Uncle Bennie

Down the lane drifted the voice of someone singing.

I'm in the army now.

I'm in the army now.

I'm digging a ditch; I'll never get rich.

I'm in the army now.

The refrain began and grew louder with each repetition as the singer neared the small, whitewashed, clapboard house at the end of the lane. When the singer reached the entrance to the yard, the singing stopped and the cadence of "left, left, your left" began. Clouds of dust rose around the lone soldier's feet as he marched onto the front yard, drilling in his imaginary platoon.

The drill sergeant and the invisible platoon marched to the backyard, past the well house, returning to the front yard and back again. After several minutes, the sergeant called, "Halt!" and then dismissed the platoon. He came in the backdoor of the house and sat at the wooden kitchen table.

"You hungry?" Mama asked.

"Naw," he said.

"Bennie, you know you got to eat. You ain't had nothing this morning."

Uncle Bennie hung his head and looked at the shaking hands that rested on the red-checked, oilcloth-covered table. He moved from the kitchen to the front-porch swing. His army boots, covered in dust, pushed against the porch floor. The rhythmic squeak, squeak of the swing as it moved back and forth soon lulled the motionless man to sleep.

Bennie Faison was my mother's brother. He was born on October 24, 1917. Uncle Bennie was in the US Army and had been in combat. Uncle Bennie spent part of his tour of duty in the Pacific. My sister Edna told me Uncle Bennie was at Pearl Harbor when it was bombed. We've never been able to confirm the story; however, we are certain he was in the Pacific.

When Uncle Bennie was honorably discharged from the army, the war had taken a toll on his mental state. Uncle Bennie had been injured in combat and had a plate in his head. Mama said he was shell-shocked. Any loud noises would send Uncle Bennie into a fit of nervousness and delusions. In order to cope with the demons that constantly haunted him, he turned to alcohol. He spent most of his days at the bootleg liquor houses trying to get a fifty-cent shot.

Uncle Bennie lived at home with my grandmother in Mt. Olive, North Carolina. When he became too agitated for Grandmother Carrie or Aunt Sister, Mama would bring him home with her to Faison, North Carolina, until he settled down. His baby sis was the only one who seemed able to calm his fragile state.

My memories of Uncle Bennie are limited because I was very young—perhaps age four. I remember a slender man of average height who wore his cap on the back of his head. What I remember most was his colorful language, which I was not allowed to repeat. One time, I forgot the rules. Daddy was putting a new bucket on a rope at the well. I proudly said, "Did that damn bucket fall in the well again?"

Daddy was so shocked that he gave me a slap on the leg. I was too stunned to cry because he'd never spanked any of us. I knew I was in big trouble. Mama was the disciplinarian of the family, and I could expect her to say, "Come here, miss lady," with a more proper spanking.

On many of Uncle Bennie's visits, I'd march around the yard behind him and his phantom platoon. We'd look up at the sky as the whine of an airplane approached. Uncle Bennie and I would take cover behind the hydrangea bushes just as the mimicked rat-tat-tat of enemy fire began. When it was safe to leave our protected hiding place, we'd run to the porch, hoping that the enemy had not spotted us. Uncle Bennie liked to follow Mama around the house and tell her funny stories as she did her household chores. When his ghosts were not tormenting him, I'd climb onto the porch swing alongside of him or sit nearby while he drew beautiful flowers on plain writing paper. Uncle Bennie spent hours perfecting each petal of a rose.

I'm not sure how long Uncle Bennie was in the army, but it was long enough for him to get six gold crowns on his front teeth. Each crown represented a place he'd been stationed overseas. My family regularly received letters written in Uncle Bennie's impeccable hand while he was enlisted. On one occasion, Edna told me, Mama was worried about him. It had been three weeks, and she hadn't received any mail from him. Mama asked the Red Cross to find him. The Red Cross located Uncle Bennie in a VA hospital. The story he told the family was never clear. He told my mother, "Ah, baby, I was just resting."

In one of Uncle Bennie's letters we received while he was overseas, he asked Mama to name me Juanita. I've always envisioned a dark-haired señorita who might have been his girlfriend. My cousin said my name came from an Australian family that befriended Uncle Bennie while he was in the Pacific. One of their daughters was named Juanita. Grandmother Carrie corresponded with the young woman's mother long after Uncle Bennie had returned to the states, which convinced my mother the young lady was Uncle Bennie's girlfriend. Edna remembers an occasion when Mama watched a woman on the television show Queen for a Day whose wish had been to reconnect with a soldier she had met in the Pacific. The description she gave confirmed Mama's belief that it was Uncle Bennie she sought.

Uncle Bennie worked at the pickle plant during his "dry spells." Sometimes these spells lasted for three weeks, sometimes a month. Uncle Bennie was very quiet at those times. He didn't have funny stories to tell nor did we take cover from enemy fire. During those calm periods, my father would lend Uncle Bennie the family car. When he didn't return as promised, Mama and Daddy suspected he'd succumbed to the call of moonshine. It didn't take Daddy long to find Uncle Bennie and his car. He'd find them both at one of the bootleg liquor houses. This cycle repeated again and again. When Uncle Bennie was on his binges, he wouldn't eat. When this occurred, Mama spoon-fed him as if he were a small child. If she failed to keep him hydrated, Mama and Daddy would take him to the VA hospital. Within two days of his admission, Uncle Bennie would be standing at their front door, wearing some other patient's clothing.

My family still talks about the time Uncle Bennie pawned the family Bible. Uncle Bennie wouldn't tell Aunt Sister where he'd taken the Bible. When Mama came for her weekly Saturday visit, Aunt Sister said to Mama, "Vera, let me tell you what our brother has done now. He pawned the family Bible. He won't go get it."

"Well, we'll see about that. He's gonna go get it. He'll just have to bring it back," Mama said.

Mama sent Uncle Bennie for the Bible. He came back empty-handed. The madam of the establishment wouldn't give it back to him. Mama said, "Come on Bennie. We're going to get the Bible." Together they walked the two blocks to the house. When Mama arrived at the house, she called to Miss Lou from the front yard. This was a ritual Mama had repeated many times when Uncle Bennie stayed away more than a day. She never went into the houses to bring her brother out.

On this occasion, Miss Lou would not answer Mama's call to her. After the third call, Mama placed her hands on her hips and said, "Lou, you hear me calling you. I know you don't want me to come in there, but I will if I have to."

Miss Lou finally came out on the porch. Mama said, "Lou, I came to get the Bible."

"Vera, your brother done brought that Bible here as fair...