THE GATES OF HELL
CHAPTER 12
David smiled as he stepped off the Greyhound bus in Bay City. It felt good to be back in California. He had enjoyed his stay in New York with his mother but New York no longer felt like home. It was just a place he visited now and then. "Hey, soldier boy….over here!" yelled a familiar voice. David grinned as he turned his head and spotted Huggy Bear standing on the corner, leaning casually against the side of a building. As tall and skinny as ever, the black youth was dressed outrageously in a pair of bright red slacks, a bright yellow shirt, and a brown fringed jacket.
"Hey, Huggy." David said as he shouldered his duffle bag and walked across the street to join his friend.
"Looks like you lost a few pounds, my friend." Huggy said, noticing immediately the loose fit of his friend's clothes "Gotta tell ya, white boy, it just don't look good on you."
"Look who's talking." David snorted with a short laugh "A stiff wind comes along and it'll blow you away."
"Yeah, but the Bear's got style, ya dig?" Huggy said with a grin, throwing an arm around David's shoulder and leading him over to the curb where a white Ford sat. He opened the door on the passenger's side and motioned for David to toss his duffle bag into the back seat. "Your ride home, hero."
David laughed as he slid into the front seat and slammed the door. Huggy slid under the wheel and started the engine, carefully pulling into the street. As they headed towards Rosie and Al's house, Huggy told David all about his newest venture, working in his Uncle's bar and grill. Huggy's plans including taking over the place when his uncle retired in a few years. It felt good to be hanging out with Huggy again and the two friends made plans to get together later that night. Unlike David, Huggy had avoided the draft because of a partial hearing loss in one ear that earned him a medical deferment.
Huggy dropped David off at his aunt and Uncle's house, declining his offer to come in for a while because he had to get to work. Rosie welcomed David home enthusiastically, with plenty of hugs and kisses. She was already working on a huge welcome home meal, determined to fatten him back up as quickly as possible. While Rosie finished her cooking, David took his stuff up to his old room and started to unpack.
He planned on looking for a job in a few days. He had a good chunk of his discharge pay left but he knew it wouldn't last forever. He could always go back to work for Al at his garage but David wanted to try something different until he decided just what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. Going to college was out of the question. There was no way he could afford it, even if he did go on the GI plan, plus he didn't think he had the discipline to tolerate four more years of school. He felt so much older than most of the other young men his age and he knew that he had absolutely nothing in common with the college students out there who were protesting the war he'd just given eighteen months of his life to.
He had seriously been considering applying to the police academy and becoming a cop like his father but he had to wait until he was twenty-one to do that and his birthday was still eight months away. He wondered how his mother, Rosie and Uncle Al would take the news when he told them that he wanted to become a cop. He decided to go and visit the Police Academy in the next few days and at least get some information on enrolling. Al and Rosie's next door neighbor, John Blaine, was a good friend who had taken David under his wing when David moved to California and helped him through the hard times. John was also a cop and David knew that he would be glad to give him a referral for the academy if he decided to go. David had no illusions of what a career as cop would be like. He knew the danger that went with the badge far too well. But he also felt the need to do something with his life that really had some meaning. And he didn't plan on being a patrolman for his whole career; he wanted to be a detective and to be actively involved in solving the cases he worked on.
After supper, David met up with Huggy and they spent the night catching up and talking about old times. They quickly fell into the laid back easy going friendship they had always shared. After a good night's sleep, without any nightmares for once, David went out job hunting. By the end of the day, he had a job driving a cab on the night shift in downtown Bay City. His life finally seemed to be getting back on track as he forced the memories of Viet Nam to a place deep inside his mind and locked them away. But there were still scars that would always remain, scars that had shaped the man he was and would continue to be. He had lived through his experiences in Viet Nam but the price he had paid for surviving was high indeed.
Shortly after he returned home, the draft was discontinued so no other young man would be forced to fight in a war while he was caught somewhere between being a child and a being a man. He would never have to see the things David had seen or suffer through the things he had suffered. He would not come home changed in so many ways from the boy he had been when he left. He wouldn't lose the last of his innocence and a part of himself in a jungle a thousand miles from home. He would never be David.
David continued to have nightmares off and on for months after he came back home but over time, they slowly faded away. Sometimes the strangest things, a sound or a smell, would trigger a memory and for a few moments, he would be back there again in the middle of the jungle fighting for his life. But over time, the flashbacks occurred less often as David adjusted to being back home again. He had a few talks with Al who shared his own experiences in war with his troubled young nephew. In his day, they had called what David was experiencing 'shell shock', but in the seventies they were starting to refer to it as Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Talking to Al helped and David promised to come to him if he continued to have any problems he couldn't handle on his own.
He had finally told his Aunt, his uncle and his mother about his decision to go to the police academy when he turned twenty-one. None of them had been that surprised. His mother told him that she had expected him to make this choice when he was old enough and, in spite of her own obvious concerns and fears, she respected his choice and supported his decision. John Blaine supported his decision too, which also meant a lot to David. As long as he had the support and encouragement of the most important people in his life, David knew that he would succeed no matter what.
THE END