Chapter 17 October 1995 Tolstoy—Writer In Residence
Tolstoy—Writer in Residence
Sometimes, I feel more dead than alive.
That’s what I first told Bill Delaney when I was admitted to the VA in DC without my foot.
He visited me in the hospital every day; sometimes his wife, Pam, came, too.
He’d served in Vietnam. That’s why he understood what I was going through.
He promised the memories would fade. That life would get better.
That someday, I would feel like myself again.
My name used to be Rick Lager. I’m from a dying town in eastern Kentucky.
You’ve never heard of it. When I was eighteen, I wanted to study journalism but couldn’t afford college.
After graduating, I got a nine-to-five stocking produce at the grocery store.
Rent and food ate up my salary, so I couldn’t save.
My pastor advised me to join the National Guard to earn money.
As a “weekend warrior,” I saw myself running drills on base, driving Humvees down the highway at a mind-numbingly dull fifty-five miles per hour, and evacuating families during natural disasters like hurricanes.
Like the other guys in my unit, I never expected to be sent to Kuwait.
We’d signed up for the National Guard and found ourselves in an international war in a country none of us could have picked out on a map.
We guardsmen were unpopular overseas. The enemy hated us, of course.
But some of the career army guys did, too.
Who could blame them? They’d had years of training; my unit had a few weekends.
One sergeant resented the hell out of me.
Complained that he always had to save my ass.
Twice, when missiles screeched through the air, I froze.
Wouldn’t you? Scuds were erratic and dangerous, the five-hundred-pound warheads known to hold chemical weapons.
Sarge had to shove my gas mask over my face and drag me to shelter.
The seconds of delay could have killed us both.
During downtime, my nose was always firmly planted in a book. He started calling me Tolstoy. To him, the moniker was an insult. Though most of America had moved on from the Cold War and found new people to hate, Sarge still had a sore spot for Russia.
When I started taking notes in my journal, he taunted me about keeping a diary.
He said the word in a high-pitched voice, imitating a girl.
I didn’t let him stop me. Active duty was overwhelming.
Recording what happened helped me comprehend it, not that anything could make sense of the deaths by friendly fire.
Okay, my own sergeant didn’t like me. That stung, especially since I’d gotten along with teachers and troop leaders back home.
Later, I noticed Sarge kept his distance from all the guys, and figured he didn’t like anyone.
Later still, I saw that he couldn’t like us.
Sentiment was dangerous. His job was to stay rational and composed in order to keep us alive.
When a group of us got in the rig and went on patrol, I was okay.
Maybe because I trusted Sarge. I’ll say one thing about him: He protected his own.
After a while, thanks to his steadfastness, I got used to the sound of shells, got used to facing danger.
When the attack came, the last thing I remember before losing consciousness was grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and covering his body with mine.
In the makeshift hospital, when I came to, I was lying on my belly. The first thing I saw was Sarge’s ruddy face. He was sitting in a chair, leaning forward, hands folded together. “Hell, Rick…”
I had no idea he knew my first name. That’s how I knew my injuries were bad. I understood the next words out of his mouth would be an apology. I didn’t want it. None of this was his fault.
“The name’s Tolstoy,” I barked.
That shut him up.
He stood and saluted me.
When the lacerations on my back healed some, I was sent stateside with a medal.
At the VA, I got fitted for a prosthetic foot and started physical therapy.
In hindsight, I probably should have got some regular therapy, too.
From outward appearances, I seemed okay.
But I could no longer stand loud noises.
Could no longer go to action movies or concerts.
Could no longer go out of the house. Even an ordinary walk down the street was out of the question—a wailing ambulance siren had me diving for the gutter. The Fourth of July about did me in.
But it was more than that. Back in my hometown, I just wasn’t comfortable.
At church, the whole congregation tilted their heads in pity when they saw me.
They brought me baked goods. They shook my hand or patted my shoulder.
Bill said that when he got back from Vietnam, folks treated him like shit, spitting on him and calling him a baby killer.
With this war, the nation repented and behaved better toward returning soldiers.
Bill never forgot how it felt to go back to a place that didn’t understand.
Now, he and his wife, Pam, run an organization to help “wounded warriors,” whether it’s with a college scholarship or with a down payment for a house.
They gave me the form, but I couldn’t fill it out by myself.
The phantom pain made it hard for me to think.
Or maybe my brain was still scrambled. I couldn’t make sense of anything.
Bill asked what I would want, where I would go, if the sky were the limit.
“I don’t know,” I told him. “Away. I would go away.”
Pam always lugged a blue granny purse around with her.
I’m pretty sure she could have fit my whole life in there.
Twenty years younger than Bill, she dressed matronly—high collars, quilted beige shoes—so the age gap wouldn’t be obvious.
I’m guessing that at some point in her life, she struggled, and he saved her. Like he was trying to save me now.
“What would you want to do, where would you go?” Bill repeated.
I glanced around the PT room, desperate for something to say to get them off my back. My eyes landed on Pam’s purse. In the middle, near the top, embossed in small gold letters, was the word PARIS.
So that’s what I said. They latched on.
It’s liberating to live in a place where no one knows your past, Pam replied. The two of them spent part of the year in Paris. She’d just joined a library board. She and Bill would find a place for me.
With my writer in residence stipend, I signed a one-year lease on a small apartment in a fancy old building near the library.
A volunteer named David and I became friends—we bonded over each of us almost dying in a desert.
I told him I get mad for no reason. He said there’s definitely a reason.
He gets me. Since he crashes at the library, I gave him the spare key to my place so he can use the shower and washing machine, which is tucked in the corner of the bathroom, beside the bidet.
Neither of us knew what that was. We peered into its basin, and when I turned the faucet, water squirted straight up like a fountain and soaked our faces.
We laughed. How far we’d come. The world is so funny and foreign to us.
Most days, you’ll find me at the ALP. When I arrive each morning, the program manager serves me a strong coffee.
Sometimes, the assistant director helps me work out my aggression.
The head librarian is wiry like my old basketball coach.
He picks out books he thinks I might like.
I do my best writing near the reading room window.
The nicked wooden table reminds me of detention.
The palmetto soothes me. If this southern transplant can thrive here, maybe I can, too.
Touching its shiny new leaves makes me feel that everything, someday, will be fine.