And a wreath is hanging there, a big wreath of carnations, and when Louie, who doesn't miss a thing, stops to count them, he finds, as he suspected, that the carnations number forty-one.
"What's this?" asks Swift.
"It's the guys from Pittsfield that died. It's their empty chairs," Louie says.
"Son of a bitch," Swift says. "What a fuckin' slaughter. Either fight to win or don't fight at all. Son of a fuckin' bitch."
But the afternoon isn't over for them yet. Out on the pavement in front of the Ramada Inn, there is a skinny guy in glasses, wearing a coat much too heavy for the day, who is having a serious problem —shouting at passing strangers, pointing at them, spitting because he's shouting so hard, and there are cops rushing in from the squad cars to try to talk him into calming down before he strikes out at someone or, if he has a gun hidden on him, pulls it out to take a shot. In one hand he holds a bottle of whiskey—that's all he appears to have on him. "Look at me!" he shouts. "I'm shit and everybody who looks at me knows I'm shit. Nixon! Nixon! That's who did it to me! That's what did it to me! Nixon sent me to Vietnam!"
Solemn as they are as they pile into the van, each bearing the weight of his remembrances, there is the relief of seeing Les, unlike the guy cracking up on the street, in a state of calm that never before existed for him. Though they are not men given to expressing transcendent sentiments, they feel, in Les's presence, the emotions that can accompany that kind of urge. During the course of the drive home, each of them—except for Les—apprehends to the greatest degree available to him the mystery of being alive and in flux.
He looked serene, but that was a fakeout. He'd made up his mind.
Use his vehicle. Take them all out, including himself. Along the river, come right at them, in the same lane, in their lane, round the turn where the river bends.
He's made up his mind. Got nothin' to lose and everything to gain. It isn't a matter of if that happens or if I see this or if I think this I will do it and if I don't I won't. He's made up his mind to the extent that he's no longer thinking. He's on a suicide mission, and inside he is agitated big-time. No words. No thoughts. It's just seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling—it's anger, adrenaline, and it's resignation.
We're not in Vietnam. We're beyond Vietnam.
(Taken again in restraints to the Northampton VA a year later, he tries putting into plain English for the psychologist this pure state of something that is nothing. It's all confidential anyway. She's a doc. Medical ethics. Strictly between the two of them. "What were you thinking?" "No thinking." "You had to be thinking something."
"Nothing." "At what point did you get in your truck?" "After dark."
"Had you had dinner?" "No dinner." "Why did you think you were getting into the truck?" "I knew why." "You knew where you were going." "To get him." "To get who?" "The Jew. The Jew professor."
"Why were you going to do that?" "To get him." "Because you had to?" "Because I had to." "Why did you have to?" "Kenny." "You were going to kill him." "Oh yes. All of us." "There was planning, then."
"No planning." "You knew what you were doing." "Yes." "But you did not plan it." "No." "Did you think you were back in Vietnam?"
"No Vietnam." "Were you having a flashback?" "No flashbacks."
"Did you think you were in the jungle?" "No jungle." "Did you think you would feel better?" "No feelings." "Were you thinking about the kids? Was this payback?" "No payback." "Are you sure?"
"No payback." "This woman, you tell me, killed your children, 'a blow job,' you told me, 'killed my kids'—weren't you trying to get back at her, to take revenge for that?" "No revenge." "Were you depressed?"
"No, no depression." "You were out to kill two people and yourself and you were not angry?" "No, no more anger." "Sir, you got in your truck, you knew where they would be, and you drove into their headlights. And you're trying to tell me you weren't trying to kill them." "I didn't kill them." "Who killed them?" "They killed themselves.")
Just driving. That's all he's doing. Planning and not planning.
Knowing and not knowing. The other headlights are coming at him, and then they're gone. No collision? Okay, no collision. Once they swerve off the road, he changes lanes and keeps going. He just keeps driving. Next morning, waiting with the road crew to go out for the day, he hears about it at the town garage. The other guys already know.
