Send Down the Rain(75)

He looked at Suzy. “I’m told that Suzy True’s show has seen ratings increases unheard of in the modern radio era. I’ve had personal phone calls from the governor, the other Florida senator, the Speaker of the House of the United States Congress, and the Chief of Staff of the President of the United States. Each has called to make sure that justice is served. So let’s just say for the sake of argument, and because that lady over there with hummingbird wings for fingers is recording everything you say, that I’d like to hear you tell me. I have a feeling you can remember.”

“Bobby was working at the Blue Tornado, a restaurant back home. I was turning a wrench underneath my Corvette. The mailman walked up to our box, slid in the mail, and kept walking. Mom had been sitting on the porch. Wind tugging at her dress. One of the two she owned. She stood and made herself walk the forty-two feet to the box. She lowered the lid and I guess the notice was lying on top, because she sucked in a breath and covered her mouth with her hand. Clutching the mail to her chest, she walked back to the house, stumbling every few feet. She walked inside and shut the door. I crawled out from beneath the car and walked up onto the porch. I watched through the glass as Mom opened the letter, let out a noise that sounded like somebody had just shot her in the chest, and then dropped to her knees in the front hall. For about two minutes, she didn’t breathe. She just knelt there. I pushed open the door, and when she looked up at me, she was cracking down the middle. She said, ‘Let’s go for a ride.’ She stood up and leaned on me all the way to the garage. We drove north up the island where she sat with that notice spread flat across her lap. We parked and stood next to the dunes and I watched my mom come apart at the seams.”

I paused, looking back. Stuck in the memory.

He pressed me quietly. “And?”

“She tore that piece of paper into four pieces and told me to take Bobby to California. Or Canada. To come back when it was over.”

“When you and your mother made this plan, did the two of you ever think to give your brother a vote?”

“No, sir.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’d have gone.”

“You really believe that?”

“Without a doubt.”

The judge let that sink in. “Continue.”

“I’d seen what had happened to my mom when my dad cut out on us. It left a hole in her heart, and in ours. I knew if we both left, what life remained in my mom would drain out the hole and she’d die alone in that house. Especially if one of us didn’t come home. To my mom, that draft notice was an obituary.”

Behind me, Bobby blew his nose.

“I was savvier than Bobby,” I continued. “Thought maybe I had a better chance of staying alive. The only thing to do was take the notice, along with his driver’s license, and raise my right hand.”

The judge tapped a pencil on his desk and leaned back. “I’m curious.”

“Sir?”

“Where were you when Nixon canceled the draft in January ’73?”

“Somewhere in Laos.”

He dug through some papers on his desk and held up a single sheet. “This is your birth certificate.” He handed it to the bailiff, who handed it to me.

“Is the date of birth correct?” the judge asked.

“Yes, sir.” I handed it back to the bailiff.

“You realize, based on your date of birth, you never would have been drafted.”

“Yes, sir.”

Behind me, Bobby was crying.

“My fourth tour, near the end, I had a couple of really bad days and I was in pretty bad shape. In the four years prior, I’d gotten pretty good at getting myself out of tough situations, but on this particular day, I couldn’t. I needed someone to come get me. The folks who put me there said they weren’t coming. Too dangerous. Plus, they’d have to admit that they’d inserted me into a country where I wasn’t supposed to be. That meant I was helpless.” I looked at the judge. “Do you understand?”

He nodded once. “I do.”

“Then a buddy, a guy with a wife and a daughter he loved, who had everything to live for and everything to lose, acted against direct orders. He stole a bird, crash-landed into hell, and lifted me out. I’ve had a lifetime to think about that. What would cause a man to do that?” I shook my head. “This may not make much sense to all of you, but as I was standing in that place, covered up in heat, bugs, bullets, and bayonets, I knew that the ground I was standing on and everything around me was flat-out evil. But when I heard those rotors whipping through the air, I knew that whatever was in that bird could not be evil.

“I’d seen what evil could do. Evil never gave itself for anyone. It takes what it doesn’t own. Holds your head under the water. Rips your head off your neck and dangles it from the city wall. Evil dominates. Controls. Eradicates. Evil is a sniveling punk, and if you let it inside you then you spew hatred, which is just another name for the poison we drink hoping it’ll hurt someone else.”

I glanced around the courtroom at Allie, Catalina, Gabby, Suzy, and finally at the cameras.

“But not love. Love rushes in where others won’t. Where the bullets are flying. It stands between. Pours out. Empties itself. It scours the wasteland, returns the pieces that were lost, and it never counts the cost.”