The Fickle Finger

Billy Winston laid on his bed staring at the ceiling as he listened to the early morning sounds his mother made in the kitchen downstairs. His bedside clock indicated 7:42 and he thought about getting up but he knew he needed sleep so he opted not to move at all. But his thoughts would not let him sleep. He tried to clear his mind but there were too many reminders in his old bedroom. There was the football helmet on his bureau, the photographs of his triumphs on the high school football field, and the most painful reminder, a framed letter of admission to Notre Dame University. It was the letter that had brought him his greatest joy as a teenager; Now it seemed to mock him for his failure. Four years earlier, it was his first real step forward in the fulfillment of his lifelong dream to become a quarterback for Notre Dame. It was okay that he wound up as second string. He always felt that one day his chance to lead the team would come. And it did quite a few times but only when it was the fourth quarter, the team was well ahead and there was little danger of losing the game. He had performed well when it didn't mean very much. Now his last football season was over and he was about to graduate with academic honors. His chance to realize his dream of glory on the Notre Dame football field was gone forever and he knew he would not be remembered in the annals of college football. It would not have been so bad had his chance for real glory not presented itself. Then it would have been just bad luck. But the chance had presented itself and he blew it.

Billy wasn't sure what he was going to do after graduation next week. Every time he pondered his future, he thought of his friend and team mate, Jason Burke, who had accomplished what Billy had only dreamed of. He was graduating with Billy and going on to play pro ball for Green Bay. Billy felt the envy and bitterness welling up inside him as he thought about how his future was now so radically digressing from his friend's. He knew he had to suppress such feelings. He had to get out of his old room and find some distraction.

Downstairs, Billy's mother sat at the kitchen table with her father-in-law eating breakfast. Billy's mother greeted him with a smile as he entered the kitchen and sat down next to his grandfather. She noticed the circles under her son's eyes.

She said, "Good morning, Billy."

"Morning," he replied.

"You look tired. Did you get enough sleep?" she asked.

His grandfather looked more closely at Billy. "What's the matter, son? Couldn't sleep?"

"Nah, I'm okay." Billy replied as he poured some coffee for himself.

"Would you like some eggs or pancakes, Hon?" his mother asked.

"No thanks. Just some coffee," Billy replied.

Grandpa regarded Billy for another moment and then stood up to leave the kitchen.

"Ellie, the bacon was done just right this morning," Grandpa said to his daughter-in-law.

Ellie smiled. "Thanks Grandpa. We aim to please."

"Well, I'm going to read my paper in the den." Grandpa announced as he left the room.

Ellie offered to pour more coffee into Billy's cup but he declined by putting his hand over it.

"Is Jeanie home from college yet?" Ellie asked.

"I don't know," Billy replied.

Billy's mother thought about that for a moment.

"Are you going to call her? She's a really nice girl and I think she really likes you a lot." Ellie asked her son.

Billy could feel the irritation building up inside. He didn't want to show it though.

"I'll call her tomorrow, maybe."

Ellie thought that perhaps her son didn't want to discuss his former girlfriend so she decided to change the subject.

She thought of a new topic which she knew was close to his heart.

"That's wonderful news about Jason going with Green Bay. I bet he's excited."

Billy now felt he was getting ready to explode. He had to get out of the kitchen without letting on that he was upset.

Billy replied, "Yeah. That was great news."

He stood up and took his coffee cup with him.

"I'm going to check up on Grandpa," Billy said to his mother as he left the kitchen.

Billy entered the den where Grandpa had just dozed off in the Lazy-boy which was where you could usually find him. The T.V. was on and a newscaster was talking about something Billy couldn't have cared less about. He sat on the couch opposite the eighty year old man who had come to live with them five years ago after Grandma had died. He studied his grandfather whom he never really got to know very well. He heard stories about him from his father but he was never really much interested. He knew that Grandpa's biggest claim to fame was that he had served as a Marine on some island in the Pacific called Iwo Jima during World War II. Not too much was known about his war experiences since he never talked about them. As Billy gazed at the old man softly snoring in the large leather chair, he was struck by the contrast between himself and this man who had sired his own father. He wondered what disappointments and failures had tormented this man so many years older than himself. What dreams did he have that were never realized? What had such a long life done to him? Had he felt the same kind of frustrations that he knew when he was twenty-two years old? Had they defeated him?

Grandpa woke with a start as if something he dreamed had disturbed him. For a brief moment, Grandpa didn't seem to recognize Billy. Then, the old man grabbed the newspaper on the floor and looked at the front page.

"Guess I dozed off there for a minute," said the old man.

Billy smiled. "Yeah, I guess you did."

Without looking up from his newspaper, Grandpa asked, "Have you decided what you're going do after graduation next week?"

Billy said, "I'm not sure yet."

Grandpa now looked at Billy. "Well, I'm not surprised. Not many people your age really know what they want. Those who do are the lucky ones. You have time."

"But I did know what I wanted," Billy replied.

Grandpa lowered his paper now and regarded Billy.

"It just didn't work out." Billy continued.

The old man said, "Well, maybe it just wasn't meant to be."

Billy felt irritated by what he thought was a glib response totally devoid of any understanding.

He snapped back "I just screwed up. That's all"

Grandpa lowered his newspaper and studied his grandson.

"Want to tell me about it?" Grandpa asked.

Billy hesitated. How could this old man possibly understand? Here was a man in his eighties who never even graduated high school, went to war, came back and worked as a bus driver for almost forty years. How could he possibly relate to a near miss at glory? He never attempted anything grand throughout his whole life.

Billy decided he had nothing to lose.

"I had a chance to become the first string quarterback at Notre Dame and I blew it."

Grandpa waited for Billy to continue.

"About midway through last season, we were scheduled to play USC. It was the biggest game of the season at that point and it was for second place in the rankings. The night before the game, Jason and I went to a frat party. It was against the coach's rules to party the night before any game but a lot guys did anyway. About midnight, Jason suggested we get back to the dorm. I was with a girl I met and I told him to go without me. He left and I got really drunk. I don't even remember how I got back to the dorm. The next day, I was sick as a dog. Jason helped me get to the stadium. Once I was on the bench where Jason and I usually spent our time, I was throwing up into a bucket. I still remember the coach glowering at me because he figured out what had happened."

Billy paused and studied his grandpa's face to gauge his reaction.

"Go on," the old man said quietly.

"Just before the first half ended, our star quarterback was injured and had to be carried off the field. If I hadn't been sick, I would have taken over as quarterback for the team. I was the number two quarterback."

Grandpa noticed that Billy now had his fists clenched.

"Instead, Jason got the nod"

Billy sadly shook his head as he thought about it.

"Jason went on to win the game even though we were down nine points when he took over. He played the best I ever saw him play. When the coach found out that the first string quarterback was going to be out for the rest of the season, he picked Jason to take over as lead quarterback. He won eight games out of nine and the NCAA championship. Now he's going on to play pro. It should have been me, not Jason."

The old man slowly shook his head. He said, "Sounds to me like you were hit by the fickle finger."

Billy looked at his grandfather. Was he actually making a joke, he thought.

"What do you mean, Grandpa?"

Grandpa stood up and went to a bookshelf in the den.

"I'll show you what I mean," the old man replied.

He pulled a book from the shelf and then sat down next to Billy on the couch. He thumbed through, found what he wanted and gave the open book to his grandson. He pointed to a picture that has become an American icon of Marine Corps valor. It was the photograph of the American flag being raised atop Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima. Surely, he wasn't going to give a pep talk based on his war exploits, Billy thought.

The old man said, "Do you recognize that picture, Billy?"

"Sure. Everyone has seen this. It's famous," answered Billy.

Grandpa pointed at the men in the photograph.

"I knew all of the men in the picture. There were six of them, five Marines and one Navy corpsman."

"What happened to them?" asked Billy.

The old man said, "Three of them were later killed in action on Iwo but the others made it back home as heroes. The government even sent them on a war bond tour throughout the country. They were treated like heroes everywhere they went. One of them even posed for the statue of the flag raising down in Washington. They're all dead now but they will always be remembered because of this small event that took place on a volcanic rock in the Pacific Ocean in 1945. This photograph guaranteed their immortality"

Billy studied the photograph and said, "But what does this have to do with this fickle finger you mentioned."

Grandpa explained. "Me and my platoon buddies used to joke around about the fickle finger of fate. We saw so many guys get hit that instead of saying a guy was killed, we'd say the fickle finger of fate pointed at Joe or Larry or whoever it was. They were our code words to explain why certain things happened to certain people. And it wasn't necessarily bad. If a guy was wounded just enough to get him sent home, they called that a million dollar wound. We would say the fickle finger was good to him. But usually the fickle finger was not kind. Fickle finger was basically other words for luck. Sometimes it was good but most of the time it was bad on Iwo Jima. And we all agreed there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it"

Billy asked, "Did the fickle finger ever point at you on Iwo Jima?"

"It sure did, but not the way you might think" replied Grandpa. "I never got a scratch on Iwo Jima but for a long time I thought the fickle finger was more cruel to me than to many of the guys who were hit."

"What happened?" asked Billy, now engrossed in the story.

The old man continued. "I was among the Marines who captured Mt. Suribachi, along with those guys you see in the photograph. On the morning of the flag raising, I was there on top with the other guys. One of the sergeants was ordered to round up a detail to raise the flag. They attached the flag to a twenty foot long drainage pipe found nearby to serve as a flag staff. The thing weighed about a hundred pounds and it was windy as hell up there. That's why it took six guys to get the flag up. As they were getting ready to raise it, the sergeant called me over to give them a hand. But I was on my way down the mountain so I could try to get some sack time and hot food near the beach area that was now secured. I lied to the sergeant and told him I had to deliver a message to the Captain who was down below."

The old man pointed to one of the men in the photograph.

"The sergeant waved me off and called this guy over to help instead. Had I taken the time to give a hand, that guy would have been me," Grandpa said.

Billy was amazed. He asked, "When did you find out what you had missed?"

"Right after I got home a few months later. The bond tour was just starting and the photograph was plastered everywhere you went. These three guys even got into a movie about Iwo Jima with John Wayne four years later. I was really upset about my bad luck, which wouldn't have happened if I had just done the right thing. It kept me awake feeling sorry for myself many nights."

"How did you get over it?" asked Billy.

The old man smiled. "About a year after I married your grandmother, she was expecting your father. One night, I celebrated a bit too much and got a little drunk. That started me talking and feeling sorry for myself again. But this time, it was in front of your grandmother. She listened quietly as I told her my story. Then she said somethings that got me thinking."

The old man leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes for a moment as if that would help him remember.

"She asked me first about the three flag raisers who didn't get back from Iwo. I told her they were later killed in action since most of the fighting on Iwo Jima took place after the flag was raised. She wanted to know how I knew I would not have been one of them. I thought about that for a minute and I admitted that I didn't know for sure. She reminded me that I got home safe, was soon to be a father and I had a decent job and a future. Three of the guys in the photograph had nothing at all. That conversation didn't change my attitude but it started me thinking. Then about ten years after the war ended, one of the surviving flagraisers died."

Grandpa pointed to the left-most figure in the photograph.

"That was Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian who just could not adjust to the war hero role that was forced on him. He basically drank himself to death. That was when I began to realize that the fickle finger had actually been good to me. Only one of those survivors did well later in life but he spent most of his remaining years refusing to even acknowledge that he had anything to do with the photograph." Billy noticed a slight quiver in his grandfather's voice.

The old man stared at the photograph with tears in his eyes. Billy, never having seen any emotion in this old man, was unsure of how to react. He put his hand on the old man's arm.

"That's quite a story, Grandpa," Billy said quietly.

Grandpa nodded and smiled at his grandson. "The only real regret I have is the time I wasted feeling sorry for myself and not enjoying what I had. Don't let yourself fall into the same trap I did."

Billy nodded and said, "Thanks, Grandpa."

Billy and his grandfather sat together quietly for a few more seconds gazing at the photograph. Then Billy stood up to leave.

The old man said, "Where you going now?"

Billy smiled and said "I'm going to call Jeanie and see what's she's doing tonight."