BJ slouches up the hill with his hands buried deep in his pockets. The ground is wet and spongy: softer than grass, not quite firm enough to be moss. Brilliant green glimmers between clumps of soggy leaves. He kicks the wet orange, red and yellow piles as he moves slowly up the hill in the rain. It is autumn in Maine and the rains have been coming steadily for weeks. When BJ pulled into the small town in the valley, everything was glowing with mist. Rain, BJ discovers, is not always gloomy. BJ is dressed in black but for a threadbare Hawaiian shirt; its former resplendent navy has been worn down to a dull cobalt blue. Each step up the hill in the rain is laborious to him; he has arthritis in his knees. It is not crippling, but it slows him down. For encouragement, he fingers the set of dog tags in his pocket. BJ watches raindrops bounce off slabs of granite and shatter into a fine mist. His shoes are wet, but that is the last thing on his mind right now. Although he is in tune to every sound in the graveyard around him, to every small miraculous vision, he is oblivious to the rain that is soaking his blazer and the rivulets that roll down behind his ears and into the collar of his shirt.
The first thing BJ noticed when he arrived in Crabapple Cove was the silence. BJ is keenly aware of the void left by San Francisco: the screaming, rumbling engines, squealing tires, commerce babbling back and forth across crowded sidewalks, that he hears every night like a lullaby, and every day as the steady hum of life. Silence has a sound, in Maine. It is the delicate drumbeat of rain on dead leaves. BJ imagines growing up to this rhythm, to the very heartbeat of the earth and he feels that in a way, he understands something about Hawkeye that he never appreciated before. Something permeating, something unspoken. In San Francisco, his life was a human life, surrounded by concrete and steel, where the sun filtered in between skyscrapers and cathedral spires. Here in Crabapple Cove, with the soft rain tickling his forehead, he suddenly knows what it is like to grow up with the earth present in your every breath. Light filters through a canopy of leaves and is both gentle, and loving - even in the rain.
On the crest of the hill, BJ is within sight of his destination. He stops to catch his breath, leaning against a tree. His courage fails him; he will not climb any further yet. BJ pulls a picture, faded from years of handling, from his pocket and turns it over in his hand. He and Hawkeye are standing side by side; BJ has his arm around Hawk's shoulders in an affectionate, brotherly way and Hawkeye is looking directly into the camera with that defiant look in his eyes. "I dare you," they say. Dare you to what? BJ knows. In the picture, BJ is looking away from the camera; his face is turned towards Hawkeye in an expression that betrays both admiration and hunger. This photograph holds many secrets. It does not betray that Hawkeye has his hand tucked snugly in BJ's back pocket, that he is lazily running one finger along the worn khaki fabric. BJ can still feel that touch, when he closes his eyes, soft as morning dew, sharp as lightening. He shivers, shakes his head, to banish the thought.
BJ thinks of Radar, the inconveniently clairvoyant company clerk who holds the camera, who has the gall to know everything, but thankfully betrays nothing, who cannot be seen in the picture. Radar called BJ often, after the war, to tell him stories about the lives of his old friends or just to chat. BJ was happy to be back with his wife and his little girl in San Francisco, and did not want to think about his past, but Radar always insisted on telling him. Early on, he would ask Radar, "Why are you telling me these things? Korea is then, this is now!" He preferred the protective veil of silence that divided him from a part of his life that he did not want to remember. Sometimes, Radar would mention Hawkeye, but BJ never asked about him. There were some things that he was afraid to hear.
BJ didn't stop to think about what was causing that hole in his heart, why it felt that something was missing, even though everything was supposed to be perfect at last. His life before the war was like that Lesley Gore song that Erin used to listen to, when she was sixteen or seventeen, "Nothing's sweeter than this..." Throughout Erin's childhood, he struggled to maintain this image of perfection. Peg could not have asked for a more diligent husband during the daytime; He was not the type to sit in his favourite armchair with his feet up after a long day and read the paper while his pretty wife toiled in the kitchen and fulfilled his every whim. He was endlessly helpful: cooking and cleaning and playing with Erin. At night, it was a different story: he cried in his sleep as Peg struggled to comfort him, and when she wrapped her warm, tender hands, with their long, slim, fingers around his shoulders, he slowly wriggled from her grasp. Peg knew that BJ no longer belonged to her. He belonged to the war. He belonged to those experiences of which he would never speak, locked up in his mind, which only escaped under cover of darkness, through his dreams. They fought sometimes, in whispers under the blankets. She asked, insistently at first, and then quieter as though defeated, "Aren't you attracted to me anymore, BJ? Don't you love me?" BJ would end up in tears because he was and he did! But he just didn't know how to express it anymore. He didn't know how to love this beautiful, innocent flower who was like a goddess to him, like Dante's unattainable Beatrice. Her purity overwhelmed him; it frightened him.
Radar knew the answer when BJ didn't dare question, and it was Radar who called him when he didn't have the courage to write to Hawkeye and tell him how much he missed him, to keep him up to date on his friend's life. Peg grew to look forward to those calls because, although BJ always seemed reluctant to talk, she could feel a change in him after his brief conversations with the former company clerk. She did not know that when BJ came to her in bed, after those phone calls, when he closed his eyes and covered her neck with wet, tender kisses, he was imagining the salty taste of Hawkeye's skin in the swamp after a long night of surgery. All she knew was that for a minute, she was beautiful to her shattered husband. When BJ was able to talk about the war, she believed, he was able to forget it, even if it was only for a very brief moment.
BJ is in Crabapple Cove to say goodbye to his memories. He has been afraid of that word, "Goodbye," since he left for Korea. It is so cruelly final. Spelling "Goodbye" on the dead Korean earth was agonizing to him. As he placed each rock on the ground it seemed to him that he was growing further and further from his best friend. What happens between "Goodbye" and "Hello again" can never be recaptured. BJ said "Goodbye" to Peg and Erin in San Francisco in 1952 and when he said "Hello" again, it was to a little girl whom he loved with all his heart, who turned away when she saw his face, afraid. BJ hoped that if he didn't say goodbye to Hawkeye, then Hawkeye wouldn't be gone. Goodbye. Now BJ is in Crabapple Cove in the rain to say goodbye to Hawkeye. He has been postponing this moment his entire life and now that he is here, seven years too late, Hawkeye is already gone.
The picture, BJ muses, is a moment frozen in time. The people in the picture are not the people he knows now, and they were not the people who arrived, bright-eyed and innocent in Korea, too young to grow so old so fast. Every time he looks at the picture, it triggers another set of vivid memories. The sight of the two familiar reluctant actors makes him shiver in pleasure or pain. BJ doesn't think of himself, in Korea, as himself. He is disconnected from his experience, as though watching a movie. Now, he wakes up every morning, glad to be alive.
The first thing BJ noticed when he arrived in Crabapple Cove was the silence. BJ is keenly aware of the void left by San Francisco: the screaming, rumbling engines, squealing tires, commerce babbling back and forth across crowded sidewalks, that he hears every night like a lullaby, and every day as the steady hum of life. Silence has a sound, in Maine. It is the delicate drumbeat of rain on dead leaves. BJ imagines growing up to this rhythm, to the very heartbeat of the earth and he feels that in a way, he understands something about Hawkeye that he never appreciated before. Something permeating, something unspoken. In San Francisco, his life was a human life, surrounded by concrete and steel, where the sun filtered in between skyscrapers and cathedral spires. Here in Crabapple Cove, with the soft rain tickling his forehead, he suddenly knows what it is like to grow up with the earth present in your every breath. Light filters through a canopy of leaves and is both gentle, and loving - even in the rain.
On the crest of the hill, BJ is within sight of his destination. He stops to catch his breath, leaning against a tree. His courage fails him; he will not climb any further yet. BJ pulls a picture, faded from years of handling, from his pocket and turns it over in his hand. He and Hawkeye are standing side by side; BJ has his arm around Hawk's shoulders in an affectionate, brotherly way and Hawkeye is looking directly into the camera with that defiant look in his eyes. "I dare you," they say. Dare you to what? BJ knows. In the picture, BJ is looking away from the camera; his face is turned towards Hawkeye in an expression that betrays both admiration and hunger. This photograph holds many secrets. It does not betray that Hawkeye has his hand tucked snugly in BJ's back pocket, that he is lazily running one finger along the worn khaki fabric. BJ can still feel that touch, when he closes his eyes, soft as morning dew, sharp as lightening. He shivers, shakes his head, to banish the thought.
BJ thinks of Radar, the inconveniently clairvoyant company clerk who holds the camera, who has the gall to know everything, but thankfully betrays nothing, who cannot be seen in the picture. Radar called BJ often, after the war, to tell him stories about the lives of his old friends or just to chat. BJ was happy to be back with his wife and his little girl in San Francisco, and did not want to think about his past, but Radar always insisted on telling him. Early on, he would ask Radar, "Why are you telling me these things? Korea is then, this is now!" He preferred the protective veil of silence that divided him from a part of his life that he did not want to remember. Sometimes, Radar would mention Hawkeye, but BJ never asked about him. There were some things that he was afraid to hear.
BJ didn't stop to think about what was causing that hole in his heart, why it felt that something was missing, even though everything was supposed to be perfect at last. His life before the war was like that Lesley Gore song that Erin used to listen to, when she was sixteen or seventeen, "Nothing's sweeter than this..." Throughout Erin's childhood, he struggled to maintain this image of perfection. Peg could not have asked for a more diligent husband during the daytime; He was not the type to sit in his favourite armchair with his feet up after a long day and read the paper while his pretty wife toiled in the kitchen and fulfilled his every whim. He was endlessly helpful: cooking and cleaning and playing with Erin. At night, it was a different story: he cried in his sleep as Peg struggled to comfort him, and when she wrapped her warm, tender hands, with their long, slim, fingers around his shoulders, he slowly wriggled from her grasp. Peg knew that BJ no longer belonged to her. He belonged to the war. He belonged to those experiences of which he would never speak, locked up in his mind, which only escaped under cover of darkness, through his dreams. They fought sometimes, in whispers under the blankets. She asked, insistently at first, and then quieter as though defeated, "Aren't you attracted to me anymore, BJ? Don't you love me?" BJ would end up in tears because he was and he did! But he just didn't know how to express it anymore. He didn't know how to love this beautiful, innocent flower who was like a goddess to him, like Dante's unattainable Beatrice. Her purity overwhelmed him; it frightened him.
Radar knew the answer when BJ didn't dare question, and it was Radar who called him when he didn't have the courage to write to Hawkeye and tell him how much he missed him, to keep him up to date on his friend's life. Peg grew to look forward to those calls because, although BJ always seemed reluctant to talk, she could feel a change in him after his brief conversations with the former company clerk. She did not know that when BJ came to her in bed, after those phone calls, when he closed his eyes and covered her neck with wet, tender kisses, he was imagining the salty taste of Hawkeye's skin in the swamp after a long night of surgery. All she knew was that for a minute, she was beautiful to her shattered husband. When BJ was able to talk about the war, she believed, he was able to forget it, even if it was only for a very brief moment.
BJ is in Crabapple Cove to say goodbye to his memories. He has been afraid of that word, "Goodbye," since he left for Korea. It is so cruelly final. Spelling "Goodbye" on the dead Korean earth was agonizing to him. As he placed each rock on the ground it seemed to him that he was growing further and further from his best friend. What happens between "Goodbye" and "Hello again" can never be recaptured. BJ said "Goodbye" to Peg and Erin in San Francisco in 1952 and when he said "Hello" again, it was to a little girl whom he loved with all his heart, who turned away when she saw his face, afraid. BJ hoped that if he didn't say goodbye to Hawkeye, then Hawkeye wouldn't be gone. Goodbye. Now BJ is in Crabapple Cove in the rain to say goodbye to Hawkeye. He has been postponing this moment his entire life and now that he is here, seven years too late, Hawkeye is already gone.
The picture, BJ muses, is a moment frozen in time. The people in the picture are not the people he knows now, and they were not the people who arrived, bright-eyed and innocent in Korea, too young to grow so old so fast. Every time he looks at the picture, it triggers another set of vivid memories. The sight of the two familiar reluctant actors makes him shiver in pleasure or pain. BJ doesn't think of himself, in Korea, as himself. He is disconnected from his experience, as though watching a movie. Now, he wakes up every morning, glad to be alive.