Something told me to give Livy a hug, but I couldn’t do it. All I could give her was a blank stare.
Meanwhile Leon’s words echoed:Forgiveness is for you, so you can have peace.
Woodstock
Day Four
Monday, August 18, 1969
7:40 a.m.
Once we’d picked a good place for all of us to watch Hendrix, and I was positive I could find Leon again, Ron and I stole away to the back of the bowl, far enough from the music to talk without yelling.
We found two abandoned lawn chairs and turned them to face one another. It would have to be a short discussion, for now anyway. I missed Leon already.
As soon as we sat down, Ron twisted the tail of his T-shirt. He crossed and uncrossed his arms, like he was a bundle of nerves. His legs jiggled constantly.
“You’re as nervous as a cat,” I told him.
“I’ve got some heavy shit to tell you.”
He looked down at his feet, instead of at me, so I reached over and pressed my hands into his knees to ease the jiggling. “It’s okay, Ron. Just tell me.”
He chewed on his bottom lip, pondering his words, for what seemed like a full minute.
I became impatient. Leon was waiting. “Just say it, Ron.”
“Okay.” He took a deep breath. “Remember when I took my R & R in Hawaii?”
“Of course I do. I wanted to go with Mama. I told you so in my letter. But you never wrote me back,” I said, angrily.
Ron’s head was down, but he raised his eyes, begging me for patience. “It wouldn’t have worked for you to come to Hawaii.”
“Why not?”
“I need you to try and understand what I’m about to tell you.” He drew in another deep breath, blew it out slowly.
I could tell he needed me on his side, so I leaned toward him with our knees touching. My voice was suffused with tenderness. “I already know Livy was the one in bed with you. I figured it out when she was on her LSD trip. She’s a pretty good actress. I’ll give her that.”
Ron never flinched when I mentioned Livy had taken LSD. “That’s not what I need to tell you.” He punched his fists against his thighs. “SuSu, I tried to be a soldier. I gave Vietnam over two years of my life.”
“It’s been three.”
Ron’s palm, inches from my face, told me to hush and let him finish. He rubbed his thumb across the long scar on his cheek. “I lived through artillery fire, bombs, land mines ... you think this mud is bad?” He looked around. “You should see the waist-high sludge I trekked through in Vietnam. Snakes and leeches everywhere.”
I flinched. “Ew.”
“That’s not the worst part. Not by far. I got my cheek blown off.” He touched his face, then rolled up his pant leg. A scar snaked an uneven path from his thigh down to his calf. Pockmarks covered leathery flesh with no hair. “But the best friend I’ve ever had in my life got his fucking head blown off. Right in front of me.”
“Freddy C?” I asked, with terror ringing through my voice. I leaned over, gently caressing his leg.
He nodded, squeezing his eyes shut like he was trying to flush it all away. “There’s only so much of that a body can stand before they lose not only their mind but all sense of what’s right and what’s wrong.”
I started to say something, but Ron raised his palm again. “Let me finish. Please.” He gripped his head with both hands, zoning out for a bit.
“Ron. It’s okay. I’m so sorry.” I had to press his bouncing knee again to bring him back to the conversation.
“Rage develops for the enemy so intense you can’t lay your head down without fantasizing about the worst way you can make the son of a bitch suffer.” He finally looked me in the eye. “That’s not me. You know that.”
