My Friend Bobby

I knew he was ok. I never lost a minute of sleep.” Bobby spoke incessantly and it was generally about her son Ron. She said, “One night I was reading and listening to the radio, back before Larry King was on all night talk radio, like he is nowadays. The army or someone called. They said, ‘Your son Ron is missing in North Vietnam.’ I said, ‘Oh, he’s ok. I’ll be hearing from him.’”
I wasn’t sure I believed that Bobby could be that confident, but she was a very self-assured woman. She was twenty-five or so years older than I was and seemed to know, or think she knew, something about most matters. She cleaned up a pile of work soon after I hired her. She saved my job. Work and unpaid bills stacked up and I was in over my head - responsible for tasks I knew nothing about. I was too proud and ignorant to admit my own deficiency. However, one of my gifts is to identify people who get me out of binds. Bobby, a chain-smoking, six-foot woman, missing several teeth, seemed to fit the bill. She taught me how to do my job, as well as how to do hers.

I said, “What happened to Ron?”

Before she could answer, a retired marine sergeant who was the purchasing agent interrupted and loudly complained about “office B.A.M.’s”. Bobby charged out of her office and pinned him in a corner next to a water fountain.

“Listen, Buster, I was married to a marine and I know a lot more about big-assed mamma’s than you’ll ever know. And don’t forget it.” They both laughed.

She came back in and started another monologue about Ron’s baby, a hemophiliac. She said, “Ron’s wrapped every piece of furniture, every door jam and every cabinet in foam rubber. He bought it in Reno at the Army Surplus Store and sewed it together. There isn’t a single corner or edge where the baby can possibly hurt himself.” Of her two sons by two fathers, Ron was the only one she ever mentioned and that was frequently.

I coughed and brought her back to Ron being MIA. I said, “So Ron obviously got back from Vietnam. What happened to him?”

She said, “Oh, I always got up at 2:00 or 2:30 a.m. and listened to the end of late night radio. I only sleep about three or four hours. So one night I fixed some coffee and the phone rang, and Ron said, ‘Is the coffee on?’ I said, ‘Sure is Ron, I was just waiting for you to call.’ He said, ‘They’re checking me over. I’ll see you next week.’ The next Thursday morning I fixed extra coffee and he knocked on my door.”

I asked again, “What happened to Ron?”

She said, “He never talked about it. We didn’t have to.”

Bobby and I became friends. In the fall I needed a cord of firewood and she said, “Ron’s cutting firewood out of the Washoe Valley burn area. I’ll have him bring you some.”

It was cold that October day and the sleet, driven by the north wind stung our faces. I helped Ron unload and stack the blackened wood. The outer bark of the Ponderosa Pine was scorched, but the rest made excellent firewood. I said, “Ron, your mom told me she knew you were okay when you were MIA. If you want to, I’d really like to know what happened.”

He stared at me for a long time and said, “Give me a few minutes. Do you happen to have any coffee?”

We washed the black soot off our hands and I fixed a pot of coffee. We sat at my kitchen table. While I got out my checkbook to pay for the wood, he smoked a cigarette. Then, in a husky voice he said, “I gotta say this fast. We were dropped far in the north. My partner was shot in the stomach and we couldn’t stay with our unit. My partner and I headed south - slow, at night, ’cause he couldn’t move for more than a couple of hours at a time. We ate roots and stuff, like lizards. We weren’t spotted. Finally, in about eight days, my partner collapsed and couldn’t move. His wound smelled rotten and oozed. He said, ‘They’ll cut off my dick and choke me with it. And skin me. Take care of me.’

I looked at him and asked, ‘Are you sure?’
He said, ‘Do it.’ I took my M-16 and stared at him. My partner smiled and nodded. I did it - in the heart. I couldn’t shoot him in the head. I didn’t have a shovel so I left him under rocks and brush. Then I headed south, at night.”

Ron’s hands shook. Finally, he said, “I’ve never told anyone that.”

He had the last cup of coffee from the pot and smoked two more cigarettes at my table. I handed him the check and haven’t seen him since.

Years later, I was sleepless in Houston and turned on the T.V. to a rerun of “Larry King Live”. I thought of Bobby. I called her and said, “Hi, Bobby, is the coffee on.”

She said, “Sure is, Dale. Larry’s on TV nowadays. Did you know that? I never call in anymore, ‘cause I never get through like I did years ago. Your marriage isn’t going well.”
I said, “How do you know that?”

She said, “I know.”

A few days later a package arrived. In it was a hand-crocheted afghan. Attached with a safety pen was a note. It read, “Friend Dale.”

Now, in my studio apartment, I’m often awake in the wee hours. On cold, late October nights, I unfold the off-white afghan at the foot of my bed and wrap myself up in it.