Hap, The Last American Hero

By Urban Miyares

Thomas Dunns is tired ... tired of living under an alias name and guilty of lying, running away, and hiding, never imagining he would return to New York City after his desertion from the Army fifty years earlier ... but here he is, walking the New York City streets of his youth, paranoid someone will recognize him, despite his disguise and age.

Little did he realize how his attempt to rekindle forgotten memories for his confessional memoir would surprisingly reveal supposed stories about his heroics and demise in Vietnam ... and trigger his obsession to reconnect with Mary, his first love as a teenager.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Urban Miyares
• Release date: Aug 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463674130

Urban Miyares

Urban Miyares is an award-winning entrepreneur, disabled/blinded Vietnam Veteran, former national Alpine ski champion, and competitive offshore sailor.Always driven to write, from his military service and early business career to writing newspaper columns, now retired, his destiny to be an author has arrived.His first book, “My Life Outside the Fish Bowl,” is to be followed shortly by “Hap: The Last American Hero,” a romantic novel, and then by “The Pebble Garden,” a mystery-crime novel series.Urban Miyares lives in San Diego, California, with his wife, their son, and grandchildren.Connect with Urban online:Email: [e-mail]

Book preview

Preface

People come and go in everyone’s life, often for unexplainable reasons. One such person was an American I briefly met in the alleyways of Saigon when I was in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. Rumors abounded about this American, and Hap: The Last American Hero was derived from that American I encountered, and my fictional interpretation of who he was, and his possible story.

— Urban Miyares

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Chapter 1 – Once They Called Him Hap

Thomas felt uneasy returning to the country of his birth; the country he deserted, yet swore to defend. Drafted more than five decades earlier, he was hoping that with advanced years, added weight, receding grey hairline, a grey, full beard, and wire-rim glasses, he was invisible to those who knew him previously. With a prior name of Harvey Aaron Pettersen, alias Hap, his name was now Thomas Duns; the first name taken from a soldier he replaced in Vietnam, and the last name of a classmate who died when in high school.

After almost 30 hours of flying from Sydney, Australia, the distinctive Manhattan skyline imprinted in his memory stood the same. Not until he felt the rumbling touch of the airplane’s wheels on the JFK runway did a quiver of reality of returning to the city of his youth capture him. He took a deep breath and mumbled, Here I go.

After checking into the hotel, Thomas quickly began walking on the streets of the Upper East Side, Yorkville section of Manhattan from his growing up years. He found himself part of a recognizable springtime painting, only now the artwork landscape modified. Familiar names of streets and avenues appearing seemingly narrower with a greater number of high-rise apartment’s buildings replacing and towering over the few remaining four- and five-story brownstone tenements nudged against one another known from his childhood. His black & white photo remembrance of the neighborhood now appeared in full color. If not for the few remaining buildings and recollections of years past, Thomas would surely be lost. Where the five-story, walkup brownstone he once lived on East 72nd Street, now stood a tall elevator apartment building, with only the fire hydrant by the curb remaining as a marker of reference.

An emptiness of his past was missing and feelings as if he were now a tourist on the same street where he grew up filled Thomas as he leaned against the fire hydrant. Thoughts arose of his parents, the Pettersens, how they adopted him when an infant, and gave him the name of Harvey Aaron Pettersen. Everyone called him by Hap, his moniker, an acronym of his full name. Even when his adopted parents were in their retirement years, when he was older and in high school, they never talked about his true birth name, or his biological parents; and, after learning of his adoption, now he wondered why he never asked. With his named parents passing away shortly after his draft into the U.S. Army, there was no one left in his life, assured his step-aunt, his adopted mother’s older sister was no longer alive.

Staring as the pavement at his feet, his thoughts composed about his adopted parents being loners, keeping to themselves, not wanting anyone to know their business. He knew he took on many of their behaviors, raised in a household of few words spoken and secrecy; no questions ever asked, and seldom was information offered. Showing little emotion, being quiet, and hiding in a crowd was his preferred profile when young. The kids he knew from the neighborhood and school were but a distant connection, a first name only basis without close friendships made. Hap often joined his parents reading in the peacefulness of their living room, radio tuned-to classical music, television absent; the telephone seldom rang.

Only the fire hydrant he was leaning against now symbolically remained as but a token of all those who previously walked on the concrete sidewalk where he now stood. He felt sentimental; it was the first time he understood the emotional effect of transitioning from thoughts of a particular time in life, such as when he was an adolescent at a specific location, to that of being in the exact same spot in a time warp of decades later. It was a realization of his childhood existence only but a micro-fraction of a second in time past, an inconsequential moment of him leaving no impact or legacy. Even his initials of H-A-P he carved into the sidewalk’s wet concrete around the fire hydrant before high school, were gone. He now understood that transition was a word meaning to start over again, accept change, not one of collecting renewable expectations from the past to justify one’s current existence.

Thomas (Hap) began walking, slowly weaving his way around the Yorkville neighborhood, fearful someone would recognize him even after all the years and his disguise. He constantly reminded himself about his intention to leave Sydney, Australia, his refuge for more than half a century, was mainly to collect information for his memoir, and to find Mary, the last girl he dated and his first love before leaving for the war generations earlier.

Heading to York Avenue and then west up East 71st Street, he was startled to recognize many five-story, walk-up tenement buildings of his era remaining, all seemingly with little change; and pleased to see Mary’s brownstone standing proudly, defiant of urban development. Thomas approached Mary’s building, stopped at the foot of the three-step stoop, and grabbed the wrought iron handrail. Looking up to the third-story window, a paralyzing snapshot brought him to a pleasing time of his past.

The last time he was at these apartments standing before that same stoop was three weeks prior to Christmas 1967, when he was 19 years old and he kissed Mary good night and good bye, taking an airplane the next morning for Fort Ord, California, on his way to Vietnam. They did not see each other again, nor did he ever receive a letter from her when he was in Vietnam, although he did write Mary.

In all the years concealed in Australia, he never once considered returning to the United States until his wife of almost 48-years, Alicia, passed away. He was alone and depressed over the loss of his wife, with the never-ending guilt of his Army desertion tormenting him; it was then when admiring thoughts of Mary resurfaced, and once again the nagging curiosity returned to find out about why she did not answer his letters from Vietnam. With a new urgency and desperation to begin writing his life story, this desire ignited his impulse to fly from Australia and see Mary one more time to confront her on why she never wrote him, and to seek information on their growing up years in New York City before they dated. Now wanting to document his past, a past he previously buried in his mind, he was unable to retrieve much of the Yorkville neighborhood happenings, and names from his youth, only able to recount details beginning from the time he first dated Mary. She was the key to open his stored memories of where they both grew up, she also knowing the same kids and happenings in the neighborhood since their earliest years.

As he did a number of times when 19 years old, he took the first step up the same stoop and paused, thinking this was his last chance to turn around and retreat to his hiding in disgrace. After a moment of hesitation to calm his uncertainty, he continued, slowly rising with each footstep feeling as if shedding one layer of his disguise with each step.

Another phase in transitioning had begun, he surmised, upon reaching and stopping at the top deck of the stoop. It was going to be another dramatic life change after his draft into the military, and then his conversion from the military to an Australian citizen. Now his next lifestyle shift had begun to record the truth, returning to his origin, and amend his guilt of his actions in the past.

He knew remembrance of Mary was always with him, and her memory of him was probably only as another boy she dated when younger. For decades, he fantasized how different their lives surely would have been if the U.S. Army had not drafted him and sent him to Vietnam. He was convinced they only needed a little more time together for him to break through his shyness and confess his true feelings, always wanting to believe she, too, had a more than a friendship attraction to him, even though she never openly said anything.

He entered the apartment’s entrance foyer to read the names on the mailboxes, hoping the name Drambrowski remained, and stopped suddenly. An eerie sensation of taking a step backwards into the past checked him in place to absorb the forgotten and musky aroma of history.

Thomas attempted to read each name, his eyeglasses on the tip of his nose as he pushed his face closer to the labels on each mailbox. The waning years faded the printing of many names making most surnames unrecognizable when, suddenly, the front door entryway opened, startling him.

A matronly dressed, elderly woman came out and asked, Looking for someone?

Just trying to find someone I once knew who lived here, Thomas said – making sure he emphasized the pseudo Australian accent to reinforce his disguise.

I’ve lived here my entire life and if they were here, I would surely know them, the woman said.

Drambrowski, he responded.

Oh, that’s a tragic story, the woman said with a soft voice. Are you related?

No, he said. I just knew the family.

The woman openly talked about the Drambrowski family saying they were a hard working family, and three generations of Drambrowskis lived in the same apartment on the third floor.

I was good friends with their daughter Mary. She was such a pretty girl, the woman said. She was dating a handsome young man I also knew who lived on 72nd Street. The draft put him into the Army and then he died in the Vietnam War, she continued. What a hero he was. You know, we had a number of young men killed in Vietnam from this neighborhood. There was Billy from across the street; George from up the block, and John, he lived on First Avenue. John was a good basketball player.

Thomas asked, And the Drambrowski family? He remembered the names of the boys Susan mentioned from school, not aware they died in Vietnam.

I’ll never forget. Just tragic, she responded with her eyes beginning to tear. "Mary’s parents were killed in a car accident right after Christmas of 1967, and just a few weeks after her parents died, she heard that her boyfriend Hap died in Vietnam, and she quickly married the older James boy, Randy, who lived on the top floor. Mary and Randy were good friends since all of us were kids, and everyone in the building always thought they would get married one day. Mary became pregnant right away and they moved to California with Randy James’s father. Scott, Mary’s older brother, remained in the apartment, with their grandmother — she passing away shortly after Mary and Randy moved to the West Coast.

Scott lived in the apartment alone for years, never married, and then he died in the 9-11 tragedy; he working part-time there when the twin towers came down. I had not talked to Mary since she and Randy moved many years ago, but Scott, when he was alive, kept me updated about them.

What’s your name, the woman asked? If you lived in the neighborhood and knew the Drambrowski family, I’d surely know you.

Fearful she might know him, he hesitated a second before responding, Thomas Duns. I don’t think we’ve ever met.

No, your name doesn’t sound familiar, the woman said as she moved her head in a searchlight motion trying to recognize any features from Thomas’s bearded face. My name is Betty Yonkish.

Pausing with surprise after hearing her name, Thomas said, Nice to meet you Betty, and thanks for the information.

Thomas watched as Betty walked down the brownstone’s stoop steps, heading to First Avenue. Recalling her as an overweight girl from their teen years, she now was a smaller version of her mother Josephine (Josie, as everyone called her), morbidly obese, and the know-it-all of the neighborhood. Betty seemingly continued in her mother’s image in appearance and having a story about everyone in the neighborhood. He was relieved she did not recognize him; and he, likewise, was unable to recognize her until she mentioned her name.

Betty was someone from his past he completely forgot about, but now recalled seeing her and her mother often on the streets. He distinctly remembering an incident about Betty when they were in the same second grade class and she wet in her pants during school. Many in the neighborhood, including himself, intentionally avoided Betty, and he was unable to recall ever saying anything to her, other than maybe, Hi.

It took Thomas a couple of minutes to move, his heart beating rapidly from the encounter, his mind sorting out what he had just heard. Mary married and having a child, her parents and grandmother die soon after he left for Vietnam, she believing he was dead, and her older brother Scott, who he knew, had died too. How tragic for Mary, he thought. A portrait of Mary’s entire family in their living room watching television flickered in his mind.

This was the first time he became aware of how, when turning your back on the past and those you know, as he did when he stopped writing Mary letters, the story about you continues, whether correct or not.

Betty’s comment about him, Hap, and her believing he was a hero – surely the same story he also read about his supposed actions in combat describing his reported demise when in Vietnam. Thomas was disturbed, as one upsetting word or sentence can easily ruin an entire day and he felt shades of his pessimistic personality surfacing after talking to Betty. Standing on the top deck of the stoop, he stared up the street conducting a self-interrogation about his urgency to see Mary, returning to the United States and exposing himself, especially with everyone believing he was dead.

Taking a deep breath and mumbling positive thoughts for re-motivation, he reminded himself retreating back to Australia was no longer a willing option. He needed to be persistent, moving forward on his quest as Thomas Duns and write the confession, coming out of the shadows, or up from the grave, regardless of the consequences. After all, he was surely the only one to feel any pain; everyone else in his life was dead or living their life without concern for him, probably including Mary. Too many years had passed for him, Hap, to be of importance to anyone.

Continuing his walk in the Yorkville neighborhood of his youth, he looked for any evidence to trigger a memory of his past. If not for the street and avenue markers, and seeing a familiar structure, he would have questioned his location. Frustrated, as he knew he previously walked on the same streets when a boy, only now he was unable to capture any clear thoughts of that time in his life. Seeing kids freely playing on the sidewalks and in the streets, neighbors talking loudly to one another from their windows were part of the picture and melodies of the melting-pot heritages he missed. Only the loud noise of cars and trucks, with impatient drivers blasting their vehicles’ horns was a familiar recollection. He attempted to muffle the intruding sounds, walking uncomfortably as a stranger in the city of his youth. The warmth, coziness, and comfort of the Yorkville streets and avenues when growing up were now gone. The streets of Yorkville no longer having the same diverse family cultures he remembered. He had a yearning for those days from the past.

Stopping at a corner to cross Second Avenue, a teenage girl with shoulder-length blonde hair stood next to him waiting for the traffic light to change. Her glowing hair, parted in the middle, instantly reminded him of Mary and saying goodbye to her and his aunt before boarding the airplane to Vietnam. He intentionally walked behind the young girl to stare at her as they both crossed the avenue.

He needed to stop somewhere and write all the emotions before they vanished, knowing mental thoughts fade quickly. If he could not find Mary, he knew reliance on the information from an Internet search would be his primary reference, unless he only offered a brief outline of his forgotten, growing up years in Manhattan, and used the unrelated discovered lost years in his script as a story filler.

I sure was raised in the sheltered and paranoid family lifestyle in a bye-gone era, but to me then, it was mundane and uneventful, worthy of forgetfulness, he murmured, attempting to hold the thought until he found a place to sit quietly and write what Betty told him about Mary and her family.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Chapter 2 – Empire Black Coffee Stirs Up Memories

Crossing Second Avenue, he remembered the drug store he once worked at as a teenager. An upscale coffee shop now occupied the space. A lover of black coffee with nothing added, he entered the posh coffee shop.

He recalled how when he first arrived in Sydney, his fear about others recognizing his United States background through his New York City brogue, had him speaking softly, mumbling sentences, and eliminating specific revealing words, such as coffee, bathroom, water, and restaurant. Then, coffee was not as favorable a beverage in Australia as it was in America

What can I get you, asked the barista standing behind the counter.

Thomas hesitated, trying to hold back laughing at the overly distinctive, New York City brogue he had not heard in many years.

I’ll have a large black, Thomas responded, as he looked in the face of the employee, pushing himself to fight his impulse since childhood of avoiding eye contact.

You mean black coffee? the barista asked.

Yes, mate, he responded with a smile, easily identifying how he must have sounded to others when he first took refuge in Australia.

Okay, one Empire black coffee for you.

With coffee in hand, Thomas took a seat by the front window gazing at the shockingly different landscape of Second Avenue – a once familiar stage but now with towering apartment buildings, and the ground-level storefronts having different trade names. If not for the loud noise of traffic and people hurriedly walking as if late for an appointment, his thoughts would have floated up to the skyscrapers’ penthouse apartments and not down to the sidewalk. With thoughts of his youth walking on the same streets, he quickly wrote in his notebook how he did miss the once familiar aromas from the mom and pop shops, pouring distinctive and varied fragrances of their goods and services onto the streets – the smells he ignored when young, but now desired to savor again.

Taking his first sip of coffee, he gleamed to the awakening of the unique New York City coffee flavor he missed for more than fifty years, saying aloud as he exhaled, Oh boy, is that bloody good.

Reflecting to his younger years of Mary and him walking on the same street he now viewed from inside the coffee shop, he grinned with memories of how young they were, and how happy he then felt. An image suddenly surfaced of them sharing a chocolate egg-cream soda together at a soda fountain and newsstand once across the avenue – the five-story tenement building with businesses on the street level, replaced by a tall luxurious apartment building.

Fond remembrances captured him about how special dating Mary was. As others said, he seldom showed any emotions – he seemingly always exhibiting a blank expression, with few facial gestures, and rarely laughed, until meeting Mary. He remembered how that stone facial frankness resumed when he believed Mary no longer cared about him when he was in Vietnam; then, there was no reason to smile. His expressions of comfort and relaxation returned once again in Sydney upon meeting and marrying his Australian wife, Alicia. The thought reminding him of how important it was for him to look and act the part of a successful author, mimicking those professional writers he knew from his Sydney coffee and book shop – they all showed dramatic facial gestures when talking and even when in serious concentration writing.

With Mary his focus, he visualized how unforgettably beautiful she looked at the neighborhood Christmas party the night before he left for Vietnam – an engaging mental snap-shot of her wearing a white blouse and a blue skirt under her red, winter coat. That was the last time they were together. Thomas was always surprised how memories arose throughout the years whenever a related incident occurred or he heard the name Mary; yet, other stories and incidents before his relationship with Mary remained clouded or absent from his memory. Mary was his mental tattoo, always with him; even though he believed she left and forgot him. Everyone must remember his or her first love, Thomas surmised. The one photo he had of Mary was inside his helmet, and the last time he saw his helmet was when riding in the Army truck to Saigon to decompress. They heard an explosion near the truck and he and the other soldiers hastily jumped out, he without his helmet having Mary’s picture inside. After that, his next remembrance was helping a fellow grunt carry a body bag to a medical advancement tent.

Unconsciously he took a sip of coffee as he relived his painful emotions when writing in his Vietnam military pocket notebook, about his distraught feelings when not receiving a letter in response to the many he wrote Mary before and after Christmas in 1967. She promised him she would write often. With heartbreaking Dear John stories among the soldiers about the