Time Between Trains - Anthony Bukoski

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“Left-Handed River,” sweeps in a wide blue arc on the topographical map. Flowing beneath the Chicago & North Western trestle, the river runs through a swamp, then past more neighbors’ houses.

      As Thaddeus bends to kiss another area of the map, I figure that, according to the contour lines, the land above the river must drop thirty feet as it nears the bay. All of this is marked on the map. Sometimes, in real life, the Left-Handed River reverses course. Instead of entering the bay from the south, the way it normally does, the river appears as if it’s running back to where it came from. This happens when northwest winds create whitecaps on the lake.

      “If I kiss the place,” Tad’s saying, “then I’m okay. But how do you kiss a neighborhood? I’ve never done nothing brave. At least lemme study this map a little and get some strength.”

      “You’ll be home soon.You’ll be discharged,” my father says.

      Seeing the mark on the map where the water tower used to be, I point to it, telling them to look. Pa must swallow his Żubrówka the wrong way, because he has to cough. “It’s the old railroad water tower near the bay,” he says. “‘WT’ means water tower. I forgot about it. Now my kid spots ’er. The round tank, the funnel that trains got water from. Great. You’re some map reader, Andy,” he congratulates me. “The water tower has been torn down for a long time.”

      “What’s this on the map, the ‘Pesthouse’?” I ask.

      “It’s not here anymore,” he tells me.

      “Am I here?” asks Tad. “Do I exist? Man, too much beer and vodka.”

      We study the map’s contours as though they were contours of our lives, and Pa says, “In purple at the bottom it’s got ‘Revisions compiled and map edited 1964.’ But over here . . . ‘Topography from aerial photographs taken 1959.’ It’s 1968. I’m looking at ’er and seeing things have changed. No ‘Home for the Aged.’ No ‘Poor Farm.’ No ‘Pesthouse.’ Tore down so many years ago like other things. I suppose it’s how they do things at a map company.”

      “I don’t know why they sent me an old map.”

      Despite the map’s insufficiencies, Tad kisses it again, and I wonder if I could ever feel such love for the East End.

      It is strange when the church bell rings. At 6:00, storm or not, it rings everyday; but now the kitchen clock reads 6:07, and we’re examining a map of old places, and the bell rings and startles me.

      It must be the weather; snow changes contours. In winter blizzards, in summer heat, I’ve heard the bell as I explored beneath the trestle, floated in Burbul’s canoe on the river, or walked over the ice on the bay before the first snow. I’ve heard the bell out on Hog Island and heard it at the cemetery above the Left-Handed River. Always at six o’clock. Now today, it rings late.

      In the living room, Pani says, “Beat-beat.” Her head falls. She dozes.

      “Rivers don’t change,” Tad says. “Goddam. I’ve gotta do something brave. I want to be remembered as the East End man who wore a Purple Heart on his chest. Oh, this heart, Uncle Edda and Fuzz Mold! A crate of eggs fell on me. Then a barrel of S.O.S. on top . . . chipped beef, chunks of ground beef in a cream sauce. ‘S.O.S.’ is short for ‘Sheet on a shingle,’ as Mrs. Pilsudski would say. There mighta been bread involved in this incident, five or six loaves. Sausage links. Oatmeal. They all fell. A food accident crushed me. I have the leg to prove it.We were going to the field to bring a meal to the grunts. We’d rewarm it when we got there. Intelligence said everything was hunky-dory on the road. They cleared us to go. Our convoy carried field stoves, food, ice for tea, immersion heaters for the troops to dip mess kits in hot water after chow—

      “Staff Sergeant Farrazzi was up in the cab with the driver. We didn’t rope stuff down good. Only the eggs were secured, but that didn’t help. The driver swerved to miss a peasant walking his water buffalo. The peasant was heading through this storm swirl of butterflies, which the driver tried to avoid. The driver’d got his military license for that size of truck only a month before. Here I am a lance corporal who’d made many a tasty soufflé and who wanted his Belgian waffles to be the best in the Ninth Marine Expeditionary Brigade, and I’m wounded by eggs and bread. I’m drunk. Did you know Ho Chi Minh collected butterflies?”

      “Don’t talk none about war,” my pop says. “You’re my sister’s boy. It is a shame you can’t feel like a hero. I don’t believe what you told us.You’re no cook.You’re a hero, even if you’re drunk.”

      “I could make you something to eat,” Thaddeus says. “Eggs and toast, kielbasa and eggs to prove my courage. Everybody likes Polish sausage.”

      “Won’t kielbasa remind you of combat?” I ask.

      “What are you talking about?” Mother asks as she comes into the room. “Get your cousin a cup of coffee right now, Andrew. He has to sober up. You all sound rattle-brained. Stop drinking before you get too crazy. Straighten up.”

      “He don’t need coffee,” says my father, pouring him a glass of Żubrówka as Tad tries to speak Polish. Outside, tree branches and pine boughs litter the snow. We sit in a kitchen where I think the contour of a life, the history of a life, must run like purple lines that show its depth, and I suddenly believe this map of Tad’s should include other people who’ve lived in the East End of Superior and sat together on stormy nights in kitchens, as well as the people on the Old Country map you see at the Warsaw Tavern. Now Tad is making a place for himself on the map of memory. I am, too, thinking that among the storm’s windfall of trees and branches this very All Saints’ Eve, departed souls are waiting for another soul to depart—this one for Vietnam. Maybe it’s storming in Old Country Poland now, too. It’s possible, I think, that the herb connects us—the herb, our history, and this old Polish language Thaddeus is trying to speak.

      Now Ma tells Pani Pilsudski, “Don’t worry. We’ll get you home.”

      Helping her up, Mother hugs her so she knows she’s okay.As Mrs. Pilsudski puts on her wool coat and boots, I throw on a jacket, push open the porch door against the storm.

      Between our house and hers, two feet of snow drift over the sidewalk. On the nearby railroad trestle, a train passes quietly. When we’ve crossed the new contours, Mrs. Pilsudski thanks us, tells us she will say a rosary for us. “Arriba,” she says. “Beat-beat bongos.”

      “Arriba,” we say. “Beat-beat.”

      I figure Thaddeus will now return to his map; but he goes off into the night wearing his tassel cap, blue sunglasses, and uniform overcoat—stumbling into the wind, maybe to his mother’s home, maybe to the Polish Club. “I’m doing fine,” he’s saying.

      I lose sight of him in the storm. As I walk back into the house, I see Pa stumbling a little but know he’ll be okay.

      I page through the blue booklet Tad gave me. Sixteen pages in Polish, a language I am trying to study but now need Pa’s help to read.“ Celem Towarzystwa Bratniej Pomocy im. Tadeusza Kościusz-ki . . . ,” it starts, then goes, “będzie skupienie pod swój sztander Polaków, ku wzajemnemu I moralnemu poparciu. . . .” “Look-it,” I say, “‘The Club’s purpose is the gathering of Poles under their own standard for mutual and moral support.’” I read in Polish after Pa how the Kosciuszko Club and Lodge is also for “‘the fostering among club members of the feeling of love and brotherhood, for the defending of Polish honor, and finally for the furtherance of the principles and immortal deeds of one of Poland’s greatest sons.’”

      “It’s a symbol,” Pa says.

      “You’re drunk, Edda,” Mother says.

      “Drinking’ll kill me,” says my father.

      “Go to bed, Andrew,” Ma says as the telephone rings.

      I answer it. Mr. and Mrs. Novazinski are both talking at once: “Andy! Your cousin says he wants to kiss our walls and floors while he’s out trick-or-treating. He never

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