CHAPTER 6
As he walked down the hall at the VA hospital Puller wondered whether he would end up in one himself when he got older. As he looked around at the elderly sick and disabled former soldiers his spirits dropped even more.
Maybe a shot to the head when the time comes would be better.
He knew where his father’s room was and so bypassed the nurse’s desk. He actually heard his old man long before he saw him. John Puller Sr. had always possessed a voice like a bullhorn, and age and his other infirmities had done nothing to lessen its power. Indeed, in some ways, it seemed even more strident than before.
As Puller approached the door to his father’s room it opened and a frazzled-looking nurse stepped out.
“God, am I glad you’re here,” she said, staring up at Puller. He was not in uniform but she apparently had easily recognized him.
“What’s the problem?” asked Puller.
“He’s the problem,” she replied. “He’s been asking for you for the last twenty-four hours. He won’t let it go.”
Puller put his hand on the knob. “He was a three-star. It’s always personal and they never let anything go. It’s in their DNA.”
“Good luck,” said the nurse.
“It’ll have nothing to do with luck,” said Puller as he walked into the room and shut the door behind him.
Inside the room he put his broad back to the door and gazed around. The place was small, maybe ten by ten, like a prison cell. Actually, it was about the same size as the place his brother would be calling home at USDB for the rest of his life.
The room was furnished with a hospital bed, a laminated wood nightstand, a curtain for privacy, and a chair that did not look comfortable and felt just how it looked.
Then there was one window, a tiny closet, and a bathroom with support bars and panic buttons all over the place.
And then, lastly, his old man, John Puller Sr., the former commander of arguably the Army’s most famous division, the ioist Airborne Screaming Eagles.
“XO, where the hell you been?” said Puller Sr., staring at his son like he had him lined up over iron gunsights.
“On assignment, just got back. Hear there’s something up, sir.”
“Damn right there is.”
Puller moved forward and stood at ease by the side of the bed where his father lay, wearing a white T-shirt and loose-fitting blue scrub pants. Once nearly as tall as his son, the old man had been shrunken by age to a little over six-one— still tall, but not the near giant he had once been. A white fringe of cottony hair ran around the rim of his head, with nothing else on top. His eyes were ice blue and went from flashing fire to vacant, sometimes in the span of a few seconds.
The doctors weren’t quite sure what was going on with Puller Sr. They wouldn’t officially call it Alzheimer’s or even dementia. They had begun to say simply that he was “getting old.”
Puller just hoped his father had enough lucidity left today to tell him about the letter. Or at least to allow him to see it.
“You received a letter?” he prompted. “Top- secret communication? Maybe from SecArm?” he added, referring to the Secretary of the Army.
Although his father had been out of the Army for nearly two decades, he didn’t seem to realize that was so. Puller had found it better to keep the military subterfuge going, in order to put his father at ease, and also to move conversations forward. He felt silly doing it, but the doctors had persuaded him that this was a preferable course, at least in the short term. And maybe the short term was all his father had left.
His father nodded and looked grim. “Not bullshit, at least I don’t think so. Got me concerned, XO.”
“Can I get read in, sir?”
His father hesitated, stared up at him, his expression that of a man who was not quite sure what or who he was looking at.
“Think I can get read in, General?” Puller asked again, his voice quieter but also firmer.
His father pointed to his pillow. “Under there. Had me concerned.”
“Yes, sir. May I, sir?”
Puller indicated the pillow and his father nodded and sat up.
Puller stepped forward and pulled up the pillow. Underneath was an envelope that had been torn open. Puller picked it up and gazed at it. The address was written in block letters. His dad. At this VA hospital. Postmarked from a place called Paradise, Florida. The place sounded vaguely familiar. He looked at the name in the top left- hand corner of the envelope.
Betsy Puller Simon. That’s why it sounded familiar.
That was his aunt and his father’s sister. She was older than her brother by nearly ten years.
Lloyd Simon had been her husband. He’d died many years ago. Puller had been on deployment in Afghanistan back then. He remembered getting a note from his father about it. He hadn’t thought about his aunt very often since then and suddenly wondered why. Well, now he was totally focused on her.
She’d written to her brother. The brother was upset. Puller was about to find out why, he supposed. He hoped it wasn’t about a missing pet, or an unpaid bill, or that his elderly aunt was getting remarried and maybe wanted her younger brother to give her away.
There was no way that was happening.
He slid the single sheet of paper out of the envelope and unfolded it. It was heavy stock with a nice watermark. In five years they probably wouldn’t even make this stuff anymore. Who wrote letters by hand these days?
He focused on the spidery handwriting sprawled across the page. It was written in blue ink, which made it jump off the cream-colored paper.
There were three paragraphs in the letter.
Puller read all three, twice. His aunt had ended by writing, “Love to you, Johnny. Betsy.”
Johnny and Betsy?
It made his father seem almost human.
Almost.
Puller could now understand why his father had been upset after reading the letter. His aunt had clearly been upset while writing it.
Something was going on down in Paradise, Florida, that she didn’t like. She didn’t go into detail in the letter, but what she had written was enough to get Puller interested. Mysterious happenings at night. People not being who they seemed. A general air of something not being right. She had named no names. But she had ended the letter by asking for help not from her brother.
She asked specifically for my help.
His aunt must’ve known that he was an Army investigator. Perhaps his father had told her. Perhaps she had found out on her own. What he did for a living was not a secret.
He folded the letter back up and put it in his pocket. He looked at his father, who was now gazing across at the little TV set connected to the wall by way of a hinged arm. On the screen was The Price Is Right. His father seemed intrigued by the goings-on. This was a man who, in addition to having led the ioist, had commanded an entire corps composed of up to five divisions, totaling nearly a hundred thousand highly trained soldiers, in combat. And he was now intently watching a TV show where people guessed the prices of everyday stuff in an attempt to win more stuff. “Can I keep the letter, sir?” he asked.
Now that Puller had been summoned and had the letter and matter seemingly in hand, his father no longer seemed interested or upset. He waved his hand in a vague symbol of dismissal.
“Take care of it, XO. Report back when the matter is resolved.”
“Thank you, sir, I’ll do my best, sir.”
Even though his father wasn’t looking at him, he performed a crisp salute, spun on his heel, and exited. He did this because the last time he’d seen his father he’d walked out on him in both disgust and frustration, leaving the old man to scream after him. Apparently that memory no longer resided in his father’s mind. Along with a lot of other things. But it had remained in Puller’s mind, stark and fierce.
However, as his hand hit the door pull his father said, “Take care of Betsy, XO, she’s the real deal.”
Puller looked back at his father. The old man had turned and was staring at him. His ice blue eyes appeared to hold as much lucidity as they ever had. He was no longer in Price Is Right land.
“I will, sir. Count on me.”
On the way out Puller ran into his father’s primary-care physician. Balding and slight of build, he was a good doctor and labored here for far less money than his medical degree from Yale could have earned him elsewhere.
“So how’s he doing?” asked Puller.
“As good as can be expected. Physically, he’s still an amazing specimen. I wouldn’t want to arm-wrestle him. But up top things seem to be continuing to slip.”
“Anything that can be done?”
“He’s on the meds typically prescribed for his condition. There is no cure, of course. We can’t reverse things now, though the future holds some promise for that. I just think it’s going to be a long downward spiral, John. And it might speed up as time goes on. Sorry it’s not better news.”
Puller thanked the doctor and headed on. He knew all of this, but still asked each time he was here. Maybe part of him thought the answer might one day turn out to be different.
He left the hospital and walked to his car. On the way he took the letter back out of his pocket. His aunt had helpfully written in her phone number in Paradise. He reached his car, sat on the hood, slid out his phone, and punched in the digits.
Puller was not someone who liked to put off to the next minute what he could do in the current one.
The phone rang four times and then went to voice mail. Puller left a message for his aunt and then clicked off and put the phone away.
He gazed at the letter again as he sat there on the hood of his Malibu. Well, it actually belonged to the United States Army, but Puller was the United States Army, so maybe it was the same thing.
A letter with troubling concerns. But then again he’d only tried to call her once. Maybe she was simply at the doctor’s. Elderly people spent much of their time at doctors’ offices. He had certainly seen that with his father.
Puller sighed. In many important ways this was not his problem. His father had probably forgotten all about the letter. Puller hadn’t seen his aunt in a long time. She had not been a part of his life as an adult. But she had been when he was a young boy. Sort of a substitute for a mother who was not there because she couldn’t be.
All these years later Puller still could recall vividly moments spent with Betsy Simon. She had been there for him when he needed something that he simply did not have in life. Things that little boys needed. Things that fathers could not supply, even if they happened to be around, which his father had not. He’d been too busy commanding thousands of men to do things not just the Army way, but also his way. Betsy Simon had filled that void. She was so important to him back then. He had talked to her about everything, both troubles and triumphs. She had been a wonderful listener. And Puller had come to realize that the advice she dispensed to him growing up had been couched so artfully that it seemed to be his own ideas.
He had leave time still remaining. No one had expected him back this early. He could not walk away from this.
Or her. And it wasn’t entirely altruism. A part of Puller wondered whether his aunt could once more help him through troubling times. And not just with his father. He had never really talked about what had happened in West Virginia with anyone, not even his brother. Yet, despite what he’d told his brother, Puller had things he needed to talk about. What he didn’t have was someone he felt comfortable doing that with.
Maybe his aunt could be that person. Again.
It looked like he was headed to Paradise.