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mash_slash2006-02-09 01:44 am
smithy161.livejournal.com) wrote in mash_slash2006-02-09 01:44 am
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I'll Tell You in the Morning, Hawkeye
Rating: PG-13, perhaps a little higher for language
Summary: The penultimate piece of Hawkeye's letter to a now fully-grown Erin Hunnicut, in which he tries to explain her father's actions after Korea. BJ/Hawkeye.
Feedback: I've noticed this story getting lots of hits on ff.net ... but very little feedback. Please tell me if you liked it, if you hated it, if you think anything needs changing. Anything at all!
And then there were the happy times, such as they were. BJ found a job at a local hospital, pretended to the world in general that he was my cousin renting the guest room, and made arrangements for you and Peg to stay with us through August. Before Korea I know I must have been happy, but I can’t remember any specific moments. The war was hell, and the decade after it was purgatory, but once I had BJ in my life again, things straightened themselves out a little. Metaphorically speaking.
Life revolved around two things for us: work and play. Working apart from each other, we spent huge chunks of the day in different places, and then finally, come evening, I would lock the door of dad’s practise, say g’night to the old man himself, and sprint home in time to surprise BJ – who was invariably late – with a meal or a carefully prepared drink, or just with myself. The evenings were ours. When I entertained it was strictly at weekends, and I’d usher everyone out by ten, in time for BJ and I to curl up on the sofa with the radio or a book between us, or to doze together in silence. Sometimes dad came round, and he and BJ got along so well it was unnecessary to explain to him what was going on. “A friend … renting the spare room” sufficed, and possibly wasn’t even heard as dad cracked some awful joke and forced another glass of whisky on poor bemused BJ.
I’ll always remember the day three days before dad died. We had him staying with us, bundled up in the spare room with a bell to ring for anything he needed, and we fed BJ’s employers with excuses so that one of us could be in the house at all times. We were both sitting in with him, when suddenly he had a coughing fit that shook the entire house. When he calmed down, he declared he thought he was dying, and grabbed BJ’s hand.
“Promise me something,” he insisted, with no option of no for an answer. “Promise me you’ll look after Hawkeye when I’m gone.”
“Don’t be silly, you aren’t going anywhere,” I insisted, but dad waved at me to shut up.
“I’m talking to Beej here, kid, so pipe down. BJ … I want you to try and love my son as much as I do. It won’t be easy, but try. I know what you two have got going on here, and at first it rattled me, but when you look at each other … Well you’ve got something I can’t stand in the way of. And you’ve got my blessing too.”
My dad. Always full of surprises. And if he couldn’t stand in the way of us, neither could the chief of medicine up at the hospital, when an aunt of mine – an elderly patient of his – got wind of our living arrangements. With perfect innocence, the old dear chatted away about a visit to our house, and gave away the secret of that damned un-slept in guest room. She had no capacity to guess what that implied, but old Dr Halliday did, and BJ found his sorry ass unemployed the very next day, after refusing to find other accommodation and declare his heterosexuality. And that, I’m sorry to say, was the end of you dad’s career. A fucking waste – pardon my French – and a complete scandal on behalf of the hospital for letting go of a brilliant surgeon because of his personal life.
But nothing could keep BJ’s spirits down long, because after a week of mooching around at home and bothering me at work, you and your mum arrived. I have never seen BJ laugh so much as he did that summer. At ten years old, you were still utterly devoted to your parents, but your wicked little sense of humour was shining through, and I remember thinking you had bags of energy even for a child. My garden became a playground, and you automatically made friends with other children in the street so that when I came home from work there were often eight or nine kids shinning up that horrible old tree, playing football, or lounging about on the grass.
BJ and Peg didn’t speak to each other much. In fact Peg only really socialised with you, never taking her eyes off you and certainly never glancing at us when we stood or sat together. The one time she walked in on us mid-kiss, an enormous row broke out over the inappropriateness of such behaviour with a child around and the disgustingness of the whole thing in general. BJ was furious, and I was none too amused either, but we kept a lid on our anger and saved the intimacy for genuine alone-time. I guess that’s what got you confused once you hit your teens.
Despite a few hitches, the first summer went fine. Peg agreed to bring you back the following year, and things progressed more or less like that until you were fifteen. That was 1966, I think, and we had the new television set on in the living room. BJ and I were at opposite ends of the couch with you in the middle, leaning on your dad. Peg, now a little more at ease with things, sat to one side. We were discussing the latest war – Vietnam – and the reasons why BJ and I had so far managed to avoid the draft board this time round.
“Well Hawkeye’s too old,” was BJ’s smart-ass comment that sticks in my mind. “And I … well I’m a bit out of practice now. Can hardly carve a turkey any more. And I’m not exactly soldier material, especially with … the circumstances in which I lost my job.”
“Daddy, how did you lose you job?” you asked, radiating innocence.
Peg spoke for the first time that evening. “Just tell her. Get it over with.”
BJ’s explanation was clumsy. I expect you remember it better than I do. It changed your life, after all. He tried to explain it in terms of love rather than sexuality, but I think he rather missed the mark. Can you imagine living in the pig-headed fifties, and the misunderstood sixties, and having to explain to your teenage daughter that you are gay? You didn’t understand. How could you? Peg and her old-fashioned ways brought you up, and an unforgiving society educated you. Homosexuals were deviants, and possibly criminals and mentally diseased. No one had tried to teach you otherwise, and nothing Peg or I could say to you would get you to go back in that room with BJ after you ran out.
And that was it for five years. We sent birthday presents and Christmas cards out to you, but heard nothing back. We rang Peg, but she fobbed us off. BJ finally flew out to California, but you wouldn’t speak to him and he dragged himself home a broken man. I’m not going to say his lapse into depression wasn’t your fault. It was. But perhaps a part of you didn’t mean it, because in 1972 we received that letter asking us to come out to see you. And I swear we would have. I swear we would not have ignored that letter. You see, if you had answered my called I would have explained. That was the day your father fell ill.
Even taking into account my sojourn in the front lines, I have never been so terrified in my life. BJ went out to sit underneath the old apple tree and read some rubbishy book he’d been ploughing through. From what I understand, the heart attack struck in reaction to a sudden shift in air pressure as an abrupt storm front trundled across Maine. At least, that’s the only explanation I’ve been able to find besides ‘his heart was just weak’, which to be honest is a fucking awful diagnosis. I found him almost an hour afterwards, and thank whatever deity was watching that he was still breathing. The ambulance took us off to the same hospital which had fired him years earlier, and a team of nurses set about stabilising him, medicating him, and generally trying to figure out what went wrong. Despite my declarations of doctorhood, they kept me well and truly on the sidelines, all except for a nurse I used to be very well acquainted with.
I begged her to let me examine him, treat him, care for him, but that much she could not grant. She did allow me to set up camp in the ward, talk to BJ all the time he was unconscious, and promised to keep me up to date.
“He’s going to be okay?” I asked, after trying and failing once more to muscle in on the resident doctors’ conversation, steal their charts, and generally find out what was going on. She glanced at the chart, and grimaced.
“You want me to be nice, or honest?”
“Honest. Just tell me. Will he make it through the night?”
She shook her head very slightly. “I’ll tell you in the morning, Hawkeye.”
To be continued…?
For previous chapters, click: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2785005/1/
Rating: PG-13, perhaps a little higher for language
Summary: The penultimate piece of Hawkeye's letter to a now fully-grown Erin Hunnicut, in which he tries to explain her father's actions after Korea. BJ/Hawkeye.
Feedback: I've noticed this story getting lots of hits on ff.net ... but very little feedback. Please tell me if you liked it, if you hated it, if you think anything needs changing. Anything at all!
And then there were the happy times, such as they were. BJ found a job at a local hospital, pretended to the world in general that he was my cousin renting the guest room, and made arrangements for you and Peg to stay with us through August. Before Korea I know I must have been happy, but I can’t remember any specific moments. The war was hell, and the decade after it was purgatory, but once I had BJ in my life again, things straightened themselves out a little. Metaphorically speaking.
Life revolved around two things for us: work and play. Working apart from each other, we spent huge chunks of the day in different places, and then finally, come evening, I would lock the door of dad’s practise, say g’night to the old man himself, and sprint home in time to surprise BJ – who was invariably late – with a meal or a carefully prepared drink, or just with myself. The evenings were ours. When I entertained it was strictly at weekends, and I’d usher everyone out by ten, in time for BJ and I to curl up on the sofa with the radio or a book between us, or to doze together in silence. Sometimes dad came round, and he and BJ got along so well it was unnecessary to explain to him what was going on. “A friend … renting the spare room” sufficed, and possibly wasn’t even heard as dad cracked some awful joke and forced another glass of whisky on poor bemused BJ.
I’ll always remember the day three days before dad died. We had him staying with us, bundled up in the spare room with a bell to ring for anything he needed, and we fed BJ’s employers with excuses so that one of us could be in the house at all times. We were both sitting in with him, when suddenly he had a coughing fit that shook the entire house. When he calmed down, he declared he thought he was dying, and grabbed BJ’s hand.
“Promise me something,” he insisted, with no option of no for an answer. “Promise me you’ll look after Hawkeye when I’m gone.”
“Don’t be silly, you aren’t going anywhere,” I insisted, but dad waved at me to shut up.
“I’m talking to Beej here, kid, so pipe down. BJ … I want you to try and love my son as much as I do. It won’t be easy, but try. I know what you two have got going on here, and at first it rattled me, but when you look at each other … Well you’ve got something I can’t stand in the way of. And you’ve got my blessing too.”
My dad. Always full of surprises. And if he couldn’t stand in the way of us, neither could the chief of medicine up at the hospital, when an aunt of mine – an elderly patient of his – got wind of our living arrangements. With perfect innocence, the old dear chatted away about a visit to our house, and gave away the secret of that damned un-slept in guest room. She had no capacity to guess what that implied, but old Dr Halliday did, and BJ found his sorry ass unemployed the very next day, after refusing to find other accommodation and declare his heterosexuality. And that, I’m sorry to say, was the end of you dad’s career. A fucking waste – pardon my French – and a complete scandal on behalf of the hospital for letting go of a brilliant surgeon because of his personal life.
But nothing could keep BJ’s spirits down long, because after a week of mooching around at home and bothering me at work, you and your mum arrived. I have never seen BJ laugh so much as he did that summer. At ten years old, you were still utterly devoted to your parents, but your wicked little sense of humour was shining through, and I remember thinking you had bags of energy even for a child. My garden became a playground, and you automatically made friends with other children in the street so that when I came home from work there were often eight or nine kids shinning up that horrible old tree, playing football, or lounging about on the grass.
BJ and Peg didn’t speak to each other much. In fact Peg only really socialised with you, never taking her eyes off you and certainly never glancing at us when we stood or sat together. The one time she walked in on us mid-kiss, an enormous row broke out over the inappropriateness of such behaviour with a child around and the disgustingness of the whole thing in general. BJ was furious, and I was none too amused either, but we kept a lid on our anger and saved the intimacy for genuine alone-time. I guess that’s what got you confused once you hit your teens.
Despite a few hitches, the first summer went fine. Peg agreed to bring you back the following year, and things progressed more or less like that until you were fifteen. That was 1966, I think, and we had the new television set on in the living room. BJ and I were at opposite ends of the couch with you in the middle, leaning on your dad. Peg, now a little more at ease with things, sat to one side. We were discussing the latest war – Vietnam – and the reasons why BJ and I had so far managed to avoid the draft board this time round.
“Well Hawkeye’s too old,” was BJ’s smart-ass comment that sticks in my mind. “And I … well I’m a bit out of practice now. Can hardly carve a turkey any more. And I’m not exactly soldier material, especially with … the circumstances in which I lost my job.”
“Daddy, how did you lose you job?” you asked, radiating innocence.
Peg spoke for the first time that evening. “Just tell her. Get it over with.”
BJ’s explanation was clumsy. I expect you remember it better than I do. It changed your life, after all. He tried to explain it in terms of love rather than sexuality, but I think he rather missed the mark. Can you imagine living in the pig-headed fifties, and the misunderstood sixties, and having to explain to your teenage daughter that you are gay? You didn’t understand. How could you? Peg and her old-fashioned ways brought you up, and an unforgiving society educated you. Homosexuals were deviants, and possibly criminals and mentally diseased. No one had tried to teach you otherwise, and nothing Peg or I could say to you would get you to go back in that room with BJ after you ran out.
And that was it for five years. We sent birthday presents and Christmas cards out to you, but heard nothing back. We rang Peg, but she fobbed us off. BJ finally flew out to California, but you wouldn’t speak to him and he dragged himself home a broken man. I’m not going to say his lapse into depression wasn’t your fault. It was. But perhaps a part of you didn’t mean it, because in 1972 we received that letter asking us to come out to see you. And I swear we would have. I swear we would not have ignored that letter. You see, if you had answered my called I would have explained. That was the day your father fell ill.
Even taking into account my sojourn in the front lines, I have never been so terrified in my life. BJ went out to sit underneath the old apple tree and read some rubbishy book he’d been ploughing through. From what I understand, the heart attack struck in reaction to a sudden shift in air pressure as an abrupt storm front trundled across Maine. At least, that’s the only explanation I’ve been able to find besides ‘his heart was just weak’, which to be honest is a fucking awful diagnosis. I found him almost an hour afterwards, and thank whatever deity was watching that he was still breathing. The ambulance took us off to the same hospital which had fired him years earlier, and a team of nurses set about stabilising him, medicating him, and generally trying to figure out what went wrong. Despite my declarations of doctorhood, they kept me well and truly on the sidelines, all except for a nurse I used to be very well acquainted with.
I begged her to let me examine him, treat him, care for him, but that much she could not grant. She did allow me to set up camp in the ward, talk to BJ all the time he was unconscious, and promised to keep me up to date.
“He’s going to be okay?” I asked, after trying and failing once more to muscle in on the resident doctors’ conversation, steal their charts, and generally find out what was going on. She glanced at the chart, and grimaced.
“You want me to be nice, or honest?”
“Honest. Just tell me. Will he make it through the night?”
She shook her head very slightly. “I’ll tell you in the morning, Hawkeye.”
To be continued…?
For previous chapters, click: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2785005/1/