Dress Blues
Flo St. Jean
War Poetry Contest 2008 (view all the winners)
Honorable Mention
Christmas Eve. I was five. It was very late.
You sat at the old upright piano playing carols by ear
(mainly on the black keys) while I sat
underneath surrounded by the safe smells of
dust and old varnish.
Melodies blurred and words slurred as you
crooned them
like an old record.
Then you vanished, leaving behind
a sniveling pile of sobs and snot
in a fraying flannel shirt.
By the time I was ten, calisthenics in the back yard
were routine.
Three children in pajamas—two boys, one girl—
bare feet wet with dew, in the middle of the night.
You stood over us, glass of Four Roses in hand.
The ram of your voice splintered as you
labored to be heard above the gun batteries.
The ship: Wisconsin; BB-64; Wisky. A battleship.
Sixteen-inch guns that rearranged mountains, valleys
and men,
from 22 miles at sea.
Lights went on in dark houses across the cove,
half a mile away.
Disembodied voices swam across the oily blackness of
the water:
Shut up or I'm calling the cops!
What do you have over there, a megaphone or what?
Moths hurled themselves against the porch light.
Tying knots. Salutes. PT. Self defense:
Don't show your fear. They'll smell it.
Don't let down your guard. That's when they'll get you.
I learned things a young girl needs to know, like
how to thrust upward with the palm of my hand
hard enough to drive the bones of a man's nose
into his brain.
Even if I had a test on multiplication tables up to
nine times twelve in the morning,
at school, where I walked in one day and
threw up for no reason. I wasn't sick.
Men in uniform brought you home and
deposited you on the living room floor.
Again.
The two boys (relieved, no calisthenics tonight)
and the little kids—one boy and one girl—upstairs.
We all hid upstairs when you were like that, if we could.
When you couldn't get up, Mom held your penis
into a mayonnaise jar while you
peed it full of steaming bright yellow urine.
Because she loved you.
The force of your stream nearly took the jar
out of her hands.
There was so much that some ran over her fingers and
onto your pants.
Me, kneeling next to her, trying to help, trying not to look.
When I was about thirteen Four Roses and Seagram's 7
were replaced by vast quantities of coffee.
Black with sugar.
Things got better, and they got worse.
You had to stop. Captain Hallbauer said
the Department wouldn't carry you home any more.
He said such conduct was unbecoming of
a reserve police officer.
The local cops had had enough of trying to keep you
from drowning
when you passed out walking home from Stender's,
in the mud below the high water line
with the tide coming in.
You quit cold turkey.
And a new phase
began.
You had to work until you couldn't stay awake any more
to fall asleep. And still you could not.
You made Mom sit with you for hours,
rubbing your head.
She was a nurse in training, planning to be a missionary
when she fell for you in Norfolk.
She found her mission
in Dress Blues.
I never understood how she could have loved you
until I saw pictures of you then. Mom standing next to a
tall, handsome man
in Dress Blues.
Right fist planted on his hip,
just like Popeye.
Left arm around her tiny waist. On their wedding day.
Smiling.
A man I never knew.
The one that remained, my father,
a bloated shell lying on the daybed,
head in his wife's lap in front of a
stained plaster wall patched with crisscrosses of
peeling brown paper tape. Victim of sudden rage.
No reason. Any minute. Everyone had to be
so quiet.
No friends over, no talking and especially
no sudden loud noises.
Millie from next door became Mom's best friend when
you first moved into the house. Before.
She and Kitty, who lived in the next house, told me
you came back a changed man. After.
All the neighbors noticed, not just them.
The only time I ever fought with Mom was about you.
I asked her how she could stay. She answered that
she had taken her vows before God and man and
she would stick by them, and you. I said
she had no right to choose that life
for the rest of us—the boys, the little kids,
even me.
You had seized the fireplace poker
and brought it down on the old wooden dining table
with such fury that the table splintered, sending
all the piles of junk sliding into the pit in the middle.
Weekends were the worst. When you blew up
sometimes it went on
for days.
Between outbursts you sat in your chair
in the living room, so you could see every doorway.
Everything under control
except yourself. Breathing hard.
Gearing up for the next round.
We all hid upstairs when you were like that, if we could.
I would close my eyes and try to pray us safe:
Make it stop, make it stop. Please, please make it stop.
Don't let him come upstairs. Don't let him come upstairs.
But boys and little kids and even girls need to eat and
drink and go to the bathroom.
We would wait as long as we could. Then wait longer.
Venturing down the stairs was an act of
uncommon courage.
Don't show your fear. Don't let down your guard.
When I was sixteen I became Cinderella for one night,
invited to a dance by a handsome, popular boy.
Privileged, wealthy. Nice.
I was worried that my dress wasn't good enough.
Anxious. Eager. Excited.
"Hold your head up," Mom said.
"And nobody will notice what you're wearing."
Don't show your fear. Don't let down your guard.
I waited on the porch so he wouldn't have to come in.
The school cafeteria could have been a palace,
scuffed tiles clouds under my feet. Heaven.
The clock ticked.
But I couldn't escape ahead of the prince. No chance to
leave behind a glass slipper and
the memory of a perfect evening. He was my ride home.
Home, where he came in after all and sat
in the one uncluttered chair
next to the pole light with the broken plastic shades:
pink-orange, dirty white, faded turquoise.
Only the turquoise was ever lit; twenty-five watt bulb
to save energy. Silence, briefly.
Then with a hastily mumbled goodbye the prince left and
never spoke to me again.
"Hold your head up," Mom said,
Don't show your fear. Don't let down your guard.
By seventeen I hardly saw you, working third shift.
A night watchman's job. Less and less contact with
people.
A thermos of coffee and peanut butter crackers
for company.
Just you, your rounds, and the clock to punch.
Predictable. Orderly.
Unless some asshole left a gate open.
Any idiot knows that every man's life depends on
the gate being closed. You never
let your shipmates down. You follow orders.
You always complete the task.
Check. Double check.
Aye aye, sir.
One day when I was twenty-five everything changed.
We stood on the porch sharing only the catastrophe
that had upended all of our lives.
Everyone else was inside, grieving.
You and I stood facing each other.
For Mom, I said I would always be there for you.
For myself, I said things would never be the same
between us,
and they weren't.
Things got worse, and they got better.
Thanksgiving. I was twenty-seven.
You arrived for dinner with
A hangover and a huge hematoma under your eye from
hitting your head when you had passed out.
I asked my husband to leave the room.
Then I unleashed an armor piercing bombardment from
point blank range, across the kitchen.
You joked, pleaded, bullied, bellowed,
and played the victim. In the end you
apologized, and I knew why Mom had loved you.
And a new phase
began.
When I was twenty-nine and you were
dying I reported for duty one last time.
We all did. You never let your shipmates down.
Three boys, two girls. Mom resting
in the Veterans Cemetery in Exeter,
waiting for you
for four years.
On the last day when you couldn't get up
I held your penis to the urinal while you peed,
dribbles of vile smelling liquid
the color of old coffee.
Because I loved you.
Trying to help. Trying not to look.
Check. Double check.
Aye aye, sir.
