WHEN JOHNNY CAME MARCHING HOME
by - Joyce
August 1997

DISCLAIMER: Frohike and Skinner don't belong to me; I only wish they did.  They belong to 1013 Productions and Fox Broadcasting.  However, I'm only borrowing them for a moment and will return them intact. No infringement is intended.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: First off, I would like to thank Medina whose excellent story, 'Skinner's Last Respects' inspired this story. I would also like to thank my editors, Miki and Meredith who kept me on the straight and narrow path.

FEEDBACK: mab49@earthlink.net

SUMMARY: Frohike visits with someone who shares his memories of the distant past.

 

I met him there again today. He still carries the memories of a jungle war beneath his crisp white shirt as if it could shield him from the ghosts which trail along behind him in his shadow.

The Wall draws us all to its bosom. Carved from the bones of Mother Earth, she embraces her lost children, summoning us to the tolling of names written in blood and the nightmares of the living. Rain washes the names clean of the tears of the survivors who beg forgiveness for the simple act of living from our brothers who did not return.

We nod to each other. I resist the urge to give him an ironic salute, a parody of the drill rammed into my reluctant brain. He does not deserve such disrespect. His very bearing speaks of the betrayal of trust and faith; the boy volunteer who found he had volunteered for a journey into damnation.

Eyes hooded against the fires of memory, we walk the Wall in silence as we trace the names of the dead who still speak to us. Time enough later for the few words we will share. Time enough once the dead have drunk the life from our memories.

Old soldiers, we are bound together by chains forged three decades ago; a lifetime spent suspended in the amber of war. He is all crisp, starched muscle with a marine-stiff spine. Only his eyes betray the horror of a youth cast into hell who screams there still in the dark nightmares he never speaks of. Between us there is no need to speak of the obvious. We only need words to explain to those who were not baptized in our fire.

I was no such lamb walking confidently into slaughter. Until the day of my enslavement to the military machine, I balanced on the razor's edge of making the run for Canada. I wish to hell I knew why I stayed and let them try to change me into their killing tool. Most likely a misspent childhood listening to the tales of heroes and dreaming of taking my place at Arthur's table.

The war broke my faith in the men who presume to govern us. My eyes were opened to the lies they feed us. Lies to secure their power. Lies to breed a nation of sheep, blind to their corruption. Lies to persuade us that it is noble for our youth to die for their country in distant lands. Those of us who refuse to believe their lies are few, but our numbers are growing. They cannot hide the truth forever.

The clouded sun surrenders the sky to the shadows as they peel away the simmering gray clouds to reveal an explosion of stars shining in the blackness of heaven. We have finished our patrol and meet in the middle, two silent sentries marking our beat of honor. Without a word we wheel and turn, walking side by side in perfect step, towards a small bar hidden amid the tangle of buildings that hug the borders of the public places in Washington.

A man in a three-piece suit stops to stare at us. I leer at him and he hastily turns away. My companion sighs. I know he understands my humor, but wishes I would restrain my urge to make everyone think the worst of me. He has his defenses. I have mine.

The only person with better defenses than mine isn't here. He would have heart failure if he saw us together. For that matter, I'm not entirely sure my companion's heart would survive that meeting either. I have no intention of losing either friend so I make damn sure no one knows of our connection. Paranoia has its uses. The older I get and the more I see, the more useful I find it.

Still, I will be the first to admit we make a most incongruous pair. My companion is tall, broad-shouldered, stiff in bearing and with enough chest capacity to down a 20oz mug of beer without having to break for a breath. Even innocent civilians, upon meeting him, have to visibly restrain an urge to come to attention.

Only one man I know seems to be resistant to my companion's military aura, but then he has never been particularly impressed by anyone who presumes to have authority over him. Probably why we get along so well. It took me years and more blood and tears than I care to remember to reach that point. Mulder was born irreverent. I think I admire him for that, above all other reasons.

I allow my mind to drift as we walk together in the growing darkness. Mulder has endured his own baptism of fire. He knows the nightmares and breathes in the horror of what-ifs and might-have-beens that haunt my nights. He is too old to be a reborn comrade, but death in war looks out of his eyes. His soul remembers and clings to mine for strength to understand. We are friends. Such a simple word to express a commitment I have not given to many. It hurts too much to care for too many people.

Unlike my companion, I am small, gnomish in stature. I have a face that will never be considered handsome or even comely, though I have found a fair number of women willing to overlook that deficiency in favor of some of my other charms.

One remains stubbornly resistant to my charms, but I wax eternally hopeful. Mulder had better make up his mind damn soon about her or I'm going to say to hell with 'friends don't steal friend's gals' and start moving in. The lady is too damn good to waste. She strikes me as having a wild streak. Maybe we could have some fine times while Mulder is waking up.

My attention is drawn back to my companion when we halt for a traffic light. Whereas he embraces the traditional uniform of the government servant, crisp shirt, sedate tie, creased trousers, I prefer to dress as far apart from anything considered uniform as I can. An old shirt is covered by an equally old leather vest accompanied by comfortable, if somewhat raggedy pants, and half gloves. The latter give me an old-fashioned air, as if I just stepped out of a Dickens's story. A bit of whimsy on my part.

No one wears gloves with the fingers cut off anymore. Byers mentioned this lapse of fashion only once then held to his own haunted silence. I look into his eyes and wonder what ghosts haunt his dreams?

Then again, no one else I know wears deep puckered scars across the wrists and palms of his hands, gained trying to tear a friend loose from a barbed wire trap. I got a medal - heroism under fire. Tim got his name on the Wall. I flushed the medal down the toilet when I got home.

The light changes. We walk through the gathering darkness to the welcoming lights of the tiny bar with no name that serves as a second home to those of us who walk with the ghosts of a near-forgotten war. The bartender never smiles, but knows each of us by name though he goes nameless. I sometimes wonder if he isn't the devil come to watch over those of us who haven't made it to his gates just yet.

We go to our table, the one located in the back, nearly obscured in shadow. Before we can even settle in, the bartender places two pitchers of beer and two frosted mugs on the table before withdrawing silently back to the bar. It's early yet. The place is nearly empty. That's how we like it.

For nearly an hour we drink in silence, content to let our ghosts gather form and substance as the beer takes hold. Other men and a few women gradually drift in and take their places. Someone feeds the jukebox. We are immediately deafened by the Grateful Dead screaming the words to a Sixties rock song accompanied by a banshee horde of electric guitars. My companion smiles ... well perhaps it is more of a grimace. I merely grin and mouth back, "You're getting old."

"I was born old then. Never did like that group," he bellows back and pours himself another mug of beer. His pitcher is more than half empty.

I pour the last of my beer into my mug and stare into it. Images of lost friends, the blazing trails of tracer bullets lighting up the night, and the men I have killed swim in the depths of the dark brew clasped between my hands.

Movement in the dim light startles me and I look up, old reflexes kick in as I come blearily alert. My companion is holding his mug towards me, a look of grim acceptance of our shared memories on his face. I see my own grim face reflected in his glasses as he must see himself in mine. Fraternal twins born in a long-ago war, mirror images of each other, bound together in the fraternity of survivors.

I raise my mug and lightly touch his - a silent salute to a moment in time when Sergeant Walter S. Skinner and Private Thaddeus J. Frohike met on a battlefield in Vietnam and stood alone and alive in a field of dead men.

THE END

***************

Feedback will be given a good home at: mab49@earthlink.net

Author's Note: This story was obviously written well before "Unusual Suspects"  when we learned that Frohike's first name was Melvin.  I still like Thaddeus as Frohike's first name, so it stays.
 
 

To the next story in the series The Tontine

 

Post-Episode Stories | Stand-Alone Stories | Ghost Series | Wall Series | Absalom Series Dragon's Lair | Gyrfalcon | JiM's Page | Joyce's Corner | Loch Shiel | Rhi's Eyrie | Tarshaan