Victor Charlie

Inspired perhaps by watching Across the Universe, I wanted to write something that took place in the sixties. This is a joint writing project between myself and my hubby Austin Cushing. It's a serial story, so we'll be posting it in installments. This is the first one. The year is 1967. What is it about? Well, primarily it's a story about best friends, hippies, government conspiracies, and a whole lot of love...

 
Hey Charlie,

I heard you came home. Your mom got in touch with my mom, and she got in touch with me - said you were in a bad way. You know it has to be bad for your mom to contact me, things we did back in the day that she blamed me for (okay, so the car and the cat and that thing at the supermarket were entirely me).

She says you don't eat, and you aren't talking to nobody.

But you'll talk to me, won't you Charlie? Because I'm coming to see you.

I'm out in California right now, in San Fransisco. There's a whole lot of love out here, Charlie. A whole world of things they don't even dream of yet back in Saginaw. I don't know how long it's gonna take me to get there, but I'm coming. Just you wait. You hang in there, you hear me? You don't have to talk till you're ready, then you can talk to me. You know you can always talk to me.

But you gotta eat something. You gotta eat. Otherwise how are we going to go for burgers?

Just don't go doing anything stupid, okay? Least until I get there- then we can be stupid together. You already did one stupid thing without me, and look how well that turned out. That's your free pass, Charlie. No more stupid things until I come get you, okay?

I'd call instead of write, but your mom would freak if I called collect, and I'm saving my money to make the trip.

I never stopped being your friend, you know. Not really. Not even when I told you I hated your stinking guts for leaving me.

Love,
Victor

Two weeks and three breakdowns later, Victor De Santiago found himself standing on the familiar porch at 38 Breakview Drive. The elm tree they'd climbed (and that the cat had climbed to get away from them) seemed somewhat shabby now, with bark peeling off in strips and laying about the yard that was in need of a good mow. He remembered how Mrs. Duncan had kept her yard once - neat and manicured, like a page out of the Better Homes and Gardens book. He kicked a few strips of bark off the sidewalk as his contribution towards yard care, then climbed the steps to the porch.

"Can Charlie come out and play?" he muttered as he rang the bell. Something he'd said practically daily since third grade. At least, until Charlie'd gone away shortly after graduation. They'd received their induction notices within days of each other. But Victor hadn't been about to risk life and limb for Uncle Sam - he'd dodged the draft, and become one of the faceless masses drifting through California. And Charlie, well...

Mrs. Duncan answered the door, and her lips curled into a reflexive frown of disapproval. "So you did come," she said.

"I did." He nodded, and shuffled slightly. "Can I see him?"

Mrs. Duncan sighed. She never did like Victor - that boy'd been nothing but trouble since the first day Charlie'd brought him home. He'd trampled up right through her flowers and harassed the cat to no end. And he hadn't done much to endear himself since then. But she hoped that seeing his childhood pal would snap her son out of the state he'd been in since returning from his tour of duty. "Don't do anything to upset him," she warned. Victor looked innocent, but she wasn't fooled one bit. He always looked that way just before trouble. "The doctors have said his condition is very delicate."

"Is he still hurt?" Victor asked, following her into the house and towards the stairs.

"Physically he's recovered but.. " Mrs. Duncan shook her head sadly. "He won't eat, he barely speaks. He spends most of the day sitting up in his room, staring out the window. And at night, he sleeps restlessly, if at all. A time or two he's woken up screaming."

Victor shifted nervously from foot to foot as Mrs. Duncan opened the door to Charlie's room. "Son... you have a visitor," she said softly. "It's Victor. He's come to see you."

 Charlie didn't look up when the door opened, but he didn't seem surprised, either. He had his head in his hands, leaning against the window as if he were contemplating some great mystery of life that was just outside of his grasp.

"Hello, Victor," he mumbled.

 "Hey Charlie," Victor said, as he walked on in . The room hadn't changed since he'd been in it last, hardly at all. Same old way Charlie'd left it- but definitely not the same ol' Charlie.

The gaunt form of his friend, sitting in the chair by the window with his head in his hand made his stomach turn. What did they do to you, man? he thought, but didn't dare say. What did those fuckers do?

"Didja get my letter?"

"Yeah." Charlie didn't move a muscle. "Burgers."

Charlie had read the letter - in fact, he'd read it quite a few times. He still had it in his pocket. But it was hard to feel like things were ever going to be alright again. Not now. Maybe not ever.

"Right so, see, I'm here now. In the flesh.. it's me, Victor. Your buddy, your amigo..."

He crouched down by Charlie, and reached out towards him, but didn't touch. "I'm here now," he repeated.

"C'mon, you gotta look up, or you won't see my doo. I've been letting it grow, now that my dad's not around to get down on me for being a longhair. Remember? That one time, how I said I was going to let it grow all the way to my ass, and he drug me in to get a buzz cut? Well it's not grown that long yet, but it's on the way. Little steps man, little steps."

 Charlie chuckled a moment. "Yeah. Little steps."

After a moment, he turned his head to look over. His eyes were those of a haunted man; his face was pale, and it looked as though he'd been crying recently. "You look okay." It was more of a sentence than he'd made in a while.

When Charlie looked up, Victor fell back out of the crouch.

"Shit," he said, only half from the fall. "You look..."

Like a ghost...

"Different. Like you need to eat," Victor said, and forced himself to smile. "Like there's a great big greasy burger and a fistful of fries calling your name. I got my van, still. It made it all the way back from California, more or less. Well, less, but it's running again and I got plenty of room for you. Always have. Always will."

"Okay," Charlie said, and gingerly began to get up. He wasn't weak, but everything about the way he moved belied a certain watchfulness he hadn't had before. "Where?"

"We could go to to Mc Donalds if you want quick, or the diner if you want tasty," Victor offered.

He got up to his feet, and headed towards the door. "Of course, best burgers are in this little joint near my place. Which is a couple thousand miles away - but I'm willing to drive it. Might have to have a few inferior meals along the way though, 'cause I don't think we can wait that long."

Charlie just followed, not saying a word.

"Because you know how much we love burgers," Victor said, continuing to talk, because it was better than the silence.

"Remember that one time, we ate like what was it- about a dozen? We had the munchies so bad, after smoking that shit that Donnie brought back from Chino-"

He paused in that line of thought as he saw Mrs. Duncan peering up the stairs. "I'm taking Charlie out for a burger, Mrs. D."

Charlie just nodded - whether it was in agreement with Victor's statement about munchies, or just about going out for a burger, it was hard to tell.

"Be careful," Mrs. Duncan said. She fretted over letting Charlie out with Victor, but leaving his room at all was a big step - so what could she do?

"Don't worry," Victor said. "It's just a burger. Won't do us any harm."

He held the door for Charlie, then headed on out himself.

Sure enough parked out in the street was Victor's old panel van, more putty and duct tape than metal in several areas - though painted everywhere with colorful peace signs, flowers, and doodles of all kinds. Hanging from the mirror currently was a pair of women's underwear (red) and a set of Buddhist prayer beads (brown).

"She's still alive and kicking," Victor said as he opened the van up for Charlie to get in.

Charlie settled on into the van. "How was California?" he abruptly asked, glancing at the new decorations here and there.

"Amazing," Victor said as he settled in to the driver's seat. The back of the van currently held a well slept-on couch, some pillows and blankets, and assorted clothes and food. It had a very lived-in look.

"It still is. You gotta come see it, Charlie - you'd love it out there."

Mrs. Duncan peered out of the doorway and waved a tentative goodbye as the van drove away.

Charlie didn't answer that, just settling back into the seat and closing his eyes, perhaps pretending for a moment that things weren't really as bad as he thought.

Victor could've really used a smoke right about then, but he didn't want to light one up while driving. Besides, he wasn't sure it'd be good for Charlie, considering.

"So did you miss me?" he asked, after an awkward bit of silence. "Because I missed the hell out of you, man. So many times I saw something, or or heard something, or did something that I just wanted to say 'Hey Charlie, what about that?'..."

"Yeah," Charlie answered, after a few moments. "Still mad?"

Victor swallowed hard. Yeah, he was still mad. Pissed off, in fact. Though it wasn't at Charlie. Not anymore. He wasn't sure where the anger was directed these days - the Viet Cong for doing this shit to his best friend, the government for sending him over there in the first place.

Hell, maybe at himself most of all. He could have just tried a little harder to persuade Charlie. Hadn't he talked him into some pretty harebrained schemes over the years? Why hadn't he pushed harder to get Charlie to come to California with him?

"Fuck.. no, I'm not mad at you, Charlie. Not at all. I'm sorry I was so shitty to you when I left..." He felt so guilty about that.

"You were right," Charlie said reflectively, eyes closing again.

There was no 'told you so', no joy in having been proven right. He wished so much that he would have been wrong, for Charlie's sake.

Wordlessly, he reached out and put a hand on his best friend's shoulder. There were no words that could convey what he was feeling.

 "I'm hungry," Charlie commented, after a few more moments of silence, glancing down at his hands.

Victor stepped on the gas. The dinner was closest, so it became the destination.

"Almost there, he said, pointing out the sign in the distance. Carl's 24 hour dinner beckoned in neon, with 24 hours flashing as bright as always. He noticed that the L had burned out, though, since he'd been there last.

Victor peeled into the parking lot, unmindful of a couple that had to practically jump out of his way, swearing. This was a certified food emergency.

"Your driving hasn't improved," Charlie commented. He was up to four words now. An impressive feat, lately.

"I know, right?" Victor laughed. "If anything, California's made it worse. One of these days I need to get a real license or something."

He never was one for rules and regulations. As he got out of the van, the guy he'd nearly run over shouted "Go home, hippie!"

Victor laughed harder, because he was home. He flashed the guy a peace sign, followed by a more one-fingered salute, then opened the door for Charlie.

Charlie got on out, a little more at ease for the moment. "Did you eat yet?"

"Not today," Victor said. He'd been skipping out on more than a few meals lately, wanting to make sure he had enough to make it back to Saginaw. Plus, he'd been putting all the time he could on driving.

"Carl's probably forgotten about that little incident where I skipped out on the check by now, right?" he asked, as they headed in the door. He'd kinda of forgotten until now that he was supposedly Banned For Life from the diner. Hell, it seemed a lifetime ago. Close enough.

"I'll pay," Charlie commented, matter-of-factly. "Let's go."

Victor smiled, but looked down - a bit embarrassed by the gesture and the need for it. "Thanks, man."

The waitress who seated them was thankfully new, and didn't seem to recognize either one of them as she led them to a booth and handed over a couple of menus.

He already knew what he wanted, so Victor turned his attention to the tabletop jukebox, and started turning the dial to check out the selections. "Aw, there's hardly anything good in here..."

"Things change," Charlie commented, quietly. He looked over the menu, as if he hadn't seen one in years.

"You should have been at Monterey," Victor said as he perused.

"Now there was some music. That was live, that was real. Fifty thousand people just loving each other and grooving on the tunes... took me like a week to recover. Then I got word of you- it was like a sign."

He finally found one, towards the end, and grinned, making his selection and popping a nickel into the machine.

"The Doors," he said to Charlie. "They weren't there, but man - this song. I think they're going places."

The jukebox played:
You know the day destroys the night
Night divides the day
Tried to run
Tried to hide
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side


Charlie listened, a hand to his head, frowning quietly.

"You okay?" Victor asked.

When the waitress came over, he ordered their usual - two milkshakes, burger with the works, and fries.

"That good with you?" he asked, in case Charlie had developed some kind of allergy to milk or something in the past year and a half.

"Yeah." Charlie nodded quietly, and began to hum along.

Seeing that Charlie was enjoying the music, Victor fished up another nickel and popped it in.

"You want to pick the next song?" he offered.

Charlie reached out, without deliberation, and made a selection. After a few moments, the song began to play...

Girl, you really got me goin',
You got me so I don't know what I'm doin'...
Yeah, you really got me now,
You got me so I can't sleep at night...

"Good one," Victor said, giving a nod of approval.

When the food came, he snagged the ketchup bottle and doused his fries in an red deluge.

"Here's to a good meal."

Charlie nodded, and abruptly began chowing down. "S'good."

Victor was starving, but between wolfing down bites of his dinner he glanced over to watch Charlie eat. He was pleased to see his best friend eating.

He was so pale and thin, he could likely stand to eat way more than he had been. And if his mother hadn't been successful in getting him to eat, who would? That woman could cook, for all that she had a clean streak a mile long.

"Come with me to California," Victor said, waving a fry to punctuate his words. It was an eerie parallel to the words he'd spoken the last time around. He was determined that he wouldn't blow this second chance. "You'll love it out there. It'll be good for you."

"It won't change things," Charlie muttered, around half of a hamburger.

"Maybe not what's happened, no. Nothing's gonna change that, Charlie. I don't know what happened to you out there - and I'm not going to press you till you're ready to tell me," Victor said.

"But nothing'll ever change what we had, either. All the good times. And we can have times like that again - and hell, even better. There's all kinda of beautiful stuff out there, man. You wouldn't believe all the love and the beauty. It'll open your heart."

Had California changed him? He was pretty certain it had, though the ways weren't readily apparent to himself. He wondered how he appeared to Charlie, if he was strange and discomforting.

"You got better things to do?" he asked. " Sit at home in your room, watch your mother fret, listen to the evening news? You're not meant for that, and you know it. Come away with me..."

Charlie opened his mouth as if to say something, and just shoved a handful of fries into it instead. "Where?"

"San Fran," Victor said, grinning ear to ear. He hadn't said no!

"I was down in San Diego a while, then I hooked up with these cats that were going down to Frisco, and they took me with them. I got a place there, you know. In the neighborhood. It's like a family, down in Haight - that's what they call it, 'cause of the street, you dig? There's free shops and head shops and music in the streets, and these amazing girls with flowers in their hair that just want to love everybody. It's the best place in the whole damn world, Charlie. I wouldn't lie to you, you know that..."

Charlie looked thoughtfully down at his plate. "What do you do there?"

"Anything I want to," Victor said, laughing.

"Before I left, I was working in this record store - they might let me back there again, guy was a friend of mine. Liked how I set up the displays."

He shrugged. "Don't matter if you're flat broke there, though. There's free shops, and good people that'll give you bread and smoke, man. Everybody's been up, and everybody's been down. They're all sharing what they have. It's the new way of the world - I'm telling you, it's going to catch on. It's going to be the peaceful revolution, spreading out from there all over the world."

Charlie shook his head. "You think so?" For a moment, the haunted look had returned, and he was looking directly into Victor's eyes.

Victor dropped the fry he'd been about to shove into his mouth, and stared back. For a moment, he was certain he saw something move behind Charlie's eyes, something dark.

Maybe he'd tripped a little too much acid at Monterey. Or maybe it was the a glimpse of the thing that was haunting Charlie, a memory he couldn't shake.

"No," he answered honestly. "But I want to. I want to so badly. I'm not sure though. I'm not sure it'll work for the whole damn world.. but I'm sure as hell that I want it to. And it's working down there, Charlie. It really is..."

"Nothing lasts forever," Charlie mumbled, glancing back down at his plate. For a long time he was silent again, before finally adding, "Tell me more?"

At least he was talking. And considering. If only he had brought some photos, some of the posters or anything - but all Victor had were the pictures in his mind, snapshots of the life he'd been immersed in all year.

He leaned forward in his chair, half over the table.

"Okay, let's just... let me tell you about this one day. There I was, working at the record store. We have the records playing- and we've got the Beatles new single on. And it's drifting through the store, and out into the street, 'cause the phonograph's in the window. So it's 'Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going through... strawberry fields... nothing is real, and there's nothing to get hung about...' "

His singing voice wasn't the best, but he was making a point.

"And then this girl comes in. Her hair is long, and her eyes are dreamy, and her feet are bare. She's wearing a chain of daisies around her neck and for just a moment, with the sunlight in her hair she's an angel.. and she drifts in the door and starts dancing. Just moving to the music, like it's inside of her, like it's a part of her. And when the song was over, she put her arms around me and kissed me for playing it. Not sexual, but a kiss - just a pure joy of a kiss, and a smile. Then she drifted on out again, not buying a thing, but smiling so bright that the whole street was infected with her sunshine.. with the music. That's what it's like, man. That's what it's like."

He fell back into his chair, homesick now, and heartsick at the thought that Charlie might slip away from him a second time.

Charlie sat there in silence for a while, thinking.

Finally, he said one word, "Maybe."

That one word was enough. Victor nearly jumped out of his seat, and shouted with joy. It wasn't no. He managed, with some difficulty to remain casual, and finish off his milkshake.

"And you'll love the road trip. Van's even got a couch now, did you see? You can sleep the whole way there if you wanna, Charlie. I wouldn't fault you for it if you need the rest. I'd wake you up when we get to the Golden Gate. Or hell, we could go see Paulie, pick up a little package for the trip. Wonder if he's still dealing?"

Or still in town. Or didn't get shipped off...

Victor supposed he should go see his own mother before they left, too. Maybe that would be the decent thing to do.

"Paulie is gone," Charlie said, dully. When he'd gotten home, there wasn't really much left to come home to. Everything had changed, and not for the better. "Almost everything is."

"I'm sorry," Victor said, and looked guilty about bringing that up.

When the waitress brought the check over, he reached for it- remembered, then slid it wordlessly towards Charlie.

Another thing to feel guilty over.

 Charlie took out his wallet and paid the check without comment, then put it away and put a hand to the side of his head. Finally, he blurted, "They were right, too."

"They who?" Victor asked, confused. It also occurred to him that Charlie'd been holding his head every now and again like that.

"Is your head hurting?" he asked. He stood quickly to see if Charlie needed his help getting back to the van.

"I've... it's nothing." Charlie looked abruptly self-conscious, like a teenage boy caught with his first beer. "Scars."

Victor didn't know what to say, so he nodded and walked towards the door. Though he tried not to show it, he kept a careful pace with Charlie, watching over him all the way back to the van.

Charlie's gait had changed in the time since he'd been gone - his step was carefully measured, drilled into precision and lacking the carefree swagger that had been his trademark. Closer examination revealed that he did, indeed, have a faint scar along the right side of his forehead, mostly hidden under the hairline.

Victor caught a glimpse of the scar as they got in the van, and gripped the steering wheel hard.

"Where to?" he asked, wanting nothing less than to take him away from whatever the hell had caused that scar.

But lacking that power, a destination would do.

For a moment, the old Charlie voice emerged from somewhere within. "Wherever, man. Where fucking ever." Then it was gone, and all that was left was Charlie, settling down in his seat.