Beanpole John by Barry Garelick, ristretto macchiato

I don’t know much about you apart from our being cousins, and attending family get-togethers when we were growing up, and that you served in Viet Nam. When you were a tall and skinny teenager my mother in her adoring way said you looked like a beanpole. I called you Beanpole John once when I was little. That memory has stayed with me, though I have no memories of ever calling you that again.
I’m one of many who has migrated in life. Many of us are scattered throughout the country and the world, no longer where we were raised and usually rarely going back there. I moved from Detroit years ago as did you, though I moved out west; you didn’t move as far. You moved to Ann Arbor and then to Florida.
 

After I retired I started to feel isolated from my past – I know others who say the same thing. That feeling has increased over the last few years. I call it isolation, though it may just be a feeling of discontinuity, or maybe a combination of the two. I know people who stayed in the area where they grew up, maintaining ties with those they knew in elementary and high school and even college. I envy such continuity at times. Family and friends become more important when you get older and have more time on your hands.
 

The internet has served to connect me to people I once knew, some of whom I was close with and others not. Many people are connected by computers as is evident by the number of people on any street these days, looking down at their phones. Those transfixed on their phones are focused on the immediate present. In my case and others near me in age, it’s the past mostly. I rarely use the phone; I use the computer at home. I communicate through Facebook sometimes; other times through email. It isn’t my only form of contact with the world. I have friends where we live, and friends not too far away, and our daughter lives nearby. I go to a café every morning and occasionally talk to people I know. Most of the time, I just listen.
 

The internet that connects me with my past is, ironically, also a window on a disturbing mixture of hostile conversations, incivility, and images of violence. It feels as if the world has gone crazy and we are on the brink of disaster. My wife thinks it’s a reaction to the conflicts and threats of wars over the world. The end of democracy here seems like a reality and worldwide fascism and antisemitism appear to be on the rise. From what I’ve read about the two world wars, it feels like we are headed for one.
There is no mention of any of these things in the café I frequent in the morning, though I think it is on people’s minds. We live in a small town on the coast that my wife jokes is too small to be bombed in case of war. She also says we’ve never lived through a war like our parents did; very few people have now. We have no memories of the past other than what we’ve been told. I’m pretty sure that’s why I asked you recently whether you thought there would be a world war.

*     *     *

I called you ‘Beanpole John’ only once. It was during a visit my family made when I was six, and you were a teenager. It was shortly after your family moved from Detroit to Lake Orion, a small town considered out in the country then – an hour’s drive from Detroit on two-lane roads lined with sumac trees festooned with their red berries. I looked at the area recently using Google maps. Now it looks like any other town-turned-suburb: gas stations and Taco Bells have replaced the sumac trees, and strip malls stand where older houses used to be.
 

What I remember of your old house was the pump organ in the living room. I would try to play it, but my legs were too short to reach the pedals. You sat next to me and pumped the pedals while I pressed keys at random and pulled the various enamel covered knobs. I wasn't used to someone older lavishing attention on me. I expected at any moment that you would tire of me and go off and play with my older brother.
 

That never happened. Instead, you took me to the lake, down a vine-covered path just large enough to allow one person at a time. I asked if there were poison ivy. ‘Yep, it's all over,’ you said. ‘Don't worry, there's none on the path.’
 

The path snaked through a wooded area and eventually led to a beach pock-marked with rocks. A constant ripple of waves traveled across the surface of the small lake. The waves moved endlessly right to left. We stood on the shore, looking at the water. As I stared at the constantly moving ripples I felt as if we were travelers on a shore moving slowly to the right.
 

‘Doesn't it feel like we're moving?’ I said.
 

‘Yes, it does,’ you said. You walked out to the end of a rickety pier to which a rowboat was moored. 

 

The wood planks on the pier had turned gray with age. There were spider webs underneath the pier. No 

spiders were visible, but I knew they were somewhere.
 

 ‘Have you ever seen the spiders?’ I asked, pointing to the webs.
 

‘Once in a while.’
 

‘Are they big?’
 

‘Some are.’ I backed away from the dock. ‘Don’t worry. They keep to themselves.’
 

You picked up a rock and threw it over the water so that it skipped four or five times. It was the first time I had seen that trick.
 

You took me out in the rowboat, and I remarked that now we really were moving, it was no longer an illusion, though the waves were still moving in their constant path across the lake's surface. I wondered if it were possible for the boat to be stationary while the world was moving around us, making it seem as if we were moving. ‘Is the lake moving or are we?’ I asked.
‘We are,’ you said, and then a few seconds later said ‘and so is the lake.’
‘So you don't have to work so hard rowing if the lake is doing the work,’ I said and you laughed.
When we reached the other side of the lake, you pulled the boat up on the small rocky beach. We stood there, the waves now traveling from left to right, and consequently, both of us and the beach we were standing on now appeared to be moving in the opposite direction as it was on the other side.
 

‘You ever swim across this lake?’ I asked.
 

‘Sure. It's easy.’
 

‘Looks big to me.’
 

‘It isn't.’
 

You rowed me back to the other side and once there, showed me how to skip stones. It took a few tries, but I eventually got it. I was overcome with joy at being able to do this. We took turns skipping stones and at one point, as I watched you skip the stones I shouted ‘Beanpole John! Big Beanpole John!’ My memory of what happened next varies; sometimes I see you picking me up and spinning me around, and other times I see you turning around and laughing.

*     *     *

Your parents moved back to Detroit when I was in high school. Shortly after, you joined the army. It was during the Viet Nam war, when boys were being drafted and those who went to college had a deferment. After basic training you visited us during a short leave before you had to leave for Viet Nam. You showed my father photos taken during your basic training. One was of you standing next to a sign on your barracks, proclaiming your unit the ‘best platoon’.
 

‘They all say that,’ my father said. I could tell that hurt you. I guess you expected some camaraderie from someone who fought in World War Two. My father didn’t approve of the war in Viet Nam, and as far as his experience in the war, he didn’t talk about it much. As you were getting ready to leave, he put his arm around your shoulder and said ‘Just take it one day at a time.’
 

Shortly after you returned from Viet Nam in 1967, there was a welcome home party for you at your house. I remember Uncle Bill saying in a loud celebratory voice, ‘Let the war go on forever now that Johnny’s back home, right?’ My mother gave him a dirty look.
 

You were very quiet. Your mouth looked hardened and your eyes looked sad. I overheard Aunt Florence say to my mother, ‘He keeps to himself mostly and he swears a lot. He never used to swear.’
A few years later, you moved to Ann Arbor. You were working for the medical school, in purchasing, I think. You met Jan there and a few years later you married her. I was a sophomore at college by then. Aunt Florence invited me to have dinner with all of you one weekend. I think she wanted you to be like a big brother to me, since you were living in Ann Arbor and my mother was worried about what I was getting into.
 

You picked me up at my dorm and gave me a ride. I remember we hardly talked. I tried to make what conversation I could, but it was difficult. At one point, desperate for something to talk about I asked, 

 

‘Do you remember when I was little and you took me rowing out on Lake Orion?’
 

‘I think so,’ you said. ‘That was a while ago.’
 

I imagined telling you about how we were studying relativity in my physics class, and what relative motion was all about and that’s what I was seeing when you rowed me out on Lake Orion. I decided to keep quiet; the conversation we had was strained, and I felt I would have been showing off. Back then I thought I knew a lot more than I did.
 

The dinner at your house was tense. Aunt Florence made most of the conversation, and you and Uncle Henry were quiet. It was like you weren’t there.
*     *     *
You friended me on Facebook a few years ago, and I recently heard from you after posting a picture I took of the Pacific Ocean and the sky above the horizon. As many others are doing, I document my life with photos that I post on social media. Mostly, my pictures are of trees, clouds, ocean, streams, forests, sky, hills, sunrises and sunsets.
 

You said my picture reminded you of the South China Sea. According to your profile, you’ve written and self-published some books. I asked if you were planning to write about the war. ‘Maybe,’ you said, then later another message that said ‘No,’; then yet another sometime later: ‘I don’t remember much of it.’
 

I’ve tried imagining you in the war and pictured you being called ‘Beanpole’ when you were over there. It’s the type of name you see in war movies – one of many nicknames a drill sergeant gives out that become the soldiers’ identities as they go off to war. I asked if they called you that when you were there. ‘Do you know how long it’s been since we’ve seen each other?’ you said. ‘I’m now 80 years old. I’m still fairly tall; I haven’t shrunk much, but I weigh 185 pounds. I left the Army at 165. Not quite a beanpole even at my most fit. There were others a lot skinnier.’
 

I don’t know a lot about war other than what I’ve learned from movies and books and what people have told me. Which is to say my understanding of it is not fueled by memories. My limited conception of war has come down to relative motion – danger coming for you, or you coming toward danger, or both at the same time. I asked you if you had seen any action when you were there. ‘Not a lot,’ you said, and then told me what action you remembered.
 

 ‘I was stationed at a fort in Nah Trang. The Marines were in the fort next to us, but they moved out; two weeks later the Second Army Division moved in. I guess they told someone what they were doing, but not us grunts. One day they put up bunkers with machine guns on top, aiming over us at the enemy who we could not see. I had no rifle as a weapon; only a grenade launcher. Memories to forget. I’ve managed to forget most of my time there. Someday I’ll forget all of it. But I still get reminders: some pay I receive because of Agent Orange.’
 

When I asked you your thoughts about a world war you said, ‘I hope not. It seems like there’s always lots of wars every few years and that we’re heading for disaster. But things eventually calm down. I like to believe things will stay in that pattern. I can’t think about things I have no control over. Jan has been ill and she might not live much longer. There’s not much I can do about that other than to think about what I will do when that happens.’
*     *     *
It has been many years since we last saw each other and I really don’t know you very well. You’ve always been somewhat quiet. I expected different answers to my questions, but what I thought you would say is quickly being replaced by what you did say in my memory. In addition to imagining you as a war hero called Beanpole, I had pictured stories about watching soldiers die. I also thought you would say more about your thoughts of a future war. What you said was what you thought needed to be said; and it was enough.
 

What I know of you is mostly from the distant past, from our time at the lake, and my sense and memory of your unspoken kindness. Like you, I also take refuge in the belief that everything will be fine. My belief comes from a vague feeling of being watched over and protected by someone telling me not to worry. The messages may come in daydreams, or sometimes whispers I hear when I’m just waking up from a dream, or as I’m going to sleep at night. The voices are sometimes those of strangers and other times of people I knew, some alive, some dead. They all say the same things. There’s nothing new under the sun even though the world is changing. Things will settle down eventually, though we probably will not live to see it. We just have to believe in what we won’t be around to see. And to take it one day at a time.

About the author

Barry Garelick has fiction published in Heimat, Cafe Lit and Ephemeras. His non-fiction pieces have been published in Atlantic, and Education Next. He lives in Morro Bay, California with his wife.

 

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