Send Down the Rain(60)

Sixty minutes into the show, one of her producers came to her during commercial and showed her several slips of paper. Suzy grew instantaneously angry and verbally reamed the producer a new orifice. Fifteen minutes later, again during commercial, the producer returned with more paper. This time the producer was white as a ghost.

As was Suzy.

When we returned to the show for the final segment, Suzy sat ashen, staring at the papers on her lap. When the red light flashed green and she gathered herself, her face was hollow. She turned to the camera. “Years ago, I started this gig trying to find the truth about my dad. I could not, but I soon discovered that a lot of other people were also seeking truth. So that’s what this program became. A search for the truth. About the guys that went. Those that didn’t come home. And . . .” She turned to me. “Those that never went.”

If there was any air in the room when she started talking, it was sucked out the moment she said the words never went. She held the papers in her lap. “I have here documents, signed by witnesses, showing that during the years in which you say you were in Vietnam, you were actually in California. They say your favorite drug was LSD, though you were no stranger to heroin, and that you always had a vivid imagination and loved to spin a story. I have a signed lease agreement with your name on it. Pay stubs from a bar where you worked. Further, I have your birth certificate showing you were never drafted—as you were only sixteen when you claimed to enter the service. And furthermore . . .” Her voice was growing in volume and tone. “I have confirmation from rather high-up military sources that you do not possess a military record or identification number and that you never served in the United States military. The evidence is irrefutable.” Suzy choked back a sob.

I could hear my heartbeat throbbing in my ear. She leaned toward me. The pain and anger in her eyes were pulsating through the veins in her head. She was shouting now.

“So tell me, Joseph Brooks, what makes it so easy to lie to us? To me!” She was spitting when she spoke. “How long did it take to become so convincing? What’d you do, park yourself at the VA and listen to other men’s stories, stealing them as your own?”

Two tables back, a bearded guy about my age, wearing black leathers and motorcycle boots, stood up, holding a beer bottle. He pointed. “You lying, Jo-Jo?”

I just looked at him.

He gestured with his beer. “I drove up from Miami.” He shook his head and walked toward the stage. I knew what he intended and I didn’t stop him. He swung the bottle, breaking it across my forehead. Beer and blood ran down my face.

A woman, probably a widow, walked around behind him and dumped her plate of food on top of my head. Another guy squeezed an entire bottle of ketchup across my face and chest.

Allie was the last one. She stood shaking her head, tears pouring down. “You said you’d never lie!” She slapped me across the face. Then again. She poured an entire pitcher of beer over me, then swung the pitcher down on my head. At this point, people were throwing anything they could get their hands on.

I stood, walked out of the restaurant, down the steps, and out into the crowd, where people spat on me and threw more food at me. One skinny kid walked up and punched me square in the mouth. I stopped at my truck, where Gabriella and Victor stood holding Rosco by the collar. Gabby didn’t understand what was going on, but she was crying.

Rosco stood, wagging his tail. I held out my hand like a stop sign and said, “Stay.” He sat on his butt. I climbed into my truck, backed up, and drove out as men threw beer and soda across my windshield.

Sometimes the truth catches up with you, and when it does, life just hurts.





36

I tossed both my flip phone and my smart phone out the window as I drove north. In a couple days I reached my cabin. I gathered a few things from inside, then doused the rest with ten gallons of diesel fuel and lit it. I backed out of the drive as the flames grew forty feet in the air.

I drove to the same diner in Spruce Pine where Catalina and the kids and I had eaten. My waitress friend had managed to lose a few of her pregnancy pounds and seemed more comfortable in her jeans. She smiled when she saw me. “You need a table?”

I shook my head. “Wanted to bring you something.”

“Really?”

I laid the keys to the F-150 inside her hand. “Take care of that boy. A good momma is hard to find.”

“But I can’t—” She eyed the keys, then the truck, and started crying.

Her boss appeared over her shoulder, a spatula in one hand. “What’s the problem here, bud?” He put his hand on my shoulder with some force and not-so-good intention, so I sent him to the concrete. He lay there trying to breathe.

I turned to go, but the waitress clutched my arm. “Please . . . but why?”

I kissed her forehead, shoved my hands in my pockets, and walked ten miles to the storage unit in Micaville, where I cranked the Jeep.

I drove west. Tennessee. Arkansas. Missouri. Kansas. At Iowa I turned north and drove to Minnesota and into Canada, where I spent a few weeks. When I returned to the US, I came in through North Dakota. Drove through Montana, Wyoming, Colorado. From Colorado I meandered through Arizona and New Mexico, eventually into Mexico and the Baja Peninsula. From the sun and heat of Mexico I returned north up through Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, finally making my way back into Canada, up through British Columbia, and into Alaska. I didn’t watch the news. Didn’t read the papers. Didn’t listen to the radio. I sat in my Jeep and stared out through the windshield. And drove.