Echoes of Glory

Chapter 9

183 CHAPTER NINE s There wasn’t much for P. J. to tell. “They bayoneted the dead and wounded. How did they do that if Timp was still fighting? There was no heroic last stand, no gallant sacrifice, no inhuman resolve. Timp gave them that story. He’s a coward. A fraud.” When P. J. left they scuttled without moving waiting for someone to fall on the grenade. Scoop glanced at Clay and Milk who had family in Second Platoon. “I thought he was trying to demean Captain Pritchard and the boys from Advantage.” Scoop paused. “I lost respect for him for telling me that.” “He told me how my brother died,” Milk Meador said. “Jaw hanging by the skin, mouth and teeth gone, eyes blown out, head bulged like a hemorrhoid. I wish he hadn’t told me.” “He told me,” Claiborne said, brushing his mustache sprung loose by P. J.’s report. A tableau pictured his brother, Mike, charging the enemy with grenades. “I asked him not to tell my mother.” “He confessed to me,” Pastor Murphy said. “A sordid, fruitless story, arms and legs and death told by those who know not the redemptive power of God that gives meaning to futility. That was not the story I wanted the church to hear.” “He did what he had to do to save the town,” Timberlake said. “We don’t know what would have become of Five Mills if those men had died for nothing.” Jimmy Vines looked at Scoop. “What are you going to do?” “We’ve told the story of the platoon. We’ll not do it again.” “What do we do about P. J.?” Meador asked. “Hire him as PR director and his job will be to protect the story rather than to reveal it,” Timberlake said. 184 Echoes of Glory “What do we do about the play?” Bryan asked, frustrated that everyone was ignoring the pile of dog-doo on the floor. “Soldier on,” Milk said. “They died for their country, for us. We sleep better today because of them.” “It’s what everyone believes,” Claiborne said. “It would be best for the county,” Jimmy Vines said. “Present it as planned,” Pastor Murphy said, nodding agreement. “It has a message that we all agree with.” They examined each other and nodded. “Before we go I think we need to thank God for this mighty country we live in and pray that God will keep us strong so that we may retain His blessing and uphold the immutable laws that God has writ for everyone, from the highest to the lowest, from the lawmakers to the law enforcers to the law keepers. God’s laws, laid down from on high for every soul in Mills County. Let us pray.” Pastor Murphy shaped a prayer that told God, and others on the committee, what they were to do to please him. After legislative handshaking and back-patting the others left but Bryan lingered. Sensing his lack of faith, the pastor stayed with him. “I don’t know how to write it,” Bryan said. “Everything I have written is a lie.” “This town, this county, these people have tried to be worthy of Second Platoon. That has made them better people. P. J.’s story doesn’t make people more patriotic, more God-fearing. Your job is to make that story inspirational.” “But it’s not true.” “Your job is to make it true. Is everything you say on stage true?” “I reveal my character’s deceit and the audience is suspicious of what I say but not the meaning of the play. If I write this I’m saying this is what I mean.” “Do you mean everything you say in commercials?” It was a question that nagged Bryan. He had made a beer commercial selling himself as a perpetually immature adventurer careless about relationships. Consume this product and become me. He had watched John Wayne pretend he was Audie Murphy. He wondered if the two ever met—an actor who pretended to be a hero and a hero who pretended to be an actor. It was clear which the public preferred. “I play a role that corporations pay me to play. I exaggerate, conceal information, lie. It’s called advertising. It’s capitalism, it’s the system the school honors, the church honors.” 185 Chapter Nine “The committee will want to see the...