Chapter 43: The Summer Of Our Discontent

Marilyn didn’t like that I wasn’t going to see her for over two months, but she understood. We spent a wild weekend together before I left, and I promised her an even crazier one once I was back.

Summer training was like the first time we went through it. Once again, I was separated from Bruno and Joe and never saw them again. I did see my friend from last year, Harlan, but he was assigned to a different training company. We only saw each other intermittently, but we had a good friendship going.

A lot of what we did was similar, although compressed. We requalified with weapons, brushed up on our various skills and drills, and ran and marched some more. This time we didn’t have to play war games in the dirt. We did, however, get introduced to the various branches of the army. Now we could see artillery and tanks, paratroopers jumping from planes, and so forth. The idea was to give us enough info so that when we graduated, we could make an intelligent choice about the branch of the service we ended up in.

Personally, I thought this was a stretch. From what I knew of my fellow cadets, ninety percent would have been happy getting a demonstration of a typewriter in a clean and dry office. The secretarial branch was their preferred branch of service!

I had been at Bragg for about a couple of weeks or so when I was suddenly called out of class and summoned down to Lieutenant Colonel Brownell’s office. The colonel was in charge of our class and that section of the school. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what was I had done wrong, but I went to his office and reported in. His orderly, a corporal, checked on the intercom and then ushered me inside. “SIR, OFFICER CANDIDATE BUCKMAN REPORTING AS ORDERED!”

“At ease, Buckman,” replied the colonel. There’s at ease, and at ease. I wasn’t an officer yet, so I snapped to parade rest instead. Colonel Brownell, surprised me by then ordering, “At ease, Cadet.”

I lost my rigidity and looked at the colonel and noticed that there was a telephone off the hook and laying on his desk. “Yes, sir?”

“There’s been a phone call for you, Mr. Buckman,” he said, nodding towards the phone. “I’m going to step out of my office for a few minutes. Just open the door when you are done.”

“Sir?” Who the hell would call me by tracking down my commanding officer? Marilyn would write, and so would Suzie. Nobody else would call me.

The colonel stood up. “I’m stepping out. See me when you’re done, Mister Buckman.”

“Yes, sir.”

The colonel moved around from his desk and went out the door, closing it behind him. I was tempted to sit down at his desk, but lightning bolts would descend and fry my ass out of sheer effrontery! I picked up the telephone and held it to my ear. “Officer Candidate Buckman.”

“Carling, it’s your father.”

“Yes, sir. What’s going on?”

“We need you to come home, Carl. It’s your mother and your brother. There’s been a problem,” he said.

“Sir?” What happened? I could care less about Hamilton, but if something had happened to Mom, I needed to know. Had they been in an accident?

Dad told me. It was a sordid tale indeed. Hamilton, in his desire to separate himself from me, had gone to college down south, at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. That hadn’t worked out so well. Unlike most colleges, they worked on a trimester system. Way back when, on my first trip through, his first trimester his grades were as good as anything I had ever seen. His second trimester they dropped to my level. His third trimester they dropped through the floor and my father yanked him out of school. When that happened Dad tracked me down and told me to take a Friday off and we drove down for the weekend and packed him up and dragged him home.

Before, during that third trimester, he had disappeared for a week, completely dropping out of sight. Nobody could find him, not even the college or campus security, and then he surfaced and denied he had ever been missing. We never did find out where he was, if he was on a binge or if he was stoned somewhere or in the slammer or wherever, and he just denied being out of contact.

This time around it was far, far worse. He disappeared for almost two weeks, and when he resurfaced, was dragged down to the campus security office, and questioned before they called Dad. Hamilton still wouldn’t say where he had been, simply denying he had been missing, despite what the college was telling my father. Basic Hamilton behavior - lie and deny. Dad went down to drag him out. Much like before, Hamilton was sent to a shrink because of his bizarre behavior. Much like before, Mom was absolutely destroyed, crying her eyes out at the failure of her favorite son. Unlike before, Mom’s depression was much more severe, probably because I wasn’t around to take it out on, and she had a nervous breakdown.

This had been an ungodly disaster the first time around. Mom denied any hint of a problem, even denying he was seeing a psychiatrist, when we all knew he was visiting one. Dad and I had a long talk one day, when he asked me why I had gone to college. He had been heartbroken when I told him, quite bluntly, ‘Because you told me I was going to college!” When he asked if that was the only reason, I turned it back on him and asked if I had had any kind of choice. For the first time I think he actually gave thought to his non-existent parenting skills.

It was worse now. Both Hamilton and Mom were spending time in the nut ward. I was tempted to ask Dad if they had adjoining rooms, but that would have been really pushing my luck. He wanted me to come home.

I just stared at the phone for a bit. “Dad, I’m in the Army. You know what that’s like. I can’t just drop everything and come home. I’m on duty!”

“It would be good for your mother and your brother. You should talk to their doctor,” he replied.

“Excuse me? They’re in the nut house and you think I need to see the shrink? Whose idea is that? The doctor’s or Mom’s?” This was beyond ludicrous.

“Your mother seems to think it would help you understand your brother and better help him.” I think even he thought this was a stretch, and it was all I could do not to laugh.

“No, Dad, that’s not going to happen. I am not coming home so Mom can blame me some more because my brother is a raving lunatic. You know it and I know it. It’s only Mom that refuses to admit it.”

“Carling, it’s really not like that...” he tried to say.

“Dad, it’s exactly like that. Do you have a diagnosis yet? On Hamilton, not Mom, I mean,” I asked. Dad tried to hedge, and I continued to push. “Dad, I’ve earned it. What’s his problem?”

He sighed. “It’s schizophrenia or something.” I could practically hear him crying on the phone. This was a truly horrible thing to him. Mental illness had a very severe societal penalty then; it was not something you would tell people. Mom wouldn’t even admit it to herself, either then or later.

“Dad, I’ve earned this. He drove me from the family. I need to see a copy of the doctor’s report, the full clinical results.” You never know but how that might be useful someday to me, if simply to prove that when he finally drove me crazy, there was a reason for it!

Dad tried to back away hastily, but I kept pushing until he agreed to send something to me. I also repeated that I wouldn’t be coming home, and that the next time I saw my brother would be much too soon. My parents had sowed the wind, and now they were reaping the whirlwind. I was sorry for Mom, but I had moved on.

I hung up on my father and sat there for a moment, until I realized just where I was. I jumped up and scooted over to the door. “Sir, I’m sorry. I should never have tied up your office like that!” I blurted out.

Lieutenant Colonel Brownell was about forty-five, in a semi-retirement posting after seeing action in Viet Nam and getting a little burned out. He just smiled and came back into his office, and closed the door behind him, with me still inside his office. “Mister Buckman, is everything all right?”

I hesitated before answering, and then deflected the question. “How did you end up getting called by my father, sir? If I may ask.”

He nodded. “I spoke to him briefly. It seems that he wasn’t even aware you were training here this summer.” He looked at me curiously at that.

I just nodded. “My family and I parted ways many years ago, sir. I’m sorry you had to get involved. I apologize for that. It won’t happen again.” Dad probably called the house, and somebody must have given him Marilyn’s number. She was the only one who had any kind of detailed itinerary for me, along with the address to send me letters.

He waved it off. “There are provisions for emergency family leave, at least for a few days. We can have you home in a couple of days, I’m sure.”

“No, sir, that won’t be necessary.”

“Really, your class record is in fine shape. I would see no difficulty in giving you a three-day emergency pass. I mean, I didn’t really ask, but your father indicated that your mother and brother are in the hospital. You don’t want to go home?” He seemed incredulous at that.

I had turned and was staring out his window towards one of the parade grounds. It was all such a waste. I turned back to face him. “That won’t help, sir. It’s not really my place to speak, but my going back won’t help anybody. I’m sorry if I seem cold about it, but there’s very little left for me back there.”

He shrugged. “I can’t say as I understand, but it’s not my business. If you change your mind, my door is always open.”

I snapped back to attention. It was obvious I was being released back to duty. “Thank you, Colonel. I apologize for intruding. It won’t happen again.” I saluted, received a return salute, and I turned smartly and headed out. I had been gone almost an hour, about fifty-nine minutes more than my brother deserved.

In my next letter from Marilyn, she did indeed confirm that my dad had called her and gotten my location. I wrote back and told her what was going on. I felt bad for my father, but he had really gotten himself into this mess, and I had no idea how he was going to dig himself out. He had been letting Mom go on for years about how poor Hamilton wasn’t understood and how it was all my fault and the school’s fault and everybody else’s fault. Anybody but his fault. Okay, I’ll grant that being a certified nut job like a schizophrenic is more than just a character flaw, but I had had enough. If it wasn’t for Suzie, I would have washed my hands of the entire bunch of them.

A week later I wanted that emergency leave, but not to go home. Marilyn dumped me. It was all my fault. I have a big mouth. When I was writing her, I let my mouth write my letters. She took exception to something I wrote and told me which way to head in and just how far. She also mailed me back the jewelry I had bought her.

It wasn’t the first time this had happened, but it was the first time on this trip. She had dumped me between junior year and senior year before, just like now, and for a similar reason, my big fat fucking mouth. She had written me that one of her little brothers, Peter I think, had managed to fall in the fireplace. I wrote back that it wasn’t a problem. She had so many brothers and sisters by that point that she had spares. Big mistake! I was promptly informed that family was much more important to her than I was, and she returned my fraternity pin.

Giving a girl your frat pin was sort of like a pre-engagement. Huge numbers of guys gave their girl their frat pin with the intention of getting in her pants. What the hell, it worked for me! We also had a tradition of the Sophomore Curse, which basically stated that any sophomore that gave a girl his pin would end up breaking up with her. Looked at logically, that was inevitable, since how many nineteen-year-old kids know who they’re getting married to. Okay, so I made up with Marilyn, but the curse had done its work by then. This time I didn’t tempt the curse, and I didn’t give her my pin.

Yes, I made up with her then, but it took me the better part of six months. No girl can dump Carl Buckman! I played the field, messing around with a few girls I had been dating at the same time as I was seeing Marilyn. I was a real pig. Eventually, in January, I get loaded, lost my pride, broke my resolve, and wrote her a letter begging forgiveness. We met up and got back together again.

Okay, so I fucked up. No, I didn’t say a damn thing about her family. I knew better than that. Now I knew how important family was to her. No, I really screwed the pooch this time. I called her stupid.

No, not really. It was more of an implication. She had finished with her two years at MVCC and had transferred to Plattsburgh State. She would be rooming with her Aunt Lynette, and for some reason had commented that her college degree was the equivalent of mine. Yes, I should have stopped and dropped it. Yes, I knew from living with her for almost fifty years that she was an egalitarian while I was an elitist. Yes, I should have known better because we had argued about this more than once over the years. No, I’m smarter than that.

I replied that, first, Plattsburgh State had just made Playboy’s Top 20 Party Schools, so maybe she shouldn’t brag about the quality education she was getting. Then I really buried myself when I commented that it was taking her five years to go through three colleges to get one degree, while I was taking four years to go through one college to get three degrees! Okay, so I conveniently forgot about Towson State, but I thought it had a certain poetic symmetry.

Strangely, Marilyn didn’t agree with my style of prose. In fact, she took offense at my thoughts. Considerable offense. Enough offense to inform me that she didn’t particularly want to hear from me again. Ever. In this lifetime or any other lifetime. Ever.

Ever, ever, ever!

Okay, so I knew how to handle this from the last time I fucked up. I would write her a letter and commit written hari kiri. I did this just about immediately, and enclosed all the jewelry, and promised to never misbehave again and stated my undying love repeatedly to her. It had worked before. I was smart enough to know how to fix this problem.

My letter came back from her house marked Return To Sender. That was disturbing, so I wrote a really heartfelt letter, not only disemboweling myself, but also jumping off a bridge and hanging myself, and this one I mailed Return Receipt Required.