Allied Zombies for Peace. Craig Nybo
to move. The ones that could stand hitched themselves up to their full postures on twisted spines and yawing limbs. The ones that sat in wagons and wheelchairs massaged their shoulders, coaxing their muscles into action from rusty atrophy. One marcher, both legs missing, his lower torso stuffed into a sliced section of deflated inner tube, conked his hands with Vaseline then donned a pair of iron worker’s gloves: it was going to be a long crawl.
As they prepared to march, none of the Allied Zombies for Peace who attended the parade that day realized that they were in for a fight that would make civil rights history.
Chapter 3
Khaki clad World War I veterans stood like tombstones at the head of the parade route. Their gray and white hair flicked in the November breeze. Their brown, woolen coats gave the impression of a barren field of men. They wore either steel, sweeping helmets or wide-brimmed campaign style hats, accented with golden citation chords. Some donned canvas gators around their calves. Others had tucked their breeches into polished leather boots. Many of the men held unloaded, vintage weapons—the standard issue American military Winchester model 1917 bolt action rifle, the Colt .45 automatic, snapped neatly into leather side-arm holsters.
The Right Patterson Air force Base museum had recently refurbished an antique 1918 Mark VIII tank—a gigantic, tracked vehicle complete with its two original 6-pounder Hotchkiss .57 millimeter canons, mounted on two bulky sponsons on either side of its bulk. The museum proprietor had also acquired five additional Browning M1917 machine guns and mounted them in their original fashion on the front and sides of the mammoth. Though the tracked behemoth could only move at a scraping five miles an hour, it was a tremendous curiosity to military history buffs and laymen alike.
“Weren’t these only used by the 67th infantry?” Chester Harker—most people knew him as Flash—said. He and Henry Pearlman looked at the tank, both men in wonder.
“Those boys were son’s of bitches,” Henry said.
“Saved our asses at Cambrai.”
Henry drew a crisp breath and let it out. A cloud of cold condensation plumed from his almost bloodless, seventy-two year old lips. ”I miss my boys.” Henry’s charcoal eyes panned across the meager gathering of Great War vets. He remembered when better than a hundred would march the parades. He remembered convention halls full of his brothers-in-arms, singing the old anthems and reciting the old saws. “You see Manwell?”
“Cigarettes killed him.”
“Damn.”
Flash looked over the whole ragged bunch of Great War Marchers. Some smoked, some spat, some scowled. “They’re looking smart though, every last one of them.” Flash tipped his hat to a rakish angle and grinned.
“Not like the new breed.” Henry looked down the parade route at a throng of Viet Nam Vet marchers. Most of them hadn’t breached their thirties. Some had shone up in dress uniforms, respectful, honorable; but too many of them had grown their hair long like those damn hippies and wore their fatigues open and loose. “I’ll tell you, Flash, we’ve seen the last of the red-blooded, hard-working Americans. Every generation’s going to get more and more spoiled until this whole damn country spins right down into the crapper.”
“Why are you marching today; I thought you were done with all this.”
“That grandson of mine, he thinks he’s a big Hollywood director. Says he wants to make a documentary film about my being a war hero.”
“You are a war hero?” Flash smiled.
“I’m not the one who saved a squad of S.O.B’s from a Gerry gun crew by stripping to his skivvies and running a 50-yard strip show just to keep their attention while we took ‘em out with potato mashers.”
Flash’s grin grew bigger, an act that would have been impossible for anyone but him. “Oh yea, that was me. I guess I’m the war hero.” Flash pointed at the Silver Star pinned to his tunic.
“At least we’ll give my grandson a good show. Make sure you flash those pearly whites when you see him clacketty-clacking along with that new-fangled camera of his, I swear, you have the teeth of God.”
Both men chuckled, but their good humor gave way and their faces went slack, tired, old. They stood like a pair of skeletons, waiting for the pistol to fire and for the parade to begin. Although they didn’t know it, they waited for their last battle.
Chapter 4
Parade spectators smashed together along both sides of High Street, between International Plaza and Main. Fans of the parade reserved their spots earlier every year. Up to three days before Veterans Day folding chairs lined both sides of the parade route, stakes and ribbons posted to save the best spots. Families wanted front row seats, places where their children could swarm after thrown handfuls of salt-water taffy.
Eddy Pearlmen sat on a folding chair, his nearly new Bell and Howell Touch super-8 camera on his lap, its smart looking leather case sitting at his feet. The model was only two years old, but Eddy had picked it up at Thornbinge’s Pawnshop for just shy of eighty dollars: a steal. He nestled the unit in his arms, working the zoom lens, admiring its sleek, black body. He couldn’t wait to try it out and the Veteran’s Day Parade would be an excellent opportunity.
“How much did you blow on film?” Dierdre, his wife, asked, straightening her cat-rimmed sunglasses with one hand and smoothing her hair with the other.
“I don’t know how long my daddy’ll be around. I want to get some footage of him before it’s too late; he’s a war hero, you know.”
“So you’ve said a hundred times. I just don’t want you to break the bank buying film for that thing.”
Eddy ground his teeth and muttered under his breath. He wondered how much Dierdre had spent on the dress she had worn to the parade or on the cardigan that covered it.
“You’re not still dreaming about becoming a big director are you; you know we already have a Norman Jewison.” Dierdrie fixed him with her tart smile, the one that made the bile fulminate at the back of Eddie’s throat. Before they had married, she had planned to move to Los Angeles and become a famous actress. She resented Eddy for not getting her out of Grove City, Ohio. “All you want to make is those school films.”
“Documentary movies.”
“Whatever.”
Eddy sighed; he didn’t have the stomach for another argument. “I only bought two cartridges, that’ll get me about eight minutes of my daddy as he marches by.”
“That’ll be engaging.”
Eddy sat the camera despondently in his lap, folded his arms, and stared straight forward. I married her for her boobs, he thought, what can I expect?
Later, Eddie would wish that he had a lot more than 8 minutes of film; he had come early to get a front row seat to the parade, but he would soon learn that he might be first in line for a Pulitzer Prize.
Chapter 5
Nam veterans stood in clumps: clicks divided by unit, platoon, and political affiliation. Some had come in dress uniform, polished boots, and stern expressions. Others had come with tattered fatigues, tennis shoes and mutton chops: a fatal cross-section of the factions that had recently returned from the most bloody war on the books of the American executive branch.
Two men played cards: hearts. They sat on a bus stop bench across from one another, eyeing their hands, considering their strategies. Chuck Abernathy pushed his bomber sunglasses up into his long, unkempt hair. He shot a glance at his opponent, Dan Hastings whom he had known through two tours in Nam. Most of the time since coming home, Chuck wore the sunglasses as a kind of field between he and everyone else. However, he had developed the habit of pushing them up on top of his head when he came across a fellow soldier; he didn’t mind looking someone who had lived through the same hell as he right in the eyes.
Chuck wore his uniform shirt like an over-jacket,