Echo

January 1, 2007
An Appreciation

From Father to Son, Last Words to Live By

By DANA CANEDY

He drew pictures of himself with angel wings. He left a set of his dog tags on a nightstand in my Manhattan apartment. He bought a tiny blue sweat suit for our baby to wear home from the hospital. Then he began to write what would become a 200-page journal for our son, in case he did not make it back from the desert in Iraq.

For months before my fiancé, First Sgt. Charles Monroe King, kissed my swollen stomach and said goodbye, he had been preparing for the beginning of the life we had created and for the end of his own.

He boarded a plane in December 2005 with two missions, really — to lead his young soldiers in combat and to prepare our boy for a life without him.

Dear son, Charles wrote on the last page of the journal, I hope this book is somewhat helpful to you. Please forgive me for the poor handwriting and grammar. I tried to finish this book before I was deployed to Iraq. It has to be something special to you. I’ve been writing it in the states, Kuwait and Iraq.

The journal will have to speak for Charles now. He was killed Oct. 14 when an improvised explosive device detonated near his armored vehicle in Baghdad. Charles, 48, had been assigned to the Army’s First Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, Fourth Infantry Division, based in Fort Hood, Tex. He was a month from completing his tour of duty.

For our son’s first Christmas, Charles had hoped to take him on a carriage ride through Central Park. Instead, Jordan, now 9 months old, and I snuggled under a blanket in a horse-drawn buggy. The driver seemed puzzled about why I was riding alone with a baby and crying on Christmas Day. I told him. “No charge,” he said at the end of the ride, an act of kindness in a city that can magnify loneliness.

On paper, Charles revealed himself in a way he rarely did in person. He thought hard about what to say to a son who would have no memory of him. Even if Jordan will never hear the cadence of his father’s voice, he will know the wisdom of his words.

Never be ashamed to cry. No man is too good to get on his knee and humble himself to God. Follow your heart and look for the strength of a woman.

Charles tried to anticipate questions in the years to come. Favorite team? I am a diehard Cleveland Browns fan. Favorite meal? Chicken, fried or baked, candied yams, collard greens and cornbread. Childhood chores? Shoveling snow and cutting grass. First kiss? Eighth grade.

In neat block letters, he wrote about faith and failure, heartache and hope. He offered tips on how to behave on a date and where to hide money on vacation. Rainy days have their pleasures, he noted: Every now and then you get lucky and catch a rainbow.

Charles mailed the book to me in July, after one of his soldiers was killed and he had recovered the body from a tank. The journal was incomplete, but the horror of the young man’s death shook Charles so deeply that he wanted to send it even though he had more to say. He finished it when he came home on a two-week leave in August to meet Jordan, then 5 months old. He was so intoxicated by love for his son that he barely slept, instead keeping vigil over the baby.

I can fill in some of the blanks left for Jordan about his father. When we met in my hometown of Radcliff, Ky., near Fort Knox, I did not consider Charles my type at first. He was bashful, a homebody and got his news from television rather than newspapers (heresy, since I’m a New York Times editor).

But he won me over. One day a couple of years ago, I pulled out a list of the traits I wanted in a husband and realized that Charles had almost all of them. He rose early to begin each day with prayers and a list of goals that he ticked off as he accomplished them. He was meticulous, even insisting on doing my ironing because he deemed my wrinkle-removing skills deficient. His rock-hard warrior’s body made him appear tough, but he had a tender heart.

He doted on Christina, now 16, his daughter from a marriage that ended in divorce. He made her blush when he showed her a tattoo with her name on his arm. Toward women, he displayed an old-fashioned chivalry, something he expected of our son. Remember who taught you to speak, to walk and to be a gentleman, he wrote to Jordan in his journal. These are your first teachers, my little prince. Protect them, embrace them and always treat them like a queen.

Though as a black man he sometimes felt the sting of discrimination, Charles betrayed no bitterness. It’s not fair to judge someone by the color of their skin, where they’re raised or their religious beliefs, he wrote. Appreciate people for who they are and learn from their differences.

He had his faults, of course. Charles could be moody, easily wounded and infuriatingly quiet, especially during an argument. And at times, I felt, he put the military ahead of family.
He had enlisted in 1987, drawn by the discipline and challenges. Charles had other options — he was a gifted artist who had trained at the Art Institute of Chicago — but felt fulfilled as a soldier, something I respected but never really understood. He had a chest full of medals and a fierce devotion to his men.

He taught the youngest, barely out of high school, to balance their checkbooks, counseled them about girlfriends and sometimes bailed them out of jail. When he was home in August, I had a baby shower for him. One guest recently reminded me that he had spent much of the evening worrying about his troops back in Iraq.

Charles knew the perils of war. During the months before he went away and the days he returned on leave, we talked often about what might happen. In his journal, he wrote about the loss of fellow soldiers. Still, I could not bear to answer when Charles turned to me one day and asked, “You don’t think I’m coming back, do you?” We never said aloud that the fear that he might not return was why we decided to have a child before we planned a wedding, rather than risk never having the chance.

But Charles missed Jordan’s birth because he refused to take a leave from Iraq until all of his soldiers had gone home first, a decision that hurt me at first. And he volunteered for the mission on which he died, a military official told his sister, Gail T. King. Although he was not required to join the resupply convoy in Baghdad, he believed that his soldiers needed someone experienced with them. “He would say, ‘My boys are out there, I’ve got to go check on my boys,’ ” said First Sgt. Arenteanis A. Jenkins, Charles’s roommate in Iraq.

In my grief, that decision haunts me. Charles’s father faults himself for not begging his son to avoid taking unnecessary risks. But he acknowledges that it would not have made a difference. “He was a born leader,” said his father, Charlie J. King. “And he believed what he was doing was right.”

Back in April, after a roadside bombing remarkably similar to that which would claim him, Charles wrote about death and duty.
The 18th was a long, solemn night, he wrote in Jordan
’s journal. We had a memorial for two soldiers who were killed by an improvised explosive device. None of my soldiers went to the memorial. Their excuse was that they didn’t want to go because it was depressing. I told them it was selfish of them not to pay their respects to two men who were selfless in giving their lives for their country. Things may not always be easy or pleasant for you, that’s life, but always pay your respects for the way people lived and what they stood for. It’s the honorable thing to do.

When Jordan is old enough to ask how his father died, I will tell him of Charles’s courage and assure him of Charles’s love. And I will try to comfort him with his father’s words.
God blessed me above all I could imagine, Charles wrote in the journal. I have no regrets, serving your country is great.

He had tucked a message to me in the front of Jordan’s journal. This is the letter every soldier should write, he said. For us, life will move on through Jordan. He will be an extension of us and hopefully everything that we stand for. … I would like to see him grow up to be a man, but only God knows what the future holds.

Just found an old interview I did with Jeremy Piven back in college. I thought I was being subtle, but I wonder if the snarkiness was too obvious.

http://www.jeremypiven.net/July%201998%20-%20Daily%20Arts.txt

Back then Cusack was great. I hear now he’s ranting about how Cusack is jealous of all his success. If that man’s penis were to his body what his ego is to the continental United States…well, just remember the image from that Flinstones opening of what happens when a rib rack is attached to Fred’s car.

The thing I left off was when he said that if Michigan gave him an honorary degree, he’d be willing to speak at our graduation. Nevermind that we had already booked Kofi Annan, who, some would say, still has considerably more impressive credits.

Okay, I know it’s been too long since I last blogged when I can’t remember if I sign on as a new blogger or an old blogger. Apparently I’m a new one now.

I just got back from an impromptu trip to the bay area. I think there comes a point in your life, or several of varying magnitude, when you look at the people around you and you’re acutely aware of their immense vulnerability. And suddenly, despite your extreme desire to protect them and make everything right for them, you realize that this whole world is completely open-ended. There’s no promises, there’s no guarantees, there’s no storylines and last minute poetic saves, there’s no greater meaning built upon givens that states that if you understand the abstract themes of any hardship, you’re rewarded with safe passage. There is no safety net, despite what anyone tells you. Only that anything can happen at anytime, and there’s nothing you can do about it. I think that drowning is like that. There’s a very specific moment as you struggle when you realize that the only thing you can do is just give in, and let the greater force take you, and this is the greatest relief of all. You relax and concede to ultimate inevitability. I think reaching the ultimate zen state is probably the same feeling.

I wonder if those who are artistic are the ones that refuse to give in to a world that is all incidents and accidents. We deny the facts by insisting that there is more under the surface that will provide clues of meaning, and we build our cases like obsessive blind, deaf and mute scientists…using shapes, forms and colors to create incontrovertible proof of possibility in a malleable world. Sometimes I hope that collectively, we can will the universe into aligning itself out of its violent chaos to finally reward our exhausting efforts by showing us a glimpse of a bigger, sensible picture, that there really is a safety net, and for all our efforts, that there is overwhelming value in idealism.

The good news. Rie is moving to California. The bad news. She’s moving to Stockton, aka the Armpit of California. I’m very excited though. I always said that I would end up splitting my time in the bay area, but I’m starting to think I’m closer and closer to that time. I would like to be able to afford a small place up there, so I can stay there and write when I’m there. Preferably some place by the water. It would be great to be closer to my family. It seems like communication in that house breaks down a lot.

I took Michael to the Warriors game on Monday and sat behind the bench. This was my first time sitting in those seats with Michael, since we had previously been too nervous about Michael’s irritability with crowds to risk having him sit so close to the team and all of the surrounding security. He was great! He was into the game and smiling a lot, even told me that Biedrins was his favorite player. He was particularly mesmerized by the players’ tattoos, while I was particularly worried about the fact that every food item he got (outside of his bottle of water), was fried. One of the players is awkward but always smiling and flirting with me. At one point, he winked but immediately got embarrassed, so he tried to pretend he wasn’t winking, but had something in his eye. I didn’t want to laugh outloud because he was so awkward, but I did giggle to myself.

I miss Michael a lot. He’s working at my parents’ place now and he’s very committed to working there, so he doesn’t want to come to LA if he’s going to miss work. He’s doing fairly well but I don’t think he’s ready to join a workforce that doesn’t have someone close to him protecting him. His self-esteem has come a long way, and I would like to see him become more confident and mature before I would feel comfortable having him in an unpredictable environment. In the meantime, he’ll probably stay up there and work at my parents’ until he’s ready for the next stage of his independence. I wish he lived closer.

This week we had orders totaling over 240 bottles of lemonade. Our weekly average is between 100 to 200. We need a larger commercial location since we’re maxed out in terms of storage. I think a part of me is scared about the responsibility of renting a place and buying all that equipment, then failing. Starting a business in unfamiliar territory is overwhelming. I would have never thought, 2 years ago, that at this time, I would be involved with a beverage company that is growing exponentially faster than we can handle.

On the other (stress) front, our remodeling project is out of control. Some days I think that I’m starting to look at money as water, some days I think, this isn’t so hard…it’d be really cool to own an apartment building and fix it up. Then I remember how hard it is to make money, and how it takes a shitload of money to own things.

Our film is in the Boston Film Festival in June so I’ll be heading out there right around my birthday. Rest assured, there will be no cancelling of Spankfest ’07.

I think I want to go back to working on comedy. I think we’re focusing on horror etc. now because it’s the best genre to get work distributed, but I’m really not into it. The thing about horror or the thriller genre, is that you can’t miss a beat. You mess one thing up–the monster looks too fake, you don’t explain WHY the old lady hates hitchhikers, the twist is too predictable–and the whole movie sucks. People aren’t into it, or all they remember is that moment where they were taken out of the movie. The only way to make a solid horror is really to make it so emotionally engaging, that it grabs a viewer and doesn’t let go. Otherwise, you just hope that people find it campy in a good way, rather than just a piece of crap. The thing about comedy is that if you write 50 jokes and funny scenes, and 2 of them are absolutely hilarious, people will say, yeah, that was a funny movie. If 30 out of 50 things were funny, then people say it’s a great movie. You don’t worry if some things don’t work as well as you had hoped, because the comedy genre is more forgiving. For example, I went out and bought Corky Romano on DVD, just because I liked that one scene where he’s coked up and giving that talk to little kids and thinks he should buy a boat. There’s only 1 thing funny in that movie and that’s it, yet that one scene was funny enough to get me to shell out money for it. Twice. Maybe I’m a big coward. Maybe I don’t have what it takes to make an utterly engaging movie. But I enjoy writing comedy more, because unlike horror, I don’t sit at home outlining, then get scared that any tiny noise means some apparition is stalking me in my home.

So I want this:

https://secure.officeorganix.com/

I read that this one screenwriter has a set-up like this, so she basically sits in an anti-gravity chair and writes lying down in a dark room. Since I solve most of my script problems by falling asleep with my script pages splayed on my chest, this would be the perfect solution to my creative workflow.