There
was one day of the week when you could go down to market to get the food you
needed for the rest of the week. When ma went down to market, she always got
more food than they let her, she’d sneak some food out with her, because they
wouldn’t let you buy enough food for everyone. I know that she would get extra
eggs usually and also she’d try and get some milk, but that’s harder to sneak
out than the eggs. They’d never let you take out any meat at all, but ma could
sometimes get some meat when she went down to market. She always said Stefan I
know how to talk to people to get what I want when I asked her why we could
have lamb and the other people couldn’t have any.
She
said the same thing when we were
leaving on the bus. I was crying a little because I had to leave so much behind
and I wanted to go back but she shushed me and said to be quiet. Da was trying
not to be involved, I think he just wanted no one to notice him. Da was quiet
usually, but sometimes when he got mad he got loud too. Mostly when I asked ma
too many questions and ma got mad with me da would come in and stop the whole
thing cause me and ma could fight for a long time when we both got mad. I was
still little and da didn’t hit me like I know some other das do sometimes. But
he shouted loud and then I was quiet straightaway.
But anyway, we were on the bus.
It was brown and there weren’t any words on the side that said where we would
be going and also the bus came really late. When we all left with our only one
suitcase and sleeping bag ma just ran ahead to the bus and da hurried us along
because me and Juti were slow since we put so much into our suitcases, like
Juti’s dolls and my toy truck that was made of metal. Juti was really little, a
whole lot littler than me so she was crying but quiet, cause she knew that da
would maybe get made if she was fussing. We got onto the bus and ma was
fighting with the driver. Not really fighting, but they were sure arguing, I
think about money cause ma kept shoving some at him and he kept shaking his
head and saying Nem, nem but I guess when he saw us he decided that ma had
enough. He just grabbed the forints she was pushing at him and pushed her back
into the bus.
There weren’t many people in the
bus but the people who were were army guys. I saw them practicing sometimes in
this field behind our house. I liked going out there when it was late at night
because they had these huge big lights, like as big as a car or something. Once
I saw them even practice with guns, but like I say that was just the one time.
Every single other time they were just marching back and forth. The other kids
said it was boring, but really it wasn’t boring because they sang songs
sometimes when they marched and they were really good, it was like watching the
toy soldiers they had at the toy store.
When we got on the bus ma went
and talked to the soldier sitting up front who wore a hat that had things on it
and looked like he was in charge and da pushed us back the bus to the last
seats. There was another family there but they had really little kids, like so
little they couldn’t sit on their own and they had to sit in their ma’s lap.
Their da looked at our da but then looked away really quick, like he shouldn’t
be looking at us. Anyway da put us in the other back seat and told us Hush now
and try to sleep. I don’t know that he really thought we would sleep cause
there were so many soldiers up in front of us, but I guess Juti fell asleep
pretty quick like she does when she gets to crying. I was just looking at the
soldiers and thinking how strong they looked in their uniforms when I
remembered the toy soldiers and how I could only bring my truck but nothing
else, and then’s when I started crying. Just a little, I don’t think you could
hardly hear me and I know the soldiers didn’t at all but da did and like I said
he tried not to look at me. Ma came back and shushed me and I told her I wanted
to go back. Ma said We’re certainly not going back and shushed me again. I knew
she meant it so I tried to quiet down and asked her why we were on the bus and
she told me that she just knew how to talk to people.
I think then’s when I fell
asleep for a while cause when I woke up next we weren’t anywhere near town, in
fact we were in Budapest and that’s a long way from Eger. In fact we were on
the river and da woke me up cause we were getting on a boat. The soldiers were
all gone off the bus and it was just us and the other family whose da still
wasn’t looking at us. The sun was just coming up and the man driving the bus
now was pushing us down these stairs on the top of the boat that went down into
the bottom of the boat. It was real dark down in the bottom of the boat, but we
could see some because there were windows in the sides to let some light in.
There were little piles of blankets on the side by the wall that the driver
pushed us to and told us to Stay here and don’t make any noise. You better keep
those kids quiet. He was a little scary so I was quiet and Juti was still
asleep and so were the other kids so everything was okay. Then the ship started
moving.
Ma and da were on the other side
of the boat having a big talk. Da was angry I think, but ma looked angry too.
We didn’t get far from Budapest when I thought I heard a bomb or something. I
was almost asleep but I woke up fast and saw ma and da still arguing. I said in
a really quiet, just a little loud voice Da I heard something loud. He quick
looked at me and told me to Shush and turned back to ma again, arguing a lot
quieter now. I didn’t hear anything else so I just went to sleep.
When I woke up again we were
getting pushed off the boat by the man and pushed onto another bus. Juti got
really fussy then and started crying loud. The other da looked at da really
hard and da hit Juti. He really didn’t hit her hard but she sure got quiet
then. Da looked kind of sad and he almost shrugged his shoulders when ma looked
at him really hard. Then he just grabbed me and Juti’s arms and pushed us onto
the boat. I looked back at ma and she looked like da hit her, and I tried to
say something but then she saw me and looked at me really hard so I just kept
walking.
There was this boat and then I
think a train and another boat and a train, but I don’t remember. After a
really long time, like maybe days we got to where ma said was France. The whole
time we slept in the sleeping bags and ate what the man gave us. When we were
in France, we got out of the train and we near on a dock that looked just like
the one back in Budapest, but of course it wasn’t. Da grabbed our arms, this
time Juti sure didn’t cry and pulled us over to the boat before the man could
push us over to the boat. I looked back and the man wasn’t even really paying
attention to us. Him and ma were talking really fast and quiet to each other so
I couldn’t hear them, and then the man gave ma a hug and she ran over to us, I
think kind of crying. The man turned around and walked away and ma looked at me
hard so I turned away too and we all got on the boat.
That was all a long time ago. I
was a really little kid, now I’m a whole lot older. I go to middle school at
this place called Central Catholic. It’s a big school in the downtown of our
city called Allentown. It’s a lot less nice than Eger some ways, like the way I
don’t know a lot of the people that there are here and the way da says the damn
negroes keep moving in. I have this one friend that da calls a damn negro but I
like him a lot. Da only says that when he drinks a lot, and that’s only
sometimes and not usually.
Me and Juti both go to the
middle school here, and Juti is some years below me of course. We take a bus to
school every day, a yellow bus that says ALLENTOWN DIOCESE SCHOOL DISTRICT on
the side in big letters, ma says diocese is what the church around here is. I
don’t like the church a whole lot, but ma really does so I go and I’m an altar
boy like she wanted me to be. I play basketball too, and that makes da happy
except when he goes to games and sees my friend Mike playing too. He says the
damn negroes are no good at real sports, but Mike’s real good at basketball,
and I think that’s a real sport. I don’t argue with him about that though
because he doesn’t really think that, he lets Mike eat dinner with us all the
time, he just drinks some when Mike comes over and goes to the garage.
I’m pretty okay at school, I
guess. Da says I have to learn my math really good cause otherwise there’s no
way I’ll get a job later. Da is an engineer and he’s really good at it. He
works at this place that makes engines for cars and stuff like that, I think
it’s boring but he sure likes it. He told me this one time that if I wasn’t
smart then I’d have no way to compete. I asked him who I was competing with and
he got really short with me and told me to go do homework or something.
America is pretty great. Since
we came here, the other people are really nice to us. Ma does all this stuff
down at the church most the time, she does work at this telephone company but
not all the time. She has lots of friends there, like the priest who comes over
all the time and her social group. Da’s got all his friends at the plant, they
don’t come over that much but he goes over to the bar with them once in a
while.
This week is graduation week
from the middle school and next year I’m going to Central Catholic High School,
and that’ll be really great. I heard all these neighborhood kids talking about
high school, they say it’s better than middle school. I’m pretty good at math
and stuff, and I play basketball which I’m also pretty good at (not great, just
okay) so I win this award at graduation. Ma’s really excited about the whole
thing and bought me something she got from the priest the last time he came
over. It’s one of those little necklaces with the Virgin Mary on them. I
thought it was kind of stupid, I mean who heard of a guy wearing necklaces
right? but I wore it anyway, it’s not that bad.
I think sometimes ma gets really
into all this church stuff. The priest really comes over all the time, and I
don’t think da likes him. Ma really shouldn’t do stuff like that, stuff that da
doesn’t like because he works really hard down at the plant and comes home
expecting his family to be behind him, well that’s what he says at least. It’s
not like they argue, they almost always are really happy. It’s just sometimes when
they fight in Hungarian and even less than that when da hits her. But he
doesn’t mean it and sometimes she deserves it.
I can’t understand them when
they talk in Hungarian, I guess I forgot how to talk it sometime. My teacher
says I don’t hardly have an accent anymore either. Ma doesn’t like that so much
and tries to get me to learn it again sometimes. Da doesn’t like that though,
and then they fight sometimes. But she knows da doesn’t like it and does it
anyway, then they argue in Hungarian, which I don’t understand of course. When
I said that sometimes she deserved it, I don’t mean that she’s bad, because
she’s great. I love ma. But like this – she knows da thinks I should be happy
with English and she tries teaching me Hungarian again anyway. What does she
think will happen? And he doesn’t even hit her hard usually.
Graduation is on Thursday,
today. I woke up really happy because of that and Juti even said
congratulations (she is usually really grumpy in the morning). Da was really
happy and he said ma had cooked me a big breakfast for congratulations. It sure
was a great day, ma even had her makeup on her eyes already even though when
she cried a little it ran and her eyes looked a little bruised, she must not
have slept so much last night. Her and da were hugging and it made me so happy
I thought I was maybe going to cry, which of course I didn’t.
We took the bus to school
because there was still a half day of school before the graduation. We got to
school and had one class before something that you wouldn’t believe happened. I
was in history class and we were talking about the World War Two because Mr.
Stevenson said it was a happy story to tell on our last day and all. He was
telling us about how the Allies (which were us, England, Russia and France I
think, that’s funny because da doesn’t like the Russians cause they’re commies
and the French cause he says he doesn’t trust them, and that’s half of our
allies) liberated all of Europe from the Nazis. I sure wish I could do
something like that, we saw this filmstrip showing soldiers marching through
the streets of some German city. Man, they looked really great in their
uniforms, so much better than the soldiers back in Hungary.
I was daydreaming a little when
Mr. Stevenson got interrupted by the loudspeaker. It said Good day students,
this is Principal Alexanders. A very serious event has occurred in the
Communist nation of Cuba, to the south of us. President Kennedy has the
situation under control, but government officials have informed me that it would
be best for you all to return to your homes immediately. The graduation will be
postponed to a later date. God bless America.
It was the Cuban missle thing of
course, but it was sure scary then. They wouldn’t tell us what happened, so I
found Juti outside the school and we both walked home as quick as we could. Ma
was crying and praying a lot so her makeup was all gone, making her eyes look
all bruised again. Da was sitting in front of the tv and drinking even though
he never drinks during the day. He looked at us and told us Come in quick kids,
I think everything will be okay. I sat down next to him and he said to me Son,
you’ve got to promise me that you’ll never let these Communist bastards take
this beautiful nation down. Ma looked over at us really hard but he ignored
her. I didn’t know what to say really and then da said Promise me son. These
goddamn bastards are going to take this nation down if we’re not careful and
you’ve got to be ready to do what your nation needs you to do. Promise me, goddammit.
Ma got up with her makeup running and said Shandor you are going to kill our
son with your death talk. Da kept ignoring her but he grabbed my arm. He
whispered Promise me and I whispered back I’d kill those bastards myself if I
had to because it seemed like the right thing to say. Ma screamed and got up
and da got up too and grabbed her arm and pushed her out of the room. He turned
and said I’m proud of you son. Juti sat down next to me and started crying.
It was a couple years after that
when we went home after school again because President Kennedy got shot by some
commie in Texas. The principal came on in the middle of history class again,
only this time is was Principal Weatherly of Central Catholic High School in
the middle of Sister Maria Denise’s history class and I was only too glad to go
because that bitch was yelling at me for not doing my homework again. I know I
shouldn’t think that about a nun but she hits me with her ruler all the time,
and this one time she even hit me with a bell when I was coming in from recess,
and that sure hurt a lot. So I’ll say some Hail Marys tonight with ma to make
up for it, but she’s a bitch.
It was the same thing when Juti
and I got home, ma was crying and praying and da was drinking and watching tv.
Ma liked President Kennedy almost as much as she liked Jesus or that priest, I
think. Da said that if he wasn’t a goddamn democrat he would have voted for him
himself, but I think da only didn’t like him because President Kennedy didn’t
hate negroes. Anyway, da still didn’t want him to get shot, especially not by
some skinny pinko. When we were all sitting there da waited til he knew ma
couldn’t hear him and leaned over to me and whispered You remember our promise?
and I said I sure as hell do, sir and he smiled.
When President Kennedy’s brother
Bobby got shot we were all pretty sad again, and when Reverend King got shot we
were pretty sad except for da who just went into the garage while we were
watching the tv. I think he had some work to do, since he’s an engineer.
It wasn’t much longer until I
got to be in the army myself. There was something going on in this place called
Viet Nam, and all I knew was that there were some of those goddamn communists
over there messing with some probably good people. I graduated Central Catholic
High School on a Thursday, and ma and da were both there wearing some really
nice clothes. Ma cried a lot and da even looked like he could cry when I got my
diploma. I smiled a lot and cheered for my friends Mike and Eddie and my girlfriend
Katie. Eddie and Katie were going to Penn State in the fall and me and Mike
would be until we decided to go to Viet Nam. We decided last night when we were
outside Mike’s house having some beers. Mike’s parents didn’t really mind, his
dad was real cool, he even drank with us once and he listened to some wild
music.
Mike and I were talking about
college and life and all that when he asked me if I had ever thought of going
to the war. Of course I had since I made that promise to my da, and I meant it,
so I told Mike that yeah, I had thought about it a lot. Mike said that he had
too, and that he was thinking about signing up to join the army and go to Viet
Nam. I told him that if I he signed up I’d sign up in a second. He asked me
about Katie and college and I told him that Katie could wait and that we could
always go to college, we should just get some other experience first. So I made
another promise, to Mike this time that we’d go join the army the day after
graduation.
It was the night of the graduation
when I told Katie, who got real mad. We were walking down 24th
Street near our houses when we started talking about college next year and I
told her that Mike and I had decided to join the army last night. She laughed
and said You’re kidding right? and I told her that I was certainly not kidding.
She pushed my arm off her shoulder and stopped walking and said You are not
going to go fight in that war Steve. It was my turn to laugh and I did and said
Why not Katie? She started crying then and we got in a big fight. I got tired
of it after a while and thought that she should shut up, but I didn’t say that
of course, or hit her. After a little while she said You’re ignoring me and if
you go enlist tomorrow you’re never going to see me again and she ran off.
I really didn’t know what to do
then so I went home. Da was sitting in front of the tv having a beer and I sat
down next to him. We just talked about nothing for a while until I said Da I’m
going to enlist tomorrow. He looked at me and actually started to cry a little
and said I’ve never been prouder of you than I am right now. We realized ma was
standing in the doorway to the kitchen when we heard the plate she was holding
drop to the floor where it shattered, making a loud noise that sounded almost
like an explosion making da jump. Ma started to cry but bad tears, not happy
tears like da. I said Katie cried too when I told her, what’s the problem with
you girls? and da said She’s happy for you Steve, aren’t you Kate? and ma said
My son is going to get himself killed millions of miles away and you want I
should be happy? Da said Don’t ruin the boy’s life, Kate and ma said My name is
Katalina and turned back into the kitchen crying. Da said to me Go to bed, son
and I said Why? He said Just go. I’m proud of you and smiled like I’ll never
forget. I went to sleep and heard ma and da talking in Hungarian and then what
sounded like some quiet explosions and then ma crying and then nothing.
I saw Katie the next morning at
the enlistment post when Mike and I showed up. She looked much better and gave
me a hug and said I hope you’re doing the right thing and gave me a kiss. I
guess she was okay with it, so I shrugged to Mike and went into the post and
six months later I was on a plane with thirty other soldiers flying to Viet
Nam.
Mike and I were sitting up front
of the plane and when we landed we were almost the last two guys off the plane.
There was a old-looking green bus ahead of us that had U.S. ARMY stenciled on
the side in white paint that looked fresh. We got on the bus and took the seats
in the back since all the other seats were empty. I watched out the window and
I saw soldiers marching and I saw some big searchlights like I remembered from
Eger when we left and I saw what I guess were the natives watching the bus as
we drove by. I stopped watching and talked to Mike about basic training then.
When you’re in the army, you say
that you’re “short” when you’re almost done with your term of service. Mike and
I were really short, so short we couldn’t even hold a long conversation was one
thing that the guys said.
To be honest, I didn’t even want
to go. I loved the army. We fought like we were men against these bastards who
crawled in the ground and I loved it anyway. Even when we had to take out a
whole village to make a point to those animals and I had to shoot down some kid
trying to escape us, I loved the goddamn army. I trusted every one of the men
in my unit with my life and they trusted me with theirs because that’s what
this crazy fucking place was like. It was crazy, really. You wouldn’t believe
the stuff out here. The twelve-year-old kids with machine guns that hid behind
rocks and their das who crawled around in these twisted mazes of tunnels
connecting every goddamn one of their tiny little villages and the ancient
shrunken grandmothers who snuck into your camp with a grenade with the pin
already taken out because their hands were so arthritic that they couldn’t even
loosen their grip on the pineapple itself let alone pull the goddamn pin. I
loved the army. The sick guys who would wear body parts like they were jewelry
and the slimy little preps from Ivy League schools who led our units because
they had rich das and that bastard who shot Mike the day before with an gun he
got of some dead Viet Cong because he didn’t think negroes belonged in his army
and got a dishonorable discharge and was probably right now fucking his
girlfriend back at home while the high school marching band was playing some
patriotic Sousa march for his homecoming parade. I loved the army and the army
hated me.
Mike was dead, and he never even
got shot by a VC. We joked that he was living a charmed life and he joked that
Charlie just didn’t know what to do with a black man if he was friend or foe.
We got letters from Eddie and Katie, but they stopped when Katie wrote me a
letter that said she didn’t think she could wait any more and that she would be
seeing Eddie from now on. Eddie never even really wrote us anyway, just one
letter but I couldn’t believe what Katie wrote. I think I cried after I read
the letter and then I burned it and forgot it ever happened.
We were outside the officer’s
club one night smoking with some of our friends from the unit when the man with
the gun walked out of the club. He was drunk, he was really drunk and he came
over to us and started babbling about something. He was standing just next to
Mike and Mike pushed the man off of his shoulder saying Brother, you smell like
you ain’t showered in months. We all laughed except the man who glared at Mike
and said You smell like a dirty nigger and I don’t hear nobody complaining. We
all got real quiet and Mike sort of hunched down like someone was going to hit
him so I said What’s your problem man? Take that back, don’t talk to my friend
like that. He looked at me and smirked, this real nasty grin like he knew who I
was and where I came from and disapproved and looked at Mike the same way. Mike
was just hunched over like that still, not saying anything and the man pulled a
gun out of his pant belt. He said I took this gun off a gook after I shot him
in the head like I’m gonna shoot you now. What am I gonna find on you boy? I
punched the man in the stomach and he doubled over, groaning, and shot back up
and hit me hard on the chin. I went down and couldn’t see for a second, then
stood back up and looked around to see that our friends were all gone and Mike
was still hunched over and I think crying. The man was just pointing the gun at
Mike. I said Look buddy, just let us get out of here, we’re so sorry and I
started babbling a little. He looked at me real hard and said Shut up then he
looked at Mike and said Say you’re sorry, boy. Mike shook his head and I said
Mike, do it, this guy’s serious. Mike turned a little and opened his mouth to
say something and the man shook his head and said Don’t speak to me less you’re
spoken to, nigger and shot Mike right in the head and I screamed and must have
blacked out.
It
was two weeks later than that and I was so short that by the time you’d
recognize me I’d be gone. I loved the army, Mike was dead and I got a letter
from da. Ma had a brain tumor and she died and he was so sorry he was such a
bad father and that he hit her and that he drank too much and that he wished he
could take it all back. I burned the letter and sat on my cot and dreamed about
the time when ma and da and me and Juti all ran away from the Soviets in
Hungary and made it to the US. I remembered making a promise to da and decided
that there was one way I was going to keep it and I was sure going to keep that
promise to my da who did so much for our family, getting us out of Hungary and
taking care of ma and us kids even after he got fired from his job and teaching
me what it was to be an American. I cried a little, and made sure I was done. I
took a grenade and squeezed it between my hands and crawled down into a hole in
the ground until I was so deep that the air smelled like poison and the roots
on the side of the path were as big as my head. I pulled out the pin and said
God Bless America and I closed my eyes and said Viszlát anya and I tried like
hell not to cry.