Days of Fear

A Story by Bruce Gatten

stories of growing up in america

Days of Fear

War was coming. Once upon a time, some five thousand years ago…The world situation most grave, teetering on the cusp of oblivion. Ominous signs abounded as kings from around the globe amassed military strength far in excess of their needs. When attempts for a peaceful solution failed the unstoppable juggernaut of war pushed millions of warriors from near and far to take up arms for the inevitable fight between the opposing armies of the Kurus and Pandavas. Fought on the sacred plain of Kuruksetra it would be the greatest war of all time. With the fate of all mankind dangling precipitously in the balance.

As their battle calls sounded the heroic generals arrayed their fighters within great strategic phalanxes. With each side poised for battle, Arjuna asked his charioteer, Krsna, to ride between the opposing armies to observe the combatants. Upon seeing brothers, friends and relatives stacked one against the other, Arjuna became despondent and submitted himself to his dear friend Krsna for counsel. Thus, in the brief interlude before the fight, the Bhagavad-gita was spoken by Lord Krsna to Arjuna.

So intense was the fighting that raged on for 18 consecutive days that rivers of blood were created. In the end the forces of righteousness prevailed and the Pandavas regained the throne as the rightful heirs.

With his business there completed Lord Krsna prepared to leave for His kingdom at Dvarka. But when Krsna’s associates heard of His eminent departure there ensued a great outpouring of grief and sadness. Indeed, the sudden realization that they would soon be separated from their dearest Lord was more than they could bear.

Chief among Krsna’s closest associates were His beloved Gopis, the Pandavas and their mother Queen Kunti. All were thunderstruck at the prospect of being separated from Krsna, the Soul of their souls.

In the time leading up to the great battle, Queen Kunti and her five sons were beset with many hardships, trials and tribulations. On a daily basis they encountered ferocious man eaters, fire and countless other intrigues. Yet throughout they remained fixed in thoughts of Krsna who guided and protected them while interceding on their behalf.

Confronted with the sudden prospect of being separated from Krsna, Queen Kunti humbly petitioned her Lord. Praying not for mitigation of her own suffering, but rather, asking for renewed

hardship and tribulation if such guaranteed remaining in Krsna’s embrace. She prayed, “I wish that all those calamities would happen again and again so that we could see You again and again, for seeing You means that we will no longer see repeated births and deaths. My Lord, Your Lordship can easily be approached, but only by those who are materially exhausted. One who is on the path of material progress, trying to improve himself with respectable parentage, great opulence, high education and bodily beauty, cannot approach You with sincere feeling.”

When I first encountered Queen Kunti’s prayers some 40 years ago they came as a startling revelation, simultaneously mystifying and frightening me. The prospect of enduring continued tribulations as the catalyst for greater spiritual advancement was beyond my comprehension. Indeed, her troubling words terrified me. It ran counter to my conception of enjoying the blissful state of being I was seeking. Yet here was an exalted soul asking for hardship. How could I ever hope to understand her mind and apply the Queen’s sentiments into my own life? What was I missing? Why would someone welcome trouble, pain and suffering when none was needed? I’d already had my fill of pain and suffering. I was surrounded by it. It was part of the reason I came to Krsna consciousness in the first place. I wanted Krsna to relieve my troubles. Not bring me more.

I put Queen Kunti aside and tried to avoid such thoughts for a good many years. Over time settling into a lifestyle that reflected the benefits of associating with Krsna’s devotees. I rationalized that Queen Kunti’s prayers were for someone else. Someone with a different situation and temperament. I saw no point in being fanatical. All the while Queen Kunti was patiently waiting for me.

It’s said that time and tide wait for no man. I haven’t given up. Even as I feel my time winding down. With many of the warning signs already present. Suffering from failing sight, diminished hearing and waning strength. And lately to feel a pain resonating from deep within my bones. A wicked, gnawing pain so horrible it must surely be the spawn of a dark, sinister thing. Undoubtedly a consequence of my own making. Utterly embarrassed to be reminded in such a brutal way of the body’s impermanence. Here and now. In time and space. Collecting the fruits of my karma. At the end of a life fraught with violence and pain. Soberly acknowledging how I likely deserve a fate much worse.

I step outside and look up into a cloudless sky. High above me birds with great wing spans soar effortlessly. Floating, dipping and rising again on swirling currents of air. From their vantage point seeing everything. Remarkable in their skills that allow them to be at home so high in the sky.

I can remember the ocean’s tangy scent as it streamed inland and carried high up into the hills. The cool, fresh wind in my face. The pleasure of looking out across intersecting valleys from the deck of my hillside bungalow. Like the captain of a merchant ship carrying a precious cargo, viewing his port of entry. Taking in the subtle, rugged beauty of my slice of California. Where clusters of tall, aromatic rainbow eucalyptus trees dot the landscape. Their thin, pale leaves fluttering gently in the breeze.

In the distance below the freeway winds its way down to the ocean. With nighttime lanes

of traffic transforming to become rivers of shimmering light. Each speck a distinct point of light. Alive. Blending and merging into flowing waves. Pulsating and moving in their magical way.

For years I longed to live in a place such as this. Completely isolated while remaining connected to everything around me. The perfect secret refuge for the pirate, priest, reclusive aristocrat or one such as I. A man waiting patiently. Awaiting my destiny. Looking out across the valleys to the ocean. In the here and now. The twilight of my life. Thinking this to be a fitting place for me to leave this world.

Lately thoughts come to me that I cannot explain. Of things that I do not know or cannot remember. Perhaps coming as memories hidden away from a life now long forgotten. Memories of things that I cannot explain. Or perhaps not memories at all. But premonitions of things yet to come.

In a vase on a driftwood table are freshly picked sprigs of jasmine and rosemary. The two scents intertwining and welcoming as they drift across the room. I puzzle momentarily over who might have placed them there. Then recalling that I live alone. A somber reminder of my own slow deterioration. Where entire sections of my life are sometimes missing.

Every man is destined to know fear. Ultimately fearing death itself. Whether at the point of a sword, bullet or the hangman’s noose. Or simply the deterioration of old age. Indeed, fear assumes many forms. In one moment manifesting in remembering. In the next the fear of forgetting. But it is not in forgetting that my greatest fear lies. It is in recalling the faces of those I might have wronged. Reliving the details of violent encounters. Like an uninvited guest who lingers on. The fear that never leaves.

Not a day goes by that I don’t remember. Recalling the fearful faces of those in my midst. And remembering my own days of fear. Recalling its tight embrace. Each day. Wondering if today, this day, would be my last. To be taken out by a sniper’s bullet, an RPG, or a humbug. Remembering the dense green of the jungle floor. Its pungent, gaseous odor and spongy feel as it slowly crumbled beneath my feet. Remembering every detail while wrapped up in its grip and pulse. With one eye open and never sleeping. Ever vigilant. And always in fear of careless slumber. The nightmare of awakening with a sudden start as the enemy’s bayonet is thrust deep into your chest. Its razor sharp tip pushing into your heart.

The VC and NVA fighters were no different than us. Young men pushed into answering the call of duty. An imagined duty conjured up by politicians and legitimized through propaganda. Each side brutal and ruthless in battle. Our fear pushing us to ignore our own humanity. We were monsters. At every turn willing to kill every last man, woman and child we encountered. They were right to fear us. And we to fear them. Back home in the town square another monument is erected to honor those who have fallen. A standing reminder of their brave fight and how our great victory was purchased with their blood. We honor them as heroes for slaughtering the enemy. With machine guns and fixed bayonets as they rushed headlong into battle. Their names inscribed on a brass placard that is barely legible with the passage of unstoppable time.

In the end when the superficial layers of patriotism, morality and justice are stripped away, we see they were but men like us. Just common men struggling to live. Struggling against the unseen hand that brings friend and foe together to reap the debt of karma for their past deeds. A mistaken monument erected in ignorance. For when the bugle sounded on that day it called not heroes together. But was only the call to be slaughtered.

The lowly soldier knows not of these things. Only that he must accept his fate and somehow push forward. Forcing his mind to remain focused on the mission. Not to give in to the terror of all consuming fear. His jungle fatigues stained with the salt of his own sweat. Smeared with the blood of insect bites and fallen comrades. The dead and wounded that he’ll never see again. But whose faces remain forever etched in his consciousness. The faces that pass by every night in the macabre parade of his dreams. Faces distorted and bleeding. Painted with the soot and blackness that only war can call forth. A black so dark and deep it takes away the light of day…

After each battle we’d gather up the bodies. Placing our own dead on stretchers for a dignified removal. Pulling the bodies of dead VC and NVA out from mud bunkers and trenches by their hair, arms and feet. Dutifully searching their dead bodies. Rifling through their packs and pockets. Looking for maps, official documents or anything of value. Mostly retrieving odd scraps. A piece of green jade that a man carried as a good luck talisman. A child’s tooth. A simple memento of his family. A Russian watch with a cracked crystal. Photos of loved ones. Their edges frayed and spattered with blood. Coated over with the grime and grit of battle.

We are supremely proficient in delivering the final insult. Celebrating our victory by dragging the enemy dead away for disposal. Their corpses a testament to our superiority. Piled into heaps for mass burial. Forget about winning over hearts and minds. The real truth was different. We have come to bury you. Their bodies are tossed and kicked into an open pit. No one to offer words of condolence for their souls. Ten. Twenty. Thirty and more. Faces frozen in the grimace of death. We have delivered our message. You are less than spit to us.

In our war of attrition the body count is everything. Today I am entrusted to keep an accurate tally of their bodies. Corpses that mean nothing to us are thrown and pushed like garbage into the pit. In the heat and humidity they quickly decompose. Seeing them like this I no longer hate them. Because even in their dying we must care for them. I soon learn it is not a task for the weak of heart. Indeed, its ghastliness quickly overwhelms me.

Amid the stench and gruesomeness of it all I quickly lose count as bodies are being pushed, flung and kicked headlong from three sides. But I dare not reveal I’ve lost count. Were I to do so I might be made to count them all again. And I would surely go completely insane. Instead I devise a simple system. I count the layers of corpses. So many high. So many wide. So many long. Grade school arithmetic. I make an estimate and then double it. That will satisfy everyone. No one will doubt my mathematics. Or dare to say my count is too high. Whether after viewing the third or twentieth body my only solace comes in knowing that I have finally become completely and utterly desensitized. With life no longer

holding any value or meaning to me.

Tommy Root was probably the wildest kid in school. He’d already been expelled from two public schools and labeled as incorrigible before coming to St. James. A year older than me he came to school with torn pants, black engineer boots and a thin chrome chain for a belt. His jet black hair slicked back and a blue tattoo of a star on his right hand. A chipped front tooth adding flare to his perpetual sneer of surly defiance.

About halfway through the school year Sally, Tommy’s younger sister, began attending St. James Elementary school. She was the same age as me and sat in the front row directly next to me in Sister Mary Anne’s class. Thin and disheveled, she often came to school wearing the same drab dress for weeks. Sometimes without socks. She seldom, if ever, attended Mass and never took the sacraments. And always with a gaunt, haunted look on her face.

The children at St. James were encouraged to attend Mass each morning prior to formal classroom studies. Only the most devout regularly attended. The others, if they came at all, trickled in when the ceremony was halfway through or near ending.

The sacrament of holy communion meant receiving the body of Jesus Christ in the form of a starch wafer. At each Mass bread and wine were consecrated by the priest with the words, this is my body. This is my blood. The body of Jesus was in the wafer. The wine became his blood. And only the priest was permitted to drink the wine. Even after hearing the priests explain its meaning hundreds of times I still didn’t get it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

Catholics were supposed to fast prior to accepting the communion sacrament. To incentivize their participation the children who took communion were permitted to eat a small breakfast afterward in the classroom. The communion classroom breakfast usually consisting of donuts and milk. It was all the incentive I needed.

The neighborhood bakery was less than a block from St. James. With freshly made donuts served up on waxed paper inside white paper bags. Whenever I entered the bakery the women in their crisp, white bakery uniforms would dote on me and laugh in their motherly way. Calling me “honey” and “rosy cheeks” and sometimes slipping an extra donut into my bag.

My favorites were glazed and jelly filled at 5 cents each. And the stupendous chocolate coated cream filled eclairs which cost 15 cents. The latter guaranteed to put a child to sleep during one of sister Mary Anne’s boring dissertations.

On more than one occasion I glimpsed Sally longingly eyeing my stash of pastry delights whilst busily stuffing them into my cheeks. But whenever I looked straight toward her she’d feign indifference and look away. But I knew what was what. Having seen the look in her eyes. So one morning while Sister Mary Anne was momentarily distracted with writing on the blackboard I whispered over, hey, Sally, and handed her a fresh glazed donut. And faster than a cobra striking at a mongoose, Sally snatched the

donut from my hand and swallowed it in two bites. Without so much as a smile, nod or wave of acknowledgement. And then completely ignoring me for the rest of the day.

After that I made it a point to get an extra donut for Sally. Even if Sally was short on reciprocation. And delighting in the intrigue of secreting it to her. Which was no easy task. Because Sister Mary Anne was wizened in the ways of sneaky children. With eyes in the back of her head and reflexes like a cat. Yes, it was risky business. If she ever caught on to me…I didn’t want to think about it. It was curtains for anyone who dared flaunt her classroom law.

All went well for several weeks. I studied the nun’s every movement. Calculating within a split second when she’d turn from writing on the blackboard, raise her head or look away. My confidence growing as I honed my skills. Mastering the art of cat and mouse with fresh, inventive ways to outwit Sister Mary Anne. And becoming a bit cocky in the process. Until one morning when Gloria Snitchalot raised her hand high in the classroom and stood to tell the world that Tommy gave Sally a donut and Sally didn’t go to communion. And Tommy does it every morning when you aren’t looking. Or words to that effect. And then Sister Mary Anne put on a great frown and told Gloria to sit down and for me to go out in the hall and stand. Crimson faced, I held my breath and walked out to face certain doom. Time to face the music. Walk the plank. Out in the cold hallway awaiting Sister Mary Anne and the wrath of God to descend upon me.

Minutes later I was standing face to face with Sister Mary Anne. She with hands on hips, a stern expression on her face. So…Aren’t you the clever one. The first boy ever to pass a donut in the classroom. You must be quite proud of yourself. All your sneaking about behind my back. For almost 3 weeks now. Well, what do you have to say for yourself?

I stood there quaking in my shoes and without any answer for her. Knowing from experience that no reply was often the best and safest course of action. Lest anything I might say be taken wrongly and compound my doom.

As her gaze narrowed I felt myself shrinking into the floor. Waiting for her famous left handed slap across my face. But then Sister Mary Anne did something totally unexpected. She leaned forward looking me straight in the eye and whispered in a low tone even though you’re quite a mischievous rascal you are a boy with a good heart, Tommy. If you wish to give Sally a donut I will not stop you. Provided you ask permission first. But absolutely no more sneaking around. Do you understand? And then gave my ear a pull and twist until I was standing on tiptoes. Just to make certain I understood.

And just like that there was a new rule where we all could share our donuts and whatever else we brought in to eat. Because Sister Mary Anne was no fool. Knowing from Sally’s appearance that all was not well in the Root family.

Next door to the bakery was the Bluementhal Coal Company. On their front lawn a huge rectangular chunk of coal as tall as a large tombstone and at least three times as thick. With a large

metal and wooden sign affixed to its front that said Bluementhal Coal Company. The proud emblem of the family business. Coal. Delivered by the truckload to hundreds of families in the surrounding neighborhoods where it was dumped and shoveled down wooden chutes into basement and back yard bins. Coal. Burned in the furnaces and stoves of homes everywhere in the city. Coal. Cheap and available. Burning hot.

I remember my grandfather down in the basement in his slippers. Shoveling coal into the furnace early in the morning. And in the evening banking the red embers for the night. The Bluementhal Coal Company providing coal for at least a hundred years until the gas lines were laid in. And gradually over the years as furnaces were converted and new stoves were purchased it spelled the end of the era of coal. Ending the Bluementhal family business which stood in the same location for generations. Kind and caring people who delivered their coal to needy families without payment rather than have them face the cold winter months without heat.

I first met Tommy during one summer recess from St. James Elementary school. I was taking a short cut across the railroad tracks near Kensington Avenue viaduct. On my way to meet up with my regular friends at the Grider Street city pool early one August afternoon. When I looked over I saw Tommy loitering near the railroad spur switch by the Trico plant tracks. Smoking a Lucky Strike and absently kicking about bits of coal and gravel that were pressed into the raised rail bed. The air a mixture of green scents and the acrid smell of creosote oozing out from rail timbers and mixing in with spilled machine oil and grease. He looked at home standing on the rough, hard scrabble ground. Along the embankment thin stalks of chicory popped up here and there. Their pale blue florets spread open to embrace the sun high overhead. The blue flowers scattered among clusters of wild white and yellow daisies and tufts of stringy grass. The sound of music drifted across wooden and chain link back yard fences from properties abutting the railroad right-of-way.

When he saw me he called out, hey kid, an edge of urgency in his voice as he waved me over. As I got closer he said hey I know you from school, huh? I nodded and said ya, I’m at St. James. I know your sister, Sally. He nodded back. So you wanna hop a ride? We can hop one down to bum town and then catch another one back.

I didn’t know about any of this. Everyone I’d ever spoken to said hopping freight trains was dangerous stuff. Bordering on deadly. My shocked expression only certified my apprehension. You ain’t scared, are ya? His leering grin intimidating. Instantly arresting me. A taut worse even than mouthing the words, you ain’t chicken, are ya? I didn’t know what to say. It was against my nature to admit to anything so instead I said I didn’t know how. It’s easy, he said. When the rain comes wait for some cars to pass by. Then find one with a ladder or a place to grab onto and start running with the train. Just grab one of the rungs and pull yourself up. It’s easy. I hop ‘em all the time. You wanna do it?

In the World War II Hollywood propaganda movie, Flying Tigers, John Wayne portrays a cocky American fighter pilot. The Hollywood hero taking care of business for God and country. Though in real life the actor carefully avoiding the military and staying safely away from the actual fighting that raged

on in Europe and the Pacific.

In one cinematic scene the hero fires a deadly burst from his machine guns. Riddling a Japanese Zero with bullets and killing its unlucky pilot. A splash of blood spurts from the Japanese pilot’s face. Good work! Another Jap plane shot down. Our hero grinning in his trademark macho style while the audience applauds and cheers the grisly scene. Later, back on terra firma, the hero walks with his patented swagger and adds another rising sun notch to the fuselage of his death machine.

Some decades later Hollywood resurrected the aging actor to portray a fearless Green Beret officer. Plying the sentiments of patriotism with cinematic indoctrination. A proven effective way to boost American morale and produce fresh bodies for the war. The war that was making fresh widows and breaking mother’s hearts.

Tommy’s father, James Root, was a Marine. Killed in action on some godforsaken hill during the Korean War. In the frozen nowhere in the middle of winter. Where men suffered and died in the freezing cold in a war that made no sense. Their frozen bodies stacked up like cord wood. Used as macabre shields from an advancing enemy who flung themselves headlong in human waves. Chinese bodies stacked upon American bodies stacked upon Chinese bodies. Stacks of bodies fifteen feet high.

In their foxholes they waited in fear. Listening for Chinese officers blowing their whistles. The signal ordering wave after wave of soldiers to advance on them. The Chinese soldiers not understanding that they were in Korea. Only that they must repel the foreign invaders from their homeland.

The Americans fired their weapons until they became too hot to fire. Then the thrust and parry of the bayonet. Fighting like true savages. The battlefield becoming their slaughterhouse floor. The sickening smell of blood and gore.

James’ wife Deborah never got over it. Her husband taken away and leaving her with two small children. Tommy and his younger sister Sally. Taking to drink to smooth the terrible ache in her heart. Later on, the morphine and the heroin.

As she lost control of her own life she lost control of her children. They becoming wild, like feral animals. Then the police started coming to her door. Complaints about the children became more frequent.

In a last ditch effort she somehow managed to send the kids to Catholic school. At times forgetting she was mother to two children for days, weeks and months on end. The Root family. Broken and cast adrift by the winds of fate. A study in how an entire household falls through the cracks of the social net.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out something was amiss. That no one was minding the store. From the sidewalk the house appeared askew. The front lawn overgrown. The entire house becoming

dilapidated. In desperate need of paint and repairs.

The freight train started picking up speed as it lumbered past. Tommy hollered out for me to run up and grab onto one of the ladder rungs. He was already running as fast as he could. Waiting for just the right second to spring up and catch hold of the ladder. The big cars slightly swaying to and fro on the steel tracks. I hesitated and then joined him in running. Tommy was the length of a freight car ahead of me. Running fast. Waiting for the right moment. The train picking up momentum. Tommy making a last burst of speed. Lurching forward and up, but slipping a half step too short. Losing his grip on the freight car ladder and falling straight down. His right leg sliding suddenly, tragically under the wheel of the passing train. A shriek and then a crimson spray as Tommy rolled away from the tracks. The train moving away…click-click click-clack, click-click click-clack. The mindless cadence of an uncaring machine.

A neighborhood lady whose back yard bordered the rail line was pinning up her laundry when she heard the screams. Not from Tommy who was already slipping into shock. But from me. Yelling at the top of my lungs and waving my arms for someone to please help. Help! She set her laundry basket down and came to her back fence to look. She spotted me by the tracks frantically waving my arms and hollering as loud as I could. And saw Tommy rolled up like a ball next to the tracks.

In a second she was over the fence and running down the embankment. Her house dress and apron fluttering as she ran. Then bounding over a small culvert to where Tommy was. The bottom part of his leg below the knee was gone. His blood spurting out in a pulsating stream. She quickly slipped her apron off and then ripped a piece of it away. Tying it around what was left of Tommy’s mangled leg and pulling it tight until the spurting flow of blood slowed. All the while speaking softly to Tommy. Telling him he was going to be fine and not to worry. Some men from nearby houses heard the commotion and ran down to help. The lady asked if one of them had a car. The boy had to be taken right away to Meyer Memorial Hospital.

That was just how it happened. Tommy carried away in the arms of a stocky man while another ran ahead to start his car and rush the stricken boy away. And then the lady who was covered in Tommy’s blood turned to me and said if I was your mother I’d give you one hell of a whipping. You damn kids playing around out here like this. You stupid, stupid boys! And then she gave me a good slap anyway. Hard across my cheek. Angrily pointing her finger in my face and telling me never, ever do anything like that again. Then breaking down and crying and holding me to her breast.

I wanted to say I was sorry but couldn’t find the words. The severed piece of Tommy’s leg lying in the raised bed of the tracks. A black engineer’s boot still attached to the bloody limb. Droplets of his blood sprayed along a cluster of chicory florets. The lady bent forward and sternly whispered for me to take off before the cops arrived. And that if she ever saw me out here again she’d personally skin me alive.

I walked home by a circuitous route. My head pounding. The gruesome sight of Tommy’s

crushed and severed leg fresh in my mind. When I reached home I sat outside for a long time. Then my brother rode in on his bike and excitedly said a kid from school got run over by a train. His head was cut off and there were guts everywhere. I just sat there. Not saying a word.

With most kids that probably would have been the end of the story. But not for Tommy. His railroad escapade only adding another chapter to his growing urban legend. The next year when he had to repeat the same grade after missing too much school he was a celebrity. Walking with the cocky limp of a seasoned pirate on his new wooden leg.

A few blocks away on the main thoroughfare, Baily Avenue, and directly across the street from the Precinct 13 Police Station was Wick’s candy and soda shoppe. The popular hang out for neighborhood high school kids from Kensington High School. Reserved for jocks sporting school jackets and letter sweaters and an assortment of tough guys. Accompanied by sorority girls with tight sweaters who smoked Winstons and Marlboros. With the occasional illicit bottle of wine. It was where Tommy and sister Sally spent their evenings during the school week. Most were older than Tommy and Sally. But none harder or tougher. Tommy and Sally were treated like celebrities. Their reputations preceded them.

As a boy whenever I had to pass by Wick’s in the evening I instinctively walked on the opposite side of the street. It was safer that way. Less chance of someone intentionally blocking my path or punching me as I walked past.

One snowy evening before Christmas I was with Robert. Driving along Baily Avenue. Taking in the holiday scene of gaily decorated store fronts. Replete with colored, blinking lights and Xmas decorations. A half block away three police squad cars were parked willy-nilly in front of Wick’s. Ten or more burly uniformed policemen holding night sticks were pushing in on the front door of the soda shoppe. Inside, Sally was swinging a large chrome legged chair in a wide arc. Knocking down Christmas decorations and anyone foolish enough to step in front of her. Her face a terrible mask of rage and fury. As the traffic light changed we stopped directly in front of Wick’s. Watching in horror as two big policemen dragged Sally out by her arms and hair. She, kicking and screaming profanities and flailing away with her long, slender legs and arms. Calling the police 15 kinds of m***********s and spitting on them and trying to bite them. The cops finally getting a grip on the young hellion wildcat and hustling her across the street to the cop shop. For a good talking to, no doubt. And probably a lot worse.

Once the entertainment was over and the light changed to green Robert half turned toward me in the back seat and asked, Do you know that girl? My forehead became hot and I looked away. The best I could say was, Who? Robert repeated his question. The girl back there. That deranged girl. Is she from the neighborhood? Oh that girl. Ya. That’s Sally. Sally Root. She’s a friend of mine. I give her donuts in class. I meet up with her after school almost every day and walk her home while we smoke cigarettes and tell each other made up stories and have contests to see who can spit the farthest and for kicks she sometimes shows me she isn’t wearing any underpants. Sure. I know her. So what? But no. I didn’t have the courage to admit any of that. So instead I dummied up and denied ever seeing her before. And that

night when I went to bed I couldn’t sleep and wondered what had become of my dear, crazy, wild Sally.

That was the last I saw of Sally for several years. Until one summer night while I was out with some friends. Driving around town in a friend’s new 1962 Chevy convertible that his father let him borrow for the night. Top down. A Beachboys tune blaring from the radio. Cruising the streets of Allentown. Looking for girls. Laughs. Whatever.

When I saw her I did a double-take. At first not believing my eyes. Could it be? She was standing at a bus stop on Elmwood Avenue. Smoking a cigarette in her nervous way and with a hard look about her.

When we passed by none of my friends gave her a second look. But I asked them to pull over. Hey, man. Stop. I see someone I know. I see a friend of mine. Uh…I gotta talk to her. My friends stopped the car a half block away.

I walked up to Sally and smiled. Hey, Sally. Her head snapped around. Seeming startled by my sudden intrusion. Her taut, thin body recoiling slightly. Her eyes broadcasting an inner fear. What? I was momentarily at a loss. S-S-Sally, I slightly stammered. You remember me, don’t you? From where? Her face a mixture of wariness and uncertainty. It’s me, Tommy. You know. St. James. The donut guy. Come on, Sally. You remember me, don’t you? Slowly, slowly her expression changed. Oh, ya. Hey, man. How are you? Long time, huh? So what do you want? Well…er…nothing. I saw you standing out here and I thought I’d say hello. Her expression slightly softening. I mean…I always wondered what became of you. When I didn’t see you around anymore. I heard some rumors…I saw you that night when you were fighting with the cops at Wick’s. I trailed off. Oh, that. Ya. They sent me to juvenile hall. And then to the county work house for girls. Hey, man. You got any money on you? I need 20 bucks, really bad. Maybe you could lend me something. I reached into my pocket. I had less than five dollars in bills and change. Here, Sally. It’s all I’ve got right now. She snatched the money from my hand and then poked at it while counting it. That’s all? Sorry. It’s everything I have. Well, okay man. Thanks. Look, I gotta go. My bus is coming…

I didn’t see Sally again after that. Once after I got out of the Army I heard she was hanging out with some of the local Hell’s Angels. I knew of few of them myself. I figured they’d better be careful. Because Sally was a lot tougher and meaner than they were.

I never knew what became of her but I had a pretty good idea. If she was lucky she wouldn’t end up like her mother. Face down in an alley in a creepy part of town. One shoe missing and no one to claim her at the city morgue.

Some people say that it’s easier to not know. But it’s not the path I’ve taken. I have to know even if it means another heartbreak memory. In the end it’s fear that pushes us forward. And we’re right to be fearful of such a bad place as this. Filled with misery and ultimately, death.

After some years in prison Queen Kunti’s prayers came back to me. A friend suggested I

read them to help me find solace. What I remembered of them hardly seemed the stuff to console me in my darkest hour. But I took my friend’s recommendation to heart. Praying to Krsna for the proper understanding. Why did she pray for hardship? She declared that it was preferable for the calamities to keep coming so long as in the midst of it all she was able to remember Krsna. And suddenly it was clear. Remembering Krsna was itself the solution to all of our problems. The profundity of her statement both startling and sobering. Coming as a much needed jolt to my consciousness. Realizing at that moment what a long way I yet had to go.