I told him that the knife was his—that I had come all this way to return it.
He nodded once and said he had given me the knife when Jessica was so kind to him, but would I please bring it to dinner that evening, so his son might at least see it.
I agreed, thinking I would give it to his son when I met him, because that was the right thing to do. We stood and shook hands over his desk.
It was funny—in my memory, for decades, I’d thought of Fire Bear towering over me, but he was only an inch taller than yours truly, so just about six feet tall.
I didn’t know what else to say, so I picked up the knife and said I would bring it that evening. He said his secretary would provide directions to his home and show us out, which she did.
In the limo I told Frank everything that I had learned. Frank agreed that giving the knife to Fire Bear’s son was the noble thing to do. We immediately went in search of a gay florist so that we could bring Fire Bear’s wife a proper flower arrangement, and we also shopped for high-end wine and Scotch.
Time passed strangely that day, both quickly and slowly. The part of me that just wanted to give the knife to Fire Bear’s son and then go home felt like the day went on forever. But another part of me was afraid of facing Fire Bear’s family, wondering if they knew how cruel I had been to him during the war, and that part felt like time was flying by.
Soon enough we were back in the limousine, headed to Fire Bear’s place, which was outside the city, closer to the mountains. His house was more like a log-cabin castle that sat upon a few hundred acres.
When Frank and I went inside, we were surprised to find Fire Bear’s entire family there—his wife, three daughters, son, their spouses, and ten or so grandchildren, ages infant to maybe seventeen. I don’t remember all of the names, and I wouldn’t list them here now anyway. But we were introduced all around, and Fire Bear—who wore jeans, cowboy boots, and a flannel shirt now—kept saying I was his “friend” from the Vietnam War. That’s when I realized that he had never told the truth about me to his family—or the truth about himself.
All the kissing and handshaking made me feel so welcome, I was embarrassed. None of them asked why I was in full camouflage, either, although I did show off my scar, and we talked about my surgery at length.
Scanning Fire Bear’s children and grandchildren, I saw that he was lucky—there were no Agent Orange birth defects. He’d been exposed at least as much as I had. And he hadn’t gotten the cancer, either. Maybe God was trying to even things out a bit, being that he was born Indian, and already had enough hardship to manage.
Dinner was delicious. We all sat around a twenty-foot-long table that Fire Bear and his son had made by hand, and ate steaks cut from cows that Fire Bear’s family had raised and slaughtered themselves. All of it was organic and grass-fed, and I wished Hank could have been there, because there was no way in hell he would have had the balls to tell a real live American Indian that eating the cows he’d raised himself was not heart-healthy.
Frank carried the conversation, asking them all what they did for a living and how they liked living in the area and all of those sorts of questions. Our wine and Scotch and flowers were a big hit, and it was nice to be around Fire Bear’s family, all of whom seemed to be good Americans.
After some apple pie, which Fire Bear had to explain was a joke that his family had come up with, serving apple pie to the white guests—not a very funny joke, unfortunately—Fire Bear asked if his son could see the knife I stole decades ago, only he didn’t say I stole it.
I immediately produced the knife and handed it to his son, who was about Hank’s age, maybe a few years younger, but already had three sons of his own.
Fire Bear’s son looked over the knife and announced that he would like to have it. Before I could tell him that it was already his, he asked if he might trade for the knife. A hush fell over the room. It began to feel like everyone was about to sing happy birthday to someone, or maybe like the moment you let your grandchildren see all the presents under the tree on Christmas morning. I could tell that these Indians had a surprise for me, but at first I had no idea what it could be.
“Would you consider trading me for this knife?” Fire Bear’s son said again, only now he was smiling ear to ear, showing off his remarkably white teeth.
It was obvious that we were doing a bit of theater here, and I had been to enough musicals to know when the happy ending was about to occur. The audience can always feel these things, and I was obviously the audience for this little almost-all-Indian play—almost, because I now understood that Frank was performing too, definitely in cahoots with these remarkably nice people.
Suddenly I couldn’t speak. I was hoping that I knew what Fire Bear’s son was going to offer me, yet I didn’t want to dare dream it was possible. Frank put his arm around me and squeezed me hard, which is when I realized that a big tear was rolling down my face. I wiped it away, and then Fire Bear’s son stood and said, “Let’s go to the den.” Almost two dozen Indians stood in unison, and we all walked through a few rooms to the other end of the gigantic log-cabin mansion.
There it was, hanging on the wall over the fireplace.
It was me in full camouflage and naked baby Hank, his umbilical cord not yet cut but circling us to form a protective bubble of sorts, keeping the napalm and tigers and little yellow men and Agent Orange at bay.
I looked at Fire Bear and said, “How?” which Hank probably would suggest was an insensitive thing to say to an Indian, but I didn’t mean it that way. I just wanted to know how one of Jessica’s paintings had survived. Plus, I couldn’t get any other words out. I was shaking like an FNG in a firefight.
Fire Bear told me that my wife had given him the painting when he “visited” my home after the war. They had wrapped it in old sheets and trash bags to protect it as it rode in the back of his pickup across the country, and he’d kept it because Jessica’s kindness on that day was the spark he needed to turn his life around. And what I did for Hank, saving him, was enough for Fire Bear to let go of his own anger. Whenever he got to feeling angry about what the US government made him do in the Vietnam War, he would simply look at Jessica’s painting, think about all that was associated with it, and that would help.
Fire Bear’s son carefully took The Reason You’re Alive off the wall, and this is when I noticed that they had prepared a special box to protect the painting as it traveled back to the Philadelphia area with us. Six or seven of them helped to wrap Jessica’s masterpiece and get it all padded and protected in the box, and then Fire Bear’s son said, “So do we have a deal?”
I nodded, and we shook hands. Fire Bear said, “I understand your son will appreciate having this painting?”