Death Coming Up the Hill Read online

  “Why don’t they tell us

  something, Ashe? They have

  to know where he is!” She got

  worked up like this when

  all the worrying

  at home dominoed onto

  her. She could hold up

  when only her mom

  freaked, but when her dad caved, too,

  she couldn’t handle

  it, and she’d call to

  tell me to meet her at the

  park. Last night a mean

  desperation gripped

  her, a kind of panic-laced

  determination

  to do something, to

  fix things. When I got there, she

  was pacing back and

  forth in front of the

  swing set; as soon as she saw

  me, she unloaded:

  the frustration and

  pain, anger and sadness. I’d

  heard it all before

  and knew the best thing

  I could do was to listen.

  So I sat on a

  swing while she paced and

  talked and swore and cried. When she

  finished, she turned to

  me and said, “I’d do

  anything to save him, Ashe.

  Anything. Even

  die.” The look on her

  face told me she meant it, and

  I wondered where that

  kind of courage and

  love came from. If I were in

  her shoes, would I be

  willing—would I be

  able—to sacrifice my

  life for a sibling?

  August 1968

  Week Thirty-Two: 173

  After school, I found

  Mom whispering into the

  phone in the kitchen,

  wiping tears from her

  cheeks as she sat hunched at the

  table. When she saw

  me, she hung up and

  dabbed her eyes with a tissue.

  “Was that Dad?” I asked.

  “A friend.” And I knew

  she meant that guy. “Ashe, there is

  something you should know

  about . . .” But then the

  front door opened, and Dad walked

  into the kitchen.

  Reading the surprise

  on our faces, he said, “I

  still own this house, you

  know, even if I

  don’t live here anymore. I

  came to pick up a

  few things.” The shock of

  seeing Dad made Mom ready

  for a fight. “You could

  have called.” Dad stared at

  her, then at me, and sighed. “I

  tried,” he said, “but the

  line’s been busy for

  more than an hour.” Raw tension

  smoldered between them,

  a standoff just like

  old times, but Dad ended it

  by going downstairs.

  Taking a deep breath,

  Mom rested her head on her

  hands. “This is a real

  rugged patch for me,

  Ashe, and I’m going to need

  your help to get through

  it.” The doorbell rang,

  and before I could move, I

  heard the door open

  and Dad’s annoyed voice:

  “What do you want?” Mom paled and

  dropped her hand to her

  belly. Angela’s

  voice: “Is Ashe home?” At my front

  door. With my dad. I

  got up so fast my

  chair crashed onto the floor, but

  I arrived too late.

  She saw me standing

  behind my dad and smiled. “Hey,

  Ashe.” Dad stepped back, took

  a long look at her,

  then turned on me. “Who is this?”

  Icy slivers spiked

  his voice, and I felt

  hearts and hopes and doors slamming

  shut as I fumbled

  for answers that would

  satisfy my father and

  my hippie girlfriend.

  August 1968

  Week Thirty-Three: 159

  Angela and her

  mother brought dinner over

  Wednesday night. When she

  had heard about Dad,

  she insisted on doing

  something to help. “Mom

  and I know something

  about loss,” she had said. “And

  it’s no fun dealing

  with it alone.” When

  they walked in, it felt like they

  breathed life back into

  our home. Angela’s

  mom hugged my mother like they

  were long-lost sisters,

  and Mom’s eyes teared up

  when she met Angela. “I’m

  sorry about what

  happened the last time

  you came over. Ashe’s dad . . .

  well, just let me say

  I’m sorry, but I

  am delighted to meet you.”

  After eating, we

  went downstairs to watch

  the evening news, but when a

  report on the war

  came on, I jumped up

  and changed the channel to a

  news program about

  a massive high-rise

  office building project that

  was getting started

  in New York City.

  These twin office towers, said

  the reporter, would

  be the world’s tallest,

  a permanent monument

  to America’s

  ingenuity,

  capitalistic system,

  and democracy.

  Mom started laughing.

  “Isn’t it ironic that

  we’re bombing the hell

  out of one country

  while we’re building monuments

  to our own greatness?”

  The room fell silent;

  I felt the awkwardness of

  Mom’s political

  statement. But seconds

  later Angela’s mom said,

  “I hear you, sister.”

  August 1968

  Week Thirty-Four: 308

  The attention from

  Mrs. Turner really helped

  my mom get through some

  rough days, but still I

  worried. Sometimes after work,

  I’d find Mom in her

  bedroom, panting and

  moaning and dripping with sweat.

  I’d never felt so

  weak and desperate.

  If Mom went into labor

  at home, what would I

  do? What could I do?

  Call an ambulance and hope

  it would get her to

  the hospital in

  time? What if something went wrong?

  Complications—or

  worse? If I lost my

  mom, the baby, or both, what

  would become of me?

  August 1968

  Week Thirty-Five: 408

  Pounding dirt in the

  pounding Arizona sun

  darkened my skin and

  hardened my body,

  and Reuben Ortega made

  me appreciate

  the broiling heat. “You

  think this is tough,” he said, “try

  a couple days in

  a muddy foxhole

  with mortar shells dropping all

  around you day and

  night”—he’d stare into

  the distance and his voice would

  get ragged—“never

  knowing if shrapnel

  or a sniper will nail you

  while you’re sweating in

  a stinking hellhole,

  just hoping to make it
through

  the night.” Then he’d snap

  out of it, focus

  his eyes on me, and say, “Don’t

  never go to war.

  If it don’t kill you,

  it’ll break you, and you’ll be

  digging ditches with

  burned-out war vets in

  a hundred-ten-degree heat

  the rest of your life.”

  ★ ★ ★

  Working with Reuben

  changed how I read the weekly

  casualty reports.

  He’d seen buddies shipped

  home in body bags. He’d been

  splattered by their blood.

  He’d heard their panicked

  cries and choking death sobs. He’d

  lived through the carnage

  and knew some of the

  four hundred and eight men who

  died last week. To me

  they were part of an

  abstract number, but to him

  they were real flesh-and-

  blood men sacrificed

  on the altar of war. I

  tried to make it real,

  but to me and most

  Americans, the men who

  died were just part of

  a tragic count that

  changed each week. By the end of

  the summer, when I

  read the casualty

  reports, I remembered the

  haunted, wounded look

  on Reuben’s face when

  he talked about the war, and

  I earnestly hoped

  Kelly wasn’t part

  of the tragic tally of

  dead in Vietnam.

  September 1968

  Week Thirty-Six: 195

  The Democrats named

  Hubert Humphrey as their man

  to face Nixon in

  November, but their

  convention exposed all the

  conflict in the world

  today. Protests in

  Chicago led to police

  violence that seemed

  un-American.

  Trouble also exploded

  in Paris, Prague, and

  cities everywhere.

  It wasn’t just Vietnam;

  the world had gone nuts.

  ★ ★ ★

  The first day of school

  felt simultaneously

  new and old. Students

  jammed the halls, buzzing

  and bragging about all their

  summer adventures.

  My summer had been

  a bummer I didn’t feel

  like sharing at school,

  and looking around,

  I wondered how many kids

  were walking wounded

  like me. Our summer

  scars didn’t show, but the pain

  and damage lingered.

  Angela met me

  at my locker; we held hands

  and walked to Mr.

  Ruby’s room. When he

  saw us, he grinned a welcome

  and told us to choose

  our own seats, so we

  claimed the same desks as last year

  and waited for class.

  “One ninety-five” was

  written on the board, and I

  knew that his new course,

  Contemporary

  Civilization, would deal

  with today’s real life.

  September 1968

  Week Thirty-Seven: 217

  My father nagged me

  to leave Mom, to move in with

  him, but I knew I

  couldn’t abandon

  her, especially so near

  to the baby’s birth.

  He tried bribery,

  legal coercion, even

  intimidation

  to convince me, but

  that stuff just shoved us further

  and further apart.

  I did agree to

  meet him for lunch at Pete’s Fish

  and Chips one Sunday

  after school started.

  He looked like he hadn’t slept

  well for a long time.

  I got my food, sat

  facing him, and prepared to

  listen to his pitch.

  He made it clear that

  reconciliation was

  out of the question.

  “I know our marriage

  was broken, Ashe. Your mother

  and I haven’t seen

  eye to eye on much

  of anything since you were

  born, but we tried to

  hold it together

  for your sake.” He blinked back tears.

  “But this betrayal

  is more than I can

  bear. She has shamed me and you

  and herself, and you

  have no idea—

  no idea at all—how

  much this has wounded

  me. I’m going to

  fight for you, and I’m going

  to make her pay for

  what she has done. She

  doesn’t deserve either one

  of us anymore,

  and I’ll spend my last

  dime to make sure that she and

  her bastard baby

  are completely cut

  off. She’s made her bed; she can

  sleep in it.” He leaned

  back and stared at me.

  “It’s going to be scorched earth,

  son, no prisoners,

  all or nothing—and

  you are going to be with

  me or against me.”

  September 1968

  Week Thirty-Eight: 290

  It started late on

  Monday night. I heard Mom cry

  out in pain. Then she

  yelled for me to get

  ready to drive her to the

  hospital. She’d talked

  me through all this in

  advance, but something about

  it scared the hell out

  of me. I checked on

  her, then went to the garage,

  started the car, and

  battled the panic

  while I waited. When she got

  into the car, pain

  sparked off her, and she

  panted and sweated like she

  was going to melt.

  “Should I call someone?”

  I asked. She shook her head. “It’s

  better this way. He’ll

  find out soon enough.

  Now hurry up, unless you

  want this baby to

  be born in the front

  seat.” By the time we got to

  the emergency

  entrance, sweat soaked my

  tee shirt, and my hands trembled

  like an old man’s. They

  whisked Mom away, and

  I staggered to the waiting

  room to worry and

  wait. It was after

  midnight, so nothing was on

  the TV. I leafed

  through old magazines

  to stay calm, but with every

  passing minute, the

  worry cranked up a

  notch. And then anger started

  edging around the