Much left undone (Fiction)
Note: While this piece is fictional, the art is real-life. "Police killed a Black Army veteran outside his home. His family wants answers" (Griffith, 2021) NBC News.
By Don Allen - All Rights Reserved.
The Army was great. I did my three years – got out, came back here. Captran County is hot, filled with people running from one side to another. Suburban neighborhoods with names like Mars, Lunar One, and Apollo have popped up out of thin air. This is the big city, not the city I left three years ago.
Momma put me to work right away. She asked me to get some paint and fill in the letters on the old wooden mailbox out front of the fence. It had been weather-beaten while I was gone, and the family name peeled away. Momma sat on the back porch, sippin’ on her famous raspberry lemonade, motioning for the neighbors to come and join her in the gazebo.
“Looks good, son,” my Papa said. Momma turned her head with a proud smile as if to say that’s my boy, I told him to do it. “You always were pretty good with a color crayon or paint brush; always kept it in the lines,” Papa said as I rolled my eyes. The painting took no effort at all, but Papa is making it seem like Picasso himself painted it. I guess when you're seventy-something, you look at the world from a different perspective.
That old mailbox looked brand new with our family's last name, “LUCINE” - all filled in big white letters painted to perfection. I guess I am a pretty good artist...I think.
Hmph...Lucine.
Kids in school used to call me “Lucky Luce.” The name has some history, though. My dad took my mother's last name. Not because some wanted to be different but because his family name was dangerous. Some mobsters were looking for my grandad and older family members for some owed cash. They got screwed on the deal anyway, but I guess America was a different place to him. He just thought he and Momma would be safer with the last name Lucine. They got married in 1966. Mom still teaches her fifth-grade class at Purge Elementary, and Pop’s construction company has never seen so much business. As a matter of fact, he hired me in the office. I set up his computers and printers and keep the Internet working. I’m also shovel-ready at the drop of a hat – he figured I needed to keep busy being a soldier like he was. He respected what I did for my country. Although I did overhear him talking to some of his workers.
“Don’t want that boy to ‘get the PTSD.’ I don’t want to read he’s shot up a movie theater,” Pops tried to whisper.
Really Pops?
I don’t think anyone gets “the PTSD,” - but Pop’s generation of Army soldiers was treated really badly when they returned state-side. I never expected him to understand today's Army and the training we have to do...it’s all the time, every day - 365 days a year. After thinking about being in the Army, sometimes it was a drag. Personally, it was a humbling experience. When Momma sent me letters while I was in the Army, it helped me stay connected to home. She cried when I left home and said she needed me here. At first, I felt bad, but after a while, I knew joining the Army and getting away from the city is what I had to do. I never wanted to hurt Momma’s feelings; I just needed to see what was out there.
Our neighbor stood about 5’9” and wearing size 13 shoes. He was Papa’s best friend. Papa called him “Hump.”
Hump’s real name is Burrell Madison, but only Papa can call him “Hump.” Papa and Hump were in Vietnam during the war. Both were badass Airborne Rangers out of Ft. Lewis, Washington. Hump got shot in the butt, and Papa carried him about five miles, loaded with his weapon and in full field gear, through the dangerous Vietnam jungle to Army Medical Core. He sat with him until after his surgery. Then, Hump called Papa “The Lifter,” and they have been best friends ever since. For over 40 years, Hump and his wife were always part of our family. Papa said he and Hump got some good laughs about him being shot in the butt. Hump always mentioned that someone didn’t like him and the bullet they pulled out of his ass was from an American rifle.
“Why would someone be aiming at my ass?” asked Hump. It made the room go hysterical with laughter every time Papa and Hump told the story. ‘Of course, Papa and Hump told many different versions of the story, but it always had the same effect of uncontrollable funniness. Papa and
Hump seemed attached at the hip...best friends forever.
Hump was the town’s sheriff, and this city has grown with over 400,000 people; some were born here, and some just recently moved here because of the construction boom. Hump and Papa have spoken every morning since I can remember. When Papa’s doctors told him he might have prostate cancer, Hump took off work to drive with him to the big clinic for a day’s worth of tests. Papa was okay, though. He beat prostate cancer, and he and Hump continued their everyday routine.
If Hump was having a bad day, we could all tell. He and Pops would be out in the garage pretending to work on my dad’s boat - the 28-foot wood job they planned to take to the river for a test run one day. The boat was outside the driveway for years, even before I left for basic training.
As a matter of fact, I don’t think it has moved an inch. Hump needed Pop to ask him what was happening as they did in the Army. From after work til’ ‘bout midnight, the two laughed, smoked cigars, and talked about the little nightclub way in the jungle with some of the nicest women in the world. It took me a minute, but I figured out Papa and Hump liked the strip clubs while they served their country...but so did I.
My ex-girlfriend Rebecca decided to stop by the house...interesting. Rebecca wanted to remove the “ex” from “ex”-girlfriend. Mom and Pop were at work, making it easy to close the deal in my old room. It’s where it all started in the first place.
“John-Terry Lucine...this room is just as dirty as before you went AWOL on me,” she said, staring at me without blinking an eye.
“AWOL?” I responded.
I really did not remember actually breaking up with her. We never made a love connection of commitment forever to each other. I did tell her I was joining the Army. We spent almost every day together before I flew to Bedrock, South Kackalaki. Pops always said, “Ain’t no sense in making a woman mad that wants to give you everything you need.” Rebecca really needed to explain the AWOL statement, so I rolled over, pushed the dog off the edge of the bed, looked at her, and said, “What?” - with a really dumb but humbling look.
“You knew I always loved you; you were my first and only. Three years was too long John-Terry not to be touched by a man. You're lucky you didn’t re-enlist, it would have forced my hand to move on,” said Rebecca.
In my mind - ‘cause that’s the only way smart dudes can fire back when their women diss them in an argument - I thought...Rebecca didn’t write me one letter; she never answered her phone and certainly didn’t tell me about all this ‘love’ stuff. Hey, it was high school, you do what you can and move on. I got lucky with Rebecca, she stuck to me like peanut butter on a Hawaiian sweet roll.
Rebecca had a relationship style that was more ambiguous than concrete. I got it. In her own way, she wanted to make sure I understood she missed and cared about me simultaneously. My dog Hastings is rolling around on the floor next to the bed with a stupid look on his mutt face, resembling the look on my face after Rebecca made her point. After all that has happened today, I feel like I am at home, living semi-normal. It made me happy to see Mamma and Pops with some pep in their step, the neighbors still coming over. Being home, having a woman, a car, a job, my dog, and hopes for the future are what life is all about.
Later that day, Rebecca and I had some great makeup sex - the kind of sex that happens when two people argue but don’t mean to argue. Rather than apologizing, you drop everything, no matter where you are, and make love ‘til the chickens come home to roost. I looked at her beautiful body and contemplated what it would be like waking up to her every morning...
Apologies accepted.
I have been looking at an apartment on the west side by the lakes. The city has grown so much there are so many choices. I always wanted to live close to the lakes. In the late 1990s, the Space Exploration Federation (SEF) moved its headquarters right smack in the middle of the city. The neighborhood really changed - people from all across the world have moved here - smart people, astrophysicists, doctors, lawyers, bankers, actors, and politicians over-ran the town. Papa’s construction firm went from doing mom-and-pop jobs to multi-million dollar contracts across the city.
Pops told Momma, “My company built three suburbs around the city. Honey, you should retire, we’re okay.”
Momma was not hearing it. She loved teaching and told Papa she’d rather not retire...ever!
Rebecca went out the front door as I fumbled to get the car keys out of my pocket. We walked down the cracked driveway, past the boat...now
I’m sure that boat hasn't moved since I’ve been gone...we got in the car, ready to pull off as Officer Burrell passed by in his squad car and through the speaker came, “hey, JT and Rebecca, you kids have a safe night.”
We waved and pulled off.
I wanted to do nothing more than drive around town with Rebecca. The weather was in full cooperation...hot, with a breeze and bright sunshine.
Rebecca and I looked like movie stars with oversized sunglasses on our faces and our expressions like we did not have a care in the world.
We cruised in my classic 1975 convertible Eldorado - red-on-red leather with the diamond on the back, and sailed smoothly down the hot city road, bouncing like a luxury yacht on high seas when we went over a pothole...of course, we had the music louder than we should have. We drove past the candy store where we first met as kids and the high school we graduated from. Looking at my town and seeing how much it has grown and
I, a soldier making it back here, amazed me. The reflections from street lights vibrated and twinkled in waves up from the puddles in the street when went drove over them.
We still had the not-so-great neighborhoods where dudes hung out on the corner selling everything from pot to meth - but I was never a part of that stuff, and neither were the people I hung out with. My policy was “Nope to the dope,” you just live a lot longer. Seeing everything in its place was interesting, even the not-so-great places in town were interesting.
We turned down 38th Street and headed to Cramer Lake. Rebecca and I could grab a bite to eat and hit the City Queen for a hot fudge sundae. It was just then that several police cars streaked by with red and blue lights flashing, horns beeping, and the doppler effect left a ringing in my ears.
“It looks like they are headed to district five, someone probably got robbed or shot. There isn’t a fire...I didn’t see no fire trucks,” said Rebecca.
I got into the car to listen to the radio to find out what was happening. KDAY-FM, the local news-talk station, reported several masked men had entered Bridgewater Bank with weapons and got away with an undetermined amount of money. One policeman was killed, and several bank employees and customers were injured.
It was eight o’clock. As we headed back home, we noticed some businesses had closed early. You could tell the tension in the city was rising. I made a turn off the fourth avenue to Trump Drive. That’s when I looked in my rearview mirror and saw two police cars, lights flashing, and a loud voice over the intercom.
“Pull over right now!”
Rebecca and I looked at each other and wondered why the police wanted us to stop. I pulled over as the officer approached my car. The top was down on the car, and a second police officer flashed his flashlight and looked in the back seat.
“Hello, sir. Is there something wrong?” I said. The police officer glared at me and asked me to step out of the car, I wasn’t going to act like one of those radical TicTok’ers and say, “I don’t have to show you an ID unless a crime has been committed.” I opened my door, put one foot on the road, then the other foot. The officer grabbed me, twisted my arms around my back, and pushed me into the trunk of my car. Rebecca was screaming at the top of her lungs. “What are you doing? We are on the way home. We did not do anything,” said Rebecca as the officer reached over, lifted her out of the car, and forced her onto the ground.
While Rebecca was being handcuffed, I asked the officer what I had done to deserve this kind of treatment.
“Shut up! I know you did it, and you’re going to tell me where your friend is hiding out.” “Did what?” My heart raced. What have I done? What happening here? My military training in negotiations kicked in. Maybe I should show them my veteran's identification?
Watching Rebecca being manhandled by two other officers made my blood boil. She was for sure innocent, and that goes equally for me. By now, I was getting a little disheartened by the situation - I wanted to show the officer that I was a veteran and I had just been discharged. I had my veteran's identification in my back pocket. Handcuffed, I reached for my wallet. Two police officers yelled “freeze” and went for their weapons,
I said, “I’m only getting my veteran’s….”
Bang..bang...bang!
“You shot him…. Why?” Rebecca yelled.
There was silence as I watched myself lying on the street, bleeding from the bullet wounds. As I transitioned from one plane to another, I stood over my weathering body...bleeding, wondering why God saw fit to stop me in the prime of my life. I watched as Rebecca cried, standing over my limp, dead, bleeding body. Her face had changed... Her hair looked gray - like she had been shocked. It was too late for me: the shots at close range instantly killed me. ...I’m in an unfamiliar place...standing over my body - I feel cold and alone.
Sheriff Madison arrived at the scene...his face thickened with emotion...he immediately recognized my car, raised his hands to his head, and yelled, “What happened here….Who shot this kid? He just got out of the Army...his folks have been my friends and neighbors for all his life.” Hump fell to the ground in tears, thinking about how he would explain this to his best friend and neighbor..a fellow soldier who saved his life in Vietnam - Pops.
In the far distance, towards the haze in the light of the moon, I hear Grandma calling me, “John-Terry come on, little one, it's time to leave for church.”
I did not get killed in the Middle East while I was in the Army; my plane never crashed, and my parachute always opened. I made it home to Captran County, my mom and pops, and the people I love. I wanted to be someone; I had big plans...a life ahead of me.
Tonight I don’t feel like Lucky Luce. Society has made me an example of success and a target.
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