by Gavin Boyter
“Break-time’s over lads! Come on Godfrey, put that out, you goddamn goldbricker!”
The way he conducted himself, you’d think work detail leader Brad Knight was a platoon sergeant in a WWII movie. Will Godfrey stubbed his cigarette into a nearby glob of something disgusting and stuffed the cotton wool balls back up his nose. Two more days of this and he’d finally be free from the dumb sentence the judge had ordered for Will’s latest heinous crime. When the gavel had gone down in court three months ago, Will found himself laughing at the judge’s order: a $1000 fine and twelve weekends of working for the department of sanitation, all for emptying out a deep fat fryer into a public drain behind the restaurant where he worked as a pot-washer. Admittedly he’d argued with a cop about it and called him a “fat fucker” and, fair enough, Will had a colourful rap sheet including brawling, breaking and entering and stealing a pretzel wagon (drunken teenage hi-jinks), but twelve weeks in a sewer, battling “fatbergs” and solidified drifts of toilet tissue, human excrement and hair was excessive. Godfrey considered appealing the ruling, but his attorney advised against it. In fact, he’d practically forbidden it: “Just do your service, pay your fine and put this behind you.”
Good advice, for sure, but Will would love to see the judge down here in the horrific old Chicago sewer, prising used tampons and diapers out of a wall of yellow fat. Will had spent the first three days gagging and being sick. He had learned not to eat before noon.
As he set to work with his protective gear, high-pressure hose and “harpoon”, as he called the metal tool used to scrape free persistent agglomerations, Will was literally counting the hours. He hardly spoke to any of his fellow sewage workers, around half of them recidivists like himself. He just got on with the task in hand and showered for at least thirty minutes at the end of each day.
“Let’s get this little honeypot broken up and go home, boys!” shouted Mr Knight, attempting camaraderie.
‘This little honeypot’ was a fatberg big enough to earn its own postal code. Will was hard at work, spraying it with a solvent that dissipated the fat, then prising chunks free. He was at the head of the line, on the far side of a brick bulwark, away from the others. Abruptly he lowered his hose, having seen something sparkle amongst the gristly grey berg. Will reached out to prise it free. It looked metallic. He managed to hook a piece of coloured fabric attached to it.
“Fuck me!” he felt the need to exclaim. He held in his gloved hand a surprisingly well-preserved Purple Heart, the unmistakable profile of George Washington standing out against the dark background. Quickly remembering what kind of individual he spent his days with, Will shoved the medal into the pocket of his jumpsuit and got on with his work, heart thumping.
The following Monday, as he sat in the public library going through the job advertisements, planning for his fat-free future, Will took the purple heart out of his pocket. On its reverse was an engraving motto: “For Military Merit” and then, in a different typeface: Harold D. Buckley. Having a curious nature (part of the reason for his extensive rap sheet; Will couldn’t resist letting himself in through open windows) Will Googled the name.
There it was, in a list of awarded WWII servicemen. Buckley had been awarded the Purple Heart for his role in the 1945 Battle of Corregidor, in which US troops had retaken the island from the Japanese. He’d led a group of men who’d attacked a Japanese gun emplacement shelling the island’s military hospital. For his efforts, Buckley ended up in that self-same hospital, and had to have his left leg amputated, but the battle was won.
Learning this, Will felt a pang of guilt. He’d already searched several online auction sites and militaria suppliers, for the resale value of the medal, and had been disappointed to discover he’d be lucky to get $40 for it. Over a million were issued during the second world war. Not only would it be far from profitable to sell the medal, Will realised that, given that it had been engraved and he knew who it belonged to, it would be wrong to do so. His natural inquisitiveness and a new sensation he supposed was honour led Will to a firm conclusion – he would give the medal back.
It took just one more hour of online database research for Will to unearth the address of Buckley’s widow, who could be found in assisted living accommodation in Lafayette, Indianapolis. Just a three-and-a-half-hour journey on two Greyhounds; practically next door. Let’s face it, what else did he have to do?
The next day, Buckley was in Lafayette, wandering up and down South Street, trying to locate the Seven Elms Retirement Village. He found it up a shady, tree-lined lane. Number 47 was a cute bungalow with a porch and wheelchair ramp zig-zagging up to the front door. It took three insistent knocks before a hunched figure appeared behind the screen door, clutching a walking frame.
“Mrs Ida Buckley?” Will asked, half expecting a shake of the head and to have the door slammed in in his face. Instead, the sprightly nonagenarian invited him in for cookies and home-made lemonade. Will began to suspect Ida had mistaken him for her home help, but at least it got him in the door.
When he explained himself and presented her with the Purple Heart that had belonged to her long-deceased husband, Ida’s face did not break into the radiant glow Will had imagined on the coach ride from the windy city. Instead she scowled, her liver-spotted and gnarled hand batting Will’s away.
“I threw that away for a reason. Don’t want the darn thing back.”
It transpired that Ida had attended a special celebration event for war widows in Chicago in 2015, to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the Far Eastern campaign. There she’d been shocked to meet a woman called Annabelle Nguyen, apparently her late husband’s daughter by a woman called Rose he’d met in Manila during his six-month recuperation in 1945. For all his heroism, Buckley had fallen in love with his nurse, led a secret life, fathered a child, and Ida had known nothing about it. That night, in her hotel, she’d wept for the first time in years, and had flushed the medal down the lavatory, pushing it around the U-bend with her walking stick.
Two hours later, Will sat in a local bar, downing his fifth Bud and wondering if the awful country covers band would stop murdering Waylon Jennings songs anytime soon. It took another couple of beers before they did. Nothing had gone according to plan and Will felt more than a little foolish. Didn’t anyone want to be reminded of Serviceman Harold D. Buckley’s sacrifice?
Will was probably still a little drunk the following morning as he sat in an internet café and bought himself a return ticket to Manila, all but draining his bank account in so doing. He’d never previously journeyed further than Florida, and here he was going eight thousand miles on a probable wild goose chase. Still, it wasn’t as if Will had a busy social calendar ahead of him. Why not have an adventure? Will obtained the necessary documents and shots, packed a raggedy suitcase and was an All Nippon Airways flight to the Philippines three days later.
Arriving at Ninoy Aquino International Airport on 31st June, Will was assaulted by a wall of moist heat. Taxi drivers jostled for his business, but he waved them away and grabbed a tuktuk to his mid-priced hotel in Makati, one he couldn’t really afford but had chosen very carefully, nevertheless. Will didn’t draw attention to himself on arrival, just crashed onto his bed with the air-con on full. Chicagoans aren’t made for mid-thirties humidity. It would take Will several days to adjust to everything about this chaotic, fragrant and beautiful country. He walked the lively streets, jogged along the baywalk, visited Fort Santiago and some of the war memorials, drank sickly cocktails, bided his time.
Four days later, what Will had been waiting for finally occurred. A woman came into the hotel lobby where Will was sipping a coffee and pretending to read a three-day old New York Times. The woman was extraordinarily petite, not quite five feet tall, in her mid-twenties and wore wide-rimmed glasses that gave her pretty face an owlish cast. She began to tend to the plants in the lobby, removing dead leaves, spraying insecticide, watering everything. Will surreptitiously watched her, sliding along the banquette seating to allow her access to a bold display of orchids. As she was completing her rounds and packing away her equipment, Will lowered his paper.
“Cherry Nguyen?”
The woman’s response was almost comic – she jumped back, pushing her glasses up her nose and looking panic-stricken.
“No, no,” will said quickly. “I’m a friend. Well, I come in peace. I mean… sorry, this is stupid. I have something for you. Something from your grandfather. Look.”
Flustered, blushing unexpectedly, Will handed over the presentation box he’d sourced online. Christ, this was ridiculous. What was he trying to prove, and why had he sprung it on her like that?
Cherry took the gift with a perplexed smile and opened it, sitting down edge of a large circular planter. Inside, of course, was the Purple Heart, newly polished. Will had had plenty of time to work on its restoration, unpicking the seam on the ribbon so it could be separately dry-cleaned, then stitching it back together. When Cherry turned the medal over, she gasped audibly, and then she did something that helped Will understand that nothing he’d done in the last ten days had been stupid. She smiled, an expression of surprise and joy that filled Will with something he’d not felt for months – uncomplicated happiness.
“Amazing!”, Cherry said, “Thank you so much. But… how?”
Will bade Cherry join him at his table, ordered them two cool drinks and told her his story, leaving nothing out, not even his crimes.
“I’m Will Godley,” he began “and I have made many mistakes.”
Gavin is a Scottish writer and filmmaker living in London. He has published two travel memoirs about running ludicrously long distances, Downhill from Here and Running the Orient. The latter charts his 2300 mile run from Paris to Istanbul, following the 1883 route of the Orient Express.