"I met you in the rain on the last day of 1972, the same day I resolved to kill myself.
One week prior, at the behest of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, I'd
flown four B-52 sorties over Hanoi. I dropped forty-eight bombs. How
many homes I destroyed, how many lives I ended, I'll never know. But in
the eyes of my superiors, I had served my country honorably, and I was
thusly discharged with such distinction.
And so on the morning of that New Year's Eve, I found myself in a
barren studio apartment on Beacon and Hereford with a fifth of Tennessee
rye and the pang of shame permeating the recesses of my soul. When the
bottle was empty, I made for the door and vowed, upon returning, that I
would retrieve the Smith & Wesson Model 15 from the closet and give
myself the discharge I deserved.
I walked for hours. I looped around the Fenway before snaking back past
Symphony Hall and up to Trinity Church. Then I roamed through the
Common, scaled the hill with its golden dome, and meandered into that
charming labyrinth divided by Hanover Street. By the time I reached the
waterfront, a charcoal sky had opened and a drizzle became a shower.
That shower soon gave way to a deluge. While the other pedestrians
darted for awnings and lobbies, I trudged into the rain. I suppose I
thought, or rather hoped, that it might wash away the patina of guilt
that had coagulated around my heart. It didn't, of course, so I started
back to the apartment.
And then I saw you.
You'd taken shelter under the balcony of the Old State House. You were
wearing a teal ball gown, which appeared to me both regal and
ridiculous. Your brown hair was matted to the right side of your face,
and a galaxy of freckles dusted your shoulders. I'd never seen anything
so beautiful.
When I joined you under the balcony, you looked at me with your big
green eyes, and I could tell that you'd been crying. I asked if you were
okay. You said you'd been better. I asked if you'd like to have a cup
of coffee. You said only if I would join you. Before I could smile, you
snatched my hand and led me on a dash through Downtown Crossing and into
Neisner's.
We sat at the counter of that five and dime and talked like old
friends. We laughed as easily as we lamented, and you confessed over
pecan pie that you were engaged to a man you didn't love, a banker from
some line of Boston nobility. A Cabot, or maybe a Chaffee. Either way,
his parents were hosting a soirée to ring in the New Year, hence the
dress.
For my part, I shared more of myself than I could have imagined
possible at that time. I didn't mention Vietnam, but I got the sense
that you could see there was a war waging inside me. Still, your eyes
offered no pity, and I loved you for it.
After an hour or so, I excused myself to use the restroom. I remember
consulting my reflection in the mirror. Wondering if I should kiss you,
if I should tell you what I'd done from the cockpit of that bomber a
week before, if I should return to the Smith & Wesson that waited
for me. I decided, ultimately, that I was unworthy of the resuscitation
this stranger in the teal ball gown had given me, and to turn my back on
such sweet serendipity would be the real disgrace.
On the way back to the counter, my heart thumped in my chest like an
angry judge's gavel, and a future -- our future -- flickered in my mind.
But when I reached the stools, you were gone. No phone number. No note.
Nothing.
As strangely as our union had begun, so too had it ended. I was
devastated. I went back to Neisner's every day for a year, but I never
saw you again. Ironically, the torture of your abandonment seemed to
swallow my self-loathing, and the prospect of suicide was suddenly less
appealing than the prospect of discovering what had happened in that
restaurant. The truth is I never really stopped wondering.
I'm an old man now, and only recently did I recount this story to
someone for the first time, a friend from the VFW. He suggested I look
for you on Facebook. I told him I didn't know anything about Facebook,
and all I knew about you was your first name and that you had lived in
Boston once. And even if by some miracle I happened upon your profile,
I'm not sure I would recognize you. Time is cruel that way.
This same friend has a particularly sentimental daughter. She's the one
who led me here to Craigslist and these Missed Connections. But as I
cast this virtual coin into the wishing well of the cosmos, it occurs to
me, after a million what-ifs and a lifetime of lost sleep, that our
connection wasn't missed at all.
You see, in these intervening forty-two years I've lived a good life.
I've loved a good woman. I've raised a good man. I've seen the world.
And I've forgiven myself. And you were the source of all of it. You
breathed your spirit into my lungs one rainy afternoon, and you can't
possibly imagine my gratitude.
I have hard days, too. My wife passed four years ago. My son, the year
after. I cry a lot. Sometimes from the loneliness, sometimes I don't
know why. Sometimes I can still smell the smoke over Hanoi. And then, a
few dozen times a year, I'll receive a gift. The sky will glower, and
the clouds will hide the sun, and the rain will begin to fall. And I'll
remember.
So wherever you've been, wherever you are, and wherever you're going, know this: you're with me still."
https://www.distractify.com/the-last-day-of-1972-1385706388.html
No comments:
Post a Comment