CHAPTER
51
“WHAT ARE YOU doing here, XO?”
Puller stood at attention as he gazed down at the man.
“Reporting in, sir,” he said.
His father sat in a chair next to his bed. He was wearing pajama bottoms, a white T-shirt, and a pale blue cotton robe cinched at the waist. He had socks and slippers on his long, narrow feet. He had once been over six-three, but gravity and infirmity had sliced two inches off him. Now when he stood he no longer towered over most people, not that he stood that often anymore. The fact was, his father almost never left his room at the VA hospital. His hair was nearly gone. What was left was cottony white, like Q-tips stitched together, and nearly encircled his head, just nicking his ears.
“At ease,” said Puller Sr.
Puller relaxed but remained standing.
“How was the trip to Hong Kong, sir?” he asked.
Puller hated playing this fictional game, but the doctors said it was better that way. While Puller didn’t put much creed in the shrinks, he had deferred to their expertise, but his patience was growing thin.
“Transport plane blew a tire on takeoff. Never made it. Almost ended up in the drink.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“Not half as sorry as I was, XO. Needed some R and R.”
“Yes, sir.”
As his father looked at him, the first thing Puller noted was his eyes. It was also part of Army lore that Puller Sr. could kill you with a look that would induce such a deep sense of shame at your having failed him that you would just curl up and die. It wasn’t true, of course. But Puller had talked to many men who had served with his father, and every one of them had been on the receiving end of such a look. And every one of them said they would remember it to their final day on earth.
But now the eyes were just pupils in the head. Not lifeless, but no longer full of life. They were blue, but hollow, flattened. Puller looked around the confines of the small, featureless room, just like hundreds of others here, and concluded that in many important ways his father was already dead.
“Any orders, sir?” he asked.
His father didn’t answer right away, and Puller often didn’t receive any answer to this question when he came to visit. When the response did come, it surprised him.
“It’s over, XO.”
“What, sir?”
“Over. Done. Dead and done.”
Puller eased forward a half step. “Not following, sir.”
His father had hung his head, but now he turned to look at his son. The eyes flashed like blue ice thrown at the sun. “Scuttlebutt.”
“Scuttlebutt?’
“You have to pay attention to it. It’s shit, but they get you in the end.”
Puller now wondered if paranoia had been added to his father’s list of issues. Maybe it had always been there.
“Who gets you, General?”
His father waved a careless hand around the room as though “they” were right there. “The people who count. The bastards who call the shots in this man’s army.”
“I don’t think anyone is out to get you, sir.” Puller was now wishing he had not come to visit today.
“Of course they are, XO.”
“But why, sir? You’re a three-star.”
Puller caught himself too late. His father had retired a three-star, a lieutenant general. That would have been a career achievement worthy of virtually any person who ever wore the uniform. But Puller Sr. had belonged to that rare percentile who expected to reach the very top of the mountain with everything they did.
It was well known in the Army that Puller Sr. should have gotten that fourth star. The man also should have received something even more coveted: the Medal of Honor. He had earned it on the battlefield in Vietnam; there was no question about that. But in the Army it wasn’t just about valor in the field, it was about politics far away from battle. And the fact was, Puller Sr. had ticked off many important people who had a great say in his career path. Thus the fourth star and the Medal of Honor would never be his. And while his career kept advancing after that snub, it didn’t do so at quite the same trajectory. When the trajectory flattened, the highest targeted goals were no longer achievable. You would miss them. He had missed them. He did have three stars and every medal other than the one he had wanted above all others.
“It’s because of him,” snapped his father.
“Who?”
“Him!”
“I don’t know who you mean.”
“Major Robert J. Puller, United States Air Force. DD. Convicted at court-martial of treason. Imprisoned for life at USDB. They blame me for what that bastard did.” His father paused, drew an angry breath, and added, “Scuttlebutt. The sons of bitches.”
Puller’s face collapsed in disappointment. His brother had been convicted and imprisoned long after their father had retired. And yet he was blaming his son and Puller’s brother for his career problems. On the field Puller Sr. had never let the buck of responsibility pass him by. He took the credit and the blame. Off the field, though, it had been another matter. His father had been a finger pointer. He laid blame on the most unlikely of places. He could be petty and vindictive and callous and unfair, brutal and unyielding. These personality traits could also be applied to his description as a father.
Normally, Puller would say something before leaving. He would play out the fiction as the shrinks had requested. As he started for the door, his father said, “Where are you going, XO?”
Puller didn’t answer.
“XO!” yelled his father. “You have not been dismissed.”
Puller kept walking.
He passed down the hall of the VA hospital that was filled with old, sick, and dying soldiers who had given their all so that the rest of the country could live in peace and prosperity. He could hear his father screaming until he was three hundred feet away. There had never been anything wrong with the old man’s lungs.
When he hit the exit, he never looked back.
Family time was over.
The Army and Navy Club was next.
He was back on the hunt.
Where he really belonged.