Day 44 Roy Dean

My story about Captain Kelley reminded me of another captain I knew in the Air Force.  This was Captain Morris and he and his wife, Bridgettredheadandbigboobs, or as we called her, Mrs. Morris, were friends with both of my parents.  The same setup as with the Kelley’s but this was pre-Germany, Fairfield, California, all of us stationed at Travis.  Military life has such different words for ordinary life.  We were stationed at Travis, we didn’t live there, we were stationed there.  We had a port of call for Germany in June of ’69, we weren’t leaving, flying to Germany, we had a port of call.  We always had to show our ID when we were on base, “Show us your papers!”  We went to the commissary, not the market, the BX, not Wonderworld (Wal-Mart today).  I used to think it was the PX but I guess the BX makes more sense, if you have a military slanted mind, the base exchange.

The Morris’ had 3 boys, Roy Dean, my age, Danny, 2 years younger and Michael, who knows how old he was.  Although I don’t have a lot of memories of Captain Morris, the rare few I do have made an impact on me none the less.  Roy Dean and I were polite friends in that we just hung out when all of us were in one house.  He was okay, but he was kind of a nerd.  I wouldn’t hang out with him as I was developing my coolness credibility at the time and didn’t think it would help my image.  I liked him, there was nothing he did that was mean or stupid.  I mean, if it wasn’t for the cool factor we might have hung out more.  I don’t know, there was something about him that was off, I was able to see that even at my age.  One thing, he ran home from school every day.  I mean I get that you have to be home after school, but do you have to run?  That added to his uncool factor in my book.

Well the time came that my dad came home from Viet Nam for 2 weeks during his one year tour (another weird military term, a year in Viet Nam during wartime is called a tour?) and him and my mom were taking a week vacation.  Me and Volt and Tanya had to go to the Morris’ for the entire week as it was school year.  I knew I would have to walk to school with Roy Dean but there was no way I was running home with him.  That week was where I got to know Captain Morris a lot better.

“Roy Dean!  Shouldn’t toast be buttered from corner to corner?  Haven’t we talked about this before?”

“Yes sir, yes it should be buttered corner to corner and we have talked about it before.  I’m sorry dad” trembled Roy Dean from the next room.  Clueless at the dining room table I just dug in anyway, I couldn’t care less where the butter landed as long as there was a gob of it somewhere on my piece of toast, with cinnamon and sugar, or peanut butter, or jelly.  What was the big deal where the butter was spread?  And then I heard a shriek, and another, and another.

“Now finish buttering the toast, eat your breakfast and don’t be late to school, understand?”  Captain Morris was commanding his son like he was a servant, a private or a piece of shit.  The captain walked into the dining room and sat down.  “Good morning boys!  Are you ready for school?  Get all of your homework done?”  Calm, stoic, the perfect officer relaying the perfect morning script.  Roy Dean came in soon after with a plate of toast, eyes red but not wet, set the plate down and took his seat.  Head down he ate his breakfast in silence.

“May I be excused?” he asked timidly.  Volt and I ate in silence, heads down also.  What the fuck was going on?  It’s just toast.  I know my mom is a psycho but she completely missed the toast angle for a reason to wield the cord.  I guess I was counting my blessings without realizing it.  Comparing myself favorably, like I had it better than Roy Dean.  That was a first as far as the warhorse’s record was concerned.  She just dropped into second place.  This guy was an asshole.  He beat his kid over the way the toast was buttered?

It was a week of various tortures that I witnessed Captain Morris showering over Roy Dean.  Now I knew why he ran home each day.  His dad made him.  He could not be a minute late.  Mrs. Morris was the penultimate mother, doting on her children but was blind, oh so blind when it came to the crap that her husband was doing to the kids.  I say kids but I only remember Roy Dean taking the brunt of this insanity.  I can’t remember what I thought exactly or even vaguely but I’m sure I was comparing the two households constantly.  My dad, a captain, was kind, distant but always a safe haven from the warhorse.  Mrs. Morris was that for her kids but she couldn’t or wouldn’t stop the punishment her husband handed out with such impunity.  It is now that I realize he may have tortured her also and she walked in as much fear as her children.  She was probably grateful when they were the targets so she could have some relief.  Fucked up I know.  The pain that warps children and the pain they bring into the world as a result.  I know my mom had no breaks when she was a kid and I paid for that rearing for many decades.

Fast forward a year and we are now in Germany.  Probably less than a year I don’t know the exact time frame here.  We had to go on base to pick up supplies at the commissary, the BX and then stop at the post office for our APO mail.  Remember the military, it’s APO instead of just mail.  My mom brought me and Volt and Tanya and we’re doing the typical yard ape things which naturally involved irritating her.  We waited in the car while she checked the mail as there are too few things to destroy in a post office.  She came back in the front seat with the mail, “A letter from the Morris’!”  Great, she opened it and we would have to sit in the back and wait until she finished reading it.  So clearly I remember my mom gasping as she read the letter.  I thought to myself, “This is an important moment” and I quieted down and shushed Volt and Tanya.  My mom slowly turned around with cheeks wet with tears and handed me the letter silently.  I got it.  Read the letter from the Morris.  I couldn’t believe she was giving it to me for some reason as I felt I was never involved in family matters.

Mrs.  Morris wrote the letter and it was written with a blue Flair pen, popular at the time.  A little magic marker that you could write with, especially letters to your friends overseas.  I read.  She was talking about Roy Dean and school.  Roy Dean’s class was going on a field trip to Stinson Beach for a science project and at first he wasn’t allowed to go.  No mystery there, the captain must have bust a blood vessel when Roy Dean asked for permission.   But Mrs. Morris stepped in and the captain relented and Roy Dean was exuberant!  I guess it was a typical foggy day on the beach when the bus rolled up but it didn’t damper any spirits.  Especially Roy Dean’s.  He was at the ocean.  He was out of school.  He was away from his dad.  He was alive. 

After the science part of the project was done everybody got to play in the surf.  Roy Dean tip toed in the cold water and braved himself to fight the fear of the cold water above his waist.  The moment he beat that fear was the moment a rip tide grabbed him unceremoniously and pulled him under the water.   At this point in the letter I will never forget the splash marks my mom’s tears made on the blue velvet letters.  Mrs. Morris said that Roy Dean did not come home from school that day.  I was stunned, my mind was a jumble of emotions.  Captain Kelley just died a month earlier and now I had a friend that joined him on that side.  I didn’t know what to think.  I paused and kept reading.  Mrs. Morris started talking about God and angels and how they filled the hole that was gaping with Roy Dean’s absence.  Confusion started dancing in my brain with these sentences.  How could something unseen replace a son?  A boy?  Roy Dean?  It sounded a little like she'd gone crazy and was grasping for anything to find some kind of solace.  I didn’t understand but the wheels of agnostic noises started turning that day for me.  She went on how 3 weeks later Roy Dean’s body washed back up to shore. 

“Glory be to god that he delivered my boy back to me.” I was naïve thinking he would have looked the same coming out as he did going in.  My mom told me different, that he must have looked like a pustulent bag of meat on the beach that morning.  Another image that never left me.  Once again I was confronting death and found my feelings in a flux.  I felt a pang of guilt that I didn’t hang out with him enough, that I thought he was a nerd like it would make a difference in his death.  I tried to feel the loss, force the onslaught of passion over losing a friend.  Truth is the feeling I felt the most was relief.  As sad as I was, the tear stain on the letter made me cry the most.  My mom’s emotions painted on that letter from her friend and her loss.  The loss of her son.  Like my dad, she didn’t really talk about it but I got it.  I also got that Roy Dean was free from the most heinous dad I could ever imagine.  I prayed a little that day too.  Whatever god was out there I hoped he would squeeze the joy and the life out of Captain Morris’ brain.  That was the best I could do that morning.

 

1.        I’m grateful that Roy Dean got to escape that life early enough to enjoy angelhood that much longer.

2.       I’m grateful that I’ve been able to come to terms with what my higher power is.

3.       I’m grateful that I raised my son completely different than the way my mom raised me.