"Oh, Charley!"
"My grandfather was in New York on business, so Naylor had to deliver the news to Dona Alicia that WOJG Jorge Castillo had left a love child behind in Germany."
"What happened?"
"She called my grandfather in New York, told him, and his reaction to the news was that she was to do nothing until he could get back to Texas. He didn't want to be cruel, but, on the other hand, he didn't want to open the family safe to some German woman just because she claimed her bastard was his son's."
"Oh, Charley!"
"You keep saying that," Castillo said. He took another swig and went on: "Couldn't blame him. I'd have done the same thing. Asked for proof."
"So how long did that take? Proving who you were?"
"Not long. Thirty minutes after she hung up on Grandpa, the Lear went wheels-up out of San Antonio with Abuela and Naylor on it. They caught the five-fifteen Pan American flight out of New York to Frankfurt that afternoon. Abuela was at the Haus im Wald at eleven o'clock the next morning."
"Haus in Wald? What's that?"
"Means house in the woods. It's not really a castle. Really ugly building."
"Oh. And she went there?"
"And I didn't want to let her in," Castillo said, now speaking very carefully. "My mother was pretty heavily into the sauce. What she had was very painful. I was twelve, had never seen this woman before, and I was Karl Wilhelm von und zu Gossinger. I was not about to display my drunken mother to some Mexican from America.
"So Abuela grabbed my arm and marched me into the house, and into mother's bedroom, and my mother, somewhat belligerently, said, 'Who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my bedroom?' Abuela said she didn't speak German, so my mother switched to English and asked exactly the same question. And Abuela said"-Castillo's voice broke, and he started to sob-"and Abuela said, 'I'm Jorge's mother, my dear, and I'm here to take care of you and the boy.'"
He turned his back to Beth and she saw him shaking with sobs.
And she saw him raise the bottle of Schlitz.
And she ran to him to take it away from him.
And he didn't want to give it up.
They wrestled for it, then he fell backward onto the floor, pulling the bottle and Beth on top of him as he went down.
Neither remembered much of what happened after that, or the exact sequence in which it happened.
Just that it had.
The next thing they both knew was Beth asking, "Charley, are you awake?"
"I'm afraid so. I was hoping it was a dream."
"It's half past ten," she said.
"Time marches on."
"My God!" she said. "What happened?"
"You don't remember?"
"You sonofabitch!" she said, and swung at him.
He caught her wrist, and she fell on him.
"I told you not to call me that," he said.
And then it happened again.
[-VIII-]
The Daleville Inn
Daleville, Alabama 2005 9 February 1992 The rain was coming down in buckets, and First Lieutenant C. G. Castillo, who had gotten drenched going from the Apache to Base Ops and then drenched again going from Base Ops to his car, got drenched a third time going from where he had parked his car to the motel building.
The Daleville Inn was full of parents and wives who had come to see their offspring and mates get their wings pinned on them, and one of these had inconsiderately parked in the slot reserved for Room 202.
As he walked past the car and started up the stairs to the second floor, the car in his slot flashed its lights at him and then blew its horn.
He was tempted to go to the car and deliver a lecture on motel parking lot courtesy, but decided that was likely to get out of hand and satisfied himself with giving the driver the finger as he continued up the stairs.
He was standing at his door, patting the many pockets of his soaking-wet flight suit in search of his key, when he heard someone bonging their way up the steel stairs. Then he sensed someone standing behind him.
"I was just about to give up," Beth Wilson said. "I've been sitting out there since six."
"I was afraid of this," he said.
"Afraid that I'd be here?"
"Or that you wouldn't," he said.
"We have to talk, Charley."
"Oh, yeah."
"Just talk. Nothing else."
"Would you believe I expected you to say something like that?"
He found the key. He opened the door, waved her through it, followed her in, closed the door, and only then turned the lights on.
"You could have turned them on before you pushed me in here," Beth said. "I almost fell over your wastebasket."
"But no one saw the general's daughter and the affianced of Righteous Randolph in Castillo's room, did they? As they would have had I turned the lights on first."
"You're soaking wet," Beth said. "Where have you been?"
"Where would you guess I've been, dressed as I am in my GI rompers?"
"You haven't been flying?"
"Oh, yes, I have."
"Randy called and said they were weathered in. That there was weather all over this area and nobody could fly."
"Except courageous seagulls and Pete Kowalski. He holds that coveted green special instrument card which permits him to decide for himself whether it's safe to take off. He told me that it would be educational, and it was."
"Where were you?"
"The last leg was Fulton County to here. Can you amuse yourself while I take a shower? We're going flying again in the morning, and I'd rather not have pneumonia when I do that."
"Go ahead," she said.
Beth was sitting on the couch with her legs curled up under her skirt when he came into the living room, She was wearing another transparent blouse through which he could see her brassiere.
I know she didn't do that on purpose.
"I am now going to have a drink," Castillo announced. "Not, I hasten to add, a martini. We have learned our lesson about martinis, haven't we?"
"I really wish you wouldn't."
"I've told you about Ed McMahon. And, oh boy, did I earn it today."
"Do whatever you want."
"I don't think you really mean that," he said.
"I meant about taking a drink."
"Oh."
"And you knew it," she said. "Goddamn you, Charley. You never quit."
He made himself a stiff scotch on the rocks and carried it to the couch.
"You will notice I didn't offer you one," he said, raising the glass.
"I noticed. Thank you."
"So what have you decided to do about Righteous?"
"I wish you wouldn't call him that."
"So what have you decided to do about He Who Is Nameless?"
"What do you mean, what am I going to do about him?"
"If I may dare to offer some advice, when you tell him you've thought things over and the wedding is off, don't mention what caused you to do some serious reconsidering."
"The wedding's not off," she said, surprised.
"You're still going to marry him?"
"Of course. What did you think I was going to do, elope with you to Panama City or someplace?"
"Aware of the risk of having you throw something at me, I have to tell you that is not one of your options."
"I never thought it was."
"I'm glad we can agree on at least that," Castillo said. "So you're going ahead with the wedding?"
"Why is that so hard for you to understand?"
"Think about it, Beth."
"What happened last night was a mistake."
"Yes, it was. It made me reconsider the merits of the Roman Catholic Church."
"Now, what is that supposed to mean?"
"If you're a Catholic-and all the Castillos but this one are devout Roman Catholics-when you have sinned, all you have to do is go to confession. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. Convince the priest that you're sorry, and he grants you absolution, and all is forgiven. Clean slate. Forget it."
"Well, at least you're sorry about yesterday."
"On a strictly philosophical, moral level, yeah. But Satan has his claws in me, and on another level, I'm not sorry, and I don't think I'll ever forget it."
"Does that mean you're sorry or not?"