Death Coming Up the Hill Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  April 1969

  January 1968

  January 1968

  January 1968

  January 1968

  January 1968

  February 1968

  February 1968

  February 1968

  March 1968

  March 1968

  March 1968

  March 1968

  March 1968

  April 1968

  April 1968

  April 1968

  April 1968

  May 1968

  May 1968

  May 1968

  May 1968

  May 1968

  June 1968

  June 1968

  June 1968

  June 1968

  July 1968

  July 1968

  July 1968

  July 1968

  August 1968

  August 1968

  August 1968

  August 1968

  August 1968

  September 1968

  September 1968

  September 1968

  September 1968

  October 1968

  October 1968

  October 1968

  October 1968

  November 1968

  November 1968

  November 1968

  November 1968

  November 1968

  December 1968

  December 1968

  December 1968

  December 1968

  February 1969

  May 1969

  May 1969

  Historical Note

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2014 by Chris Crowe

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  www.hmhco.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Crowe, Chris.

  Death coming up the hill / Chris Crowe.

  pages cm

  Summary: Ashe Douglas keeps a weekly record of historical and personal events in 1968, the year he turns seventeen, including the escalating war in Vietnam; assassinations, rampant racism, and rioting; his first girlfriend; his parents’ separation; and a longed-for sister.

  ISBN 978-0-544-30215-0

  [1. Novels in verse. 2. Coming of age—Fiction. 3. Vietnam War, 1961–1975—Fiction. 4. Social change—Fiction. 5. Family problems—Fiction. 6. Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. 7. United States—History—1961–1969—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.5.C79De 2014

  [Fic]—dc23

  2013042812

  eISBN 978-0-544-30174-0

  v1.1014

  976

  for the 16,592

  in 1968

  April 1969

  Week Fifteen: 204

  There’s something tidy

  in seventeen syllables,

  a haiku neatness

  that leaves craters of

  meaning between the lines but

  still communicates

  what matters most. I

  don’t have the time or the space

  to write more, so I’ll

  write what needs to be

  remembered and leave it to

  you to fill in the

  gaps if you feel like

  it. In 1968,

  sixteen thousand five

  hundred ninety-two

  American soldiers died

  in Vietnam, and

  I’m dedicating

  one syllable to each soul

  as I record my

  own losses suffered

  in 1968, a

  year like no other.

  January 1968

  Week One: 184

  The trouble started

  on New Year’s Eve when Mom came

  home late. Way too late.

  Worry about Mom—

  and about Dad—knotted my

  gut while Dad paced the

  living room like a

  panther ready to pounce. “Where

  the hell is she, Ashe?

  Those damn activists . . .

  I shouldn’t have let her go.

  Well, that’s the last time,

  the absolute last

  time she mixes with trouble-

  makers. It ends now!”

  He looked at me like

  it was somehow my fault, but

  I knew better. He

  had to blame someone,

  and I became an easy

  target. But it made

  me angry at him—

  and at Mom, too. Why couldn’t

  they just get along?

  What I wished for the

  new year was peace at home, in

  Vietnam, and the

  world. A normal life.

  Was that too much to ask for?

  The door creaked open,

  Mom stepped in, and Dad

  pounced. I crept up the stairs, closed

  my door, and tuned out.

  ★ ★ ★

  Later, Mom tapped on

  my door and came in, timid

  as a new kid late

  to school. And she smiled

  even though she’d just had a

  knock-down, drag-out with

  Dad. There was a light

  in her that I hadn’t seen

  in a long, long time.

  She wanted to check

  on me, to make sure I was

  okay, to tell me

  that May 17,

  1951, was the

  best day of her life

  because it was the

  day I was born, and even

  though things had been rough,

  she had no regrets.

  Not one. Then she hugged me and

  whispered that maybe,

  just maybe, there was

  light at the end of this dark

  tunnel. “You never

  know what’s coming up

  the hill,” she said, then left me

  alone, worrying.

  January 1968

  Week Two: 278

  Even though he won’t

  admit it, I blew up my

  dad’s football career.

  They say he had a

  future in the NFL,

  but his senior year

  at the U of A

  he quit football because he

  got my mom pregnant.

  Mom’s parents disowned

  her, and to them, she and I

  no longer exist.

  She has a scrapbook

  filled with photos and clippings

  of Dad when he played

  defensive back for

  the Arizona Wildcats,

  and my favorite

  action photo shows

  him leaping and reaching for

  an interception.

  The camera had caught

  him right when he snagged the ball.

  His head’s back, and you

  can’t see his face, but

  you can see his taut forearms

  knotted with muscle

  and the big number

  seventeen on his jersey.

  Even as a kid,

  I recognized the

  strength and grace in that picture,

  and I knew he’d been

  special, talented,

  and I made up my mind to

  be like him one da
y.

  Maybe I’d never

  be as good as he was, but

  I thought that if I

  worked hard and became

  a great athlete, somehow that

  would make up for his

  loss. It turned out I

  was wrong. I never had to

  prove anything to

  Dad. His love for me

  was as sure and solid as

  the U.S. Marines.

  Too bad he didn’t

  feel that way about Mom. He

  resented her for

  the mistake that killed

  his football career, the same

  mistake that forced him

  to marry her. Back

  in 1950, things worked

  that way: if a guy

  knocked up a girl, he

  married her to make it right.

  It doesn’t happen

  like that nowadays.

  It’s 1968, and

  young people believe

  in free love, and there

  are plenty of ways to take

  care of a mistake.

  By getting married,

  Mom and Dad did the right thing,

  and they have been good

  parents to me, and

  I’m grateful to them both for

  putting up with each

  other for my sake.

  I wish there was some way I

  could make it right, make

  them right, but ending

  the long, cold war between them

  was as likely as

  a black man being

  elected president of

  the United States.

  It’s not going to

  happen, but, man, wouldn’t it

  be great if it did?

  January 1968

  Week Three: 218

  Mr. Ruby, my

  U.S. history teacher,

  wrote a number on

  the board to begin

  every class. Today it was

  “two hundred eighteen.”

  His gray hair was slicked

  back, like always, and his shirt-

  sleeves were rolled up, like

  always. The faded

  Marine tattoo inside his

  wrist showed while he wrote

  on the board. Then he

  asked, “What’s the significance

  of this number?” I

  didn’t respond, but

  I knew exactly what it

  meant. I read the news.

  Every Thursday, The

  Phoenix Gazette reported

  the casualties

  from the previous

  week. But nobody in class

  knew that. They guessed all

  kinds of dumb answers,

  and no one even came close.

  They don’t like thinking

  about dead soldiers

  in Vietnam; neither did

  I, but I couldn’t

  help looking for that

  news article every week

  and skimming it for

  the casualty

  report. Usually it’s

  just numbers, but if

  some guy from Tempe

  or Mesa or Phoenix was

  killed, they’ll mention his

  name and maybe print

  a photo of him dressed in

  his uniform and

  staring like he’s dead

  serious. Well, now he’s just

  dead. Looking into

  his steely gaze made

  me feel hollow, sick, and sad.

  I looked anyway.

  January 1968

  Week Four: 471

  Things mellowed out at

  home. Motorola kept Dad

  busy, and Mom stopped

  attending rallies

  at ASU. She’s not a

  hippie or some kind

  of freak, she just feels

  too much. What’s going on in

  Vietnam sickens

  her, and what’s going

  on in America makes

  her sick, too. Well, it

  doesn’t really make

  her sick, it makes her mad. And

  when she’s mad, she’s got

  to do something, and

  back then, that something had been

  attending protest

  rallies in Phoenix

  or over at ASU.

  Most nights she was gone,

  and that really burned

  Dad and ignited a war

  at home. I learned how

  to navigate the

  no man’s land between them, but

  then for some reason

  their tactics changed, and

  instead of battling, they

  ignored each other.

  Something on New Year’s

  Eve changed Mom; she seemed to have

  finally found peace.

  ★ ★ ★

  How does a guy deal

  with being torn between two

  people he loves? I

  knew I was lucky

  that I hadn’t had to choose

  between Mom and Dad.

  They’re opposites thrown

  together because of me,

  and they had managed

  to keep a shaky

  truce for so many years. But

  it was difficult.

  My dad was a flag-

  waving hawk who thought it was

  every red-blooded

  man’s duty to spill

  that blood when America

  called on him for it.

  Mom’s an anti-war

  dove who gave me a “Hell no,

  I won’t go!” tee shirt

  for Christmas, and she’d

  convinced Dad and me that I

  had to enroll at

  ASU as soon

  as I finished high school. “The

  student deferment

  will keep you out of

  the draft,” she said, “and unless

  we’re really stupid,

  this war will be done

  by the time you graduate.”

  Dad didn’t mind the

  deferment. “You can

  join the ROTC and

  graduate as an

  officer,” he said.

  “The Army needs smart leaders

  who can help put an

  end to the spread of

  Communism over in

  Vietnam.” But when

  I thought about the

  four hundred seventy-one

  guys who died last week,

  I knew I’d go to

  college to avoid the war,

  not prepare for it.

  I just hoped the war

  ended before I had to

  decide, because Dad

  didn’t need any

  more ammunition to use

  against my mother.

  January 1968

  Week Five: 406

  Everybody was

  talking about the new team

  coming to Phoenix.

  At supper, Dad looked

  over the newspaper and

  said, “Pro basketball

  in the desert?” He

  shook his head. “It’ll be a

  huge waste of money.

  Phoenix will never

  have the market to sustain

  an NBA team.

  Besides, basketball’s

  a black man’s game, and we don’t

  need to go out of

  our way to attract

  more of them to the valley.

  It’s already bad

  enough with all the

  Mexicans we’ve got to put

  up with around here.”

  Mom stood up and left

  without finishing supper