Frankie felt the power of it, their silence, as she had become silent about this war. They were the men and women who’d been there, and with their silence, they said, Enough.
Frankie was surprised at the pride she felt in being here, in marching, in seeing the fists raised but the voices still, the thud-thud-thud of their feet on the pavement, some, like Barb, in combat boots.
They stopped in front of the hall; the wheelchairs stilled.
Riot police stood in a straight line, blocking their entrance.
Within the marchers, platoon leaders gave hand-signal commands; the veterans fanned out, quietly blocked three lanes of traffic.
Someone—Ron Kovic, Frankie thought—yelled through a bullhorn: “We want to come inside.”
They waited. Silent. Shoulder to shoulder.
Frankie saw photographers snapping pictures and a TV camera rolling film. National Guard helicopters whirred overhead.
The tension rose. Frankie felt a sense of danger; she thought all of them did. But surely the riot police wouldn’t be set on military veterans?
“You might have taken our bodies, but you have not taken our minds!” someone yelled.
A congressman came out at last, to the cheers of the spectators.
Frankie pressed up onto her tiptoes, trying to see the front of the line.
The congressman escorted three vets in wheelchairs into the convention center.
The marchers couldn’t get into the building without risking their lives and creating exactly the kind of scene they didn’t want.
Frankie didn’t know how long they stood there, packed in, blocking off traffic, but in time, the march that had begun in determination ended with more than a thousand vets walking back to the park, amid the cheers—and jeers—of the crowd, watching from the sidewalks.
“They won’t hear us,” Barb said. “Not if we scream, not if we’re silent. They want to forget about us.”
“I don’t know,” Frankie said. “Look at the troop withdrawals. Maybe something is working.”
They kept walking.
“So, he’s cool,” Barb said. “Henry.”
“Yeah.”
“Why would you keep him secret? I tell you about every guy I even think about kissing.”
“I have a flowchart of it, in fact.”
Barb hip-bumped her. “Seriously.”
“He’s just … fun.”
“Girl, you are hardly the princess of fun.”
“He’s helping with that.”
“Do you love him?”
“I don’t want that anymore. I don’t think I can survive it again.”
“Not all love goes bad.”
“Uh-huh. This explains why you’re married with kids.”
“I don’t want that life.” Barb put an arm around Frankie. “I am pretty sure he loves you.”
“Why?”
“Who drives a woman cross-country to make sure she marches in a protest and then says he doesn’t belong? Kind of a kick-ass move, in my book.”
“He’s thirty-eight. Already been married.”
“That’s your answer to why not?”
Frankie hated to tell Barb the truth, but she knew her friend would keep digging until she did. “You’re a damn wolverine, you know,” she said, sighing. Quietly, she said, “Rye.”
“Wouldn’t he want you to be happy?”
“Yeah, sure.” People said that all the time. All it did was make Frankie’s loneliness worse. “That’s what I’m doing,” she said. “This is me happy.”
* * *
The next day, the newspapers and news broadcasts were full of the story: three Vietnam veterans in wheelchairs had rolled into the National Convention just as Nixon was giving his acceptance speech. They’d shouted, Stop the bombing.
They’d been escorted out quickly, taken away by police, but the images made the news. The veterans had shouted so loudly that the President had had to stop his speech.
* * *
Medics run past me, carrying men on litters. Someone’s screaming.
Frankie came awake with a startled cry and sat up, breathing hard.
It took a moment to remember that she was in her house on Coronado, in bed, with Henry sleeping beside her. She reached out a trembling hand, touched him, needing to know he was real.
“You okay?” he mumbled, not quite asleep, but not quite awake, either.
“Fine,” she said, touching him until he went back to sleep.
Easing out of bed, she went down to the living room. On a top kitchen cupboard shelf, she found a pack of cigarettes and lit one up, standing at the sink. Images of Vietnam crowded in on her, demanded she remember.