Glory Days: A Novel

Chapter 1

"Glory Days: A Novel"
By: Holland Cowger
Dedicated to those who served our country
And to those who played the game of baseball.
You all represent the true spirit of America.

1

        The year was 1966, November; I was 14, so young, so goddamn young.
            I sat in the backseat of my father's brand-new '66 Ford Mustang. It was cherry red, like all Ford Mustangs should be, that color red that makes you stand up and take notice. That, "Holy shit, that's Red!" kinda red. And the hubcaps! They were so bright and shiny you would have to shield your eyes when the sun hit them.
            There was real power underneath that hood. Not that foreign power crap you see nowadays, but "good old-fashioned American horsepower," as my father used to say. If you were standing next to it when the engine revved, your pant leg would vibrate. It was fantastic! Everyone would stop and notice it rumbling down the street. And the smell of that leather interior, oh man, that damned new-car smell....
            I used to love riding around in it with my parents. I know kids don't typically want to be seen in their parents' cars (believe me, I didn't want a thing to do with my mother's green Chevy Nomad) but riding around in that '66 Mustang, I was tops!
            As most of you know, in 1966 the United States was fully involved in Vietnam. Almost a quarter million American soldiers were fighting in the jungles in some far-off land. Lyndon Johnson was president, coming into office after the assassination of JFK in '63. The Peace Movement was growing and gaining steam. The Dodgers were no longer in Brooklyn and were now soaking up the sun in Southern California. The Beatles were ruling the world of rock and roll. Life was electric.
            There was and never will be a time like the '60s.
            We had everything...We had politics: Kennedy, LBJ, and Nixon. We had the birth of rock and roll: Zeppelin, Woodstock, and Hendrix. We saw the Beatles evolve, then break up. We had make love not war, up the establishment! We had nuclear weapons, Kent State, the Bay of Pigs, and of course we had Martin Luther King, Jr.
            In no other time in American history was the opportunity so great to change the world – but we squandered it. Too much of a good thing will do that to you – too many drugs, too much rock and roll, too many parties. And it slipped through our hands like gossamer.
                The windows of my father's car were down and the cool fall air blew in. The Four Tops were singing "I Can't Help Myself," and I hummed along to it, tapping my fingers against my knee.
            I was happier than I can remember ever having been.
            Things made sense back then. It seemed like everything made sense. It felt like people were thinking. Society as a whole was looking at itself and re-evaluating what it thought was right. The hippies were trying to put an end to the war. The Civil Rights Movement was vying for equality. Nothing was perfect, but it felt as if everyone had ideas, and we were all pushing as a people, as a nation, as one, for a common good. We were going to the moon, for God's sake! It was a magical time. What I wouldn't give to be back in that car with my family.
            But times change, people change, people die, the calendar flips to a new decade, and what you used to believe in doesn't make as much sense anymore...until one day you're left with all your dreams in tatters, wondering where it all went wrong.
            I'm getting very ahead of myself here. This isn't easy for me.
            Some nights I sit on my porch, wondering when it changed, where it began to go wrong. When did everything I thought I knew to be right, become not right?
            It was that day.
            I could see my father Joseph's eyes in the rear view mirror as he kept looking back at us while he drove – my brother, Jim, my sister, Suzie and me – and he had this huge proud look on his face. He had that father's look in his eye, you know, the one where the pride shone through like a sunburst and it made your heart skip. It was that special love between father and son and it was overwhelming. A kid would do anything to get a look like that from his dad.
            I watched as he smiled and his eyes crinkled up on the sides. He was so proud of us, all three of his children. Amazing...he had no idea. We had no idea.
            My mother, Marie, was in the front passenger seat staring out the window, eyes sad, smiling meekly. Her countenance was the complete opposite of my father's. While my dad was beaming, my mother was on the verge of tears. I'd catch a glimpse of her now and then as she'd dab her eyes with a handkerchief.
            But, this day wasn't about my sister or my mother, or even me. We were just spectators today; we were the extras. We were not the stars of this picture. This day belonged to my brother and my father.
            My brother was definitely my father's son, my little sister was definitely my mother's daughter, and I am, still to this day, not sure where the hell I fit in. I was the middle child, somewhere lost between mom and dad, sandwiched between my brother and sister.
           I used to lie in my bed at night and wonder how the hell I got here. This must be some cruel joke, I thought.
I was not necessarily more creative, or intelligent, I simply felt like I did a lot more thinking than anyone else in my family. I was the only one who thought we could do things differently. It didn't always have to be the same routine.
I wanted to be unique, yet it made me stick out like a sore thumb. No one knew what to do with me. I never quite felt like I belonged as much as I felt like a guest. One minute it seemed like the entire family was oblivious of me and then the next they were all welcoming me into their home.
           My brother would force everything, and if it didn't fit, shit, he would make it fit, and break it if need be. My sister would sweet-talk it, and if she didn't get her way she would pout. But me, I learned how to finesse everything. I learned boundaries; sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. You can't get everything in life. If I went too far one way it would piss off my brother and if I went too far the other way my sister would be upset. So I had to learn how to make all parties happy. But I understood. This wasn't a shock to me like it always seemed to be for my older brother and younger sister when they forced their issues and lost.
            I'll tell you, the one thing I dreaded was the Family Vote. I despised the Family Vote; that was no fun for me. My brother and father would side with each other; my mom and sister would be on their team, and who would be stuck in the middle? Yours truly. Always the goddamn tiebreaker. Someone was going to be pissed at me, it was simple as that. Did I want my sister upset and crying? Or did I want to risk getting my ass kicked off by my brother? Tough decision for a child to make.
            One of my favorite childhood memories was when I realized I could sit out the Family Vote. So, once I knew that, I'd let the four of them duke it out. It was an easy decision. My ability to abstain from any family decisions became my best skill.
            I always imagined that one morning I would wake up and walk into the living room where my family would all be standing around laughing and pointing at me, then suddenly Durward Kirby would appear and say, "You're on Candid Camera!" Then from behind some curtain would appear my real mom, and dad, and balloons would drop from the ceiling and they'd say, "You have no brother or sister! You're an only child!" My "brother" Jim would come over to me and shake my hand and say, "Hey, no hard feelings, huh?" And I'd be completely OK with getting my ass kicked by him for the first fourteen years of my life because, finally, I could do whatever the hell I wanted to do for once. Then my new parents would come over to me and hug me and kiss me, and we'd go home and have dinner and we'd eat what I wanted to eat and we'd watch what I wanted to watch and life would be perfect. Finally, I would be the one that would be able to make the decisions!
            But of course that never happened. There was never any Candid Camera, no balloons ever dropped from the ceiling, and instead I endured it.
            I mean it wasn't all that bad, but unless you're a middle child then what the hell do you know? Trust me, all the middle children out there know exactly where I'm coming from.
           Which brings us back to that day in the backseat of my father's '66 Ford Mustang. Me, in the center, looking at my father through the rear view mirror, my brother to my left – big, handsome, strong – my little sister to my right with her doll, always with the doll (I hated that doll), whom she called Margie (a strange looking redheaded stuffed toy in denim overalls and oversized blue eyes – which I'm sure were always watching us), as she stared peacefully outside, probably in some fantasy in her head, and my mother in the front passenger seat, gently wiping away her tears, dreading the outcome of this family drive.
            I looked out the window as the landscape flew by: The trees had turned from the deep greens of summer to the rich oranges and reds of fall. The sun had begun to run along the southern hemisphere – another year, another season gone, having done its work to bring us life was now south doing its duty below the equator. I watched as the corn, now tall and brown and ready for harvest, sped by, blending into a single wall of mahogany, ready to deliver its bounty.
            My brother smiled back at my father in the rear view mirror. Maybe he just wanted to make him happy. Isn't that what we all want? To make our parents happy? To make them proud of us? What other joy is there other than knowing your family loves you and tells everyone how well you're doing and how proud they are of you?
            What would I give to go back just for a fraction of time, to give them a glimpse of what we were all getting ourselves into? To tell them what the U.S. government, our government, had in store for us. All we had ever known was going to be ripped from our hands and this was the time to stop it. But I never spoke up.
            It doesn't make any difference now, and I'm sure if I told them what was going to happen they wouldn't believe me anyway. I guess that's why I'm writing this...I know nothing can change the past, all I have now are these memories, these dreams and these words I put on paper.
            That day we were on our way to the bus depot to send my brother off to Vietnam.
            While many young American's were burning their draft cards, marching in D.C., protesting the U.S.'s involvement in Vietnam, smoking weed and "expanding" their minds with LSD, my brother went down to the Marine recruiting station, the day after his eighteenth birthday, fought his way through the crowd and signed up right there on the spot. And my father was the happiest and proudest man in the world.
           His oldest son was following in his footsteps.
           To be a Marine.