Soldier Hill — Chapter 2

Coming of age fiction honoring sacrifice

2.

Forging through the rest of the school day, Eddie’s mind dropped the headline news of the computer lab and returned to ponder Billy’s tree and tablet instead. With one more period before dismissal, history class tumbled in.

Eddie dug Mrs. Cassidy, his history teacher ’cause she treated the applied kids no different from the college prep students. Things called patience, respect, and encouragement. Virtues that hifalutin Becker never bothered to learn himself. Eddie trusted Mrs. Cassidy and approached her after class to ask about Billy.

“From what I understand, he was a soldier in Vietnam,” Mrs. Cassidy said.

“What happened?” Eddie asked.

“He died in combat.”

“Do you know what battle?” Eddie asked. Not that he knew any.

“No, I don’t,” she said.

“Do you know his last name?” Eddie asked.

“No. It all happened before I got here,” she said.

All that was left of the guy was a memorial tree. And Eddie refused to let it go. A real soldier and war hero who hailed from Maple Valley!

The questions continued to swirl Eddie’s mind. Where did Billy grow up? What did he look like? What rock bands did Billy listen to? What street did he live on? Which house was it? Eddie wanted to take a bike ride and find it. Short a last name, he couldn’t look it up in the phone book.

Being a soldier and dying in battle seemed so heroic — dwarfing touchdowns and banked jumpers in a crowded gym. Besides, the athletes had a king-sized trophy case, cheerleaders, and varsity jackets. Not to mention, popularity, privileges, and all the street cred that went along with being hot-shot important.

What did Billy have? A tree, a life, and a sacrifice nobody knew about. Why didn’t he have his portrait up in one of the halls? Something, anything, named after him?

Not to mention, nobody ever talked about Vietnam back in the 1980s. For whatever reason, the war remained off-limits, never discussed at the dinner table or in history class. To people Eddie’s age, Vietnam was something mystical. More fiction than reality. Surreal, as if the war never really happened.

Eddie’s Uncle Tim fought in Vietnam, and Eddie remembered the letters he sent home. Since Eddie was very young, he did recall the envelopes with red, white, and blue trim, and the Air Mail watermark. Since the letters looked official and important, they left an impression and Eddie never forgot them nor where they came from.

“What is he doing there?” Eddie asked his mom, despite not understanding where Vietnam was or what it meant.

“Traveling,” she’d say.

“When is he coming back?”

“We hope soon.”

When Uncle Tim returned from Vietnam, Eddie remembered his mother talking in the kitchen with Gam, Eddie’s grandmother. As the ladies rinsed and wiped down dishes after dinner, Eddie got up to use the bathroom. That’s when he heard their conversation.

“Is he having any nightmares?” Eddie’s mother asked.

“Not that we know of. But we have to be sure he’s okay. It’s a big adjustment. I can’t tell you how happy and relieved I am that Tim’s finally home, but we have no idea if he’s psycho,” Gam said.

When Eddie heard psycho, his ears perked Uncle Tim? Nightmares? Psycho? What in the world went on in this Vietnam place?

“It’s a good thing Dad went through what he did. He can relate to Timmy and help him adjust,” Eddie’s mom said.

“I hope so,” Gam told her.

They should have changed the name to Voodoonam. The war ended and Vietnam faded out, left alone to skid across the ozone like space junk. Uncle Tim never discussed it and seemed to turn out fine.

Too young to rent restricted movies, Eddie and Dave smuggled them from Charlie’s video store. The boys always skipped the propaganda films with John Wayne, reaching for the hard stuff. The war stories with real explosions, real battles, and real soldiers. The movies that didn’t treat the darkness of war like a soap opera, and the audience like fools. Eddie and Dave might have been kids, but knew war was serious business and played for keeps.

Instead, the boys took turns slipping The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, and The Boys In Company C in their backpacks and returned those flicks for Gardens of Stone and Coming Home. Since Dave’s dad was a veteran of the Korean War, they watched The Steel Helmet and Sam Fuller’s other films like The Big Red One.

Later that night, Eddie rolled in his bunk, wondering what film he’d have to clip from the video store’s rack to see Billy’s movie. Did Billy hear the same trains when he slept in Maple Valley or watch the sundowns spill orange on the Turnpike trucks, meadows, and wild ponds?

Would Dave and Eddie ever be soldiers in a war he thought? Pushed to face their moment of truth? A nightmare room where you can’t fake it by going shit-for-brains crazy or acting phony tough — that part of the battleground scared Eddie the most. If Eddie ever had to fight, would he be brave enough? Did Eddie have the right steel buried somewhere inside him?

Since Eddie wasn’t college material, it didn’t mean he couldn’t do something else. Something hefty and important. Dare he thinks great? Why not? And even if Eddie didn’t know what it was or what it meant, so what?

While the CP kids were busy scouting colleges, Eddie buzzed around the sealed jar like a trapped firefly. Bouncing off the glass walls, looking for an escape hatch before the light from his tail burned out for good and he’d be the one left for dead and forgotten.

All while his classmates padded their transcripts and prepped for college entrance exams. The hotshots competing over class rankings and letters of recommendation.

All this stuff went down as Eddie marched on. No clue where his rank washed out. Most likely the bottom ten percent if he cared to request the guidance center to look it up. For the record, just another number as long as Eddie was concerned. In the school’s eyes, Eddie and Dave remained long shots for junior college. On the outside, no chance. Eddie couldn’t fathom his life appeared doomed at fifteen.

Eddie never felt left out of the college hunt since he never cared to be included anyway. His bigger fear had him stuck behind and forgotten, simply for the sake of it. All part of the script that he really was born to lose and people like Becker would win out in the end.

Despite what the high school thought and said, Eddie knew there was a rhythm inside his soul. There had to be, ’cause he felt the beat and heard its tune. He just didn’t know the way. The map to lead him there and pull it out.

At the heart of it, there was nobody around he trusted enough to approach and talk about it. Anyone who half-cared would half-try, causing more trouble. Eddie feared the damage his own honesty could bring. The courage to trust someone with his core beliefs. His yearnings and fears. Things he would have to admit in order to receive the right answers. Without them, he’d continue the same path. Stuck in the quicksand without the rope, help, and heave-ho he needed to escape and find himself.

In order to locate that road, he’d have to flag somebody who’d been there. Who knew what it takes. Someone who understood Eddie and what he was going through. Someone who wouldn’t laugh, turn their back on him or toss him to some head-shrinker, the black hole and wolves den of high school.

Once that leaked, it would fly around the halls and get lost in translation. Every stroll between bells and the lunchroom, pointed out, as kids huddled to whisper about him. The one who sees a psychiatrist. The problem child. The flaming wreck, unable to be patched up. Yep, that Eddie kid. We knew he was strange, but not this messed up. Stay away, you might catch something.

Pop-Pop, Eddie’s grandfather, was the only soul Eddie trusted enough on anything, let alone for something so sacred. Pop-Pop would never laugh at Eddie, no matter how crazy he sounded. Always there to reel Eddie in, and put him on the right track. Except now, when Eddie needed Pop-Pop most, he remained unavailable.

Pop-Pop passed away over Eddie’s freshman year. One of life’s crashes and burns, Eddie could no longer go to Pop-Pop and missed him dearly.

Dave was Eddie’s best bud to the end, but he wasn’t completely sure and feared Dave might laugh. Might. While shooting pool in Dave’s basement one day, Eddie decided to get it off his chest and trust Dave once-and-for- all. What choice did he have? To keep this fire burning inside him forever? Any day any moment, Eddie expected this volcano to blow sky-high and kill him.

“What do you mean, Eddie?” he asked while draining a pocket shot.

“Who are we, Dave? What are we supposed to be?” Eddie asked. There, he finally let the rascal out. Light-headed and nervous, with no idea how Dave would catch and toss back Eddie’s confession.

“I been thinkin’ about that one too,” Dave said.

“Really?” Eddie asked. Relieved he wasn’t the only castaway on a loony island.

Truth was, Dave and Eddie never cared about fitting in. They weren’t stoners, trouble-makers, or destructive. Never got arrested by the police or expelled from school. A tag team of underdogs who needed to be left alone. They sure as heck didn’t have the marks for higher learning, but they did have the brains to figure it out if the powers in charge would only stop pinning the boys down with their limits, labels, and let’s face it, silly rules.

“I’ve been thinking about community college,” Dave said.

“No kiddin’? That’s a two-year school, right?” Eddie asked.

“Yeah. You don’t need all this fancy bullshit. You sign up, pay your money, and pick your classes. They don’t care what you did in high school. As long as your name’s not Steven ‘Nukem’ Rooney, you could join.”

“What are you thinkin’ about?” Eddie asked Dave.

“I don’t know for sure. Look into it. If you like it and do well, you transfer to a four-year school. By then, you don’t need test scores and letters from teachers we’ll never get.”

“I never thought of that,” Eddie said, impressed that Dave already had put more time into this than he did. Eddie always figured Dave would take over his father’s contracting business.

“I don’t wanna do that,” Dave said.

“Why not?”

“It’s not for me.”

Besides figuring out their own callings, Eddie still needed to uncover more about Billy and his tree. Eddie kept silent on that one, figuring Dave didn’t know anything about it.

While the construction outside the high school motored on, Maple Valley planned to yank Eddie’s bum from the barrel before he went sailing over the falls for good. Eddie really liked where he floated and didn’t buy into the school’s warning that the sky was falling. More malarkey if you asked Eddie, and since no one did, he reported for his appointment at the guidance center.

Mr. Leonard was the big cheese and last stop on the derelict line. Known to filter and steer the troubled kids, before the school gave up on them for good.

Leonard’s cube was guarded by a snarky secretary who had a son on the Honor Roll and a Becker student wannabe. The secretary considered Eddie a tramp who wasted the town’s time and tax dollars. Eddie ignored her snobby vibes, since he never bothered this lady or her blockhead son.

Eddie watched Leonard’s shadow brew at the door and twist the knob. Sam “The Sham” Leonard, at your service, Eddie’s personal life coach. Eddie could tell Leonard was all fired up.

“Where do you see yourself, Eddie?” Leonard asked once he settled behind his big desk. Leonard had a full pot of slackers to drain these days and needed to kick things off.

“What do you mean?” Eddie asked. All nonchalant, sporting the ole devil-may-care attitude.

“I mean your life, your future. What do you want to do with it?” he asked. Eddie tried not to bust a gut while Leonard’s eyes swelled inside his pop bottle specs. Relax the act, Jack, nobody’s breakin’ me.

Leonard stared Eddie down while waiting for his response. Once Eddie shrugged his shoulders, Leonard shifted in his thick, foamy chair. Besides Meathead, Leonard had the best leather in the house, thinking he was the bee’s knees when a janitor wheeled in the vice principal's hand-me-down.

Leonard started to rehash his own varsity days as a youngster with hooligan pals. He harped on the bad and wrong kids who lurked in every high school. Guys like Dave, born to hijack the controls and derail the stardom of the chosen.

Eddie wasn’t in the mood to set the record straight and prolong this meeting. Eddie was the culprit mapping the boys’ downfall, not Dave. Besides, this clown had another thing coming if he thought Eddie would ditch Dave and meltdown the best friendship he had left. College or no college, Leonard and Maple Valley High could stuff that one.

“I said to myself, ‘Sam, do you want to be a lark the rest of your life, or do you want to be something?’ Now, look at me. I have my own office, bookcases, and a secretary.’” Oh, brother.

Sam Leonard rammed a work-study through instead of wasting everyone’s time in the classroom. He wanted Eddie to start thinking big and stop acting out the lark. With the exception of Mrs. Cassidy, Eddie’s history teacher, and a few others, most of the faculty had given up on Eddie by now.

Leonard thought it was high time Eddie acquired vocational skills and begin the groundwork for a blue-collar job after graduation if he made it that far. Mr. Meathead, the building’s majordomo, loved the idea. Eddie wondered if the stoners snuck into the teacher’s lounge and spiked the coffee machines with angel dust.