A story that repeats itself, over and over and over
by Jack Mauro
"Momma. What's a volunteer?" This from Amber Trahern, eight, to Hyacinth Trahern, thirty-one, who hears the singsong cadence of the question, but not its content.
Amber sits on the floor by her mother rubbing her head and hair on the parental calf like a Siamese. The living room in their Middlebrook Heights home is tense, although not from little Amber's inquiry. It is the tension houses hold when they are to be temporarily abandoned. It is July 4th and the Traherns are timing everything for the night's fireworks excursion downtown. Even the meatloaf in the kitchen seems to know and is hardening its crust out of spite.
Amber's impatience for an answer takes shape in her wrapping a tiny hand around Hyacinth's ankle and yanking it. "Well, Momma?"
"Hm?"
A child's raspberry of dumbfoundedness spritzes the air and wets Mrs. Trahern's leg. "What's a volunteeeeer?"
"Oh, why, you are, sweet pea!"
"I am?" Amber looks at her own little body. It is unchanged.
"Yes, darlin'. I am too. We all are."
Amber chews on the answer and a fingernail for a minute or so. She doesn't pursue the answer further. If volunteers are such common creatures, she wants no part of it.
Then, in the corner by the bay window, the symbiotic fixture of easy chair and Hyacinth's grandfather comes to life. As though the word "volunteer" took its sweet time in crossing the room and making its way into his not sleeping, not conscious, head.
"Eh? Volunteer? Who's a volunteer?"
Amber, arms crossed and unhappily now one of a zillion whatevers, replies. "I am, Papaw." But she is not confident that her disgust with the ordinariness of the volunteer state of being came through in her reply, so she adds a hearty, "Bleccch."
"What's that, Missy? You hear that, Cindy?"
Hyacinth is thinking about parking downtown. She has heard nothing. "Yes, Gram'pa."
"Fine thing. Young lady, spittin' at bein' part of a proud tradition." If truth be known, the elder Mr. Trahern is still unsure just what conversational world he awoke into. So far, though, he's getting away with it.
"Well, Momma says everybody's one. Everyone's a volunteer. So who cares?" Amber is a sitting and skinny, forty-inches of pure Duh.
"You hear this, Cindy? Can't believe it. Disgraceful, is what it is."
Hyacinth is mentally pulling into a space that will cost her a favor she doesn't necessarily want to bestow. "Yes, Gram'pa. It's wonderful."
"Is that meatloaf I'm smellin'?
"Yes, Grampa."
"Bleccch. C'mere, Missy. Time you learned what a Trahern gal needs to know."
The invitation leaves Amber precisely as immobile as she was before it was issued. Only a look of inescapable dread alters her thin face. If she were chubby she'd be pouting.
"I said, 'C'mere,' Missy." And Hyacinth's leg kick-starts the child on the path to ancestral wisdom and that smell Papaws have.
"See, you ain't just a Tennessee volunteer, young miss. You're a Trahern volunteer. An' here's why. What happened, a long time ago..." Amber switches forebear legs as recliners, inhales nasty old wool, makes another face, and listens.
What happened a long time ago, as told by Grandfather Trahern:
Johnny Trahern said, "Momma, I'm goin' to volunteer!" It was 1842. Do you know how long ago that was? No? Well, there was no TV, no radio, no cars even. That's how long. His momma, Julia Trahern—fine woman, but still a woman—threw up her apron. "Johnny, no!", she cried out. But Trahern men don't go soft easy, once their minds is made up.
Where was he goin'? Why, to Texas, baby. See, Texas wasn't a state just yet. They were fightin' for their freedom from them Mexicans. And good ole Sam Houston—a Tennessee boy, mind you—he was president of Texas, an' he knew he could count on all them fine boys to help without even bein' asked to. Johnny Trahern come home a hero. An' that's why you can always be extra proud o' bein' a Trahern volunteer. Here, honey lamb. Lemme explain it all to you again, nice an' slow...
What did happen a long time ago:
John Trahern did indeed stand in the family kitchen and say, "Momma, I'm goin' to volunteer." His declaration coincided, oddly enough, with Julia Trahern's insertion of her upper half in the cast-iron stove and the limits on hearing such a posture created. Yet the real sweat in the room, odder still, was on John's brow.
Julia extricated herself from the stove in the manner of a suicide having second thoughts. She rose, wiped her hands on her smock very slowly and regarded her boy with a look that shamed the oven's infernal power.
He repeated his statement. She said, "I see." John's Adam's Apple bobbed up and down like a paddle ball.
Garvey Trahern, John's grandfather, heard the name, "Houston,"and brought his spindly frame and masculine solidarity to the kitchen. The boy would need support.
It was 1842. It was late September. For nearly two hours mother and son discussed the notion in ever-shrinking circles of rationale. Garvey grunted when he thought it would help John's cause. Julia didn't understand the cause. The magical name of Sam Houston left her cold. And she wondered why so many Tennessee boys were going to assist a Tennessee boy who had made Texas his home.
At nineteen, John was as much man as he would be for some time. That is, he was unable to defend his decision. So he turned to his trump card of argument: all his friends were going. Garvey slapped his grandson on the back many times, as though the war had been fought, won, and Sam Houston himself was right then smoking a pipe in their parlor.
John said, "I got to, Momma. For Texas. The Mexicans keep tryin' to take it back."
Julia pondered this. "Wasn't it theirs?"
"Ma'am?"
"Wasn't it their land t' begin with?"
John turned to his grandfather, but there was no help to be had. There is nothing to be done with women and war because they don't understand. But men try.
"Sam Houston, Julia. It's an honor. The boy'll be makin' history."
Pause. Odor of cooking meat and tension.
"It ain't jus' me, Momma. All the boys are goin'." Again. In case the lady was unclear on this point.
Pause. Odor of cooking meat, and slow acceptance. Julia Trahern was not the first woman to wonder about the validity of numbers in such arguments. She didn't see the light. She didn't even remotely concede that her son's ambition was smart or noble. What she saw was that it was going to happen.
"All right, then."
"Thank you, Momma." Julia accepted the gratitude without a word. There was no satisfaction for her save a hazy and racially prejudicial belief in Mexican ineptitude with firearms.
It was settled. Which left John feeling, for the first time since he'd entertained the idea of volunteering, scared.
Garvey Trahern asked, "What's for supper, Julia?"
"Meat pie."
"Bleccch."
(Let the record reflect: John Trahern did indeed go to fight for Texas' freedom. He and hundreds more volunteered to stand by Sam Houston. Luckily for Julia and the Knoxville Trahern line, however, John missed the October 3rd battle for Laredo. He made it for the Archives Battle of San Antonio, though, which was completely bloodless and involved nothing more violent than the transferring of state documents. A few horses were shorn of their manes in protest but Mexican skill with weaponry, or the lack thereof, never entered into the fray.)
Grandfather Trahern again:
"An' that, Missy, is why the Trahern name is a proud one."
Amber stares at the carpet, as she has during both her grandfather's summary and excruciatingly lengthy tale. Sam Houston, the Tennessee Volunteers and all of Texas itself may have been buried in the De-luxe Weave pile.
"So Johnny did come home?"
"You bet he did, young lady. Like I said, a real hero."
Pause. Odor of grandfatherness.
"An' we're his kin?"
Pause. Odor of grandfatherness, and reverence.
"That's right, baby. So you be proud, now."
Amber twirls a thoughtful forefinger into the rug's pile.
"An' that's why we're all volunteers?"
"Mm-hm."
"But I didn't go to Texas."
"That don't matter, sweet pea."
"I don't wanna go to Texas."
"Darlin', you don't have to. That ain't the point. The point is, you got volunteer spirit."
Amber mulls over the potential advantages to such a commodity. The outlook isn't good; there is too strong a likelihood of being shot at by men in big hats and droopy mustaches. She suddenly sits up.
"Oh. What happened to the Mexicans?"
"Huh?"
"Them poor Mexicans, who lost their land?"
The old man hurls himself and his mustiness back into his easy chair. "Sweet Lord!" He rubs his head that even little girls are women who don't get it. But men try. Muttering "Bleccchs" in harmony, grandfather and granddaughter go into dinner.
July 3, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 27
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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