Joseph Carlton Porter
Finding Billy
1968.
We were five friends before we were four. Before the war. Before they sent Billy to Nam and shipped him home in a box. We were eighteen and nineteen. What did we know? We didn’t know young men could die. It was our first war. We were Billy’s best friends; we were his pallbearers.
We gathered on August 23rd, one year to the day of Billy’s death. We met at noon at Houlihan’s grocery, the same store we hung out at as boys. We pooled our money, bought a case of Carling Black Label beer, and got in Comet’s car. We were on our way to pay tribute to our fallen friend.
Comet, who had been drafted into the army, was home from Fort Drum for a month before shipping out to Nam. He had a week left before his reporting date and, though we didn’t know it, he would board a plane the next morning for Fort Lewis, Washington. Never saying goodbye.
Henry, who had tired of community college, had already taken his draft physical. We didn’t know it, but he would wake up the next morning, kiss his mother goodbye, and take the bus downtown to the Marine Corps recruiting office. Three weeks later he’d be on a plane bound for Parris Island, South Carolina. Surfer and I, still safe in the cocoon of our college deferments, were home for the summer. I had taken a half-day off from my job at a building-supply company, and Surfer, who worked at his dad’s dry-cleaning business, told him he wouldn’t be in.
It was a hot hazy day. Humid. The four six-packs, encased in a shallow box, were on the back seat between Surfer and Henry, and as soon as we got in the car, we passed the cans around and popped them open.
From the store, we first drove to the flower garden in Onondaga Park, where Surfer, looking around, snapped off a dozen long-stemmed-orange day lilies and yellow daffodils, and tied the stems together with a rubber band.
We didn’t say much on the way to St. Catherine’s Cemetery—we mostly drank, but Surfer asked Comet what he was going to do with his car while he was in Nam.
“You want it? I won’t need it. I might never drive it again.”
Comet’s eyes were on the road—he was smiling. I glanced at the guys in back seat, suspicious, not believing it, each of us thinking the same thing: bullshit, he’d never let anyone use his wheels. Not his grandfather’s ’48 Ford. We should have known something was up.
Comet drove through the cemetery’s entrance on Randall Road. He turned right and followed the curving road around, before he pulled onto the grass and turned the engine off. We were on the hilltop by the woods that bordered the cemetery. By then, we were on our second beer, so we took a few minutes to finish it.
We got out and started into a field of monuments, each of us thinking we knew where Billy’s grave was. Almost at once though, after walking maybe 100 feet through spaced rows of headstones, and not seeing it, we stopped to get our bearings. Wait a minute. Is this where we brought Billy? Are we in the right section? I read the names on the stones around me—Kane, Kelly, Bradley, Fanella, Hackett, McMahon—but I didn’t see Billy’s last name: Flynn.
The stones were upright family monuments, two and three feet high, all set in rows, all spaced equal distances apart. Not one of us had been back to visit the grave since the day we buried Billy, so we didn’t know what his family’s gravestone looked like.
We spread out. I walked down the grassy hill to the next section, almost sure Billy was set on sloping, not flat ground. I was surprised, though, by the cemetery’s size—it was immense: acres and acres of gravesites with thousands of monuments, stretching to the west and north, downhill into a green wooded valley for as far as I could see.
I kept moving, reading each headstone, all the time expecting one of us to shout, Here he is! Over here! But nobody did. After a while though, when I hadn’t found the stone, I hiked back up the hill to where Surfer stood—he appeared lost.
“Where is it?” I said.
Surfer shrugged. Comet and Henry, who were across the section, came over to where we were standing. “Where is it?” Comet said to Surfer.
“It’s got to be around here somewhere.” The night before, Surfer had claimed he knew where it was, but now it was obvious: he didn’t remember any more than we did.
“I think it’s farther down,” I said, “on the side of the hill. I remember the military color guard standing above us on the rise.” I could still picture the seven soldiers in their dress uniforms, firing off the 21-gun salute.
Henry asked, “How are we going to find him with so many headstones?”
“You said you knew where it was,” Comet said.
“I thought I did,” Surfer said. “Why don’t you know? You were here that day.”
We were all surprised, mystified—how could we not remember where Billy was buried? It had only been one year. I felt stupid. How could I have forgotten where the gleaming black hearse and line of cars had parked? Where we had carried the casket? Where the black swarm of mourners had stood and wept beside the earthen mound and heap of funeral-home flowers?
We spread out and combed in different sections, thinking we could cover more ground that way. The paved access road looped around each section, and each section, a few acres in size, was marked by a forest-green sign with a gold identifying number.
I went back to 76, the section I’d been in. I continued where I left off, moving across the slope, trying to read each stone so I didn’t miss Billy’s name. I passed pink and gray granite headstones; I passed two black marble headstones; I passed stones with decorative garlands; I passed a statue of the Madonna holding the baby Jesus. I kept stopping to look around, hoping to see a landmark, something to wake my memory.
I vividly recalled walking beside the casket down the center aisle in St. Paul’s Church; and after Mass, carrying the casket down the stone steps and sliding it into the hearse. I recalled riding in the black limousine, no longer sad, but feeling incredibly proud of Billy and honored to be his friend.
I kept moving, reading the names, but I thought: there has to be a better way. What do other people do when they don’t know where a loved one is buried?
Further down the hill, a car was parked beside the road, and nearby, a well-dressed older couple stood staring down at a stone flush with the grass. They didn’t appear to be praying, so I went over to them. They turned to me with solemn faces.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said. “How would I find a friend buried in this cemetery?”
The wife looked at her husband. The bow-tied man wore a tan summer suit, white shirt, and old-fashioned brown two-tone shoes. “Have you tried the office?” he said.
“No, where’s that?”
He pointed downhill. “By the main entrance off Genesee Street.”
“Thank you very much. I’m sorry about your loved one.”
The woman said, “It’s our son. He was about your age.”
It was then that I looked down and read the epitaph. Pvt John Howard, died: December 1, 1951.
“Truman never should have relieved MacArthur,” the man said.
I didn’t know what to say to that but felt I should say something: “You shouldn’t be sad. Your son gave his life so we would all be free.”
Embarrassed by my phony-sounding words, I was sure I made it worse because the woman began weeping and the man put his arm around her. “Now, now, Greta.”
I walked up the hill, saying an Our Father for their son. I would wait until we found Billy’s grave before I said a prayer for him. Now in College, I rarely prayed or went to Mass. I was a lousy Catholic, but I couldn’t escape my faith: even now, coming here and not finding Billy, reminded me of the Third Day.
I didn’t see my friends at first; they were back behind the car, taking a break.
“There’s an office,” I said. “They’ll know where Billy’s buried.”
No one moved. “Come on,” I said. “We can drive there.”
“Relax, man,” Comet said. “Have a beer. Billy’s not going anywhere.”
We laughed. Henry handed me a beer, and I popped it open. It was warm. I sat down on the grass. After searching for two hours, I was sweaty and my damp t-shirt stuck to my back. Though hot, the sun had disappeared behind a white hazy sky.
We didn’t see many people in the cemetery, but from time to time, a car would drive in, so we kept our beer cans down and out of sight.
“Isn’t it against the law to drink in a cemetery?” Henry said.
“I don’t hear anyone complaining,” Surfer said.
It was funny: Hank holding a can of beer, suggesting we shouldn’t be drinking.
“I would have brought a cooler with ice,” Comet said, “if I knew this was going to take all day.”
“It’s strange,” Henry said. “I could’ve sworn I knew where we put Billy. So where is he?”
“It’s like the Twilight Zone,” Surfer said. “Billy loved the Twilight Zone.”
“It’s like Easter Sunday,” I said. “What happened when the two Marys and the wife of Zebedee went to the tomb?”
Comet smiled. “Billy wasn’t there.”
“They couldn’t find Him,” I said. “Mary of Magdala ran and got Peter and John. But they couldn’t find him either.”
Surfer grinned. “Where’s the angel, Mick? There was an angel, guarding the tomb.”
They were mocking me, grinning like idiots.
“Take his beer away,” Comet said. “He’s had enough.” Everybody laughed.
Henry was buff with muscled arms; he sat cross legged, plucking at the grass and tossing the blades of grass into the air. He mimicked FDR’s famous radio speech but changed the date: “August 23, 1967. A date that will live in infamy.”
Shirtless, Surfer wore baggy white shorts and battered dusty sneaks, no socks. He refused to cut his long blond hair despite his father’s threats. He cracked his knuckles. “We should be up at Sandy Pond. That’s where Billy would want to be if he’d made it home.”
Comet, who had flunked out of college and lost his basketball scholarship, still dressed the part: Syracuse Nats t-shirt and Converse sneaks. He lit another cigarette; he was smoking more now that he was in the army. I was worried about him going to Vietnam. I hadn’t been worried about Billy; then, I couldn’t imagine Billy being killed. Even in a war. That’s how naïve I was. Afterwards, I felt guilty for not serving. Now with Comet going, I felt guilty and worried. There I was returning for fall term at Hamilton in a week.
“Comet, do you know where you’ll be in Nam?” Henry asked.
He shook his head. “They don’t tell you jack shit. I’ll know when I get there.”
“What are you going to do about Jackie?” Surfer said.
“What about her?” Comet said.
“You’ve got a bun in the oven.”
“Who told you that?”
“Everybody knows.”
“Fuck you! Mind your own business.”
Comet got another beer from the back seat. I wondered what he was thinking. I didn’t want him to go. It made me think of the sendoff party we had for Billy at the Westwood Inn the night before he left. Everyone was there having a great time, getting crocked, singing Rolling Stones songs (Billy loved the Stones), never thinking we wouldn’t see him again.
Billy had joined me at the bar. It was just the two of us standing there, and he said, “I’m scared, Mickey.” Those three words sent a chill through me. They still did. I didn’t know what to say to him, so I joked, made some lame remark, “Well, I’m scared for the Vietcong.” He smiled back, weakly. I never would have believed it if he hadn’t said it. Billy scared? He was a tough kid. He lifted weights and played football. He was a smart student and could have gone to college, but he dreamed of jumping out of planes. After his high school graduation, he bought a Yamaha motorcycle and drove it to Green, New York, where he learned how to skydive. He idolized the Special Forces, so no one was surprised when he went Airborne and was assigned to the 101st. That’s what got me. That’s what I always think about when I think about Billy: he was scared, knew he might die, but he went anyway. That’s why we were there. That’s why we had to find him.
Drinking the warm beer in the heat made me drowsy. I gulped the last swig from the can and stood up. “Let’s go,” I said. “We won’t find Billy sitting on our asses.”
We got back in the car and drove down the hill to the cemetery’s office, but by the time we got there, it was after 3:00 PM, and the office was closed.
“Now what are we going to do?” Henry said.
We drove back up the hill and parked beside the woods. Comet and Surfer searched sections 82 and 83; Henry and I searched the lower sections 94 and 100. We moved across the hill: Henry read the names in his row, I read the names in mine.
“This is a nice place,” Henry said. “I wouldn’t mind being buried here. It looks like they cut the grass every week. It’s got shade trees. It’s quiet. I wouldn’t mind it.”
“Hank, what do you remember about Billy’s burial?”
“All of us crowded around. Billy’s sisters crying. Father Morrisette reading from his prayer book.”
“All I can remember is the 21-gun salute,” I said.
“We could spend a week here looking and never find him,” Henry said.
“We’ll find him,” I said. I couldn’t bear the thought of giving up. Yet after searching for another hour, discouraged, we trudged back up the hill to see if Comet and Surfer had any luck.
They weren’t even looking.
They were back behind the car, finishing off the beer, getting blitzed. When Henry reached into the backseat to get each of us a beer, only two cans were left. “Hey, who stole our beers?” he said, as if it wasn’t obvious. Surfer and Comet tried to keep straight faces, but they burst out laughing. They had polished off their six-packs and helped themselves to ours. “You fucking assholes,” Henry said. He handed me the last beer. “How are we going to drink a toast to Billy if the beer is gone?”
“We should have gone to see Mr. Flynn,” I said. “He’d have drawn us a map.”
Comet lifted his head, smiled. “Billy would laugh his ass off if he could see us.”
“He can see us,” I said.
“He’s looking down at us right now,” Surfer said. “‘Hey, Saint Peter, look at those fucking dopes down there. Getting plastered in St. Catherine’s. They don’t know what the fuck they’re doing. What a bunch of fuckups!’”
We all laughed.
“Too bad there’s no heaven,” Comet said. “Good thing there’s no hell either. When you’re dead, you’re dead. That’s it. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.”
“Then why does it feel like Billy’s still alive?” Henry said.
“Because he is,” I said. “What we’re looking for is only his grave marker.”
“If we can’t find it,” Henry said, “if there’s no stone, that’s proof he’s not dead.”
“You’re bombed, Hank,” Comet said.
“I don’t think we want to find it,” Surfer said. “That way we don’t have to believe he’s dead. That way we can believe he’s coming back.”
“‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whosoever believeth in me shall never die.’”
“You’re so brainwashed, Mick,” Comet said. “Too bad Billy didn’t believe that.”
“Billy believed,” Henry said. “He was in his uniform at eleven o’clock Mass the Sunday before he left. He wouldn’t have gone to Mass if he hadn’t believed.”
“You guys are drunk and out of your fucking gourds,” Comet said. “Billy’s not coming back. So get over it.”
“You get over it!” Surfer yelled out. “You fucking asshole!”
Comet laughed. “Are you crying, Surf?”
Surfer wiped his wet cheeks. “It’s all fucked up! This world is so fucked up! What the fuck are we even doing over there?”
“You shouldn’t drink,” Comet told Surfer. “You don’t know how to drink.”
“Eat me, asshole,” Surfer slurred and slumped over on the grass.
I walked into the woods to take a leak and, when I came out, the wind had picked up. The sky had gone from gray to slate blue. Thunder sounded in the distance.
“It’s going to rain,” I said. “Come on. We’ve got to keep looking.”
“The first thing we’ve got to do is stop drinking,” Henry said. “How are we going to find Billy if we’re drunk?” He drank down what was left in his beer can and belched.
“We have to find him,” I said. “We can’t give up.”
“Nobody’s giving up,” Comet said and took his last swallow of beer.
We helped Surfer into the car to sleep it off. We searched further down the hill in section 86 where we hadn’t yet combed. It started sprinkling, then raining harder, then the sky cracked open with a flash of lightning and a driving rain.
“This is nuts!” Henry yelled. Laughing, we made a mad dash uphill for the car. We were soaked by the time we reached it, our clothes soggy.
Surfer sat up in the front seat. “Find him?”
“Hell no!” Comet said, getting in behind the steering wheel.
Hank and I squeezed into the backseat. The rain rattled the roof. It had been so humid and muggy nobody complained when we got drenched. We cracked the windows and let the cool air stream in; the rain seemed to quiet us, sober us. Before long it lessened to a patter, then stopped. Ten minutes later the sun appeared. Everything glistened, sparkled in the sunlight: the car’s chrome, the glassy headstones across the road, even the wet grass.
We got out. “Look up there!” I said. “A rainbow.” I felt a surge of delight; I felt like a kid again. Revived, I was no longer hot or tired or drunk.
“It’s a good sign,” I said. “Come on. Let’s just finish that one section—who knows? Billy might be there.”
We walked back down to section 86 where we’d been. The four of us formed a line as we moved across the sloping field of headstones.
By six o’clock, the clouds had cleared and the sky was blue. We walked back up the hill: weary, worn-out, and disappointed that we would have to come back another day. We got in the car, and Comet drove out. We were quiet, sorry we hadn’t found Billy.
At the cemetery’s entrance, Comet stopped at the stop sign. At that moment, a beige Volkswagen Bug was turning in, and, by chance, looking out my window, I glimpsed the girl driving. Something clicked. I sat up and touched Comet’s shoulder.
“Hey, wait,” I said. I looked back. The Volkswagen had already driven in.
“What, asshole?” Comet said.
“We’ve got to go back,” I said. “I know where he is.”
“What?”
“Follow that VW Bug that just drove in.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me!”
“Five more minutes,” I said. “That’s all it’ll take.”
Comet swung the car around and drove back into the cemetery.
“Turn left,” I said.
“Who was it, Mick?” Henry said.
“Who’d you see?” Surfer said.
We followed the VW Bug as it drove down the hill and cut across the slope. Comet drove up behind the car and stopped. We watched the girl get out and walk down between the monuments, holding a small bouquet of flowers. She was wearing a tangerine-colored summer dress and white flats—she looked pretty.
“Who is it?” Henry asked.
“‘Finding Billy’ is the first story in my short story collection Home from War. All the stories in the collection deal with war veterans and their loved ones, who’ve been impact by war in some significant way. It’s about the trauma and psychic residue veterans bring home with them as they move, hopefully, toward some form of enlightenment and peace of mind.” —Joseph Carlton Porter
Joseph Carlton Porter was born in Syracuse, New York, the son of a civil engineer and a registered nurse. He attended Catholic school in Syracuse. After graduating from John Carroll University, he enlisted in the army and served for three years. He is a Vietnam veteran. A former newspaper reporter and English adjunct, Porter holds an MFA from the University of Iowa.