The Purple Heart Came Home to Main Street

“Joplin,” I said. “A man named Lonnie. He says thank you. His dad was a Marine.”

Grandpa nodded slowly, like that made sense.

Then he tried to pin it on himself. He opened the pin on the back and held the ribbon up to his coat with one hand and tried to work the pin through the wool with the other. His fingers shook. They shook so hard the medal rattled against itself.

He tried for a while. Long enough that I had to look away. He did not ask for help. He would never ask.

Then he stopped. He held it out to me in his open palm.

“You do it, Cody,” he said.

So I did. I took it from him, and I put my left hand flat inside his coat to hold the wool steady, the way you hold a wall plate when you are setting a screw. I could feel his heart going under my hand. I worked the pin through, one careful push, and closed the clasp.

Right where it always went. Right where Grandma used to put it, standing in the kitchen.

I smoothed the ribbon flat with my thumb. I did not get up. I stayed down there on the curb beside him with my hand on the arm of his chair.

Grandpa put his hand over mine. He did not say anything. He did not have to.

A few people on the curb behind us had seen. I heard them go quiet. A woman said, “Oh, Walt,” very soft. Somebody behind me blew his nose.

Across the street, Jared had looked up. He was looking right at us, at Grandpa’s coat. Then he put his face down in his hands.

The drums started down at the school end of the street. Then the band. They played the Marines’ Hymn first, the way they always do, then the Army song, and people started to stand up along both curbs as the flags came.

The Legion color guard leads the parade in our town. Four men from Post 102, two with the flags and two with the rifles. They are not young. The youngest is a Desert Storm man in his late fifties. The oldest is Ed Wohlers, who was in Vietnam, and who has carried the American flag in that parade for thirty-four years.

Ed has known Grandpa his whole life. Grandpa laid the brick on Ed’s house.

They came up the street in step, slow, the flags straight up and not a breath of wind to move them. Everyone along the curb was standing by then, hands over their hearts. Hats coming off.

Grandpa had not stood up yet. He was still in his chair with the blanket over his knees.

They came even with the cafe. Even with our chair.

And Ed turned his head and looked at Grandpa. I saw his eyes go to Grandpa’s coat. To the ribbon.

Ed said something under his breath, and the color guard stopped. Right in the middle of Main Street. Right in front of us. The band behind them did not know what was happening and kept marching in place, and then the drum major threw up her hand and they stopped too.

It got very quiet. You could hear a dog somewhere a block over.

Grandpa put his hand on my shoulder.

And he started to stand up.