i drove a hearse to mississippi
CHAPTER SIX
During a lull in the startling revelations of Dad’s confessionary outpouring, it suddenly dawns on me why all this time the community just figured Dad was the town drunk — which he was, I suppose, if you want to put a label on it — but really, and maybe some part of my little sixteen year old brain and heart always knew it, Dad was suffering from something much more severe and undiagnosed than alcoholism. Hell, Dad’s drinking problem was not because he was a lousy no-good bum of an alcoholic; it was because he was afflicted psychologically by the horrors of battle. Call it war neurosis or whatever, but Dad was not “just a drunk”.
Dad was — go ahead and proclaim it to the world! — Dad was a war hero, by God!
I tell him so.
“Well, son, I wouldn’t go that far, but thanks for saying that. It means a lot to me.”
Another pause and Dad continues. “Son, you’re aware, aren’t you, that I also got the Purple Heart for physical injuries I sustained on the islands in two separate battles. Got me a nasty concussion and laceration scars to show for it.”
I’m wide-eyed with astonishment. Dad had never shown me his Purple Heart that he kept in his lockbox all these years (with the gold teeth and shrunken head); nor had I ever seen his battle scars, ’cause I guess they were up around his groin area and I’d never seen Dad naked before.
“Wow! A Purple Heart! That’s something, Dad! I’m so proud of you! How come you never showed me before?”
“Because it’s nothing I want to remember. But now that you know, it’s yours. I’ll give it to you when we get home. And you can have those two gold teeth and the shrunken head, too, if you want ’em. But the pistol, that goes to your sister’s husband, you know how much he loves his guns.”
I tell Dad I really would value and cherish his Purple Heart and I don’t really care about the pistol, but I’m not so sure about the other war souvenirs. Dad gives a little shrug of understanding and things go silent.
I fall into a spell of reflection. After hearing Dad’s war stories, the recounting of horrific brutality and desecration amid acts of heroism and bravery, the incalculable toll of casualties, on both sides, numbering upwards of 250,000 soldiers and civilians, I think, by all rights, I should not be here on this, God’s green earth, driving this Hearsemobile to Mississippi at age sixteen, since half of Dad’s infantry unit perished in firefights and kamikaze attacks that scorched and leveled Peleliu and Okinawa. Surviving such carnage was enough to drive anyone to drink, I figure. I really do understand and get it and sympathize one-hundred percent with Dad’s post-war plight of alcoholism, depression and what-not. The what-not part, I’m realizing slowly, is his recovery and reclaiming of his dignity and spiritual and psychological well-being. After all these years. I sigh, thinking, thank God, it’s never too late.
After this lengthy stretch of silence and reflection, Dad clears his throat as a prelude to the “secret” he mentioned an eternity ago, it seems, at the dinner table the night before we departed for Mississippi. I’m all ears and can’t imagine what could top his stories up to now.
“Son, I’m going to clue you in on another little secret.”
Another little secret?!
Hadn’t I just been privy to his most deepest and darkest secrets? I was pretty certain I had. But apparently not, for Dad had one more startling admission to share — make that confess.
“Son, at the end of the war they stationed me in China for a few months before I was to be shipped back to ‘Frisco, and during the time I was there . . .”
Dad breaks off, filling the void leaving me hanging on his words . . .
“Yes, yes, what about it, Dad?”
“Well, while I was there, no one but you and I know this now in our family. Now, this was before I met your mother . . .”
Another trail off, before he continues, “Hell, out with it, son. I had an affair with a young officer from Peking, and . . .”
“And what, Dad? What?”
“Well, dammit it all, I got her pregnant,” Dad confesses wistfully, but with a slight mischievous smile, almost a shit-eating grin, if I have to describe it truthfully.
“So, now you know, cat’s out of the bag. Listen, son, there are thousands of war babies, children born from liaisons between American servicemen and enemy women, who, you know, were pretty and sexy and always on the hunt for a guy they could have a kid with, and hopefully marry and return stateside with. Some were lucky, others not so lucky. So, now you know, I got a war baby myself, but I left China before she had the baby. She really wanted to come back to America with me, but she was caught between two worlds, two very different cultures and value systems, and though she claimed to love me, for whatever reason she chose to remain in China and keep the baby and raise it herself.”
The words “stunned” and “shocked” might begin to describe my sensation of wonder and confusion tearing through me. Was Dad’s revelation a shameful secret or a taboo incident? I honestly wasn’t sure. It’s all I can do to just keep my eyes on the road, not knowing what to say or believe.
Piecing things together, it’s starting to make sense. “So you’re saying, Dad, that I have a twenty-six year old half — . . .”
“That’s right, son — you have a half-sister. After I got back stateside, we corresponded for a year — now this is still before I met your mother — and I learned that the girl’s name is Li-Na.”
“Li-Na,” I repeat. “Dad, I can’t, uh, this is too mind-blowing! So I, we, my sisters and I, we have an older half-sister named Li-Na?”
“Yessiree, her name means Pretty Elegant. How about that.”
“But, Dad, why haven’t you ever told us about this?”
“Because I couldn’t. How was I supposed to? What would your mother think? What would the good townsfolk think? Well, anyway, when I sobered up, I started thinking about this, maybe it’s my one true and only good memory from the war that I can recover and hang on to, retrieve, make right. I got to thinking, how it just wasn’t right to have abandoned Li Xiu — or maybe she abandoned me? — so I tracked down Li-Na with the help of a P.I. and found out she lives in Wuhan and is married with two kids. Li Xiu, I learned, passed away a few years ago, but Li-Na reached out and mailed me a picture of her. Wanna see it?”
Okay, now things are starting to get juicy. “You mean you have the picture with you, Dad?”
Dad gets out his wallet and roots around in one of the compartments and finally pulls out a little square crumpled faded color photograph and holds it up for me to see pinched between his elongated thumb and crooked nail-bitten forefinger. “Isn’t she — pretty elegant!” Dad says proudly.
She truly is, with her exotic Asian aspect and Dad’s All-American movie star good looks. I ask excitedly, “Dad, do you think we will ever be able to meet Li-Na someday?”
“Hold off on that thought for now, son. And, mind you, keep this under wraps.”
Dad looks at his watch and says. “Losing track of time son! We better pick up the pace.” He tells me to pull over at the next exit so we can switch places and he can make up time by driving faster.
“We’re due at Grimsby’s funeral home to pick up Waldrip’s body in two hours.”
That’s the first I hear of the name “Grimsby” and it cracks me up. “C’mon, Dad, is that really his name?”
In his inimitable dry wit style, Dad winks and says, “You can’t make something like that up, now can you, son?”
Stay tuned for the finale — CHAPTER SEVEN!