In Cold Blood - Truman Capote [66]
same problem came up. I had a good record in the Army, good as anybody; they gave me the Bronze Star. But I never got promoted. After four years, and fighting through the whole goddam Korean war, I ought at least to have made corporal. But I never did. Know why? Because the sergeant we had was tough. Because I wouldn't roll over. Jesus, I hate that stuff. I can't stand it. Though - I don't know. Some queers I've really liked. As long as they didn't try anything. The most worth-while friend I ever had, really sensitive and intelligent, he turned out to be queer." In the interval between quitting the Merchant Marine and entering the Army, Perry had made peace with his father, who, when his son left him, drifted down to Nevada, then back to Alaska. In 1952, the year Perry completed his military service, the old man was in the midst of plans meant to end his travels forever. "Dad was in a fever," Perry recalled. "Wrote me he had bought some land on the highway outside Anchorage. Said he was going to have a hunting lodge, a place for tourists. 'Trapper's Den Lodge' - that was to be the name. And asked me to hurry on up there and help him build it. He was sure we'd make a fortune. Well, while I was still in the Army, stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington, I'd bought a motorcycle (murdercycles, they ought to call them), and as soon as I got discharged I headed for Alaska. Got as far as Bellingham. Up there on the border. It was raining. My bike went into a skid." The skid delayed for a year the reunion with his father. Surgery and hospitalization account for six months of that year; the remainder he spent recuperating in the forest home, near Bellingham, of a young Indian logger and fisherman. "Joe James. He and his wife befriended me. The difference in our age was only two or three years, but they took me into their home and treated me like I was one of their kids. Which was O.K. Because they took trouble with their kids and liked them. At the time they had four; the number finally went to seven. They were very good to me, Joe and his family. I was on crutches, I was pretty helpless. Just had to sit around. So to give me something to do, try to make myself useful, I started what became a sort of school. The pupils were Joe's kids, along with some of their friends, and we held classes in the parlor. I was teaching harmonica and guitar. Drawing. And penmanship. Everybody always remarks what a beautiful handwriting I have. I do, and it's because once I bought a book on the subject and practiced till I could write same as in the book. Also, we used to read stories - the kids did, each one in turn, and I'd correct them as we went along. It was fun. I like kids. Little kids. And that was a nice time. But then the spring came. It hurt me to walk, but I could walk. And Dad was still waiting for me." Waiting, but not idly. By the time Perry arrived at the site of the proposed hunting lodge, his father, working alone, had finished the hardest chores - had cleared the ground, logged the necessary timber, cracked and carted wagonloads of native rock. "But he didn't commence to build till I got there. We did every damn piece of it ourselves. With once in a while an Indian helper. Dad was like a maniac. It didn't matter what was happening - snowstorms, rainstorms, winds that could split a tree - we kept right at it. The day the roof was finished, Dad danced all over it, shouting and laughing, doing a regular jig. Well, it turned out quite an exceptional place. That could sleep twenty people. Had a big fireplace in the dining room. And there was a cocktail lounge. The Totem Pole Cocktail Lounge. Where I was to entertain the customers. Singing and so forth. We opened for business end of I953-" But the expected huntsmen did not materialize, and though ordinary tourists - the few that trickle along the highway - now and again paused to photograph the beyond-belief rusticity of Trapper's Den Lodge, they seldom stopped overnight. "For awhile we fooled ourselves. Kept thinking it would catch on. Dad tried to trick up the place. Made a Garden of Memories.