Looking for Canterbury

By Jason Marks

Several Vietnam veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome strive to heal themselves by telling stories about themselves in Central Park that have nothing to do with Nam. In flight from years of unrewarding support-group therapy, all seven of them hope to work out their problems by playing roles which take off on Chaucers storytelling characters (whose personalities they strikingly resemble)--on the theory that the truth is best arrived at by indirection and through a more personal and human approach.
The pilgrimage to an American Canterbury is the brainchild of one Harry Baylor, a Broadway Avenue butcher and Vietnam vet in flight from an unhappy marriage and a recurring nightmare that he killed his best buddy during an enemy attack and ran from the field of battle.A Chaucer nut, Harry got hooked on the great medieval poet while attending night-classes at City College taught by Professor Dorsett, a paraplegic who served as a medic in Nam and who, too, is a member of the support group. Nam and Chaucer fuse to form Harry Baylors dual obsession (now and then, when he is under duress, the conversation lapses into Middle English).
Troubled Harry withdraws 58,178 dollars--corresponding to the number of names on the Wall of the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial in Washington, DC -- from his marital joint bank account and splurges them on his Chaucer gala; he puts up his fellow Nam vets in a plush hotel on Central Park South, outfits them in Chaucerian costumes (e.g., the former nurse in Vietnam, herself the splitting image of the flamboyant, sexy Wife of Bath, sports a heavy headdress of finely woven kerchiefs, scarlet and tightly gathered hose, and soft new shoes), and stages a medieval feast with spectacular entertainments (a la Chaucers day) and food authentic down to the last--sometimes rather unappetizing--detail.
Harrys dream of finding salvation in Central Park runs into opposition. The Pilgrims take a week off from their busy jobs with some misgiving and only after he persuades them that the stark alternative is living death or continuing to live like zombies each tormented by his or her own Nam-connected demon. And when they try to tell stories about themselves free of Nam, they either fail to complete them or the tales disintegrate into chaotic reminiscences of the particular Nam horror that has preyed on the mind of each all these years.The Chaucer gala turns into a shambles; their feelings of frustration cause Harrys fellow vets to turn against him, making him their scapegoat.Why, they ask, did you get us into this?Why did you promise us so much? How come you required us to tell a tale when you declined to do so?At least we tried!Whathave you got to hide? (Harry has pleaded his scholarly integrity;--the Host in The Canterbury Tales does not tell a story). Throughout his trial by fire, Harry Baylors loving and admiiring Monica, his Wife of Bath, is tenderly supportive. (Soon Harrys divorce will come through and he will, a la Chaucer, become her sixth husband.) Like Chaucers pilgrims to Canterbury, the Nam vets underake their journey during spring, the season of redemption and rebirth. In Central Park, the Wife of Bath, for example, tells her fairy tale of wish-fulfillment while ensconced in the lap of Alice in the Alice in Wonderland statue; the rambunctious Millerand the sinister psychiatrist...

"Jason Marks has written an accurate and thoughtful memorial to the many Vietnam Veterans who continue to suffer from the hellishness of war, and the humiliation of their homecoming. His story c

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 11, 2001
• ISBN: 9781465322753

Jason Marks

Jason Marks is also author of Around the World in 72 Days (SterlingHouse, 1999), the novel Chiaroscuro, and the biographical 12 Who Made It Big, as well as co-author of the novel Two Souls, One Body (Fawcett Gold Medal). He is professor emeritus of English and journalism, Baruch College, CUNY.

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Copyright © 2002 by Jason Marks.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to

any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design and interior graphics by Carson Ferri-Grant

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

1 Whan that Aprill .

2 Thanne longen folk to goon on Pilgrimages

3 A seemly man Oure Hoost was withalle for to han been a marchall in an halle....

4 Great chiere made oure Hoost us everichon, And to the soper sette he us anon

5 Burgess King’s (The Squire’s) Tale

6 Herman Bodd’s (The Miller’s) Tale

7 Monica Hazeltine’s (The Wife of Bath’s) Tale

8 Miriam Collymore’s (The Prioress’s) Tale

9 Dr. E. G. Hammaker’s (The Pardoner’s) Tale

10 The Farewell Dinner

11 Harry and Monica Living Together

12 Heere is ended the book of the tales of an American Caunterbury

I AM ESPECIALLY GRATEFUL TO THE FOLLOWING FOR THEIR INSIGHTS REGARDING THE VIETNAM WAR AND ITS CONSEQUENCES:

ROD KANE, VETERAN’S DAY: A VIETNAM MEMOIR (NEW YORK: ORION BOOKS, 1990); ARTHUR EGENDORF, HEALING FROM THE WAR: TRAUMA AND TRANSFORMATION AFTER VIETNAM (BOSTON: SHAMBHALA PUBLICATIONS, 1986);

MARK BAKER, NAM (NEW YORK; BERKLEY BOOKS, 1983);

LAURA PALMER, SHRAPNEL IN THE HEART (NEW YORK: VINTAGE BOOKS, 1988);

WILLIAM BROYLES, JR., VIETNAM: HOW THE WARBECAME THE MOVIE, SMART MAGAZINE, JULY-AUGUST, 1990;

AND KEITH WALKER, A PIECE OFMYHEART (NEW YORK: BALLANTINE BOOKS, 1988).

A MUSICAL BASED UPON LOOKING FOR CANTERBURYHAS BEEN WRITTEN BY JASON MARKS AND BONNIE BENSON, WITH KENNETH DEAN RASKIN AS COMPOSER.

ANECDOTE ABOUT THE BOY AND HIS DEAD FROG IN CHAPTER 6 IS DRAWN, IN PART, FROM BLANCHE KNOTT’S TRULY TASTELESS JOKES VI (NEW YORK: ST MARTIN’S PRESS, 1986)

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1 Whan that Aprill .

O n the wall above his desk was the reproduction of the Chaucer portrait (commissioned by Hoccleve) familiar to anyone who has ever cursed having to read that great poet in school in the Middle English. The light from Harry’s gooseneck lamp picked out the various details-the thick nose of the rather portly man, his full lips and dark, hooded eyes. Geoffrey Chaucer’s hair was close-cropped, exposing his ears, and his mustache and forked beard were in the fashion of his day. Garbed in black hood and gown, a pencase dangling from his neck on red strings, he gazed toward the left in apparent deep thought. Beyond the window in Harry’s study, a sickle-shaped moon shone palely above his little stand of apple trees. He was reading that part in The Canterbury Tales where the Host describes his wife as a blabbing nag:

"I have a wyf, the worste that may be; For thogh the feend to hire ycoupled were, She wolde hym overmacche, I dar wel swere. What sholde I yow reherce in special Hir hye malice? She is a shrewe et al.

Harry Baylor the butcher rubbed his eyes and turned the page. He could identify with that. It was well past midnight yet he was reluctant to join his wife Selene. They hadn’t spoken to each other in a week; the air crackled with accumulated tension. Harry feared what he might do with his hands if they quarreled once again. Selene might just as well have been the Host’s spouse, he thought. Harry shut the book. The house was still; his house. He had helped supervise the construction and spent thousands of dollars over the years to keep it in showcase condition.

Finally, she called to him from across the hall: Come to bed, Harry.

I’m coming.

It’s late.

Although he had been married to her for more than twenty years, she remained a puzzlement to him. Nice home all paid for; secure nestegg, kids off to college. Didn’t he buy her a BMW? A microwave? Take her to Bermuda and St. Thomas: what did she want? Harry slid between the percale bedsheets. Selene touched his cheek but he thrust her off. She turned over onto her right side, away from him. Harry stared at the ceiling. Recently, when they’d had guests for dinner, he had ridiculed her cooking. After twenty years of living with a butcher, he said, you’d think she would have learned something about how to make a brisket of beef. After twenty years of marriage, she retorted, you’d think that a husband who prided himself on his knowledge of viands and their preparation would have once stepped into the kitchen to help his wife cook. Harry accused Selene of having a heavy hand with the meat tenderizer. He commonly thought in images involving his trade; her left arm, now lying bare outside the covers, was marbled with fat, like meat stored in the cooler. Aging, he thought, has made her tender; her face might look care-worn, but her body was still prime grade. Harry glared at his wife’s nacreous throat; he stifled an impulse to strangle her. It was that scheming female brain the Host had complained about to his fellow pilgrims; it made man’s life miserable. Harry Bailly the innkeeper (amazing, Prof Dorsett had commented, their names should be so much alike!) might well have set in motion the journey to Canterbury just to get away from his wife!

What’s wrong with me? Harry wondered. Why am I thinking these things? Harry Baylor the butcher stared at the ceiling, which faded in and out! Killing! That was what it was all about! The figures in loose-fitting black pajamas stole like phantoms across the strange landscape. A shell exploded in the dark, flinging skin and burning blood into his face. AAAIIIIII! His best buddy Eddie Phipps, his guts spilling into Harry’s lap, moaned, Take me home. . . . I want to go home. All around them, the shrieks of the wounded and the dying pierced the night. Harry raised his knife to grapple with the gook who was suddenly upon him. He awoke screaming, drenched in icy sweat.

There. . . . there. . . . His wife cradled him in her arms until the fit subsided. Talk. Talk to me.

Nothing to say.

Talk to me, Harry. I’m not a mind-reader. What did you dream?

Nothing.

Nothing. Why do you keep shutting me out? All these years;-you’d think the night-terrors would stop. You never leave Nam.

You keep saying that. I’m your wife, Harry.

I know that.

You can’t go on forever blaming Vietnam for your failure to meet your responsibilities   

Harry bristled: Responsibilities....

As a husband.

Don’t give me that shit. He lay staring at Eddie Phipps’ terrified eyes pleading with him to take him home.

You know what I mean, Harry.

No. What, do you mean?

Sit there reading all the time. Chaucer is mighty cold comfort in bed, Harry.

I know that. His love-affair with Chaucer had begun several years ago when Roger Dorsett, who taught English Lit. at City College and had served in Nam as a medic, introduced members of Harry’s support-group to the wonders of The Canterbury Tales. Prof Dorsett, a paraplegic, had taken a bullet at the base of his spine, at Khe Sanh, that paralyzed him from the waist down. Chaucer’s modernity and his understanding of people from all walks of life (the Prof said, punning on his disability) were a revelation for Harry, who even took to committing to memory whole passages of the Middle English. You never hug me anymore, Selene said. We haven’t made love in two months. Hug me and hold me. He felt frozen as a supermarket cubesteak. He thawed himself out with foreplay; he tried to make love with her to shut her up. It didn’t work.

Don’t worry, she soothed. It happens. He was silent. What are you feeling, Harry?

Feeling?

"About me. We’ve got to communicate...."

Don’t give me that Oprah Winfrey show shit.

Tell me what happened in Nam.

It’s better that you don’t know.

Oh, thank you for shielding me from the horrible realities! They lived comfortably on his earnings and she was spared the hassles of the work place. She was active in the PTA and did volunteer work at the local day-care center. She was taking Adult Education courses in Psychology at a nearby community college. You don’t want to know the truth about yourself.

And what is the truth about myself?

I don’t know; you tell me. I’ve spent twenty years trying to figure that out. She shifted restlessly in bed. I’m exhausted, Harry. Two decades out of my life. I’m not a martyr like your Thomas a Becket. I want out. Out? Out.

How have I wronged you? Even as he spoke he felt like a character in Chaucer, his language esthetically elevated a mite above everyday speech. How have I failed you, Selene? How? How? The words rang hollow to him. That was the problem, of course. What had Dr. Friedrich opined in his succinct Churrman? Many men, he said, lose toch mit dere fillings. Already Harry had it in his mind to walk on her.

Go to sleep, she said.

She was right-she was always right, that was what made her so much like Chaucer’s Host’s wife: he didn’t want to be helped! He couldn’t be helped. Maybe if he went back to Nam like some of the guys and tried to purge his demons by revisiting the sites of battle? There was something hard in him, hard as a carcass in the wholesale meat market, that kept him from being saved. He was beyond saving. So the hell with it! Life was too short for this shit (Chaucer would have thought of a better, a more eloquent word to express his, Harry Bailly’s—Baylor’s-feel-ings) Live it up while you may! Was that how he felt-after all she had done to try and help him? He was split-a fucked-up Vietnam veteran with post-traumatic stress syndrome. If it wasn’t for the support-group, he probably would have killed himself long ago. Prof Dorsett’s idea (they all called him Prof) kept dinning in his head like a mortar barrage. A pilgrimage. What they needed was a pilgrimage to their own Canterbury of the heart’s desire, in a setting more conducive to their emotional and spiritual salvation than the space they rented above McGarrity’s Restaurant and Bar on East 23rd Street. E.G. Hammaker, who had served in Nam in Intelligence and, as a therapist, was the coordinator of the support-group’s rap-sessions, applauded the Prof’s notion. It would, he said, distance them from the analyst-patient relationship; by telling stories on the road much as Chaucer’s pilgrims did, they would reveal a great deal about themselves without feeling cornered or humiliated. Prof Dorsett’s brainstorm, however, never got beyond the talking stage. It remained for him, Harry, to set it into motion. He struggled through The Canterbury Tales in the Middle English. Half way through, he switched, as he had in school, to what kids still called, he presumed, a pony or trot. The Prof was right! Chaucer knew people-Harry touched his wife on her bare shoulder. Selene.

Go to sleep, Harry, she moaned into the mattress. Go to sleep.

She turned to face him for the first time: Will you go back to Dr. Friedrich?

Explore my feelings?

Explore your feelings.

Yes.

Thank you. She planted a kiss on his cheek, then went back to sleep. He lay awake into the chill gray hours of dawn, awaiting the return of Eddie Phipps and the gooks on the ceiling. He fell into an agitated slumber. That morning, Selene set up an appointment for him in the afternoon with Dr. Friedrich. That evening, Harry shamefacedly informed her of his dereliction.

How could you? she stormed. How could you?

I don’t need him; I’ve got my support-group.

You and that support-group. You promised me that you’d seek real therapy. Post-traumatic stress disorder. Go back to the V.A.

Goddamn bureaucracy. I feel human in the support group.

That? Her mouth puckered with concern. Bunch of characters rehashing the same old stuff. Year after year. Hanging out with people with similar problems. They’re reinforcing your illness.

Is that so? Is that so? She was lording it over him again!

No wonder you never get out of there, she said.

"That’s what you think." Whatever he said, she was in the habit of dismissing it. To give up the support-group meant to give up the one thing that held him together.

Then, after a pause: What I need is a vacation.

That might not be a bad idea, she flared. Away from me.

A long vacation.

Permanently.

Permanently? he stalled. Are you serious?

Are you? she asked.

About what? She wouldn’t let go!

Saving our marriage.

If you know something I don’t know, Selene, I want to know about it.

"You’re so angry; you’re angrier than I am!"

It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.

I mean every word of it, Harry.

It takes two to tango, you know, he said. You don’t need therapy?

"I’ve had therapy, you know that." She was ready to take him on.

Two years. And that makes you the big authority on my mental condition? That was ages ago.

Past reasoning with her, he would bludgeon her into submission.

You wear the penis in the family.

She said nothing.

I said-you wear the penis....

I heard you.

Then say something, he said, sickened by the peril into which he had pitched himself.

"I will-GET OUT. I’m not going to spend the next twenty years of my life like this. It’s not going to change."

You don’t mean that, Selene.

I said-GET OUT, you bastard. Pack up your belongings and get out of my life. She placed the side of her right index finger against her throat. I’ve had it up to here with you. Get out of my life.

This is my house, too. His nerves jumped as though he were under friendly fire (the worst feeling in the war was to have your own people fire at you). "I built this house. My heart and soul is in every board and brick of this place."

Not any more, Harry. We’re through.

That’s not what it says in the marriage contract. Love, honor, and cherish. Remember?

Do you? she asked.

You’ve got one fucking nerve to tell me to get out of my own home, Harry said. "You get out."

The house belongs to me, she said, hard as hambone.

That’s not what it says in the deed.

My lawyer will be in touch with you.

Lawyer? What lawyer?

About a divorce.

Divorce! You don’t mean that.

Oh yes I do! You’re history to me. I want a new life, Harry. I’m entitled to it.

Was this happening to him, Harry Baylor? After all he’d given up for her and the children? A cunte, ywis!

How could she be so ungrateful? She was busy telling him now how abusive he had been to her-with fists as well as words. Which was, of course, a gross exaggeration. He had cuffed her once or twice but that was years ago. She was a master at that-shifting the blame. Incredible; she made him feel guilty, when actually she was the criminal! It was her compulsive need constantly to analyze his personality that was killing their marriage. He flung some clothes into a suitcase. Absurd. Kicked out of your own home by your own wife, for no good reason! Must he leave simply because she said so? Ridiculous. He would stay! But he knew he could not stay. Why? Because he had wanted to walk once before but chickened out; this time, by God, he would walk. In his study, he took down the Chaucer reproduction, stowed some books into the suitcase. Damned female!

I’m taking the Chaucer books! he called across the hall.

She groaned something that sounded like assent. She thought she was so smart; she’d never even read Chaucer.

Harry fondly caressed the bindings as he packed his favorite tomes into the suitcase: among them, F.N. Robinson’s The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, Marchette Chute’s Geoffrey Chaucer of England, and Theodore Morrison’s The Portable Chaucer.

As a highly successful butcher, he had a strong tactile sense. Proud of his trade, he likened it to surgery. Meatcutting was an art that took years to develop.

Harry Baylor knew all the shortcuts on how to skim and seam meat; the nerves and tendons must be removed completely before the meat was sliced into scallops and flattened. (Veal must be rendered paper-thin then cooked only a minute on each side). He cut his meat out front right before the eyes of the customers, so that they knew it was fresh.