A Matter of Pride
Michael O'Brien
In this hot, stinky parlor, pool cues slapped and old men smoked. The
wallpaper curled and yellowed in the dark, shadowed corners. It wasn't
the kind of place you'd ever look for. It was the kind of place you
ended up, holding onto memories like dollar bills in the wind. The
memories that get repeated so often but embellished each time to keep
things interesting. Old Richard Cray, a retired Republican politician,
would talk about the protest he broke up in Ohio during the summer of
'70. Every time he brought it up after a few rounds, the death toll grew, and
so did his weapon. This was Willie's.
Like a secret society, these men swore secrets. Women were allowed, but
never came. They had better things to do than sit around listening to
old men bemoan the world just outside Willie's doorstep. And maybe that
was the coincidental condition of "ending up" in Willie's bar. None of
these men had wives. Anymore at least.
Inside the bar, where I first met Jimmy Spinks, it was always night.
These men brought with them gray storm clouds. Aside from me, Jimmy was
the youngest one. I had heard about his heroism in the highway pile-up
that had plagued major media outlets for a week prior. I wanted to write
a character piece. Show the world who Mr. Spinks really was. A decorated
Gulf War vet. A quiet man with a seemingly unending list of accolades.
Honorably discharged after years of service. Lives saved, bullets taken.
He, of course, was humble.
When I asked out loud for Mr. Spinks, no one answered or raised their
hands. The older men looked at me, to Spinks, and back, but returned to
Cray's story of his final filibuster before an anti-climactic
retirement. I sat down at the bar and Willie leaned in.
"Jimmy's right over there." He pointed to a man in his
mid-thirties, smoking a cigarette and sipping a whiskey neat.
Jimmy looked up at me and seemed to warn me with his eyes to keep my
distance. However, as a journalist, I knew those looks well and paid no
mind. I bought another whiskey and brought it over to Jimmy.
"Mr. Spinks?" I asked.
"Look, it's been hard enough without you guys botherin' me," he said in
a southern mumble between puffs of smoke.
"I know, I know. I'm not here to get the story as they say. We all know
the story. I just want to get to know you."
"Idunno," he said with bashful chagrin.
"At least take this." I slid the whiskey across the table to him. I
turned away to return to the bar.
The other men were quiet; quieter than I imagined they would be. I
wasn't one of them. My life was flourishing and an emotional piece
featuring the real life of a modern day superhero would make my name.
These men had watched wives die of cancer, friends shot on beaches and
in jungles. These men knew pain. I had only ever lost my dog and my
great grandmother, whom I had only met once. Death was not reality to
me. These men had lived it. It was much a part of them as was their
skin. Their scars were reminders. My polished shoes and leather
briefcase were barriers. Their eyes followed me like cliché paintings on
marble mansion walls.
After a few minutes of watching these men whisper, Jimmy spoke up. "Mr.?"
I spun around on my stool to face him.
"C'mere." He waved me over and leaned back finishing the drink I bought
for him.
I sat down across from him at his booth running my fingers through the
cool condensation on my glass, writing my name.
"Whaddya wanna know?" He asked.
"What do you do for a living, Mr. Spinks?" I asked, turning on my tape
recorder.
"I drive a garbage truck." I began taking notes.
"Is that what you were doing when the accident happened on the highway?"
"Why would I have my truck on the highway?"
"Good point." He threw me off. He was smarter than I gave him credit for.
"Look I don't want to talk anymore about the details of the accident.
Anything else but that." He stared down at the table, nervousness taking
over him.
"Can I ask you about your Gulf War decorations?" I said.
"Please don't." He lit another cigarette with the burning end of the
previous. He called me over, but why. He wasn't answering my questions.
Did he simply like the idea of someone listening, even if he wasn't
going to talk?
"Well Jimmy, what else is there?" I pressed the stop button the recorder.
Jimmy sat there, not speaking or moving. His cigarette curved and
twisted between two work-hardened fingers. I looked at Cray and the
other old men. All of them disrupted by my presence. All of them
smoking, drinking, and waiting for me to leave. After a moment of
silence throughout the place, I packed my recorder and paper away, left
my card with Jimmy and walked out.
I rejoined the damp night. Reflected street lamps glanced off puddles
and my silver watch. Jimmy Spinks knew the game of journalism. He had
fought a war that streamed in the American conscious. Men with cameras
recorded his long desert walks, focused in on his chapped, thirsty lips.
Men like me, with pads of paper, hoping to cash in on the big new war.
Jimmy wasn't impressed. He did his job and walked out with only one
bullet wound in his side.
Jimmy was the focus of a world-famous image that graced the cover of
Time magazine, and was reproduced everywhere, finding a home on the
fledgling Internet years later. He carried a young Iraqi girl from a
crumbling building, bombed by our own planes. I had talked to the
photographer a few years back and he told me that it was one of the many
photos he took of Spinks walking out of that burning building. Each
time, leaving with a dying child or dead U.S. soldier. He followed Mr.
Spinks for the rest of his tour but "Jimmy," he said, "wouldn't say a
damn thing about that day." The image became the face of the anti-war
movement.
I went home and spent the next few days hounding my sources, looking for
a story that would make my name. Nothing came up. Nothing worth my time.
I could see that America wanted a superhero. They needed one. Most of
the box office was crowded with comic book revisions and superhero
meta-films. I wanted to bank on the fad. Show the people that we don't
need capes, masks and goofy names. Heroes wore the uniform of the
working class. I'd show them that bravery was something tangible.
Something we all had.
Jimmy Spinks was my ticket. A few quotes and a signed piece of paper and
I could make up the rest. I dreamed that he was sitting by the phone,
trying to decide whether to call me or not.
I stared at the photograph from the war. Jimmy, covered in a thick layer
of hot sand, streaks of blood dried to his face and hands. The young
girl in his hands turning the green of his uniform into dark red. She
died shortly after from deeply embedded shrapnel. Jimmy's cold,
emotionless eyes told me that he wished that he was inside that building
when it was bombed. He wanted to go in and never come back out.
___
Michael O'Brien has been published on the nonfiction website
400words.com and continues to study writing and film at Western Kentucky
University. Born in the north and raised in the South, Michael has found
a way to marry the cultures as an outsider and a proud Southerner in his
writing. He plans to continue his education in writing.
©
Michael O'Brien