Chain

Chain

As the Nelsons sat on lawn chairs at the end their dock and watched the harvest moon rise over the Persimmon River, Raymond Winston strolled down from Water Street with a batch of turnips from the family farm. He knew—and Mark and Cathy knew he knew—that they didn’t particularly like turnips; it was an excuse to visit. He was a Vietnam vet, damaged but a survivor.

Cathy greeted him warmly and, pointing to another chair, told him to “Sit and tell us your news.”

They were in Staffordshire, North Carolina, a village of 2,000 on an inland bay of a Tidewater river. Watching sunrises and sunsets was a favorite activity for the newly retired couple

“Thank you, I will,” replied Ray, “if you’ll watch my latest magic trick, the amazing links.” He pulled a bright a gold chain about three feet long from the pocket of his fatigues and held it up where it glittered in the late sunlight.

Although Mark was slightly jealous whenever his friend appropriated Cathy as his “lovely assistant,” he enjoyed Ray’s visits, too. They shared a past in Southeast Asia, though they had dramatically different roles—Ray in the bush, Mark in the rear.

“You know, Ray,” Mark asked, “you’ve never told us where you learned magic. Did you start as a boy here or pick it up in one of your many jaunts across the country.”

“Neither, my friend. Began trickery in México, Ciudad Juárez, if I remember correctly“ He rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Don’t know, though, how I got there or why, but it was a memorable time.”

Mark thought to himself that only Ray could combine remembering and forgetting in the same sentence.

“México?” asked Cathy, “Not one of your trips to see DollyDolly, love of your life?”

Raymond spread the chain out on floor of the dock, one of the modern ones made of durable plastic with small holes to let water pass through and minimize damage in storms.

“No,” he said a bit sadly. “That was during one of my . . . down times. But,” he brightened, ”we’re fine now, and she sends her best.”

Dolly (called DollyDolly by Raymond because she’d been a Donut Dolly in Vietnam) stayed on the Winston farm on and off, not completely committed to permanent residence in Staffordshire; but she was never gone for long. She migrated like the purple martins.

“So, the amazing links,” said Cathy. “Are you going to wrap them around yourself, padlock them, and then turn over the keys to your . . . “ She paused and made a slight curtsey. “ . . . to your ‘lovely assistant’ before magically escaping?”

“Too easy,” laughed Ray. “In Escuela Magica, we bend perception in other ways. It’s a form of the art that came with Spain to the New World, much finer than crude vaudeville acts.”

Mark offered, “Maybe you can hang to the last link by your teeth, like a circus performer?”

Ray brushed that idea aside.

“A circle is a magical thing in and of itself,” he explained, arranging the chain carefully so that each link was equidistant from the center. He traced the links with his index finger. ‘It never ends unless . . . “ He tapped the deck with a finger, two of the links (magically) parted, and now there were two ends.

“Hey!” objected Mark, and leaned over to look, suspecting that Ray had some device hidden there.

Ray picked up the chain by one end and let it swing from his hand like the pendulum of a clock. Pointing first at the bottom link and then the top, he said, “It’s a line that reaches from here to there, unless . . . “

The lowest link of the chain seemed to leap up to his hand and reconnect to the top link. “Oh!” said Cathy.

“ . . . unless,” Ray concluded, “the line belongs only to itself.”

“This chain seems to be alive,” said Mark. “Can I see?”

Ray handed him the circle of links. Mark pulled it with one hand through the palm of his other, looking for seams in the metal ovals. “They all look whole to me,” he said to Cathy. “That’s a pretty good trick. How do you do it?”

Maybe the question is not how I do it, but why. All good magic raises questions about the world we live in.”

“So,” observed Cathy, “this chain is supposed to tell us about how things are connected. Didn’t they believe in the Middle Ages in a Great Chain of Being?”

“Can’t tell you about that,” Ray admitted.

Mark explained, “It was an idea in Shakespeare’s time, that the universe is connected top to bottom. Mere matter down here,” he gestured to the ground, ”rising through levels of being—plants, animals, women, men, planets, stars, angels, the supreme being at the top. All the parts go together in a divine order.”

Ray nodded. “I do believe things are parts of larger systems. I guess that is one reason I like this trick. Makes me feel everything has a place, even when . . . “

His faced clouded, and Cathy put a hand on his arm. “You okay? You’re not missing Dolly too much are you?”

Ray brightened. “No, no. She’s going to call tonight. She got me one of the new phones.” He slapped his pockets, looking for it. “Yeah, I can call her, too. It’s all paid for.”

Mark admitted, “That’s the good thing about the information age. The bad thing is we can’t get away from everyone!”

Ray continued. “It’s not just things that link up, you know, but times do, too—yesterday and today, tomorrow and beyond. Sometimes I’m not sure if we’re moving forward, following a straight line—sort of being pulled by a chain; or maybe we going in circles, passing by the same points over and over?”

He turned to Mark. “You have dreams about your time in Nam?”

Mark sighed. “Sometimes they feel like they happened yesterday.” Then he assured Ray. “They’re not like yours, though. They’re not firefights and things. I’m always in some line of men, processing.”

Ray laughed. “Now, I can have those, too. In line to hurry up and wait.”

Cathy asked Mark, “Didn’t you tell me about a dream of going back when you were older?”

“That’s funny. Yes, I was mid-life, I think, called up for some bizarre reason and sent back to Vietnam. I was supposed to help the kids, the newbies who were just out of high school and A.I.T.—‘advanced infantry training.’”

“That didn’t get us ready,” insisted Ray. “We’re were prepared to see and kill a recognizable

enemy, not find ourselves wondering if this village was full of friend or foe.”

Mark wanted to stop talking about this, he believed because it would be hard on Ray, the wounded (and decorated) combat vet. Cathy watched her husband closely, though, thinking this was not easy for him either.

He’d never told her much about his time as an Army correspondent, doing features about successes in the pacification program, winning, as they said, “the hearts and minds” of the people, He’d talked in general terms about how what he learned over his twelve months there—that most of our successes were temporary.

“I should have gone the education route, like you did, my friend,” said Ray. “Could have used the GI bill to go back to school if . . . if I’d stayed straight.”

“You’re doing well now, though,” said Cathy smiling. “Dolly’s got you on the straight and narrow.”

Dolly had entertained his unit back at base and took Ray on as a special assignment after he had spent some time in the brig for insubordination.

“She doesn’t mean ‘ball and chain,’ though, ” laughed Mark. “Raymond the Conjuror is keeping steady as it goes, pulling rabbits out of hats and quarters out of ears and expanding your troupe of tricksters.”

“Aprendiendo nuevos trucos,” Ray smiled. “Gracias.”

They watched in silence as the moon rays rippled on the river water and the first evening stars came into view.