Marian Palaia - Given World

“Yesterday.”

“For how long?”

“Maybe fifteen minutes.”

“It was out all day in the Mission.”

I didn’t know what he meant. I thought missions were a kind of church, like the ones they built in Montana and sent the Indian kids to, to change their ways and their religion; make them good, short-haired Catholics. And basketball players. I remembered Darrell telling me that, about the basketball teams the Jesuits commissioned of the boys they spirited away from their families, how good some of them were, and how the white players and their coaches always accused them of cheating. But sometimes they’d get a title anyway, because there was just no question; scores were too lopsided even with the bad calls.

Darrell was his team’s point guard in high school. Since we met after he’d already graduated, I never saw him play in an actual game, but I was sure he’d been a star. Sometimes we’d messed around on the court at my school, where he’d found and claimed me that rainy afternoon, and the way he moved and spun and pivoted and shot made me dizzy, made my heart hurt remembering. He was so graceful, so tall, so good .

I wondered if our son would grow up to play basketball, but didn’t think it was possible, since he’d been born so early and maybe wouldn’t grow like a normal kid. But maybe it didn’t work that way, and he’d catch up, get big, like his father. Wherever he was now. Wherever they both were. If they both were. But I was not thinking about them, or where they were.

A jungle, however imaginary and probably wrong, appeared; I bit my lip, hard — a reminder to stay in the present. Vietnam was supposed to be far away — a lifetime away — someone’s life, at any rate. Montana too. It did not occur to me that I might be too young to be thinking in terms of lifetimes.

Now that we were in the light, I could see Primo was blind in his right eye. It had that milky look, bluish white, like frozen pond water in winter. There was some scar tissue around it, and trailing off across the top of his cheek. His ear was a little mangled too.

I touched my own cheek, near the corner of my eye. “What happened?”

“ ’Nam,” he said.

“What?”

“ ’Nam. Vietnam.”

Damn. “Oh.” I felt sick. Like I had conjured up the place with my stupid daydreaming. I put my fork down next to my plate and sipped some orange juice. I should have been ready, though. It should have been obvious. “How?”

“White phosphorus. Our guys accidentally threw some too close, and my face got in the way.”

“What’s white phosphorous?”

“It’s a chemical thing. It lights shit up. Mostly it burns. Sets a village or the woods or a rice paddy on fire and kills people. You can’t put it out with water. It’s nasty.” He turned toward the window, and the fog. “Like that, at first,” he said, pointing with his chin. “Only brighter. They called it Willy Peter, like it was supposed to be your pal or something. It wasn’t mine, except I got to come home early, so maybe in a way it was.” He lit a cigarette, still looking away. “Fucked up pal, though.”

He picked up his coffee cup and set it back down again without drinking from it.

I said, “Sounds like napalm.” Mick had told me about it, in one of his letters. He thought whoever invented it was sick in the head.

“More or less,” Primo said. “Part of the SOP, actually. Of torching human beings.”

“SOP?”

“Standard operating procedure. It was wicked messed up.”

“That’s what my brother says.” I looked down at my pancakes, afraid Primo could see that the present tense was a big, fat lie.

“Well, he’s right. I guess he was there. Who with?”

“Twenty-Fifth Infantry. Củ Chi. They made him a tunnel guy.”

“A rat, you mean. Little.” Compared to Primo, I figured, a lot of them would have qualified as little. But Mick really was. He never got much taller than I did: like five foot six and a bit. Five eight, maybe, in his boots. And he was skinny, wiry.

“I guess so,” I said. “A rat.” It was hard for me to think of Mick as a rat, even though he’d seemed kind of proud of it. He was more canine than rodent. But the tunnel dogs were real dogs. German shepherds. Mick had one for a while, but it died.

“Can we talk about something else?” I was mashing what was left of my breakfast with my fork. I wondered if Primo could feel how much I wanted to bolt, or blow, or just melt through the Naugahyde seat and the floor, seep down the cliff, dissolve into the sea or float off to Asia.

He said, “Sure. How about the sun? How about I take you to see it in person?” He knew. I could hear him knowing.

I pushed the heels of my hands into my eyes for a few seconds. “I think,” I said, “that would be really nice.” I looked outside, where it was only now getting light enough to see the water. The gulls quarreled over fish and the fog stayed, utterly still and seemingly permanent.

When we got back to the truck, Primo pulled a microphone from its holder on a radio mounted to the dash. He pushed a button on the side and said, “Eighteen-fifty to dispatch.”

After a minute, a female voice came back through the speaker. “Nothing for you, Primo. Spot and clear?”

“Spot time five fifteen. So far nothing down or open. Not clear yet.”

“Ten-four, eighteen-fifty.”

“Ten-four.” He put the microphone back and the truck in drive. “Looking good, so hold on, kiddo. We’re going for a ride.”

“Okay.” I sat down on the bundle of papers and grabbed onto the edge of the grate, not sure what to expect but relieved to be moving in a definite direction with an actual purpose: to see the sun. I’d believe it when I had to put my blue sunglasses on.

Primo detoured briefly to deliver a dozen or so newspapers on one dead-end block just off Geary. He kept the doors of the truck open, and swapping hands every so often pitched papers out both sides with amazing accuracy, landing them on steps, under gates, and one on an upstairs fire escape. I was amazed at how effortless he made it look. I wanted to be able to do that. He said he’d teach me. If I stuck around.

As we headed east, the fog began to dissipate; by Divisadero it was completely gone. The Mission was wide awake, brilliant, and uncontained. It was about six when we hit Twenty-Fourth Street, where shopkeepers were sweeping and hosing down the sidewalks, filling great wooden vegetable bins, setting out five-gallon plastic buckets full of flowers. I could smell the flowers from the truck, and a bunch of other things I couldn’t identify but which obviously were things to eat. I was still full from breakfast, but my mouth watered anyway.

Primo took me to a Mexican grocery store, where I bought tortillas, cheese, oranges, bananas and bread. A whole grocery bag full, for three dollars. The tortillas were so fresh the plastic package was fogged up, steamy. I held it to my face to feel the damp warmth on my skin. I stopped again in front of the vegetable bin as we were leaving, dazzled by the array of chilies — the sheer number of colors and shapes — but I didn’t buy any because I was a little afraid of them. Primo showed me, for future reference, which ones were the hottest: tiny yellow ones he said would burn like white phosphorous.

“You could use these as a weapon,” he said, his gravelly laugh turning a few heads. I wondered how he could joke like that, but still it seemed a perfectly natural thing for him to say.

He appeared to know everyone on the block, or to be known by everyone, and most of them called him Primo. A few, like he’d said, called him T.C. or Tony. When I asked if he lived nearby, he pointed to a set of windows above one of the shops across the street. “ Mi casa, ” he said. I could see white lace curtains, tied back with pieces of red ribbon. I figured that was a woman’s touch and asked if his wife was home.