Blue Calhoun

Chapter 1 This starts with the happiest I ever was, though it brought down suffering on everybody near me. Short as it lasted and long ago, I've never laid it all out yet, not start to finish. But if I try and half succeed, you may wind up understanding things, choosing a better road for yourself and maybe not blaming the dead past but living for the here and now, each day a clean page. At least you'll see how certain things in my long life have gone down fast as one of those Japanese domino shows where two million pieces trip each other in hot succession and set off the unexpected jackpot -- an exploding mountain or a rocket blast that hurls men farther than they've yet gone, to Neptune or worse.The time I'll tell about ran its course when I was thirty five, then thirty six. Till then I'd lived a fairly normal life, if normal includes some badly drunk years -- and I think it does in America still. So honest to God, I doubt you need to know much about me before the latter half of that day when everything started streaking downhill. Of course I'll add the odd event that feels worth knowing or tells a good story. Stories are something I'm better at than life; and that one year was built like a story, whoever built it. It had a low start that stoked up fast to such a heat that hinges on doors were melting away; and pent up people were tearing loose and running for what looked like daylight till, at some weird invisible signal, everything started cooling again.And everybody slowed to average speed and drew deep breaths to treat their burns and wonder if they could stand the sight of each other's faces from then till death or just for that day. Some said Yes; a few said No; and everybody thought I'd caused the wreck, which may have been true. Even my mother, a certified saint, called me out to the country house and said "Now, son, you've ruined two lives -- your own blood child and the girl you claimed to love so strongly. How do you plan on living the rest of the time you've got with that on your mind, that blood on your hands?"Bloodwas a figure of speech at the time, and she well knew it. I'd almost certainly killed four Germans in the Second War but nothing since. So I said what I believed was true, "Look, Mother. Nobody's dead." I was technically right.But her deep blue eyes never flinched, and she said "Far worse than dead -- far worse."Then I saw that the thing I dreaded had happened. I'd badly harmed three worthwhile souls that trusted me; and I knew no way on Earth to mend them -- not till your and my past months together, thirty years on. Know this first though (it's some of the worst you'll know about me) -- I drove myself back home from Mother's that late spring night in a tardy frost with my face grinning each mile of the way. I could see it in the mirror, dark as it was. Mybodywas still that pleased with the memory; it still is today. Maybe my mind and heart just figured I'd taken enough from God or fate, my family and the U.S. Infantry -- not to mention the Nazis -- to earn me some substantial relief and nourishment. Whatever, I flat-out gorged myself for twelve full months. So here much further on in time, I'm hoping to make my slim amends by telling this history that's all but true.I'm Blue Calhoun as you well know; and wild as I've been, I still like the sound. The full name'sBlufordand the middle name'sAugust,but there can't be more than ten people left who know that much about me still -- to the world I'mBlueand have always been. Except for the war and the times I was wild -- and our hard time overseas just now -- I've mostly stayed near my birthplace: a capital city, Raleigh, N.C. When I was a child, Raleigh called itself "The City of Oaks." But don't try to find an oak these days in the criminal mess that money and the chloroformed City Council have made from innocent fertile dirt and what grew in it.I'm drifting already butPrice, Reynolds is the author of 'Blue Calhoun' with ISBN 9780689121463 and ISBN 0689121466.