Andrea Millhouse Pt. 07

"...Yeah, like Vietnam" I answered quietly.

"For me it was different. I always wanted to Serve - I always wanted to be a part of something that was bigger than myself. I always wanted to be a part of a motivated team of highly trained guys that could actually make a positive difference in the world. Guys like me, that WANTED the hard jobs that no one else could do." Mark replied.

Mark then went into an oral history of how his father had served in World War Two and been present during the invasion of D-Day. Mark talked of the tremendous pride he had always felt within the presence of his father and how, he too, had joined the Military at a young age to follow in the footsteps his father had taken. Mark's father had been one of the liberators that retook France; he eventually stood within the ruins of the Reich Chancellery with his fellow soldiers, who were by then much fewer in number. Mark elaborated on the closeness that only soldiers who've faced combat together, can ever experience. Mark also relayed some of the more humorous moments with his comrades.

There was a long silence then. It was pitch black outside now and our coffee cups were empty.

"We warned them ...numerous times, that the enemy was planning an attack. That's what they pay Lurps to do, reconnaissance, and we did our job but no one would listen. I lost two good friends on that patrol and we lost a lot of other people once it all went down during Tet. No one at the top would listen to us though..." Mark said staring out the darkened window.

Andrea and I remained silent.

"You and your wife need to go now, Tim" Mark said standing abruptly and handing Andrea back the manila folder.

"...Mark, thank you for seeing us and being patient ...really." I said quietly and held out my hand, once we were on the porch.

Mark shook my hand firmly but said nothing in reply. Andrea and I then silently walked to the car and opened the doors to get into the rental.

"Tim" Mark suddenly called out.

"Yes Mark" I replied.

"I hope you find the answers you're looking for, Rick was a good man ...they all were." Mark said quietly, seemingly to have suddenly remembered something about Rick Sheffield which he chose to keep to himself.

"Thank you Mark, we will." I replied.

Andrea and I slowly drove the eight miles back to the freeway with help from the GPS, it was very dark now. Once more, someone had mistaken Andrea as my "wife" and I was suddenly flattered by this, I thought as I looked over at Andrea while she wrote in a small notebook and using her phone as a flashlight.

"Tim, what's a Lurp, and what's an L Z?" Andrea asked quietly.

I said nothing in reply as I pulled onto the pavement and stopped on the shoulder under a bright lamp pole along the roadway. I put the car in park and then got out and leaned my back against the rear of the rental car. I unbuttoned my suit coat and then reached up and removed my tie and threw it into the open window of the car. I then unbuttoned the top two buttons on my shirt and simply breathed deeply of the cold night air as Andrea deftly came beside me, saying nothing as she handed me a bottle of water.

I opened the water bottle and up-ended it, the cold water tasted good. Andrea took my other hand then as a semi truck blew past us in the opposite direction, the truck's lights ablaze and open pipes thundering through the night. A minute later the only sounds we could hear were the whining of his tires and the running car that I was leaning against. I then looked at Andrea and squeezed her hand.

"...An L Z is abbreviation for Landing Zone, it's where helicopters deploy or recover troops from the field of combat. A hot L Z is a landing zone under enemy fire. A Lurp or LRRP is an acronym for Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol. They're a small team of elite warriors that go behind enemy lines for the purpose of Reconnaissance. They observe enemy strength and movement so planners on our side can gauge enemy strengths and weakness. Lurps are very serious, very, very tough guys, Andrea. Mark is probably seventy five but that man could knock-out everyone in an entire bar by himself. ...That was an intense two hours, just now." I said leaning against the roof of the car with my head in my hands.

"You handled yourself fine; you were polite, direct and showed respect to the man, Tim." Andrea said, looking at me.

We were currently in the middle of Wyoming, in the middle of nowhere really and the night was becoming chilly.

"Want me to drive?" she asked.

"No ...give me a minute OK?" I asked.

Andrea pulled me closer to her and rubbed my back for a few moments. "I'm going to open both passenger side doors and squat beside the car now." She said.

I nodded my head as she walked around the car and opened the doors. Currently I stood where I was and drained the coffee that I had drunk earlier at Mark's house, while doing this I scanned for headlights in either direction but the road was deserted. Once I had completed what I was doing, I leaned against the car again and threw the empty water bottle into the open window of the rental. A few minute later Andrea came around to my side of the car again.

"You doing OK, honey?" she asked taking my hand again and looking up at me.

"...I just feel so selfish for having put the man through all of that, just now, Andrea" I suddenly said.

"He could have refused to see you and that would have been the end of it but he didn't. He knew that you were getting on a plane to come all the way out here, he knew it days ago, when you called him." Andrea replied, simply.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." I replied.

"Tim, it's cold out here. Lets head back and get a bite to eat now, OK?" Andrea suggested.

"It didn't sound like he cared much for Harland Wyckoff, I wonder why?" I asked.

"Tim, can we go please?" Andrea asked.

We drove the hour and a half back to our hotel and then walked across the street to a major truck stop which was said to have good food. Andrea bought me steak and scrambled eggs and we each had a diet soda, the time was now ten twenty five PM and we were both ready to jump into a bubble bath together and curl up with a movie. Tomorrow afternoon we would drive into the city and return the rental before getting on a plane and heading back for Laughlin.

"God, I'm so ready to go play, baby." I said tiredly.

Lately it seemed like the harder that I tried to play in the sunshine, the more time I seemed to spend in cold climates and I desperately wanted to go have some fun with Andrea in the sunshine. Looking out the window now, the truck stop's huge digital sign declared that the outside temperature was now thirty five degrees Fahrenheit.

"Honey, you've been dealing with some very emotionally significant stuff with these photographs and Mark was a very intense guy, it's no wonder you're exhausted. It's time for us to put the photos away, again, for a while now." Andrea reasoned.

"Yes, and thanks for standing with me through all of this honey, I know it hasn't been easy" I said taking her hand and squeezing it.

"Anything for you, babe, you know that. Are you ready to go back to the hotel and get a bubble bath, now?" Andrea asked reaching for her purse.

"Yeah, a bubble bath sounds wonderful, honey" I replied.

"What exactly did Harland Wyckoff say on the phone when he called you or when the two of you met?" Andrea suddenly asked before she stood up.

"Nothing other than giving me Mark's phone number, Andrea, he just said that he'd reread his journals and try and remember more. I only sat down with him for about thirty minutes when he changed planes at the airport in Vegas." I replied.

"Did you like the guy?" Andrea asked, looking at me.

"Yeah, he was alright. He seemed genuinely interested in helping us" I replied, holding up my empty palm.

"That's a start, Tim" Andrea acknowledged, as she stood and took my hand, helping me out of the booth.

"You'll meet Harland at the wedding, Andrea." I said, standing up.

We walked leisurely back to our hotel room, hand in hand then. Andrea started a bubble bath as I undressed and put my suit and slacks back into the travel bag, they now needed to be dry-cleaned. I'd sweated a considerable amount while being in Mark's presence; something I had no problem admitting, the man and his demeanor had scared me considerably.

"Well I guess that was pretty much a dry run. I'll never do that again, honey. From now on we'll only meet someone in a public place or deal-off." I said as Andrea climbed into the tub and sat in front of me.

"It wasn't a dry run but I'm in agreement with you. Mark was a decent man but it could have come out quite differently had he not been." Andrea said pushing back against me.

"What did we accomplish other than discovering that Rick was definitely with First Air Cavalry, which we already strongly suspected, and that his nick name was Captain Logical? The only other new information that Mark gave us, really, was Rick's catch phrase 'There's a logical explanation with anything mechanical.' Mark could have told us that over the phone, days ago" I said with a sudden detached interest.

"He may not have remembered it without our presence or without having viewed the photographs, Tim, it wasn't a dry run. Now we also know for certain that Rick was a helicopter mechanic ...or technician, however it's described, and we know for certain that he was present during the Tet Offensive, which gives us a timeline to work with, to some degree. He wasn't a pilot and it sounded as if Mark considered him a devoted soldier and good guy." Andrea replied as I rubbed my cold chin and cheek against her warm neck and shoulder.

"I wish he would have let us record our conversation with him. Mark must have had an extremely bad experience with journalists at some time in the past." I said tiredly.

"Now we also know of Paul Kim, Dale Hunter, Dan Wade, Andy Hart and RayRay Manning, maybe we could locate one of them." Andrea said without acknowledging my comment.

"No, I'm not digging anymore, if someone offers us a chance to sit down - in a public place, then that's different. No more drives into remote places like that anymore, Andrea. Maybe the webpage will yield someone that WANTS to talk with us but no more wild goose chases in the middle of nowhere" I said with finality.

"I wonder if Rick really was the Rank of Captain or if that was just a jab at him by his buddies, with the Captain Logical name?" Andrea asked, more or less to herself.

"I dunno, let's change the subject" I said, resting my forehead on Andrea's shoulder and closing me eyes.

"Tim, none of the Sheffields on the Memorial Wall were the Rank of Captain, I'm almost sure of it." Andrea suddenly said.

I pulled Andrea closer to me and said nothing in reply. The whole experience of meeting Mark this evening had left me with mixed feelings of my own vulnerability, elation, frustration and numbness, coupled with a tremendous pride of Andrea's willingness to see me through, seemingly on anything. My emotions were all over the map at the moment and I knew that my thinking was presently distorted and any conclusions or decisions I made tonight would be irrational. A good night's sleep and a plane ticket out of here tomorrow afternoon would do Andrea and me both, a world of good, I concluded.

"Are you listening to me?" Andrea asked, turning her head toward me and rolling her eyes toward me.

"We're grasping at straws, Andrea. It'll take someone that Served with Rick or knew him as a civilian for us to have any real answers. Let's forget about it for now." I said without opening my eyes.

"You're just tired and a little overwhelmed right now, Tim. The answers will come eventually if we're diligent enough." Andrea replied.

"You've got an antique car headed for Seattle in a few days and I have a little brother to give away in two weeks, let's focus on those and forget this quest for a while." I said.

Andrea reached behind her and caressed my cheek "All in good time, baby ...all in good time."

__________ 18 __________

"Tell me about the car" Andrea said quietly as we lay in her bed together, within her Laughlin condo.

"I've already told you everything there is to tell about it, Andrea. We'll have it here in time for you to use this summer, I think." I said as I shielded my eyes from the morning sun.

"No no, the car at the casino, the white one, Lovey's car" Andrea said, resting her head on my chest.

"Oh, the Trans-Am, you mean" I replied.

"Yes, are you OK with talking about it?" Andrea asked.

"Yeah, it's kind of a sad story in a way, I guess" I replied.

"Why?" Andrea asked.

"Because Mom seemed to change some during that time period, Andrea, Mom got harder in some ways which I've never fully understood." I replied.

"So the car is somewhat symbolic of that time period, for you, then?" Andrea asked.

"Yes, in a way. ...We'd just lost Doc Feldman, about then, which was more or less on the heels of Aunt Elsie's passing and Mom seemed to withdraw into herself somewhat then." I replied.

"Understandable" Andrea concurred.

"Yes and no, really, Andrea, all of us had loved Doc but he was in his mid-nineties by then and he'd lived a full life. By then Doc was staying in our guest room, full time, and he did fine up until about his last few months when he caught pneumonia. Doc didn't last long after that and it was a difficult time for all of us. Somehow Mom seemed to take it much harder than I would have normally expected.

Usually in a similar situation she would have encouraged all of us to be thankful that we'd had him for as long as we did. Instead she got mean for a while and seemed to pull away from everyone that loved her; it was weird in a way." I said, thinking back.

"Pneumonia is what took Dad ...I would imagine that Doc was not only a beloved lifelong friend to your mom but that he had also represented a link to your mom's past and when all of you lost Doc, that link was severed forever, Tim. You and Ricky were in your late teens by then, young men really, and would soon be leaving her nest and retirement was looming in the not so far future for her too. Tim, your mom's whole life was rapidly changing right before her eyes and she was probably going through an identity crisis - or mid-life crisis as some might call it now." Andrea said methodically.

"Andrea, I've thought along those lines too but there was somehow more to it than that, I think." I said.

Andrea was silent then.

"I think it was more than a mid-life crisis, for Mom. ...There's more to the story and I need to fill you-in on some of the family history before you can fully comprehend that specific time period during Mom's life, our lives really, because Ricky and I were still at home then." I explained.

"I'm listening, honey" Andrea replied after a silence.

"...See, during that time Mom still had the little green Studebaker Lark which her Dad, my Grandfather, had somehow located at a dealership in Memphis Tennessee, shortly after Studebaker went out of business in nineteen sixty three. They continued building Studebakers in Canada for a few years longer, until nineteen sixty six, but the South Bend plant located in Indiana closed permanently in December of nineteen sixty three, I think.

My Grandparents, Mom and Aunt Elsie had all cried that day, I'm told. Grandfather had worked there many years, retired, and then worked there again during the war years. The plant closure was very personal and significant to my family.

After the plant had closed Grandfather contacted several dealerships in search of a Studebaker Lark, a new one, and because he had worked at Studebaker for as long as he did, the salesmen and managers really put forth an honest effort to locate one for him - most of the new ones had already been sold by then. There was no internet back then of course and so it entailed many long distance phone calls and those long distance calls were very expensive then as you remember. After several weeks they finally located exactly one, new Lark, in Memphis Tennessee and it was pearl green.

Green, as you know, was Mom's favorite color. Then, shortly after Mom gave birth to me, Grandfather and Mom supposedly flew to Memphis Tennessee where the new car was being held for them at a Studebaker / Packard dealership which was then transitioning into a Pontiac, Oldsmobile franchise, I think...

Grandfather then bought the car and presented it to Mom. It was the first new car she had ever owned, really, the only new car she had ever owned. Grandfather and Mom subsequently drove the car back to Seattle together. Mom and Grandfather really enjoyed that journey together; that little sabbatical proved to be some real quality, Father / Daughter time for them together, I guess." I said, thinking back to Mom's telling of the story.

Andrea said nothing as I continued.

"...People sometimes laughed at the car and its color throughout the years but Mom loved that little Studebaker." I said, pulling Andrea closer.

"What happened then, honey?" Andrea asked.

"She drove it for many years, I don't think she ever put more than fifteen thousand miles on it, total, but she kept it in perfect mint condition. Mom never cared much about cars at all but the little Studebaker was significant to her because The Studebaker Corporation had been very good to my Grandfather and the family over the years, including the time of The Great Depression, but I think the car mostly represented a cherished time spent with her father during the road trip to Seattle as well, In fact I know it did.

Then, when I was about seventeen, near about the time that Doc passed, the Old Man came roaring back into our lives and stayed with us again for a brief while. He and Mom hadn't slept in the same bed for many years but for some reason she just couldn't say no to him when he asked to live under our roof again - he was living in absolute poverty by then and Mom was always a sucker for his sob stories.

So into our lives came the Old Man yet again. ...The years of alcohol, and whatever else he'd used, had mixed his mind up pretty bad by that time and I think he somehow got the notion that he could find his way back into Mom's good graces once more. Of course this was out of the question but I think he wanted to, he looked horrible by then, Andrea. Mom, on the other hand, was a smokin' hot mature lady by then; you saw Brenda's video of her, which was roughly the same time period.

"Yes she was, as you say, a smokin' hot lady." Andrea agreed.

"Mom loved exercise and usually walked to her teaching job every day, our school was close by and she loved walking. She only drove the Lark on weekends or when she needed to go someplace that wasn't within reasonable walking or bicycling distance, which was rarely, otherwise the car stayed in the garage.

...One day she opened the garage and the little green Studebaker was gone and the big, brand new, white Trans-Am sat in its place." I explained.

"The one at the casino, now" Andrea surmised.

"Yeah, that's when Mom's demeanor changed and she became very hardened, Andrea." I said quietly.

"...Pat traded the Studebaker Lark for the new Trans-Am and didn't tell Lovey, it was a surprise, to win back her affection." Andrea said, speculating.

"Yes, I believe that was his distorted logic, he emptied the family bank account doing it too. That put Mom in a real financial bind for a long time afterward, Andrea. My Grandparents were gone by then of course and I think that's what really upset Mom - the Lark had been a cherished gift from her parents.

"Her personal dignity had been violated as well, when Pat selfishly traded in Lovey's own vehicle without her knowledge or consent, Tim" Andrea said quietly.

"Yes, that was blatantly obvious to all of us, Andrea. Throughout the years of Ricky's and my own childhood and adolescence Mom had always been the one that had carried the full load and worked to raise a family and build a relationship with the Old Man but he always destroyed everything in his path, including the relationship with her and us.