1
WISING UP
“You can hang out with us tonight,” Jeremy said.
As the youngest, nothing made me happier than hearing those seven words. It was a crisp, fall 1989 night in southern Arkansas, where we grew up not far from “a town called Hope,” as then governor Bill Clinton would make famous a few short years later.
I hurriedly moved my mattress from my room to theirs and slid between their tall pine beds. Jeremy was fifteen years old, while the middle brother, Ben, was twelve. I was only five, which made both my brothers truly larger than life.
With a huge smile on my face as I pulled up my blanket and settled in between my two heroes, our mother, Mary, entered Jeremy and Ben’s room.
“Are you camping out with the boys tonight, Beau?” she said with a chuckle.
Jeremy and Ben had already fired up the Nintendo by then, so we each gave my mom a distracted nod before she told us to press Pause on Duck Hunt, which all three of us loved to play since the video game involved firing a plastic pistol.
It was time for our nightly military story. While Jeremy and Ben were obviously too old for bedtime stories, I was just reaching the age where I could comprehend the concept of service before self.
After Ben tossed aside the Nintendo gun and Jeremy cleared the finished homework scattered all over his bed, I listened to my brothers ask our mom questions about the Civil War. They especially loved hearing stories about Union and Confederate military leaders like Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Stonewall Jackson.
My mom was a walking encyclopedia on American conflicts, which greatly excited Ben, who always wanted to find out more about the Wise family’s involvement in our nation’s wars.
Ben first asked about our grandfather John Morgan, who served in the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II. Jeremy then asked about Great-Uncle Darwin, who fought in the bloody WWII battle of Guadalcanal.
Uncle Darwin was a U.S. Marine Corps Raider and Purple Heart recipient. While subsequently fighting the Japanese at Saipan, he was shot in the back of the head but initially—and incredibly—survived when the bullet ricocheted and glanced off the inside of his helmet.
Instead of going home, Uncle Darwin chose to stay with his unit and finish his combat tour. What he couldn’t have realized is that the head wound would later become infected. The decision to stay and fight in the Pacific would ultimately cost him his life several years later.
“He never, ever quit,” said my mom to a wide-eyed Jeremy, who I could tell was enthralled by the notion of fighting until the end.
My personal favorite story was that of Great-Great-Uncle Lyon, a Marine Corps doughboy who fought in the harrowing Argonne Forest during World War I.
Uncle Lyon was one of the original Teufel Hunden, or Devil Dogs, the German nickname for the select few doughboys who—outnumbered and outgunned—assaulted heavily fortified positions in the legendary Battle of Belleau Wood.
These little stories loomed large for all of us, but especially Ben. His passion and pride in our family roots was something I would definitely share, but not until much later in life.
After Jeremy briefly shifted the conversation back to World War II and military leaders like Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur, my mother told us it was time for bed. All of us knew that meant it was time to lower our heads in prayer.
“Lord, please protect my three sons,” said our mother, who also offered a prayer for our ten-year-old sister, Heather.
Even though my brothers and I would eventually feel driven to serve in combat, we weren’t big on GI Joes or running through the town of El Dorado’s many dirt roads playing war. We did watch a lot of action films, but our overall interest in the military didn’t go much further than our family history. Jeremy did teach me to fire a .22-caliber rifle, and as country boys, we certainly enjoyed hunting and fishing. Our biggest passion, however, was music.
Jeremy and Ben both played guitar, with Ben mostly “slapping the bass.” I was the drummer. While our parents were thrilled that all three boys eventually joined the church band, they were less enthusiastic about our increasingly loud jams of hit songs by the popular hard rock band Van Halen.
As we became better musicians, especially Ben, even our parents couldn’t stop our instruments from blasting out tunes like “Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love” or our deeply Christian mother’s least favorite Van Halen song, “Runnin’ with the Devil.”
For similar religious reasons, Halloween was not an officially sanctioned holiday in the Wise household. Neither was the mischief that usually came with it. A few years after I was born, Harvest Festival—not Halloween—was the holiday’s name at our church functions.
* * *
“Beau!”
My mother’s call echoed through our colonial-style redbrick two-story home but went unanswered as she looked for her children. All four of us were hiding around the house on Halloween night.
“Shhhhh,” Jeremy whispered with his index finger over his mouth, trying to conceal his laughter before turning toward me. “It’s okay,” he assured me. “She’ll never find you.”
I was only five, but I knew for sure that “never” was a long time. Eventually, our mom was going to find me.
Jeremy was the oldest brother, but he also had a nose for trouble. Don’t get me wrong; he was bright, ambitious, outgoing, and known all around our Arkansas small town for his infectious smile. He was also opinionated to the point of being stubborn and was a highly skilled debater. Those qualities, coupled with our always special relationship, basically meant that Jeremy could convince me to do anything he wanted when we were kids.
Even if he would talk his gullible, naive little brother into doing stupid things for his and Ben’s entertainment, the fun and games would always stop if trouble arose. That’s when Jeremy would instinctively step forward, raise his hand, and take the blame.
My mom was still shouting our names throughout the house, and even at a young age, I could sense that her occasional Irish temper was about to reveal itself on that so-called Harvest Festival night. In addition to her irritation, I also knew at least one of us was in big trouble.
Since I had only done what Jeremy had told me to do, I wasn’t exactly sure which crime we’d committed had put us on the lam. All that I remember is following Jeremy into my sister’s room, where he proceeded to rifle through her dresser to find a brown paper bag. Sure enough, it was Heather’s Halloween candy, which she had immediately hidden from her three brothers.
Minutes later, I was stuffing my face with my sister’s treats on the floor of Jeremy and Ben’s room. As soon as Heather alerted our mom to the theft and the search began, I emerged as the prime suspect even though I was far from the heist’s mastermind.
I started to figure out where this was headed as Jeremy swiftly ushered me toward a trapdoor roughly three feet off the ground. It was the laundry chute.
Shortly after we had moved into the house, Jeremy and Ben had discovered that I was small enough to crawl up and down the vertical square chute. This enabled me to move to and from my parents’ upstairs bathroom to the laundry room directly below.
To Jeremy especially, this was quite amusing. In fact, on more than one occasion, he would encourage me to sneak up the chute into the master bath and uncover certain “secret” or confiscated items, such as his Red Ryder BB gun or hidden Christmas presents in the closet. Jeremy was undoubtedly the most playfully mischievous young man I had ever known.
“She’ll never find you, Beau,” he repeated, no longer trying to conceal his laughter.
Jeremy picked me up and set me on the edge of the trapdoor. I put my legs inside, but just before I could brace myself against the wall, Jeremy slammed the door closed and immediately began trying to conceal my presence.
Nearly simultaneously, my mom marched in. “Where is he?” she demanded.
“Where’s who?” Jeremy asked with his patented smile.
“I know he’s up here somewhere,” said my mother, who I could hear walking around the bathroom and closet space as she moved around clothes and boxes.
“Oh … you mean Beau?” Jeremy said to my mother, who wasn’t convinced. Again, he attempted to nudge the chute door closed with his elbow in passing while trying to stay in between our mom and my secure, undisclosed location.
What Jeremy didn’t know is that I’d never gotten the opportunity to brace myself inside the chute. With every subtle nudge of the door, I lost more and more of my seat.
Instead of an easy fall down the chute, I was looking at a plunge through the darkness toward what I could only pray was a pile of soft dirty laundry.
“Jeremy, I’m not going to ask you again!” my mom said even more firmly. “Give Heather back her Harvest Festival candy and tell me where Beau is!”
Heather was usually very tolerant of our shenanigans, but this was not such an occasion. My mother had come to her rescue.
I managed to get one butt cheek back onto the ledge before Jeremy once again told my mom he had no idea what she was talking about.
This time—less subtly than before—he elbowed the door completely closed.
My fate was now in the hands of Sir Isaac Newton and the unlikely possibility that my mother was behind on laundry that week. As I plummeted downward, my cry of terror faded into the distance before I thankfully crashed into a high pile of bedsheets and comforters.
As I popped out of the trapdoor in the laundry room, I was surprised to find Ben waiting.
Ben was the second child in our little quartet. Three and a half years younger than Jeremy, he was more of an introverted intellectual. Being closer to Jeremy in size and age as a child, Ben seemed to view me as more of a nuisance than any sort of equal.
Although our relationship would eventually grow as strong as any other in the family, it was initially more distant in comparison to my relationship to Jeremy or Heather. Ben and I were perhaps the most alike in terms of personality and facial features, which was perhaps the biggest reason for our childhood clash.
Sometimes—and this particular Halloween was one of those occasions—Ben would join Jeremy in his mischief. Clearly playing along, Ben picked up the candy bag I had dropped during my fall and pointed outside. As if he were an Arkansas Razorbacks quarterback running a play with his fullback, Ben then handed the stolen goods back to me.
“Go, Beau, go!” Ben said, beginning to laugh to the point of tears.
I quickly ran out the back door and banged a hard left, heading for a row of honeysuckle bushes. Concealed in this little hidden path, I could avoid punishment indefinitely … or at least until I got hungry for something other than Jolly Ranchers, Snickers bars, and those honeysuckles.
Our closest neighbors had a son, John, and daughter, Rose, who were both a year apart from me in age. My first thought after arriving in the honeysuckle row was to make a break for John and Rose’s house before realizing I would have to pass in full view of my home’s back door and windows to get there, revealing my whereabouts.
Alone with my thoughts, I started to realize the extent of betrayal both my brothers had most likely perpetrated against me. I had been set up.
As the night got even darker and my father’s “dually” pickup truck coasted into the driveway after a long day at work, I heard my stomach growl. That’s when I decided that it was time to face the music.
Mustering all my courage, I went back inside the house. Both of my seemingly invincible brothers were leaning over the counter—still laughing—while our five-foot-one mother began administering our punishment in the form of her belt on their backsides.
As usual, Jeremy had taken the lead and confessed to planning the Halloween heist. Ben had admitted his role as well.
Copyright © 2021 by Matthew Wise and Thomas Sileo
