Life in Chicago is good. Not lonely, never lonely. I am in constant motion, but it’s tough to be a woman in a man’s world, even when you’re working for change.
The next man who asks me to make coffee for the group or type up a flyer—because I know how—is going to get his ass kicked.
Ethel, on the other hand, tells me that all her clothes now smell like baby puke and she can’t remember what sleep is like.
We all have our challenges, I guess.
I’m going with the VVAW to the Republican National Convention in a few weeks. I hope there’s no violence, but good God, enough of this damn war.
Ok, I’m pouring myself a drink. The phone better ring the second you get this letter.
Stay cool, sister
Luv ya
B
* * *
A hot morning in the third week of August. Sun shining through a dirty windshield, “Nights in White Satin” blaring through the speakers of Henry’s Chevy Nova.
“I’m not sure about this,” Frankie said, staring at the endless line of cars and trucks and motorcycles in front of them, seeing more in the rearview mirror.
Vietnam veterans, mostly, but not all.
They’d begun this caravan three days ago in Southern California, as one of about twenty cars, but more vehicles had joined the motorcade in a steady stream: VW buses with painted slogans and curtained windows, battered old trucks, souped-up Camaros, motorcycles with military flags flapping from the tail bars.
Now over a hundred vehicles strong, the group drove into Miami, honking their horns and flashing their lights, men leaning out of open windows to wave at one another.
Henry turned down the music. “Barb asked us to do this.”
“Well. She asked me to do it. I thought I said no.” Frankie crossed her arms, feeling mulish but trying to hide it. After a month and a half with him, she remained on her guard around Henry, concealed her irrational mood swings and inexplicable anger as much as she could. Otherwise, he’d ask probing questions that she refused to answer. He had no idea she still sometimes cried in the shower for no reason.
In a park, they found thousands of protesters already gathered—not just vets. Every conceivable protest group was here: hippies, college kids, feminists. The VVAW group followed the lead car to an unoccupied corner of the camp, where they set up their own domain, which was protected by veterans with walkie-talkies, who patrolled the perimeter. Frankie and Henry pitched a tent by their parked car.
By nightfall, the VVAW camp was a full-fledged party, where everyone was welcome—wives, girlfriends, supporters, former nurses, and Red Cross workers.
The leader seemed to be a man in a wheelchair—Ron Kovic, who’d been paralyzed from the chest down in ’Nam—and he called the upcoming march their “last patrol.”
In the morning, Barb showed up, stood in the messy camp, and yelled, “Frankie McGrath, where are you?”
Frankie saw her best friend and ran for her, almost knocking her over with the exuberance of her hug.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” Barb said. “Where is Henry? He promised to get you here, and here you are. He must be a magician.”
“He is,” Frankie admitted reluctantly.
Back at the pup tent, Henry was making coffee over an open flame. Frankie saw that he’d brought three coffee cups, and at that a feeling that was almost like love, at least a watery version of it, opened up in her.
He stood, smiling with the ease of a man who had a clear conscience. “Hey, Barb. Our girl has missed you.”
Barb smiled, looked him up and down. “I’ve met you somewhere.”
“Washington, D.C. At the bar in the—”
“Hay Adams,” Barb said. “A fellow revolutionary.”
“Time to go!” someone yelled out over a bullhorn. “Remember: Silence. We want those bastards to know we think there’s nothing left to say.”
The three of them moved forward, holding hands, merging into the crowd in the park. Leading the march were wounded veterans: men in wheelchairs, on crutches, blind men being led by brothers who could see.
They walked up Collins Avenue in silence, more than a thousand of them. Spectators lined the streets, witnessing the march, taking pictures.
Frankie felt Henry let go of her hand.
She turned.
“This is a veterans’ march. I don’t belong here, babe,” he said quietly. “You do. You need this.”
“So, you—”
“Just go, Frankie. Be with your best friend. I’ll be at the car when you’re done.”
Frankie had no choice but to let him go and keep moving with the crowd, her fellow veterans, holding on to Barb’s hand, toward the convention center, where the Republican National Convention was under way.
Frankie felt the power of it, their silence, as she had become silent about this war. They were the men and women who’d been there, and with their silence, they said, Enough.
Frankie was surprised at the pride she felt in being here, in marching, in seeing the fists raised but the voices still, the thud-thud-thud of their feet on the pavement, some, like Barb, in combat boots.
They stopped in front of the hall; the wheelchairs stilled.
Riot police stood in a straight line, blocking their entrance.
Within the marchers, platoon leaders gave hand-signal commands; the veterans fanned out, quietly blocked three lanes of traffic.
Someone—Ron Kovic, Frankie thought—yelled through a bullhorn: “We want to come inside.”
They waited. Silent. Shoulder to shoulder.
Frankie saw photographers snapping pictures and a TV camera rolling film. National Guard helicopters whirred overhead.
The tension rose. Frankie felt a sense of danger; she thought all of them did. But surely the riot police wouldn’t be set on military veterans?
“You might have taken our bodies, but you have not taken our minds!” someone yelled.
A congressman came out at last, to the cheers of the spectators.
Frankie pressed up onto her tiptoes, trying to see the front of the line.
The congressman escorted three vets in wheelchairs into the convention center.
The marchers couldn’t get into the building without risking their lives and creating exactly the kind of scene they didn’t want.
Frankie didn’t know how long they stood there, packed in, blocking off traffic, but in time, the march that had begun in determination ended with more than a thousand vets walking back to the park, amid the cheers—and jeers—of the crowd, watching from the sidewalks.
“They won’t hear us,” Barb said. “Not if we scream, not if we’re silent. They want to forget about us.”
“I don’t know,” Frankie said. “Look at the troop withdrawals. Maybe something is working.”
They kept walking.
“So, he’s cool,” Barb said. “Henry.”
“Yeah.”
“Why would you keep him secret? I tell you about every guy I even think about kissing.”
“I have a flowchart of it, in fact.”
Barb hip-bumped her. “Seriously.”
“He’s just … fun.”
“Girl, you are hardly the princess of fun.”
“He’s helping with that.”
“Do you love him?”
“I don’t want that anymore. I don’t think I can survive it again.”
“Not all love goes bad.”
“Uh-huh. This explains why you’re married with kids.”
“I don’t want that life.” Barb put an arm around Frankie. “I am pretty sure he loves you.”
“Why?”
“Who drives a woman cross-country to make sure she marches in a protest and then says he doesn’t belong? Kind of a kick-ass move, in my book.”
“He’s thirty-eight. Already been married.”
“That’s your answer to why not?”
Frankie hated to tell Barb the truth, but she knew her friend would keep digging until she did. “You’re a damn wolverine, you know,” she said, sighing. Quietly, she said, “Rye.”
“Wouldn’t he want you to be happy?”
“Yeah, sure.” People said that all the time. All it did was make Frankie’s loneliness worse. “That’s what I’m doing,” she said. “This is me happy.”
* * *