Death Coming Up the Hill Read online

  campus. It was hard to think

  my mom had become

  a pothead, but who

  could blame her? Maybe getting

  high helped her deal with

  her failed marriage and

  all the crap going on in

  the world around her.

  May 1968

  Week Eighteen: 383

  Angela and I

  had our first “disagreement”

  over a movie.

  She wanted to see

  Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,

  but I wanted to

  see Bonnie and Clyde,

  and as we argued about

  it, I felt myself

  acting like my dad.

  I stopped. Arguing. Talking.

  Looking, listening,

  that was better, way

  better, and the longer I

  looked at her, the less

  I cared about what

  movie we went to. I just

  wanted to be with

  her. Standing outside

  the theater, watching the

  soft curve of her lips

  and the light from the

  marquee glittering in her

  chocolate brown eyes,

  I wondered when Dad

  stopped feeling this way about

  Mom. When did they start

  to care more about

  ideas than each other? I

  took Angela’s hand,

  pulled her to the box

  office, and bought two tickets

  to Guess Who’s Coming

  to Dinner. Even

  if I had known in advance

  that she was going

  to cry through the whole

  movie, I wouldn’t have changed

  anything that night.

  May 1968

  Week Nineteen: 562

  Angela’s parents

  welcomed me into their home,

  and their kindness stirred

  a rush of envy

  in me. They appeared to be

  everything I’d hoped

  my own family

  could have been. Mr. Turner,

  a political

  science professor

  at ASU, shook my hand

  like we were old friends.

  “Angela’s told us

  a lot about you, so we’re

  glad to finally

  meet the famous Ashe

  Douglas.” We sat around their

  kitchen table and

  talked and laughed and ate

  peanut butter cookies and

  filled the room with a

  warmth I’d never known.

  But I wrecked it all when I

  asked about their son.

  “Kelly?” Angela’s

  mother faded like someone

  had punched her off switch.

  “He . . .” A panicked look

  to her husband, and he slid

  his hand over hers,

  patting it gently

  while he told me they hadn’t

  heard anything from

  Kelly, Angela’s

  older brother, for a while.

  “Army mail isn’t

  very efficient,

  especially coming out

  of Vietnam, and

  our son’s never been

  much of a letter writer,

  but still, we worry.

  When you’ve got a boy

  at war, it’s tough not knowing

  if he’s okay or

  not.” Angela nudged

  me with her foot and nodded

  at the door. “I’m sure

  he’s fine,” she said. “But

  he should know we need to hear

  from him more often.”

  ★ ★ ★

  Angela walked me

  outside and told me how her

  brother’s silence had

  tied her family

  up in knots. “Dad handles it,

  but it’s killing my

  mother. She can’t stop

  worrying about him, if

  he’s dead—or worse.” When

  I wondered what was

  worse than dead, Angela said,

  “Missing in action.”

  May 1968

  Week Twenty: 549

  Seventeen is my

  favorite prime number, and

  not because I’m a

  number nerd. Dad wore

  seventeen in college, just

  like Dizzy Dean, his

  old baseball hero.

  I wore it too, of course, but

  it wasn’t just sports

  that made me like it.

  When I was young, Mom really

  loved a Beatles song

  that had the line, “Well,

  she was just seventeen, you

  know what I mean . . . ,” and

  I thought it was cool

  to hear a song based on my

  birthday, and then I

  started noticing

  seventeens everywhere, and

  it made me feel like

  I belonged to a

  secret club. The Celtics’ John

  Havlicek wears my

  number, and it’s the

  number of syllables in

  a haiku poem,

  and it’s the day in

  May when Brown versus Board of

  Education was

  announced, and it’s the

  age you can give blood, join the

  military, and

  get married, and it’s

  the name of a magazine

  for girls, and it’s the

  number of years a

  weird kind of cicada lives

  underground before

  coming out to mate,

  and it’s the day I was born,

  and for years I’d been

  looking forward to

  turning seventeen on May

  seventeenth. I can’t

  say for sure what I

  expected to happen the

  day when my birthday

  stars all aligned, but

  I figured something special

  would take place, something

  I’d never forget.

  In a way, I felt like that

  cicada, and I

  was ready to dig

  out from underground and get

  on with adult life.

  ★ ★ ★

  But my birthday got

  off to a lousy start when

  I heard on the news

  that the past two weeks

  were the bloodiest ever.

  More than one thousand

  Americans died

  in Vietnam in those two

  weeks, and Angela’s

  family still had

  no word from Kelly, and Mom

  was in bed acting

  sick the whole time. How

  could I celebrate when so

  much was going wrong?

  May 1968

  Week Twenty-One: 426

  When you start to love

  someone like Angela, you

  learn how to talk and

  how to listen, and

  you start talking about things

  you’ve never before

  dared to say out loud—

  all kinds of things: dreams, goals, and

  fears. Angela planned

  to change the world by

  joining the Peace Corps and then

  teaching grade school kids.

  “If we want to change

  things,” she said, “that’s where we’ve got

  to start.” I loved her

  confidence, her faith

  in the future, and I wished

  that I had some of

  her rock-solid self-

  assurance. I thought a girl

  like her feared nothing,

  bu
t I was wrong. She

  was worried about what might

  happen if Kelly

  turned out to be a

  POW or, worse,

  missing in action.

  “I don’t know if Mom

  could take it.” Her voice soft now,

  edged with dread. “I don’t

  know if I could take

  it.” She sighed, and a heavy

  silence filled the air

  between us before

  she spoke again. “And sometimes

  I’m afraid, just plain

  afraid of all the

  craziness in the world right

  now. There’s so much I

  want to do, Ashe, but

  what if something happens that

  blows up all my dreams?”

  The ache in her voice

  surprised me, and I didn’t

  know what to say, but

  I knew that if I

  had to, I’d gladly dive on

  a grenade for her.

  ★ ★ ★

  Angela knew that

  I was afraid of getting

  drafted and sent to

  Vietnam. She knew

  it wasn’t politics that

  made me oppose the

  war, it was plain old

  fear. I can’t explain it; I

  was as loyal as

  the next guy, but the

  thought of battle turned my spine

  to ice. I didn’t

  want to die, but I

  also worried that in a

  life-and-death battle,

  my hesitation,

  my fear might cause someone else

  to die. With bullets

  flying and mortar

  shells exploding all around,

  would I have the guts

  to sacrifice my

  life to save my buddies? If

  a live grenade rolled

  into camp, it would

  kill me if I covered it

  or if I didn’t.

  In my heart I knew

  that if I went to war, I

  wouldn’t make it back—

  or if I did make

  it, I’d be in pieces, a

  ruined, useless shell.

  ★ ★ ★

  Angela knew my

  stupid dream, too. I used to

  think that a baby

  sister would heal my

  family, and I hoped and

  prayed that Mom would get

  pregnant and that a

  new sister would bind all of

  us together: two

  males, two females: a

  perfect balance. “It sounds dumb

  now. I realize

  my family is

  too fractured to be fixed, too

  off-kilter to be

  balanced, but growing

  up, I was desperate for

  a little sister.”

  Angela’s eyes turned

  soft, and she touched my cheek so

  gently I almost

  melted. “Be careful

  what you wish for, Ashe. Sometimes

  girls can create more

  problems than they solve.”

  It turned out she knew what she

  was talking about.

  May 1968

  Week Twenty-Two: 438

  I’m an idiot.

  Mom wasn’t smoking dope, though

  I almost wish she

  had been. I see now,

  the symptoms were obvious:

  she was pregnant, not

  stoned. Some guy she met

  at an anti-war rally;

  she wouldn’t tell me

  anything about

  the man, not even his name.

  “Later,” she said, “please.”

  At first I’d assumed

  it was Dad, because even

  with overwhelming

  evidence to the

  contrary, I still had my

  childish hope that they

  might work things out. Well,

  they did work things out, but not

  how I had hoped. Dad

  moved out, furious

  at Mom’s betrayal, but he

  also seemed almost

  relieved that he could

  leave and blame their failed marriage

  on her. When she talked

  to me, she didn’t

  make excuses or try to

  explain; she pulled me

  into a hug and

  whispered over and over,

  “I am so sorry.”

  ★ ★ ★

  The last day of school

  felt like a wake before an

  Irish funeral.

  Everybody was

  signing yearbooks and talking

  about parties and

  summer jobs. All the

  hallways looked like a whirlwind

  had blown through, strewing

  crumpled worksheets and

  notebook paper everywhere.

  Students wandered in

  and out of classes

  without hall passes because

  everyone knew that

  summer vacation

  had begun even if school

  wasn’t yet over.

  I felt the happy

  vibe, too, but bittersweetness

  dogged me all morning.

  Seeing Angela

  turned the bitter to sweet, and

  the fog began to

  lift. Like everyone

  else, I looked forward to our

  summer vacation,

  but I knew I’d miss

  the routine of school. Classes,

  homework, sports—it gave

  me something to do

  besides worrying about

  the chaos at home.

  ★ ★ ★

  Before he turned class

  over to yearbook signing,

  Mr. Ruby told

  us he’d be teaching

  a new senior course next year,

  Contemporary

  Civilization,

  it would be called, and it would

  focus on current

  world affairs. He glanced

  around the room. “It will be

  challenging, even

  controversial,” he

  said, “but I guarantee that

  it will be a real

  education.” His

  gaze settled on me when he

  said, “I sincerely

  hope some of you will

  enroll.” Angela’s pat on

  my shoulder confirmed

  what I already

  knew. When fall rolled around, we’d

  both be in that class.

  June 1968

  Week Twenty-Three: 380

  My mom loved Bobby

  Kennedy. He stood up for

  everything Nixon

  didn’t, and even

  though he couldn’t possibly

  replace JFK,

  he could pick up where

  his older brother had left

  off when his life was

  snuffed out in Dallas

  in 1963. When

  Bobby entered the

  presidential race,

  even pregnancy couldn’t

  slow Mom down. She made

  phone calls, wrote letters,

  and attended rallies like

  it was going to