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suspected
of making fun. He was
suspended again and again. Finally he left and joined the Army.
"It wasn't a good time to be in the Army, the twenties. There was no dignity,
no promotion, no flying flags and banners. There was no nobility. He went
from base to base, first in the South and then in the Southwest. We got a letter
every three months or so. He was still angry. He was angry at what he called
"the shitters". Everything was the fault of "the shatters". The shitters wouldn't
give him the promotion he deserved, the shatters ha cancelled a furlough, the
shitters couldn't find their own behinds with both hands and a flashlight. On
at least two occasions, the shitters put him in the stockade.
"The Army held on to him because he was an excellent mechanic—he could
keep the old and decrepit vehicles which were all Congress would allow the
Army in some sort of running condition."
Uneasily, I found myself thinking of Arnie—Arnie who was so clever with
his hands.
LeBay leaned forward. "But that talent was just another wellspring for his
anger, young man. And it was an anger that never ended until he bought that
car that your friend now owns."
"What do you mean?"
LeBay chuckled dryly. "He fixed Army convoy trucks, Army staff cars, Army
weapons-supply vehicles. He fixed bulldozers and kept staff cars running
with spit and baling wire. And once, when a visiting Congressman came to
visit Fort Arnold in west Texas and had car trouble, he was ordered by his
commanding officer, who was desperate to make a good impression, to fix
the Congressman's prized Bentley. Oh, yes, we got a four-page letter about
that particular "shitter"—a four-page rant of Rollie's anger and vitriol. It was
a wonder the words didn't smoke the page.
"All those vehicles but Rollie never owned a car himself until after World
War II. Even then the only thing he was able to afford was an old Chevrolet
that ran poorly and was eaten up with rust. In the twenties and thirties there
was never money enough, and during the war years he was too busy trying to
stay alive.
"He was in the motor pool for all those years, and he fixed thousands of
vehicles for the shitters and never once had one that was all his. It was
Libertyville all over again. Even the old Chevrolet couldn't assuage that, or
the old Hudson Hornet he bought used the year after he got married."
"Married?"
"Didn't tell you that did "he?" LeBay said. "He would have been happy to go
on and on about his Army experiences—his war experiences and his endless
confrontations with the shitters—for as long as you and your friend could
listen without falling asleep… and him with his hand in your pocket feeling
for your wallet the whole time. But he wouldn't have bothered to tell you
about Veronica or Rita."
"Who were they?"
"Veronica was his wife," LeBay said. "They were married in 1951, shortly
before Rollie went to Korea. He could have stayed Stateside, you know. He
was married, his wife was pregnant, he himself was approaching middle age.
But he chose to go."
LeBay looked reflectively at the dead playground equipment.
"It was bigamy, you know. By 1951 he was forty-four, and he was married
already. He was married to the Army. And to the shitters."
He fell silent again. His silence had a morbid quality.
"Are you all right?" I asked finally.
"Yes," he said. "Just thinking. Thinking ill of the dead." He looked at me
calmly—except for the eyes; they were dark and wounded. "You know, all of
his hurts me, young man… what did you say your name was? I don't want to
sit here and sing these sad old songs to someone I can't call by his first name.
Was it Donald?"
"Dennis," I said. "Look, Mr LeBay—"
"It hurts more than I would have suspected," he went on. "But now that its
begun, let's finish it, shall we? I only met Veronica twice. She was from West
Virginia. Near Wheeling. She was what we then called shirt-tail southern,
and she was not terribly bright. Rollie was able to dominate her and take her
for granted, which was what he seemed to want. But she loved him, I think—
at least until the rotten business with Rita. As for Rollie, I don't think he
really married a women at all. He married a kind of… of wailing wall.
"The letters that he sent us… well, you must remember that he left school
very early. The letters, illiterate as they were, represented a tremendous
effort for my brother. They were his suspension bridge, his novel, his
symphony, his greatest effort. I don't think he wrote them to get rid of the
poison in his heart. I think he wrote them to spread it around.
Once he had Veronica, the letters stopped. He had his set of eternal ears, and
he didn't have to bother with us anymore. I suppose he wrote letters to her
during the two years he was in Korea. I only got one during that period, and I
believe Marcia got two. There was no pleasure over the birth of his daughter
in early 1952, only a surly complaint that there was another mouth to feed at
home and the shitters took a little more out of him."
"Did he never advance in rank?" I asked. The year before I had seen part of a
long TV show, one of those novels for television called
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