Death Coming Up the Hill Read online

  change the world. A part

  of her had died when Martin

  Luther King was killed,

  but Bobby’s campaign

  brought it back to life. And it

  distracted both of

  us, for a time, from

  the relentless slaughter in

  the Vietnam War.

  Wednesday night, Mom and

  I watched the California

  primary. Bobby

  Kennedy won, and

  throughout his speech Mom stood and

  yelled “Right on!” at the

  TV every time

  Kennedy made a point she

  liked. After the speech,

  reporters discussed

  the election results and

  Kennedy’s chances

  in November. Then

  the TV picture lurched and

  rolled, and the people

  behind the newsmen

  started running and shouting.

  Mom froze and stared as

  pandemonium

  erupted on the TV.

  She faded back in-

  to her chair, one hand

  against her cheek, while she stared

  in terrible white

  anticipation.

  The camera focused on

  the swirl of people,

  and the reporter

  disappeared from sight. Moments

  later, a panicked

  voice crackled through the

  airwaves: “Kennedy’s been shot!

  My God, he’s been shot!”

  June 1968

  Week Twenty-Four: 324

  “It’s complicated.”

  That’s what my mom always said

  when I asked her when

  I’d meet the baby’s

  father. “Complicated” was

  an understatement.

  I knew it was the

  Age of Aquarius and

  free love, but my own

  mother, a married

  woman, carried the child of

  another man. That

  was complicated

  for everyone involved. Mom’s

  not stupid, so I

  couldn’t figure out

  how she got pregnant in the

  first place. After all

  the grief she suffered

  from her first pregnancy, she

  had to know better,

  and given that I

  had no siblings, it was clear

  that she understood

  how birth control worked.

  Could she have fallen in love

  with some strange peacenik?

  Maybe it was just

  a desperate one-night stand

  that she fell into

  out of loneliness.

  Maybe she didn’t even

  know his name. Maybe

  he was just drifting

  through, and he didn’t tell her

  where he went next. I

  wanted to be mad

  at her, to punish her for

  putting that last straw

  on Dad’s back, to make

  her pay for lighting the fuse

  that would blow up our

  fractured family,

  but I knew Dad was as much

  to blame as she was,

  and somehow I felt

  that part of the fault was mine,

  too. I couldn’t be

  mad at Mom or Dad

  for the complications that

  entangled us all.

  ★ ★ ★

  Even with the flak

  flying around, Angela

  wanted to meet my

  parents. She’s not like

  me that way—conflict is one

  thing I avoid, but

  she sails in, fearless.

  One night, we sat under a

  palm tree in her front

  yard while I described

  my dysfunctional parents.

  It didn’t faze her.

  “Your mom sounds great. I

  think I’d get along really

  well with her.” Then I

  told her about my

  dad and his old-school views on

  politics, civil

  rights, and the war. She

  laughed. “It will be like Guess Who’s

  Coming to Dinner,

  except that I’ll be

  in Sidney Poitier’s role—

  the outsider who’s

  a dad’s nightmare.” I

  couldn’t help smiling, and she

  knew she’d won. “Okay,”

  I said, “I’ll see what

  I can do.” Angela hugged

  me, hard, and whispered,

  “This’ll be a good

  thing, Ashe. You’ll see.” The warmth of

  her embrace lingered

  all the way to my

  front door, but when I opened

  it, the sadness at

  home swept it right out

  of me. I wished life was much

  less complicated.

  June 1968

  Week Twenty-Five: 299

  Bobby Kennedy’s

  murder filled Mom with a new

  sense of urgency,

  and she turned even

  more passionate about the

  war, civil rights, and

  keeping Nixon out

  of the White House. Her work kept

  her away from home

  a lot, so sometimes

  I’d go to Dad’s apartment

  for dinner. I tried

  to talk about the

  baby once, but Dad only

  stared at me before

  leaving the table

  without saying a word. I

  tried to imagine

  a dinner with Mom,

  Angela, and him. It was

  impossible. I

  told Angela that

  life isn’t like the movies,

  and that even if

  people need to change,

  most don’t want to, no matter

  what you do or say.

  June 1968

  Week Twenty-Six: 187

  Why don’t they publish

  all the names of the soldiers

  killed every week? How

  different it would

  be to read a long list of

  names in the paper

  on Thursdays. It would

  bring the war home in a way

  numbers can’t. Maybe

  then people would see

  what it’s costing us to be

  tangled up in a

  foreign jungle war

  that will get worse before it’s

  all over. Last week,

  one hundred eighty-

  seven U.S. soldiers died

  in Vietnam, and

  nobody—except

  family and close friends—knew

  or cared. How easy

  it is to forget

  the blood, injuries, and death

  happening daily.

  They deserve to be

  remembered by name. Think of

  what it would be like

  to see all the names

  of the dead at once. Thousands

  of sons, brothers, and

  husbands who died for

  a country they loved in a

  distant, senseless war.

  July 1968

  Week Twenty-Seven: 198

  Dad got me a job

  digging sprinkler line trenches

  for the new hotel

  going up over

  on Rural Road. My boss was

  an old man who had

  spent way too much time

  in the sun. The first morning,

  he laughed when I showed

  up without gloves. He

  handed me a shovel and

  pointed to a guy

  already picking<
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  a flat patch of hard brown dirt

  in the corner. “Get

  busy. I want to

  see nothing but backsides and

  elbows until lunch.

  You got it?” I took

  the shovel and walked over

  to my coworker.

  A dark splotch of sweat

  already stained the back of

  his gray Marines tee

  shirt, and when he saw

  me, he swung his pick into

  the ground, pulled off his

  glove, and shook my hand.

  Reuben Ortega was four

  years older than me,

  and he’d just gotten

  back from Vietnam. He lent

  me an old pair of

  leather work gloves and

  shared his ice water while we

  broke our backs on the

  hard-packed clay in the

  broiling July sun. And when

  we sat in the shade

  of the new building

  to eat lunch, he told me things

  that he had seen and

  done in ’Nam, things that

  never make the newspapers.

  I was surprised how

  calm he was about

  the war—and how his stories

  haunted me. “It’s a

  bad scene over there,”

  he said. “Real bad.” He lit a

  cigarette, took a

  long drag, and while smoke

  drifted upward like a lost

  soul, he shook his head.

  July 1968

  Week Twenty-Eight: 183

  The summer and Dad

  were brutal to Mom. The sun

  melted energy

  out of her, and she

  spent afternoons, the worst part

  of every July

  day, in the quiet

  coolness of her bedroom. Most

  days she was far too

  wiped out to attend

  anti-war demonstrations

  or political

  meetings. At night she’d

  shuffle around the house with

  a hand on her huge

  belly, as if one

  false step might break her open.

  Digging ditches all

  day wiped me out, too,

  but Mom’s was a different

  kind of weariness.

  The baby inside

  her made Mom suffer. And so

  did Dad by dropping

  tons of cold legal

  stuff on her as punishment

  for being pregnant.

  July 1968

  Week Twenty-Nine: 157

  The summer tortured

  Angela’s family as much

  as it tortured mine.

  Still no word from her

  brother, and the Army did

  nothing to help. She’d

  take turns with her mom

  and dad calling bureaucrats

  and writing letters,

  but in the end, the

  military stonewall won.

  The Army knew where

  Kelly was stationed,

  but they couldn’t—or wouldn’t—

  confirm his status.

  When I went to the

  Turners’ house on Friday night,

  the place felt like its

  spirit had been ripped

  from it. Her parents welcomed

  me like always, but

  their warm smiles couldn’t

  camouflage the worry etched

  onto their faces,

  and even though we

  sat at the kitchen table

  eating cookies and

  chatting, the mood felt

  forced, fake, hollow. Angela

  grabbed my hand. “Let’s walk.”

  ★ ★ ★

  Smoky strands of clouds

  stretched across the orange-red

  western sky, and the

  dry heat from the baked

  sidewalk warmed the soles of our

  shoes as we walked to

  Meyer Park. Waves of

  sorrow radiated from

  Angela, and when

  our hands brushed, she clutched

  mine and pulled us to a stop.

  Her eyes glistened with

  tears, and she started

  talking, fast, about Kelly,

  the war, the riots

  and demonstrations,

  the murders of Kennedy

  and King. “Sometimes I

  feel like our world is

  drowning in madness and death.”

  Her eyes pleaded for

  comforting, wise words,

  but I didn’t know what to

  say. We stood there in

  silence while the last

  rays of color faded from

  the horizon. Then

  she squeezed my hand and

  we walked to the park, where we

  sat on swings, sharing

  the weight of worry

  that burdened us. We didn’t

  know what might still be

  coming up the hill

  in 1968, but

  we swore whatever

  happened, we’d face it

  together. Sitting there in

  the dark, our pinkie

  fingers linked, I thanked

  God that Angela’s life had

  intersected mine.

  July 1968

  Week Thirty: 193

  It looked like the war

  would never slow down. Reuben

  laughed when I asked him

  about it. “Ain’t no

  way, man. The white-collar dudes

  sitting in D.C.

  aren’t the ones bleeding.

  They have it their way, this war

  will last forever,

  and if we run out

  of Vietcong to blow up,

  they’ll find some other

  war to keep business

  hopping.” I didn’t want to

  believe him, because

  I was depending

  on my college deferment

  to keep me safely

  out of the draft through

  1973. There

  was no way we’d still

  be in Vietnam

  that long, so I’d graduate

  from college and step

  into a peaceful

  working world. But if we were

  still at war, I’d be

  instant draft bait, and

  that would change everything. I

  didn’t want to think

  about it, but all

  afternoon, images of

  jungle warfare and

  death haunted me. If

  Reuben was right, in five years

  I might be digging

  foxholes and dodging

  bullets on the front lines of

  a jungle war, and

  even in the heat

  of the Arizona sun,

  a chill shivered me.

  August 1968

  Week Thirty-One: 171

  “It’s the not knowing

  that’s the worst. Is he rotting

  in a Vietcong

  prison, or is he

  dead?” Angela’s voice trembled.