffed the air and then the bedcovers, as if detecting the remnants of something elemental. Finally, he mounted a pillow, did mushy-paws then curled peacefully into a ball.

Pawpaw's hand twitched and lifted without the slightest tremor. He laid that hand on Jasper's haunches, and Jasper received it and let it rest there while I harkened to stentorian purring rising above the breathing of the old man.

I hazarded another look at his face. He had managed a quarter-turn towards me, his eyes seeming to melt on either side of the mask and containing every moment from the past to the present. I couldn't escape them. An opalescent sliver of his left eye was thinly visible behind a horrible scar of tattered skin that almost entirely draped the eye. His right eye, however, revealed itself with stark clarity. It was wide, wide open. It too was pearl-colored, yet with an icy-blue core floating on a viscid substance accreting at the lower lid.

He bore into me, his mien indecipherable behind the mask. I bore back into him. And yet, I watched too the rise and fall of his shrunken chest beneath the sheet and the light and shadows roiling on the wall behind.

I suddenly remembered Justin. I wrenched my eyes from the bed and looked at the window. The sun had dipped and now penetrated a fissure amongst the tangle of tree limbs, flooding the window with a fiery light and setting my brother ablaze. His radiant penumbra shone like a moon during a solar eclipse. I could see that he had found his foothold and now looked upon what I saw in mute fascination.

In the next moment, I experienced the most profound transformation of my young life.

Inexplicably, Justin canted his arms askew, and the sun sank and triangulated the light in such a fashion as to produce extraordinary results. I'll swear to this day that a broad swastika was cast upon the entire room and across the prostrate form of my grandfather. Until then, that symbol was no more significant to me than a letter of the Greek alphabet. I gasped and looked at the desolate wall opposite the bed - the wall upon which my grandfather's gaze remained immutably fixed.

I had thought the words of my V-Day speech banished forever from my mind, yet they reassembled in that moment to convey a message, and I felt ashamed and wanted to cry. Liberty, a hackneyed word disdained by the intellects, rang loud and clear inside my head. I vowed then to learn its meaning... understand its consequences.

Mamaw arrived unheard, sweeping me off the floor and carrying me from the room. I was grateful to be leaving under someone else's power since I hadn't the strength to do so myself.

She tossed me onto the sofa where I collapsed and burst into tears. I looked at her without fear of retribution for I was already penitent. She looked back with an expression at first stern then softening, as if she now understood the expansion of my worldview. She sat, her clothes exuding the sweat of horses, and with her arm guided my head in against her huge bosom, waiting for me to finish crying.

Neither Justin nor I knew what to say at the dinner table that evening. We each slouched over our plates, silently stabbing at our food. Mamaw, too, was silent. Above the soundless void I imagined the thoughts that roared inside my head could be clearly heard by anyone present.

It was impossible to tell what Justin thought. He stared at his plate without looking up, drawing endless circles in his mashed potatoes with his fork. I prayed for a rapid conclusion to the summer.

Mamaw finally finished preparing her own plate and sat down. She mumbled grace then breathed a heavy sigh. Justin and I shifted nervously in our seats. I lifted my eyes just enough from my plate to watch her. She raised her knife and fork as if to start cutting her pork chop, then suddenly laid them down.

"Oh, for cryin' out loud. This is silly... I've been a damn fool," she said.

While I tried interpreting that statement, Justin began sniffling. I'd never seen him cry for any other reason than a whipping.

"Buck up, Justin," she continued, "it ain't your fault."

"I'm sorry, Mamaw... we both are," he said in a halting voice. His jaw quivered and I thought he'd start bawling right there.

"I know you are, sugar, but like I say, it ain't your fault."

Mamaw leaned with her elbows on the table, staring at the butter dish.

"I'm so mad at your father I could swallow steel and crap razor blades."

Normally, that quip would have prompted Justin to laugh. Instead he asked, "Why are you mad at Daddy?"

"Cuz he sent y'all here to confront sumthin' he never could, and I s'pect never will. Made me so mad I took it out on you boys. I wasn't gonna let you ever see your Pawpaw just to spite your Daddy. That's mean-spirited and I apologize. You're both a coupla stinkers, but I love you both, you heah?"

"Yessum," and we nodded. Even when apologizing her voice commanded obedience. Justin sniffed again, wiping his nose on his shirtsleeve.

"What happened to him?" I heard myself ask. I steeled myself for an angry reaction, but she surprised me.

"Lost both of his legs in the war. Omaha Beach. I ain't tellin' you anymore 'bout that cuz that's poor conversation for youngsters. Just know your Pawpaw was a hero, but heroes don't always come home to soar like angels. Lotsa things happen and lotsa people don't care or know anything about heroes or angels."

She looked at her food again. "It's a shame to let all this food go to waste. Y'all gawn 'n start eatin'."

She took up her knife and fork and showed us that it was possible to eat a pork chop and dwell on grave matters in the same instant. We ate in silence for a few minutes.

"He lost his spirit along with his legs," Mamaw said abruptly. "His mind follered shortly thereafter. Your Daddy never saw his father quite right in the head and it ruined him. Now I'm sittin' here condemning 'im. Lord have mercy," and she shook her head. "Eat up, boys. There's something I want to show you."

We promptly cleaned our plates and turned down a slice of hot apple pie and ice cream for dessert.

"I reckon y'all are itchin' to see what I got for you. Have a seat on the couch. I'll be back terrectly."

Mamaw rummaged for a time in a hall closet while my brother and I sat like porch monkeys on the fancy company's-come-a'visitin' couch. We both gawked at one another, daring the other to say something first. I didn't know what to say, and I supposed neither did Justin. She finally emerged carrying two medium-sized cardboard boxes. She placed them on the coffee table and sat down between us.

"I haven't opened these in twelve years." The boxes had been taped shut, and she began busting them open. "All your Pawpaw's war pictures and commendations are in here."

She opened one box and slid it over to Justin. She opened the next and pushed it towards me.

"Took'm all down when your Pawpaw got to actin' ugly. His mind had long since flown the coop, but when he started in on accusin' me of runnin' 'round, I finally had enough. Said I was seein' a colored man and other such nonsense. I punished him by removin' the only important thing left to him. He calmed down considerably after that."

I examined a Letter of Commendation from President Roosevelt then studied a Purple Heart resting upon a backdrop of white velvet bordered by an ornate, gilded frame. There were many more certificates and letters, all elaborately framed, honoring and praising a man I'd never fully know.

Justin's box was full of old photographs, framed and unframed, of fellow troops and various scenes from battlefields. Many showed soldiers posing arm-in-arm in front of tanks or scarred hulls of buildings. Some smiled, but most wore a stunned, wary look of fatigue that couldn't be easily erased. One picture was of a German soldier lying dead in a trench with half his face blown away.

"That there's your Pawpaw," said Mamaw, pointing to a surprisingly tall and ruggedly handsome man. He was shaking hands with a man Mamaw said was General George S. Patton. Pawpaw's jaw was set firm and his eyes sparkled with taciturn wisdom and strident resolve. Patton had to look up to meet Pawpaw's eye, and it seemed to me that in that moment, Patton had seen in my grandfather the same qualities I did. The muscles in both men's forearms were knotted like mooring ropes in their embrace.

"I'm betting he misses these," I said.

"I'm sure there was a time he did, darlin'. Years passed though and we both just kinda let that drift on off. He dwells on other things these days."

"What kinda things?" Justin asked.

"Well, I don't rightly know. He ain't long for this world, Justin. He did ast me 'bout you two, though... just the other day. I s'pect he just 'bout shit the bed seein' y'all pussyfootin' 'round. Land of Goshen, Justin, you coulda broke your fool neck hoppin' down from that winder."

"I'm OK, Mamaw," replied Justin, rubbing his ankle. He then smiled and said, "You said shit, Mamaw... I heard you."

"I repay the Lord three-fold for every bad word I say, Justin. You'd do well keepin' score yourself."

"I'm gonna put them pictures back up on that wall," I announced.

And Mamaw permitted it. The next morning, Justin and I treaded softly into Pawpaw's room in our stocking feet.

"He's still asleep," Mamaw informed. "Go lightly."

She had given us a coffee can full of one-inch nails that slid easily into the plastered wall. We made a game of figuring out which picture went where, matching up the frames with the faded patchwork of rectangles. Jasper sat at the foot of the bed, watching us with lethargic eyes and occasionally yawning, as if things were finally back to normal and he didn't have to act like such a hissy-cat.

We finished and took a step back to admire our work. The effect was regal and something in my chest swelled. But my gut kind of turned queasy too with the thought of what price had been paid for such a glorious past.

"The walls look like hell," Justin commented.

"We'll paint 'em next summer. Something bright that Pawpaw'll like," I said. Justin ran a clinical eye over the walls and nodded his assent.

Pawpaw suddenly stirred and we whirled to look. His eyes were opened and one arm was raised, signaling us to move aside. Justin's jaw dropped as he stumbled sideways. But I had seen the old man's eyes before and wasn't afraid. I took one step aside to reveal the deed done. My grandfather's arm slowly dropped and his breathing slowed. The one good eye gleamed fantastic, glinting his approval.

We had squandered most of the summer doing next to nothing. In the remaining three weeks, Justin and I made the most of it. We found that secret pond Mamaw had told us about. Justin caught a nine-pound catfish and I, a six-pound black. We had the pleasure of beating a water moccasin to death with a tree limb, too; came home reeking of the dying snake's musk. That August was the first and last time I ever rode a horse.

On most occasions we'd help Mamaw care for Pawpaw. Justin would swap oxygen tanks and I learned how to change the IV. Mamaw explained how Pawpaw got easily dehydrated, and how important my job was. I took it seriously. My initial repulsion of the task, compounded by the fact he had few veins left unravaged, soon passed, and I found myself more proud of that accomplishment than any I had ever experienced.

When my hand would tremble trying to insert the IV, he'd lie still and close his eyes and say, "Yer doin' fine, son. Ain't nuthin' you can do to hurt me."

After dinner, Pawpaw always wanted to hear how our day went. We'd brag about the fish we caught or laugh about my falling off the mare, and he'd nod and hrr-rumph. We swayed with the strange shadows that glided across his room, basking in his dying twilight.

We'd tried getting him to talk about his time in Europe, but he'd dismiss that. He'd talk instead about how our Daddy had worked hard to finish school and never shirked when it came time to get things done around the farm. Beyond that, however, it was evident he hadn't any more knowledge than we of our father - a bona fide paradox, steadfast and impervious.

We'd talk until he got tired and sort of drifted off into a half-sleep. Justin would fix the mask over his face and turn on the oxygen. Before we left the room, I'd quickly scratch Jasper behind the ears before he knew what was happening.

Nurse Gage visited a final time just before the end of our summer vacation. Justin and I hid and listened while she and Mamaw performed scheduled maintenance. Afterwards, we went to examine the results. The bed sheets were fresh and clean. Pawpaw's bedpan had a military sheen. The oxygen tanks were orderly arranged, each positioned so that transference was optimized. I looked at the IV. The line was drawn tight without a kink or obstruction. The needle had been expertly inserted and fastened. Not a drop of blood was present.

I whistled in admiration. "So, that's how the professionals do it."

Pawpaw rarely spoke, but when he did, it was gold.

"Bullshit. That thar bull dyke pret' near tore me apart," he said. "Velvet glove, my ass," and he laughed the only way he could - a staccato series of grunts that would escalate to a coughing fit.

"Bull dyke," Justin repeated in wonderment. The term fascinated him. He said it again, pooching his lips into a long tunnel, "Buuull dyke." He couldn't wait to use it in conversation. Unfortunately, he chose to use it at the dinner table that night and Mamaw just about took the top of his head off with a swipe of her hand.

There were serious moments too in the waning days of summer. We continued watching the 5:00 o'clock everyday, paying close attention to what was going on in Southeast Asia and how folks were reacting in exotic places like San Francisco, Woodstock and New York City. Justin did the math. He'd be eighteen when 1973 came along. Young men were getting drafted left and right. I did some research and informed him the average length of U.S. involvement in any war was three years. He felt a little better; I felt a whole hell of a lot better.

My Pawpaw died three months after we returned to school that year. He was buried the day before Thanksgiving in a plot not one hundred yards from where Justin and I caught the biggest fish of our lives.

After the funeral, Mamaw had more life burning in her than I'd ever seen. She whisked about with a rare smile, and I became the recipient of more than a single hug. I wasn't sure whether to chalk it up to her now being unburdened or finally having the chance to host Thanksgiving dinner.

For the three days we were there, I kept a vigilant eye on my father. He was out of his element, struggling to find a place to hide. There was no field to work or list of chores to attend to. He was stuck in a house he had sought to escape all of his life.

On the morning of the last day of our visit, I happened in on a conversation Justin was having with Mama.

"Why didn't Daddy cry at the funeral?" he asked.

"People grieve differently, Justin. Your father isn't a crier."

"Well, seeing him sitting there staring made me even sadder," Justin said. He saw me standing at the door and asked, "You, too. Right, Adam?"

"I suppose... I dunno," I answered.

"Let me tell you guys something. Your Daddy socks a lot away inside of him. He's not one to ever talk about it. None of it has anything to do with you two... he's proud of you both." She paused and looked aside. "Somehow, I guess, your Daddy feels responsible or... I don't know... guilty about what happened to your Pawpaw. It sounds stupid, but that feeling's what's made him who he is. You remember Bobby Simms? From Daddy's work?"

We nodded. I vaguely recalled Bobby. A large, friendly man that used to let me win at thumb wrestling. He and Daddy used to go bowling once a week. We suddenly didn't see Bobby for a time and just kind of forgot about it. Daddy never had any close friends for too long.

"Bobby was killed in 'Nam, boys. He never told you that, did he? Two other men your Daddy worked with were killed this year, too. Another came home crippled and it tore your father up. It's the only time I've ever seen him cry. He's cried plenty this year."

Justin's face pinched up just before he started crying. Mama took him into her arms and held him for a long time. It was the second time in less than a year I'd seen my brother grieve so profoundly.

I turned to leave. He was around somewhere and I was impelled to go to him... to tell him something... that I was sorry, and not really knowing why. I checked around back, expecting to find him smoking and staring off over the fields he had once worked. He wasn't there. Then it occurred to me: we were to leave in a couple of hours; it was his last chance.

I took cover behind the door of the back bedroom and peered through the crack between it and the jamb. He had already packed a third of the pictures into a box. He presently had the Purple Heart in his hands, looking hazily at it. I watched and tried reading his thoughts, but it was impossible over the roar of my own. He then walked to the bed and ran a slow hand over the smooth sheets, as if the body were interred upon that very spot.

I waited patiently. I waited for him to finally cry so that I could run to him and bury my face into his warm embrace and grieve with him. But his eyes remained dry. He required distance, and I granted him that. So, I remained hidden and alone and quietly wept for the both of us.

We buried Daddy two days ago. It is now, as we sort through his effects, that I find myself recounting the past.

At my request, Justin had wheeled me into the back bedroom and assigned me the task of inventorying a desultory array of items long ago stored in boxes, chests and paper sacks. The unpleasant chore is made more tolerable in that Daddy had found an opportunity to paint the walls a cheerful rose color. I feel vindicated from Justin's and my failure to have painted those walls as promised.

I reflect on Daddy's decision to move back to the farm after he retired. We all knew what that decision was all about, but none of us talked about it. Mama would purse her lips and slyly shake her head if I gave any hint of wanting to comment on the subject.

And now, I hold in my lap one of the two boxes containing my grandfather's memorabilia. Neither looks as if it has been opened since that time Daddy packed it thirty years ago. I gaze out the window and marvel how Justin was able to make that leap from the pecan to the sill. I wonder too how different my life would have been had that leap been unsuccessful.

I open a box and let the essence of 1969 engulf me. I think how the scourge of war bypassed my generation and what that did to me and to those who had returned having faced the most unimaginable horror. And I measure the distance between myself and others who've constructed their own walls - cold and dark and decaying only as we begin to.

Daddy's tabby, Ghost, jumps and lands upon my lap, left insensate after my accident two years ago. He looks at me expectantly, with trusting eyes of gold, then coils against the box. I relax and stroke his neck as he announces the selection of his new human with a stentorian purr that shivers these fragile walls.

Copyright © 2002 Jefre Schmitz
All rights reserved

About the Author

        Jefre Schmitz's day job is Technical Manager of the automated financial systems for a large state agency in Austin, Texas...spectacularly uninteresting, he says, but "it puts vittles on the table." In the summer of 2001, he developed an itch to start scribbling some words on paper after having read the entire works of Cormac McCarthy and Flannery O'Connor. His aspirations are not to attain the lofty heights of these two authors, but rather to pay homage by practicing an art they perfected and "have a damn good time in the process."