Leon Uris: A God In Ruins

Saturday night in the old mining town, Troublesome Mesa came to life at the Bottomless Mine Saloon. For all the hurrahs, it was peaceful enough to bring the women folk. Dan taught the band a repertoire of Irish ballads to augment the sad-ass country and western songs.

“It’s Irish time!” and Christ, Dan O’Connell moved you to tears with his “Danny Boy.” If he only had Justin Quinn singing with him, he always thought.

As trust developed between Dan and Pedro, they made a hardworking, clever, aggressive team. Dan had been a platoon sergeant, and men learned to listen to him. He did not have to be told to listen to Pedro.

For several months the families lived together. Cautious at first, there was space enough to grow easy with each other. Siobhan in particular was ecstatic about the entirely new ways of cooking, and she adored Consuelo.

Come springtime, the top priority was to build onto the caretaker’s cabin a mile toward Troublesome Creek. To add to the urgency, Consuelo was due to have a second baby.

They finished the house in a rush. In the next month or two, every man in the valley pounded nails, making a charming lodgepole log cabin. The Mexican part of the valley pitched in, as did some Mormons and Catholics and Protestants as the finish drew near. A fiesta exploded when they raised the roof! In this time and place they all seemed less threatening to each other. Dan caught the sight of some of the Mormon men nipping booze out of view of their wives. From then on Dan kept a “Mormon” bottle in his cupboard.

The Martinez family no sooner moved into their place than Consuelo went into labor and gave birth to wee Pablo. The joy of a new child was tempered by Dan and Siobhan’s situation.

Once settled, every month for three years Dan waited for her to tell him the good news that she had missed her period. It never happened.

As they grew prosperous, the O’Connells became total Coloradans Both of them flew the ranch’s twin-engine Cessna, inched out their ranch boundaries, sent money home, were magnificently generous to the church, the school, and even the Mormons. Dan was elected state assemblyman. All that was missing was a baby for their waiting nest.

Joy gave way to an ever-present sense of sorrow. Their bed grew colder and colder. When he sang “Danny Boy” these days it was maudlin, and the Bottomless’s owner had to caution Dan about getting mean. The day after an apologetic sheriff dumped Dan off, after putting him in the cooler for the night, Siobhan reached the breaking point.

Their bed held a half-full suitcase, the French one of the set he had bought her for Christmas.

“What the hell’s going on here?”

“I’m going into Denver. I’ll be at the Brown Palace.”

“What for?”

“To get a complete fertility examination.” “It’s about time,” he said. “I pray to God they are able to find out what is wrong with you and cure it.” “I want you to come with me,” she said. “Me? You mean, me?”

({\ t

Yes, you.

“I’ll have none of that voodoo black-magic quackery.”

“Very well. I intend to continue on to New York. I’ve been missing everyone sorely. I haven’t seen Father Scan in over three years.”

“Is this a threat?”

“No, I want to see them. But I think it’s time you face up to the fact that something serious is the matter. Are you scared to go to Denver with me? Is that why you’ve never suggested it before?”

Dan started for the door.

“One of these nights you are going off one of the hairpin turns, the way you’re guzzling.”

Dan opened the door.

“Sleep in the guest room,” she commanded.

He slammed the door but remained in the room.

“Are you going to a Catholic hospital?” he asked.

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Ur course. “Then maybe, well, pack a bag for me, too.”

The eminent Dr. Leary at St. Anne’s Hospital put Siobhan into a regimen to chart her ovulation. It could be months before they had an accurate reading on her.

Meanwhile, Dr. Leary got access to Dan’s Marine Corps medical records. He had had the usual Marine ailments, cat fever in boot camp, jaundice and malaria after Guadalcanal, dengue fever at Tarawa, and a blown hip at Saipan. Dan was shocked when Dr. Leary asked him for a specimen of his semen.

*

“It couldn’t possibly be! I mean, I, the cause?”

“This is routine, Mr. O’Connell.”

Dan grunted in displeasure but did as he was told.

A time later, he was called by Dr. Leary and asked to come to Denver alone.

“I’ve some difficult news,” Dr. Leary said. “It’s taken this long because I had to be certain.”

“She can’t bear children,” Dan moaned.

“Your wife is healthy as a heifer.”

“Then .. .”

“I want to check something here in your medical record. Camp Matthews, January of 1942,” the doctor said.

“Camp Matthews was the rifle range, a long drive from the base. We stayed there several weeks on weapons training.”

“Did you get sent to a quarantine tent?”

“A bunch of us got sick, and there was no regular doctor at Matthews. Yeah, I sure remember now. I had to finish boot camp with a new platoon.”

“All that jibes with what we feel was an outbreak of mumps.”

“My face was swollen, funny-like, and I had a lot of pain around my, you know, private parts. Yeah, it was hard to walk.”

“Did anyone diagnose it as mumps?”

“We’d had all this cat fever and dysentery; we may have joked about mumps, but you know, it’s a kid’s disease. I thought I had already had it as a baby.”

“The record here says, “Possibly mumps.””

“Isn’t that a kid’s disease?”

“It usually is, with no after effects. With an adult there can be.

Your semen is sterile.”

When was it ever more terrible than the day he learned he’d never sire

children? No jungle, no lagoon at Tarawa with the Japs shooting at you

and you in chest-high water holding your rifle over your head, not Red Beach on Saipan watching your battalion blown to shreds, not even Justin Quinn dying .. .

It would be a double slam against Siobhan, for Consuelo had had another perfect baby boy. Carlos was the beauty of the Martinez family.

God! What of poor, dear Siobhan! How crude I’ve been not realizing that she has suffered even greater than I. He talked it over with a priest in Denver before returning to Troublesome Mesa.

“Forget about God for the moment,” the priest said. “What did they do during your worst moments in the Corps?”

“I always told my lads, when you’re scared shitless, you’re in such pain that death would be a pleasure, or no matter the catastrophe, the only thing you can do is “Be a Marine.””

“Then be a Marine for that woman of yours.”

Dan found Siobhan at the Martinez house. She was in the rocking chair, yakking with Consuelo, who was putting up a dinner for the O’Connells as well as her own family.

He looked in, but they did not see him. “Be a Marine,” he told himself.

Siobhan sat in the chair Consuelo used for nursing. She had handed little Carlos to Siobhan to hold while she filled the oven. Siobhan put the child’s head on her breast with a longing not to be realized. Then she saw Dan.

Dan’s hand was never so firm, so filled with meaning, as it grasped her shoulder. “It will be all right, darling,” he said.

WASHINGTON, D.C.” 2008

Yes, it’s your president, Thornton Tomtree. A year ago I was considered unbeatable for a second term, but as George Bush and James Earl Carter learned, there is a fickle bent to our voters.

At this moment we stand a week before the 2008 election. A bizarre series of events has damaged my candidacy. Lord, is there a man more dismissed than a one-term president?