That statement made me mad at first, because I am a Catholic. But it also made me think. How do we really know that we didn’t just make up God? What proof do we really have of God’s existence? And if God doesn’t exist, is there really any reason to be hopeful at all?
I asked Father Chee these questions a few weeks ago, and he said this is what faith is all about—not knowing for sure. I would sure say that was a BS answer had it not come from FC, because my Man of God sorta has something cool going on. He seems enlightened, and not just because he’s Asian. I believe in FC (and God) so I kept and keep holding on to hope for some reason, even though it does get harder and harder the higher you climb toward life’s summit—like Joan of Old and Nietzsche both say. True? True.
All these thoughts have me down—so I really don’t feel like cooking dinner for Donna and Ricky. I can’t even think up one recipe anyway.
Maybe I should skip dinner and go to Private Jackson’s house?
His pad is on the edge of town close to the ghetto. It’s where I go whenever I am feeling blue.
CHAPTER 10
I met Private Jackson last year when my history teacher assigned us real live local veterans. We were supposed to write these dudes on Veterans Day for homework points. We were instructed to echo this form letter that Mr. Bonds had typed up and handed out. Basically, he wanted us to copy the words in our own handwriting, so it would seem like we thought up the carefully constructed sentiment. It was all about how we were proud to be Americans and were thankful for whatever our fill-in-the-blank veteran had done in whatever fill-in-the-blank war in which they had fought, and that while we would never understand what they endured for our country, we appreciated the benefits of American citizenship—what they fought to protect.
So I was assigned Private Paul Jackson and was told he fought in Vietnam. I copied my letter and filled in the blanks, but it made me feel sorta funny. I mean, how did I even know he did something good in the war? Maybe he was a crappy soldier who did more harm than good, and here I was thanking him for doing it. How would I even know? I felt sorta mad about this when I was made to write the letter, but truthfully, I forgot all about it after it was written, turned in, and sent—especially since most of the kids in my class got kick-ass thankful response letters, and I didn’t get jack crap.
About a month later, after the holidays, Mr. Bonds had some of the Vietnam veterans we had written come talk to our classes. Private Jackson didn’t come, but the four dudes who did told us some pretty wild stories that made most of us students cry, because the vets talked about their friends being killed in horrible ways and the anti-war hippie people spitting on our soldiers when they came home to the US of A and how much every Vietnam veteran hates Jane Fonda, who is an old-lady actress and is also known as Hanoi Jane because she posed with the enemy for pictures during the war, which is so whack. Word. When I saw these four dad-aged men fighting back tears—in front of a bunch of teenagers—still suffering from a war that happened so many years ago, I realized that our letters were pretty damn important to them, and I started to think a lot about Private Jackson and why he never wrote me back.
So I wrote him another letter, telling him about the men who had come to speak with our classes, asking him if he knew these dudes, only I did not call them dudes in the letter. And then I told him all sorts of stuff about my life: how my dad took off on me before I could even speak, and how I sometimes get lonely, but I am very loyal and would make a good pen pal if he were interested in writing someone who appreciated the sacrifices he made for our country back in ’Nam, but understood if he didn’t want to talk about all of that—I just wanted him to know that Americans like me welcome him home now, and shame on anyone who made him feel otherwise, back in the day. The letter was very formal and heartfelt, but it was also pretty kick-ass too.