Camouflage

There are days in March when the air is very clear and the sky is very blue, when the clouds are very small and very white and scattered very far apart by a mysterious magician who manages to hold them up in the sky by no visible means of support...

On such a clear, bright day it seems too warm to wear a sweater and too cool to go without one. On such a day it seems so natural for even adults to run for no reason at all, or to skip a few steps. On such a day the bare limbs of trees, though vestiges of winter, intermingle with the dark green of scattered evergreens to become the unnatural color patterns of army fatigues.

Peter wondered what color uniforms the Roman soldiers had worn. A picture of Julius Caesar and Brutus was the only picture of ancient Romans he could remember ever seeing, but he believed that purple and white had been reserved for statesmen, aristocrats and gods. Maybe Roman soldiers had worn the colors of stones, to camouflage with the Coliseum and the Parthenon. The effort of trying to picture Roman soldiers in tunics of army green broke the spell, and snapped Peter's thoughts back to the present.

He looked at his mother, then further down the row of impeccably groomed gray heads. One of those heads nodded forward, ever so slightly, an act excused since its owner was known to have heart problems. All the other heads stood at attention, eyes forward. Peter looked up at the object of their gaze, his eyes returning to where duty would have had them all along. The sermon had moved to summation. The pitch and speed of delivery indicated that it the message was almost over. What had made him ruminate on Roman soldier attire? He'd have to look the referenced scriptures up if he wanted to remember.

The hymn sung, the benediction over, the postlude playing, the members moved as a unit filing out the doors into the crisp air. Some greeted Peter, asking as always as to his health, his mother's health. Sudden changes in the health of any church member, particularly when that change was for the worse, were unfailingly announced from the pulpit. Peter could not understand why anyone who saw the him and his mother together here week after week, and often in between as well, would need to inquire. Peter felt that nibble in his gut again, the one he often felt, the unpleasant nibble that asked him if these people were not being vicious in inquiring about his health. The feeling was not unrelated to the nibble that reminded him that he would never be awarded decorations for bravery or medals for honor. Peter, born and raised to be part of this well-groomed circle of pleasantness, felt out of place before the rational part of his brain took back over, reassuring him that every twenty-three year old man feels that he doesn't quite measure up to the greatness of other men, even other relatives.

Peter smiled, spoke pleasantly, shook hands, proffered his arm to his mother repeatedly as she took it then dropped it again for her own chances to smile, speak pleasantly, shake hands. In the car they didn't speak except to confirm their respective schedules for the afternoon. Even this was an unnecessary expenditure of words. They both knew that Peter would go to the nursing home to see his grandfather, the general, after he dropped Evelyn home for her lunch followed by her nap. Both knew that Evelyn would telephone her sister a little after five, and among other predictable subjects of conversation the two sisters would share regrets that Peter, the only male born in two generations, never seemed motivated to reach beyond his steady routines, never seemed destined to greatness.

"Hurry, son, but drive carefully. Lunch will have already been served if you waste any time." Regrets are often held dear, and Evelyn could not help prodding her son to be careful, and steady.

Evelyn closed the car door and walked herself to the house as Peter watched. Twice she turned, squinting in the sunshine, and waved as if to hurry him on, though she knew he would not go until he saw her go inside.

An old man watch the double arched opening that served as the doorway. He was irritated, irritated not only at this gleaming solarium made so much more gleaming by the clear March sunshine that insisted on bouncing through the room's too many windows. Across the solarium, a room which served as recreation room, television theater, bingo parlor and cafeteria to some twenty-five elderly people; across this expanse of bright yellow and white, colors intended to yield happiness in the beholder; across this wide room that gleamed clean while smelling slightly less then clean; across a tray on which a drumstick gleamed in its own grease and a pat of butter gleamed on white mashed potatoes and peas gleamed for no apparent reason at all; across it all the old man watched, and was irritated.

Peter appeared through the arches, crossed the big room in fewer steps then most people needed because his long legs were modeled on his grandfather's. In some things Peter and his grandfather were perfectly attuned. Peter removed the tray of gleaming nursing home food and presented a meal-in-a-bag purchased at a drive-through. Peter did have a few routines of which his mother was not aware.

Today, though, something was different. Peter felt it, rather then saw it, as he laid a napkin to serve as a placemat for his grandfather's food. The old man, until recently as tall and strong as Peter, had become tiny in less then a week. Peter, well trained in hiding behind pleasantness, began relating the events of the week and removed a roast beef sandwich from the bag. He added the contraband salt and barbeque sauce, using the top bun to smear the flavor with the same swirling motion his grandfather had always used. Peter removed a straw from its wrapping and punched the top of the milkshake with it, then set that in front of the old man, to the side of the roast beef.

This was not their routine, however, Peter doing the things his grandfather so recently had done for himself. Peter's pretending that nothing was different did not make it so. The silence that fell between them as they both stared at the roast beef didn't seem strained though. The silence seemed as inevitable, as did the tear that rolled very slowly down his grandfather's cheek.

The two men had made such different choices in their lives. Maybe there is a level understanding at some genetic link, or maybe it is just that if a young man spends enough time over enough years with an older man, he can begin to understand things his own life could not have taught him.

Peter helped his grandfather into the car. His steady, routine self could not help feeling real fear about the reaction of the nursing home staff when they realized his grandfather was gone. Peter drove carefully at first, then, as they left the town line, faster. They stopped half an hour later for gas, and Peter bought them each a bottled drink.

Another half hour of driving had passed before the silence between them was broken. His grandfather told him to turn right at the next road. Some miles down that road Peter made another turn, and another, and still another as his grandfather directed him first one way and then another through a bewildering set of smaller and smaller roads.

They could go no further. Peter helped the old man out of the car. They sat together at the end of the road, on a dock over a deserted little lake.

In March the sun has already begun its descent by mid-afternoon. Peter wondered if the old man was cold. He look so fragile. It gave Peter a sense of dreaming, of this not being real. His grandfather could not be fragile.

Peter felt fragile. "Grampa, please tell me again about the war." Peter hated those stories, the stories that made the nibble in his gut tell him he could never live up to the legacy of his genetic code. Right now, though, he would feel safer if the old man would tell them again, one more time.

"Help me up, son." There would be no more stories of war. The old man leaned against a large rock and watched the clear blue skies turn slightly darker shades of blue.

Peter cried, or, rather, he thought he should. Peter carried the shell of a truly brave man to the car and fastened the seat belt around the thin body. All the way home Peter wondered were Roman soldiers and grandfathers got their courage.