No Heroes: A Memoir of Coming Home

Brothers of the Hill

Most rural childhoods evolve in isolation, but not mine. In Haldeman twelve boys lived along two ridges connected by paths in the woods. Ricky and Randy were oldest by a few years, then Charley, Marty, Michael, and me. Below us were Roy, Jeff, and Roger of the same age, then Gregory and Faron, and finally Sonny the youngest.

The older boys went off by themselves and threw rocks at us if we tried to join them. Charley was big and quiet. Marty was the smallest and never stopped talking. Michael was tough, I was reckless, and everyone looked after Sonny.

We Haldemaniacs were in each other’s homes as much as our own. We rode bicycles along dirt roads, animal paths, and creek beds, flying at top speed through the woods until someone wrecked. On any given day, a couple of us were scraped, bleeding, bruised, limping, and suffering from a black eye or a fat lip. Regardless of weather, we spent every afternoon together, each weekend, and all summer. The woods was our house. Haldeman was our world.

The boys were different now. Every damn one of us had become a grown man with adult problems. One had a heart attack before age forty. Five of us were divorced, three liked to drink, nine had children, two were balding, one was solid gray, and seven were fat. Four lived in trailers and another lived at home. One of us was dead — Michael had used a pistol on himself, and none of us had gotten over it.

After a month I built the courage to visit Michael’s grave and stayed there for a long time talking to him. I took a few photographs. He was my best friend, but instead of grief, I was surprised to feel anger. As much as I loved him, he used to piss me off a lot, too. Now, in death, he’d managed to do it once more. He’d have enjoyed that.

Faron had grown into a handsome man nicknamed Hollywood for his resemblance to Nick Nolte. Like many men of the hills, Faron was a man of action, even if that action meant sitting on the porch. He was like a tree with something nervous inside. Roy had gone through the Gulf War and returned with a part of himself concealed. Sonny was learning the trade of plumbing from his father. Randy walked hours alone in the woods. He was the only person from Haldeman who ever sent me a letter. “Hey hillbillie!” he wrote. “Glad to hear you made it ok. I was somewhat worried as I know from experience that mountain folks don’t make good travelers. They usually get homesick before they ever leave.”

Roy drove a 1966 Mustang, cherried out, restored until it gleamed in the sun.

Faron drove a yellow Nova that could run like a scalded dog.

Sonny owned a broke-down GTO that he kept beneath a tarp in an open shed up a hollow beside a creek.

My Malibu fit in but the boys were appalled that I didn’t know how to work on it. Sonny thought the car was wasted on me and sought to buy it cheap. Faron wanted the double-pump carburetor. Roy eyed my rig carefully. Although his car was easy on the eyes, mine just might be able to outrun his in the quarter-mile.

Some nights we all got together in front of our cars and drank beer, setting the cans on the hood of my Malibu because I had the worst paint job. We lied about the present, reminisced about the past, and utterly ignored the future. We repeated ourselves endlessly. My sons mingled with their kids, throwing Frisbees and footballs and trying to sneak a drink of beer. I was reliving childhood from the other end, but it always ended the same way — arms around each other, staggering in the dirt, wishing Michael were with us, wishing Haldeman was with us, wishing time had halted twenty-five years ago at the apex of innocence. Those evenings were my happiest at home.

Only one exchange comes to mind. Faron had a pistol lying in the front seat of his truck, and I asked why.

“It’s like toilet paper,” he said.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I’d rather have it handy than need it.”

“Well,” I said, “don’t wipe your ass with your gun.”

“I done did and it went off,” Faron said. “You want to take a look?”

“Whatever you do,” his brother said. “Don’t say yes.”

“I tell you what you ort to see,” Faron said, “is a old boy’s ass I work with. We call him Fencerow. They’s four of us. Hogbody’s got a body shaped like a hog except with arms and legs like a human. I don’t know how Dog Peter Gnat got his name, but we call him Dog Peter Gnat. Now Fencerow, he’s the kind of feller likes to moon you when you don’t expect it. He don’t care. He never wears a belt so he can do it quick. His ass crack is hairy as hell. It’s like where a fencerow used to be and the grass still grows thick there. That’s why we call him Fencerow, and Chris, you ain’t lived till you seen his ass.”