Something Missing

“All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield the second time in memory.” - Viet Thanh Nguyen

It was a Wednesday morning and Ms. Hill was weaving around the rows of desks, handing out a paper to each student. Amelia wasn’t sure what class they were in since Ms. Hill taught almost all their classes. All except music, PE, and computers. But she knew that it was a gifted class.

Amelia wasn’t sure what “gifted” meant. Her mom’s friend had told them that the gifted classes had better teachers and better-behaved students. So, Amelia’s mom took her to see a psychologist who observed her play with toys and then wrote a letter saying that she could join. The gifted class was smaller than the non-gifted class and had almost no Black kids. Amelia wondered if psychologists didn’t like Black people, or maybe Black people didn’t like psychologists.

Ms. Hill walked to the front of the classroom, her clogs squeaking against the linoleum. Her flaxen hair spilled over her forehead in a thick bang with side pieces tucked behind her ears. In a brown shift dress, she reminded Amelia of one of those ponies with the small bodies and big heads.

“Does everyone have a worksheet?” Ms. Hill asked, scanning the room for nods of confirmation. “Ok, these are questions for our interview project. I want you to use them as a starting point for a conversation with your parents. Or grandparents, or aunts, or uncles. Some older family member. We want to learn about experiences that they had growing up and how those experiences shaped them. Then I want you to pick one of those experiences and share it with the class.”

Amelia found her mother in the backyard standing on a ladder. She was holding a picker basket and waving it at an orange tree.

“Can you help me with a project?” Amelia asked. “I’m supposed to ask one of my parents about their life experiences. Like, from your childhood, or with your family, or something.”

“Ask Daddy. He’s had more experiences,” said her mom without looking down.

She pointed the picker basket towards an orange and, seeing it nestled in the basket’s teeth, gave it a yank. The orange tore off the branch and the reverberation sent more oranges and leaves flying.

“Don’t we have enough? There’s a bunch of oranges in the kitchen already.”

“Yeah, but if we don’t pick them, they fall on the ground and rot. So, we have to keep doing it. Watch out. Don’t get hit.”

Amelia always asked her mother for help with homework, but lately her patience for the assignments seemed to be waning. Amelia wondered if she regretted putting her in gifted. Then she remembered that her maternal grandparents had passed away when her mother was only a child and felt bad for asking.

Amelia brought the worksheet to the living room where her father was watching the news. She took a seat next to him on the couch and waited for a commercial break. But he turned down the volume when he saw her.

“What’s up?” he asked.

She told him about the project and showed him the worksheet.

“Another project? Let me see.” He looked over the paper. Then he thought for a while, staring at the ground and chewing on a hangnail.

“Mm, how about this? Every summer my family would drive across the bridge to Canada. All six of us. We’d rent out a cabin. A very rustic one, like a log cabin, without electricity or bathrooms or anything. So, we’d bring a bunch of blankets in case it got cold at night. And for food, we’d bring beans n’ weenies, you know the ones in the cans. And smores and we’d heat them up over a campfire.”

“One second. Let me write this down,” Amelia said.

The following Monday Ms. Hill stood at the front of the room with a glass jar filled with slips of paper. On each slip, she had written a student’s name. Amelia noticed that Ms. Hill was wearing a sweater and wondered how she wasn’t dying of heat. It had the words “Agnes Scott College” printed across the chest. Amelia wondered if Ms. Hill had actually gone to school there or if she had found the sweater in the lost & found bin that sat outside the principal’s office. Amelia had seen other students take things from the bin. Not gifted students, of course. On one occasion, she spotted a lacy bra poking out from the pile of garments. It was the kind with a front-facing clasp and an underwire. After making sure that nobody was looking, she plucked it out and stuffed it in her backpack.

Ms. Hill reached her hand in the jar. She gave the slips a swirl before pulling one out.

“Alex.”

Alex was very blonde. “Too blonde,” Amelia thought, not knowing the word for towhead. Alex had a seemingly boundless reserve of energy which manifested in his enthusiasm for every class activity, group punishment, and human interaction; the result, Amelia posited, of having parents that never fought.

Alex sprang from his seat and bound to the front of the classroom. He turned to face the other students and cleared his throat. He didn’t have any notes, Amelia noticed. Instead, he fixed his gaze in the direction of Ms. Hill.
“My grandfather was just a boy and living in the old country. One day, his mother asked him to go to the market to buy a loaf of bread. She gave him a quarter and a sack with some lunch. They lived deep in the woods and the market was in the village, miles away. So, the journey would take at least half a day. He started to walk down the path heading to the village when he was stopped by an old peddler. The peddler asked him where he was going. He told him that he was going to the market to buy a loaf of bread. The peddler looked at the quarter in my grandfather’s hand. ‘I’ll tell you what. Since you’re such a good boy, I’ll give you two dimes for that quarter.’ ‘Gee, thanks!’ my grandfather said. And he gave the peddler the quarter in exchange for the two dimes.’” Alex spoke fluidly, only pausing occasionally for dramatic effect. Amelia was impressed. He sounded like the narrator of a play. “My grandfather kept walking down the path when he was met by a gypsy woman. She saw the two dimes in his hand and stopped him.
‘Little boy, what shiny dimes you have! They would look marvelous on a chain. If you give me your dimes, I’ll give you three nickels in return.’ My grandfather couldn’t believe his luck and he hurried to make the trade. He was almost to the edge of the woods when a soldier came down the path.
‘You shouldn’t be walking in these woods alone, little boy,’ the soldier said.
‘It’s o.k.,’ my grandfather told him. ‘I walk down this path every Saturday to get bread from the market.’
‘Does a little boy like you even have money for bread?’ asked the soldier.
‘I’ve got three nickels!’ My grandfather replied with pride.
‘You’re going to need more than that to get bread. Here, let me give you four pennies for those nickels.’ My grandfather accepted and thanked the soldier. Soon he reached the edge of the woods and started on the village road. He was heading towards the market when he was stopped by a priest.
‘Little boy, do you have any money to spare for the church?’ My grandfather looked at his pennies. ‘I have four pennies, but I need them to buy bread for my mother.’ ‘You can’t buy bread for four pennies! Is that all that your mother gave you?’ the priest asked.
‘She actually only gave me one quarter. But I traded it for two dimes, and the two dimes for three nickels, and the three nickels for four quarters.’ ‘I’m sorry to tell you son, but you’ve been duped. You can’t buy bread with four pennies and your mother will be very angry with you. You should give those pennies to the church, instead. You still won’t have bread. But at least that way I can pray for you and ask the lord to spare you from a spanking.’”

Laughter broke out across the classroom. “And that is why my grandfather is an atheist to this day.”

More laughter followed. And then applause. Alex bowed.

“Nicely done, Alex.” Ms. Hill signaled for him to return to his seat. “Ok, let’s see who’s next.” She reached into the jar. “Amelia.”

Amelia rose cautiously, clutching her note cards. She made her way to the front of the class.

“Umm, o.k. When my dad was a kid he lived in Detroit. Canada was just across the border. So, sometimes his family would go there for the weekend and stay in a cabin. It was a log cabin, without electricity or water. So, they’d use blankets to stay warm and cook food using a campfire. There was a lake by the cabin and sometimes they would go swimming.

One time my dad and his brothers and sister were out playing at the lake. Suddenly he realized he couldn’t see them and he didn’t know where they went. But it was getting cold, and he was getting hungry.

So he walked back to the cabin alone. But when he opened the door, he didn’t recognize anyone. There were people there, but they weren’t his family. He asked them who they were. Suddenly he remembered that there were a bunch of cabins around the lake, and they all looked pretty much the same. And he realized he had gone to the wrong one. He turned and ran out of there as fast as he could. He was so embarrassed. But a lot of time has passed, and he doesn’t feel weird about it anymore. He just thinks it’s funny.”

Amelia glanced at Ms. Hill, hoping for a cue to go sit down.

Ms. Hill stood motionless. She appeared to be thinking.

“Amelia, I’m going to need you to redo your assignment. Ok? We learned that a story has four elements: characters, a setting, a conflict, and a resolution. Yours had the first three, but it didn’t have a resolution. So, I want you to go home and talk to your parents some more. Try to prepare a story that has all those components.”

At home, Amelia’s Father was confused. “What was wrong with the story?”

“She said that it didn’t have a resolution,” she replied. “Do you have one that does?”

“This class.” He shook his head. “Why aren’t they teaching you multiplication or state capitals or something?”

“Because it’s English class.”

“Ok, let me think.”

He leaned forward and stared at a spot on the ground, his forehead tensing. Then he sat up.

“Ok, I think I’ve got one. Do you want to take notes?”

When the time came to present, Amelia didn’t need her notes. So she left them on her desk. She glanced around the room, making sure that she had everyone’s attention before starting.

“My Father had always planned on going to Michigan State when he finished high school. But he ended up going into the Army, instead. He was assigned to a group called “the Army Corps of Engineers.”

The Army Corps of Engineers built roads and bridges in Vietnam. Sometimes they fixed ones that were already there. Sometimes they built new ones. And sometimes they blew things up to trap the enemy or clear out an area.

Paved roads, like cement or asphalt roads, were new to some of the parts. The locals weren’t really sure what their purpose was. So, at night, old men would gather on the roads and just hang out, squatting and talking. The streets didn’t have much light, which made it hard to see.

One night a convoy - that means a group of trucks - from my father’s platoon was driving down a road when they ran over one of these old men. It was an accident, of course. So, they stopped and got out to have a look.

My dad said that when they got to the body, it was nothing but a mound of pulp, like a stew of raw meat and rags. There was almost no one else around. The other old men who had been on the scene just scrammed as soon as the soldiers got out.

The platoon members argued about what they should do. They decided the easiest thing would be to just get rid of the body. That would save them all the hassle of filling out paperwork and reporting it to the local government.

So, they scooped the remains of the man into bags and hauled them back to their camp. They waited until the next day when they were pouring concrete. And while it was still wet, they tossed it in the bags.

But this was bad. You see, my dad says the Vietnamese believe that a person must be properly buried to have a peaceful afterlife. Otherwise, the dead person’s soul will wander the Earth. So, by burying him this way, the way they did, they were dooming him to an eternity in Hell.

The U.S. military used this belief against the North Vietnamese. It was a scare tactic. When they were on their way to fight, they would play recordings of voices that sounded like ghosts. The voices would tell the enemy that they were back from the dead and to go home or end up like them, trapped in endless suffering. Sometimes it worked.

But when my dad heard the recordings, he heard something else - an old man’s voice whispering ‘you did this.’

And it turns out that the old man had his revenge, after all. A week after my dad transferred platoons, his old platoon was ambushed. Not a single soldier survived.

So, my dad was pretty lucky. But he didn’t make it out without scars. He still hates driving at night. And whenever he hears whispers, he thinks of that old man.”

Amelia started towards her desk. But she stopped and turned.

“Oh, I guess that story didn’t really have a resolution, either. But my dad said that - in real life - not all stories have resolutions.”

Amelia smiled at Ms. Hill. She had never felt more gifted.