In recognition of my father Kermit Hanson who welded liberty ships at Swan Island in Portland, Ore., my stepfather Frank Zielinski who was a corpsman on the U.S.S. Nevada at Pearl Harbor, my brother Dale Hanson who manned a howitzer in Viet Nam, and all the men and women who served in the Armed Forces of the United States. The story that follows is fiction.
After the rain stopped and the weather warmed up in Portland, the moss and rust removal business slowed down some and I had a few days vacation. I dozed off during a ballgame and woke up to the news that some guy named William Robert Griggs won $3 million in the state lottery. Got his picture in the newspaper and went on TV.
His name was pretty close to mine, so I got some phone calls from people askin to borrow money. Four different lawyers called me up sayin they represented kids of mine — three daughters and a son. I figured they was lyin, but couldn’t be sure as some of their momma’s names sounded familiar.
My ex-wife’s lawyer sent a letter to my ex-lawyer, sayin we had a verbal agreement to split all future windfalls and she was aiming to collect. Some neighbor of mine sent the newspaper clipping to my mother in Paris, Fla., and Ma called to remind me that when I was 10, I promised I’d buy her a house when I got rich.
“Ma,” I said, “the picture don’t even look like me. The guy’s got buck teeth and …”
“That was from sucking your thumb all the time,” she said. “We tried everything — that blue stuff you paint on the nail, even Tabasco sauce. Your father — may he rest in peace — even tried cat doo.” She chuckled. “Even put black electrical tape on your fingers and thumbs, read about that in a magazine article — Ladies Home Journal I think it was. You just sucked all the sticky stuff off, looked like you been eatin mud.”
I was beginnin to feel sorry for the guy that really won the $3 million. Next thing I knew, Ma is cryin talking about the good old days and how she’d probably not even recognize me it’s been so long since she’s seen me. She’s tellin me I ought to come to Paris, Fla., to visit my Pa’s grave for Memorial Day. I told her I couldn’t afford it, but things was about to change.
I was opening the mail the next day and there’s a Visa Card, MasterCard, Discover Card and American Express made out to “William Robert Griggs.” Then I look out the window and see a Sheriff’s car pull up outside. A deputy’s coming up the walk with an envelope, the dog’s barking his head off, and I’ve been served with a few subpoenas in my time, so I ducked out the back door and hid in the bushes. It’s got to be my ex-wife trying to latch onto some of that $3 million I don’t have.
After the deputy left, I call up my boss and tell him my father died — I left out the part about it being 14 years ago — and I was going to Anchorage for the funeral. I figure the sheriff will go to my work next and Anchorage is about as far from Paris, Fla., as you can get.
When you got all them credit cards, travel is fun. I got me a first class flight. After we took off, they shut the curtain so the people in back — having peanuts and Fresca — couldn’t see what we was eatin, which was chicken and wine. I opened the curtain when the stewardess wasn’t lookin and complained that the steak wasn’t medium rare like I ordered, and the champagne wasn’t cold enough. I always wanted to do that.
I even used one of them credit cards to pry the phone out of the seat back and make a call to my wife.
I’m drivin this rental car across the Everglades and the air is hot. It don’t exactly stink, it’s just strong like sulfur and mud. The road is straight as a string, no cars even. Up ahead I see a cop, skid marks all over the road and there’s a car off in the swamp upside down. Pretty hard to explain that one, but a guy that’s got to be the driver is waving his arms around pointing this way and that, and the cop is writing it down.
Looks like he’s sayin: “Well, officer, I was just driving along, minding my own business, I’m alert as can be, haven’t touched a drop in days, driving defensively, well within the speed limit. Suddenly, something big and gray and awful comes dripping out of the swamp. Well, chances are it’s endangered and I sure as heck respect that. I hit the brakes, went into the swamp and before you know it, whatever it was slipped back into the water and disappeared smooth as can be.”
If it was me, I’d blame it on swamp gas. “I was overcome by the fumes, probably the fault of the Florida Highway Department, should have posted signs warning about the gas.” I made up several other excuses too, since the road was so straight and there was nothing else to do, since the car had cruise control. Never know when you might need a good explanation.
Reminded me of a time in high school when my friends and I used to crack up saying “ossifer.” Then I got pulled over for speeding going to a game and I rolled down the window, calm as you please, and said “What seems to be the problem ossifer?” It was an accident, my mouth just said it by mistake, but my buddies all cracked up, so the sheriff thought I was smarting off and took me to the lockup to teach me a lesson.
Anyway, I finally got to Ma’s turnoff. She’s about five miles down a dirt road with nothing but swamp and tall grass, a satellite dish and one lone electrical wire coming across the swamp, ending up at an Airstream trailer.
Some guy comes out of the trailer wearing an old World War II uniform. Must be Bill, Ma’s husband getting ready for Memorial Day. Turns out he wears it all the time. Ma didn’t tell me that part.
A tiny yapping bug-eyed dog named “Sweetie” makes a beeline and nails me on the ankle. After we’ve said our hellos, Ma drags out the letter from my neighbor about the Griggs guy that won the lottery. She makes me stand under the light and still thinks its me. “He has your father’s mouth,” she says about the guy in the picture.
Since we’re talking photos, she brings Bill and me big glasses of lemonade and drags out the photo albums. Bill still hasn’t said much except “Who’s he?”
Ma’s going through the album. “This is Marge and Sam in front of their 40 footer up in St. Petersburg,” she says. “Now, those are the nice men who installed our satellite dish last winter. This is the hotel we stayed in last fall when we drove over to Naples for the Johnsons’ 50th.” She gets out another stack of photos, and I start looking around for a beer or something.
“This is Marge and Sam in front of their 40 footer up in St. Petersburg,” said Ma. “and these are the nice fellows who installed our satellite dish last winter.” about then I realize Ma got “two prints for the price of one,” so I have to listen to everything twice. The air smells of sulfur, the water tastes like iron, there’s no liquor in the trailer because Bill was an alcoholic until he got saved. The air is damp and sticky, with swarms of mosquitoes outside the screens. Sweetie snarls at me from under the couch whenever I move. Then it’s time for Lawrence Welk on satellite. OK, now I’m in hell.
The next day we drive into town to get Bill a haircut. We get out of the car and a crowd collects. Seems that Ma told everyone I’d won $3 million and the town made me the Grand Marshall of tomorrow’s Memorial Day parade.
When we get back, I go out to the car to get my suitcase, since there’s no room for it in the trailer. A big cloud of mosquitoes gets wind of me, so I’m speeding up, trying to stay out ahead of them. I hot foot it around the corner of the trailer, and there, standing in the middle of the trail is this here alligator looking at me.
Well, I froze and tried to remember what to do. All I could remember was a TV show that said if you get attacked by a polar bear, don’t try to run, just play dead and let them chew away until they lose interest. OK, so an alligator ain’t a polar bear, and no way was I letting anything chew on me. The gator took a step toward me.
Before I know it, I’m around the corner trying to open the door on Ma’s trailer. It was locked. “Ma, open the door,” I yelled, glancing around behind me to see if the alligator was back there. My backside is twitchin as I’m imagining the gator taking a bite.
I’m banging on the trailer, holding my suitcase behind me, about ready to make a run for the car, and I hear Ma’s voice from inside the trailer: “Who is it?”
I finally convince her it’s me and she opens the door. “You never told me gators run around here loose,” I said. She just goes into the kitchen and gets her broom.
“I’ll take care of it,” she says. She steps out of the trailer and I follow. She just walks up to the gator and whacks him in the snout. He turns around and stumps off down the trail.
“That’s just Albert” she says. We go back in the house and she puts the broom away. “I call him Albert after the alligator in that comic strip Pogo. They used to carry Pogo in the local paper,” she said. “But then it stopped and I never heard what happened.”
“What happened was that Truman stopped MacArthur from going into China like he wanted,” said Bill from behind the newspaper. “Been nothing but trouble ever since.”
“Albert ate one of my chickens once,” Ma said, ignoring Bill. “But that’s just the nature of alligators, can’t change that. They were here first.”
Next day we went to the parade. There weren’t any military vehicles in Paris, Fla., but some guy had one of those boxy Volkswagen Things with a camouflage paint job. He was real proud of it, said it had been in the Paris Memorial Day parade for five years in a row. One smart alec from out of town said it looked like the Germans won the war. So I rode in the VW at the head of the parade, followed by a Chevy low-rider convertible playing a marching song and bouncing up and down to the music.
The parade ended at the cemetery, and Ma was waving to me from where Pa was buried. I stood between her and Pa, and watched the rest of the parade come in through the gate.
First in line were some young reservists, then came Gulf War vets, a few Vietnam vets, a couple of Korea vets and three WWII vets, including Bill, who kept wandering over to the side to shake hands with people. Turns out he marched into Paris, France with the Fourth Infantry in the summer of 1944, and he thought he was still there. In a way he was, I guess.
“Bonjour” he said to the puzzled parade watchers, “bonjour.” Old timers who knew him said “merci” and patted him on the back. The biggest cheer was for old Edgar Ellerby waving a flag from his wheelchair, pushed by his grandson just back from the Gulf.
I’m watching the old guys totter in, and realize that in the parades I watched as a kid there were lots more WWII vets, some WWI vets and one or two Spanish-American vets. I looked behind Edgar Ellerby and thought I saw a glimpse of ghostly figures in dusty uniforms formed up in ranks, marching silently into the cemetery. Must have been the swamp gas.
Excerpted from Billy Bob’s Book by Wayne Edward Hanson
Copyright (C) 2011, Wayne Edward Hanson All Rights Reserved
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