The weather was like flat soda on the day that Robert came home. He hoisted the green bag from the truck bed and wrestled it onto his shoulder, leaning against the massive weight. He waved and the truck growled off.
San Diego: not quite as he remembered it.
It wasn't so much that the place had changed, it was that he had, and looking up at his porch he realized for the first time that it wasn't his home any longer. It was the place where his mother and father lived.
His parents didn't notice he was home until they heard the heavy thud and found him standing in the living room. Robert, they said, Robert, you're home. He acknowledged the statement and hugs followed. We kept your room exactly as you left it, they said, not a single thing has changed.
His father nudged him and winked, said he was proud and did he kill anyone.
No. Didn't kill anyone. Probably the only unit in the Marine Corps that didn't kill a single person.
Robert's room was exactly as he remembered it, and his parents gave him some time to settle in. So he stared. Music posters on the wall; honor, courage, commitment stickers on the dresser. The T-shirt on the bed read “Extreme Marines”. It made him sick. He had worked too hard to become who he was to be mocked by his dead youth. He could see the naive high school student, shaved head with “USMC” scribbled into his binder. Embarrassing. The posters came down easy, but the old stickers left clingy goo to accumulate dirt and memories. Soon the trashcan bristled with disillusion. It was time to move on.
The door cracked open and his mother's face peeked in. We're having a party for you at your great grandma's house tonight, she said, if you'd like to go.
As if he had a choice.
But it was strange, that night, having the small crowd cheering for him. We're so glad you're home safe, they said, we're proud of you and did you kill anyone.
It's best that you didn't, they would say.
At some point, Robert wandered through his relatives, doled out handshakes and hugs. Yes, I liked it, most of it, said Robert, it's good to see you too. He meant it, but now was a time to ask questions, not a time to answer them. Then he caught the old woman in the recliner, her jaw quivering slightly. She caught him back.
"Come 'ere, Robert, I ain't gonna bite ya." Her watery eyes boiled in their sockets, and her thin skin merely draped over her bones, but somewhere inside the spark of life pulsed hot. This was great grandma, the woman who blew herself up smoking a cigarette while on oxygen at the hospital. This was the woman who raised five children by herself in the forties and fifties. And this was the only person besides his parents to send him a birthday card when he was on high alert in Okinawa.
"Hi Gramma," he said, and leaned in for a peck on the cheek.
"You look skinny," her voice warbled.
"What? I gained fifteen pounds while I was in."
"Sure don't look like it."
Robert shook his head and smiled. Eighty-seven, and she could still probably kick his ass. "Why're you sitting in the corner by yourself, Gramma?"
"Wouldn't be the corner if everyone was over here talkin' to me."
"Guess you're right."
Gramma rocked back and forth a few times. "I’m glad you’re back, Robert. Your great grandfather didn't get that chance. I almost thought he’d make it, but those Okinawans were some very stubborn individuals."
"Yeah, I always thought about that when we deployed there. I mean, how peaceful it is now compared to then."
"Mmhm. Mmhm." She nodded her head, rocking slightly back and forth. "You ever see his old war stuff?"
He shook his head. "No."
"I suppose you've earned it. Don't usually show 'em off but I think he'd want me to. Now anyways."
"Okay."
"Well, come on then." The old woman levered herself out of the chair, swatted away Robert's helping hand. "Get that away from me, I don’t need no help. Been on my own for fifty nine years."
She led him through the side door and the noise immediately abated. As they walked down the hall, silence took over, sending out its reverential radar from the door ahead, the odd door that Robert had never walked through in all his years. He remembered why when, upon approaching it, his great grandmother slipped a skeleton key from her pocket and into the lock. When the door swung and banged against the wall, there was nothing extraordinary but a set of stairs descending into the basement.
"Go on down and get the light, Robert."
In the darkness, Robert flinched at the metallic tendril that slid across his face. He felt through the air and pulled on it. The single light bulb illuminated the room and revealed everything coated neatly in dust. The woman jerked a sheet from a chair and eased herself down into the swirling cloud.
"I forget exactly what we got down here. Most of your Grampa's stuff is in that chest there, anyhow."
The chest opened with a creak, throwing free an avalanche of dirt and bug shells, but the objects inside glinted in the orange light, reflecting polished edges in new flame. The shadow box came first, and behind the glass, dual rows of medals clung to dark velvet. His great grandfather's name was engraved at the bottom. Robert named the medals off in his head. He had seen them many times throughout his tour.
"Bet you know what that big one in the middle is."
Robert did. "The medal of honor."
"That's right. Got it posthumously, like most those kids."
He stared and licked his lips. "What'd he get it for?"
"Breaking a promise to a young woman."
Robert didn't turn to look at her. It was none of his business, so he just nodded and placed it to the side. The folded American flag came next, but Robert knew better than to ask about that. To the side it went.
In his fingers, the black and whites took on ghostly shades underneath the failing bulb. Men from another time stared back, muddled by poor image quality and age. Blotchy eyes and half-mouths became representations of souls rather than duplicates of physical features. Robert wondered if that ancient camera had caught something more of these men, something that remained after they passed away, embedded in the flimsy piece of material in his hand.
"This one Grampa?" asked Robert, holding up a photo.
The old woman leaned in and squinted. "Bring that here."
Robert shuffled.
"Yeah, that's him. Handsome bastard, wasn't he? Flip it over."
The back read, "To my dearest love, from the heart of Honolulu."
"I thought I recognized the place," said Robert. "He was stationed at K-Bay too?"
"Sure was. Ain't never been there myself, though."
Robert looked at the picture again. "Why is he in uniform at the beach?"
"Well, they had to wear that when they were off duty," said Gramma with a nod.
"Oh no. That's not good at all." He shook his head. Robert flipped through the rest of the photos, more sand-washed images of uniformed men on the beach. He placed them on the shadow box.
The uniform itself came next. Robert recognized it from the picture, the Khaki short-sleeved number with ribbons. He held it up and flipped it around. "Same as mine. Pants are different, though."
Gramma just nodded. Robert dove back into the trunk. There were letters scattered about, so he grabbed one at random. He held it below the rim so that he could not be observed reading it.
"Dearest, I am going to Okinawa and I am going to fight. I could think of no other way to put it, and I am sorry for that. Of all things, I want you to know these: I love you, and I promise to return. Do not be saddened, and trust me. I will find a way. I do not know exactly when-"
"What's that you got there, Robert?"
His eyes tore away from the page. "Nothing Gramma, just thinking." He reached back into the chest, felt along the darkest corner and found metal. He pulled out the ancient film reel.
"Wow." Robert held a few cells up to the light. "Can we watch this?"
"'Fraid not. Don't have that type of movie projector."
It appeared that each cell had been split in two. On the left side, a beach landscape with a far-off mountain. On the right, a young man. "What is this?"
"I don't really know. Came after your Grampa died."
"No, I mean, why are there two sides to the film?"
"Oh. Well in the old days, eight film started out as sixteen. When you were done recording one side of the sixteen, you take out the reel, flip it around, and record again, see. That way, you get two movies on the two sides. After you were done, you'd cut that film down the middle then tape the two ends together, so it'd be one long movie. But what you got there, I don't know what that is, because when you flip a reel and record, the other image is upside down next to it. But that one ain't."
Robert looked again. She was right. Both images were right side up. But something else caught his eye. "It's backwards."
"Backwards?"
"Yeah. See, look."
Gramma's eyes became slits as they searched a tiny single cell.
"See, that mountain back there is Diamondhead crater. That looks normal. But this guy, he's in uniform and his ribbons are on the wrong side. It's backwards. And..." Robert looked at the cell again. "it doesn't look like he has a background. It's just clear."
"Well ain't that a pickle. What kind of fool goes and makes a crazy reel like that?"
"I don't know." Robert turned away, lost in thought. Then he folded the film gently down the middle and watched as the young man appeared to stand on that beautiful beach. "Gramma, look at this." He turned around, and the woman clutched at her chest.
"Good lord! Quit foldin' my film, Robert!"
"No, look at this."
She did, and sat quiet.
"Half of sixteen is eight right?"
She nodded.
"Do you have an eight projector?"
She pointed to a cabinet. “Maybe there, I don’t know.”
Dust poofed from the doors and the ancient projector was called from the darkness. In moments the contraption sat on a covered table, plugged into a hanging socket. The two of them worked slowly, as Gramma held the large reel, and Robert folded the film in half and wound it onto a thinner one.
"I sure as hell hope you didn't just ruin that movie," said Gramma, placing the completed reel onto the machine.
"We ruined it," said Robert.
Gramma fed the beginning strip into the empty reel on the projector and pointed it towards a clear patch of wall. "Okay. I suppose that does it," she said.
"Let 'er rip."
She flicked the switch, Robert turned off the light, and the room filled with a flickering glow. A young man strolled casually down the beach, a massive volcanic crater in the distance. But the man seemed strangely dislodged from the picture, and he slid subtly up and down as he walked, detached from the landscape behind, floating, almost, towards the camera. As his image grew, Robert could clearly see who it was. The young vibrant man etched in black and white sidled towards them, smiling and watching the waves, in no hurry to reach his destination. But as he grew, Robert's eyes began to hurt. The odd movement was causing him to see colors, strange fits of color feeling down Grampa's arms and legs, and whisping away. When Robert looked up again, he knew it wasn't his eyes. The young man stared straight at them, moving forward, filling with life as he slowly discarded his monochrome shackles. He appeared more and more lifelike with every step, and soon Robert could nearly feel the salty tropical breeze playing through the room, and hear the echoes of crashing waves die about him. When Grampa finally filled the entire projection, he smiled, and paused for a moment.
Then he stepped from the wall.
Robert backed up as far as he could, flattening against concrete. Gramma clutched at the table, jaw quivering, staring like a caught rabbit. But Grampa approached her nevertheless, eased up a hand, and began playing it through her white hair.
"Hello, dearest." His voice was warm and deep, like a cozy fire.
Gramma, who cried her last tear over forty years ago, wept as hard as her frame would allow. Her intense sobs broke all hope of composure, and she threatened to disintegrate where she stood. But the young man swept around her, holding her together as her body shook.
"Oh I love you. I love you so much. I missed you so much," she said.
He kissed the top of her head, and looked at the figure plastered to the back wall. "Hello, Robert," he said.
"Hi." His voice came out a little less strong than he had hoped.
"I'm sorry we never had a chance to talk. But if it makes any difference, I'm proud of you."
"Proud of me?" Robert started to move away from the wall.
"For your service."
"For my... I didn't do anything. I didn't even see combat."
Grampa smiled and shook his head. "Your country called and you answered. It's not your fault they decided not to put you in harm's way."
Robbed nodded.
The young man stroked Gramma's back and kissed her again. She looked up with a wet smile and wiped at her eyes. Through the darkness, Robert wondered if she looked a little younger.
“Robert?”
“Yes Gramma?” He had never heard her voice that smooth, that untouched.
“Would you mind giving us a minute to catch up?”
“Yeah. Sure.” He turned to the steps.
“Before you go,” said Grampa. “One more thing.”
Robert turned.
“Those people upstairs, your family. They love you.”
“I know.”
“Yes, but you have to let them.”
“What do you mean?”
“No one can ever know what it was like for you. No one can ever relate or know how you feel. But that’s not their fault. They just love you Robert, and unless you let them, you will have missed out on the greatest part of life.”
Robert crinkled his eyebrows and looked down, nodding. He glanced up at the couple, and saw their eyes alive and happy. Then he walked up the stairs.
At the top, he paused, unsure what to do. Then he smelled the smoke. Acrid, pungent, it wafted in rolling clouds from below. He was back downstairs in a flash. The projector was engulfed in flame, and he reacted, snuffing the fire with a dusty sheet. When at last he pulled away the singed cloth, there was only more smoke and warped metal, and crispy pieces of acetate slapping against a spinning reel. The bulb in the machine was still on, and punched a bright hole through the swirling darkness.
“Gramma? Grampa?” shouted Robert. He squinted, and swathed a path of clean air with a flattened hand. No response.
Robert took a quick look around the room and found no one. As he stood, he wondered what he had missed. His great-grandparents were gone, but it was almost as if he had already known what had happened when his eyes found the clip of film lying next to the projector. He padded over and picked up the five or six cells that had survived the blaze, and held it up to the bright wall. On the left side was the beach landscape, bright and beautiful, with the immense crater punching skyward. And on the right, a couple walking away, hand in hand in empty space. Robert’s cheeks tightened, and his eyes watered. He smiled and slipped the tiny strip into his pocket. There was nothing else to do, so he turned off the machine and went back to the party.
A warm hand found Robert’s shoulder and he turned, looking straight into his father’s eyes.
“Hey buddy.”
“Hey Dad.”
“Having fun?”
Robert shrugged, allowed a smile.
“Come on, even war heroes aren’t too cool for their folks.”
They grinned.
“Where’d Gramma disappear to?”
“I don’t know, probably halfway down the beach by now.” Robert paused and looked at his dad. The mist in his father’s eyes surprised him. “What?”
“Nothing. You just crack me up. I missed having you around, man.”
“I missed you too, dad.”
The father patted his son on the back and winked, and moved away to brag about Robert to someone else. Robert took a breath, got his hugging arms ready, and moved into the fray.
